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By Ana María Hernández Salgar
BOGOTA, Colombia, Sep 30 2020 (IPS)

This week, Heads of State and Government from 64 countries announced one of the strongest pledges yet to reverse the loss of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people by 2030. Advancing from powerful pledges to concrete policy and action, however, means that nature must be moved to the heart of global, national and local decision-making. It’s time for nature to be reintegrated into everything we do.

Ana María Hernández Salgar

The Leaders’ Pledge for Nature is an explicit declaration of a planetary emergency, driven by human actions that are degrading nature and our climate at rates and levels unprecedented in human history.

As a firm re-commitment to urgent action ahead of the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity, taking place today in New York and virtually around the world, it can be a vital and positive turning point towards the transformative change needed for people and nature – but this will require a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values.

Biodiversity is the foundation of human life and well-being. When we destroy the natural world, we endanger our own lives and livelihoods. Effective action on nature must, therefore, be based on the best-available science and expertise – to properly understand our challenges and the options available for a better future.

The undertaking in the Leaders’ Pledge – that the design and implementation of policy will be science-based – is therefore extremely welcome. The science, evidence and expertise already exist in the IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and other key IPBES reports.

It is evident, from the science, that we are living in an unsustainable downward spiral of land- and sea-use change, over-exploitation, pollution, climate change and invasive species – and that we are the cause. This drives the devastation of nature and directly impacts our own quality of life through food, health, the economy and even peace and security.

Placing nature at the center of decisions in key sectors – including agriculture, fisheries and forestry, energy, tourism, health, infrastructure, extractive industries, and trade – will help to end this vicious cycle. Nature makes invaluable material and non-material contributions to our lives across every sector of human development and activity. The whole of Government approach described in the Pledge is, therefore, grounded in solid science, and is absolutely necessary.

Sustainable use, wise management and effective conservation of natural resources – strengthened by the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples and local communities, are key components of a more effective and integrated approach.

The fact that the first-ever UN Summit on Biodiversity is taking place amidst the COVID-19 pandemic – is framing the urgency of our frayed relationship with nature in terms that make biodiversity loss extremely personal and undeniably significant. Humanity now stands at a crossroads for meaningful change. If we fail to take this opportunity to voluntarily change course, we risk entering uncharted waters where pandemics, for instance, are more likely and more devastating.

As the UN Secretary-General said during the UNGA75 High-Level Week, “solidarity is self-interest.” Our shared challenge – as leaders and citizens – is to rally around nature as our common ground and our common home – to recognize that nature itself contains most of the solutions to address our shared threats of biodiversity loss and climate change.

Perhaps the most encouraging element of the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature is the explicit commitment to meaningful action and mutual accountability, beyond words on paper. If we are to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and to build a sustainable future, we must leave behind the outdated ‘business-as-usual’ models, informed by the current, limited paradigm of economic grow at all costs.

We begin by rediscovering that nature is inextricably linked to every decision we make – in economic, social, political and technological spaces – and seizing this unprecedented opportunity to shift our world towards a more sustainable future, with nature at the heart of our approach.

As hundreds of the world’s leading scientists found, and intergovernmental representatives from more than 130 Member States agreed last May: “By its very nature, transformative change can expect opposition from those with interests vested in the status quo, but such opposition can be overcome for the broader public good.”

The author is Chair of IPBES

________________________

About IPBES:

IPBES is an independent intergovernmental body comprising 137 member Governments. Established by Governments in 2012, it provides policymakers with objective scientific assessments about the state of knowledge regarding the planet’s biodiversity, ecosystems and the contributions they make to people, as well as the tools and methods to protect and sustainably use these vital natural assets. To some extent IPBES does for biodiversity what the IPCC does for climate change. For more information about IPBES and its assessments visit www.ipbes.net

 

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Following an almost unanimous 97.7 percent referendum vote in November of last year for Independence from PNG, the people of Bougainville returned to the polls last month to decide on a new government. Bougainville's main town of Buka. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, Sep 29 2020 (IPS)

Ishmael Toroama, a former revolutionary leader and fighter during the decade long civil war which engulfed the remote islands of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the 1990s, has been elected the autonomous region’s new President ahead of high-level talks about its political future.

“I, as your mandated President, am ready to take Bougainville forward, focussing on law and order, anti-corruption policies, the [referendum] ratification process and improving the fiscal self-reliance of Bougainville,” Toroama said in a public statement on the occasion of his swearing in as President in the region’s main town of Buka on the Sept. 25. He will be supported in a caretaker government for the next two weeks by his new Vice President, Patrick Nisira, MP for Halia constituency in North Bougainville, and Therese Kaetavara, Women’s Representative for South Bougainville.

Toroama, who defeated 24 other presidential candidates, is a strategic choice. Following an almost unanimous 97.7 percent referendum vote in November of last year for Independence from PNG, the people of Bougainville returned to the polls last month to decide on a new government. It is now tasked with carrying the autonomous region on a challenging political journey toward the long held local aspiration for nationhood.

“The referendum was a turning point…looking at all the 25 candidates, people were looking for who could deliver and successfully talk about Independence [with the PNG Government],” Aloysius Laukai, Manager of the local New Dawn FM radio station, told IPS. Laukai claims that “the election was conducted well” and widely accepted as free and fair. The campaigning and voting periods were reported as organised and peaceful, in spite of some alleged cases of misplaced voting papers.

The islands of Bougainville, with a population of about 300,000 people, are located more than 900 kilometres east of the PNG mainland. Bougainville hit the world headlines in 1989 when an indigenous landowner uprising against the then Rio-Tinto majority owned Panguna copper mine on Bougainville Island escalated into a civil war which raged on until a ceasefire in 1998. The peace agreement, signed in 2001, provided for establishing an autonomous government, which occurred in 2005, and a referendum on the region’s future political status.

Despite having only one recorded case of COVID-19, to date, the Bougainville government declared a state of emergency in March, which led to the delay of the general election, originally planned during the first half of this year.

Former President John Momis, who has led Bougainville for the past 10 years and been a prominent local political leader and figure of stability for more than four decades, bowed out of the race, having served the maximum two terms in office.  The field then mushroomed into an unprecedented more than 400 candidates vying for 40 parliamentary seats and 25 hopefuls for the presidency.

Alluding to the stakes ahead, Momis called for unity as voters turned out to cast their ballots from Aug. 12 to Sept. 1. “Let us all walk this journey together as one people and one voice to decide our leaders for this next government that will lead us to our ultimate political future that is within the confines of democratic values and international best practice standards,” Momis stated on Aug. 17.

While also a pro-Independence advocate, Momis, a former Roman Catholic priest with extensive experience in peacetime politics, is a contrasting figure to Toroama. His achievements include serving in the national parliament, playing a major role in the region’s peace negotiations and serving as Bougainville’s governor after the conflict from 1999 to 2005.

The new President was a commander in the Bougainville Revolutionary Army, a guerrilla force which instigated an armed uprising following grievances about the environmental devastation and economic inequity associated with the foreign-owned Panguna mine. He has not been a political leader or served in government administration, although he played a vital role in the peace talks which ended the conflict. More recently, he has been a successful cocoa farmer.

Geraldine Valei, Executive Officer of the Bougainville Women’s Federation, offered another perspective on the overwhelming support Toroama received at the ballot box. “The reason why we say that he is the right person is because, in our Melanesian way of resolving conflicts, if you start the war then you are the one to resolve it,” Valei told IPS, adding that, “he [Toroama] will, of course, need support from very good advisors to lead as President.”

Toroama’s rivals for the top office included James Tanis, who held the office of President briefly from 2008 to 2010, another former rebel ex-combatant, Sam Kauona, and local businessman, Fidelis Semoso. There were also two female candidates in the running: Ruby Miringka, a healthcare professional who has also worked for the Bougainville Referendum Commission, and Magdalene Toroansi, a former Bougainville Minister for Women.

Bougainville’s fourth government will face enormous challenges in the next five-year term to build a weak economy, improve governance and the capacity of institutions, all still in need of reconstruction and development following widespread destruction on the islands during the conflict. 

Valei told IPS that she would like to see the new President “strengthen good governance, have zero tolerance of corruption, strengthen law and order and advocate for the ratification of Independence from Papua New Guinea”.

Toroama also faces huge public expectations to bring about the region’s long held dream of Independence.  Aspirations for self-determination in the region pre-date both the civil war and PNG’s Independence. The islands of Bougainville were brought under the umbrella of the new Papua New Guinean nation in 1975. But they are geographically located far from the PNG mainland and the islanders trace their ethnic and cultural kinship instead to the Solomon Islands, an archipelago to the immediate southeast of Bougainville.

However, the decisive result of last year’s referendum is non-binding. Long and complex negotiations between the PNG and Bougainville governments to agree the region’s new political status will occur over the coming months and years. Talks at the national level will be informed by input from local forums in Bougainville, comprising representatives of communities, ex-combatants, business leaders, women and youths. The final decision will then be ratified by the PNG Parliament. There is no deadline for this process, but Toroama has indicated he would like a decision reached within two to three years.

PNG’s Prime Minister, James Marape, has voiced his support and respect for the process ahead and the wishes of the Bougainville people. “I look forward to working with President-Elect Toroama in progressing consultations on the outcome of the recent referendum and securing long term economic development and a lasting peace for the people of Bougainville,” Marape said in a statement issued soon after the election results were announced.

Yet, the PNG Government is known to not favour full secession, preferring the region to remain within a ‘united’ PNG under a form of greater autonomy.

Looking ahead, economic experts claim that, with a weak economy and heavy dependence on international aid and funding from the national government, Bougainville would face a long period of transition to being an economically viable state, potentially up to 20 years.

Related Articles

• Post-War Truth and Justice Still Elusive in Bougainville
• Bougainville Women Turn Around Lives of ‘Lost Generation’
• A Peaceful Decade but Pacific Islanders Warn Against Complacency

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Arranging sliced tomatoes to dry in the sun in Bangar el Sokor, Nubaria, Egypt. Rahma is a. Credit: Heba Khammis/FAO

By Juan Carlos García y Cebolla
MADRID, Sep 29 2020 (IPS)

Most cultures have created taboos and norms that prevent food waste. At the same time, social mores have reserved for occasions of celebrations or hospitality a code associating the abundance of food, in quantities much higher than normal, with concepts such as generosity and honour. 

In the last century, along with technical and productive advances and social transformations, taboos have gradually disappeared or lost their effectiveness, and the notion of celebration has led to increasingly common and unconscious manifestations of opulence and neglect.

On the other hand, the food chain has been transformed, multiplying the number of operations and actors, and becoming much more complex. In many cases, the resulting search for ever lower costs has led to a reduced workforce and the assuming of a higher percentage of loss and waste, as occurs with fruit that is damaged by careless handling in self-service retail.

One third of the food grown is lost or wasted every year. This amounts to a staggering 1.3 billion tons of food, which would be enough to feed 2 billion people in the world, and negatively affects climate change, poverty and trade

In the last decade, there has been growing concern about the scale this unsustainable behaviour has reached.

One third of the food grown is lost or wasted every year. This amounts to a staggering 1.3 billion tons of food, which would be enough to feed 2 billion people in the world, and negatively affects climate change, poverty and trade. In turn, this has an important impact on the right to adequate food of broad sectors of the population.

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly disrupted our dynamics. In addition to the damage it has caused to daily life, it has exposed these systemic problems and the need for urgent changes in the way we manage the planet and its fruits, including food loss and waste.

Although disruptions to the food supply chain are – for now – relatively minor overall, measures imposed by States to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus have generated obstacles typical of distant times: from cultivation and harvesting, through transport and storage, up to consumption.

Mobility restrictions (closure of roads and borders, and delays due to mandatory controls) prevent or delay the transport and distribution of goods, resulting in agricultural products that spoil or are not sold due to their low quality. Changes in demand reduce the income of producers, especially small farmers or those living in remote rural areas.

On the consumer side, families with lower purchasing power find it even more costly to access fresh and more perishable foods, such as fruits or fish (leading to unhealthier diets and long-term health costs).

During the pandemic, access to food is not only a problem for the poorest, but also in many cases for people with greater resources who have traditionally been able to afford fresh products of high nutritional value and healthy diets. Among them, the at-risk population, or elderly or chronically ill people, who have to stay at home.

The pandemic has taught us that in times of crisis, it is not only essential to ensure the flow of non-perishable food, but also the linkages between consumers and producers. This facilitates access to fresh foods and healthy diets for all, as well as maintaining demand and sustaining local production, and in turn combating food loss and waste.

To date, we have witnessed the rapid implementation of initiatives to address these challenges.

In Spain, the municipality of Valladolid helped to set up safe home delivery of ‘zero kilometre’ or local foods that have not travelled far after production. The Government of Oman has transformed the fish auction markets from a physical marketplace to a digital platform, where market workers upload photos of the catch and wholesalers, retailers and restaurants can view the daily offer and place their orders online.

Even before the pandemic, the South African “Second Harvest” program, led by a non-profit organization, allowed commercial farmers to donate to vulnerable people the post-harvest surplus produced directly from the farms and distributed with refrigerated vehicles, preserving their quality and nutritional value.

The 2021 Food Systems Summit, convened by the United Nations Secretary General, will be a great opportunity to rethink how to improve access to healthy diets and income for small producers, as well as reducing loss and waste.

In the face of future crises, responses cannot be improvised. We have to be prepared and incorporate a vision of prevention and risk reduction. Political measures should quickly restore market access, so that the knots in the food chain are not broken.

They must also prioritize the well-being and livelihoods of all people, especially those who live in fragile contexts. Only in this way can we mitigate the impact of the crisis, reduce food loss and waste and contribute to the realization of the adequate right to food.

 

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Excerpt:

Juan Carlos García y Cebolla is Leader of the Right to Food Team of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

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Credit: SPC technical and geodetic surveying team at the Majuro tide gauge station in the Marshall Islands (RMI)

By External Source
Sep 29 2020 (IPS-Partners)

As the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC-UNESCO) reported earlier this year, COVID-19 has caused massive disruptions to ocean observing systems around the globe, as research cruises, maintenance visits, and sensor deployments have been postponed or cancelled.

According to IOC-UNESCO, “COVID-19 created an ocean data blindspot that could disrupt weather forecasts and hamper our understanding of climate change.”

When borders closed around the Pacific in March as part of COVID-19 restrictions, it provided an opportunity to test the agility of the infrastructure maintenance program supporting 13 permanent sea level observation stations across the Pacific.

These stations form the backbone of one of the world’s most important ocean-monitoring networks. They provide an indispensable record and near-real time data for meteorological agencies, emergency services, shipping operators, and all coastal communities concerned with the rate of sea-level rise and climate change.

Pacific sea level monitoring

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) manages the tide gauges in partnership with the Pacific Community (SPC) and Geoscience Australia (GA) through the Pacific Sea Level and Geodetic Monitoring (PSLGM) project. As one of the region’s oldest continuing aid investments, this project has provided continuous, high-quality climate, sea-level, and land movement data since 1991, and currently operates under the Climate and Oceans Support Program in the Pacific (COSPPac).

Pre-COVID-19, technicians from BOM, SPC, or GA would travel monthly throughout the region to undertake maintenance, calibration, or levelling of each sea-level monitoring site and attend to any emergency issues that might arise.

But COVID-19 has accelerated a process already underway to build in-country capacity to maintain and troubleshoot these sites. Following are a few success stories that have emerged from the project over the last six months.

6-monthly infrastructure maintenance

SPC team members have trained in-country technicians to conduct routine maintenance of the sea level monitoring stations over the last two years.

“The maintenance of this essential measurement equipment is a crucial component for the continuity of quality data collection,” said Adrien Laurenceau-Moineau, the Technical Team Leader at SPC’s Geoscience, Energy and Maritime Division.

Once trained, technical staff of the Meteorological Office and Lands and Survey Department conduct this basic maintenance every six months, following a purpose-designed checklist. Sea-level observing stations and sensors are cleaned and any damage or deterioration are noted and reported to SPC and BoM.

Fiji Met Service technician, Amori Nabanivalu, at the Lautoka tide gauge station, Fiji.

Since March, maintenance has been completed at ten sites in the Cook Islands, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

In August 2020, the Fiji Meteorological Service (FMS) technical team worked alongside SPC to perform the 6-monthly maintenance check at the sea-level observing station at the Queen’s wharf in Lautoka.

FMS technician, Amori Nabanivalu said, “the tide gauge station provides valuable data for the work we do at FMS and it was a great opportunity to work with the SPC team to better understand the maintenance of the equipment and the processes involved.”

Return to Service

When Tropical Cyclone Harold struck Tonga in April 2020, the old tide gauge on the Queen Salote wharf in Nuku’alofa was damaged by waves. At the new station on Vuna Wharf, waves washed away the gravel protecting the station conduits and the station was off-line due to a power and communication failures.

The technical team in Tonga repaired the tide gauge station conduits at Vuna Wharf, Nuku’alofa, damaged during TC Harold in April

The in-country teams took the lead to implement established Return to Service procedures set up under the project.

Viliami Folau of Tonga’s Land and Survey Department conducted a site visit and provided BoM with pictures, updating the status of both tide stations in Nuku’alofa.

“Post-disaster assessment of the tide gauges is critical. It documents damages, if any, to the infrastructure and ensures the quick return to service of this important source of real-time data collection,” he noted.

Tonga Meteorological Service technician, Enisi Maea, was assisted remotely by BoM to investigate and identify the fault causing the system to go offline. In partnership with Tonga Power and the Ports Authority, Enisi was able to resolve the issue and bring the station back online.

Similarly, Solomon Islands Met Service technical officer, Barnabas Tahoo, took the lead in getting the Honiara tide gauge station back online. Contractors had removed the main power to the station for a wharf extension project back in March when the contractors were suddenly required to return to Australia due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

Barnabas worked with BoM to troubleshoot a solution and was able to install a temporary power extension from a nearby shed until the permanent main can be restored.

Station upgrades

Inspecting the upgrade work conducted at the Port Vila tide station, Vanuatu

Inspite of COVID-19 challenges, planned upgrades to a number of stations have been able to go ahead as planned with remote support and supervision.

In Port Vila and Rarotonga a dual radar sensor platform was installed by local contractors with assistance from the Vanuatu Meteorological Service and the Cook Islands Meteorological service with remote oversight from BoM. The new platform will provide the stations with an additional sensor to monitor the sea level as well as a GNSS receiver antenna.

Likewise, the Suva and Lautoka stations in Fiji were refurbished and a dual sea level radar sensor mount was installed by local contractors and SPC supervision.

Remote capacity building

While the situation presents many challenges, Jeff Aquilina, the PSLGM Team Leader at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has embraced the shift to remote support for the project where feasible. He notes, “This infrastructure maintenance work is building a stronger relationship between us and the technical staff of the Pacific Island countries, building equipment knowledge, technical capacity and a sense of ownership of the tide station in each country.”

“This is a positive outcome of the investment in training, mentoring, in-country visits and the establishment of strong networks in the Pacific,” adds Jeff. “At the end of the day, the aim is to ensure the stations are fully operational, recording crucial datasets.”

“This really drives home the importance of investing in local capacity building,” says Molly Powers-Tora, COSPPac Coordinator and Team Leader for Ocean Intelligence at SPC. “And the fact that overworked national staff are committed to the upkeep of these stations is a reflection of just how valuable this data is to the Pacific.”

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

 

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UN Staff Day with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (left). Credit: United Nations

By Prisca Chaoui and Ian Richards
GENEVA, Sep 29 2020 (IPS)

As the United Nations prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary we have been made aware of an extremely worrying development concerning the future of UN staff contracts.

It seems that UN management is bringing forward plans that, if implemented, will rip up long-established, secure standards of employment and replace them with a model that follows much of the ethos and practices of the ‘gig’ economy, famously characterized by Uber and its contractor drivers.

On Tuesday 29th September, managers from across the UN system will hold a meeting to look at a report on the ‘Future of the United Nations System Workforce’. The report, prepared under the guidance of International Labour Organization (ILO) Director-General Guy Ryder and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, contains much to alarm us.

Instead of understanding the importance of stable, secure contracts of employment to staff during these difficult times, the report recommends a drive to ‘a more agile model contractual modality’, a move that we believe is designed to move staff to short, limited duration contracts.

One crucial section of the report speaks of a new model contract supporting ‘a more agile organization that can rapidly adapt to changing needs and opportunities and scale up and down as needed’. The report notes that these so-called agile contracts could progressively apply to all staff, replacing fixed term and continuing contracts.

The way agile contracts work is that staff would be hired for fixed periods for specific tasks, after which they would be forced to leave and return to their country. They would then have to reapply for a new job and start again from scratch.

There would be no pension scheme and the UN would wash its hands of any long-term obligations towards its loyal staff, many of whom have sacrificed their personal lives in isolated and dangerous locations.

These types of employment arrangements are already controversial when it comes to delivering pizzas in the neighbourhood. So, it’s surprising that the ILO and UN would think they are the future when it comes to delivering humanitarian aid in war zones, providing peacekeeping and defending human rights.

We saw something similar before with contracts called appointments of limited duration, under which staff received a fixed amount with no additions for post adjustment, dependency or education allowance, and no salary scale to ensure equal pay by gender. (Interestingly, Ban Ki-moon abolished them because they were seen as contrary to fair labour standards).

This is revealing as it points to a deliberate ending of career appointments, in particular continuing appointments, an area of concern that we have already brought to your attention.

The rationale for the plans is that the UN needs to have greater agility and responsiveness in dealing with challenges and world events and deliver this in the context of funding constraints and a downturn in the global economy.

We recognize this situation, but are hugely disappointed to see the solutions proposed by the organization, which singularly fail to appreciate the critical importance of the established contracts that sit at the heart of the relationship between staff and employer.

We also believe that if managers want agility, then this is better achieved by investing in training, empowering staff to try different roles, and re-establishing the link between performance and promotion.

Lastly, we are concerned that management’s plans ignore the main reason that UN staff have contract security. It is to be able to act independently from pressures that may be exerted by member states and ensure they are not put in the position of doing the bidding of whichever country or corporation donates the most money to ensure their next job.

We have seen during the pandemic how even the perception of such influence can create huge problems for a UN organization.

For this reason, we call on management to drop their plans for Uber-style contracts at the UN.

 

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Excerpt:

Prisca Chaoui is Executive Secretary of the 3,500-strong Staff Coordinating Council of the UN Office in Geneva (UNOG) and Ian Richards is former President of the Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations, and an economist at the Geneva-based UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 29 2020 (IPS)

Milton Friedman’s libertarian economics advocating shareholder capitalism has influenced generations trying to understand the economy, not only in the US, but all over the world.

He was not just an academic economist, but an enormously influential celebrity conservative ideologue who legitimized ideas for the like-minded, including the belief that ‘greed is good’. Now, shareholder capitalism’s consequences haunt the world and threaten humanity with stagnation and self-destruction.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Friedman’s lasting influence
In 1962, Friedman published his most influential book, Capitalism and Freedom. In September 1970, the New York Times Magazine published his essay, The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits.

The article — reiterating the Friedman Doctrine, presuming perfectly functioning markets that only exist in the minds and writings of some economists — is a manifesto for American shareholder capitalism. It inspired the counter-revolution against Keynesianism, development economics and other state interventions.

The word ‘competition’ appears only once, in the last sentence. Yet, some supporters insist that Friedman was not ‘pro-business’, but rather ‘pro-market’. But, unlike capitalism, the market has been with us for several millennia and has happily co-existed with unfreedoms of various types.

Perfect competition rarely exists due to inherent tendencies undermining it. Hence, various challenges to Friedmanite wisdom. For half a century, information and behavioural economics have challenged his many assumptions, certainly much more than the Austrian School advocacy and defence of capitalism.

Thus, Friedman conveniently ignored ‘market imperfections’ in the real world, although or perhaps because they undermined the empirical bases for his reasoning. So, even if Friedman’s logic was true, reality prevents profit-maximizing firm behaviour from maximizing societal welfare, if not cause the converse.

Meanwhile, Friedman’s monetarist economics has been discredited, and has little practical influence anymore, especially with the turn to ‘unconventional monetary policies’, particularly after the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. Yet, his ideological sway remains strong, as it serves powerful interests.

Greed is good
Hence, Friedman’s 1970 essay remains influential in the world, and has long served as the mainstream manifesto on corporate governance. Even then, Friedman denounced dissenting CEOs as “unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society”.

Generations of Friedmanites have insisted that ‘the only business of business is business’, and their sole responsibility to society is to make money. He emphasized, ‘‘there is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.’’

When Friedman insisted “make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society”, he may have presumed that market imperfections do not exist, or were fully addressed by the ‘minimal’ state, although it is well-known that the rule of law has never been adequate to the challenge.

His singular focus on maximizing profits for shareholders justified ignoring all problems due to corporate practices. The doctrine thus absolved the firm of social responsibility. It justified and encouraged generations of corporate leaders committed to the primacy of ‘shareholder value’. Almost like religion, this thinking became the hegemonic ideology, legitimizing ‘greed-is-good’ behaviour.

Government the problem?
Friedman’s ideology spread throughout the world with the ‘neoliberal’ counter-revolution from the 1980s.

Unsurprisingly, neoliberal economists’ claims have been discredited by their policies’ failure to significantly increase investments in the real economy in recent decades.

And without sufficient investments to enhance productivity, growth has declined, if not stagnated, while dimming future economic prospects. With labour incomes declining relatively, if not absolutely, consumer spending has declined, reducing aggregate demand while feeding a vicious circle of stagnation.

Meanwhile, deregulatory initiatives have not increased real investments and output growth. Market finance ideology claims that the stock market can best allocate investment resources among companies. But share buybacks imply that US corporations have no better investment options than to further raise already high, over-valued financial asset prices, thus reducing resources for real investments and future growth.

The Friedman doctrine also celebrated and justified short-termism, and undermining protection for employees and the environment to maximize shareholder value by increasing corporate profits. This type of capitalism has spread throughout the world with the ‘neoliberal’ counter-revolution since the 1980s.

‘Getting government out of the way’, the neoliberal ‘free market’ mantra, was supposed to boost private investments. But more handsome corporate profits due to cost savings – from weaker anti-trust and other regulations, lower wages and taxes – have not significantly increased real investments in the US.

The 2007-2009 US financial crisis exposed some problems of short-termism, particularly related to financialization and ‘shareholder value extraction’. The crisis cast doubt on Friedman’s legacy and its implications, encouraging new challenges to corporate governance norms and regulations.

Business and politics
Friedman would have us believe that power and politics are not exercised in free markets. But this ostensible insulation of politics from supposedly power-free markets is a fiction which thoughtful Friedmanites knew only too well, not least from their own advocacy, behaviour and conduct.

All markets are shaped by various historical and contemporary influences, economic, cultural, social and political. These are often driven by business and other lobbies. Thus, politics, collective action and advocacy shape policies, in terms of design, implementation and enforcement.

To be fair, Friedman’s view of politics and business seems contradictory. His writings argue that business should stay out of politics, and not use shareholder money to influence politics. But he is remarkably understanding when it happens:

“I can’t blame a businessman who goes to Washington and tries to get special privileges for his company”. “If the rules of the game are that you go to Washington to get a special privilege, I can’t blame him for doing that. Blame the rest of us for being so foolish as to let him get away with it.”

Neoliberal inequality
Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich has argued that larger US corporations have acquired so much influence over government, undermining US democracy. Instead, he argues for public financing of electoral campaigns while curbing corporate influence, e.g., via lobbying and campaign spending.

He cites an old study of 1,779 policy issues during 1981-2002 which found lawmakers acceding to the demands of big businesses with the most lobbying capabilities while the average American had “only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically nonsignificant impact upon public policy”.

With the Citizens United ruling in the new century, the US Supreme Court has legally enabled powerful corporate interests to lobby politically. Unsurprisingly, corporate taxation has been dramatically reduced, while social protection and public investments, e.g., in health and education, have declined further.

Instead of gains being shared by top executives and shareholders with workers, as during the post-Second World War Golden Age, benefits have become increasingly skewed to the very wealthy in the past four decades, thanks to Friedman’s increased influence.

From 1948 to 1979, US worker productivity more than doubled while wages fell slightly behind as the stock market grew over six-fold. But from 1979 to 2018, worker productivity rose 70 per cent, as worker pay rose by only 11.6 per cent, while CEO compensation rose almost ten-fold and the stock market 22-fold!

 

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Today when children are under serious threat from Covid-19, the 30th anniversary of the Children's Summit is a highly appropriate time for countries to renew and update the vows they made then. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Richard Jolly
BRIGHTON, United Kingdom, Sep 28 2020 (IPS)

On the eve of the UN’s 75th anniversary, Antonio Guterres, the UN’s Secretary-General has declared that the coronavirus pandemic is the world’s top security threat. He has called for action – for greater international co-operation in controlling outbreaks and developing an affordable vaccine, available to all. Such action is needed and possible -even in the absence of a large gathering of world leaders in New York to celebrate the anniversary.  But children today in every country need more.

Richard Jolly

Thirty years ago, on 29/30 September 1990, the largest gathering of world leaders that had ever taken place, met at UN Headquarters under the auspices of the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF. This was The World Summit for Children. It was an enormous success, gathering headlines around the world-and leading to worldwide action for children.

The Summit set goals for improving the situation of children everywhere, in health, education and their needs in especially difficult circumstances. Every country in the world adopted and agreed to these goals and, since then, all but the United States has– ratified the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The World Summit for Children was the brainchild of the American James P. Grant, the charismatic head of UNICEF. After initial doubts about whether more than a handful of presidents or prime ministers would come for a high -level meeting on children – as opposed to one on trade or the economy – The World Summit for Children took place with 71 heads of State, including President Bush and Prime Minister Thatcher.

Though children are much less likely to suffer direct effects from the virus, the indirect effects are already serious -in disrupted education, in neglect of essential medical care, in disturbed relations with family, relatives and friends

Such was the success of the event that the idea of holding Summit meetings soon caught on – the Earth Summit in 1992, the World Summit for Social Development in 1995, the Millennium Summit in 2000, and the Summit for Sustain able Development in 2015.  agreed at the Summit for children.

More importantly, following the goals, child survival has improved dramatically: the number of children dying under five has been reduced by 60%, from 12 million in 1990 to well under 6 million today. Immunization, growth monitoring and other actions have improved the health and life expectancy of millions of children in the developing world, and all countries have accepted that “the best interests of a child shall be a primary consideration.”

Today when children are under serious threat from Covid-19, the 30th anniversary of the Children’s Summit is a highly appropriate time for countries to renew and update the vows they made then.

Though children are much less likely to suffer direct effects from the virus, the indirect effects are already serious -in disrupted education, in neglect of essential medical care, in disturbed relations with family, relatives and friends.

Many are also suffering the consequences of domestic violence and child abuse. Countries are turning away from collective national and international action just when it is needed most.

Today’s COVID crisis could be an opportunity -for a new impetus to invest in our children and in the next generation of doctors, nurses, scientists, statisticians and carers, who will need to be well prepared to deal with future crises and emergencies.

Though a collective meeting is not possible, every country needs to consider and plan for its children, both to recover from the immediate effects of the virus and to set new paths for the next five and ten years.

Prime ministers and heads of state should take the lead, citizen’s assemblies should add to the specifics and communities and governments should make the commitments. A World Summit is not possible nor necessary, -but every country needs to consider the new priorities for its children and make serious plans and policies to respond to them.

 

Richard Jolly is Honorary Professor at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. From 1982-95 he was Deputy-Executive Director of UNICEF when Jim Grant was Executive Director. Among the books he has written are “UNICEF- Global Governance that works” and “UN Ideas that Changed the World”, which he co-wrote with Tom Weiss and Louis Emmerij.

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The show "Kings of Kin" - brings together the work of Chéri Samba (pictured above), Bodys Isek Kingelez and Moké, known affectionately as the kings of Kinshasa, as their art is closely linked with the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, their home and work base. Credit: AD McKenzie

By SWAN
PARIS, Sep 28 2020 (IPS)

Chéri Samba has a sly sense of humour, both in person and in his work. Standing in front of his 2018 painting “J’aime le jeu de relais” (I Love the Relays) – which criticizes politicians who cling to power instead of passing the baton – Samba is asked about the resemblance of one of his subjects to a famous statesman.

“Oh, I was just portraying a politician in general. I didn’t really have a particular person in mind because they all have certain characteristics,” he responds. Then he adds mischievously, “Isn’t it me though? Doesn’t it look like me?”

In this case it doesn’t, but the Congolese artist sometimes depicts himself in various guises in his paintings. Visitors to the current exhibition in Paris featuring his work and those of two of his equally acclaimed countrymen will have fun trying to spot him on canvas.

The show – Kings of Kin – brings together the work of Samba, Bodys Isek Kingelez and Moké, known affectionately as the kings of Kinshasa, as their art is closely linked with the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, their home and work base. All three have participated in numerous exhibitions around the world, in group and solo shows, but this is the first time they’re being shown together in galleries.

Kings of Kin is being held jointly at the MAGNIN-A and the Natalie Seroussi galleries (running until Oct. 30) and features some 30 works, including Samba’s latest paintings. He is undoubtedly the star attraction with his bold, massive canvases commenting on social and political issues in Africa and elsewhere, but the others command attention as well.

Samba also is the only surviving “king” as Moké died in 2001 and Kingelez in 2015.

On a recent unseasonably hot afternoon, the artist is present at the MAGNIN-A gallery, speaking with a visitor who’s wearing a mask, although he himself is without one. He says he came to Paris in January, then got caught in the lockdown as the Covid-19 pandemic spread in France. He has used the time to complete several paintings for the current show.

Asked if he doesn’t miss the “inspiration” that Kinshasa provides, Samba replies that all artists should be able to produce work wherever they find themselves.

“I live in the world, and I breathe as if I’m in Kinshasa,” he says. “In my head, I want to live where I can speak with people and where they understand me. I travel with the same brain. I would like to be in Kinshasa, but this doesn’t prevent me from creating. The world belongs to all of us.”

His new paintings fill the entry and the main hall of the MAGNIN-A gallery, with bright greens, reds, blues – inviting viewers into his mind or current state of world awareness. 

The first work that strikes the eye is “Merci, merci je suis dans la zone verte” (Thank you, thank you I’m in the green zone), which depicts a man – the artist – seemingly caught in a vortex of some sort. Painted this year, the painting reflects the current global upheavals with the Covid-19 and other ills. It could also be referencing the DRC’s past under brutal colonialism and the difficulties of the present.

Another equally compelling work features the faces of six girls of different ethnicities, produced in acrylic with particles of glitter, and titled: “On Est Tout Pareils” (We’re All the Same). Samba says that his daughter served as the model and that the painting is a call for peace, equality and the ability to live together without discord.

The oldest of his paintings on display dates from 1989 and reveals a very different style, with softer colours and intricate workmanship, as he portrays a Congolese singer – the late feminist performer M’Pongo Love – wearing an attractive dress. Here the broad strokes are absent, and the designs on the dress are meticulously captured.

He says that although viewers may notice variations between his earlier output and the new works, he tends not to take note of such differences.

“All the paintings are like my children,” he says. “I can’t make distinctions between them.”

In contrast to Samba, the paintings by Moké comprise softer hues and have a more earthy feel, but they also compel the viewer to see into the lives of those depicted. Moké’s subjects nearly always elicit a certain empathy, a certain melancholy, and sometimes hope – whether these subjects are performers or an older couple simply having dinner together.

Moké lived for only 51 years, but his output was impressive – dating from the time he arrived in Kinshasa as a child and began painting urban landscapes on cardboard. He considered himself a “painter-journalist” and portrayed the everyday life of the capital, including political happenings. One of his paintings from 1965 depicts then-general Mobutu Sese Seko waving to the crowds as he came to power in Zaire (the previous name of the DRC).

In the Paris show, Moké’s paintings depict boxers, performers, frenetic city scenes, and portraits of women staring out with expressions that are both bold and solemn.

Meanwhile, the work of Kingelez takes viewers into a sphere of colourful towers and other “weird and wonderful” structures with a utopian bent, as he imagines a world that might possibly rise from the ravages of colonialism, inequity and bad urban planning.

The first Congolese artist to have a retrospective exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (“City Dreams” in 2018), Kingelez used everyday objects such as paper, cardboard and plastic to produce his first individual sculptures before creating whole fantastical cities.

His futuristic urban settings, which also address social issues, thus form a perfect companion to the “surreal earthliness” of Samba and Moké in Kings of Kin.

“These are artists who worked because of deep necessity, because they had something to say. It wasn’t about the art market or commerce,” said French gallery owner and independent curator André Magnin, who first encountered their work in the 1980s in Kinshasa.

The author of several books on Congolese art, Magnin said he hoped visitors to the exhibition would discover the unique “artistic richness” of the Congo region as exemplified by the “kings”. As for “queens”, he said that there weren’t many women artists working at the time, but that more are now becoming known and should be the focus of coming shows.

Dorine, a French art student of African descent who visited the exhibition, said she admired the artists and particularly Samba because he “speaks of African reality”.

“Their work is very interesting, and the message is extremely strong,” she told SWAN.

 

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The UN estimates that 74% of Africans cannot afford healthy diets. That is nearly 1 billion Africans. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Dr Lawrence Haddad and Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko
ADDIS ABABA, Sep 28 2020 (IPS)

One of the biggest revelations of the COVID-19 pandemic has been that people with pre-existing, diet-related conditions such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, are more at risk of suffering severe forms of the disease leading to a need for intensive hospitalization.

In Kenya, for instance, the Ministry of Health in July reported that 16 percent of seriously ill COVID-19 patients had diabetes, while diabetes and hypertension alone accounted for 47 percent of the COVID-19 deaths linked to pre-existing conditions.

According to WHO data, these chronic diet-related conditions were among the main risk factors for illness and mortality in Africa prior to COVID-19. The current crisis is simply throwing fuel on the fire. It has highlighted the criticality of diet as the key determinant of health of individuals and populations, particularly in urban areas, where an increased uptake of highly-processed and unhealthy foods is increasingly undermining regional nutrition goals.

In fact, data from countries in East and Southern Africa published in the Journal of International Development show that highly-processed foods now account for more than one third of the purchased food market. Not all of these foods are unhealthy, but many are, and combined with the availability of cheap, convenient and tasty street foods, the result is cheap food that is high in saturated and trans fats, salt and sugar.

Long-term solutions must be sought, a process that demands the involvement of all the world’s leaders from communities, governments, civil society and the private sector. The challenge is clear: how to incentivize food producers, processors, distributors and marketers to make nutritious food more available and affordable? 

To change these devastating trends fresh foods such as vegetables, fruits, high-protein legumes, nuts, eggs and fish must become more widely available and much more affordable in Africa’s food markets. Healthy diets are often inaccessible to most of Africa’s population.

The UN estimates that 74% of Africans cannot afford healthy diets. That is nearly 1 billion Africans. This is shocking and unacceptable. These numbers are only likely to rise during this time of a pandemic, where job cuts have greatly reduced people’s spending power and lockdowns have broken food supply chains, further increasing food prices, especially the prices of perishable fresh foods.

Temporary and very partial workarounds include the expansion of social protection programmes such as in Nigeria providing targeted transfers to poor and vulnerable households. These financial packages help the vulnerable to meet their minimum dietary and nutritional needs, but they are not a complete or sustainable solution.

Long-term solutions must be sought, a process that demands the involvement of all the world’s leaders from communities, governments, civil society and the private sector. The challenge is clear: how to incentivize food producers, processors, distributors and marketers to make nutritious food more available and affordable?

First public policy needs to be aligned with this goal. Too many policies are working against this aim. For example too few food production and consumption subsidies are going to nutritious foods; too little public agricultural research development and farmer extension focuses on these foods; too often public food procurement disfavours these items and infrastructure development ignores cold chain development.

Agriculture in Africa is a key economic driver and supporter of livelihoods. Productivity needs to be increased, biodiversity promoted and climate resilience attained. Is this possible? Yes. Already, farmers in countries like Zambia are recording up to a 60 percent increase in yields through the application of ecosystem-based adaptation techniques.

Elsewhere, in Burkina Faso, farmers have reclaimed 200,000 to 300,000 hectares of degraded lands by digging shallow pots in barren land and filling them with organic matter. The reclaimed land now produces an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 additional tonnes of cereal for the Burkinabe. The challenge is to replicate these successes throughout the continent.

Second, private investment into these more nutritious foods needs to be incentivised. Of the $200 billion impact investment fund industry, GAIN estimates less than 0.3% goes to nutritious foods in Africa. Fund facilities that stimulate private investment in small and medium sized companies that produce nutritious foods for low income populations need to be established that offer loan rates that are lower than market while targeting nutrition outcomes.

Institutional investors such as pension funds need to signal to the bigger companies with extensive value chains in Africa that they will favour companies producing more nutritiously beneficial foods.

Third, consumer demand needs to be shifted towards healthy foods. Too often healthy food campaigns pale in comparison to private sector campaigns for highly processed foods: they lack imagination, humour and flair.

Healthy eating campaigns must be engaging, aspirational and memorable. Food environments—where consumers come face to face with food—are stacked against the consumption of healthy foods which are often consigned to unattractive spaces in markets and stores. This needs to change too.

Fourth, civil society campaigns can hold businesses and governments accountable for promoting healthy foods. Civil society activism is particularly essential to focus attention on silent crises such as unhealthy diets.

Together these four levers can incentivize businesses and other stakeholders to innovate and develop business models, products and services that make nutritious and safe foods more available, affordable, desirable, and sustainable. Africa cannot move ahead smoothly if 1 billion of its people cannot afford a healthy diet.

The approaches defined above are not exhaustive, but if well implemented will bring the continent closer to better nourishment, further improving the prospects of properly fighting emerging health challenges such as COVID-19, both from a health and economic perspective.

The post How to Make Nutritious Food Affordable for the 1 Billion Africans appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr. Lawrence Haddad is the Executive Director, GAIN and H.E. Ambassador Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko is Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union Commission

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Fast fashion consumes vast resources, often polluting and devastating the natural world. Pictured here are garment workers in Bangladesh. Credit: Obaidul Arif/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 28 2020 (IPS)

Racism “keeps the global north oblivious to the effect of fast fashion addiction on the global south” say environmental and gender justice experts.

Organisers and activists came together last week to discuss how the fast fashion industry sits at the intersection of environmental and gender justice. The industry, which discriminates against women from the production cycle to the consumption of it, contributes to environmental degradation as two million tonnes of textile are discarded every year.

Beyond that, fashion also plays a crucial role for people of different genders to express themselves, panelists said at the United Nations General Assembly event “Subversive Catwalk: Women, Fast Fashion & Climate Justice”.

“We hoped to encourage people to look at the connection between women’s oppression – the pressure to look good, to be fashionable, that their bodies are not good enough – and the oppression of women worldwide in the garment sweatshops of the world,” Su Edwards, organiser of the panel, told IPS.

“We wanted to raise awareness of the vast resources consumed by fast fashion and the resulting pollution and devastation of the natural world,” she added.

The panel shed light on the importance of women from the global north creating a bridge to work in solidarity with women in the global south.

“We are very keen to emphasise the unity between groups that are often seen as having divergent interests,” Edwards said. “Fashion is a good place for women to find common interests and to begin to understand that their life choices may impact on their sisters in other places.”

The panel, however, lacked the presence of any Bangladeshi representative on the conversation of the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,100 garment workers. Scores of garment workers were injured in the disaster, sparking off a massive global conversation on garment workers’ rights.

The only representative invited to speak about the issue was Sumedha Shivdas, a fashion designer  from India.

“We wanted to include at least one woman from the global south in our panel and Sumedha is part of our organisation,” Edwards said when this issue was addressed. “The point was that she had heard about the Rana Plaza disaster but was numb about it.”

On environment, panelists stated that it takes 12 years to get rid of waste that fast fashion makes in 24 hours.

Beyond environmental concerns, fashion also has a large role to play in one’s identity. One of the highlights of the panel was Josephine Carter, a queer artist-activist and panel member who spoke about the role fashion plays on the intersection of environmental justice, human rights, and identity. 

For Carter, identity is at the center of her activism. She is currently working on a poetry project honouring black men for Black History month in the United Kingdom.

“This work feels deeply relevant at the moment, as we’re once again reminded of how endangered black lives are, and of the particular forces of white supremacy which work to endanger black men particularly,” she told IPS.

This relevance is further deepened by the environmental concerns around the world.

“I am thinking, writing and working my way towards climate activism, and finding a way to make this inextricable with the activism work I already do, on race, gender, sex and class,” she said.

For the panel talk, her aim was to have her message reach women and have them engaged in the conversation on climate crisis, and for them to realise how urgent and relevant it is to their lives.
Another goal for her, as well as that of the workshop’s, was to convey the message that for activists, their emotions are very intricately linked with doing the work of climate justice. Understanding that link, and figuring out which measures work and what needs improvement, can help unlock opportunities for climate justice initiatives that are effective.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Inter Press Service (IPS): What role has fashion played for you in your identity?

Josephine Carter (JC): As a queer woman of colour, I got to explore how people with my identities get pushed in two different directions – to use fashion and dress as self-expression, or to use fashion and dress as a way to conform to a heteronormative and cisnormative society. Not only do big feelings about ourselves and our bodies come up as a result, there are also real-world consequences to conforming or not conforming.

IPS: The intersection of fast fashion, environment and the queer community aren’t usually examined together. What does this intersection tell society?

JC: The reality is that over consuming fast fashion clothing, either to stand out or to fit in, doesn’t come without environmental consequences. Once we accept that the ecologically degrading and exploitative fast fashion industry can’t be allowed to continue, for the sake of the planet and its people, we then have to reconsider our relationship to clothes and reckon more closely with the presence of homophobia and transphobia in our lives.

As mentioned in the workshop, a part of the work of achieving climate justice is the elimination of all oppressions. Bringing together the topics of fashion, environment and queerness (or other identities) shows that the climate crisis actually permeates all areas of our lives and experiences, even areas that might seem unrelated at first glance. It goes, I hope, a little way towards demonstrating that there are a thousand reasons for every person alive to be active in the fight for climate justice, including people who usually get left out of the climate movement.

IPS: What role do you believe fashion plays a role for queer and gender non-conforming communities?

JC: Experiences with fashion in queer and gender non-conforming communities are as diverse as the communities themselves. While I can’t speak for these communities as a whole – especially as a cisgender queer woman – I notice that fashion provides an opportunity for self-creation, for queer and trans people to reclaim their bodies from oppression and dysphoria. Because clothing is so gendered, it can be a useful tool for exploring and subverting the gender binary. It can also be an outlet for creativity, self-expression and sheer joy in queer lives which are so often marred by interpersonal and systematic homophobia and transphobia – from workplace discrimination to homelessness, from medical mistreatment to hate-motivated violence.

IPS: What other roles does fashion play in this conversation?

JC: Conversely, fashion can also play a role in keeping queer and trans identities hidden, especially when individuals have to conform to heteronormative and cisnormative gender roles because of an oppressive family environment, community or government. The necessity to stay hidden and the harshness of the punishment of visibly queer and trans people increases as homophobia and transphobia overlap with other systems of discrimination such as race, class and disability.

IPS: How has your identity as a queer person shaped your relationship with fashion?

JC: I use clothing to announce my queer identity and to hide it. Some of the pressure that is put on heterosexual women to look “feminine” and attractive according to our culture’s norms actually passes me by, and I love putting myself out in public as a weird, fat, butch, boxy, short, black queer woman when I wear dungarees, Doc Martens, men’s clothing, and the rainbow flag. It works as a way to signal to other people in the LBGTQ community that I’m here, that we see each other, that I stand in solidarity with a queer aesthetic and heritage.

I also sometimes get slurs yelled at me on the street, have disparaging comments made about my body by strangers, and am generally made aware that I don’t look how a woman “should” look. It’s interesting that the defining aesthetic categories for queer women, butch and femme, separate us out into who “looks like a woman” and who doesn’t. I remember many occasions as a teenager and young adult where I have tried and failed to look feminine, attractive and acceptable.

I use fashion as a way of constructing my queer identity, and fashion constantly reminds me that society’s idea of what’s acceptable for women’s lives is still very narrow.

Related Articles

• Bangladesh’s Garment Industry Boom Leaving Workers Behind
• Taking the Lead in Fight Against Climate Change

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A suicide survivor shares her story of how an online community helped her overcome anxiety and depression. Credit: Unsplash / Dan M

By Fairuz Ahmed
NEW YORK, Sep 28 2020 (IPS)

Romana Hoque had it all, a comfortable life, a happy family. Despite this, the 43-year-old second-generation immigrant from Indonesia living in the United States was depressed enough to contemplate suicide.

Hoque, in an exclusive interview with Inter Press Service (IPS), said despite her comfortable life, not being able to conceive resulted in her feeling so depressed that she tried to take her own life. She shared her story during September – set aside as a month for creating awareness of suicide prevention.

“For me, it was a blur. I studied at a top university in Singapore and had a beautiful life. But job stress and not being able to conceive a child used to burden me,” Hoque says.

“One attempt after another, and the hormone therapy led me to try to end my life. The cycle was brutal and vicious.”

She said she tried reaching out to family and friends, but many dismissed her concerns saying she would be alright.

“I had to put up a face that everything is going alright and act accordingly. I had no way of expressing myself. One night the pain was unbearable, and I decided to give up.”

Depression and mental health issues are linked to suicide. Globally, 79 percent of suicides occur in low- and middle-income countries; however, high-income countries have the highest rates of suicide. It proves that triggers can be varied, and having a successful life dreamt by many does not guarantee peace of mind. Societal pressure, judgement, and constant pressure could create triggers.

Also, men are three times more likely to commit suicide than women in wealthier countries, but in emerging countries, the rate is equal. With the need for a better, successful life, comes the need to prove and achieve. This paves the road for self-loathing and destructive behaviour among many. However, there is no specific pattern in suicides – just as there no pattern to mental health.

Someone, very close to you may seem fine, but deep inside there may lie a silent pain killing the person’s spirit, she says.

Hoque was admitted to the hospital for trying to end her life after taking sleeping pills in 2018. After a week in the hospital, she sought therapy. It took her a year of therapy and monitoring to finally let go of the negative thoughts and move forward.

“I had it all, money, a good job, and a loving family. But I think unless someone really understands what is going in inside, no one wants to talk about depression and triggers. I used to get asked on a regular basis when I will conceive and why I don’t have a child,” she said. “This was my struggle, and I was feeling less of a woman for not giving birth. I used to get paranoid that my husband will leave me for being barren.”

Finding support is crucial to overcome suicide triggers. Credit: UnSplash / Kai P

Social stigma, cultural norms, and expectations are a few factors that could push a person to the breaking point. Her support system and coping mechanism included extensive therapy, and she found surprising support online platforms. Social media was a crucial factor in helping her to recuperate and open-up.

Hoque started to read articles and people’s stories in various suicide prevention groups. After a few months, she found two online writing platforms called Fuzia and Medium. Later she joined a writers’ forum called Writers of Fuzia on Facebook.

Finally, after a long time, she could voice her thoughts. She could open up and be herself. She felt liberated.

“Sometimes the people who don’t know us are the best therapists,” she said with a smile. “I could write anything I want to. I could be silly. I could be open, and I could be myself. I joined countless discussions and even made friends with girls half my age. No one judged me; no one wanted anything from me. I felt free. I felt happy.”

For her recovery and mental healing, Hoque gives credit to Fuzia.

Another critical factor in the process of self-expression was anonymity. She used a fake name and a generic picture. She felt comfortable sharing with unknown people because she found that thousands of girls were experiencing the same feelings.

She was highly motivated to learn more about how people connect and how they are triggered. The piece of the puzzle that was missing was a place to vent.

Here, in Fuzia, no one really knew each other but still, they felt like sisters, like family. And they felt of belonging somewhere. There is a global audience of 4 million and opinions varied, as did perspectives. But somehow everyone connected and felt each other’s pain.

Her experience with Fuzia and having a group to relate to she later launched her own company helping youth and women become aware of the patterns and identify triggers for suicide. A little know-how and compassion can help others share their trauma and anguish. The inspiration for judgment-free sharing and listening gave her the backdrop to give back to society.

Married, unmarried, single, widowed, or single mothers, gays, lesbians, or bisexuals, young and old: all were equals in the social media platforms. In Fuzia, the online community’s tolerance was crucial, and there was no divide on religion or geographical identity. People were treated with dignity and respect.

The United Nations and partners have drawn attention to different aspects of mental health concerning children, the workplace, stigmatization of issues, and psychological first aid or ways in which to lend support to the distressed.

The link between suicide and mental health is well established in high-income countries; however, “many suicides happen impulsively in moments of crisis”, according to the World Health Organization.

“Experiencing conflict, disaster, violence, abuse or loss and a sense of isolation are strongly associated with suicidal behaviour,” WHO outlines in its list of key facts.

 

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Civil society protest during the 3rd UN Financing for Development Summit in Addis Ababa in 2015. Credit: Civil Society FfD Group

By Tove Maria Ryding, Pooja Rangaprasad and Emilia Reyes
NEW YORK, Sep 28 2020 (IPS)

On 29 September, the world’s heads of state will come together (virtually) at an extraordinary meeting to discuss financing for development during the 75th UN general assembly. This will be crucial in the battle to address the Coronavirus crisis.

Our leaders will need to ask themselves this question: can we tackle a global recession while ensuring that basic human rights are protected, and the fight against poverty and environmental destruction are not completely run off the tracks?

The simple but harsh answer at this point in time, is that we cannot. The necessary global mechanisms and agreements are not in place, and unless governments urgently start working together to plug the gaps in the system, billions of people are likely to be heavily impacted by the Coronavirus crisis for years to come.

While the crisis is threatening up to half a billion people with poverty, the fortunes of the ultrawealthy are skyrocketing. Meanwhile, existing inequalities and discrimination, including those related to gender and race, are being reinforced by the Coronavirus crisis. National action is vital, but no country can address the global challenges alone.

Ahead of the heads of state meeting, a ‘menu of options’ for action has been published which includes key recommendations on debt, illicit financial flows, global liquidity and financial stability, among others. The heads of state must move from talk to action by agreeing to implement some of these recommendations and kickstart real intergovernmental negotiations to deliver new international frameworks and agreements.

At the top of the intergovernmental to-do list has to be debt resolution. The coronavirus crisis is creating a high risk of debt crises, especially in the Global South. And while the G20 response – to offer a standstill on bilateral debt to the poorest countries – has delayed the problem, it has done nothing to actually resolve it.

Even before the pandemic, there were clear warning signs that new debt crises were looming. This was alarming in light of the fact that we currently do not have an international mechanism to ensure that debt crises are resolved without undermining basic human rights of the people living in the impacted countries.

The good news is that the ‘menu of options’ includes concrete proposals for solutions, such as debt cancellations and an international UN debt workout mechanism. Now is high time for governments to get to work on these proposals.

Another top priority ought to be addressing tax havens, international tax dodging and other illicit financial flows. This problem has been causing a continuous bleeding of hundreds of billions of dollars annually from public budgets in both the Global North and South.

A core reason for this disaster is a deeply broken and outdated international corporate tax system. But here too, a clear and concrete proposal for a UN tax convention is part of the ‘menu of options’. Such a convention could pave the way towards new international tax and transparency rules to combat tax dodging. What is missing is an international alliance of progressive countries that can increase international pressure for progress and action.

A third, and related, top priority for governments should be to address the broader economic problems, which are exacerbating the impacts of the crisis. Governments ought to agree a date and preparation process for a crisis summit under the UN’s Financing for Development process, to be held at heads of state level as soon as practically possible.

The summit should follow up on previous commitments, which started with the Monterrey Consensus in 2002. Originally, governments had actually agreed to discuss a follow-up conference in 2019, but up to now have procrastinated and postponed the decision.

The sad reason for these delays is an old fight about control over economic decision-making processes. Countries in the Global South have been pushing for negotiations to start under the auspices of the UN, where all countries participate on an equal footing.

However, the countries in the Global North have blocked this and instead insisted that all decisions must be kept in opaque forums where they dominate the decision-making, including G20, IMF, the Paris Club and the OECD.

In 2014, when countries in the Global South wanted to start working on a UN debt resolution mechanism, constructive forces within the EU were drowned out by a small group of hardliners – and in particular the UK and Germany, and the EU ended up boycotting the process.

During a Financing for Development (FfD) summit in 2015 a group of countries in the Global North –with the UK and US in leading roles – put all their political muscle into blocking a proposal for a UN intergovernmental tax process put forward by the Global South countries.

This behavior has not only led to secret negotiations and unfair decisions that disregard the interests of the Global South, it has also led to a complete failure to develop effective solutions. By getting engulfed in a dirty fight to keep a large part of the world’s countries out of decision-making processes, many otherwise progressive European countries acted against the interests of their own people, including by increasing the influence of some of the most obstructive powers.

This includes the Trump administration, but also some of the OECD countries that are very aggressive tax havens. But the coronavirus crisis seems to be causing some governments to crawl out of the trenches, and the high-level meeting this month provide an important opportunity.

75 years ago, the UN was set up to “achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character”. In reality, the UN became the place where global agreements on human rights, sustainable development, peace and environmental protection are negotiated.

However, on economic issues, power-hungry developed countries have blocked UN cooperation. Unless we find fair and effective solutions to address economic and financial crises, it will not only undermine all the other UN objectives and agreements. It will also make the coronavirus crisis much longer and more disastrous than it has to be.

 

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Excerpt:

Tove Maria Ryding is Tax Justice Coordinator, European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad); Pooja Rangaprasad is Policy Director, FfD, Society for International Development (SID) and Emilia Reyes is Co-convener of the Women’s Working Group on FfD

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One of the largest photovoltaic installations in Central America, with 320,000 solar panels, located in the center of El Salvador. Latin American countries are betting on solar energy as the central pillar of the energy transition, reinforced by the commitments made in the Paris Agreement on climate change. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS.

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Sep 25 2020 (IPS)

The economic recovery after the covid-19 pandemic, renewable energy, the gas situation, regulations and investment; mobility and transport, as well as new technologies and the progress of the Paris Agreement will be discussed at the Madrid Energy Conference from 28 September to 2 October.

Jeremy Martin, vice-president of the non-governmental Institute of the Americas (IoA), told IPS from its headquarters in the U.S. coastal town of La Jolla, California, that the second Madrid Energy Conference had to adjust its format to a virtual one, as all the meetings have done since March.

“But the goals and objectives are the same: to address the way energy is generated, distributed and consumed, as well as the investment needed in Latin America to drive the energy transition and its link to Europe,” explained the vice-president of the Institute organizing the conference.

The dialogue, the first edition of which was held in the Spanish capital in 2019, will bring together ministers and deputy ministers from various Latin American and Caribbean countries, as well as 20 company presidents and more than 400 delegates from international bodies, such as the intergovernmental International Energy Agency and the Latin American Energy Organization, and experts from both continents.

"Without a doubt, the pandemic and the crisis it has triggered have led to growing attention and calls to redouble efforts towards an energy transition that will help the world reduce CO2 emissions"
Jeremy Martin


The first day of discussions will focus on the relevance of the Paris Agreement, signed in 2015; the climate crisis in the context of the pandemic; and the situation of renewable energy in Latin America.

The second day will focus on financing the post-Covid recovery and the energy transition towards lower carbon models and mergers and acquisitions in the energy sector.

The third day will focus on energy storage in batteries and electricity transmission networks; mobility, transport and energy transition and intelligent transmission networks.

In the fourth group of sessions, speakers will discuss gas, the perspective of oil corporations and the role and impact of regulations on hydrocarbon companies.

The closing of the virtual conference will deal with energy digitization and artificial intelligence, carbon capture and storage (CCS), the gas generated by human activities responsible for global warming, and methane, whose polluting power is greater than that of CO, and the situation of hydrogen, seen as an alternative to fossil fuels, in Latin America and Europe.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic which appeared in China at the end of 2019 and has spread rapidly throughout the world, nations have suffered economic recession, a fall in energy consumption and tourism, as well as thousands of deaths and job losses.

In response, countries have implemented packages of social and economic measures with different degrees of depth.

For Leonardo Beltrán, a Mexican non-associated researcher at the Institute of the Americas and a participant in the forum, the conference attracts the most relevant actors to consolidate the energy dialogue.

“There are opinion leaders, company executives who develop business and technology, and officials. The forum allows for the exchange of ideas, and a new vision can be developed, thus consolidating energy integration for the region,” he told IPS in Mexico City.

 

Domestic gas and its role in the energy transition will be one of the topics to be debated at the Madrid Energy Conference, which will virtually bring together senior representatives of governments, intergovernmental organizations, business and civil society organizations. In the picture, gas charge for residential consumption in a southern neighborhood of Mexico City. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

 

It will also allow us to analyze the progress of the Paris Agreement on climate change, signed in 2015, which for Beltran is crucial “now more than ever”, because of the consequences of the pandemic, such as the sharp slowdown in the global economy, the reduction in energy consumption, the contraction in tourism and the disruption of trade.

“Forced by the pandemic, we are seeing the effects of highly polluting industries, which have a large carbon footprint, and so the magnifying glass is being put on these sectors. The source of these emissions is fossil combustion,” he said.

The also former Undersecretary of Energy recalled that the Paris Agreement is linked to the efforts that its participating governments have to make and whose progress will be the subject of dialogue during the Conference. “Everyone has committed to reducing their footprint with short, medium and long term goals,” he said.

Beltrán considered that in global terms, Latin America can exhibit “ample room for maneuver” at the Conference due to its low carbon footprint and a clean energy matrix at increasing levels.

In addition, the European Union’s (EU) “Next Generation EU” plan, announced in June and worth $830 billion, can serve as a model for Latin America, with more than a third going to projects to increase energy efficiency, reduce dependence on fossil fuels and preserve nature. Financing will be subject to environmental requirements.

Martin agreed with the existence of the European alternatives from which the Latin American region can take upon.

“Again this year we will look at developments in Europe with a view to how they can contribute to policy and investment frameworks in Latin America”, he said.

“Without a doubt, the pandemic and the crisis it has triggered have led to growing attention and calls to redouble efforts towards an energy transition that will help the world reduce CO2 emissions,” Martin added.

The specialist stressed that in many Latin American countries the focus has been on how to manage hydrocarbons, with the lens on the energy transition.

European energy companies are investing heavily in the region, and the EU has set up lines of cooperation to help in the face of the pandemic.

Mechthild Wörsdörfer, director of Sustainability, Technology and Outlooks at the International Energy Agency (IEA) and a speaker at the conference, told IPS that “having a set of pre-existing policy objectives, programmes and delivery channels for financial services can help countries implement recovery measures more quickly.”

The official from the energy coordinating body of the major industrial countries said from Paris, the headquarters of the IEA, that they can also help ensure that these measures “are consistent with national objectives for medium- and long-term sustainability.”

Wörsdörfer also considered that the recovery plans for the economic crisis caused by the covid can be linked to the Paris Agreement through the measures that countries adopt to comply with the treaty, “to help select recovery measures that also allow climate and other sustainability objectives to be met.”

All of this will be discussed in this virtual edition of the second Madrid Energy Conference, which will analyze the challenges that the pandemic and post-pandemic have placed on a sector that was already subject to the special challenges of a historic transition in its sources, matrix and consumption.

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A letter from Roberto Savio to his friends
 
The creation of a Palestinian State remains a pipe-dream

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Sep 25 2020 (IPS)

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI, The League of Nations mandated that Britain administer Palestine. The London administration was quite ineffective, in part, due to the contradictory promises which were made to the Arabs, to the Zionists and to France, the other colonial power which divided the territory with Britain.

Roberto Savio

But the conflict is much more ancient. It has now been thirty centuries since the first confrontations between the Philistines and the Hebrews, and the peace agreement promoted by US President Donald Trump between Israel and two ancient small Gulf monarchical dictatorships will certainly not resolve this millennial rivalry.

The Philistines settled in the region around 1200 BC. Toward the end of the 11th century BC, the Israelites succeeded in driving them out of much of their territory, but they remained independent along the coastal region. And although they never completely dominated the whole area, the demonym of this people comes precisely from the word peleset (Philistine) and hence the territory Filasṭin, Falasṭn or Filisṭin (Palestine).

Three thousand years later, the conflict seems to lack resolution. The Israelis have never accepted the existence of a Palestinian State.

For their part Palestinian leaders continue to employ inviable rhetoric, which has led to their losing many opportunities. The corruption of which they are accused, is based in reality, but Israel has a relatively dark history.

Arab Sultans and Sheikhs are people with a medieval mindset, those for whom religious fanaticism and money is uniquely important. Trump likes them, because in some ways they resemble him. The Israelis have worked out how to take advantage of all this so as to eliminate the possibility of a Palestinian state.

Result: Palestinians will have to live under Israeli control. They will be second-class citizens, and the internal arrangement of Israel will change as the ultra-orthodox Haredin have a higher population growth rate than Arabs or other Jewish factions.

Arabs are 20% of the population, while Haredin jewish sect already constitutes twelve percent of the population. At the time of the creation of the State of Israel, the Haredin were only 0.2%. These are medieval clans living in a special world. For example, they have won the right to not attend school, as they only study holy scriptures. They do not do military service and by law they do not work; they’re basically maintained by the State.

Benjamin Netanyahu survives thanks to the ultra-orthodox parties. The future of Israel is not a peaceful future. It is a country that is going to turn more and more toward the right, which will have to continue to use force against the Palestinians, who will become an exclusively internal problem, as they will be abandoned by other Arabs. They are going to live under appalling social and economic conditions, and we are going to see how Israel increasingly takes the apartheid path.

Netanyahu’s recent victories portend a dark future. One has visited the region too often now to offer a positive prognosis. Through all this, Trump motivates alliances with the Sunni religious fundamentalists led by Saudi Arabia, united against the Shiites, led by Iran.

Iran, the ancient Persian civilisation, is much more tolerant than the Sunnis. The problem is that it has been captured by a group of fanatics who took advantage of the unpopularity of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, leading to them seizing power from the Shah in 1979. They are unpopular, but they are holding their ground.

It should be remembered that the theocratic regime was installed with decisive help from the West.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in France to Iran on a plane provided by the conservative government of French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Iran is another mistake made by the United States, a country whose foreign policy is always short-term, again failing to understand the reality on the ground.

Triggering an escalation to remove the Shah, employing the clergy, created a regime that eventually turned against the US, something Reza Pahlaví would have never done. It is the same mistake committed in Afghanistan, when they financed a movement against the Russian occupation, creating phenomena such as Bin Laden, which ended up turning in another direction.

By the way, this is the same mistake made by Israel when it supported Al Fatah at first, so as to weaken Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

The Mullahs are not at all popular, but they are maintained by the support of the peasants and by a powerful repressive apparatus. No doubt at some point they will be taken out in a bloody internal crisis, and Iran will return to normality.

In this respect I wish to stress three points:

a) Iran has top-level universities, great films, excellent architecture and a high level of scientific prowess:
none of which can be found in the Sunni world.
b) In Teheran there are synagogues and christian churches,
something that is lacking in the Sunni world.
c) Of all the terrorist attacks that have taken place to date in Europe and in the United States,
there has not been a single Shiite terrorist.
And we should bear in mind that Iran has been under sanctions for 40 years.

Moral: the political disaster which is the Middle East is one of governance, in which the ‘West’ and Trump carry many responsibilities. So too the Europeans who installed Kings, Princes, Emirs and Sheiks when they divided up the Ottoman Empire.

And Trump, with his son-in-law, who, despite being Jewish, is capable of reasoning in Arab terms, by reinforcing this World of petrodollars and of medieval thought.

Throughout this panorama the Palestinians remain a people without a homeland who lack nationality, and the Israelis have their answer prepared: they don’t accept the peace plan, and then do not have leaders who seek peace.

However, persisting in maintaining millions of people resentful and poor is not an intelligent play. It is also clear that in both intellectual and artistic circles there is little Israel support for such a formula.

Falling into this trap is best explained by Netanyahu’s efforts to maintain power at any cost, and so selling his soul to the far-right, also accompanied by a left which has become a merely symbolic force…

Publisher of OtherNews, Italian-Argentine Roberto Savio is an economist, journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of an anti neoliberal global governance. Director for international relations of the European Center for Peace and Development.. He is co-founder of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and its President Emeritus.

 

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The post Peace in the Middle East appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

A letter from Roberto Savio to his friends

 
The creation of a Palestinian State remains a pipe-dream

The post Peace in the Middle East appeared first on Inter Press Service.

How inclusive is activism and discussions on climate change? Most environmental movements and organisations in the United States and Europe are primarily white and middle class, and hold vast amount of resources and set the agenda for policy work and ecosystem recovery. This dated photo shows a landslide in central Kenya that resulted after intense rainfall - one of the consequences of climate change. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 25 2020 (IPS)

Wrapping up Climate Week at the United Nations General Assembly, global leaders called for climate action that may be “ambitious but achievable” and called for climate measures that would “leave no one behind”. But some climate activists remain concerned about how this can be achieved.

“The environmental movements in the United States and Europe are primarily white and primarily middle class,” Tara Villalba, a Filipino climate activist in the U.S., told IPS. “These mainstream environmental organisations hold vast amounts of resources (in the form of land, money, other property, and influence), and they are in charge of how those resources are used in ecosystem recovery and in policy work: our solutions are not taken seriously.”

Villalba spoke to IPS following Thursday’s Climate Change Roundtable hosted by the U.N. Secretary-General, in the same week as a significant pledge made by China to achieve “carbon neutrality” by 2060.

“But the climate emergency is fully upon us, and we have no time to waste,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in his speech, as he also called for climate action efforts to “leave no one behind”.

While leaders, including the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, applauded this effort by China, they also reminded listeners of the grave situation the world is in currently — at the meeting point of a climate crisis and a global pandemic.

“Most people did not imagine that the world would be afflicted in the way we have…we were woefully underprepared,” Guterres said regarding the pandemic. “But for climate change, nobody can say that we have not been warned, nobody can say that we’re not, now, capable of  making the preparation.”

European Union President Ursula von der Leyen shared how the pandemic has only highlighted the glaring holes in how we live and build.

“[The] corona pandemic has not lowered the threat of climate change,” she said. “On the contrary, it has made us aware of the fragility of our life on this planet.”

She added that recovery from this moment will require “substantial investment” to ensure that economies are moving forward.

“It will require a determined action to leave no one behind,” she said,  announcing the EU’s agreement to make Europe the first climate neutral continent in the world by 2050.

“The European leaders have decided to set up the next generation EU: this is a €750 billion recover and resilience fund that will invest in Europe’s green and digital transition for building a resilient and competitive economy,” she said. At least €275 billion has been budgeted for environmental and climate goals.

Despite these big promises and gestures, there are some who believe that a lot more work needs to be done to ensure those at the grassroots level are being included in the conversation.

“Our solutions are not taken seriously,” Villalba, who has worked in the climate movement for 15 years, told IPS. “Racism makes white people think that they are the best people to decide how to use those resources. Classism makes wealthy people decide they are the best decision makers and that power should be theirs. They want to “help” people like us but charity is not what’s needed. Power and wealth need to be redistributed so that we can all be less at-risk.”

She also painted a comprehensive, all-encompassing picture of how different social issues are intricately linked with climate justice concerns.

At the center of racism, and classism, she says is “an oppressive system that distributes resources.”

“Poor people and people of colour live with pollution. Poor countries have become the trash dumps of rich countries,” she said, drawing a parallel to a food chain where something as vast as climate change can trickle down to affect people on an individual level.

“Our work wears down our bodies faster because we cannot regenerate when we can’t sleep, eat, and live properly. But the people, communities and ecosystems that are being most severely impacted are where people of colour and poor people live and work and play,” she added.

Villalba, a single mother, is raising three children and is an organiser for housing justice: all factors that she says play into, or add to, the climate crisis.

“Many environmental activists assume people like me are not interested in climate activism. But we are. We have the most to lose – we lose our livelihoods and our families face risks first in ANY crisis – whether it is the COVID crisis or the climate crisis,” she said. “Fight because climate solutions MUST come from people like me. People who can barely make ends meet, and people who cannot meet all their needs to be able to live.”

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Credit: Forus International

By Pénélope Hubert
PARIS, Sep 25 2020 (IPS)

The year 2020 will most certainly mark a critical moment for the planet and future mobilizations. In a society shaken by Covid-19, people are gathering, regrouping and acting collectively for a sustainable world, an egalitarian future, and for global awareness on the climate emergency.

Activists and human rights defenders are sounding the alarm on the resurgence of forms of violence and poverty. It’s time for a turning point.

“Working for a global network means promoting a horizontal approach. From the fight for equality to climate justice, we are witnessing the rise of strong movements. Networks, grassroots organizations and citizens are redesigning the world for present and future generations”, says Sarah Strack, Director of Forus International, an innovative network empowering civil society for effective social change.

“We are at a crossroad. Are we going to adapt to a visibly changed world, or are we going to shut our eyes to what is happening? The time has come to promote new narratives, to think larger and to give visibility to collective solutions that bring the voices of communities to the forefront.”

The Global Week to Act4SDGS held on September 18-26, during the 75th General Assembly of the United Nations, called on people around the world to think about solutions to some of the world’s most pressing issues. This year, the #TurnItAround movement calls on individuals to shape priorities.

The basic question people are encouraged to think of is: what should change? What would you like to see more or less of? Every action counts: from public demonstrations for peace, to online campaigns on gender equality, to beach cleanups, museum exhibits and school art projects on sustainability topics.

“In Argentina, where we are used to protesting in the streets, the global pandemic has reshuffled the way we make our voices heard,” says Rolando Kandel, Director of the Argentinian platform for NGOs Red Encuentro (EENGD).

According to Red Encuentro, the pandemic has highlighted the importance of coordination between civil society organizations and governments, to respond dynamically to the needs of different communities which are facing new rights violations alongside an exacerbation of existing ones. As a result, they have launched a cycle of online conversations to impact public policies.

“Now that public space is largely off-limits, it’s important to use digital environments as a way to enhance, rather than curtail democracy,” says Rolando Kandel.

Online activism and virtual mobilization seem to be the new normal, but the risks are that vulnerable populations with little access to the internet can be left further behind. In Bolivia, in a tense political and social context ahead of the elections scheduled for October, Red Unitas tells us that violence against women persists.

“The situation of women in the context of the pandemic in Bolivia is extremely hard,” says Iris Baptista from Red Unitas. “Indigenous women are protesting the lack of healthcare in their communities and continue to fight for their rights. Now that we have been forced to shift our work online, it is not easy to reach all indigenous communities, we are adapting – resources are being sent by post, and we use telephones to maintain contact”.

Bolivia, like many countries, has struggled to combat gender-based violence and discrimination for years. Attacks against women have risen during the quarantine in Bolivia, where on average seven in 10 women say they have suffered some type of violence inflicted by a partner.

Bolivia has one of South America’s highest rates of women being killed because of their gender. The year 2020 was declared the Year of Fight against Femicide and Infanticide in Bolivia, even so, no effective prevention measures have been taken.

“During the quarantine the slogan “Stay at Home” was widely used. For many women and girls who are victims of violence that actually meant a very dangerous “Cállate en casa” (shut up at home),” Iris explained.

“The Unitas Network created the campaign “SIN VIOLENCIA ES MEJOR” (Better Without Violence), to raise awareness about the fact that women are doing most of the work during the pandemic, to fulfill their role as mother, wife and worker, yet they continue to face violence at home. We developed a series of creative videos for digital platforms called “The diary of a man in quarantine” which are reflections on violence against women and the distribution of domestic tasks across genders during Covid -19.”

Whether it’s about peace, gender, social justice or equality, your voice matters and your stories are relevant. Share them, invite your friends, create movement and mobilize so that you make your needs visible. Everyone’s future is the planet’s future, and it’s time to make your voice heard, so that history becomes collective rather than individual.

“We are resolved that civil society organisations, social movements and volunteers have a critical role to play in supporting community action and ensuring that those who are most often marginalized are not left behind through this challenging time,” states Action for Sustainable Development.

As part of the United Nations General Assembly, a SDG Action Zone provided space for deep conversations on inclusion, technology, urban and rural realities. From young climate activists to women leaders, sessions were built from the insights of local community activists, individuals and organizations working at the frontlines, often facing intersecting challenges.

If digital technology allows the dissemination of a message on a large scale, it is important to realize that this tool is not the only way to mobilize yourself, and to mobilize others around you. The current crisis is taking place beyond our screens, where realities are often shaped and presented according to individual interests, creating so-called “filter bubbles”.

In a world where governments can easily shape an image that meets your consumer or ideological criteria, it’s important to realize that you have a role to play in shifting conversations in the analog world.

“The pandemic has opened our eyes to the fact that we live on one planet. There is an increasing need for global solidarity and stronger collaborations,” says Adriana Aralica, from the Slovenian NGO platform, SLOGA. “Only together we can address upcoming challenges and ensure that everyone has a seat at the decision table.”

Let’s #TurnItAround !
For more information: communication.support@forus-international.org

 

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The post #TurnItAround: One Week to Mobilize for the Future appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Pénélope Hubert is part of the communications team at Forus International, described as an innovative global network empowering civil society for effective social change.

The post #TurnItAround: One Week to Mobilize for the Future appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Forest restoration and rewilding must take centre stage, through programmes that also provide for community incomes. | Picture courtesy: Balipara Foundation

By Ranjit Barthakur
GUWAHATI, India, Sep 25 2020 (IPS)

We usually think of livelihoods and lives separately, however, it is now time to imagine a more integrated approach.

Consider these statistics:

• The 2019 UN-IPBES report—the most recent attempt to holistically assess the major threats to the world’s biodiversity, internationally and across stakeholders—estimates natural disasters caused by biodiversity loss and climate change cost the planet approximately USD 300 billion annually.
• In India, one-third of our GDP depends on nature, and another third is fairly dependent on nature—that’s more than 60 percent of the country’s GDP.
• Fifty-seven percent of our rural communities depend on forest ecosystems for their livelihoods

In essence, ecology is economy. Multiple studies have told us that ecological degradation will spur more droughts, desertification of once fertile soil, water and food insecurity, mass displacement of people, reduced crop yields, and more.

Livelihoods have an interdependent relationship with natural assets such as land, energy, waste, water, air, and carbon. In many cases, they require the use of these assets; on the other hand, protecting and enhancing these assets can increase the earning potential for livelihoods

In our work at Balipara Foundation, we are already witnessing what an ecologically degraded, climate unstable future might look like. When we resumed fieldwork in April—after a month-long lockdown due to COVID-19—our communities along the Bhutan-Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border told us story after story about how families were unable to buy seeds or had missed out on crucial planting windows for crops, because of the lockdown. A few months later, the agroforestry plots we had set up were partially swept away in fierce floods, the likes of which had not been witnessed by the local community in the past three decades.

Non-existent crops, fallow fields, sudden and destructive flooding, and subsequently dried up jobs, are effects that are likely to be amplified in the next decade, whether through climate change or emerging pandemics.

 

If we can build our ecology, we can build our economy

1. Livelihoods is no longer a matter of just creating jobs

Instead, it has to include managing our ecosystems. Natural resource use has historically been limited to extraction and use as material for consumption, or in other industries (eg, timber, food, fuel, building material, paper, clothing), rather than recognising nature as a service provider (eg, oxygen and carbon cycles, water and climate regulation, pollination, soil restoration). Rethinking how we use this ‘natural capital’ can help achieve a balance between ecology and economy. And, if we can build our ecology, we can build our economy.

Livelihoods have an interdependent relationship with natural assets such as land, energy, waste, water, air, and carbon. In many cases, they require the use of these assets; on the other hand, protecting and enhancing these assets can increase the earning potential for livelihoods. In practical terms, this means deriving our food and water needs through regenerative land and water resource management, satisfying our energy needs through hydrogen and solar-based fuels instead of fossil fuels, and satisfying our ever-increasing appetite for materials through reuse and recycling, instead of extraction.

2. Transitioning to an economy in tune with ecology is also good for business

Globally, we are looking at an employment opportunity of up to 395 million new jobs by 2030, if we invest in the sustainable use of degraded aquatic and terrestrial habitats, move to complete renewable energy use, and upgrade our infrastructure to minimise inefficiencies and emissions. Of this, using our lands and oceans (farming, fishing, forestry, and allied industries) more sustainably and regeneratively, in a way that enhances ecosystems, can create 191 million jobs globally and generate business opportunities worth USD 3.6 trillion.

Meeting emissions targets for both the 1.5 and 2-degree rise will also increase India’s net income by up to 25 times over the next few decades, both through minimising spending on climate-related damage (eg, repairing cyclone and flood damage, rehabilitating displaced people) and by reducing climate-driven loss in earnings of nature-dependent sectors (agriculture, forestry, and allied industries).

Well-designed agroforestry, adapted to local conditions and needs, can improve yields for farmers by up to 64 percent in developing countries while putting nutrients into the soil, stabilising water tables, and improving overall biodiversity.

3. It’s becoming a question of survival

Apart from the business case, moving to an integrated ecology-economy approach is a matter of survival in an increasingly uncertain future. Whether this is extreme weather events like flooding, fires, supercyclones, desertification, or water and food insecurity, an integrated approach will enhance resilience for rural communities, who are already experiencing the early waves of these losses.

For example, biodiversity loss in both pollinator species and crop varieties has led to increased vulnerability in agriculture globally, as well as India. Preserving local pollinator species (eg, indigenous bee species vs introducing the Western European honeybee) as well as heirloom seeds and wild varieties of crops can help farmers adapt more effectively to rising temperatures and changing growing conditions through a greater variety in crop options. This can help improve productivity while maintaining their income streams.

 

What can businesses do?

1. Build alternate livelihoods that invest in restoring natural assets

Livelihood programmes must move beyond the traditional focus on agriculture and livestock to include sustainable forestry, carbon sequestration, and payment for ecosystems services programmes (i.e. payment to communities or local stakeholders to protect/maintain at-risk ecosystems). This should be led by businesses whose value chains are heavily exposed to environmental or biodiversity-related risks, for example, agribusiness, mining, and construction, among others.

Forest restoration and rewilding must take centre stage, through programmes that also provide for community incomes—whether through direct payment for restoration and management of forests, or through establishing agroforestry in forest buffer zones, which communities can sustainably harvest.

2. Invest in nature-based solutions

Consumer businesses in India have the opportunity to invest in agroforestry and sustainable farming practices. Declines in crop yields due to soil nutrient depletion is a growing problem. Businesses that depend heavily on agricultural produce will see greater and longer-term pay-offs from investments in natural solutions, including organic farming and agroforestry models. Organic or sustainably grown produce also fetch greater prices in global markets, where conscious consumers are willing to pay more for produce that minimises their environmental impact.

3. Integrate ecological measures in corporate accounting

The time is ripe for a transformation in accounting systems, which integrates the full scope of profits and losses; not just financial gains, but environmental and social impact as well. Understanding the full value of what we stand to gain and lose is critical in encouraging effective changes in government policies and business practices. Including these measures will integrate previously externalised environmental costs into chains and reveal the ‘real’ cost of our current economic growth.

In doing so, practices that generate environmental and social instability will be rendered less financially attractive to investors. Measures correlating social, ecological, and economic indicators will help evaluate how sustainable a country’s or business’ growth is. It will also identify where losses are likely to occur and enable better policy and practice to minimise those losses.

 

What can the government do?

1. Draw up a green recovery plan

Countries around the world are debating their versions of the green new deal. India must break from carbon-centric Keynesian economics and adapt to the 21st-century net-zero vision for carbon neutrality: Investments in its rural communities for forest restoration coupled with agroforestry, sustainable fisheries and horticulture, organic and low-carbon handicrafts, recycling and upcycling industries, green jobs through renewable energy, and energy-efficient green infrastructure.

It should also look to upgrade existing infrastructure both to reduce energy inefficiencies and the environmental damage caused by these assets as they degrade over time.

2. Ensure that communities benefit from the afforestation schemes

While on paper India’s joint forest management and compensatory afforestation schemes empower communities to benefit monetarily from planting forests, in practice the profit-sharing pipeline is porous and ineffective, with communities involved in planting rarely benefitting.

Streamlining this through transparent, accountable processes and standards for compensation, as well as providing stronger protection to communities to leverage these programmes is critical in both incentivising forest restoration, and creating nature-centric socio-economic mobility among rural communities. Youth from these communities, in particular, could benefit from nature-centred opportunities at home, through technical training for afforestation and biodiversity management.

3. Implement standardised agroforestry policies across states

India took a step forward when it became the first country to introduce an agroforestry policy in 2014. Since then, however, few states appear to have benefited from this policy, if at all—information about the policy’s implementation on the ground is scanty. Formally implementing its policies for capacity building, decentralisation to community-level institutions such as Joint Forest Management Committees, streamlining regulations on harvesting, and transporting produce across states, will ease the transition from monoculture cultivation towards biodiversity-friendly agriculture. This must be incorporated in addition to India’s 33 percent commitment for forest restoration under the Paris Agreement and the Draft National Forest Policy 2018.

4. Integrate policies for a nature-centred policy

The World Economic Forum’s 2020 report on Global Risks indicates that biodiversity and climate-related risks are now widely acknowledged to be the risks with the highest likelihood and impact. India can no longer afford to have an isolated climate policy, or one that places business interests over environmental concerns—as the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification 2020 does.

Perhaps the greatest and most immediate change we can make is a mindset shift: Nature is no obstacle to the goal of development. Rather, it is the underpinning powerhouse of our economy—and unlike other finite resources, can be regenerated to sustain futures. An integrated, interdependent approach that recognises ecology is economy is the most critical step we can take towards making nature, rural livelihoods, and our economy self-sustaining.

 

Ranjit Barthakur is the founder of the Balipara Foundation, where he drives community-based conservation and livelihoods in the Eastern Himalayas through cutting edge proprietary concepts such as Naturenomics and Rural Futures for sustainable social change and thriving habitats. He is a social entrepreneur with more than 40 years of experience in both the public and private sector in the areas of IT, hospitality, FMCGs, sports, and mainstreaming sustainability practices in organisations.

 

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

The post Ecology is Economy – ‘We Need an Integrated Approach Between Lives and Livelihoods’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jens Martens
BONN, Sep 25 2020 (IPS)

Governments have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with unprecedented intensity. They have taken far-reaching regulatory measures to contain the pandemic and mobilized financial resources on an enormous scale.

They have thus demonstrated that they are capable of action and need not leave the driver’s seat to the markets and the private sector if the political will is there.

In countless statements most governments have also affirmed that a return to business-as-usual after the crisis is not an option. Instead, the UN call to “build back better” has become a leitmotif of the multilateral responses to the COVID-19 crisis.

But does “building back” really lead to the urgently needed systemic change?

In the first phase, many COVID-19 emergency programmes contained certain social components that aimed to provide (more or less targeted) support for families in need, prevent unemployment and keep small businesses and companies financially afloat.

But aside from the fact that even these altogether huge amounts of money could not prevent the global rise in unemployment, poverty, and corporate bankruptcies, the temporary measures produced at best a flash in the pan effect that will quickly evaporate when the support ends.

The social catastrophe then comes only with a delay. Environmental considerations, on the other hand, played hardly any role in the first phase of COVID-19 responses. Most economic relief packages have been ecologically blind and ignored the structural causes and the interdependencies of the multiple crises.

It is therefore all the more important that now, in the second phase of policy responses, longer-term stimulus packages not only support economic recovery, but also promote necessary structural change, such as strengthened public social security systems, improved remuneration and rights of workers in the care economy, and the transition to circular economies, which seek to decouple growth from consumption of finite resources.

If used in the right way, such policies could offer the chance to become engines of the urgently needed socio-ecological transformation proclaimed in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the World Economic Forum calls for “The Great Reset” to enable “stakeholder capitalism.” But pushing the reset button just restarts the game, without changing the rules of the game – or even the game itself.

The reset button clears the memory and reboots the (old) system, a system that has proven that it could not prevent the current crises, but rather has caused them.

Our Spotlight on Sustainable Development Report 2020 offers as an alternative an “8 R”-agenda for systemic change.

The eight sections do not provide a comprehensive reform programme. Rather, they illustrate in a nutshell eight issue areas where not only policy and governance reforms but also changes in the underlying narrative are long overdue:

1. Re-value the importance of care in societies: The pandemic has revitalized the idea that essential jobs exist. Care-giving jobs are at the top of that list, even though historically they have been hardly recognized, socially devalued and badly paid, with little or no benefits or protection.

A recognition of the essentiality of care should foster a process of transformation in the way in which it is socially addressed.

Democratically expanding horizons of equal care arrangements, allocating public resources to building care infrastructure and recognizing and strengthening community care arrangements are essential elements in any process of building a different way out of the current global crisis.

2. Re-empower public services: Around the world, frontline public service workers continue to receive praise and support for their vital role in responding to the COVID-19 crisis. Yet, these underfunded public services and brutal working conditions are not inevitable. They are the result of decades of deliberate erosion of our public services through budget cuts, privatization and understaffing.

We must make sure these services are well financed. We need a better global tax system to ensure corporations and the very wealthy pay their fair share and do not use their economic power to exercise undue influence over public policy. The remarkable wave of re-municipalization in more than 2,400 cities in 58 countries shows how possible – and popular – it is to bring services back into public control.

3. Re-balance global and local value chains: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed once again the vulnerabilities generated by commodity dependence and overreliance on global value chains. They reflect the dominant model of a global division of labour which disregards the massive externalities related to resource exploitation, environmental degradation, displacement of communities, and the violation of human rights and labour rights.

The current crisis offers the opportunity to rethink and remodel these unbalanced export-driven development strategies, shift the centre of gravity away from the global economy and take bold public policy and investment decisions to strengthen domestic circular economies.

Three cornerstones of the necessary economic transformation are the strengthening of sustainable local food systems, enhanced regional (or subregional) cooperation to overcome the constraints of limited domestic demand, and systemic reforms in international trade and investment regimes to widen the national policy space for transformation.

4. Reinforce the shift towards climate justice: Against the backdrop of increasing climate change impacts that inordinately affect the poor, especially in the global South, and a potential deepening of the development gap and global inequality as a result of these and other crises, a more just and equitable approach to addressing climate change has to be undertaken.

In particular, countries of the global North should start phasing out and shifting subsidies and investments away from fossil fuel exploration, extraction and production immediately and commit to transition rapidly to a 100 percent use of clean and renewable energy by 2030. They should scale up the provision of climate financing to at least US$ 100 billion by the end of 2020 and increase that rapidly between 2020 and 2030.

5. Re-distribute economic power and resources: The relief and recovery packages being put in place by governments and international institutions are a critical means for tackling the structural inequalities exposed and perpetuated by COVID-19. In designing and implementing these packages, governments have the chance to start disrupting the status quo and breaking up the concentration of corporate and elite power at the root of these inequalities.

However, most governments are currently failing to take this opportunity. Redistribution is absolutely crucial for a just recovery from COVID-19, for realizing human rights for all, and for achieving the SDGs. But on its own, redistribution is not enough – we also have to think about how we create wealth, resources and power in the first place. Crucial “pre-distributive” policy areas in this regard include labour and wage policies and financial and corporate regulation.

6. Re-regulate global finance: The coronavirus crisis and resulting economic lockdown have made clear that fundamental steps need to be taken in financial regulation and reform of the international financial architecture. At least to some extent, they have also created new political impetus for such steps. One essential element would be a sovereign debt workout mechanism.

This requires an institution that makes independent and binding decisions on sovereign debt restructurings based on objective criteria and is able to enforce it in an impartial manner. To address the problems of tax dodging facilitated by financial secrecy jurisdictions and an unfair global tax system, an intergovernmental tax body – with universal membership and a strong mandate– should be created under the auspices of the United Nations.

7. Re-invent multilateral solidarity: Mobilizing support for international cooperation and for the UN must start with bending the arc of governance back again – from viewing people as shareholders – to stakeholders – to rights holders. There are many global standards and benchmarks that could be developed to measure this progression. These should be at the forefront of pursuing substantive, rights-based multilateralism and distinguishing it from multilateralism in name only. The UN should be the standard bearer at the global level, not a neutral convenor of public and private engagement.

This requires predictable and sustainable public resources, currently undermined by tax evasion and illicit financial flows and detoured to servicing undeserved debt burdens. The necessary but not sufficient condition for multilateral solidarity, the fuel to change direction, is a new funding compact at national level and to finance an impartial, value-based and effective UN system.

8. Re-define the measures of development and progress: SDG target 17.19 of the 2030 Agenda urged the international community “to develop measurements of progress on sustainable development that complement GDP”. COVID-19 shows that this is not a statistical subtlety but a matter of life and death.

The example of the Global Health Security Index (GHSI), an analytical tool intended to identify gaps in epidemic and pandemic preparedness, shows that largely ignoring the social and environmental determinants of health and concentrating instead on the infrastructure, advanced technologies and liberalized regulatory frameworks, can lead to misinterpretations and misguided policy conclusions.

The still dominant development paradigm’s main message is that countries need to get richer, not more sustainable, and that to climb the ladder and become “developed” they should follow the advice—and example– of their richer peers. This mindset must be overcome once and for all.

The Spotlight Report is published by the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Global Policy Forum (GPF), Public Services International (PSI), Social Watch, Society for International Development (SID), and Third World Network (TWN), supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2020
Shifting policies for systemic change – Lessons from the global COVID-19 crisis
Global Civil Society Report on the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs
Beirut/Bonn/Ferney-Voltaire/Montevideo/New York/Penang/Rome/Suva, September 2020
www.2030spotlight.org

 

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The post Pushing the Reset Button will not Change the Game appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Key messages of the Spotlight on Sustainable Development Report 2020 as September 25 is the 5th anniversary of the adoption of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs.

 
Jens Martens is Director, Global Policy Forum, Bonn

The post Pushing the Reset Button will not Change the Game appeared first on Inter Press Service.

US President Donald Trump (on screen), addresses the General Assembly’s seventy-fifth session on September 22. But Trump was missing in action (MIA) during the 75th commemorative meeting on September 21. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 24 2020 (IPS)

With more than 20,000 civilians killed last year in conflicts in 10 countries — including Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen– UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated his call for a “global cease-fire”: a proposal which failed to generate a positive response since he first announced it last March.

But with the UN’s most powerful body remaining deadlocked– and facing a bloodless confrontation between two major powers– the United Nations now seems to be in need of a “political cease-fire” at its very doorstep: inside its own 15-member Security Council (UNSC).

On the opening day of the annual high-level debate in the General Assembly September 22, the US and China, two veto-armed members, battled it out with accusations and counter-accusations.

The public confrontation between the two countries is likely to bring the UNSC to a standstill – perhaps with a worse-case scenario of the US and China vetoing each other’s resolutions—proving the Security Council has outlived its usefulness.

Dr Richard J. Ponzio, Director, Just Security 2020 and Senior Fellow at the Washington-based Stimson Center, told IPS that beginning in March, the U.S. blocked passage of a UNSC resolution (until July) endorsing Secretary-General Guterres’ call for a global cease-fire, to ensure that during the pandemic, life-saving assistance can reach the most vulnerable.

Similar to its rationale then, he said, President Trump’s main emphasis in his annual General Assembly address was to pin the blame on China for the spread of the coronavirus.

In both tone and substance, Dr Ponzio pointed out, President Trump’s UNGA speech contrasted with his contemporaries, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and French President Emmanuel Macron.

“Whereas President Trump elected in his brief remarks to mainly attack China for spreading COVID-19 and other transgressions, the other world leaders spoke at length about the need for global cooperation and a rules-based international order to better cope with global threats and challenges,” he noted.

President Xi Jinping (on screen) of the People’s Republic of China addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventy-fifth session. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Trump intensified his long running battle with China, including an acrimonious bilateral trade war, when he launched a blistering attack on Beijing, during his address to the General Assembly.

While singing the praises of his own achievements, he blamed Beijing for COVID-19: “We must hold accountable the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world: China”.

Trump also accused China of “controlling” the World Health Organization (WHO) and dumping millions and millions of tons of plastic and trash into the oceans, overfishing other countries’ waters, destroying vast swaths of coral reef, and emitting more toxic mercury into the atmosphere than any country anywhere in the world.

One news site ran a fitting headline which read: “Trump at the UN: America is good, China is bad”.

Taking a passing shot at Trump’s unilateralism, Chinese President Xi Jinping told the Assembly “humanity will win this battle” against the virus, and “any attempt of politicizing the issue, or stigmatization, must be rejected”.

COVID-19 reminds us that economic globalization is an indisputable reality and a historical trend, he said.

“Burying one’s head in the sand like an ostrich, in the face of economic globalization, or trying to fight it with Don Quixote’s lance, goes against the trend of history,” he noted.

China has “no intention to fight either a Cold War or a hot one with any country” “Let this be clear: The world will never return to isolation, and no one can sever the ties between countries,” Xi said, pointing out that China will not “engage in zero sum game.”

In his 75th anniversary speech, Xi was equally hard-hitting: “No country has the right to dominate global affairs, control the destiny of others, or keep advantages in development all to itself. Even less should one be allowed to do whatever it likes and be the hegemon, bully or boss of the world. Unilateralism is a dead end.”

Meanwhile, as the UN commemorates its 75th anniversary, one of the most widespread criticisms against the world body is focused largely on the Security Council where member states have failed, over the last 25 years, in their longstanding efforts to reform and expand it.

Perhaps the harshest criticism is its inability—and its monumental failure — to resolve long-outstanding military conflicts and political problems: including finding a homeland for the Palestinians.

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco, who has written extensively on the politics of the Security Council, told IPS it is noteworthy that the majority of vetoes in the Security Council in recent decades have been in regard to resolutions addressing violations of international humanitarian law.

“Both the United States and Russia have repeatedly abused their veto power to protect allied governments from accountability. This does even include the dozens of other initiatives that were tabled or otherwise prevented from coming up to a vote”.

Virtually all of these resolutions were under Chapter VI of the UN Charter, so these were simply about recognizing and deploring such violations and did include military intervention, sanctions, or anything else, but they were still blocked from being passed, in most cases by a single negative vote, he pointed out.

Both Moscow and Washington have essentially sent a message that their allies, such as Syria and Israel respectively, can act with impunity.”

“In 2002, I wrote this article (link below) in response to the Bush administration’s effort to justify its planned invasion of Iraq by emphasizing the importance of enforcing UN Security Council resolutions”.

https://fpif.org/united_nations_security_council_resolutions_currently_being_violated_by_countries_other_than_iraq/

However, in addition to the dozen or so resolutions they alleged were being violated by Iraq, a conservative estimate reveals that there are an additional 88 Security Council resolutions about countries other than Iraq that were also then being violated, said Zunes.

“This raised serious questions regarding the Bush administration’s insistence that it is motivated by a duty to preserve the credibility of the United Nations, particularly since the vast majority of the governments violating these resolutions were close allies of the United States, which blocked the Security Council from enforcing them”.

The total now is closer to 100, said Zunes.

Dr Courtney B. Smith, Acting Dean, School of Diplomacy at the Seton Hall University in New Jersey, told IPS the UNSC balance sheet at 75 is decidedly mixed.

On high-profile issues and structural reform, the Council repeatedly falls short of hopes and expectations due to the continued willingness of members states, in particular the permanent five (the US, UK, France, China and Russia), to view the Council through the lens of nationalism and patriotism, extolling the virtues of putting their domestic interests and audiences first.

“This is most vividly demonstrated in the recent posturing of the US and China across a number of Council issues”, said Dr. Smith who has interviewed over one hundred UN delegates and staff members for his research on the organization and its members.

He said an alternate “silver lining” view of the Council is rooted in the sometimes-significant innovations in how the Council conducts its work.

An expanding agenda in the post-Cold War period has been joined by informal procedural innovations designed to make the Council more transparent to non-members without compromising efficiency and effectiveness, he noted.

“These developments are certainly helpful because they provide the Council with the opportunity to gather more diverse information from a wider range of viewpoints, which in turn can result in better decisions.”

However, these changes do not necessarily make it any easier to make these decisions, and therein lies the cloud hovering over the Council’s political dynamics, said Dr Smith author of Politics and Process at the United Nations: The Global Dance, published by Lynne Rienner in 2006.

Assessing these efforts, he argued, reveals “a tale of two Councils,” one that is developing new working methods to facilitate shared interests and another that is clouded by great power disagreement.

While an anniversary celebration might present an occasion to push beyond these contradictions, the current reality is that the two Councils remain firmly intertwined and that future performance will remain uneven, he added.

“The ultimate result will be a Council that tries desperately to remain relevant while all too often showing its age, which will cause moments of both hope and despair for all of us who yearn for a more robust and effective Council in the years to come,” declared Dr Smith

Dr Ponzio said expanding the composition of the Security Council to align with present-day political realities and to modify the use of the Permanent-Five’s (P-5) veto authority in cases involving mass atrocity prevention is long-overdue.

It is a shame, therefore, that the new UN75 Declaration’s only contribution on the matter is to simply “commit to instill new life in the discussions on the reform of the Security Council …” he said.

Perhaps the last real (albeit unsuccessful) attempt at serious Security Council reconfiguration was in 2005 (UN60).

If the global political conditions remain inadequate today for meaningful change, a transitional compromise may merit consideration.

For example, by amending Article 23 of the Charter, he said, major non-permanent members could be allowed to seek election for consecutive terms on the Council (thereby able to pursue a kind of de facto permanent status).

Moreover, the P-5 could be made more accountable by having to publicly defend their no votes on resolutions pertaining to the implementation of the Responsibility to Protect principle.

The post What UN Needs is a Cease-Fire Inside its own Security Council appeared first on Inter Press Service.