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Why Investing in Women Is Key to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Tue, 06/01/2021 - 10:33

Credit: iFarmer

By Kaveh Zahedi
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jun 1 2021 (IPS)

Last year, the Asia-Pacific region recorded its worst economic performance in decades. With the pandemic far from over, the region’s recovery is slow, fragile and highly uneven both across and within countries. As the region struggles to recover, how can countries rebuild their economies and revive their development?

The answer can be found in the flea market of Suva, the Facebook commerce online stores of Bangladesh, and the digital learning centers across Viet Nam. In these and so many other spots across the Asia-Pacific region, it is clear that women entrepreneurs are a driving force of recovery and the mainspring of commerce and technology. While we have always known that women entrepreneurs play an essential role in supporting inclusive economic growth in the region, the pandemic has made it more evident than ever that countries ignore women’s role as job creators, employees and contributors to economic expansion at their peril.

Advancing women’s equality in the Asia-Pacific region could add as much as US$ 4.5 trillion – a 12 per cent increase – to the region’s GDP annually by 2025. With the economic slump that countries now face, none can afford to continue to miss out on this largely untapped dividend.

That is why ESCAP – in collaboration with the Government of Canada – initiated the Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship (CWE) programme. The programme addresses three fundamental barriers that are hindering the growth of women-led businesses.

The first is lack of access to finance. The programme works to unlock private capital and use this capital to support women enterprises. This capital – whether as loans, equity, or blended finance – is used to provide targeted support to women entrepreneurs. It has created partnerships and used blended finance to support a range of gender-smart investment mechanisms, including a FinTech challenge fund, impact investment, and a women’s livelihood bond. To date, the programme has supported over 7,000 women to access formal financial services and has unlocked over US$50 million in private capital for women entrepreneurs.

The second barrier is policy. Existing policies and laws often do not recognize the specific issues women-led Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) face.

The programme is working to influence national Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) policies and laws with Government partners in six countries. For example, in Cambodia, the programme worked with the Ministry of Industry Science Technology and Innovation to review the national SME policy and included special measures for women-led MSMEs.

COVID-19 has illustrated that businesses need to have greater resilience and the ability to ensure continuity through times of crisis. This is even more critical in places where other challenges like vulnerability to disasters and climate change have been in play. In Viet Nam, the past year has seen an extreme impact on agricultural farmers – a vast majority of them being women – because of the drought and saltwater intrusion. Based on consultations with female farmers and provincial officials in Ben Tre province – the largest agricultural bed of the country – the programme is developing a strategy to address the impact of climate change on female farmers in the Mekong Delta region.

The third barrier to growth in women-led businesses is skills. Women entrepreneurs need support to become equipped with digital and business skills to manage, sustain and grow their businesses.The CWE programme has assisted women entrepreneurs to use digital tools in their financial management and leveraging e-commerce to reach new clients and expand to new markets. In Cambodia, CWE is helping women entrepreneurs to use the Kotra Riel mobile app, which allows them to record income and expenses, and more importantly, to prepare financial records for their loan and financing applications.

All of these barriers have been in play in the aftermath of the pandemic. As a result, the impact on women and women entrepreneurs across the region has been disproportionate to their male counterparts. Women have continued to take the burden of unpaid care work and homeschooling. Sectors in which women employees work – such as the garment sector – have been hit harder than other industries, impacting women’s employment. Women entrepreneurs, who predominately make up the informal sector, face a range of financial and digital literacy constraints affecting business continuity.

Over the past year, we heard incredible stories of the resilience of the women entrepreneurs that our programme is supporting. We have seen women entrepreneurs repositioning their businesses and building back not only better but more agile, more capable and better prepared for shocks.

Take for example our partner iFarmer, in Bangladesh that quickly established new digitally enabled supply chains to keep women-led businesses running and providing food delivery Or the women enterprise recovery fund, in collaboration with our partners at UNCDF, that is co-financing fintech solutions that support women entrepreneur’s resilience and recovery.

But the scale of the challenge also requires a change in our response. In 2021 we will continue to scale up our work, leverage more capital, replicate and scale up our financing initiatives and share what we have learned. To increase the footprint of the programme, we are also leveraging regional partnerships, including with organizations like ASEAN.

Building back better means ensuring that women entrepreneurs not only survive this crisis but thrive coming out of it. This requires scaling up the resources directed to women-run businesses exponentially. Now that we have the model for success, we are looking for partners from across the private sector and development landscape to help us do just that. Because quite simply, the smartest investment for the SDGs is in the women of Asia and the Pacific.

Find out more at: https://www.unescap.org/projects/cwe

Kaveh Zahedi is the Deputy Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

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Categories: Africa

2021: The Year that Matters for the Poorest People on the Planet

Tue, 06/01/2021 - 10:05

Women and girls, like Susmita who lives in the Sundarbans, West Bengal, spend an estimated 200 million hours a year walking to fetch water, and climate change is making things even worse. Credit: Wateraid/Ranita

By Jonathan Farr
LONDON, Jun 1 2021 (IPS)

This year is being described as pivotal for climate change. That’s not only because we’re reaching a point of no return when it comes to the rise in global temperature, it’s because the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties – commonly known as COP26 – is due to take place in November in Glasgow.

COP26 is widely considered the last chance for governments to combat the global climate catastrophe. In the wake of the pandemic, the summit will offer world leaders the chance to reimagine how their countries can bounce back with greener, sustainable economies.

It’ll also be the first time that signatories of the landmark Paris Agreement all gather together. Adopted by nearly 200 nations in 2015, it legally binds them to hold global temperature rise to below 2C.

Quite rightly, in the lead up to COP26, focus is on tracking the progress signatories have made towards meeting those targets, as there’s no denying that failure to reduce emissions will result in cataclysmic climate impacts.

But on this World Environment Day on June 5, it needs to be highlighted that for millions of people, climate change is not some threat in a far-off future, but a reality they’re facing right now.

Significantly, the Paris Agreement, while heralded as a moment of unity in providing a global game plan to tackle one of the biggest challenges of our time, the playing field for dealing with climate change, isn’t level at all.

It is vulnerable communities in the world’s poorest countries who’ve done the least to contribute to the climate emergency that are the ones living with its severe effects. Take Mozambique, whose CO2 emissions in 2017 were 7.7 million tonnes. But in that same year, the UK released 379 million tonnes of CO2 – 50 times as much. 1

Yet in 2018, Mozambique’s capital Maputo almost ran out of water following three years of drought. And a year later, the country experienced unprecedented, widespread, and devastating flooding.

Access to clean water is one of the fundamental ways the climate crisis impacts on communities. 2.2 billion people do not have a reliable and safe supply of water, and climate change is making it harder for them to get clean water.

Extreme weather events caused by climate change, such as prolonged droughts, dry up water sources, while rising sea levels and flooding pollute poorly protected water supplies. More people – often women and girls– are having to travel farther for water.

Susmita Mandal Jana, 22 is a housewife, living in the Madhab Nagar area of Sundarbans, West Bengal. A round trip to collect water takes her one hour, and she crosses a rickety bridge over a canal about two to three times a day – while carrying heavy water containers.

Frequent phenomenon in the area are high tides, which can be a consequence of rising sea levels. When they occur, the canal gushes with water, making the walk over the bridge even more perilous. Susmita says: “The water quality is not good either. This water that I collect now is salty.”

Despite the UN climate process, currently, only 5% of total global climate cash is spent helping countries adapt to the changing climate 2, and that money isn’t even getting through to communities most vulnerable to climate change.

But as it’s communities on the frontlines of climate change, who best know how to respond to its effects, more investment in adaptation is needed.

There are practical solutions which are being piloted to address this. Initiatives, such as the recently launched Resilient Water Accelerator. Led by HRH The Prince of Wales’ Sustainable Markets Initiative, the accelerator will aim to protect 50 million people from climate and health threats with clean water, by ensuring that more finance is fast tracked towards providing communities’ with vital water services.

Other organisations are deeply involved in this area of work such as the UN Development Programme working with the government in Bangladesh and the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office to create a disaster management programme and the Dutch government’s programme Water as Leverage for Resilient Cities in Asia.

But with less than 1% of total global climate investment going to basic water infrastructure and services, more needs to be done. COP26 is the moment to change do this, to help people like Susmita cope with the impacts of climate change.

As the hosts of COP26, the UK government must lead the way in pushing for other countries to set more ambitious climate finance goals. WaterAid is calling for the Government to ensure at least one-third of its committed international climate finance goes to locally-led adaptation projects. By pledging this, lives will be saved.

1 https://washmatters.wateraid.org/blog/who-is-picking-up-the-bill-for-climate-crisis-inertia
2 https://washmatters.wateraid.org/publications/just-add-water-climate-finance

Excerpt:

The writer is a Senior Policy Analyst at WaterAid

The following Oped is part of a series of articles to commemorate World Environment Day June 5

Categories: Africa

Africa’s Forgotten Crisis

Tue, 06/01/2021 - 09:22

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

World leaders need to act for children and youth struggling to survive and thrive.

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Jun 1 2021 (IPS)

A few weeks ago, I traveled with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi to the Modale refugee site in the Nord-Ubangi province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). What we witnessed there was a profound humanitarian crisis that has left 4.7 million children and youth in need of urgent, life-saving, life-changing educational support.

Yasmine Sherif

Here on the frontlines of violence, forced displacement, climate change-induced disasters, and COVID-19, an entire generation of children are at risk of being left so far behind they will never catch up.

Fleeing the chaos and insecurity connected with last year’s presidential elections in the neighboring Central African Republic (CAR), they have fled on foot through dense forests, hiding from violent militias. They have crossed raging rivers. They’ve lost loved ones. These children are now living far from their homes, without enough food to eat, many on the verge of losing their last hope.

In CAR, one in every four schools is not functional because of fighting, and half of the country’s children are out of school. 70% of the CAR refugee children have never been to school in their entire life.

They are the lost girls and lost boys of Africa.

And these CAR refugee children are not just lost in the DRC. CAR refugees are flooding across the Central African Republic border into Cameroon, Chad, the DRC and other nations. Elsewhere in Africa, schools are being targeted for attacks and students, their teachers and their communities live in constant fear.

With no education – and no lifeline – this lost generation of young people has few options. Out-of-school girls are at higher risk of sexual exploitation, violence and early pregnancy. Boys may be forced to join armed groups, Boko Haram or turn to kidnapping as is happening in Nigeria. Families fearful for their daughters’ lives might force them into child marriage as a means to protect them.

We have both a legal and a moral obligation to protect the rights of every child against such violations. We, as a global community, can no longer turn a blind eye to what is happening in countries like the Central African Republic and other crisis-affected countries in Africa.

So, what can be done?

For 30 years I’ve worked in and around the United Nations, whose Charter promised all generations to respect human rights, and to build a more peaceful, more prosperous world. Every government is part of this multilateral body and every world leader has thus made a commitment to live by its principles and values.

We’ve made progress, but it has been uneven. The cycle of poverty, violence and forced displacement – all exacerbated by the pandemic – appears never-ending.

We must take bold action and courageous steps to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. Through SDG4, governments across the world have agreed to ensure equitable, inclusive quality education for every girl and boy by 2030. Without an inclusive and continued quality education, all the other Sustainable Development Goals will be impossible to achieve. Education is the very foundation for reducing poverty, achieving gender-equality and creating a more just and peaceful world.

The UN’s global fund for education in emergencies, Education Cannot Wait, has now achieved a proven record of results, reaching children and youth in the darkest spots and most dangerous places on earth. These are countries where armed conflict, climate change and forced displacement are deeply intertwined.

In connecting the dots, it is clear that the only way to achieve all the global goals – and to reach the Paris Climate Agreement targets and other global accords ¬– is to begin with education. Education is both foundational and transformational.

It is a daunting task. COVID-19 has now pushed some 128 million crisis-affected girls and boys worldwide out of an education. That’s more than the total populations of the United Kingdom and Canada combined.

Providing these children and youth with an education is not only a legal and moral obligation. It is a game changer and a tipping point. It’s an investment in more resilient economies. It’s an investment in global peace. It’s an investment in local efforts to build strong nations. It’s an investment in our common humanity and our common future. Eventually, it will cost us more not to invest in them.

On our visit to Modale, I met with hundreds of young girls and boys whose only hope in this world is to be able to attend school, learn, develop and become economically self-reliant. School for them means a place safe from attacks – especially if governments step up efforts on the global Safe Schools Declaration. For this lost generation of Africa, school means a chance to learn to read and write. It is a chance for girls and boys to become doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses and political leaders. It’s a chance for them to not only build back better, but also to build forward together. For these children, education is their hope for a better future.

I urge world leaders, public and private sector donors and other key stakeholders to turn their eyes to the grave violations against children and youth happening every day throughout Africa. We cannot afford to leave a single one of these young people behind.

Urgent financing by donors in the tens of millions of dollars each is needed, and it is needed now. Because if we cannot do it now, when can we do it? And if we let their education wait, what price will they and we all pay?

Together, we can take action now. Their education and our humanity cannot wait. We need to act, as Martin Luther King Jr once said, with “the fierce urgency of now.”

Excerpt:

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

World leaders need to act for children and youth struggling to survive and thrive.

Categories: Africa

Pandemic Relief Policies Need More Resources, Better Design

Tue, 06/01/2021 - 08:54

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 1 2021 (IPS)

Pandemic relief measures in developing countries have been limited by modest resources, fear of financial market discipline and policy mimicry. COVID-19 has triggered not only an international public health emergency, but also a global economic crisis, setting back decades of uneven progress, especially in developing countries.

Struggling to cope
The pandemic’s economic and social impacts weigh more heavily on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The World Bank estimated that the pandemic pushed 119 to 124 million more people into extreme poverty in 2020.

Anis Chowdhury

The Bank also reported disproportionately larger business impacts in terms of closures, drops in sales, greater corporate debt and financial fragility. Meanwhile, households in poorer countries saw greater food insecurity as well as income and educational losses.

It also found public debt surging in many developing economies as a rising number of LMICs had greater difficulties servicing official debt. Facing sharp falls in tourism and export earnings, access to foreign credit for many has deteriorated.

Urgent financing needs
LMICs must address various urgent needs and other short-term problems. They need to finance emergency contagion containment and relief measures for those most adversely hit by the pandemic.

These would minimally include the costs of diagnostic testing, personal protective equipment for ‘frontline’ personnel, medical treatments for those infected, and urgent vaccination to mitigate further infections.

Liquidity support – e.g., low-interest loans and wage subsidies – can also be vital for the survival of businesses and workers. But in most countries, such credit facilities have mainly benefited more influential larger enterprises.

Policy and fiscal space as well as policy design are key elements influencing implementation of economic measures to cope with COVID-19 recessions. These require understanding the specific nature of recessions and options available, as distinct from simply following what others have done or recommend.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

COVID-19 recessions different
What makes the pandemic economic shocks different? First, SARS-COV2 is a highly contagious aerosol-borne virus with variants and mutations rapidly evolving, with mixed, uneven, even deadly effects. COVID-19 has affected most countries, albeit with varying and unequal economic consequences.

Second, both supply and demand shocks have had mainly negative effects. The pandemic directly affected the ability to work, earn and spend. Containment measures have also hit production, supplies and incomes. In turn, these have lowered demand, spending and incentives for firms to invest.

Third, the shocks have worsened existing disparities and other inequalities. Fourth, they especially hurt LMICs, typically lacking fiscal resources and relevant governance capacities to better cope with the pandemic.

Government as ‘payer-of-last-resort’
Misreading the COVID-19 shocks and expecting brief V-shaped recessions, some novel fiscal and monetary measures were hastily introduced to assist businesses and workers. These typically emulated measures in developed economies including temporary tax relief, low interest loans, cash transfers and wage subsidies.

Many high- and upper middle-income governments have served as ‘payers-of-last-resort’, helping ‘suspended’ businesses to continue paying their involuntarily idle employees, instead of firing them.

Large firms have also been able to get governments to help settle some of their unavoidable bills, to cover their overheads and maintenance costs – such as rent, utility and other payments – during ‘stay in shelter’ lockdowns.

Such ‘payer-of-last-resort’ programmes have successfully complemented effective contagion containment measures, enabling early resumption of economic activity. While high, such costs can remain manageable if governments can secure sufficient fiscal resources and space.

Policy blind spots
There has not been enough consideration of country specific circumstances, or social, economic, cultural and institutional circumstances. Thus, large informal sectors, crowded slums and limited social protection in developing countries have been largely overlooked, or worse, ignored.

Unsurprisingly, most financing disbursed via various official channels have not reached most in the informal sector. These resources have not provided much relief to small and micro-enterprises, let alone the self-employed.

However, much of what was offered to large firms were not used due to uncertainty and reduced domestic spending options. Meanwhile, significant resources have ‘leaked out’ of many developing countries, including via corruption as well as tax and other incentives for foreign investors.

Such failures in policy responses and poor design have greatly impaired prospects for quick and equitable COVID-19 containment and recovery. They have also exacerbated various inequalities within and among countries.

Diverging recoveries
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects divergent so-called k-shaped recoveries, leaving many LMICs and the vast majorities in most societies further behind. With ongoing vaccine apartheid and nationalism, early hopes of quickly addressing the crises in LMICs have faded.

Vaccinations in these countries have been much delayed, while donor countries, such as the UK, have significantly cut aid. Thus, economic crises in LMICs are far from over, delaying recovery with often disastrous consequences.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has even warned that uneven global recovery would ‘ricochet’ as “poorer countries are faced with the risk of interest rates increasing while their economies aren’t growing, and may find themselves ‘really strangled’ to service debt, especially if it’s dollar-denominated”.

Appropriate relief measures
All governments must try their best to prevent protracted recessions becoming extended depressions. Relatedly, policymakers need to ensure that temporary short-term liquidity problems do not become full-blown solvency crises.

Measures are needed to change contracts and other obligations to enable firms to better cope with involuntary suspension of business operations. Much more is needed to address specific challenges facing small family businesses.

Income maintenance policies can help those losing some, if not all their incomes. Often unable to earn their livelihoods from home, lowly paid and casual workers are more likely to be displaced by lockdowns. Typically, they have much less in savings to ride out temporary earnings losses.

Social protection has been poorly, if at all institutionalised in most developing countries. Instead, temporary ‘social safety nets’, in response to crises, have been recommended and deemed adequate by influential foreign agencies.

Such ‘one-off’ relief measures, typically involving targeting, usually miss many of the deserving as they strive, often at great cost, to prevent opportunistic ‘undeserving free-riders’ abusing such chances to secure benefits.

Recoveries threatened
Appropriate design and efficient implementation of adequate relief measures are also vital for enabling robust and equitable recovery. These can be crucial to the survival of businesses – especially micro- and small ones – and vulnerable people.

The absence of sufficient relief measures can strengthen vicious circles of business failures, job and income losses. Declining aid inflows, more capital flight and inadequate relief for high government debt even before the pandemic have prevented most developing countries from deploying the bolder measures needed.

Facing financing constraints, many low-income countries have even cut spending! Fearing punitive market responses and longer-term problems, many developing country governments have been reluctant to borrow more. The urgent challenge now, however, is to enable them to wisely and equitably spend more.

Categories: Africa

World Environment Day 2021

Mon, 05/31/2021 - 21:13

By External Source
May 31 2021 (IPS-Partners)

These are just some of the beautiful ecosystems that we are lucky to have on our planet.

An ecosystem is the interaction between living things and their surroundings – from plants to animals to people.

The health of our ecosystems is what keeps us humans alive.

But we are destroying them and losing them at an alarming rate.

Forest areas the size of a country like Denmark are destroyed every year.

That’s the same as losing one football pitch every three seconds.

More than half of the world’s wetlands have disappeared over the last century.

Greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow and our planet is now at risk of a climate change catastrophe.

Imagine this: COVID-19 and everything that it did to our way of life is an example of what happens when ecosystems are allowed to die.

When a natural habitat for animals begins to shrink, we create the ideal conditions for harmful diseases to spread from them to us.

But we can make a change for the better.

We can act now to help the children of our future. Like me.

This year’s World Environment Day is all about Ecosystem Restoration.

It is a call for all of us to do our part in helping to heal our world and build a better future for everyone.

Restoring our ecosystems is a massive world project to repair billions of hectares of land so that people have access to food, clean water and jobs.

It means bringing back plants and animals from the brink of extinction.

But it also involves many small acts of kindness that every human can take – like planting a tree, rewilding our gardens, cleaning up trash and asking others to do the same.

The next 10 years of our lives are so important.

Categories: Africa

Motorcycle Diaries with a Twist

Mon, 05/31/2021 - 20:21

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, May 31 2021 (IPS)

Four women, two motorbikes, 64 districts and a journey of a lifetime, this is the story of Dr. Sakia Haque from Bangladesh. In November 2016, Dr Haque co-founded “Travelettes of Bangladesh – Bhromon Konya,” a women’s only group, with the motto of “empowering women through travelling.” This platform is not just an ordinary online travel group, but it is a platform of connection, sisterhood and networking of almost 60,000 girls and women in Bangladesh that empowers them by teaching them to raise their voices and encourages them to step out of their comfort zones and to “go see the world”.

Dr. Sakia Haque

“I believe motorcycles give us freedom, you have amazing views, you can stop whenever you want to and you get to see so much beauty around you,” says Dr. Sakia in an interview to me. “We wanted to prove that women can do it, they can step out of their comfort zones and travel, also because everyone was against it, our families and our society. Have you ever seen a girl ride a bike? They would say this to keep us dependent. It was a rare site, no doubt about that, but now, a lot of women ride scooters and motorcycles.”

When Dr. Sakia is not traveling, she works as a Medical officer, Disease control, Civil surgeon office, at Cox’s Bazar, one of the largest refugee camps in the world. Dr Sakia likes to call herself a full time doctor and a part time traveller. Using her knowledge of medicine and her passion for the outdoors, Dr. Sakia took her travelling as an opportunity to connect with young girls she would meet on the way and engage them in open discussions on their rights, sexual and reproductive health, particularly about menstruation, which is often considered a taboo topic in the country.

“We wanted to go to the root level, talk to women, understand what they are facing and interact with them. What we realized is, it is hard to pour water in a cup which is already full, and that was the reason behind choosing school going girls because we felt we could motivate them more. They were much more open minded towards grasping the idea of empowerment, so that became our goal.”

Dr. Sakia has spent over two years on the road, through highways, small towns, villages, muddy rural roads, including sandy river-chars, stopping at one school in each district/ area they visited. However the road and this journey has not always been an easy one, Dr. Sakia and her fellow volunteers have faced multiple challenges and a lot of criticism for their work. They have been harassed on the roads, eve-teased while riding through cities and even questioned, what and why they were doing what they were doing.

“Women on bikes and traveling alone is not something people were used to seeing, atleast not five-six years ago. But now, women don’t even need Travelettes of Bangladesh to go anywhere, and this is what we wanted, we didn’t want women to depend or rely on any organizations. We wanted them to go on their own, travel on their own, so this has been a major change in the country,” says Dr. Haque.

In Spite of this significant achievement for women in the country, Bangladeshi women and girls continue to face violence in all facets of their lives. In a report published by the Humans Rights Watch, titled, “‘I Sleep in My Own Deathbed’: Violence against Women and Girls in Bangladesh,” draws on 50 interviews to document the obstacles and challenges women face in the country. Human Rights Watch found that “despite some important advances, the government’s response remains deeply inadequate, barriers to reporting assault or seeking legal recourse are frequently insurmountable, and services for survivors are in short supply.”

In an interview given to me earlier by Shireen Huq, a women’s rights activist and founder of Naripokko, a non-profit organization that has been working on women’s rights and impact of sexual violence in Bangladesh since 1983, said “ There is a culture of impunity in the country and when it comes to accessing justice, corruption continues to be a major obstacle. Violence, male dominance and male aggression have existed for years, the tendency to glorify that these things didn’t happen in the past, and that it’s only happening now in our lifetime, is not true. Misogyny has been part of our culture, politics and society for centuries, especially across South Asia.

“At the root of sexual violence there is a culture of misogyny and toxic masculinity that drives it. Looking at the gang rapes that happened in 2020 which sparked off a huge movement in Bangladesh in October, they were all committed by the student wing or the youth wing of the ruling party.”, Shireen said.

According to Ain O Salish Kendra, a Bangladeshi human rights organization, 975 women were raped in the first nine months of 2020, 43 women were killed after being raped and 204 women were attempted to be raped by men in Bangladesh.

Despite a number of major strides made by women in Bangladesh over the past decades, which includes right to vote since 1947, electing its first female Prime Minister in 1991, Bangladesh has the eight lowest gender gap in political empowerment in the world, partially due to the fact that it has had a female head of government for longer than any other country in the world. The proportion of seats held by women in the national parliament doubled from 10 percent in 1990 to 20 percent in 2011.

Bangladesh could be a textbook example of “what is possible when women are involved in decision-making positions”, however unless the Bangladeshi government doesnt take concrete actions, works on making structural reforms against sexual violence and domestic violence against women, and remove obstacles to reporting violence and obtaining justice, no progress can be made in the country.

“The Bangladeshi justice system is failing women and girls with devastating consequences,” says Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should seize this pivotal moment to implement real reform that could save lives and promote the equal society it envisions,” Ganguly said.

The challenge not only lies in the lack of acknowledgement in government structures, but also in the need to create and put in place gender responsive policies that would pave the way for a more equitable environment.

While Dr. Sakia has managed to shatter a big glass ceiling in the country, making solo female travellers a more common sight than what it was before, she has also challenged the notions of what a woman can or cannot do, including riding a motorbike – with or without the street harassment and violence.

“What women also need to do now is know their value and worth, and believe in whatever they want to achieve. Collective workshops are not enough, we have to instill the idea that a woman can be empowered, because she is equal to a man, not just physically, but this equality comes from the mind and her belief system, that’s the change we need,” says Dr. Sakia.

The author is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi. She hosts a weekly online show called The Sania Farooqui Show where Muslim women from around the world are invited to share their views.

Categories: Africa

Is Sharing More than Water the Key to Transboundary Governance in the Meghna River Basin?

Mon, 05/31/2021 - 16:12

The Meghna River Basin is significant to both Bangladesh and India as it supports the livelihoods of almost 50 million people. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
DHAKA, May 31 2021 (IPS)

Kajol Miah is a rice farmer from the Bangladesh side of the Meghna River Basin. And in towns on the Indian side of the river basin, Bangladeshi rice is in great demand.

The example is a simple one that highlights the concept of benefit sharing between riparian countries. Benefit sharing goes beyond the mere sharing of water resources. It includes equitably dividing the goods, products and services connected to the watercourse.

According to Raquibul Amin, country representative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Bangladesh, benefit sharing can provide a solution to conserve water resources and ensure integrated and cooperative management of the Meghna River Basin.

“Negotiations on benefit sharing are based on the principles of the International Water Law, such as reasonable and equitable utilisation of the shared water resources, not inflicting harm, and achieving win-win outcomes for multiple stakeholders,” Amin told IPS, adding that governance based on benefit sharing was more holistic than traditional governance, which has historically been about allocating water.

One example of traditional water governance is the 1996 Ganges Water Treaty between India and Bangladesh, which is based on sharing volumes of water.

But, according to Amin, parties negotiating a benefit sharing agreement are usually not interested in the water itself, but rather in the economic opportunities and ecosystem services that can be obtained and enhanced through the joint management of a river basin.

The Meghna River Basin is significant to both Bangladesh and India as it supports the livelihoods of almost 50 million people.

The area is also considerably large — almost twice the size of Switzerland — with 47,000 km2 of the basin located in India and 35,000 km2 located downstream in Bangladesh.

A rice paddy in the haor region of Bangladesh. Benefit sharing goes beyond the mere sharing of water resources. It includes equitably dividing the goods, products and services connected to the watercourse. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

Close to 90 percent of the forest or watershed of the Meghna river basin is located in India and is the source of river water flowing downstream into Bangladesh. For example, the Meghalaya plateau in India is rich in forests and is the source of many transboundary tributaries of the Meghna river system, such as the Umngot and the Myntdu, flowing from Jaintia hills into the haor region of Bangladesh, known for numerous wetlands of considerable areal extent representing important sites for fish breeding.

Tanguar haor and Hakaluki haor are examples of wetland ecosystems rich in aquatic diversity and a roosting place for many migratory species of birds. Both are Ramsar sites, and Hakaluki haor holds the designation of Bangladesh’s largest inland waterbody.

But what happens upstream, affects downstream. This can be seen in the nearly 6 million tonnes of sediment that flows from the Indian side of the basin, down to Bangladesh’s haor region which creates problems for the management of these wetlands.

“The benefit sharing approach to water dialogue will allow the two countries to engage in joint management of the forest and wetlands. The natural infrastructure of the Meghna Basin is critical for the maintenance of its hydrology,” Amin said.

Amin noted that Bangladesh and India can discuss ways to jointly manage the forest of the basin for improving flood and silt management — two main challenges that affect the productivity of the fisheries and agriculture sector in the Surma-Kushiyara region in the Upper Meghna Basin in Bangladesh.

Miah, who is a resident from Kalmakanda in the Netrakona District, has also experienced recurring floods.

“We, the haor [wetland ecosystem] dwellers, are dependent on Boro [rice] paddy as there is no alternative to cultivating other crops in haors. But, flash floods frequently damage our lone crop for lack of proper flood forecast, putting our life in trouble,” he told IPS.

The fortunes of rice farmers of the haor also impacts Bangladesh’s food security as their rice production constitutes 20 percent of the country’s total rice production.

The dialogue of benefit sharing for the Meghna River Basin is part of a larger project by IUCN called Building River Dialogue and Governance in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basins (BRIDGE GBM), funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) through the Oxfam Transboundary Rivers of South Asia (TROSA) programme.

The Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna or GBM delta is a transboundary river system that traverses the five countries of Nepal, India, China, Bangladesh, and Bhutan.

“IUCN is providing a neutral platform for facilitating transboundary dialogues and joint research among the relevant stakeholders from Bangladesh and India. These have documented a variety of ecosystem benefits provided by the Meghna River Basin, and identified priority areas, such as joint management of forest for flood and erosion control, development of transboundary navigation and ecotourism circuits where the two countries can work jointly to enhance these benefits from the basin,” Vishwa Ranjan Sinha, Programme Officer, Natural Resources Group, IUCN Asia Regional Office, told IPS.

IUCN developed a six-step process to support the development of benefit sharing agreements in a shared river basin:

identifying benefits provided by the basin,
identifying stakeholders and potential equity issues,
identifying and building benefit-enhancing scenarios,
assessing and distributing benefits and costs,
negotiating a benefit sharing agreement, and
strengthening the institutional arrangement for the implementation of the agreement.

IUCN also facilitated joint research and data sharing on land use and socio-economic changes across the Meghna River Basin to create data and evidence for the bilateral dialogue. Institutions conducting research include the Dhaka-based think-tank Centre for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) and the Asian Centre for Development as well as India’s Northeast Hill University and the Institute of Economic Growth.

Dr. Malik Fida A Khan, executive director of CEGIS, is optimistic of the advantages of benefit sharing. If done well, he told IPS, local communities of both countries will come forward to support the joint management of the basin because it provides for their livelihoods. He said their mutual benefit could also lead to data sharing for each other’s benefits.

Freshwater Conservation is one of the themes of the IUCN World Conservation Congress, which will be held from Sept.3-11, 2021 in Marseille. One of the Congress sessions will specifically focus on nature-based solutions that have been used as a tool to strengthen inclusive governance in the BRIDGE GBM project.

** Writing with Nalisha Adams in BONN, Germany

Categories: Africa

Slower Population Growth: The Goods and the Bads

Mon, 05/31/2021 - 11:28

Credit: Maricel Sequeira/IPS

By Joel E. Cohen and Joseph Chamie
NEW YORK, May 31 2021 (IPS)

Results from the 2020 population censuses in the United States and China recently made headlines. But rather than recognizing the social, economic and environmental benefits of slower rates of population growth for the U.S., China and the planet, much of the media stressed the downsides of slower growth and wrote about population collapse, baby bust and demographic decline.

The U.S. population increase of 7.4 percent from 2010 to 2020 was the second lowest rate of growth since the country’s first census in 1790, and half typical growth rates since 1790. Only during the Great Depression of the 1930s did U.S. population grow more slowly, by 7.3 percent. However, even slower rates of U.S population growth are expected in the coming decades (Figure 1).

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

The populations of 55 countries or areas will decrease by 1% or more between 2020 and 2050. China's population is projected to fall by almost 3%, Italy by 10% and Japan by 16%. By contrast, the population of the United States, currently at 333 million, is projected to grow by nearly 14%

China’s population grew 5.3 percent in the decade ending in 2020, the lowest decadal growth rate since the catastrophic famine of the late 1950s. India projects for 2011-2021 its lowest decadal rate of population growth, 12.5 percent, since its independence.

Lopsided lamentations have focused on the downsides of slower population growth. For example, some commentators who favor more rapid U.S. population growth contend that Americans desire to have more children than they are presently having.

However, while some Americans want more children than they are having, some want fewer. In 2011 (the latest available year), of the 6.1 million pregnancies in the United States, 1.6 million (27 percent) were mistimed and 1.1 million (18 percent) were unwanted at any time. Of all 2011 U.S. pregnancies, 45 percent were not intended.

Some public handwringers maintain that a large population size aids the United States’ competition for economic and geopolitical dominance with China. But the mercantilist view that there is strength in numbers alone is obsolete by centuries. A large or rapidly growing population is hardly necessary or sufficient for prosperity.

Finland, ranked the happiest country in the world, has an average number of children per woman per lifetime of 1.4, compared to the U.S. rate of 1.6 children per woman, South Korea’s 0.8, Singapore’s 1.1, Italy’s 1.3, Japan’s 1.4, Norway’s 1.5 and Denmark’s 1.7. China currently has an average 1.3 children per woman per lifetime, markedly fewer than the United States (Figure 2).

Source: National Statistical Offices.

Some advocates of more rapid population growth argue that it would permit more people who want to move to the U.S. to do so. About 158 million adults in other countries would like to settle permanently in the U.S., according to the Gallup poll in 2018. Would the U.S. willingly accept many or most of these would-be migrants?

More rapid population growth, especially through increased immigration of working-age adults, would temporarily ease the pressures on pay-as-you-go public programs for the elderly, particularly Social Security and Medicare, by broadening the country’s tax base.

But there’s a catch: in the future those additional workers would retire, requiring additional workers to broaden the tax base again for the retiring workers. This demographic expansion would need to continue indefinitely.

Public discussion has largely ignored the notable social, economic and environmental upsides of slower American population growth. Slower population growth increases economic opportunities for women and minority groups, and exerts upward pressures on wages, especially for unskilled labor.

For a given rate of capital investment, slower population growth also raises capital per person, raising productivity. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grows more slowly, but GDP per person grows faster.

All else equal, slower population growth lessens America’s contributions to climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, and pollution from commercial, industrial, agricultural, and domestic activities such as heating and cooling buildings and fueling transport. Slower population growth makes it easier for governments, schools, and civic and religious organizations to adapt to increasing demands of more people.

Worries about impending demographic doom for the U.S. seem decidedly misplaced. The United Nations projects that the populations of 55 countries or areas will decrease by 1 percent or more between 2020 and 2050. China’s population is projected to fall by almost 3 percent, Italy by 10 percent and Japan by 16 percent (Figure 3). By contrast, the population of the United States, currently at 333 million, is projected to grow by nearly 14 percent, largely through immigration, to 379 million by 2050.

Source: United Nations Population Division.

The world’s population growth rate peaked in the 1960s and is falling in most regions except sub-Saharan Africa. Whereas the U.S. population increased nearly four-fold during the 20th century, it is expected to increase by roughly 50 percent in the 21st century.

The United States and many other countries, including China, face real population challenges, but not principally slower population growth or even gradual population decline. The problems include rapid population aging, managing cities and economies in recognition of climate change, regulating and responding to migration, and enabling people to have the children they want through reproductive health care and child-care support.

As COVID-19 has clearly demonstrated worldwide, real population challenges include protecting people against present and future pandemics, maintaining competitive technological change with better investments in education and worker training, and raising the value placed on today’s children, who are tomorrow’s future problem solvers. In 2021, 22 percent of all children under age 5 years are stunted from chronic undernutrition, despite record cereal production globally.

The global slowdown in population growth rates is not a transitory demographic phenomenon. It signals important durable successes. Couples are having smaller numbers of children in an increasingly urbanized world while men and women pursue education, employment and careers and live longer than ever before.

It is time to recognize that slower population growth benefits America, China, and the Earth.

Joel E. Cohen is Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of Populations at The Rockefeller University and Columbia University in New York and author of “How Many People Can the Earth Support?”.

Joseph Chamie is a former Director of the United Nations Population Division, New York, former research director of the Center for Migration Studies and editor of International Migration Review, now an independent demographer and author of “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters”.

Categories: Africa

Leprosy Must Not Be Forgotten amid the Covid-19 Pandemic

Mon, 05/31/2021 - 10:46

A 14th century painting depicts two leprosy patients denied entrance to town. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

By Yohei Sasakawa
May 31 2021 (IPS-Partners)

The 74th World Health Assembly (WHA) takes place from May 24 to June 1. This year’s gathering is likely to be dominated by Covid-19, but here I want to talk about a different disease—leprosy—and a resolution that was adopted at the WHA exactly 30 years ago.

This resolution called for the elimination of leprosy as a public health problem at the global level by the year 2000, with elimination defined as a prevalence rate of less than 1 case per 10,000 population. It was a landmark resolution for the time.

Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, is a chronic infectious disease caused by the bacillus Mycobacterium leprae. It mainly affects the skin and peripheral nerves and is said to be one of the oldest diseases in human history.

Today an effective treatment exists in the form of multidrug therapy (MDT) and with early detection and treatment, the disease is completely curable. But if treatment is delayed, leprosy can cause impairments to the skin, nerves, face, hands and feet, and lead to permanent disability. Together with deep-seated fears and misperceptions about the disease, this has subjected persons affected by leprosy as well as their family members to severe discrimination, which regrettably continues to this day.

And, amid the coronavirus pandemic, we can see parallels between the discrimination and hostility toward Covid-19 patients, their families and health personnel that has been reported in different parts of the world and society’s attitudes toward leprosy.

Following the 1991 WHA resolution, elimination of leprosy as a public health problem was successfully achieved at the global level by the end of 2000, and almost all countries, including Bangladesh, have replicated that success at the national level. Unfortunately, this does not mean that leprosy has disappeared.

Each year, around 200,000 new cases of leprosy are reported to the WHO, with Bangladesh accounting for over 3,600 cases in 2019, the fifth highest total.

There are still endemic areas and scattered hot spots of leprosy in many countries and there are some 3-4 million people living with visible impairments or deformities due to leprosy. Meanwhile, the persistence of stigma and discrimination can inhibit people from seeking treatment.

Since becoming the World Health Organization (WHO) Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination in 2001, I have visited some 120 countries and observed the situation on the ground for myself. This has led me to think of leprosy in terms of a motorcycle: the front wheel symbolises curing the disease, and the back wheel represents eliminating discrimination. Unless both wheels are turning together, we will not reach our ultimate goal of zero leprosy.

As regards the front wheel, the WHO recently published its new Global Leprosy Strategy 2021-2030, which includes the ambitious targets of zero leprosy patients in 120 countries and a 70 percent decrease in new cases detected globally by 2030. In order to achieve these targets, there will need to be commitments and financial support from governments; this is not something the WHO can achieve on its own.

Concerning the rear wheel, I have worked hard to have leprosy recognised internationally as a human rights issue since the early 2000s when I first approached the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. One result has been the resolution on elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2010. But the real measure of success will be when principles and guidelines accompanying the resolution are fully implemented.

Over the past half-century, the dedication of a great many people has brought us a step closer to a world without leprosy, but our work is not yet done. In Bangladesh, the government has committed to achieving zero disability, zero discrimination and zero disease due to leprosy by 2030, following a National Leprosy Conference held in 2019, attended by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Especially now, during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is important that we do not lose sight of leprosy and that we continue to build on the progress we have made. Recalling how countries decided 30 years ago to unite in a fight against leprosy, let’s redouble our efforts to vanquish a disease that has been a common enemy of humankind for millennia.

Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

Categories: Africa

The Killings in Gaza and Two Jewish Philosophers’ Hope for a Better World

Mon, 05/31/2021 - 10:25

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, May 31 2021 (IPS)

I hear about casualties and numbers, but cannot perceive the faces, the human beings behind them. A week ago, eleven days of havoc ended after at least 243 people, including more than 100 women and children, had been killed in the Gaza Strip and 12 people, including two children, in Israel. An open, gravely infected wound which continuous to bleed, causing never ending human suffering.

The issue of Palestine and Israel generates strong emotions and quite often aggressiveness, making it difficult to nuance opinions and causes, an endeavour that may be likened to stepping out on a minefield. The reasons for the catastrophe is quite correctly considered to be a question about politics, religion, and ethnicity, though the dimension of personal suffering is easily forgotten.

Judaism (Yahadut) is a religion, while “Jews” are not a race. All Jews are not adherent to Judaism, though most Jews identify themselves as belonging to an ethnic group, others consider them all to be both a “race” and adherents to Judaism. In world politics, Israel is generally characterized as a “democratic Jewish state”, a notion that has been criticized as an anomaly. Generally speaking, a democratic nation ought to adhere to a principle meaning that every citizen is considered to be equal and it is difficult to reconcile such a perception with constructs like “Christian nations” or “Islamic Republics”. Nevertheless, as late as in 2014, Israel’s cabinet advanced a bill that would define Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people”, declaring that Jewish law would be a “source of inspiration” for its Parliament.

The existence of Israel as a “Jewish state” is less than a hundred years old. In 1917, the so called Balfour Declaration was announced by the British government, stating its support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Why should the British in 1917 care about the fate of the Jews? The answer is that the British Empire was at war with the Ottoman Empire and needed support from Jews and Arabs who were subjects to Turkish rulers, allied with Britain’s enemies – Germany and Austria-Hungary.

In 1920, leading men of the victorious powers met in the Italian seaside resort San Remo to divide the defeated Ottoman Empire. It was decided that Great Britain would receive a governing mandate for Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Palestine. A prerequisite for the British temporary rule over Palestine was that they were supposed to prepare the creation of a “Jewish homeland”. After the horrors of World War II, when six million Jews had been deliberately and systematically exterminated within a Nazi-dominated Europe, the United Nations did in 1947 approve of the so called Resolution 181, which recommended a partition of the former British mandate of Palestine into “a Jewish state, an Arab state, and a Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem.”

At that time, 1,181,000 Muslims, 630,000 Jews and 143,000 Christians lived in Palestine. Most Muslims opposed an “ethnic” partition of their homeland. According to the UN plan, the majority of the land (56 percent) would go to a “Jewish state”, at that stage Jews legally owned only seven percent of the area supposed to be designated to them, while the territories proposed to end up within an “Arab state” contained much land deemed to be unfit for agriculture. When the British Mandate expired on the 14th of May 1948, the Jewish People’s Council, which had accepted the UN partition, declared “the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.” The day after, war broke out between Israel and surrounding Arab States, which had not accepted the partition of Palestine. However, since they suspected that the Arab States did not intend to support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, few Palestinian Arabs joined the Arab Liberation Army.

The war ended in 1949 with an armistice which meant that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) were occupied by Egypt and Transjordan respectively. This First Arab-Israel War was followed by a second one in 1956, and in 1967 the so called Six Day War was waged from June 5 to June 10 between Israel and Jordan, Syria and Egypt. The Israeli army captured the West Bank from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. The Six Day War was in 1973 followed by the October War, but Israel was able to hold on to its occupied territories.

Partly as a result of these wars, more than 850,000 Jews left Muslim dominated nations and entered Israel, often due to persecution, anti-Semitism and outright expulsion. However, Palestinians who fled, or were evicted, from Israel, were often not welcomed in other nations. As of 2020, more than 5.6 million Palestinians were still registered with The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as refugees, of which more than 1.5 million continue to live in UNRWA-run camps.

On the 7th of June 2021, Israeli has occupied the West Bank for 53 years. An 8 metres high wall now separates Israel from its conquered territory, which has been split into 167 Palestinian “islands”, under partial Palestinian National Authority civil rule, while 230 Israeli “settlements” has been established inside the area. Israel maintains complete “security control” for over 60 percent of the West Bank territory.

After the Six Day War, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 242, which established the categorical prohibition under international law to acquire territory by force. The Oslo Accords, which in 1993 were signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), established that a negotiation process would aim at achieving a peace treaty based on the UN resolution 242 and the “right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.” However, these aims seem to be lost in a dim future, while Israel continues to support “Jewish settlements” on the West Bank, treating their residents under Israeli law.

In 1982, as a result of the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and in 2005 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip were dismantled and Israeli troops left the area. Nevertheless, Israel retained its control of airspace, territorial waters, border crossings, currency and trade. After local elections in June 2007, Hamas took control of Gaza and after rocket attacks on Israel the Gaza Strip was by Israel declared as “enemy territory”. Israeli retaliation attacks have so far killed approximately 3,450 Palestinians in Gaza, while Israeli causalities have been estimated at 200, of whom 33 have died during rockets attacks.

Approximately 2 million people live in the Gaza strip. With the excuse that terrorists use Gaza as a base, the area has been blocked by both Israel and Egypt. It is not only the smuggling of weapons that is affected by this blockade – import of vital building materials, medicine and food is also obstructed. Along the Israeli border, Gaza is separated by a six metres high wall, supplemented by an underground barrier several metres in depth and equipped with sensors that can detect tunnel construction. A six metres high wall has also been constructed along the Gaza-Egypt border, as well as an underground steel barrier extending 18 meters into the ground.

Getting accustomed to the senseless killing and destruction in Gaza world opinion seems to have become numb to the suffering. People have been turned into abstractions, politically determined numbers. This is completely opposed to the teaching of two Jewish philosophers, Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas, who as many Jews had been scared by the exterminations during World War II.

Even if Martin Buber (1878-1965) was a deeply religious Jew, he was opposed to the establishment of a “Jewish state”. He wanted Palestine to be an exemplary society without a Jewish domination over Arabs, hoping and believing that the two groups one day would live in peace within a shared nation. According to Buber, some persons live on the basis of their essence, trying to adapt themselves to their inner sense of being, while others live according to imagery, determined to adapt to the opinions of others and thus turn human existence into an abstraction. Authenticity depends on how we relate to others, or ability to meet and talk casually and unconditionally. To live is to be listened to and be seen, as well as listening, seeing and feeling.

Buber’s most important book was called I and Thou and Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995) developed Buber’s thoughts further. Levinas taught that we “must welcome the other”, recognize other persons as “fellow beings”. The face-to-face encounter with “the other” is the primal moment from which all language and communication spring. The face of the other demands that we care for her/him because it establishes the basic I-Thou relationship. Recognition of and care for the other is the basis for resistance to the merciless callousness of genocides, which arise from a reduction of human beings to the status of commodities. To look into the face of the other is to hear the injunction not to kill.

This may sound banal, but it was written by persons who knew what suffering was. Such voices need to be listened to and it is now high time that the international community unities to amend all this animosity, suffering and bloodshed. Human rights have to be assured and respected, the UN resolutions must be followed, otherwise the misery will be endless. This is far from utopian thinking, it is a necessity.

Buber, Martin (2000) I and Thou. New York: Scribner. Levinas, Emmanuel (1989) The Levinas Reader. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell.

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

Excerpt:

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche

Categories: Africa

It’s Time to Reimagine Our Relationship with Nature

Mon, 05/31/2021 - 09:51

Greenpeace Brazil activists have joined forces with Munduruku Indigenous leaders to protest the Brazilian government's plans to build a mega dam on the Tapajós river, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest in the Pará state. Credit: Rogério Assis / Greenpeace

By Savio Carvalho
AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands, May 31 2021 (IPS)

Our natural earth is dying. It is on the brink of collapse.

Due to human impacts the planet is losing species – its biodiversity – at a rate so alarming it’s said to be comparable to the 5th mass extinction 65 million years ago, bringing the era of the dinosaurs to an end. Just 15% of the world’s forests remain intact, and only 3% of the world’s oceans are free from human pressures.

Intertwined with the biodiversity crisis, the climate crisis exacerbates species loss and social inequality, threatening the safety of our communities and our planet. Governments must work fast to stop the climate crisis in its tracks, and work with Indigeneous peoples and local communities to protect and restore nature.

Business-as-usual backed by polluted politics and corporate greed is holding us all to ransom. The same destructive systems that are stripping our forests and oceans of life are killing environmental defenders and pushing people into peril.

To balance our relationship with nature, we need governments to push back corporate interests and place people’s needs at the centre of future policies. This needs systemic changes in the way we relate to nature: a shift in how we produce and consume and how we operate our economies.

Savio Carvalho

This year’s meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) offers an opportunity for governments to help humanity balance it’s relationship with nature. To live in “harmony with nature”, as the CBD vision states, we must listen to those communities who have been depending on it for generations. Indigenous Peoples and other local communities must be heard and supported, their rights fully respected and protected.

11-24 October 2021, in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.

We’ve seen over and over how local communities are instrumental in protecting our planet against corporate greed. In Mexico’s Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park, local communities secured legal protection and are reviving marine life and livelihoods. Studies from Brazil show that the most effective way to safeguard forest and biodiversity in the Amazon is to provide Indigenous people with the legal rights and instruments to defend their territories from encroachment, invasion and exploitation.

It’s time to move beyond “fortress conservation” – an antiquated and colonial approach to nature protection that has led to the eviction of Indigenous peoples and local communities of their ancestral lands, human rights violations, and outright atrocities.

Instead, Greenpeace is calling for an ambitious plan to protect and restore nature – a commitment to bold targets that protect at least 30% of our lands and oceans by 2030 – made in partnership with not against local and Indigenous communities.

For the CBD to succeed rights-based conservation must be an indispensable prerequisite, enshrined in it’s post-2020 global biodiversity framework. They must ensure local and Indigenous rights to land, and leadership in planning and managing protected areas. And provide robust legal instruments to defend these rights.

Deforested area Amazon. Credit: Daniel Beltrá / Greenpeace

Governments must also cut out dirty industries such as fossil fuel, forestry, and big agricultural companies from attempts to co-opt nature protection as a substitute for real emission reductions. Known as ‘offsetting, this approach is not only bad for our climate, but also puts a massive burden on those marginalised communities most affected by climate change.

As part of such offset schemes frontline communities often lose access to forests which are deeply connected to their lives and culture. They also provide them with food, medicine and income from non-timber forest products, getting a ridiculous amount of money in return.

In other cases, they lose access to land they rely on for food production, as it is being occupied by large corporations for planting monoculture tree plantations. All that for an often bogus and always uncertain reduction in emissions from land use, or increased sink capacities from ecosystem restoration.

We need widespread vigilance against insidious greenwashing tactics, and an unwavering commitment to cut emissions at their source, enforced by strict regulation. Partial measures to solve the climate crisis only serve as tactics that block necessary progress towards the protection of biodiversity and the 1.5oC Paris goal.

It’s imperative that governments protect nature and people and not let the fossil fuel industry hijack the agenda via their dirty lobbying and advertising tricks. Governments also need to ensure that COVID recovery must in no way cause more harm by investing or expanding in fossil fuel companies.

The worst-case outcome of land protection targets would be a rush for offset or other greenwashing projects that allow states and corporations with large greenhouse gas emissions to retain their unsustainable business model by investing in top-down managed protected areas.

This would further exacerbate social injustice, infringe rights, and undermine dignity and avenues for prosperity for local and Indigenous communities. This neo-colonialism must not be allowed to happen.

It’s time to act. Governments must recognise the urgency of the interconnected crises of climate and biodiversity and promote a shift of power that restores justice, and acknowledges and enables local communities to continue as the guardians of nature.

If nature disappears, our planet, our health, wellbeing and even our lives will disappear with it. Protecting nature is the only way to protect ourselves.

Excerpt:

The writer is Global Campaign Lead, Food and Forests, Greenpeace International
&nbsp:
The following Oped is part of a series of articles to commemorate World Environment Day June 5

Categories: Africa

Latin America’s Challenge of Financing Energy Recovery

Sat, 05/29/2021 - 11:41

A covid vaccination center in Mexico City. Given the economic impact of the pandemic in Latin America, mass immunization is considered the indispensable step to the recovery of productive activities. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, May 29 2021 (IPS)

Hit by the pandemic’s socioeconomic and health impacts, Latin America is facing the challenge of financing an economic recovery based on a sustainable energy sector and a transition to clean sources of energy.

Most of the region have embarked on disbursements to alleviate these consequences, but these resources seem to be insufficient and are aimed at rescuing the hydrocarbon industry, in spite of its environmental connotations.

During his participation this Friday 28th in the XXX La Jolla Energy Conference, the Uruguayan Alfonso Blanco, Latin American Energy Organization’s (Olade) executive secretary, reminded that the region was already in a precarious financial position due to the weakness of its fiscal revenues.

The region is debating between contracting more foreign debt and levying more taxes, but cases such as the failed tax reform in Colombia, which sparked protests at the end of April, exemplify the consequences of changes that punish the middle and lower classes and ignore big capital

The meeting was held virtually, due to covid-19, between May 7 and Friday 28, organized by the non-governmental Institute of the Americas (IA), based in the coastal city of La Jolla, California.

“In the recovery, the role of energy transition is important to create more and better jobs in the region. Accelerating the energy transition will have a major impact on the economic situation, it is the role of green recovery in the immediate future. The transition is part of the decarbonization strategy to achieve the environmental objectives of the international negotiations,” Blanco told IPS.

Following the outbreak of the pandemic in the region, Olade initiated a dialogue with energy ministers and other multilateral agencies to support governments for a post-pandemic recovery.

With more than half a million deaths and an economic contraction of 7.4 percent in 2020, the region has been the hardest hit in the world by covid, which has had repercussions not only on health, but also on employment, infrastructure and the economy as a whole, as highlighted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In some countries, the blow was more severe, due to the decline in revenues from the production and export of hydrocarbons, such as oil and gas, due to the paralysis of global activities and the consequent drop in consumption.

And although the regional economy is already showing a rebound in 2021, the after-effects of the crisis will have a prolonged outcome, such as an increase in poverty.

Regional governments recognized the importance of sustainable recovery as early as October 2020, during the 38th session, also digital, of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). But this strategy is far from the measures implemented.

Looking for money

José Luis Manzano, the private fund Integra Capital’s director, said during the last day of the XXX Conference that “the tools the world has are multinationals, multilateral organizations and national development agencies. Money will come to the region, but we have to create competition.

The Argentine businessman suggested “turning to” Joe Biden’s government in the United States so that its policy of billionaire public investment “Build Back Better” expands to the south, beyond its borders, in an action that would have mutual benefits, and in a region in dispute with China -which in the last decade has sent public and private companies to invest in the area-.

In recent years, Latin America has made progress with wind and solar alternatives, but faces the challenge of reducing the burning of fossil fuels in the industry, transportation and improving energy efficiency.

This transition has come to a halt in countries such as Argentina and Mexico, which favor support for hydrocarbons, and Brazil, which promotes the gas industry.

In fact, data from the intergovernmental Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the non-governmental International Institute for Sustainable Development agree that energy measures are far from sustainable.

Countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Peru apply unsustainable policies. In a recent episode, state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) announced on May 24th the purchase of 50 percent-stake of the Deer Park refinery, in the U.S. state of Texas, from the Anglo-Dutch firm Shell for 600 million dollars, to assume its total ownership.

The benefits of sustainable recovery and pursuing zero net emissions by 2050 are impressive, particularly in the context of the pandemic.

The region could achieve annual savings of 621 billion dollars by 2050 if the region’s energy and transport sectors achieve net zero emissions, which would also create 7.7 million new permanent jobs, according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

In this regard, Stéphane Hallegatte, lead economist of the World Bank’s Climate Change Group, highlighted the building of resilience to covid-19 and assured that it is still “early” to say whether the recommendations will be implemented.

“All the mechanisms that have been applied can help in the future if we maintain them. We can get out of the crisis that way and build resilience,” he told IPS during the “Innovate for Climate” virtual meeting.

“Governments can play a role in helping to create jobs and public investment,” Hallegatte stressed, during the meeting sponsored by the multilateral institution and which analyzed climate actions between Tuesday, May 25th, and Thursday, May 27th.

Green options

Innovative though still under-deployed, green bonds can serve for a partial recovery financing.

“There has been a lot of progress in green bonds. There is a lot of interest in Chile and some national development banks,” said Gema Sacristan, head of investments at Invest IDB, the IDB’s private financing arm, during the XXX La Jolla Energy Conference.

Green bonds are instruments to obtain exclusive financing for projects such as renewable energy, sustainable construction, energy efficiency, clean transportation, water, waste management and agriculture.

Between 2014 and 2021, the region sold more than 20 billion dollars in green bonds, led by Brazil and Mexico, with most sales occurring in the last two years.

From Olade’s headquarters in Quito, Blanco expressed his optimism regarding the economic recovery and job creation, but stressed that “better and more modern regulations are needed, focused on sustainable recovery. We have to incorporate new technologies and energies”.

Categories: Africa

Illegal Clearing by Agribusiness ‘Driving Rainforest Destruction’

Fri, 05/28/2021 - 13:59

In Brazil, the main agricultural products responsible for deforestation are beef and soybeans. Copyright: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil, under Creative Commons 3.0

By Washington Castilhos
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 28 2021 (IPS)

Deforestation in Latin America and the Caribbean accounts for 44 per cent of the global loss of tropical forests, with most of the conversion to agricultural land being carried out illegally, concludes a study by the non-profit organisation Forest Trends.

According to the report, the planet lost 77 million hectares of tropical forests between 2013 and 2019 in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa, of which 60 per cent — 46.1 million hectares — was driven by commercial agriculture. At least 69 per cent of this “agro-conversion — forest clearing for agricultural purposes — was carried out in violation of national laws and regulations, it says.

Unlawful clearing for the production of commodities such as beef, soybeans and palm oil accounted for the destruction of at least 31.7 million hectares of the world’s rainforests during the last seven years, the report says.

Ecologist Arthur Blundell, lead co-author of the report, said: “We don’t need to clear more forests in order to grow food. People need to understand the role of commercial agriculture in driving illegal deforestation, and how important tropical forests are.”

“We don’t need to clear more forests in order to grow food. People need to understand the role of commercial agriculture in driving illegal deforestation, and how important tropical forests are”
Arthur Blundell
Based on data from 23 countries, the study estimates that deforestation in Latin America and the Caribbean represents 44 per cent of all forest loss across the tropics, with 77 per cent of this loss resulting from commercial agriculture.

In Asia, forest losses represented 31 per cent of the total, 76 per cent of which was caused by agribusiness.

Africa’s tropical forest loss represented 25 per cent of the global total, but commercial agriculture only accounted for 10 per cent of illegal deforestation, with subsistence agriculture being the main driver.

Many countries, however, fail to report data about illegal deforestation, and reliable country data is scarce, researchers noted.

Economic drivers

Geographer Eraldo Matricardi, associate professor at the University of Brasilia (UnB), who did not take part in the study, said: “Unfortunately, the forest is not yet considered as something viable, hence the interest in deforesting to make it productive. Agribusiness, in turn, has economic viability and high incentives from a financial point of view.”

Researchers accept that some deforestation for both commercial and subsistence agriculture is necessary for social and economic reasons.

However, Matricardi, an expert in land use changes, explains that while legal deforestation follows set limits and technical criteria, “for illegal deforestation there is a lack of criteria”.

The degree of unlawful deforestation varied widely between regions. In Latin America, 88 per cent of agro-conversion was conducted in violation of national laws and regulations, while in Africa the figure was 66 per cent, and in Asia, 41 per cent.

According to the report, 81 per cent of clearing for Indonesia’s palm oil — the country’s main export commodity — is estimated to be illegal.

In Brazil, where the major agricultural commodities responsible for deforestation are beef and soy, pasture for cattle grazing drove 74 per cent of forest loss while soy drove 20 per cent, the report says.

Besides soy, palm oil, and cattle products (beef and leather), other commodities, such as cocoa, rubber, coffee, and maize, are also cited as leading causes of illegal deforestation.

Researchers highlight the responsibility of consumers in the United States, China and EU, the main importers of these commodities.

“Producers of agricultural commodities need to reinforce their laws and stop illegal deforestation, but consumers internationally also have a role,” said Blundell. “They need to make sure that what they buy is not linked to forest loss. If you’re buying something from Brazil, for example, there is so much evidence it may be coming from deforestation.”

Climate change and corruption

The authors point out, however, that illegality goes hand in hand with corrupt government systems, especially in Brazil and Indonesia.

In Brazil, illegality includes “impunity for deforestation in legal reserves and areas of permanent preservation, amnesty for land seizures, and the accelerated dismantling of environmental protections, since Jair Bolsonaro came to power”, the report states.

Looking at the role forest clearing had in climate change, the report shows that emissions from illegal agro-conversion account for more than 2.7 gigatons of CO2 per year — more than India’s emissions from fossil fuels in 2018.

“We cannot address climate change unless we address illegal deforestation, and we cannot address illegal deforestation without addressing commercial food,” concluded Blundell.

This story was originally published by SciDev.Net

Categories: Africa

The Kenyan Peacekeeper Championing the Ideals of the Women, Peace and Security

Fri, 05/28/2021 - 09:23

Major Steplyne Buyaki Nyaboga of Kenya was named the UN 2020 Military Gender Advocate of the Year.

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, May 28 2021 (IPS)

Major Steplyne Buyaki Nyaboga of Kenya singles out the establishment of gender-responsive military patrols in farming communities in Central Darfur, Sudan as one of the proudest moments of her two-year mission with the African Union–United Nations Hybrid Operation (UNAMID).

Before these patrols, displaced women farmers expressed crippling safety concerns over getting to their farms, which hindered their ability to provide for their families.

The patrols brought security and peace to the women – hallmarks of the UN Security Council’s resolution 1325 of 2000, which recognises the unique impact of armed conflict on women and girls.

They also represent the type of action for which Nyaboga has been named the UN 2020 Military Gender Advocate of the Year.

The award, bestowed annually since 2016, recognises the “dedication and effort of an individual peacekeeper in promoting the principles of women, peace and security”.

In a video message, she said she was receiving the prestigious accolade with “great humility and unprecedented joy.”

“With this award, I receive a high commendation to continue championing the ideals of the women, peace and security agenda, as anchored in the United Nations Security Council resolution 1325,” Nyaboga said.

She is the first Kenyan peacekeeper to receive the UN award.

Representatives of her country’s Defence Ministry congratulated her on her achievement, stating that “she performed in an exemplary manner” making all Kenyans, particularly women, proud.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres commended Nyaboga for her commitment to making life better for women who suffered greatly during Sudan’s armed conflict. He told the virtual award ceremony on May 27 that women who endured forced displacement, sexual violence and political marginalisation found their voices and an advocate in the Kenyan Peacekeeper.

“Through her efforts, Major Nyaboga introduced new perspectives and increased awareness of crucial issues affecting women and children across the Mission and helped strengthen our engagement with local communities,” he said, adding that “she organised campaigns and workshops aimed at addressing issues that affect Darfuri women.”

Nyaboga was also recognised for training the mission’s military contingent on issues such as sexual and gender-based violence.

“This helped our peacekeepers better understand the needs of women, men, girls and boys, and strengthened the mission’s bond with local communities. Her enthusiastic hands-on approach made a profound difference for her colleagues and for the people of Darfur. Her efforts, commitment and passion represent an example for us all,” the Secretary-General said.

The award ceremony is held annually on May 27th, the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers. It is also the day when peacekeepers who lost their lives the previous year, are recognised for their service to the organisation.

This year, 129 military, police and civilian peacekeepers were awarded posthumously with the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal. They came from 44 countries and died while serving the UN in 2020 and January 2021. The award is named after a former UN Secretary-General, who also died in service. He was involved in a plane crash during peace negotiations in the Congo.

According to the UN, some of the 129 fallen peacekeepers honoured this week died as a result of malicious acts, others in accidents, while some succumbed to illness – including COVID-19.

Their deaths bring to 4,000, the number of women and men who have lost their lives since 1948 while serving the UN.

Secretary-General Guterres told the ceremony that peacekeepers continue to face ‘immense’ challenges and threats.

“They work hard every day to protect some of the world’s most vulnerable, while facing the dual threats of violence and a global pandemic,” he said.

“Despite COVID-19, across all our missions, peacekeepers have not only been adapting to continue to deliver their core tasks, they are also assisting national and community efforts to fight the virus. I am proud of the work they have done.”

UN Peacekeeper’s Day was observed this year under the theme “The road to a lasting peace: Leveraging the power of youth for peace and security.”

It focuses on the importance of youth contribution to the UN agenda and the important role of young people in peace efforts, globally.

“From CAR to DRC to Lebanon, our peacekeepers work with youth to reduce violence and sustain peace, including through Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration and Community violence reduction programs,” the Secretary-General said.

As the international organisation honours the men and women of its peacekeeping missions, the UN Chief said the world must remember them and be grateful for their bravery, commitment, service and sacrifice.

Excerpt:

Major Steplyne Buyaki Nyaboga of Kenya has been named the UN 2020 Military Gender Advocate of the Year. Bestowed annually since 2016, the award recognises an outstanding peacekeeper whose work contributed to the promotion of women, peace and security.

Categories: Africa

– Why Experts are Saying It’s a ‘Make or Break’ Moment for Forests –

Fri, 05/28/2021 - 08:48

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, May 28 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on April 28 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated deforestation pressures and heightened the urgency of action to support sustainable forest management. The pandemic has the brought the importance of forests to global well-being into sharp focus. Pictured here forest in the Dominican Republic. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 28 2021 (IPS) – A new global report on forests says that while the COVID-19 pandemic is the latest threat to achieving ambitious forest protection goals, it has brought the importance of forests to global well-being into sharp focus, and that this recognition must now be met with collection action.

The inaugural Global Forest Goals Report was launched on Apr. 26, as part of the 16th United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) session which runs until the end of this week. It is based on data and information submitted by 52 member states, representing 75 percent of the world’s forests.

The report concluded that while countries have taken action to protect their forests, those efforts must be accelerated to achieve ambitious global goals.

It tracks the progress of countries in meeting the ambitious goals set out in the UN Strategic Plan for Forests 2030. Under that plan, countries vowed to accelerate the pace of forest protection by upgrading an initial focus on achieving net-zero deforestation to increasing global forest area by three percent by 2030 and eradicating extreme poverty for all forest-dependent people.

While it acknowledged the work done by countries in areas such as poverty reduction for forest-dependent people, initiatives to increase forest financing and cooperation on sustainable forest management, it stated that there is a lot more to be done. Noting that Africa and South America lost forest cover during the reporting period, the publication stated that forests remain under threat.

“Every year, seven million hectares of natural forests are converted to other land uses such as large-scale commercial agriculture and other economic activities. And although the global rate of deforestation has slowed over the past decade, we continue to lose forests in the tropics – largely due to human and natural causes,” it stated.

United National Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed said the report is being launched at a crucial time for the world’s forests.

The report cites growing concern by some countries that the economic fallout from the pandemic will lead to reduced donor funding for forests. It states that Africa, the Asia-Pacific Region and some countries in Latin America are facing dwindling forest financing, as scarce public funds are being prioritised on immediate public health needs.

Mohammed said while the COVID-19 crisis has dealt a blow to poverty alleviation and sustainable development goals, it is presenting an opportunity to make peace with nature through a green recovery, with healthy forests as a solid foundation.

“We are at a make or break moment. 2021 provides us a unique opportunity to halt the rapid loss of biodiversity and ecosystem degradation, while addressing the climate emergency and desertification and making our food systems more sustainable, with the sustainable development goals as our guide,” the deputy UN chief said.

UNFF Secretariat’s Officer-in-Charge Alexander Trepelkov presented a note on COVID-19’s impact on forests and the forest sector. It concluded that the pandemic has aggravated hardships for forest-dependent people and exposed systemic gaps and vulnerabilities.

It called for the integration of forest-based solutions into pandemic recovery, accelerated implementation of international forest-related targets and adequate resources for forestry.

Meanwhile, on the fringes of the event, a group of 15 international organisations launched a joint statement on the challenges and opportunities involved in halting deforestation. The Collaborative Partnership on Forests event was chaired by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

Director of the FAO’s Forestry Division Mette Wilkie told IPS that as ecosystems that are home to the vast majority of land biodiversity and 75 percent of freshwater, without forests, climate goals cannot be met.

“Forests also provide numerous products for everyday life – from the traditional use of wood to the masks, gloves and hand sanitisers that we all use during the current COVID-19 pandemic. They provide more than 86 million green jobs and support the livelihoods of many more people worldwide,” Wilkie said.

“As we increasingly encroach on forests and wildlife habitats to expand agricultural production, settlements and infrastructure, the risk of diseases spilling over from animals to people rises exponentially. It is evident that we cannot achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and the future we want unless we halt deforestation and forest degradation and increase our efforts to protect, manage and restore our forests.”

Wilkie, who chairs the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, told IPS that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated deforestation pressures and heightened the urgency of action to support sustainable forest management.

“Lockdowns have led to disruptions in markets and supply chains and caused job losses, triggering reverse migration into rural areas and increasing pressure on forests to provide subsistence livelihoods,” she said, adding that, “on the other hand, investing in forest restoration and the sustainable management of forests can create green jobs and livelihoods, and at the same time create habits for biodiversity and mitigate – and adapt to – climate change.”

Categories: Africa

Are There Clinically Meaningful Differences Between anti-COVID-19 Vaccines?

Fri, 05/28/2021 - 08:36

A health worker prepares to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to her colleague at a hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia.In a video message on May 24 to the World Health Assembly , the decision-making body of UN agency WHO, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned against the dangers of “a two-speed global response”, a concern he has frequently expressed. “Sadly, unless we act now, we face a situation in which rich countries vaccinate the majority of their people and open their economies, while the virus continues to cause deep suffering by circling and mutating in the poorest countries,” he said. Credit: UNICEF/Ismail Taxta

By Sunil J. Wimalawansa
NEW JERSEY, USA, May 28 2021 (IPS)

Despite claims by the industry and some politicians, there are no clinically meaningful differences among the variety of vaccines approved under emergency use authorisation (EUA).

There are no significant differences in effectiveness between individual vaccines of different types: mRNA vaccines (e.g., Pfizer and Moderna), adenovirus vector vaccines (e.g., AZN, J&J, and Sputnik V) and inactivated SARS-CoV-2 virus vaccines (e.g., Sinovac and Valneva) in preventing severe complications and deaths.

If there is no contra-indication or a fundamental reason or belief for not vaccinating, considering the urgency, individuals should take the vaccine provided to them.

Efficacy of COVID vaccines:

As per global data, the COVID-19-related complication among the adult population needing hospitalisation is approximately 14%. As defined by preventing hospitalisation and deaths, the reported efficacy of mRNA vaccines is ~94%.

Therefore, the average efficacy of all COVID vaccines is approximately 90% (0.86/0.94 x 100). Nevertheless, none of these vaccines entirely prevents infection, transmission, lasting harm, or death.

The rate of complications can be significantly reduced by vitamin D supplementation before infection or at the time of hospitalisation (Mercola 2020; Wimalawansa, 2020) [vitamin D3 and ivermectin; latter also increases serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentration].

Most hospitalised COVID-19 patients have 25(OH)D levels less than 20 ng/mL, whilst the vast majority who died from COVID had levels below 10 ng/mL. It is noteworthy that over 50 ng/mL is required for the proper operation of autocrine (inside each cell) and paracrine (nearby cells) signalling and functions of immune cells.

These are required for rapid and well-regulated immune responses to combat pathogens. In the absence, people develop complications.

Types of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines:

mRNA vaccines for other diseases have never deployed for humans outside clinical trials. SARS-CoV-2 produces intense immune responses because the insertions within the micro-lipid particles allow generating large amounts of a portion of the viral spike protein. The human immune system attacks and eliminates these foreign proteins.

Spike proteins have a high affinity for ACE2 receptor protein located on human epithelial cell membranes in the lungs, gastrointestinal tract, blood vessels, etc. Due to sequence similarities of ACE2 and ACE2-SARS.CoV-2 complexes, antibodies generated against spike proteins could harm normal cells in the presence of an incompetent immune system.

Why are some developing complications, others are not?

Following natural infection and vaccination, different types of antibodies produced by immune cells. Some of these could cross-react with the ACE2 receptor protein. Vitamin D is critical for the proper functioning of the immune system. Vitamin D deficiency weakens innate and adaptive responses and allows harmful hyper-inflammatory (cytokine-storm) responses.

Therefore, people with weakened immune systems have a higher risk of antigenic cross-reactivity, generating autoimmune reactions, and auto-antibodies formation, increasing the risks of complications from SARS.CoV-2 (e.g., cytokine-storm and deaths).

Inactivated viral vaccines are used less in Western nations, despite the advantages of generating broader immune responses against the nucleocapsid protein and the spike protein. In contrast, the mRNA and adenoviral vector vaccines present only a portion of the spike proteins antigen to the immune system.

Therefore, antibodies generated by mRNA vaccines have a narrow specificity, which could be a disadvantage in the long run.

The efficacy of the groups of vaccines cannot be compared:

The conditions and the timing of the vaccine trials conducted were vastly different. No head-to-head comparative RCTs performed to compare mRNA or adenovirus vector vaccines against traditional inactivated viral vaccines, whose safety is better understood.

Heavy promotion, particularly by big investors and governments, of mRNA and viral vector vaccines companies are driven by the patents-based, higher profits of novel mechanisms. Despite claims by companies, pundits, and mass media, the efficacy of mRNA and viral vector vaccines cannot be assumed to be superior to those of traditional inactivated virus vaccines.

Vaccine RCTs conducted under differing conditions:

Obtaining approval for the mRNA vaccines for RCTs and EUA were straightforward. These RCTs were conducted in the USA during the summer and fall of 2020, before the emergence of COVID-19 variants. A few of these variants evolved mutant spike proteins with much greater affinity for the ACE2 receptor to facilitate their entrance into our cells.

As the vaccination program expands, variants continue to evolve, including double (e.g., Indian variant) and multi-mutants to evade immunity. Mutations generate differing spike-proteins sequences (A) to overcome recognition by antibodies and killer cells, and (B) to increase the infectiousness. The risks of such mutations are higher following mRNA and viral vector vaccines.

mRNA vaccine trials during summer and fall involved people having higher average vitamin D concentrations with fewer severe symptoms. In contrast, the viral vector vaccines and inactivated viral vaccines took longer to obtain EUAs due to complexities requiring multiple approvals.

These RCTs mainly were conducted outside the USA during fall and winter, after the emergence of multiple variants and when COVID-19 prevalence rose again.

Efficacy vs. adverse effects of vaccines:

There is no question about the benefits of COVID-vaccines in adults. Given the different nature of the RCTs and rushed deployments, there is insufficient comparable data to conclude that one vaccine is more effective than another.

Besides, incomplete reports and analysis of adverse reactions are a concern, especially potential longer-term adverse effects. For those who have mild to moderate risk of harm from COVID-19, such as children, these poorly characterised risks must be considered more carefully in the context of limited individual benefits of vaccination.

Ill-effects of vaccines are the subject of ongoing research and controversy, and therefore, dialogue should be allowed with the freedom of speech. Instead, such discussions are suppressed and maligned: administrators remove posts from social media sites on the pretext of reducing public confidence in COVID-19 vaccines.

People should be provided facts: they have the right to know the pros and cons and make their own decision. In addition to vitamin D deficiency, emerging data suggest ill-effects are specific to a particular vaccine group and, perhaps, underlying vulnerability and individual characteristics, such as sex and age.

Uncertainties of vaccines and duration of effectiveness:

Despite unfounded assertions by vaccine manufacturers and certain administrators in higher positions, claims of up to five-year duration of immunity after vaccination, are sheer speculation.

The duration of immunity from natural infection and COVID vaccines is uncertain. However, by extrapolating from the SARS experience, post-vaccination immunity may last no more than 18 months, which will impede developing global herd immunity.

Vitamin D sufficiency synergises vaccines benefits:

The most beneficial aspect of vaccines and vitamin D sufficiency is preventing hospitalisation, complications needing oxygen and ICU use, and deaths. Therefore, as with vitamin D sufficiency, vaccinations should also prevent the post-COVID syndrome, also known as ‘long COVID,’ which is a misnomer.

Post-COVID-19 syndrome primarily arises in the central nervous system or other locations where the SARS-CoV-2 virus can escape from incomplete immune responses, especially in those with severe vitamin D deficiency and, thus, having a less robust immune system.

Vitamin D sufficiency prevents post-COVID syndrome. Whether vaccines prevent post-COVID-19 syndrome remains to be seen, but it is optimistic.

*Sunil J. Wimalawansa, MD, PhD, MBA, DSc, is Professor of Medicine, Endocrinology & Nutrition, Director CardioMetabolic Institute, USA suniljw@hotmail.com

Categories: Africa

Why Stakeholder Coalitions Could Be Key to the Glasgow Climate Summit’s Success

Thu, 05/27/2021 - 15:42

Credit: Guillermo Flores/IPS

By Felix Dodds and Chris Spence
NEW YORK, May 27 2021 (IPS)

The past few weeks brought a burst of optimism on the climate front. It began on April 18 with the US-China announcement on climate cooperation. This was followed in quick succession by the EU Parliament’s vote to cut emissions 55% by 2030, the UK’s promise of a 78% cut by 2035, Japan nearly doubling their commitment from 26% to 46% based on 2013 levels and US President Biden’s pledge of a 50-52% reduction, also by 2030 (compared with 2005 levels).

Since such cuts offer a clear pathway to limit temperature growth, only the most ardent cynic would deny it has been a great start to the run up to Glasgow. Not to mention the announcement by a court in the Netherlands as we wrote this article (26th of May) that Shell will need to reduce its carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 on 2019 levels this could result in a wave of court action against fossil fuel companies.

The Glasgow Summit will be judged, in part at least, on how it acts as a catalyst not only for greater ambition in emissions reductions, but in ensuring they are being consistently measured. Some countries, especially developing countries, will need significant financial support for such actions, and this should be another outcome from Glasgow

An important question now is how do we use the Glasgow Climate Summit to build on governments’ good intentions?

As we noted in a recent article published in IPS, the limitations on in-person meetings in a Covid-hit world are a particular problem for such a complex, high-stakes process. The Bureau managing the preparatory process for Glasgow recently announced its intention to hold virtual “informal meetings” starting next week. While we welcome the resumption of such discussions under the UN umbrella and can see a benefit to online discussions, these will only get us so far.

We hope diplomats, key stakeholders and journalists will be able to meet in person prior to the formal start of the Glasgow Summit, perhaps in October under a negotiating ‘bubble’ in Italy (which is hosting the G20 on the 30th and 31st of October) and the UK (which is hosting the Summit from November 1-12).

The current work being undertaken on COVID vaccine passports should make such in-person gatherings quite feasible, with the EU advancing plans in recent days to introduce them as early as July Furthermore, the UK’s offer to provide vaccinations to developing country delegations is a welcome move and should be expanded to other stakeholders.

National stakeholder climate alliances

What else could help advance progress in the lead-up to Glasgow? We would advocate that stakeholder coalitions at the national level could play a significant role.

Such coalitions have already shown their value. In 2017, Michael Bloomberg and former California Governor Jerry Brown launched America’s Pledge and the America is All In coalition in response to President Trump’s announcement that the United States would pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

The America is All In coalition has now grown to 147 cities, 1157 businesses, 3 states, 2 tribal nations, and almost 500 universities, faith groups, cultural institutions, and healthcare organizations. This is a powerful—and still growing—coalition committed to helping deliver at least a 50% reduction of 2005 emissions levels by 2030.

Meanwhile, Accelerating America’s Pledge—a report published by Bloomberg Philanthropies in 2020—identifies not only areas where work needs to be done but also progress to date. This work has helped build a strong base for President Biden’s recent announcement of a US Nationally Determined Contribution at a reduction of 52% in 2030 on 2005 levels.

Such partnerships and pledges are also happening internationally. In 2019, the Climate Ambition Alliance of Cities, Regions and Business, reported commitments to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

This Alliance, which includes 992 businesses, 449 cities, 21 regions, 505 universities and 38 of the biggest investors, has made a significant pledge because it represents economic stakeholders covering a quarter of the global carbon emissions. This type of coalition helped pointed the way for national governments and others to take on similar goals.

Such coalitions can also be a model for how stakeholders could act in the lead-up to Glasgow. The welcome promises of many governments can be supported and held more accountable by a coalition of key national stakeholders.

For instance, imagine what national coalitions of stakeholders in perhaps the 20 world’s largest emitting countries might do when it comes to ensuring governments follow up on their pledges with clear, actionable policies and financing to achieve the promised cuts.

Furthermore, national stakeholder coalitions could encourage governments to submit new, more ambitious pledges, the so-called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), in the lead-up to Glasgow.

Where a government may be lagging, such national coalitions can help maintain the pressure by taking on their own commitments for their city, region, or business sector.

Such coalitions have also received strong support from the United Nations. “All countries, companies, cities and financial institutions must commit to net zero, with clear and credible plans to achieve this, starting today,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged in March.

Independent monitoring and verification

One specific area stakeholder coalitions can play a role—both domestically and on the international scene—is in pushing for consistent monitoring, measuring, and reporting of emissions. This is an area that was not resolved by the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and yet is critical if we are to ensure full transparency and accountability in meeting government pledges.

The UN-supported Race to Zero campaign is playing a useful role in this area. The largest alliance of non-state actors committing to achieving net zero emissions before 2050, Race to Zero recently published a report setting out criteria for how stakeholders can set, measure, and report on net zero commitments.

Interestingly, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, a group of 160 financial institutions with a collective US$70 trillion in assets, is taking a similar approach.

Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance and Prime Minister Johnson’s Climate Finance Advisor for COP26, is chairing this new grouping.

If these national coalitions are to be taken seriously, there may need to be a national as well as international independent monitoring and verification. Reporting and verification should happen annually.

Collaboration in our cities may be the key to unlocking Glasgow’s potential

Cities could be critical to Glasgow’s success. “Cities use a large proportion of the world’s energy supply and are responsible for around 70 per cent of global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions which trap heat and result in the warming of Earth,” UN-Habitat Executive Director, Maimunah Mohd Sharif, said in 2019.

Starting in the cities of the 20 top emitters might be a good first step in aligning national stakeholders to the Paris Climate Agreement. Cities have the potential not only to be a powerful engine for change; they can also keep the world moving forward even if national political leadership in a country is lacking or is affected by a change in direction following an election.

The recent positive announcements by some governments for stronger NDCs is to be commended. However, only when all stakeholders are engaged and included will we be able to create a sustainable way to live together on this ‘Only One Earth’ we have.

Felix Dodds is a sustainable development advocate and writer. His new book Tomorrow’s People and New Technologies: Changing the Way we Live Our Lives will be out in September. He is coauthor of Only One Earth with Maurice Strong and Michael Strauss and Negotiating the Sustainable Development Goals with Ambassador David Donoghue and Jimena Leiva Roesch.

Chris Spence is an environmental consultant, writer and author of the book, Global Warming: Personal Solutions for a Healthy Planet. He is a veteran of many COPs and other UNFCCC negotiations over the past three decades.

Categories: Africa

– Youth Demand Action on Nature, Following IUCN’s First-Ever Global Youth Summit –

Thu, 05/27/2021 - 15:34

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, May 27 2021 (IPS)

The original article was published on April 23 2021

The United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, Jayathma Wickramanayake, told IPS that the Summit achieved an important goal of bringing institutions and political conversations closer to young people. Clockwise from top left: Jayathma Wickramanayake, Swetha Stotra Bhashyam, Emmanuel Sindikubwabo, Diana Garlytska. Courtesy: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 2021 (IPS) – Following almost two weeks of talks on issues such as climate change, innovation, marine conservation and social justice, thousands of young people from across the globe concluded the first-ever International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) One Nature One Future Global Youth Summit with a list of demands for action on nature.

Under three umbrella themes of diversity, accessibility and intersectionality, they are calling on countries and corporations to invest the required resources to redress environmental racism and climate injustice, create green jobs, engage communities for biodiversity protection, safeguard the ocean, realise gender equality for climate change mitigation and empower underrepresented voices in environmental policymaking.

“Young people talk about these key demands that they have and most of the time, they are criticised for always saying ‘I want this,’ and are told ‘but you’re not even sure you know what you can do,’” Global South Focal Point for the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) Swetha Stotra Bhashyam told IPS. “So we linked our demands to our own actions through our ‘Your Promise, Our Future’ campaign and are showing world leaders what we are doing for the world and then asking them what they are going to do for us and our future.”

Bhashyam is one of the young people dedicated to climate and conservation action. A zoologist who once studied rare species from the field in India, she told IPS that while she hoped to someday return to wildlife studies and research, her skills in advocacy and rallying young people are urgently needed. Through her work with GYBN, the youth constituency recognised under the Convention on Biological Diversity, she stated proudly that the network has truly become ‘grassroots,’ with 46 national chapters. She said the IUCN Global Youth Summit, which took place from Apr. 5 to 16, gave youth networks like hers an unprecedented platform to reach tens of thousands of the world’s youth.

“The Summit was able to create spaces for young people to voice their opinions. We in the biodiversity space have these spaces, but cannot reach the numbers that IUCN can. IUCN not only reached a larger subset of youth, but gave us an open space to talk about critical issues,” she said. “They even let us write a blog about it on their main IUCN page. It’s called IUCN Crossroads. They tried to ensure that the voice of young people was really mainstream in those two weeks.”

The United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, Jayathma Wickramanayake, told IPS that the Summit achieved an important goal of bringing institutions and political conversations closer to young people. During her tenure, Wickramanayake has advocated for a common set of principles for youth engagement within the UN system, based on rights, safety and adequate financing. She said it is important for institutions to open their doors to meaningful engagement with young people.

“I remember in 8th or 9th grade in one of our biology classes, we were taught about endangered animal species. We learned about this organisation called IUCN, which works on biodiversity. In my head, this was a big organisation that was out of my reach as a young person.

“But having the opportunity to attend the IUCN Summit, even virtually, engage with its officials and engage with other young people, really gave me and perhaps gave other young people a sense of belonging and a sense of taking us closer to institutions trying to achieve the same goals as we are as youth advocates.”

The Youth Envoy said the Summit was timely for young people, allowing them to meet virtually following a particularly difficult year and during a pandemic that has cost them jobs, education opportunities and raised anxieties.

“Youth activists felt that the momentum we had created from years of campaigning, protesting and striking school would be diluted because of this uncertainty and postponement of big negotiations. In order to keep the momentum high and maintain the pressure on institutions and governments, summits like this one are extremely important,” Wickramanayake said.

Global Youth Summit speakers during live sessions and intergenerational dialogues. Courtesy: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

Other outcomes of the Global Youth Summit included calls to:

advance food sovereignty for marginalised communities, which included recommendations to promote climate-smart farming techniques through direct access to funding for marginalised communities most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and extreme events,
motivate creative responses to the climate emergency, and
engineer sustainable futures through citizen science, which included recommendations to develop accessible education materials that promote the idea that everyone can participate in data collection and scientific knowledge creation.

The event was billed as not just a summit, but an experience. There were a number of sessions live streamed over the two weeks, including on youth engagement in conservation governance, a live story slam event, yoga as well as a session on how to start up and scale up a sustainable lifestyle business. There were also various networking sessions.

Diana Garlytska of Lithuania represented Coalition WILD, as the co-chair of the youth-led organisation, which works to create lasting youth leadership for the planet.

She told IPS the Summit was a “very powerful and immersive experience”.

“I am impressed at how knowledgeable the young people of different ages were. Many spoke about recycling projects and entrepreneurship activities from their own experiences. Others shared ideas on how to use different art forms for communicating climate emergencies. Somehow, the conversation I most vividly remember was on how to disclose environmental issues in theatrical performances. I’m taking that with me as food for thought,” Garlytska said.

For Emmanuel Sindikubwabo of Rwanda’s reforestation and youth environmental education organisation We Do GREEN, the Summit provided excellent networking opportunities.

“I truly believe that youth around the world are better connected because of the Summit. It’s scary because so much is going wrong because of the pandemic, but exciting because there was this invitation to collaborate. There is a lot of youth action taking place already. We need to do better at showcasing and supporting it,” he told IPS.

Sindikubwabo said he is ready to implement what he learned at the Summit.

“The IUCN Global Youth Summit has provided my team and I at We Do GREEN new insight and perspective from the global youth community that will be useful to redefine our programming in Rwanda….as the world faces the triple-crises; climate, nature and poverty, we made a lot of new connections that will make a significant positive change in our communities and nation in the near future.”

The Global Youth Summit took place less than six months before the IUCN World Conservation Congress, scheduled forSep. 3 to 11. Its outcomes will be presented at the Congress.

Reflecting on the just-concluded event, the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth is hoping to see more of these events.

“I would like to see that this becomes the norm. This was IUCN’s first youth summit, which is great and I hope that it will not be the last, that it will just be a beginning of a longer conversation and more sustainable conversation with young people on IUCN… its work, its strategies, policies and negotiations,” Wickramanayake said.

Categories: Africa

Radio-Based Learning Gets Its Day in the Sun in Mali

Thu, 05/27/2021 - 15:19

Aichata, 15, listens to a lesson on her solar-powered radio as she studies at her home in Ségou, Mali. Credit: UNICEF/UN0430949/Keïta

By Fatou Diagne
SÉGOU REGION, Mali, May 27 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Persistent insecurity in central and northern Mali has helped fuel a protracted humanitarian crisis, disrupting access to education, health and other services, and displacing more than 300,000 people – more than half of them children.

COVID-19 has compounded the problem. Before the pandemic, direct threats and attacks on education had forced the closure of around 1,300 schools in the central and northern regions of the country. Pandemic-related measures shuttered schools across the country for most of 2020, leaving many of the most vulnerable children and youth unable to access education.

With financing from the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), UNICEF has been distributing solar-powered radios in conflict-affected areas to vulnerable households and listening groups.

As many as 15 young people can make use of the same radio. The devices provide an educational lifeline for those who might otherwise be cut off from classes and complement the efforts of temporary learning spaces that have been established at sites for internally displaced persons to ensure that children can continue to learn in safety.

Aichata (second from right) gathers around a radio with some friends from the neighbourhood to study. Credit: UNICEF/UN0430950/Keïta

Aichata

Aichata, 15, used to attend school in Diabaly, a rural town in the south-central region of Ségou. A few months after Aichata’s school closed, her father decided the family should move to the town of Ségou, where she was enrolled at the Adama Dagnon school. The school provided her with a solar-powered radio to allow her to continue learning out of regular school hours and make up for lost time.

“I could attend classes with this radio. It helped me catch up with my studies,” says Aichata.

Makono, 13, studies at home during a visit by a UNICEF education officer in Ségou, Mali. Credit: UNICEF/UN0430944/Keïta

Makono

Makono, 13, also attends the Adama Dagnon school. His parents left the southern region of Koulikoro, about 200 kilometres away, after armed attacks forced them to seek refuge in Ségou.

“I’m the eldest, so every Wednesday and Thursday evening I ask my sisters to come and study with me and we listen to the lessons on the radio,” Makono says.

Makono and his sisters listen to a radio as they study at their home. Credit: UNICEF/UN0430946/Keïta

Tuning in Together

The educational programmes that are broadcast are used not only by children who aren’t able to attend classes in person, but also those in school as an after-hours study resource.

Aichata says she tunes in every Wednesday and Thursday evening with her friends so they can study together.

“Before, I didn’t like grammar because I didn’t understand it and I found it difficult. But now I manage to get quite good marks,” she says. “One time I got 8 out of 10 – I was really proud of myself!”

Credit: UNICEF

Localized Action

Educo, a UNICEF partner in the central regions of Ségou and Mopti, is responsible for identifying households that could benefit from a radio, working closely with school management committees to distribute the radios and then monitoring the results.

“We make home visits to ensure that the children are using the radios, but also to see how their schooling is progressing,” says Dioukou Konate, head of Educo’s humanitarian project for the Ségou region during a follow-up visit with Aichata.

In the Ségou region alone, around 1,500 households have benefited from the solar-powered radios. These efforts are being amplified by listening groups supported by a community relay, typically a retired teacher, who can help keep students’ learning on track.

Credit: UNICEF

Integrating into Schools

Makono and Aichata say they now feel well-integrated into their new schools – and both are doing well with their classes. In fact, Makono wants to become a teacher when he leaves school.

“My parents didn’t go to school, so sometimes when I don’t understand my lessons, I have to ask other people,” he says. “But I know that if I work hard in school, my parents can rely on me.”

Aichata hopes to eventually become a school principal so that she can help other children attend school.

“I know it’s ambitious to say that every child in Mali will go to school, but I’m sure that one day my dream will come true,” says Aichata.

Education Cannot Wait’s ‘Stories from the Field’ series features the voices of our implementing partners, children, youth and the communities we support. These stories have only been lightly edited to reflect the authentic voice of these frontline partners on the ground. The views expressed in the Stories from the Field series do not necessarily reflect those of Education Cannot Wait, our Secretariat, donors or UN Member States.

Excerpt:

Solar-powered radios are helping conflict-affected and displaced children follow lessons outside of the classroom.

Categories: Africa

COVID-19 Widens Learning Gap For Girls In Rural Ghana

Thu, 05/27/2021 - 12:58

Sarah and Doris ride to school on their bicycles because they live several kilometres away. Ghana’s education sector was one of the hardest affected by the pandemic and for many girls, particularly those in rural areas, the consequences of school closures means many will never return to their schooling. Credit: Jamila Akweley Okertchiri/IPS

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
ACCRA/WA EAST DISTRICT, Ghana, May 27 2021 (IPS)

Seventeen-year-old Muniratu Adams, a form two student of the Jeyiri D/A Junior High School at Funsi in the Wa East District of the Upper West Region of Ghana, is fortunate to have returned to school this January after the long COVID-19 shutdown.

Ghana’s education sector was one of the hardest affected by the pandemic and for many girls, particularly those in rural areas, the consequences of school closures means many will never return to their schooling.

“It was difficult for me to come back to school,” she tells IPS. “When I was home, I did not think I will be able to return to school.”

Adams was like many girls here who had to take on more responsibilities at home during the lockdown.

“I had little time to study my books because I had more household chores to do and I also had to help my family farm for food which we survive on,” she explains. “When I get to learn, I don’t get the help I need,” she adds.

Last March, Ghana closed schools in the wake of rising COVID-19 infections across the country.

Approximately 9.2 million learners from Kindergarten to High School and about 500,000 tertiary learners were affected until schools opened in mid-January, according to a report by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

However, the prolonged absence of teaching and learning activities in a structured setting disrupted the academic calendar affecting the gains made in education and negatively impacting low performing students.

For many children from vulnerable groups, including children with disabilities, the prolonged school closures have put a premature end to their education.

Prior to the pandemic, UNICEF data for Ghana showed that 16.9 percent of children aged 5 to 11 years, 50.9 percent of children aged 12 to 14 years, and 83.3 percent of children aged 15 to 17 years were either not attending school, two or more years behind in school, or have not achieved the correct level of schooling for their grade.

The pandemic’s impacts on children’s access and quality of education were most severely felt through the tracking closure of schools without adequate alternative education services accessible by all children, nation-wide.

This exacerbated existing inequities in education in the short and long- terms and worsened existing barriers to access as urban/rural disparities are significant, with children in rural areas, as well as in the Northern and Upper West regions faring far worse.

Adams says initially she was unable to continue with her studies at home during the closure of schools as she did not have the tools to facilitate her studies.

“My parents did not have a television or a radio at home so I read only my notes ,which I had before our school was closed,” she says. “But later I got a mobile device which helped me to learn through the remote learning system.”

Remote Learning Impact

Ghana’s government, with funding from the World Bank, introduced a $15 million, one-year remote learning system as part of the COVID-19 response for continued learning, recovery and resilience for basic education.

It included developing accessible and inclusive learning modules through TV and radio, distributing printed teaching and learning materials, distributing pre-loaded content devices to vulnerable groups who lack access to technology, and in-service teacher training to ensure teachers can effectively deliver lessons through innovative platforms.

Despite the remote learning platforms, Adams says she and some students in her community still faced a lot of challenges in ensuring equitable access to these services, because “we do not have access to online learning devices or the internet at home”.

“A large number of us in my community lack technology such as TV sets, computers, smart phones and other online devices, as well as stable internet connectivity,” Adams says.

Chief Director of the Ministry of Education, Benjamin Kofi Gyasi, who is also the COVID-19 focal person for education, tells IPS that while remote learning strategies aim to ensure continual learning for all children, “we know that the most marginalised children, including those in the most rural, hard-to-reach and poorest communities and girls, may not be able to access these opportunities.”

He adds that the ministry is prioritising the learning of most vulnerable children through the provision of learning devices/equipment and connectivity, where possible, adding that the initiative has reached more than half of targeted learners.

Executive Director of the African Education Watch, Kofi Asare, tells IPS that more children have been left behind as a result of the pandemic. He believes the government can do more to ensure that vulnerable children especially those in the remote and poorest communities of the country have the tools needed to access quality education.

‘Now the children are back to the classrooms but I can confidently say that we have lost a significant number due to the long period schools were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” he asserts.

His statement is confirmed by Adams, who says some girls in her class are yet to return more than five months after schools reopened.

“I have not seen some of my friends since we started school in January, I do not know if they will be coming or not,” she tells IPS. “My friend, Hassana Yakubu who came to school here from another community has still not returned.”

This feature was made possible by a donation from Farida Sultana Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Farida Sultana passed away in December 2020 after battling COVID-19 for two weeks.

Categories: Africa

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