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By External Source
Oct 5 2020 (IPS-Partners)

This World Teachers’ Day, celebrated under the theme, “Teachers: Leading in crisis, reimagining the future”, the Global Partnership for Education, Education Cannot Wait, UNESCO and UNICEF are calling for the resumption of salary payments for around half of the Yemeni teachers and school-based staff (estimated 160,000) who have not received regular salary payments since 2016. With suspended salary payments and schools regularly coming under attack, many teachers have been forced to find alternative sources of income to provide for their families.

The dire situation in Yemen, including ongoing conflict, natural disasters (flooding), wide-spread diseases (cholera, measles, polio), and poverty has pushed over two million children out of school and put at risk 5.8 million children who have been enrolled in school prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Teachers and school-based staff are critical to ensure continuation of education services and learning for every child in Yemen. Further delay in paying teachers will likely lead to the total collapse of the education sector and impact millions of Yemeni children, especially the most vulnerable and girls, putting them at risk of engaging in negative coping mechanisms such as child labor, recruitment into armed groups and forces, child marriage, trafficking and other forms of exploitation and abuse.

The global community must unite to end violence against children in Yemen and protect their health and right to education. Without a collective commitment to action, we will fail to meet the 2030 Agenda – Leaving no child and no teacher behind. A minimum of 70 million USD is needed to help address this gap and ensure teachers can receive a payment during the 2020-21 school year.

Education Cannot Wait, the Global Partnership for Education, UNESCO and UNICEF are committed to continuing our support for equitable, inclusive quality education for all Yemeni children. We join our voices to call on the international community and the authorities in Yemen to resume the payment of salaries to teachers in all parts of the country.

Above all, the parties to the conflict in Yemen should work towards peace to allow for recovery and a return to normalcy especially for the children who have suffered the tragic consequences of a conflict not of their making.

Source: Education Cannot Wait

 

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The post On the Occasion of World Teachers’ Day, ECW, GPE, UNESCO & UNICEF Call for the Resumption of Salary Payments for Teachers for the Coming School Year in Yemen appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Entire communities are being gradually empowered to resist traffickers and are being taught the necessary legal knowledge to eradicate slave and bonded labour from their midsts in the near future. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
PUNE, India, Oct 5 2020 (IPS)

One day, while the rest of his family were out at work, Kamlesh Pravasi from Jigarsandih village in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh was “abducted when I returned home one day from school, by a contractor’s goons,” he told IPS. The then 12-year-old Pravasi, who was in the sixth grade, was forced to work in bonded labour in a brick kiln because his father could not repay a Rs 5,000 ($68) loan he had taken out from the contractor in order to pay for medical treatment for Pravasi’s sick brother.

Pravasi, along with his two younger brothers, was made to work from the early hours in the morning (from around 2 or 4 am) until 7 pm in the evening, for little or no payment. The family, comprising his parents and six siblings, could do little to alleviate their plight.

“Being illiterate, my parents were unsure of how much they owed to the contractor,” Pravasi admitted to IPS. The boys slaved in the kiln for five years — from 2012 to 2017 — until they were  eventually rescued by activists affiliated to the Human Liberty Network (HLN). HLN is a network of grassroots NGOs in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh working to end slavery and bonded labour.

Pravasi is now employed in construction work, and will soon sit for his intermediate grade /higher secondary examinations.

The story of Pravasi and his brothers is not an unusual one.

For Rajkumar Ram from Katahan village in West Champaran district of Bihar, a loan of Rs 30,000 ($410) taken 20 years ago meant that he and his entire family — including his wife, his three sons and young daughters — had to work in a brick kiln from 5 am in the morning to late evening for free.

The Ram family, like Pravasi and his brothers, where also rescued — but in their case help came from within the family.

Veena Devi (left) with her in-laws and husband. She was able to save her husband’s family from years of bonded labour. Courtesy: Rina Mukherji

Veena Devi, came to the rescue of the Ram family, after marrying into the family in 2015.

“It was when I enrolled for vocational training and non-formal education under a non-governmental   organisation-NIRDESH, that I realised what inter-generational bonded labour meant,” Devi told IPS.

She also learnt that the entire village of Katahan, comprising 37 families, had been condemned to such inter-generational bonded labour.

With a matriculation certificate, Devi took up a teacher’s job at a non-formal education centre, became a member of a local self-help group, and with the help of activists, raised the funds to secure their release.

Her husband, Bansi Ram, now works in a dress-making factory, while her father-in-law has opened a grocery shop. Her brothers-in-law work as plumbers, while her mother-in-law rears goats.

Parents may be lured with a lump sum ofRs 5,000 ($68) to Rs. 10,000 ($136) paid in advance, as Manav Sansadhan Evam Mahila Vikas Sansthan ( MSEMVS) executive director Dr. Bhanuja Sharan Lal told IPS. MSEMVS is an NGO that focuses on the eradication of child labour.

“We recently rescued nine children from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh who were trafficked to a panipuri (a type of snack) factory in Telangana after their parents were paid an advance of Rs 10,000 ($136) each. They were working free from 2 am to 4 pm in return for meals. Eight rescued children from Azamgarh (in Uttar Pradesh) were similarly employed in a textile factory in Gujarat as slave labour.”

Government initiatives & impediments in overcoming the problem

Of those most vulnerable are the Mahadalits and Dalits who have been confined to illiteracy and grinding poverty because of a casteist social structure.

Discrimination based on caste is illegal according to the country’s constitution and for more than 70 years the government has placed quotas on government jobs and education positions in order to ensure opportunities to all.

Affirmative action by the government has also contributed to Mahadalit children being sent to school, but most are first generation learners. This can limit the access families have to government schemes.

The Skill India initiative by the central government, which was launched in July 2015 and aims to train 400 million individuals in various skills by 2022, has evaded Mahadalit youngsters.

“To qualify for Skill India, you need to have a matriculation certificate. Poverty and family pressures cause most Mahadalit children to drop out after the sixth grade,” explains human rights activist and Adithi director Parinita Kumari of the reasons behind the exclusion of these groups.

Government efforts to rehabilitate migrant returnees through jobs under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) too generally failed, since many were found to have no job cards and hence did not qualify.

• The Act guarantees 100 days of wage employment to a rural household where the adults are willing to undertake unskilled labour.

“While those who returned through quarantine centres arranged by the government, were registered, the ones who returned on their own, were not; this made it difficult for them to avail of government schemes,” Kumari said.

Initiatives that work

The Bihar government, under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, came up with a Mahadalit Vikas Yojana (Plan for the Development of Mahadalits), which was implemented in 2010. The Plan for the Development of Mahadalits saw the setting up of the Bihar Mahadalit Mission, wherein Mahadalits are being granted small pockets of land (122 square metres).

They are also supported with access to various financial, educational and other schemes, including the setting up of residential schools, community radio stations, assistance for buying school uniforms, skill development and women’s self-help groups.

Eradication of bonded labour is not an easy goal to achieve, given the circumstances that the practice draws sustenance from.

NGOs affiliated to HLN have been actively organising the most vulnerable communities in source, transit and destination villages into Community Business Committees, which use survivors/victims of trafficking as peer educators to impart the necessary knowledge to communities through awareness programmes. 

Since these individuals have first-hand knowledge of the modus operandi of traffickers, and are people drawn from within the community, the peer educators immediately strike a chord  among those they seek to educate.

“We have been conducting classes to impart knowledge on government helplines, and giving financial training through lead banks to survivors/victims of trafficking and rural communities in general so that they can access government schemes and apply for livelihood grants,” activist and Rural Organisation for Social Advancement chief functionary, Mushtaque Ahmed told IPS. 

Adithi has also been helping individuals take advantage of the Plan for the Development of Mahadalits, and access landholdings. 

Communities are also informed about government helplines to report trafficking, and given financial training through lead banks to access government schemes and livelihood grants.    

Consequently, entire communities are being gradually empowered to resist traffickers and are being taught the necessary, legal knowledge to eradicate slave and bonded labour from their midsts in the near future.

By empowering the poor to demand and access their rights, and imparting the necessary functional and financial literacy, one can be certain that “they don’t return to bonded labour,” Lal told IPS.

• This is the second in a two-part series on bonded labour in India. Find Part 1 here.

 

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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The post Empowering India’s Poor so They Don’t Return to Bonded Labour – Part 2 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Globally 75 million children who cannot access education as a result of crises. A dated photo of a Syrian child in a refugee camp in Jordan. Credit: Robert Stefanicki/IPS.

By Yasmine Sherif, Dean Brooks and Mary Mendenhall
NEW YORK, Oct 5 2020 (IPS)

Teachers are at the heart of children and young peoples’ educational experiences. Teachers play multiple roles in their students’ lives by supporting their learning, providing them with inclusive and safe environments to grow and develop, and helping them become more confident as they make their way in the world. As we commemorate World Teachers’ Day on Monday, 5 October and its theme–Teachers: Leading in Crisis, Reimagining the Future–we must recognize the inspiring and transformative role that teachers working in armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate change induced disasters and protracted crises play in their students’ lives.

Even before the global pandemic, the lives and education of 75 million children and youth worldwide were already disrupted by crisis. Teachers living and working in these settings provide a lifeline to the young people desperate to be learning in school. Yet, they are often placed in classrooms with little to no training or professional development, and expected to work miracles with few teaching and learning resources and insufficient compensation. They also regularly encounter over-crowded classrooms with mixed-age students who need both academic and social-emotional support. All too often, teachers, schools and students are also subject to violent attacks, particularly in armed conflict settings.

Despite these challenges, teachers persist. They provide a sense of stability and structure in their classrooms that is desperately needed amidst unrest and displacement. Teachers working in these environments are innovative and resourceful in meeting the learning and development needs of their students. These teachers are “forced to reimagine education” and the futures of their learners everyday, something they were doing even before the coronavirus pandemic further exacerbated the challenges they already faced.

Yasmine Sherif

In Kakuma refugee camp in northwestern Kenya, a Kindergarten teacher (a refugee from Uganda) created a garden inside her classroom to help her students learn about soil, seeds, markets and communities since there weren’t enough textbooks for her students to learn these topics. Despite the additional challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers’ unwavering commitment has continued, including the adoption of digital and remote learning tools and methods. As Mona Ibrahim, a teacher in Lebanon describes, ‘We used these tools during the 2012 conflict, as well as during the 2014 conflict, and now we are using it during the crisis of the coronavirus.’

Teachers working in contexts affected by conflict and disasters often experience the same disruption, violence, and displacement as their students. While they work tirelessly to provide psychosocial support to their students, they are rarely provided with this support themselves. A Somali refugee teacher in Kakuma refugee camp shared this sentiment in a recent report on teacher well-being: “All my problems which I’m getting at home, I’m just carrying them to the school.”

In many settings, compounding crises, suspended teacher salary payments and schools regularly coming under attack mean teachers are often forced to find alternative sources of income to provide for their families. In Yemen, an estimated 160,000 teachers and school-based staff have not received regular salary payments since 2016 due to the ongoing famine, conflict and spread of disease. This is why Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and other education leaders are today calling for the resumption of teacher salary payments and training for Yemeni teachers, and why ECW funds teacher training and, in certain contexts, provides incentives for teachers in crisis-affected areas.

To respond to teachers’ needs, our organizations, Education Cannot Wait and the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) have forged a new partnership to build a toolkit that focuses on teacher well-being, particularly in emergency settings – a resource that will be developed in collaboration with teachers. The toolkit will further supplement the INEE Minimum Standards for Education: Preparedness, Response, Recovery, the global framework for delivering quality education in emergencies, and the work of INEE’s Teachers in Crisis Contexts Collaborative.

Concrete action steps like this are important. Better support for teachers working in crisis contexts will help ensure that millions of children and youth receive the right to inclusive and equitable quality education, and that global commitments—such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Compact on Refugees—are fulfilled.

Based on our respective work – both in financing and guiding the development of inter-agency standards, tools and support for education in emergencies, here are five additional ways that national governments, donors, and all relevant global, regional, national, and local stakeholders – and teachers themselves – can work together to improve teacher policies and practices:

● Prioritize teachers from the very onset of an emergency, through to recovery and development, with increased financial investments, better data, and effective planning so that adequate numbers of teachers, including female and minority teachers, are teaching where and when they are needed most.

● Respect teachers, including volunteers and facilitators, as individuals and professionals with appropriate and equitable recruitment policies, pay and employment terms, and working conditions.

● Enable teachers to support all learners by continuously investing in and dramatically improving the nature and quality of teacher preparation, continuous professional development, and sustained support.

● Support teachers’ well-being, recognizing the impact of crises on teachers in their own lives and in their ability to do their work, and providing comprehensive support to teachers at the individual, school, community, and national levels.

● Listen to teachers’ experiences and opinions, by including them in decision-making bodies and coordination mechanisms, program design and implementation, and research efforts.

Ongoing armed conflicts, crises and disasters have pushed millions of children and youth out of school around the world. Today’s ongoing health pandemic is doing further damage by rolling back progress that has been made in many places to get children and youth back into school and learning, especially for girls. Despite the compounding impact of COVID-19, it has also heightened our awareness of the vital role that teachers play. Now more than ever, we have a chance to transform education systems through the support we provide to teachers. Let us work together to do just that. Teachers around the world deserve nothing less.

Co-authors:

Yasmine Sherif is the Director of Education Cannot Wait. To donate to Education Cannot Wait’s work for teachers and students in emergencies, visit http://www.pledgeling.org/ECW and follow @EduCannotWait on Twitter.

Dean Brooks is the Director of the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies. To find out more about INEE and to access inter-agency tools and resources to support teachers in crisis contexts please visit https://inee.org/collections/teachers and follow @INEEtweets on Twitter.

Mary Mendenhall, Ed.D., is an Associate Professor of Practice at Teachers College, Columbia University and a member of the INEE Teachers in Crisis Contexts Collaborative. To learn more about Dr. Mendenhall’s work, see her faculty profile and refugee education projects at Teachers College, and follow her at @marymendenhall1 on Twitter.

 

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A delegation of six civil society organizations-- Amnesty International Nepal; Burn Violence Survivors Nepal; Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD); Justice and Rights Institute Nepal (JuRI-Nepal); Legal Aid and Consultancy Center (LACC) Nepal; and Women's Rehabilitation Center (WOREC)--- submitted a set of recommendations on the drafting of a new legislation on acid violence to Law to Justice Minister, Shivamaya Tumbahangphe, during a meeting at her office on 16 September, 2020. Credit: Burn Violence Survivors, Nepal

By Simone Galimberti and Sanju G.C.
KATHMANDU. Nepal, Oct 5 2020 (IPS)

After a prolonged lobbying campaign, the Government of Nepal recently took some important actions against perpetrators of acid attacks while offering better provisions to support the process of rehabilitation of their victims.

The turning point was an announcement made by Prime Minister K.P. Oli on the 10th September, 2020 in the aftermath of a meeting with a delegation of six civil society and human rights organizations actively working on the issue.

During the program that also included an interaction with a group of survivors, Prime Minister Oli declared the Government would introduce a new legislation that would curb and prevent acid and burn related crimes.

On the 28th of September, President Bidhya Devi Bhandari issued two ordinances strengthening the legislation against acid attack, a plague that is becoming more and more common in Nepal as elsewhere in the region.

The promulgation comes at a critical juncture when violence against women and girls in Nepal has been on the rise, especially during the Covid induced lockdown and what has now been hailed as the ‘shadow pandemic’.

Through the new measures, perpetrators will have to pay a much heavier price for committing such heinous crimes including an increase in prison term to 20 years and a fine up to approximately 10,000 USD that would be used to compensate the victims.

In addition, the Government will bear the cost of treatment of the victims and also will regulate in a much stringent way the sales of chemicals being used for such attacks.

While there is no doubt that the two ordinances that still must be approved by the Parliament within six months before automatically elapsing, are important milestones to effectively deal with acid attacks, they are falling short of expectations.

The group of civil society organizations (CSOs) working on the issue had recommended a completely new set of legislation rather than amending the Penal Code as done by the Government through the two ordinances.

The rationale for a completely new piece of law is straightforward: stronger punishments together with a resolute commitment for treatment, something that perhaps should be granted elsewhere, and a long due regulation on the sale of acid chemicals, do not go far enough to ensure that the problem will be definitely eradicated.

This is the reason why a comprehensive set of recommendations was submitted during the meeting with Prime Minister Oli, including not only preventive measures but, very importantly, also proposals to fully rehabilitate the victims towards regaining a normal life.

Besides the measures incorporated in the two ordinances, the representatives of the civil society have been demanding for special social protection and compensatory safety net, relief for dependents of the victims, safety, security, and protection from discrimination for the victims and their family.

Twenty-five years after the historic Beijing women’s conference in China – a milestone in advancing equal rights – violence against women and girls is not only common, but widely accepted, a new UN report revealed last week. Credit: UNICEF/Noorani

In addition, the civil society also called for awareness on the issue of burn and acid violence, its effects and treatment. The fact that the Prime Minister Oli followed up on its promise, albeit only partially, is praiseworthy but not enough.

“Though the proposed provisions in the ordinance are very progressive than the existing legal provisions, it will be more comprehensive if the new law addressed issues such as survivor’s safety, treatment and overall well-being” shares Sabin Shrestha, the Executive Director of the Forum for Women, Law & Development (FWLD), one of the organizations engaged in drafting the recommendations.

Moreover, as often happens in countries struggling to reinforce the rule of law, the real issue will now be to wait and see how the new provisions of the Penal Code will be implemented on the ground.

Shrestha shares the concerns: “the new legal provision needs to be translated in reality and focus should be on the implementation of the law. Effective monitoring mechanisms should be ensured ultimately benefiting the victim”.

The demands from the civil society must be taken further into consideration with an even more specialized act for acid and burn related crimes which is comprehensive and addresses the socio-economic, psychosocial, and emotional costs of acid and burn related crimes.

“It is important to ensure that the specific legislation on acid violence adopts a comprehensive approach to focus on all aspects of the crime and its impact on victims/ survivors” Shrestha adds.

While the focus of the two ordinances have been on acid attacks, burn related crimes, a definition broader than narrowed terminology of “acid attacks” should also be fully acknowledged and properly addressed as highlighted by Pratiksha Giri, Executive Director Burns Violence Survivors Nepal, a local not for profit actively working on the reintegration and rehabilitation of the victims.

While the two ordinances have rectified the existing loopholes within the law that prevented fair and swift justice in the past and have been drafted from a victim centered, justice oriented approach as it was explicitly advocated by Muskan Khatun, Jenny Khadka, and Sangita Magar on behalf of the 12 survivors who met Prime Minister Oli, which in itself is an important achievement, more action must follow.

The full eradication of acid and burn attacks requires not only a speedy approval of a dedicated piece of legislation but also a comprehensive approach to prevent any kind of violence against women.

“The education curriculum has incorporated issues of violence, social injustices and inequalities in its curriculum to create awareness around the prevalent issues of contemporary society however, only superficially” says Giri.

She further elaborates, “Educating young children acts as predominant factor to raise awareness and bring about positive changes in the mindset of young children through the knowledge they acquire from schools”. We cannot agree more.

Hopefully the steps taken by the Government will also embolden and encourage civil society activists and the survivors to ask for more.

It is their right and their demands must be heeded to at the earliest.

 

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The post Nepal Moves Against Acid Attacks on Women appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Simone Galimberti is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not-for-profit organization promoting social inclusion in Nepal & Sanju G.C. is a graduate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University.

The post Nepal Moves Against Acid Attacks on Women appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Windmills in Calama, in the Atacama Desert, in northern Chile. The projects in Chile to take advantage of its high potential in unconventional renewable energies have managed to reduce the country's dependence on imported fossil fuels and to reach a fall in the general cost of energy. Image: Marianela Jarroud / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Oct 2 2020 (IPS)

The way forward for energy transition and its link to an economic recovery after the depression caused by the covid-19 pandemic is focusing attention in Latin America and Europe, according to the 2nd Madrid Energy Conference (MEC), which concluded this Friday 2.

The intercontinental forum was held since Monday, September 28, in this case virtually due to the pandemic, organized by the non-governmental Institute of the Americas (IA), which is headquartered in the coastal town of La Jolla, in western United States.

Jorge Rivera, Panama’s Secretary of Energy and one of the sector’s leaders in Latin America who participated in the Conference, stressed that the transition is not an automatic process, but depends on a political decision and on the sector’s corporations.

“We have a great opportunity. We have an energy transition agenda for the next 10 years, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which includes a series of national strategies, decarbonization, digitalization, and energy democratization. We have a lot to do in transportation, industry, in the uses of energy,” he said.

Rivera insisted that “these measures have the potential to become a tool for post-covid economic recovery.

The Conference, which lasted five days and whose first edition took place in 2019 in the Spanish capital, brought together virtually ministers from five American nations, more than 20 companies´ presidents and more than 400 delegates from international organizations and experts from both continents.

The agenda addressed issues such as the climate crisis in the context of the pandemic, the situation of renewable energy on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, the financing of post-covid recovery, the energy transition towards lower carbon models, energy storage in batteries and power grids, as well as different aspects of mobility.

Topics such as transport, gas, the outlook for oil corporations or the digitalization of the sector were also tackled.

An important part of the debates was linked to the climate crisis, such as carbon capture and storage and greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activities responsible for global warming, as well as methane and the prospects of hydrogen, seen as an alternative to fossil fuels, on both continents.

For Alfonso Blanco, OLADE – Latin American Energy Organization’s executive secretary, the region has made significant efforts to accelerate the transition, but the impact of Covid-19 has generated an uncertain outlook.

One of the debate sessions of the Madrid Energy Conference, dedicated to the energy transition, which held its second virtual edition, between September 28 and October 2, organized by the Institute of the Americas. Image: IA

 

“Sustainability will depend on regional measures, but the region does not have a defined regional action. If we do not analyze the (financial) risk and develop a financing model for renewables, we will see problems of further incorporation of renewables. We have to think of specific strategies, according to the role of each sector,” he said.

In recent years, Latin America has advanced in the development of wind and solar sources as clean alternatives, but it faces the challenge of reducing the burning of fossil fuels in industry and transportation and improving energy efficiency.

This transition has come to a halt in nations such as Mexico, which prioritize support for hydrocarbons, as pointed out by Joost Samsom, partner and co-founder of the consulting firm Voltiq – Renewable Energy Finance, and Claudio Rodríguez, partner of the law firm Thompson & Knight LLP.

Stuart Broadley, executive director of the non-governmental Energy Industries Council (EIC) – based in London and which brings together energy companies – explained that phase I of the energy transition, currently underway, consists of the adoption of technologies such as wind and solar, and during which most countries have not invested much for different reasons.

 

The forthcoming future

Phase II, which the world has not yet entered, involves energy variations such as hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Broadley said that companies dedicated to promoting renewable sources are not going to invest in hydrocarbons and do not like oil companies jumping into their market, so they are not going to help each other. In view of this, regulations imply or should imply forcing them to work together and, for this, the government’s role is critical.

For Fernando Cubillos, head of Energy at IDB Invest, the private investment arm of the Inter-American Development Bank, renewable energies have shown resilience during the pandemic, competitiveness and attractiveness.

“The possibilities of reviving the economy may give a chance to introduce more renewable energy, which can help the recovery, and there is an opportunity to deploy more renewables. We see good conditions for renewables today. What is missing in some countries is the regulatory framework,” he said during the discussions.

 

The installation of photovoltaic panels in poor neighborhoods in Brazil, like these in Morro de Santa Marta, in Rio de Janeiro, which often respond to community and distributed generation projects. They also contribute to reducing the energy bill in these populations and moving towards sustainable generation and consumption. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS.

 

In nations such as Brazil, distributed (decentralized) and small-scale solar generation has become important on a commercial scale and has registered growth, which was possible thanks to the regulatory framework.

“We have seen that state-of-the-art technology is wind and solar, due to low costs, and it is very difficult to expand hydropower generation. We have seen potential for battery storage, but it’s not attractive yet”, Thiago Barral, executive president of Brazil’s state-owned Energy Research Agency, analyzed during the MEC.

Although the energy transition is in its first phase, Latin America is beginning to consider emerging technologies, such as CCS and hydrogen, whether from gas or renewables.

In the first case, CCS, the intergovernmental International Energy Agency (IEA), which brings together major industrial countries and is based in Paris, said that by 2020, governments and industry have committed around some $4 billion to such initiatives worldwide.

In the world, there are at least 15 projects in operation and seven under construction, but during the MEC experts estimated that at least 500 are needed globally.

The use of hydrogen is an unknown variant in the Latin American region. At the beginning of this century, Brazil was a pioneer in exploring this path, but abandoned it to develop sugar cane ethanol, renewable sources and hydro energy.

Chris Sladen, founder and director of the UK-based consulting firm Reconnoitre Ltd, said CCS “has been a dream for hydrocarbons. But it’s not a simple concept, it involves several joint projects” and the big question is how to take them to a commercial scale.

That technology, he proposed, should occur close to where carbon is generated, such as power plants, petrochemicals or cement factories.

Some 50 countries, most of them in the developed North, have instituted policies for the use of hydrogen. In Latin America, Chile has the potential to produce this resource at low prices and that can be a mitigation measure for a cleaner electrical matrix, according to its Undersecretary of Energy, Francisco López.

 

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White-rumped vulture. Credit: ANKIT BISHAL JOSHI.

By Karun Dewan
NAWALPARASI, Lumbiniī, Nepal, Oct 2 2020 (IPS)

Vultures get a lot of bad press. Unlike other birds which are praised for their melodious song or bright plumage, vultures have been traditionally reviled for feeding greedily on carcasses, and what many see is as a repulsive look. In many cultures, they are considered an ill omen and the Nepali language has many derogatory phrases.

A famous dialogue in the critically acclaimed and commercially successful recent Nepali movie Loot proclaims Kathmandu as a ‘the city of vultures’. What an insult to vultures.

This negative perception of vultures does not take into account the enormous ecosystem services provided by the raptors in consuming carrion, and reducing the spread of disease.

In fact, when vultures nearly became extinct in the Subcontinent in the past two decades because of the use of the veterinary anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac, animal carcasses lay rotting in the fields and jungles becoming hotbeds for pathogens.

South Asia first started seeing a massive decline in its vulture population starting the 1990s, and no one quite knew why. The White-rumped, Long-billed and Slender-billed vultures declined by more than 99% in India and Pakistan.

In Nepal, between 1995 and 2001, there was a 96% decline in the Slender-billed vulture population, and the numbers of White-rumped vultures had gone down by 91% until 2011.

Researchers then zeroed in on the cause: the use of the analgesic diclofenac to treat sick livestock. Residue of the drug in the carcasses of those animals when consumed by vultures caused their kidneys to fail. Studies have shown that just 30ml of diclofenac can kill as many as 800 vultures.

 

Indian and Slender-billed vultures. Credit: ANKIT BISHAL JOSHI

 

The good news is that Nepal has established itself as a pioneer in vulture conservation over the years, and the birds are now showing signs of coming back.

Nepal is home to nine species of vultures of which seven have undergone considerable decline in recent years. The White-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis), Slender-billed vulture (Gyps tenuirostis), Red-headed vulture (Sarcogyps calvus) and Indian vulture (Gyps indicus) are in the IUCN critically endangered list.

The Egyptian vulture (Nephron percnopterus) is listed as endangered, and three species – Bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus), Cinerous vulture (Aegypius monachus) and Himalayan Griffon (Gyps himalayensis) — are near threatened.

The first Vulture Conservation Summit in Kathmandu in 2004 took three key decisions: ban the use of diclofenac, establish breeding centres for endangered vultures, and rehabilitate them in the wild.

In 2006, diclofenac was banned by the governments of South Asia. The same year, Nepal opened world’s first food centre for the birds called the ‘Vulture Restaurant’ locally known as ‘Jatayu Restaurant’ in Nawalparasi district.

Operated and managed locally in an effort to provide the birds of prey with uncontaminated meat, it saw a significant revival of vulture populations in the area. Seven more ‘vulture restaurants’ have been set up across the Tarai and mid-hill districts: Rupandehi, Dang, Kailali, Kaski and Sunsari.

Similarly, a vulture conservation and breeding centre was set up in Kasara in the Chitwan National Park in 2008. The same year a ‘Vulture Conservation Action Plan 2009-2013’ was approved and implemented followed by a second action plan 2015-2019. The campaign has seen 74 districts (except Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur) declared diclofenac free.

At present, Nepal is on the verge of establishing the world’s first vulture sanctuary – which will not have a defined perimeter like other protected areas, but will stretch over 30,000sq km divided into inner core area and a buffer zone. The amount of diclofenac in the core area should be zero and less than 1% in the buffer region.

 

White-rumped vultures. Credit: NATIONAL TRUST FOR NATURE CONSERVATION/SAGAR GIRI

 

In order to increase the population of vultures in these protected areas, 31 vultures tagged with satellite devices have been released into the natural habitat in the last three years. Additional monitoring of 30 wild vultures fitted with satellite equipment is being carried out.

Despite these achievements, vulture conservation is not without challenges. Most conservation programs are limited to the Tarai and hence should be expanded to the mid-hills and the mountains.

Apart from diclofenac, other chemicals such as nimuslide, aceclofenac, and ketoprofen also appear to be harmful to vultures and regular monitoring to prevent excessive use of these drugs is recommended. Additional risks also come from declining natural habitat, food shortage and transmission lines.

Vultures mate for life, they stay together from nesting to hatching to rearing their young ones. They are found primarily in the Tarai and mid-hill forests of western Nepal and generally prefer to nest in enormous simal trees.

Despite the negative perception of vultures in culture and folklore, the birds have religious, cultural and environmental significance. Hindus worship it as the vehicle of Saturn. In the Ramayana, the vulture Jatayu fought till his last breath when Ravana abducted Sita. The practice of feeding the deceased to vultures is still prevalent in Himalayan communities that worship the scavenger as carriers of human souls to heaven.

More importantly, in the absence of vultures there will be no scavengers to dispose of carrion, leading to disease outbreaks among humans and cattle.

In monetary terms, one vulture in its lifetime saves about $11,000 for its role in carcass management.

It is in our interest to invest in vulture conservation. The first Saturday of September every year is marked as the International Vulture Awareness Day and it is in its 12th edition this year, Nepal should commit to work together with the communities, governments, environmentalists and conservation groups, because by protecting vultures we preserve biodiversity, and ultimately the safety and health of human beings.

 

Karun Dewan is with the World Wildlife Fund, Nepal.

 

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

The post Nepal Is a Model for Vulture Conservation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The kapenta (Tanganyika sardine) and bream fish sold by Sarudzai Moyo is a major source of income for her and great source of nutrition in the diet for struggling Zimbabwe families. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Oct 2 2020 (IPS)

Sarudzai Moyo, a former teacher, has begun a new career as a fishmonger. Once a week she makes the 450km journey from Bulawayo to Binga, on the shores of Lake Kariba, where she buys between 100 and 150 kilograms of fish for resale as the demand for cheaper dietary options increase in Zimbabwe.

Fishermen sell a kilogram of fresh bream and kapenta (Tanganyika sardine) for $1, but back in Bulawayo Moyo sells a kilo for $3.50. A kilogram of beef sells for between $4 and $7 depending on the grade.

Business is brisk, Moyo tells IPS, but with more and more people leaving their formal jobs to pursue other income-generating ventures in sectors already flooded with unskilled labour, researchers say this is putting a huge strain on the sustainability of natural resources such as fisheries.

“People from all over the country can be found buying fish from Binga fishermen. Some even come with refrigerated trucks,” Moyo said.
“It is clear there is a huge demand for fish, not just in Bulawayo but all over the country,” she told IPS.

However, as more nets are cast into Lake Kariba, which lies on the Zambezi valley — a riparian boundary shared by Zimbabwe and Zambia — this has raised questions about the long term ecological effects and how these natural resources will be able to provide a source of livelihood for communities. Especially since the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) says 90 percent of the country’s fish production comes from Lake Kariba where Moyo and others are earning their incomes.

The Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) has noted that there is a connection “between good nutrition and the environment,” and the need to “take action on education programmes and awareness campaigns to make production and consumption patterns healthy and sustainable”. 

In fact, the Food Sustainability Index (FSI), created by BCFN and the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranks Zimbabwe 70.5 out of 100 — where 100 is the highest sustainability and greatest progress towards meeting environmental, societal and economic  for sustainable agriculture.

But in a country where incomes remain low, environmental and sustainability considerations have been trounced by the need to survive.

Tinashe Farawo is a spokesperson of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZPWMA), a government department tasked with protecting the country’s wildlife through the sustainable utilisation of natural resources for the benefit of present and future generations.
Farawo says while overfishing concerns have been raised in the past, the continuing entry of new and unregistered players in Lake Kariba has made it difficult to effectively create a sustainable ecological balance.

“Ever since the Kariba dam was built in 1958, the regulation has always been that at any given time there must be at least 500 fishing rigs in order to protect the resource for both current and future generations,” Farawo told IPS.

But a joint Zimbabwe-Zambia fisheries management committee last year found that “kapenta rigs operating on Lake Kariba is approximately 3 times above the optimum”.

With population growth on both sides of the Zambezi and the exponential growth of demand for fish, the number of rigs has ballooned with fish poachers being blamed for ecological degradation.

“Concerns of overfishing in Lake Kariba, especially of kapenta, have been an issue for a number of years now, and the trend has been growing and will probably continue to grow in the near future,” said Crispen Phiri, a fisheries scientist at the University of Zimbabwe’s Lake Kariba Research Station.

“The slowdown in economic performance in both Zambia and Zimbabwe over the last decade or so has led many people to consider fishing or the buying and selling of fish as a full time or fallback livelihood alternative,” he told IPS by email.

ZPWMA officials agree that enforcing restrictions on fishing activities have proven difficult.

“Everyone and anyone can now cast their net and we need scientific explanations about the long term effect of this trend on our fisheries. One of the approaches we have pursued is trying to stem the excessive reliance on the Zambezi for fisheries by decentralising and creating other fisheries projects in other dams across the country,” Farawo told IPS.

Zimbabwe has previously banned issuing of new fishing licences in the Zambezi, citing concerns about the excessive fishing activities.

According to ZPWMA, annual fish hauls at the turn of the millennium stood at around 27,000 tonnes annually but dwindled to the current 15,000 tonnes.

FAO has commented that “kapenta was an important, affordable and accessible source of fish protein and nutrition in a difficult 2007-2008 period when the macro-economic climate was harsh”. Today, Zimbabwe finds itself replaying the hardships of that period, economic commentators say. So it is no surprise that poor families are once again turning to fish diets. Indeed, the FSI ranks Zimbabwe as 53.2 on a scale of 100 for nutritional challenges.

Yet researchers say demand is easily outstripping supply, highlighting an urgent need to act.

The BCFN says while nutrition and dietary needs is a priority, there is a need to “raise awareness on the systematic connection between good nutrition and the environment, take action on education programmes and awareness campaigns to make production and consumption patterns healthy and sustainable”.

This, BCFN says, will ensure the realisation of the U.N.’s Integrated Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda “which are all directly or indirectly connected to food”.

Yet researchers have also found the effect of a warming climate on sources of dietary needs such as fisheries, further compounding the sustainability of those resources.

“In a recent analysis that I and my colleagues did, we concluded that the increase in fishing efforts has been a major factor in the decline of kapenta catches and this has been worsened by the warming of the climate,” Phiri said.

For fishmongers such as Moyo, and the fishermen who supply her fish, these challenges could threaten their livelihoods, and the diets of those poor families who have turned to fish as a cheaper food source.

Related Articles

• Agroecology Strengthens Farmers’ Resilience But Highly Underfunded in Africa
• Digital Agriculture Benefits Zimbabwe’s Farmers but Mobile Money is Costly
• COVID-19: Reset Food Systems Now for a Better Future

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Illustration by Rawand Issa

By Farah Daibes
BERLIN, Oct 2 2020 (IPS)

Since before the COVID-19 pandemic, feminists across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have been increasingly shedding light on the global shifts that will shape the Future of Work. From their perspective, those shifts would mainly be driven by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the impact of climate change and the looming global care crisis.

However, they did not account for a global pandemic that would shake the world and drive the acceleration of those shifts, drastically changing the way we live and work and making various feminist concerns about the inclusion, empowerment, and security of women in the labour market more pressing than ever.

Since before the COVID-19 pandemic, feminists across the Middle East and North Africa have been increasingly shedding light on the global shifts that will shape the Future of Work. From their perspective, those shifts would mainly be driven by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the impact of climate change and the looming global care crisis.

However, they did not account for a global pandemic that would shake the world and drive the acceleration of those shifts, drastically changing the way we live and work and making various feminist concerns about the inclusion, empowerment, and security of women in the labour market more pressing than ever.

The outbreak of digitalization

Across the world, strict measures to curb the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the economic vulnerability of the most marginalized individuals and communities, and exacerbated their struggle to adapt when equipped with minimal resources, or none at all.

While countless businesses, schools, and public services are digitalizing their processes to minimize human interaction, many women in the MENA region are finding themselves increasingly excluded from the labour market.

More often than not, women have less freedom of mobility and control over household resources than men. Therefore, barriers such as the lack of adequate broadband infrastructure, the spread of digital illiteracy and a wide digital gender divide are affecting women disproportionately.

Because it offers more flexible working conditions, allowing women to simultaneously perform their unpaid care labour, women often choose informal employment, despite the lack of social security and protective labour policies. But because of the inadequacy in digital adaptation women of the region are left behind amidst the spread of online and platform-based gig work.

Overburdening the overburdened

With the spread of digital technologies, online platforms and now the pandemic, a patriarchal narrative that encourages women to perform home-based work to attain “work-life balance” has been gaining ground. Despite claiming to advocate balance, that narrative fails to address the importance of re-distributing unpaid care work within the household and reinforces the stereotypical role of women as primary caregivers.

In countries across the region where women are still too often confined to the private sphere, this is threatening years of progress towards overcoming the hurdles that limit women’s participation in the public sphere, especially in the workforce.

Working mothers, therefore, continue to suffer a “motherhood penalty” as well as time poverty, which limit their chances to advance in their careers and perpetuate the perception that their paid labour is secondary to that of men’s.

To help lift the burden, outsourcing care work at home to less privileged women, often migrants, has become the norm whenever possible within various countries in the region. Under the kafala (sponsorship) system, however, the lives and labour of these women are exploited and abused.

During the pandemic, their already precarious employment has become more so as hundreds of thousands of them faced income losses and worsening conditions. Additionally, most healthcare workers in the region are overworked and underpaid women who are now also facing major challenges that threaten their rights as well as their physical and mental health.

A green lining?

The expectations were, prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, that the green economy would grow exponentially in the upcoming years. However, it is not yet clear whether the pandemic will accelerate or deaccelerate that growth, with hints suggesting that either can be true.

Regardless, many issues of gender discrimination are limiting women’s ability to equally benefit from emerging opportunities within green sectors. Discrimination in laws related to land ownership and inheritance, precarious and dangerous working conditions, difficulty in entering high-paid jobs and the struggle to attain decision making positions, all greatly disadvantage women.

This is especially true in the case of larger investments in renewable energy and agriculture as well as large-scale projects that aim to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Levelling the gender playing field

The changes we see around us today make the feminist concerns about the Future of Work even more concerning. Not only because the foreseeable challenges are arriving much quicker than expected and with no adequate preparation, but also because decision makers have a historic tendency to deprioritize women’s issues and the gender equality agenda in times of crisis. This is the time for action.

The barriers that threaten the inclusion of women in a digitalized world of work must be eliminated. Moreover, larger investments in care services and jobs as well as the re-distribution of unpaid care work between the state, the community and the private sector must now become a priority.

Lastly, existing gender discrimination must be addressed to ensure that a greener economy will not be a patriarchal one in order to guarantee equal opportunity for all in the future world of work.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS) based in the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s (FES) office in Berlin.

 

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The post A Feminist Perspective from Middle East & North Africa on the COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Farah Daibes is the Programme Manager of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s Political Feminism project in the MENA region.

The post A Feminist Perspective from Middle East & North Africa on the COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Fishing boats, Lake Chad. Credit: Mustapha Muhammad/IPS

By External Source
YOLA, Nigeria , Oct 2 2020 (IPS)

Lake Chad is an extremely shallow water body in the Sahel. It was once the world’s sixth largest inland water body with an open water area of 25,000 km2 in the 1960s, it shrunk dramatically at the beginning of the 1970s and reduced to less than 2,000 km2 during the 1980s, decreasing by more than 90% its area. It is one of the largest lakes in Africa. It is an endorheic lake – meaning that it doesn’t drain towards the ocean.

Its origin is unknown but it is believed to be a remnant of a former inland sea. It doesn’t drain into the ocean but it has shrunk by over 90% since the 1960s due to climate change, an increase in the population and unplanned irrigation. Given the rate at which the lake is disappearing, in less than a decade it may cease to be.

The lake is central to regional stability. To achieve peace, countries should focus on reviving the water body rather than on military activities

Four countries share borders within the water body – Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon – and have formed a political union, the Lake Chad Basin Countries. Other countries indirectly connected to the lake are Algeria, Libya, Central African Republic and Sudan. Over 30 million people live around the lake.

For them, it’s a source of freshwater for drinking, sanitation and irrigation. It supports the livelihoods of farmers, pastoralists, hunters and fishermen.

The Lake Chad region, however, is one of the most unstable in the world. According to the 2020 Global Terrorism Index report, countries of the region are among the 10 least peaceful countries in Africa.

Our research focused on how the drying of this important water body contributes to the instability in the region.

We collected data from interviews with respondents from Lac Region in Chad, Far North Region in Cameroon, Diffa Region in Niger Republic and the North East geopolitical zone in Nigeria. These regions of the Lake Chad Basin Commission countries compose the Chad Basin Region. We also collected data from news reports.

The study found that loss of livelihoods has promoted criminality, easy recruitment by terrorist groups, and migration to urban centres. This has also led to violence and crime in cities and towns. Management of the shrinking lake has caused conflicts among the states that depend on it and this has made it more difficult for them to collectively fight insecurity in the region.

The lake is central to regional stability. To achieve peace, countries should focus on reviving the water body rather than on military activities.

 

Impact on livelihoods

The immediate impact of the drying of Lake Chad is loss of livelihoods.

One of the respondents said in an interview that:

Many years back, this water used to be what we depend on for farming, fishing and herding. Since the water has dried up, sustaining our livelihoods has become so hard. We can hardly farm now and we record regular death of our livestock because of lack of fodder and water to fatten them. Because of this, most people have abandoned farming, fishing and livestock rearing because they are no longer sustainable in this area.

Loss of the traditional means of livelihood leads to widespread poverty and food insecurity. A 2017 report estimated there were about 10.7 million inhabitants of Lake Chad Region in need of humanitarian services.

 

Impact on regional stability

The shrinking of the lake contributes to regional instability in four ways. First, some of the region’s people have taken to criminal activities for survival. One of the major criminal activities in the area is cattle rustling.

Reports have pointed to rising incidence of cattle rustling in the region. It’s easy to move cattle over the country borders in the area to evade arrest. Contemporary rustling has been associated with Boko Haram who resort to cattle rustling as additional means of raising fund in support of their operations. Boko Haram has become a serious security problem in the Lake Chad region.

Most of the response to the threat of the group has been military. For example, from 2009 to 2018, Nigeria’s defence budget totalled nearly $21 billion with a substantial part going towards the fight against Boko Haram.

Further, Boko Haram has capitalised on the loss of livelihoods and economic woes to recruit people into its ranks. It either appeals to the poor ideologically or directly uses economic incentives.

Interviews with respondents also revealed that the drying out of the lake has intensified long-distance migration of people and livestock to cities and towns of the basin’s countries.

The result has been competition for resources, especially farmer-pastoralist conflict. Between 2016 and 2019, almost 4,000 people died in Nigeria as a result of farmer-pastoralist conflicts.

As the lake has shrunk, the water has shifted towards Chad and Cameroon while the Nigerian and Nigerien sides have dried up. This forces people to cross national borders to reach the shoreline. Respect for boundaries disappears.

A complex web of social, economic, environmental, and political issues spills into interstate conflicts. This conflict relationship caused by access to and management of the lake has seriously affected the collective effort of the region’s states to fight Boko Haram.

 

Way ahead

The Lake Chad Basin Commission has identified the need to replenish the water body. There was a plan to build a dam and canals to pump water from the Congo River to the Chari River, Central African Republic and then on to Lake Chad.

It was first mooted in 1982 by the Italian engineering company Bonifica Spa, and discussed at the International Conference on Lake Chad in Abuja in 2018. Major challenges to this plan include funding, resistance from environmental campaigners and peaceful conditions in which to carry it out.

Unfortunately, this scheme is yet to see the light of the day. The commission’s member states lack the commitment required to take action, probably due to the conflict relationship between the other Lake Chad countries and Nigeria.

Yet if they want stability in the region, the key is to replenish the lake.

Saheed Babajide Owonikoko, Researcher, Centre for Peace and Security Studies, Modibbo Adama University of Technology

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

The post The Key to Peace in the Lake Chad Area Is Water, Not Military Action appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Liu Xiaodong (China), Refugees 4, 2015.

By Vijay Prashad
Oct 1 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Here’s a story that encapsulates the terrible situation of our world: Associated Press reporters were on a Turkish coast guard vessel which picked up 37 migrants, including 18 children, from two orange life-rafts in the Aegean Sea on 12 September. The refugees were from Afghanistan, a country that shudders from an endless war. One of the refugees, Omid Hussain Nabizada told the reporters that the Greek authorities held them in Lesbos, put them onto life rafts, and then sent them into the turbulent seas. They were left there to die.

Since 1 March, Greece has suspended the right of refugees to claim asylum. The authorities have placed refugees into makeshift camps. The Moria Reception and Identification Centre in Lesbos (Greece) was built to hold 3,500 people but at its height it housed 20,000 people (due to the pandemic, the population was reduced to 12,000). Four days before Nabizada and others were rescued from the Aegean Sea, a fire tore through the Moria camp. Around 9,400 people lost their overcrowded shelters. This camp was constructed in 2015 to briefly hold migrants as they made their way to Europe from Afghanistan, Syria, and other areas where the West has perpetuated its many wars.

When the other European countries began to shut their doors to refugees, Greece became Europe’s plug; the refugees got stuck in places such as Moria.

In August, the engine of a boat exploded off the coast of Zuwarah (Libya), killing 45 refugees from Chad, Mali, Ghana, and Senegal. Fortunately, 37 people survived the explosion. It was a reminder that the passage of refugees across the Mediterranean Sea has not abated. In fact, the UN Refugee Agency said that 2020 has seen a threefold increase in refugee traffic in Italy and Malta as compared to 2019. The numbers of those on the move has not slowed down, despite the pandemic.

During the Great Lockdown, as aircraft fly relatively empty across much of the world, rubber boats and old trucks continue to carry large numbers of the impoverished peoples of our planet in search of a better life.

Oweena Camille Fogarty (Mexico), Untitled.

In 2018, a World Bank study showed that half the world’s population – 3.4 billion people – live below the poverty line, a number that increased during the pandemic. The Bank used the measure that a person who makes less than $5.50 per day is poor. Over the course of the past half century, states have increasingly privatised the delivery of key social services, such as education, childcare, health care, sanitation, and housing. These social costs are now borne by people with meagre means. That is why, in 2006, economist Lant Pritchett suggested that the threshold for measuring the poverty line be lifted to $10 a day. But even at this level, it is just not possible to cover the basic costs in a privatised society. Nonetheless, based on this threshold, Pritchett published an important paper which suggested that 88% of the world’s population lived in poverty.

The crushing weight of the Great Lockdown during the pandemic has worsened the social and economic condition of the vast majority of the world’s population. In June, the World Bank estimated that around 177 million people will slip into ‘extreme poverty’, the first such slip in thirty years. Half of those who will fall under the poverty line due to the pandemic will be in South Asia, while a third will be in Sub-Saharan Africa.

A new study from the International Labour Organisation shows that the working people around the planet lost 10.7% of their income in the first nine months of 2020; this equals a loss of $3.5 trillion. Workers in the poorer states bore the brunt, with losses of around 15% of their income, while workers in the richer countries saw losses of 9% of their income. The ILO found steady cuts in employment in the first two quarters of the year, with every indication that these losses will continue for the rest of the year, if not permanently.

Maysa Yousef (Palestine), Identity of the Soul, 2014.

Migrants like Omid Hussain Nabizada leave their homes where employment has collapsed and make perilous journeys. If they survive the passage, they at best find menial jobs (if they are able to find employment at all), earn a pittance, save that money, and then send it home. In 2019, such migrants sent $554 billion in remittances to their families in their countries of origin. Some countries – such as Haiti, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan – rely on these remittances for more than a quarter of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In April 2020, the World Bank estimated the ‘sharpest decline of remittances in recent history’, dropping by 19.7% to $445 billion. These declines, along with a decline in foreign direct investment and the collapse of exports for many of the countries of the Global South, have already created a dangerous balance of payments problems in many countries.

Refusal by wealthy bondholders (London Club), and the countries that back them (Paris Club), to allow for debt cancellation or even proper debt suspension puts immense pressure on these states as well as on the families that will lose an important source of basic income.

The lack of basic services – particularly health care in the midst of this pandemic – will create deeper distress. In 2017, the World Bank and the World Health Organisation warned that half of the world’s population did not have access to essential health services and that, each year, 100 million people are driven into poverty by the lack of income to pay for health care costs. This number is conservative, since in India alone – according to the national survey on social consumption – 55 million Indians were impoverished due to health care costs in 2011-12. That warning was not heeded.

Francisco Amighetti (Costa Rica), La Niña y el viento, 1969.

On 10 September 2020, World Suicide Prevention Day, the WHO’s Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus reminded us that every forty seconds someone somewhere dies by suicide. Importantly, he noted that the means by which many commit suicide must be kept away from people, ‘including pesticides and firearms’. The mention of pesticides points a finger at the endless suicide epidemic in rural India, where hundreds of thousands of farmers and agricultural workers have taken their lives; this was revealed in a series of powerful reports by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research Senior Fellow P. Sainath. The National Crime Records Bureau in India showed that, in 2019 – before the pandemic – every fourth suicide was committed by daily wage earners. These are the people hardest hit by the pandemic and the Great Lockdown; we have to wait until next year’s report to grasp the full impact of the deep social impact on farmers, agricultural workers, and daily wage earners, all of whom will be struck by the three pro-agribusiness farm bills foisted on the Indian population by its government this month.

Last week, the foreign correspondent Andre Vlteck (1962-2020) died in Istanbul. A few years ago, André introduced me to the Cuban singer Silvio Rodríguez, particularly his song La Maza. Here are a few lines from Silvio, in honour of Andre:
If I didn’t believe in what I believe
If I didn’t believe in something pure
If I didn’t believe in every wound
…
If I didn’t believe in what hurts
If I didn’t believe in what stays
If I didn’t believe in what fights
…
What would my heart be?
What would the mason’s hammer be without a quarry?

The greatest tyrant in our time is a social system that impoverishes the majority of the world’s people, such as the people who drowned recently in the Mediterranean Sea, so that a small minority can live a life of luxury. If I didn’t believe in another world, I would find it hard to breathe.

Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

The post If I Didn’t Believe, I Wouldn’t Know How to Breathe appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Soil stores nutrients, carbon and micro-organisms. Credit: Xavi Fernández de Castro/IPS

By Esther Ngumbi
ILLINOIS, United States, Oct 1 2020 (IPS)

Recent months have brought all sorts of climate-linked disasters, from raging wildfires in California and Oregon to flooding in Alabama. As we think of the incalculable losses that are associated with these extremities linked to the changing climate, I cannot help but think of the belowground web of life that is burning, being flooded and washed away, affected, or lost.

Indeed, these climate-linked disasters present a less obvious challenge: they are robbing us of the same allies that are supposed to help us in fighting climate change: the allies are the beneficial soil microbes and the complex network of microorganisms inhabiting the soil, referred to as the soil microbiome.

Climate-linked disasters are robbing us of the same allies that are supposed to help us in fighting climate change: the beneficial soil microbes and the complex network of microorganisms inhabiting the soil
Unseen to the naked eye, the soil microbiome comprises of a web of microscopic life that includes trillions of bacteria, fungi, archaea, viruses, protozoa and fungi.  Research has shown that they teem in the soil near the roots of plants.

A growing body of scientific research has generated the evidence of the many benefits that are derived from the associations among microbes and crops such as corn, tomato, cotton and bell peppers. These benefits include improving soil health, promoting plant growth, improving plants ability to absorb nutrients and enhancing the ability of plants to fight stressors such as flooding and extreme heat, and fending off attacking insects.

Moreover, recent reviews continue to demonstrate the many microbe conferred benefits while pointing to outstanding research questions that remain to be explored, to further facilitate the use of beneficial soil microbes in agriculture.

These important microorganisms are suffering in the current slew of disasters. For instance, what does fire do to microorganisms? According to research, fire alters the abundance, composition, and activity of both microbial and fungal communities.

The survivors of fire are left with a fundamentally different habitat. Depending on the conditions after fires, life can bounce back quickly, or that would be the end of it. And without a healthy and functional soil microbial community, the nutrients are not recycled, and insect pests can invade plants. Moreover, in the end, soils lacking these helpers become unhealthy.

Given all the devastation these climate crises are creating, concern about microorganisms is low on people’s lists. Indeed, understandably, humans tend to only care about visible things. We are yet to learn about losses of things unseen to the naked eye.

Yet, this web of microscopic life is no minor matter: its healing will provide the foundation for the recovery of ecosystems including agricultural ecosystems. We must be sure to address it in the coming months of recovery.

Importantly, there is need for more research to uncover the impact of fire and flooding on beneficial soil microbe’s communities and to further uncover the best approaches and strategies that can be used to help soils to recover from these climate-linked disasters that are projected to happen more frequently in the future.

As we seek to rebuild, we must not forget to incorporate efforts geared at restoring the life below ground. Doing so will help these important microorganisms that live in the soil to bounce back faster and to thrive and then deliver their many benefits.

 

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the Entomology Department and African American Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She is a Senior Food security fellow with the Aspen Institute.

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Face masks hanging on window bars in Havana, Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Joseph Chamie
NEW YORK, Oct 1 2020 (IPS)

Covid-19 deaths worldwide have surpassed 1 million. With new cases of coronavirus infections rapidly mounting again, the numbers of Covid-19 deaths are feared to surge in the coming months. 

It took approximately 40 weeks to reach the first million Covid-19 recorded deaths. Some have projected the second million Covid-19 deaths to take about 10 weeks, arriving in late December, and the third million to take an additional 4 weeks, arriving in late January.

Approximately 60 percent of the 1 million Covid-19 deaths to date have taken place in 6 countries (Figure 1). The United States continues to maintain its dominant lead in Covid-19 deaths as well as in coronavirus cases. With only 4 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for 21 percent of all Covid-19 deaths worldwide, or approximately 210,000 deaths that have jettison Covid-19 to the third leading cause of death in the U.S. after heart disease and cancer. 

 

Source: Worldometer.

 

The country in second place is Brazil, which with less than 3 percent of the world’s population accounts for 14 percent of all Covid-19 deaths. Brazil is followed by India at 10 percent, Mexico at 8 percent, and the United Kingdom and Italy both at 4 percent.

In several months India is projected to overtake the U.S. as the country with the largest number of  Covid-19 deaths. India’s daily virus-related deaths are currently around 1,100 versus 760 for the U.S. In addition, India’s daily virus infections have surpassed 90,000 compared to about 42,000 for the U.S.

Due to differences in the population size of countries, Covid-19 death rates provide a meaningful comparative perspective on the performances of countries in confronting the coronavirus pandemic. While the Covid-19 death rate for the world is about 130 deaths per million population, the rates of the dozen deadliest countries, which except for the U.S. are located in Latin America and Europe, are about 600 or more Covid-19 deaths per million population (Figure 2).

 

Source: Worldometer.

 

The top two countries are Peru and Belgium, with rates of 980 and 860 Covid-19 deaths per million population, respectively. The countries with the next highest death rates of approximately 670 Covid-19 deaths per million population are Spain, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile. 

The high Covid-19 death rate of Peru is believed due in part to the country’s poor health system, which failed to conduct effective testing and contact tracing, and the fact that 70 percent of Peruvian workers are in the informal sector with most not able to afford to isolate as they are dependent on daily earnings. 

In the case of Belgium, government officials say their high Covid-19 death rate is likely due to a number of factors including their exceptional way of counting unconfirmed Covid-19 deaths, the high level of elderly placed in care homes and poor initial preparations at home care centers permitting the virus to spread rapidly and have devastating effects. 

In striking contrast to the rates of the deadliest dozen countries are the substantially lower Covid-19 death rates of many other countries around the world. Denmark and Germany, for example, report Covid-19 death rates of 112 and 114 per million population, respectively. Even lower rates are observed in Norway, Australia and Japan, of 50, 35 and 12 Covid-19 deaths per million population, respectively.

It took approximately 40 weeks to reach the first million Covid-19 recorded deaths. Some have projected the second million Covid-19 deaths to take about 10 weeks, arriving in late December, and the third million to take an additional 4 weeks, arriving in late January

Unfortunately, in many countries a combination of denial, deception and defiance stands in stark contrast to the overwhelming public health evidence concerning the dissemination of the coronavirus and lethality of Covid-19.

The interaction of the pandemic’s fallout with the growth of populism and extremism around the world hindered effective responses. In too many instances, the recommended mitigation measures became politized and openly ignored, denigrated and resisted by some groups.

Some contend that the various public health measures to limit the spread of the coronavirus, including masking wearing, social distancing and sheltering-in-place, are infringements on their liberties and freedoms and constituted unconstitutional violations of their basic rights.

However, it is widely recognized that measures and regulations intended to promote the health and safety of the general public are well within a state’s authority.

Many of the deaths in the high Covid-19 mortality countries likely would have been prevented by the early intervention and widespread use of face masks, social distancing, hand hygiene, sheltering-in-place, testing, contact tracing and related other measures.

Downplaying the threat of the pandemic, making misleading pronouncements, sending confused messages, offering unfounded reassurances, maligning health officials, delaying/resisting public health measures and deflecting blame to others contributed to the disastrous spread of the disease and subsequent rapid rise of Covid-19 deaths in many countries. 

For example, if the United States response to the pandemic had been more successful and had been able to achieve the relatively low Covid-19 death rate of Germany (114 versus 638 per million population), the U.S. Covid-19 death toll would have been approximately 38,000 rather than 210,000.

Even the relatively higher Covid-19 death rate of neighboring Canada (246 deaths per million population) would have more than halved the US death toll, avoiding approximately 130,000 U.S. Covid-19 deaths (Figure 3).

 

Source: Author’s estimates based on data from Worldometer.

 

Similarly, the different approaches of Sweden and Denmark resulted in significantly higher Covid-19 death rates for Sweden, 583 versus 112 deaths per million population. While Sweden adopted libertarian policies of minimal regulations perhaps with the aim to achieve herd immunity, Denmark imposed social distancing, mask wearing and related public health measures.

If Sweden had been able to achieve the Covid-19 death rate of nearby Denmark, the Swedish death toll from Covid-19 would have been substantially less, about 1,100 rather than 5,900. 

While in mid-April the world’s daily Covid-19 deaths peaked at around 8,500, the average daily number of deaths near the end of September was approximately 5,300. In recent weeks, however, growing numbers of countries in various regions are reporting surges in daily coronavirus cases.

In the third week of September, nearly 2 million new Covid-19 cases were reported worldwide, the highest number of reported cases in a week since the start of the pandemic. 

In Europe weekly cases are now exceeding those reported when the pandemic first peaked in March. Those growing numbers of coronavirus cases point to the beginning of a second surge of Covid-19 deaths, especially for many of the countries in the northern hemisphere where approaching cold weather will drive more people indoors.  

A vaccine for the coronavirus, which now has approximately three dozen candidates in human trials, is unlikely to be widely available before the expected second wave of the pandemic. If the second wave follows the path that some now fear, the current number of one million Covid-19 deaths could triple in a matter of months.

Moreover, if the world’s Covid-19 death rate were to begin to approach the current level of the United States or the United Kingdom, the million Covid-19 deaths could more than triple in the coming year.

It is widely recognized that a vaccine for the coronavirus will not be 100 percent effective. Some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies place the effectiveness of a hoped for vaccine at around 60 percent.  In the United States the Food and Drug Administration has indicated that any coronavirus vaccine must be at least 50 percent effective to secure approval from regulators. 

Some scenarios envision the coronavirus pandemic continuing for the long haul, perhaps for at least several more years. Some fear that an approved vaccine may offer only limited seasonal protection, similar to other coronaviruses in circulation. 

Also, significant numbers may decide to avoid getting inoculated while many others may simply delay their decisions fearing vaccine safety may have been seriously compromised due to political influence. In addition, the global distribution of an approved vaccine may remain limited for some time due to insufficient supplies, relatively high costs for those in low income countries and international political disputes.

Consequently, in order to check the spread of the second and subsequent waves of coronavirus infections and limit the numbers of Covid-19 deaths, public health mitigation measures, including mask wearing, social distancing, hand hygiene, sanitizing, sheltering-in-place, quarantining, testing, contact tracing and staying at home when sick, will remain the primary tools in the medical arsenal to confront the pandemic for the foreseeable future.

Joseph Chamie is an independent consulting demographer and a former director of the United Nations Population Division.

The post Covid-19 Deaths: 1 Million and Surging appeared first on Inter Press Service.

More than 60 percent of the world’s coral reefs are endangered due to overfishing, destructive practices and climate change, according to the United Nations. Yesterday the first-ever U.N. Summit on Biodiversity concluded with world leaders and experts agreeing on the urgency to preserve biodiversity globally. Credit: Nalisha Adams/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 1 2020 (IPS)

“Investing in nature is investing in a sustainable future,” was one of the key messages from yesterday’s first-ever United Nations Summit on Biodiversity where world leaders and experts agreed  on the urgency to act swiftly to preserve biodiversity globally. 

“More than 60 percent of the world’s coral reefs are endangered due to overfishing, destructive practices and climate change,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in his opening remarks  at the biodiversity summit, which was held as the 75th Session of the U.N. General Assembly wrapped up this week.

This loss doesn’t come without a cost.

Guterres added that according to an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimate, the amount of money required for sustainability of nature is about $300 – 400 billion, which is less than “current levels of harmful subsidies for agriculture, mining and other destructive industries”.

Guterres also pointed out how this disproportionately affects poor communities.

According to the Convention on Biological Diversity, between 50 to 90 percent of the livelihoods of poor households comes from ecosystems.

“Nature offers business opportunities to poor communities, from sustainable farming to eco-tourism or subsistence fishing,” Guterres said.

This year was especially crucial given the COVID-19 pandemic and the havoc it wreaked across communities around the world.

Volkan Bozkır, president of the General Assembly, pointed out the world’s  inability to ensure preservation of biodiversity severely impedes the ability to fight diseases — a result that is being witnessed first hand this year. It also negatively affects food security, water supplies, and livelihoods, among other issues.

“We must be pragmatic: our healthcare systems rely upon rich biodiversity,” Bozkır said. “Four billion people depend upon natural medicines for their health, and 70 percent of drugs used for cancer treatments are drawn from nature.”

“More than half of the world’s GDP – $44 trillion – is dependent on nature,” he added. 

Chinese president Xi Jinping addressed the meeting, extending a warm welcome for next year’s Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 15) scheduled to take place in China. 

“COP15 offers an opportunity for parties to adopt new strategies for global biodiversity governance,” Xi said. 

Xi proposed a list of steps that leaders can take in order to ensure biodiversity preservation around the world:

• Adhere to ecological civilisation and increase the drive for building a beautiful world, given that a sound ecosystem is crucial for the prosperity of civilisation. “We need to respect nature, follow its laws, and protect it,” he said. “We need to find a way for man and nature to live in harmony, balance and coordinate economic development and ecological protection.”
  
• Uphold multilateralism and build synergy for global governance on the environment. “Faced with the risks and challenges worldwide, countries share a common stake as passengers [on] the same boat, and form a community with a shared future,” Xi said. “To enhance global governance on the environment, we must firmly safeguard the U.N.-centred international system, and uphold the sanctity and authority of international rules.”
  
• Continue with green development and increase potential for high quality economic recovery after COVID-19.
  

Meanwhile, panelists at a “Fireside Chat” panel brought up the importance of including indigenous communities in the conversation.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, said the indigenous community is “critical” to this conversation.

“Let’s recall they are the owners and managers of one quarter of global land area, and one third of protected areas,” Andersen said. “So safeguarding their right to their land is part of safeguarding biodiversity.”

Ana Maria Hernandez Salgar, the first woman chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), also shared a similar sentiment as she reflected on what, in her experience, has led to true change.

“We have to work collectively: governments, individuals, private sector, academia, we need to address the root cause of biodiversity loss – it works,” Salgar said.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the appointed Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, also spoke on the same panel and added that it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that biodiversity, on top of being a concern, is also a solution to some of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

“We know, 14 out of the 17 SDGs depend on biodiversity, from nature-based solutions, to climate, to food, water, security, sustainable livelihood: biodiversity remains the basis for sustainable future and sustainable development,” Mrema said.

Perhaps the conversation on the link between biodiversity preservation and humans was most aptly put forth by Achim Steiner of the U.N. Development Programme who moderated the panel.

At the core of the preservation efforts is how we view the issue, Steiner said.

It’s not just about nature, it’s about humans too.

“Biodiversity has as much to do with nature as it has to do with people, people’s dependence on nature, people’s inability to see the complexities of nature, people’s blindness and sometimes greed and ignorance and also the planetary blindspots of our economies.”

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The triple humanitarian crisis. Photo Credits from left and in clockwise direction-UN Habitat, Kenya Red Cross and FAO Kenya.

By Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 1 2020 (IPS)

The United Nations Deputy Secretary General, Ms Amina Mohammed recently commended “Kenya’s exemplary role in its response to COVID-19 and in advancing Agenda 2030”.

On Monday, 28 September 2020, the President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta hosted a national conference on COVID 19. I was invited to speak about Kenya’s response, and without equivocation I restate what I said–Kenya deserves an A + rating.

Here’s why!

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck Asia, Europe and the US, experts began to worry about what it would do to poor countries, with predictions of thousands of deaths, serious infections as well as the near-total collapse of already ailing health systems.

How would Africa, characterised by crowded living conditions, widespread poverty and a lack of basic hygienic facilities deal with such a devastating and largely unknown pathogen? Months later, such horror scenarios have not materialised and the question has changed to why most of Africa is seeing comparably less devastation.

As explained by President Uhuru Kenyatta during the National Covid-19 Conference, “the reason why we have managed to flatten the curve is because Kenyans have exercised an impressive civic responsibility and duty.”

A reality that tends to be lost in all the discussions about this novel coronavirus in Kenya is just how much pummelling the country’s social and economic structures have received lately.

2020 was a particularly difficult year for Kenya. A triple crisis, coming on the heels of a protracted period of droughts, a cholera epidemic and not to underestimate the spectre of cross-border terror attacks, which dented one of Kenya’s biggest foreign exchange earners-tourism.

Consider this. In 2017, nearly half the counties of Kenya was reeling from the effects of probably the worst drought in the last 20 years. With nearly 3.4 million people food insecure, Kenya’s food security prognosis looked gloomy, with climate change and natural resource depletion set to pose even greater risks in the long term.

Often unnoticed is the insidious effect on the country’s economy, with experts estimating that there have been, “12 serious droughts since 1990”. The average annual costs of the damage caused estimated at around KHS 125 billion ($1.25 billion) — with each drought reducing the country’s Gross Domestic Product by an average of 3.3 percent.

The two consecutive national elections in 2017 also took a massive financial toll.

Given the dire financial situation, it is quite remarkable, the resilience, tenacity and optimism, Kenya has displayed in the face of such adversity, and done so with their head held high, with stoicism and compassion in its fight against the triple threat.

Since the beginning of the year, Kenya has gone through a series of unprecedented crises, where within six months it has experienced the worst desert locust invasion in 70 years, heavy unusual flooding that has left scores of people dead and thousands displaced, and the pandemic that is taking a toll on health services and the economy.

Aware of the technological and financial handicaps facing the health sector, the government has responded commendably in leading the fight against COVID-19, from mandating physical distancing and wearing of masks, promoting hand and respiratory hygiene, promptly dealing with rumours, to specialised facilities in hospitals, to working with industry to deliver local equipment such as PPEs, to delivering economic relief to impacted families. And above all not allowing politics to hijack the wisdom of science.

In about six months after the first case was reported, Kenya increased the number of infectious diseases isolation beds from eight to just over 7,000 across the country, thus keeping the casualty rates low. This was a remarkable feat achieved through unity of purpose between the national and county governments.

The government rolled out moderate stimulus packages to help families ride out the economic turbulence and cushion companies from financial shocks. The Treasury instituted tax relief for low-income earners and reduced VAT rates as well as corporate sales tax for businesses. In a country already facing slow GDP growth, these were commendable actions of national self-sacrifice and coming together in times of crises.

When you look at some of the most developed countries in the world, buckling to the microscopic and highly virulent coronavirus and their national responses are properly examined, Kenya does score an ‘A+’ in how quickly and decisively the government acted in the COVID-19 crisis. Measures such as travel restrictions, curfews and school closures were implemented early in the country, before the number of infections rose.

As testament to the spirit of coming together to confront a common adversary, there was broad support from the public for these measures. In social media and elsewhere, citizens were quick to express responsible outrage where they felt those responsible for the response at various levels were not keeping to the expected standards.

This grit and determination to rise to the occasion even where resources are hard to come by was key in getting on board international donor agencies and private sector to mobilise funding to support the national response. The UN in Kenya repurposed $45 million from the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) towards the COVID response, and deployed over 150 staff and volunteers to the government response structures.

In partnership with the Government of Kenya, the UN launched a Flash Appeal to mobilize $267.5 million to support more than 10 million vulnerable people affected by the pandemic, of which nearly US$ 60 million was raised. An additional US$ 10 million dollars was allocated by the UN Secretary General, Mr. Antonio Guterres, to construct a specialised 100 bed COVID 19 hospital in Nairobi, which will remain as additional capacity even after the pandemic is over.

The UN in Kenya has prepared a COVID-19 socioeconomic response and recovery plan to address the health care system, social protection, employment opportunities and social cohesion. The recovery plan will be implemented in the next two years and will cost $155 million to focus on recovering better from the pandemic for the Sustainable Development Goals.

“The country is still in the maelstrom of the pandemic. The devastating consequences of the pandemic have not fully played out and important challenges remain, some wrought by the pandemic but many that continued long before, such as high health care costs for millions of Kenyans, gender inequalities, widespread poverty, youth unemployment, environmental degradation, corruption and terrorism”.

The country must converge at every level to address these threats today or suffer the consequences tomorrow. Recovery will be made much tougher by the economic toll of COVID-19 as well as an exhausted and depleted health system.

Still, the pandemic has shown that Kenya can overcome partisanship, think anew and work on short and longer-term sustainable development priorities towards ‘building back better’, with more resilience to future shocks.

As the UN Deputy Secretary General, Ms Mohammed said, “I am convinced that Kenya will continue demonstrating that results and transformation are possible and I call upon all of you to double your efforts to invest at scale in those critical interventions that will unlock benefits across all the goals, to make bold choices, to take decisive action and to leave no one behind in your pursuit of a better future.

Kenyans can be fully assured of the commitment of the United Nations to overcome every adversity, leapfrog socio-economic recovery and progress to realise Vision 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya. This article was originally published in Forbes Africa.

 

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A child from the Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan raised a flag to represent Goal 6, Safe Water and Sanitation. Credit: UNICEF Jordan/badran

By Rabiya Jaffery
AMMAN, Jordan, Oct 1 2020 (IPS)

Jordan is one of the driest countries in the world, raking the fifth most water-stressed nation in an analysis by the World Resources Institute.

The middle eastern country gets 60% of its water from aquifers that lie in a dozen groundwater basins. And 10 of them are currently being pumped at a deficit.

“Not all aquifers are renewable and the ones that are storing rainwater that is released by springs,” says George Stacey, an analyst working with Norvergence, an environmental advocacy NGO. “No aquifer holds an endless amount of water and Jordan is extracting more water each year is getting replenished by rain.”

Three-quarters of Jordan is desert and desert steppe and is one of the countries that receive the least amount of annual precipitation.

“Climate change has made Jordan drier and the coming decades will see temperatures rising further and rain becoming more unpredictable,” adds Stacey. “Water scarcity is only going to get much worse in the coming years.”

And while rising temperatures and reducing rainfall reduce the available water supply, Jordan’s demand for water is increasing due to a rise in the country’s population as it continues to take in refugees from nearby countries.

Jordan became a state in 1946 and has since absorbed millions of refugees – mainly from Palestine, Iraq, and Syria as well as a number of Yemenis, Sudanese, and Somalis. There are currently 750, 000 refugees registered in Jordan but government figures estimate that the total number, including unregistered migrants, exceeds a million and excludes those who have gained citizenship.

“Water scarcity in Jordan will affect both refugees and Jordanians,” says Lilly Carlisle, from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – Jordan. “The increase in population and resulting increase in water demand have caused enormous pressure on the limited water resources and created a chronic poor water supply and demand imbalance.”

Although some government players have stated that the large influx of refugees in the country is worsening water scarcity in the country and opinions in many amongst the public and the media have implied that refugees threaten Jordan’s water security, experts disagree.

“The vast majority of refugees in Jordan come from Syria and from the Southern Governorate of Dar’a. With similar cultures and availability of water to where they now live in Northern Jordan, refugees are well aware of the need for water conservation,” says Carlisle.

“Added to this, over the past ten years of the Syrian conflict and refugee crisis, UNHCR and partners have enacted various campaigns to promote water conservation.”

In Zaatari Camp, for example, UNHCR has been running hydroponics projects since 2017 to educate refugees about water consumption within agriculture and establish new practices among refugees working in the agricultural sector to reduce water usage.

Roughly 45% of the water used in Jordan goes to agriculture and one of the key points on Jordan’s 2008–22 National Water Strategy has been efforts to stop over-pumping groundwater through reducing the amount of water that is given for free to farmers as well as water theft.

Water theft has been a regular problem in the country and, in 2013, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation launched a dedicated campaign to crack down on water violations. Between 2013 and 2017, over 30,000 violations on water mains and resources had been prevented and millions of cubic meters of stolen water have been retrieved.

Carlisle stated that the UNHCR is jointly tackling with the Jordanian Government and partners to “ensure that all people who live in Jordan, refugees and Jordanians alike, continue to have access and are aware of steps they have to take towards water conservation”.

Other solutions that the government is looking into include desalinated water from the Red Sea, which makes up 27 kilometers of coastline in Jordan, but the process requires a high amount of energy and the country lacks the necessary oil and gas deposits.

The country has, however, been in the talks with Israel for a joint mega-project, the Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance Project, that would bring desalinated water from the Red Sea to Jordan and dump the brine into the Dead Sea through a canal to stabilize the shrinking lake.

The agreement for the joint project was first signed by Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority, in 2013 but the work has been stalled several times. When completed, the Red-to-Dead canal would contribute roughly 10% of the country’s water needs.

However, environmentalists are concerned about the damage to coral reefs and other species in the Red Sea and Dead Sea if the project is completed.

“Water scarcity results in food shortage, internal migration, and can create conflicts between groups,” says Stacey. “These conflicts can also pore out to nearby countries – this is why ensuring water security in Jordan a matter of regional security.”

In 2017, a report by the Atlantic Council highlighted how water scarcity had been an indirect factor that lead to increasing tensions in, both, Yemen and Syria.

“The regional and international community needs to come together to work on sustainable solutions to Jordan’s water crisis to maintain the relative stability it has in a region that has seen multiple conflicts in the past few decades,” says Stacey.

“The country is already facing many major economic and political challenges and if the government does not adapt and implemented an effective policy to solve the water crisis, the situation will significantly worsen.”

Social frustrations about the country’s economic crisis, stemming from the IMF-backed austerity adopted by the government to tackle the country’s growing debt, have increased in the past few years. In 2018, as increasing youth unemployment and price hikes, and also resulted in a series of protests.

https://www.unicef.org/jordan/stories/water-security-critical-issue-children-jordan-today-and-future-generations

 

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Excerpt:

Rabiya Jaffery is a freelance journalist covering climate change, migration, and human rights in the Middle East and South Asia. She is currently a reporting fellow for Norvergence, an international climate communications NGO.

The post Water Security in Jordan is Crucial to Maintaining Stability in the Country appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Equality Now, Tara Carey

By Antonia Kirkland
NEW YORK, Sep 30 2020 (IPS)

In September 2017, Secretary-General António Guterres launched the “System-wide strategy on gender parity”, which set the goal of reaching gender parity within the United Nations by 2028 and outlined a strategy on how to achieve this, including the introduction of special measures, senior appointments, targets and accountability, amongst other things.

Three years have passed and it is heartening to hear that the UN has made significant progress towards this goal by achieving gender parity within its senior management. We look forward to the organization hopefully achieving this at all levels by 2028, or preferably sooner.

The principle of equal rights for women and men is one of the pillars upon which the UN was founded. It is rooted in the recognition that gender equality is a fundamental human right and that empowering all women is essential for a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world.

The blueprint to achieving this was outlined by the UN in 2015 with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which enshrines the ambition in Sustainable Development Goal 5 to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”.

As an agenda-setting organisation that plays an influential role on the world stage, the UN has a responsibility to lead by example in advocating for gender equality from the inside out. This entails ensuring that women from a variety of backgrounds are equally represented at all levels of the UN system, and is necessary for both its credibility and effectiveness in applying a gender lens to its policies and programs.

An inclusive, gender-balanced and culturally diverse workforce, operating within a system that support’s women’s equal access to decision-making, will enable the UN to carry out its mandate more successfully.

Although gender parity is an important component of achieving gender equality within the UN, what is also needed is a frank examination and enhancement of the organizational culture and ways of working. The UN has spoken of the need to “create a working environment that embraces equality, eradicates bias, and is inclusive of all staff.”

Whilst it is encouraging to see the progress being made at the UN, there are still areas where commitments must be translated into effective action, and this pertains particularly to the handling of sexual abuse and harassment within the work environment, even as the workplace itself is evolving in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2018, UN Women appointed an Executive Coordinator and Spokesperson on Sexual Harassment and Discrimination. This office was tasked with “supporting States, government administrations and the private sector to ensure actions are taken to respond to women’s experiences of sexual harassment.”

It contributed to the adoption of the UN System Model Policy on Sexual Harassment by the Chief Executives Board, as well as promoting much-needed awareness raising and open discussion of the issue at the highest levels of the UN itself.

Unfortunately, this office has just been closed permanently, undermining the Secretary-General’s “zero-tolerance” policy on sexual harassment and putting into question the UN’s commitment to priortizing this as in important issue in need of addressing.

Greater attention and improvement are required regarding the handling of sexual harassment and abuse cases involving UN staff, including those in senior management. A staff survey investigating sexual harassment within the organization was carried out in 2018.

Only 17.1 percent of staff responded but of those who did, a third reported they had experienced harassment, with junior and temporary staff being particularly targeted. 12 percent of the perpetrators were in senior leadership positions and incidents were cited in which offenders were not punished or condemned, despite numerous charges being levied against them.

This type of failure was clearly illustrated when the UN’s own internal Dispute Tribunal called the “accountability gap deplorable” in a recent case involving compensation for sexual harassment committed by a previous chair of the International Civil Service Commission against a UN staff member who worked under him.

Although the chair was a UN official elected by the UN General Assembly, he was deemed to be outside the jurisdiction of the UN Secretary-General and as such, no action was taken by the Tribunal. This demonstrates a systemic failure in dealing with cases of this kind.

Sexual harassment and abuse thrive where there is a culture that fosters a lack of accountability that enables perpetrators to act with impunity. Tackling it requires clear and effective leadership to ensure the implementation of adequate safeguarding measures.

Senior management must enact changes to embed transparency across the board, tackle the continuing problem of under-reporting, and provide better support to victims and whistle-blowers who disclose allegations. Only then, will the UN truly be on course to achieve gender equality within its own ranks and stand as a role model for others.

For media enquiries and interview requests please contact Tara Carey at tcarey@equalitynow.org; +44 (0)20 7304 6902; +44 (0)7971 556 340.

*Equality Now is an international human rights organisation that works to protect and promote the rights of women and girls around the world by combining grassroots activism with international, regional and national legal advocacy. It’s international network of lawyers, activists, and supporters achieve legal and systemic change by holding governments responsible for enacting and enforcing laws and policies that end legal inequality, sex trafficking, sexual violence, and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage.

For details of current campaigns, go to www.equalitynow.org, Facebook @equalitynoworg, and Twitter @equalitynow.

 

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• After 75 Years, UN Claims 50:50 Gender Parity, But Falls Short of its Ultimate Goals

The post To Achieve Gender Equality Within, the UN Must Do More to Tackle Sexual Harassment appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Antonia Kirkland is Global Lead on Legal Equality & Access to Justice at Equality Now*

The post To Achieve Gender Equality Within, the UN Must Do More to Tackle Sexual Harassment appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Azadpur Mandi-Wholesale Market, New Delhi, India, Credit: Vaishali Dassani, IFPRI.

By K Nirmal Ravi Kumar and Suresh Chandra Babu
ANDHRA PRADESH, India / WASHINGTON D.C., Sep 30 2020 (IPS)

Farm policy in India is in its own conundrum. If you ask, “what are the major challenges for increasing farmer income?”, any farmer in India would tell us that it is the low remunerative prices for their produces and he or she will add that most of the market margins goes to the middlemen.

Finally, the Government of India is getting the policies right to address these problems through passing three Ordinances viz., Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020; the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, which may have far-reaching implications for agricultural transformation in India.

Though progress in Indian agricultural market reforms has been slow, these ordinances could be a watershed moment for Indian agriculture if they are implemented well. Yet, their implementation solely rests with the state governments making the next move through developing their own contextualized strategies

And yet, the general public are at awe to see that farmers are protesting these policies, which may indeed be a boon to them in the long run. Among the myriad of writings on this issue in the media recently, we seek to inform the reader, “why these legislations have become so contentious and why the farmers are protesting them? We look at them in turn.

 

Ordinance 1 relates to The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020: The provisions of this ordinance intends to create an ecosystem, where farmers and traders enjoy the freedom to sell and buy the farm produce outside the markets notified under the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC).

No market fee will be levied on any farmer or trader in these designated non-mandi trade areas. It also permits free intra-state and inter-state trade movements of farm produces.

The supporters of this legislation argue that it facilitates farmers to transact the produce anywhere in the country. The creation of non-mandi trade areas will provide farmers the freedom of choice to conduct trade for their produce.

The absence of market fees will reduces transaction costs in selling the farm produce. So, this legislation offers a win-win situation for all farmers, consumers and entrepreneurs and will further motivate APMCs to improve their efficiency of operations substantially to serve the farmers better.

The following are seemingly the reasons for the protests. As per Section 2(m) of this Ordinance, the creation of an additional non-mandi trade area may confine APMC mandis to their physical limits and allow big corporate buyers to operate freely.

As per Section 2(n) of this Ordinance, farmers contend that a “trader” cannot be trusted, as the “Arhatiyas” in mandis have the licence approval from APMCs.

Further, due to removal of market fees, it leads to loss of revenue to APMCs and this does not provide a level playing field to compete with private traders. This may lead to gradual collapse of existing APMC mandi system and may end up the MSP based procurement system. The failure of Bihar experiment (which repealed the APMC Act in 2006) may be repeated with this new law.

 

Ordinance 2 relates to The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020.

Through its provisions, the farmer or an FPO may enter into a contract with a sponsor only by written Farming Agreement and there is no provision for verbal agreement between them. This facilitates farmers to transfer market unpredictability to the sponsor and in the process, farmers can enjoy access to cost-effective production technologies, high-quality production systems, direct marketing of farm produce, full price realization and effective dispute resolution mechanisms.

This Ordinance promotes organized agriculture with assured buy-back arrangement with the sponsor, unlike the existing APMC system (led to a cartel formation by traders). This system further ensures regular supply of pre-determined quality of a produce on a steady seasonal basis to meet both domestic demand and international requirements.

However, the farmers opine that they will be the weak players in this sort of agreement, as they must deal with big corporate companies or sponsors. Further, the provisions allow dispute settlement at the Sub-Divisional Magistrate level, which is difficult for the farmers to fight against the big corporates.
Ordinance 3 relates to: The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020.

Provisions of this ordinance empower the Central Government to designate certain commodities (such as food items, fertilizers, and petroleum products) as essential commodities and to regulate the production and supply of certain food items including cereals, pulses, potato, onion, edible oilseeds, and oils, only under extraordinary circumstances like war, famine, extraordinary price rise and natural calamity of grave nature.

Stocks limit may be imposed only if there is 100% increase in retail price of horticultural produces and 50% increase in the retail price of non-perishable agricultural food items. Thus, there will be no storage limit or movement restriction for these commodities.

Supporters of this bill argue that it can help liberalize business operations of private investors, promote ease of doing business, enhance market competition, safeguards the interests of farmers and consumers against irrational spikes in prices of essential commodities etc. It will promote investments in processing, cold storages and thereby, modernize the existing food supply chains.

However, the farmers fear that this ordinance will give corporates the trade advantage through hoarding of commodities and quoting higher prices. The terms used such as ‘extraordinary circumstances’, ‘extraordinary price rise’ or ‘natural calamity of grave nature’ in the Ordinance are subjective in nature which may result in interpretational disputes.

There we have it. While these policy moves are broadly in the right direction to make Indian agricultural sector competitive, they can be the sources of contention in a democratic set up.

Though progress in Indian agricultural market reforms (1990s and 2000s) has been slow, these ordinances could be a watershed moment for Indian agriculture if they are implemented well. Yet, their implementation solely rests with the state governments making the next move through developing their own contextualized strategies.

 

K Nirmal Ravi Kumar, Professor & Head, Department of Agril. Economics, Agricultural College, Bapatla, Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU), Andhra Pradesh, India

Suresh Chandra Babu, Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, D.C.

The post India: Are the Farm Ordinances Against Farmers’ Interests? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Sep 30 2020 (IPS-Partners)

CGIAR-IITA Deputy Director General, Partnerships for Delivery, Kenton Dashiell, has encouraged Nigerians to take up sustainable and profitable opportunities in the country’s agriculture sector. He made this appeal during his keynote address at the National Conference on Agricultural Innovations for Food Security in the Post COVID-19 Era.

In his presentation, Dashiell highlighted multiple technologies and solutions that could help sustainably achieve food security. He emphasized that farmers and other actors in the different agricultural value chains must use proven technologies appropriately and precisely to succeed. Adhering to excellent farm practices and standards will guarantee high levels of productivity, including increased crop yields.

IITA DDG-P4D, Dr Kenton Dashiell spoke extensively about opportunities in the Nigerian agriculture sector

Dashiell also advocated the use of location-specific advice and reviews to optimize the knowledge of local experts. “If you are working to improve your production practices and you are in Kano State, you need to find experts and advice from people in Kano because they know the right way to do it. If you are in Oyo State, go to your experts in Oyo State,” he said. He encouraged people to work with State Agriculture Development Programs or other local experts such as seed companies, agro-dealers, and universities.

Many still think of the old manual methods of farming as representative of the agriculture sector today. However, Dashiell debunked this view and cited several professional opportunities in the different value chains, which he insists people should approach as a business. He spoke of the importance of a business plan, a theme on which other speakers at the conference also focused.

Dashiell outlined some of the innovations that the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) initiative is deploying at scale to strengthen the cassava, maize, rice, aquaculture, and poultry value chains.

NABDA Assistant Director of Agricultural Biotechnology, Dr Rose Gidado, giving a keynote address.

Earlier, the Assistant Director of Agricultural Biotechnology at the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Dr Rose Gidado, spoke about the need to diversify the economy to attain economic growth and food security. Representing the NABDA Acting Director-General Prof. Alex Akpa, she commended the Nigerian government for implementing policies that have strengthened the agriculture sector. Still, she called for more action to help achieve optimum food production levels.

“Nigeria cannot attain food security with the current way agriculture is practiced,” said Gidado. For this to change, she continued, “the nation’s economic growth must be accompanied by diversification of the economy by adopting sustainable and innovative technologies that advance food production.”

The virtual conference, organized by the AgroBusiness Times, focused on aggregating sustainable innovations for food security during the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria and globally.

This story was first published by IITA

The post Hundreds of sustainable and profitable agribusiness opportunities available in Nigeria – IITA DDG appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The post To Achieve Progress on Gender Equality, Gender Data Must Be at the Forefront appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

New research reveals significant gender data gaps in the Latin America and Caribbean region.

The post To Achieve Progress on Gender Equality, Gender Data Must Be at the Forefront appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Coral Reefs restoration at the coast of Banaire in the Caribbean. Credit: UN Environment Programme

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 2020 (IPS)

The coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed the lives of over one million people worldwide and destabilized the global economy, also upended the UN’s ambitious socio-economic goals, including the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by 2030.

While extreme poverty rates have fallen in past years, says Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, “it is projected that between 70 and 100 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty as a result of the pandemic”.

And by the end of 2020, she warned, an additional 265 million people could face acute food shortages.

According to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, ocean levels are rising quicker than expected, “putting some of our biggest and most economically important cities at risk”. More than two-thirds of the world’s megacities are located by the sea. And while the oceans are rising, they are also being poisoned,” Guterres warned.

And as the planet burns, one million species in the world’s eco-system are in near-term danger of extinction.

Meanwhile, the international community has failed to live up to its commitments – and meet all of its targets — on biodiversity

Just ahead of the first-ever UN Biodiversity Summit on September 30, Volkan Bozkir, President of the General Assembly lamented the fact that none of the 20 biodiversity targets agreed by Member States in Aichi, Japan a decade ago, “have been fully achieved”.

“Words and good intentions are clearly not enough. They will not clean the oceans, save elephants, or prevent deforestation. Only our actions can do that,” he declared.

The recently-released United Nations’ Global Biodiversity Outlook 5 reveals that biodiversity is declining at record rates, and only six of the 20 goals laid out by 2010’s Aichi Biodiversity Targets have been “partially achieved.”

The study shows some areas of progress, but it found “the natural world is suffering badly and getting worse.” And if the world continues on its current trajectory, biodiversity– and the services it provides– will continue to decline, jeopardizing the achievement of the UN’s highly-touted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it warned.

Asked for the reasons for this shortfall, Dr. Anne Larigauderie, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) told IPS the Global Outlook confirms and builds on the findings of the IPBES Global Assessment Report – including the new report-card on the progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity targets.

“One of the reasons for this shortfall is that we, collectively, including Governments, but also the private sector, have failed to seriously address the direct causes of biodiversity loss, including land use change (deforestation, urban sprawl etc.), overexploitation of resources (terrestrial and marine), and climate change, as well as the underlying causes, which relate to our economy, institutions, governance, and which are all deeply anchored in our values and behaviors.”

“We need to better understand and address the causes of these losses and act upon them. Another main reason is that considerations about biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people have still not been brought to the centre of decision-making,” she noted.

Dr. Larigauderie pointed out that the “health of our natural environment very directly influences almost every aspect of development – from food and water security, to livelihoods, health and even peace and security”.

To achieve SDGs requires nature to be a key consideration in decisions, policies, investments and actions across all parts of the economy and society.

“This is how we can achieve the transformative change needed to address our increasingly frayed relationship with the rest of nature”, she declared.

Meanwhile, a study released mid-September noted that, since 1993, and the Convention on Biodiversity, up to four dozen animal species have been saved.

This was done, said the President of the General Assembly, with local, national and international action and included habitat protection, species reintroduction, and legal protections, amongst other efforts.

“This demonstrates that we can deliver”, he declared.

The goal is to build political momentum for the Convention on Biodiversity’s Conference of the Parties (COP15), in Kunming, China in 2021, where world leaders will agree to an ambitious plan of action on biodiversity.

“Kunming needs to turn biodiversity into a household concern and political issue. Everyone must realize the risks of inaction,” said Bozkir.

Asked how devastating has been the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the state of biodiversity worldwide, Dr. Larigauderie said direct impacts of the pandemic on global biodiversity are not yet well-researched – “but we are all aware of anecdotal evidence, both positive and negative, such as reports about the resurgence of nature in some areas and improved air quality, as well as increased waste related to disposal of personal protective equipment and the unfortunate and unjustified targeting of some species of wild animals”.

“But the way you phrase the question is also indicative of a challenge – the impact of COVID-19 on people and economies cannot be separated from a proper analysis of its impact on biodiversity, because the two are totally interlinked”.

She argued that lockdown has essentially halted eco-tourism in many areas, not only damaging livelihoods but also massively reducing resources available to conservation.

Stimulus packages to drive economic recovery contain within them either nature-positive measures or more regressive ones that could in fact raise the risk of future pandemics by accelerating nature loss, she declared.

IPS: What are your expectations of the UN’s first-ever Summit on Biodiversity which is aimed at providing political direction and momentum for the development of a post-2020 global biodiversity framework?

Dr.Larigauderie: To achieve the SDGs requires the implementation of an ambitious and well-resourced post-2020 biodiversity framework. The UN Nature Summit is the best opportunity for decision-makers in Government, the private sector and civil society to already raise the levels of ambition for the negotiations next year and to recommit to policies, decisions and actions informed by the best-available science and expertise.

IPS: How adequate is the proposed funding for actions related to biodiversity– estimated at between $78 – $91 billion per year– compared with the estimated $500 billion spent on fossil fuels and other subsidies that cause environmental degradation?

Dr. Larigauderie: The IPBES mandate is to provide evidence and policy options for better-informed decisions – we do not prescribe or make normative judgements. That said, the IPBES Assessment Report on Land Degradation and Restoration found, for instance, that on average, the benefits of restoration are 10 times higher than the costs, and, for some regions the cost of inaction in the face of land degradation is at least three times higher than the cost of action.

The IPBES Global Assessment Report also identified the removal of harmful incentives and the promotion of nature-positive ones as some of the specific possible actions that would drive transformative change for people and nature. Harmful subsidies include, for instance, Government grants for pesticides, to unsustainable fishing, and to fossil fuels, which all drive the loss of biodiversity.

IPS: Any indications of the new set of targets currently under negotiation, for 2021-2030, and to go before the 15th Conference of Parties of the Convention of Biological Diversity, scheduled to be held in Kunming, China, in May 2021?

Dr. Larigauderie: These are exactly the discussions that have started and will continue under the Open-Ended Working Group on the post-2020 biodiversity framework and which have already resulted in a publicly available zero-draft of the framework to be negotiated, and subsequent comments thereon.

The post A 10-Year-Old Commitment to Biodiversity Misses Virtually All of its Targets appeared first on Inter Press Service.