Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Credit World Bank

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 6 2021 (IPS)

The 15,900-strong World Bank, which has funded over 12,000 development projects worldwide since 1947, is an international institution with a superlative reputation for its sustained efforts to end poverty in the developing world—with loans, interest-free credit and outright grants.

But it has come under heavy fire for its blatant violations of disability rights—an area where no US labour laws are applicable because the Washington-based institution enjoys diplomatic immunity.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a spokesperson for the Disability Support Group at the World Bank told IPS the Bank has been hiding behind its diplomatic immunity for decades to cover up abuse of staff ranging from sexual harassment to institutional discrimination against its most vulnerable disabled staff.

“There is absolutely no national or international accountability framework that the World Bank can be held accountable to – neither the UN Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities nor the American with Disabilities Act (ADA).”

“We have cases and irrefutable evidence of serious and consistent disability abuse and harassment of staff, conflict of interest, lack of transparency and accountability – the very values and conditionality for World Bank projects.”

Andre Hovaguimian, a former Director of the International Finance Corporation, Middle East & North Africa, a sister organization of the World Bank, told IPS: “The World Bank’s treatment of staff injured in the line of duty has been and continues to be deplorable.”

“Staff injured in the line of duty, taking risks to do the Bank’s business, should be treated with care and respect. The Bank’s diplomatic immunity should no longer be used to abuse the disabled,” said Hovaguimian.

Currently more than one billion people worldwide – including an estimated 800 million in developing countries – experience some form of disability, according to the World Report on Disability authored jointly by the World Bank (WB) and World Health Organization (WHO).

“Persons with disabilities face stigma, discrimination, and exclusion from accessing jobs and services, such as education and health care, and they consistently fare less well than their non-disabled peers in development gains,” said the study.

The charges of discrimination have come up at a time when the World Bank is holding its annual 2021 Spring Meetings in Washington DC. The meetings, which began April 5 will continue through April 11.

Two disabled former staff members told IPS they could speak only on condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation and losing their medical coverage as disabled persons.

“When I was denied worker’s compensation against the findings from five reputable doctors, I was told that “As an international organization established under its Articles of Agreement, the World Bank Group has been granted certain privileges and immunities under U.S. laws.”

“I feel discouraged, bullied and abused. It is a case of David against Goliath, with the most vulnerable and handicapped having to fight a disability program that has no proper Governance, Accountability or Transparency. There is no justice for the disabled at the World Bank”, he complained.

“The World Bank is evading accountability and oversight of its disability program by saying it is not subject of either UN Conventions or US disability laws while keeping its own Executive Board in the dark”

The other former staff member who has previously been disabled confirmed: “I was harassed to the point of breakdown. The disability program is managed completely arbitrarily with secret procedures not shared with staff but used against them”.

“I am really sick of this hypocrisy where the World Bank lectures developing countries on disability inclusion while it discriminates shamelessly against its own disabled. While an independent grievance mechanism is mandatory for all projects, the WB refuses to allow its disabled staff the same opportunity,” he declared.

Credit: World Bank

Asked for an official reaction, a World Bank spokesperson told IPS: “The World Bank Group is committed to ensuring the health and safety of our staff and their families. Our benefits, policies and track record over the years demonstrate this commitment”.

“Our self-insured insurance programs include disability and worker’s compensation programs, which provide comprehensive benefits to staff injured in the line of duty, or those that are unable to work due to a disabling condition occurring outside of the work environment”.

“Given the global footprint of the organization, as well as its presence in a number of high-risk environments, the Bank Group made the decision many years ago to self-insure these benefits. This was necessary to ensure all staff are covered, regardless of duty station, as some carriers may not support or be present in many of the markets in which the Bank Group operates, which are amongst the poorest nations in the world.”

“We regularly review our benefits and processes to ensure we meet the needs of staff and their families, taking input from plan beneficiaries and stakeholders,” the spokesperson added.

“The World Bank integrates disability issues into its operations around the world across a wide range of sectors, including promoting access to infrastructure facilities and social services, rehabilitation, skills development, creating economic opportunities, and working with Organizations of Persons with Disabilities. This is at the core of the World Bank’s work to build sustainable, inclusive communities, aligned with the institution’s goals to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity,” the Bank’s spokesperson declared.

Providing more specifics, S. Gonzalez Flavell, a former Special Assistant (retired) to the Director General of Evaluation and Senior Counsel WBG Legal Department told IPS:

“I was a disabled staff member under the World Banks self-funded disability program for over eighteen months. The experience was significantly demeaning and disturbing, my status carried stigma and it was made clear to me by numerous Bank Senior Management staff that my career and professional reputation would be adversely affected.

The program lacks clarity in requirements and transparency in application, and I repeatedly had to require procedures to be correctly followed, actions were taken by the Disability Administrator that would have been unlawful had any of the US protective laws for disabled persons applied and a copy of the operating guidelines applying to the program was denied to me despite reasonable request.

The disability administrator did not act in accordance with known disclosed program requirements and instead made arbitrary decisions capriciously without respect for my health or concern for me, my treating physicians treatment plan or my recovery and return to work.

The Bank’s HR team, which should have overseen the Disability Administrator’s actions, acted throughout as if my health and disability could be ignored, intrusively asking me to attend work meetings, attempting to have me present for interviews (at a time I could not work) incorrectly applied its own benefits rules (erroneously denying me 30% benefits which I had to fight through the justice system before they corrected)and leave rules and even allowed my job to be affected and declared my position redundant while

I was on disability (again disallowed under US law). Despite my health issues I had to take on HR to prevent financial benefits and career and leave abuse significantly affecting my health wellness and recovery.

On return to work I, as I knew had happened to many other returning disabled staff, faced hostility and retaliation every effort was made to exclude me and deny any right to reintegration with the work force.

Having discussed and now researched several disability programs, including those of other international organisations , including with disabled persons, the World Bank’s disability program remains the most lacking in integrity, compassion or equitable treatment and that it continues to exist in its current form is a failure to care adequately for staff from whom it demands so much, a failure to understand sound management and the hard realities faced by disabled staff and , without recourse to an independent grievance redress system, is an abuse of human rights,” he declared.

Meanwhile, the World Bank Group has raised USD 82 billion for IDA19 (International Development Association, member of the WBG) to support the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries with a particular focus on disability

The Disability Support Group said IDA19 will do more to expand equitable opportunities for people with disabilities.” Disability is therefore a major focus of this IDA19 replenishment, with World Bank seeking funding from donor countries because “investing in people, and especially in people with disabilities who are often poor, is also critical to [sustainable development goals] progress” (https://ida.worldbank.org/replenishments/ida19)

“Yet what the World Bank fails to disclose to donors who are asked to dish out USD 82 billion, is that the World Bank itself has a very poor track record with its own disabled staff”’, says the Group.

In the past three years, there have been a record number of complaints and problems with the World Bank’s Disability and Workers Compensation programs, which the World Bank has conveniently ignored, it says.

“The number of complaints has risen exponentially, both to the World Bank’s Ombudsman and to the World Bank’s Staff Association, leading the later to retain additional outside counsel to address the flood of complaints.”

“The rights of World Bank’s disabled staff are being trampled, as they are bullied and harassed as the World Bank seeks to cut its own costs related to the disabilities of its employees,” the Group declared.

  

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 6 2021 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to take an unprecedented human and economic toll, wiping away years of modest and uneven progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Developing countries now need much more support as progress towards the SDGs was ‘not on track’ even before the pandemic.

Anis Chowdhury

By end-2022, average incomes are expected to be 18% below pre-crisis levels in low-income countries (LICs) and 22% less in emerging and developing countries excluding China – compared to 13% lower for developed economies.

These lower incomes will push hundreds of millions into extreme poverty and hunger, surviving on incomes under US$1.90/day. The World Bank estimates the poor increased by 119–124 million in 2020, and by 143–163 million more this year.

Fiscal gap growing fast
As the UN Secretary-General has noted, “richer countries have benefited from an unprecedented $16 trillion of emergency support measures,… the least developed countries have spent 580 times less in per capita terms on their COVID-19 response”!

Last year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and UNCTAD estimated that developing countries need about US$2.5 trillion for relief to affected families and businesses, and to expedite economic recovery.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva later acknowledged that developing countries need much more. The IMF’s April 2021 Fiscal Monitor estimates that only achieving access to basic services by 2030 in 121 developing countries would require US$3tn, up to half in LICs.

Most developing countries cannot do more due to financing constraints. As public spending needs shoot up, the pandemic has significantly cut their revenue. Recent IMF research found “larger output losses are experienced by countries with lower GDP per capita”, partly due to “lower fiscal stimulus”.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

With limited tax and other revenue, developing countries will need to borrow more, increasing their already high public debt. As the IMF notes, “the international community [needs] to provide additional support through grants, concessional financing, and, in some cases, debt relief”.

Too little, too late?
The Bretton Woods institutions (BWIs) – the IMF and the World Bank – must mitigate the new setbacks, by enabling relief, recovery and reform. The Fund and also the Bank have responded, sometimes innovatively, but far too slowly. Most importantly, actual support from both BWIs so far is far short of needs.

The Fund used its Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust fund to provide relief for six months of IMF debt payments owed by 29 LICs. But last October, the IMF board rejected a new Pandemic Support Facility with easier conditions than usual.

Although the Fund has committed about US$250 billion, a quarter of its US$1 trillion lending capacity, it has only deployed a tenth of its capacity so far, according to former senior official, Ousmène Mandeng. He argues the Fund should instead offer much more support that countries need and want.

According to The Economist, since March 2020, the IMF has only disbursed US$32bn in emergency financing while offering US$74bn via other facilities, both “with more strings attached”.

The 85 countries now receiving funds from the IMF account for only around 5% of global GDP. None of them could access the Fund’s new “short-term liquidity line” due to its stringent conditions.

BWIs must rise to the challenge
In April 2020, the Bank announced a new multi-donor trust fund, the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Multi-Donor Fund. This is supposed to complement the US$160bn the World Bank Group had pledged to deploy by mid-2021.

Bank disbursements have been slow despite the urgency, with actual disbursements to needy countries totalling only US$79bn by June 2021, under half what was pledged. The Bank also dropped its Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility, criticised for being too small and too slow.

However, fast-disbursing budget support during the much deeper and more extensive pandemic crisis is actually less than during the GFC. The Bank is no longer offering more emergency budget support.

Just as the Fund lent more in 2009 during the global financial crisis (GFC) than since the pandemic began, new Bank loan disbursements rose less in the first half-year of the pandemic than during the GFC.

The Bank committed US$19.5bn to finance the G-20’s grossly inadequate April-December 2020 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI). Meanwhile, it has refused any debt standstill for loans owed to it, arguing this would jeopardise its credit rating and consequent ability to borrow cheap.

BWIs must become part of solution
Blocked by the Trump administration, the likely issue of US$650bn IMF special drawing rights (SDRs) is still only half the SDR1tn (US$1.37tn) The Financial Times deemed necessary.

SDRs do not need to be repaid, and incur a very low interest rate (currently 0.05%), costing less than loans. They are often more attractive than grants, typically tied to conditions.

While the 75 LICs should get about US$62bn in SDRs, poor countries could benefit much more if rich countries transferred their unused SDRs to the BWIs. Besides providing debt relief, the Bank could then intermediate more long-term development finance at the lowest possible cost to borrowing countries.

As UNCTAD has also argued, the multilateral system needs to lend much more to developing countries at lower cost. In 2019, the average interest rate on multilateral debt to LICs was 1.7%, compared to 2.5% for bilateral loans.

Private creditor rates are much higher. With ‘preferred creditor’ status (i.e., getting repaid before others), the Bank can borrow – and lend – at the lowest rates. This is most easily done by expanding Bank lending and guarantees.

Bank for recovery and development?
Loans worth US$500bn, mostly for poorer countries, are likely to be announced this week at the IMF and World Bank Spring meetings. As the BWIs can offer much better terms, this will certainly help, but much more is urgently needed.

Borrowing at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s current 1.75% rate on a 20-year loan, total debt service in 2021 and 2022 would fall from US$90bn to US$65bn, e.g., saving US$25bn for the G20-DSSI eligible LICs.

If all developing countries benefit, savings would be much higher, around US$285bn. But to do so, both the Fund and the Bank would need to expand their lending capacities with additional resources.

Currently, all too many developing countries are being forced to adjust by cutting social and environmental programmes. By lowering lending costs and other demands, the BWIs can become part of the solution, rather than the problem.

 

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Gabino Martínez cleans the "Tláloc", the tank that filters dust from the rainwater collection system in his home in the Tehuixtitla neighborhood in the Xochimilco district in southern Mexico City. During the May to November rainy season local residents collect the water they use for washing, bathing and cooking, due to the lack of access to piped water. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Apr 5 2021 (IPS)

In neighbourhoods like Tehuixtitla in southern Mexico City, rain brings joy, because it provides water for showering, washing dishes and clothes, and cooking, by means of rainwater harvesting systems (RHS).

“When it starts to rain, we feel so happy. We clean and sweep so that there is no dust on the roof and gutters, and so the water doesn’t get dirty or clogged,” said Gabino Martínez, a resident of Tehuixtitla, part of the touristy municipality of Xochimilco, one of the 16 districts that make up Mexico City.

This is what the 63-year-old man told IPS, pointing to the roof of his house to show the infrastructure that makes it possible to collect rainwater to meet the family’s basic needs for part of the year.

Martínez, a married father of three who works as a handyman, still has a little water left from last November’s rains, and is counting the weeks until May brings the first drops, provided the climate crisis doesn’t modify the normal seasonal rainfall."A market and promotion policies have been developed. Rainwater harvesting relieves some of the demand in an autonomous fashion, reducing pressure on the government to provide the service. "Sometimes water is abundant in this country, but it is seasonal. That is why it is becoming increasingly important to harvest rain, because we cannot afford to waste what falls from the sky.” -- Enrique Lomnitz

“We don’t waste water here. Everything we store, we use,” said Martínez, who installed his system in 2008 at a cost of about 270 dollars and whose neighbourhood was the first in Xochimilco to have RHS, since the public water supply system does not reach this area nestled between hills.

Before rainwater began to be harvested, the people of Tehuixtitla, who today number some 2,500 spread over 11 streets, collected rainwater with makeshift systems and filtered it through cotton cloths. They also bought water from tanker trucks, known locally as pipas, which they then carried in jerry cans to their homes.

“Utilities” was just an abstract term in the dictionary. But through community organising, they have obtained electricity, telephone and internet services, essential for working and studying during the COVID pandemic.

The RHS consists of a receptacle, called “Tlaloc” because of its physical resemblance to the Aztec rain god, which filters dust out of the water before it runs into a 5,000 litre tank, to be distributed to the local supply network. The collectors allow two or three downpours to pass through first so the harvested water is cleaner.

Rain is the salvation

Rainwater can help this Latin American country of 126 million people face the water crisis which experts project will start in 2030, while it currently causes floods and landslides and generally ends up in the drainage system.

Rainwater harvesting reduces the need to obtain or import water from conventional sources, allows the creation of supply at specific points and does not depend on the traditional system.

At the same time, it can help Mexico achieve the goal of clean water and sanitation for the entire population, the sixth of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set for 2030.

The situation in greater Mexico City, home to more than 21 million people, is particularly delicate, as the metropolis is heading towards the so-called “Day Zero”, when it will no longer have enough water to meet its needs.

The city is the third most water-stressed of Mexico’s 33 administrative divisions, after the states of Baja California Sur, an arid territory in the extreme northwest of the country, and Guanajuato, located in the center-north and strained by agricultural activities.

Purchasing jerry cans of water transported by donkey is the alternative left to the inhabitants of Tehuixtitla and other neighbourhoods in the hills of the Xoxhimilco district, in the south of Mexico City, when the rainwater collected during the rainy season runs out and the supply of water from tanker trucks, locally known as “pipas”, is delayed. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Drought is raging this year in Mexico, especially in the capital, whose main source of water – the Lerma-Cutzamala dam and reservoir system in the neighbouring state of Mexico – is below half its capacity.

As a result, the local government has had to ration water in a city already under pressure from shortages.

In Mexico City, the largest metropolis in Latin America, some 15,000 people suffer from poor access to water and marginalisation, in eight municipalities in the south and southeast of the city, according to the 2019 study “Captación de lluvia en la CDMX: Un análisis de las desigualdades espaciales” (Rain catchment in Mexico City: An analysis of spatial inequalities), the latest edition published.

In addition, approximately 70 percent of the city’s residents have water available for less than 12 hours a day.

Government programmes have been operating in Mexico City since 2016 to provide RHS to neighbourhoods affected by a lack of water.

The “Rainwater Harvesting Systems in Mexico City Homes” programme, which in 2020 gave families about 900 dollars in subsidies, has installed more than 20,000 devices since 2018 in five municipalities on the outskirts of the city to the south and southeast.

By 2021, it will reach 529 neighbourhoods in eight municipalities in the capital. However, the programme only includes homes in urban areas. Households in shantytowns outside the city are considered to be located on land earmarked for conservation, and the classification of these neighbourhoods as occupying public land means they are denied services.

Mexico City’s constitution, in force since 2017, stipulates that the city will “guarantee universal water coverage and daily, continuous, equitable and sustainable access” and that it will incentivise rainwater harvesting.

But on the hills of the southern municipality of Tlalpan, for example, that constitutional article has not been enforced. That is why, for residents like Silvia Ávila, RHS systems have been the salvation.

“The situation was very difficult, we had no water. It was a big problem. The authorities at the time sent a tanker truck once a month, but we had to walk about a kilometre and pipe the water to our homes using hoses,” she told IPS during a visit to her house.

“It wasn’t enough water even for our basic needs. There were people who didn’t even have a water tank to store water. This was a desert because of the lack of water and services,” she said, explaining the transformation that RHS has meant for families in the neighbourhood.

With the installation of a 10,000-litre system in 2011, for which she paid about 230 dollars, much more than her access to water changed.

“When it rains, we can meet our basic needs,” said Ávila, a widowed homemaker and mother of four. “Every house has a system. It has allowed many to live off their own crops. We have become sustainable, little by little. After arriving here, the programme was expanded to several nearby towns.”

Water storage containers are part of the landscape in the streets of Tehuixtitla. Residents of this neighbourhood in southern Mexico City keep them next to their homes to supplement their water supply by buying water from tanker trucks, which they store in jerry cans, some faded by the sun and others new, and then pump it into their homes. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Paraje Quiltepec resembles an ecovillage. Its 30 families use biodigesters, make vermicompost, recycle water, raise chickens and grow fruits and vegetables.

In the dry season, neighbourhoods like Tehuixtitla and Paraje Quiltepec buy tanker truckloads of between 6,000 and 10,000 litres for 50 dollars per household. In the former, the local government also helps, distributing 800 litres a week.

Not only Mexico City suffers from water shortages

The Mexican capital reflects the water problems in this vast country with an area of 1.96 million square kilometres, 67 percent of which is arid and semi-arid and 33 percent of which is humid.

In 2020, Mexico received more than 722 millimetres of rainfall per day, below the average of 779 in recent years.

Although Mexico had a low degree of pressure in 2017 – 19.5 percent – its risk of water stress is high, according to the Aqueduct platform, developed by the Aqueduct Alliance, made up of governments, companies and foundations.

In fact, it is the second most water-stressed country in the Americas, behind Chile. It may suffer from water stress in 2040 all the way from the center to the north.

Enrique Lomnitz, founder of the civil association Isla Urbana, a pioneer in rainwater harvesting that installed the systems in Tehuixtitla and Paraje Quiltepec, pointed to the progress made in the last decade with regard to the adoption of rainwater harvesting.

“A market and promotion policies have been developed. Rainwater harvesting relieves some of the demand in an autonomous fashion, reducing pressure on the government to provide the service,” the promoter of the initiative explained to IPS.

“Sometimes water is abundant in this country, but it is seasonal. That is why it is becoming increasingly important to harvest rain, because we cannot afford to waste what falls from the sky,” he said.

Lomnitz noted that downpours increase the availability of water and are the only source of water in several areas of the capital.

Since 2009, Isla Urbana, the winner of several international awards, has installed some 21,000 RHS throughout the country.

The National Programme for Rainwater Harvesting and Ecotechnics in Rural Areas (Procaptar) was launched in 2016, benefiting 4,500 people in 114 municipalities between 2018 and 2020. In 2021, it will help 11,500 inhabitants in 63 municipalities.

The 2019 report estimated that the installation of 105,000 RHS would improve conditions for about 41,500 people.

The 2019 “Internal Evaluation of the Rainwater Harvesting Systems in Mexico City Homes Programme” concluded that the programme met its physical goals in the installation of systems, and reported good acceptance and satisfaction among beneficiaries.

In addition, it recommended improving adoption of the system, especially in maintenance, performance indicators and gender perspective. The 2020 review has not yet been published.

In Tehuixtitla people are not waiting. Local residents are designing a pumping system with the state-owned National Water Commission to provide them with drinking water, at a cost of about 1,750 dollars per household.

“It’ll improve living conditions here,” Martinez said enthusiastically.

Lomnitz suggested creating incentives for rainwater harvesting, reviewing service subsidies and encouraging wastewater treatment and reuse.

“In the city the situation is very serious, so measures are needed to take care of water,” he said. “There is a range of possible solutions, such as recycling water or using water-saving devices. Rainwater harvesting is one of several elements that need to be worked on to address the crisis. But it alone will not solve the problem.”

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The post Mexico Looks to the Heavens for a Solution to Its Water Crisis appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Apr 2 2021 (IPS-Partners)

On 5 December 2019, heavy rainfall triggered landslides in Cibitoke province in northwestern Burundi. Twenty-seven people were killed and almost 2,000 were forced to relocate. Along with the lives and homes lost, the school in the Nyamakarabo village was also destroyed. Today, some children in the village walk over two hours a day to attend an over-crowded school in a neighboring village. Others have yet to step back in a classroom.

Sadly, climate-induced disasters – especially floods and landslides – have become a considerable and mounting roadblock to children’s access to quality education in Burundi. This is especially true for girls and adolescent girls who already face significant challenges in accessing education.

To address the multiplying risks connected with displacement, climate change, COVID-19 and other impacts of this forgotten protracted crisis, ECW led a four-day scoping mission in March, connecting with the Government of Burundi, donors, United Nations (UN) agencies and key civil society partners. The mission was led by Graham Lang, ECW Chief of Education, and Maarten Barends, ECW Chief of Humanitarian Liaison and External Relations.

As part of its strategic priorities, ECW set a goal to support multi-year resilience programmes (MYRPs) in 26 priority countries affected by protracted crises where vulnerabilities and education needs are significantly high and underfunded. Burundi is one of these countries.

A majority of internally displaced people in Burundi – 83 per cent – have been driven from their homes by floods, landslides, and other natural disasters. With this multi-year programme, ECW and partners aim to help build resilience and mitigate the impact of climate-induced disasters in Burundi.

Through meetings with an array of international and national actors in the country, ECW’s team laid the ground for the joint understanding of the needs of crisis-affected communities in Burundi that is core to the programme’s collaborative response model.

Burundi is experiencing recurrent humanitarian crises. In 2020, about 1.7 million people – including close to 1 million children – were in urgent need of humanitarian assistance in the country. From natural disasters (such as landslides, floods and drought) to high incidences of cholera, malaria, and measles, acute malnutrition, and an ongoing socio-economic crisis, the children and youth in Burundi and their futures are in danger. Internally displaced people, returnees, and host communities are especially in need of critical education assistance.

“Children lost their access to education. This is exactly the kind of situation that ECW will support with the new multi-year resilience programme.” – Graham Lang, Chief of Education, ECW

 

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Continued inequity in COVID-19 vaccination means virus mutations occur and newer variants emerge that may be resistant to currently available vaccines. Credit: United Nations.

By Ifeanyi Nsofor
ABUJA, Apr 2 2021 (IPS)

As richer western nations continue hoarding COVID-19 vaccines to the detriment of poorer nations, there is some light on the horizon. On April 15, 2021, the U.S. will join the Global Vaccine Alliance (GAVI) and co-host the launch of the Investment Opportunity for COVAX Advance Market Commitment.
The aim of the event is to raise more funds to ensure at least 1.8 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines are available to 92 low-income nations. The U.S. recently donated $4 billion to COVAX and this new leadership role is highly commendable.

“The more the virus that causes COVID-19 is out there in the world, the more opportunities it has to evolve—and to develop new ways of fighting our defenses against it. If we don’t get the vaccine out to every corner of the planet, we’ll have to live with the possibility that a much worse strain of the virus will emerge.” 
Bill Gates

However, even if all the commitments are met from the launch, only 20% of people in poorer nations would be vaccinated. Furthermore, it could take until late 2022 for that population to be vaccinated.

Continued inequity in COVID-19 vaccination means virus mutations occur and newer variants emerge that may be resistant to currently available vaccines. Therefore, it is in the interest of every nation (both rich and poor) that everyone everywhere has a fair chance of being vaccinated simultaneously.

Bill Gates alluded to this in his recent Gates Notes: “The more the virus that causes COVID-19 is out there in the world, the more opportunities it has to evolve—and to develop new ways of fighting our defenses against it. If we don’t get the vaccine out to every corner of the planet, we’ll have to live with the possibility that a much worse strain of the virus will emerge.”

Simply put, to end this pandemic, we must vaccinate everyone, everywhere.

As the COVAX investment commitment launch approaches, these are three ways the U.S. especially can ensure more equity in ending the COVID-19 pandemic globally:

First, support the push by the World Trade Organization for temporary COVID-19 vaccine patent waivers so that vaccines can be manufactured locally in Africa and other parts of Asia. Recently, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposed calls for the World Trade Organization to back a temporary waiver of intellectual property rights to speed coronavirus vaccine production in poor countries.

If this continues, it could take until late 2023 or even early 2024 to vaccinate all those eligible across Africa. President Joe Biden has to intervene to authorise these waivers so that vaccine production can take place simultaneously in rich and poor countries.

Local production of vaccine in African countries will also lead to reduction in logistics costs and waiting times in transporting the vaccines from the west to African countries. Egypt has concluded preclinical trial and would soon begin clinical trial for a vaccine locally.

Likewise, Johnson and Johnson pharmaceutical has pledged 400 million of their single-dose vaccine to the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team. Most of the supplies would be manufactured locally by Aspen Pharma in South Africa The U.S. should support more local production across African countries to speed up COVID-19 vaccination on the continent.

Second, block capital flight via corruption from poorer nations. Africa loses an estimated $50 billion yearly due to illicit financial flows. This theft amounts to a staggering $800 billion stolen from 1970 to 2008. These funds are stolen via electronic transfers.

Surely, banks and other agencies are aware as the theft is happening. The U.S. can work with banks and national anti-corruption agencies to stop funds being stolen. We do not have to wait for funds to be stolen and then go through all manners of legal and regulatory bottlenecks to repatriate the funds.

For example, no one really knows how much Nigeria’s former military dictator, General Abacha stole from the country. Twenty-three years after his death, funds he stole are still being repatriated back to the country.

The U.S. should also impose sanctions on banks, bank executives, politicians and civil servants who aid these thefts. With $50 billion yearly, Africa will not be dependent on richer western nations to vaccinate her people. Indeed, at $10 per dose, $50 billion will buy 5 billion doses of the Johnson and Johnson Covid-19 vaccine – more than enough to vaccinate all Africans three times over.

Third, ending the pandemic is not just about vaccines. Therapeutics, personal protective equipment and other commodities are essential. Sadly, the U.S. hoarded these at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. These hoardings must stop.

The African Union’s Africa Medical Supplies Platform (AMSP) chaired by Zimbabwean billionaire, Strive Masiyiwa has succeeded in creating a platform for linking manufacturers with African nations especially for pre-ordering of COVID-19 commodities, including vaccines. The AMSP is an innovative idea to make Africa self-sufficient in COVID-19 response. This should be supported by the U.S.

All lives are created equal. The U.S. government should deepen its global health leadership by ensuring that this COVAX launch is an opportunity to demonstrate the sanctity of lives everywhere. It is the equitable thing to do to end this global pandemic for everyone.

Dr. Ifeanyi McWilliams Nsofor is a graduate of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He is a Senior New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at George Washington University. Ifeanyi is the Director Policy and Advocacy at Nigeria Health Watch.

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Jaxine Scott displays some vegetables in her backyard garden at her Kingston, Jamaica home. Credit: Kate Chappell

By Kate Chappell
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Apr 2 2021 (IPS)

Last year, Jaxine Scott was off work as a caregiver at a primary school as a result of the pandemic. One day, she noticed a green shoot emerging from some garlic in her fridge. She decided to plant it, and to her surprise, it thrived. “I thought ‘It looks like I have a green thumb, let me plant something else,’” Scott says. She now has a backyard garden, including cucumber, pumpkin, melon, callaloo, cantaloupe, pak choy and tomatoes. “It makes me feel good,” she says. “I can help my family members and neighbours. It has saved me money. I’m not going to stop, I’m going to continue,” she says.

Scott, 45, is just one of thousands of Jamaicans who have found an interest in gardening, both as a way to pass the time and to become more self-sufficient when it comes to food and nutrition.

This is a small yet important step for a country and region in which the trees are laden with an abundance of fruits, yet many people go hungry every day.

An October, 2020 study of eight Caribbean countries found that 40% of people surveyed experienced some form of hunger, with 42% of those saying it was moderate to severe. The survey by the College of Health Sciences at the University of Technology included 2,257 households in eight countries across the region (Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Belize, Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda.) Another recent study from the Caribbean Research and Policy Institute and Unicef also found that in a survey of 500 Jamaican households, 44% reported that they were experiencing food shortages, while 78% said their savings could last them four weeks or less.

Food security is a technical term referring to the availability of nutritious food, and defined by the United Nations as having “physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life.” The World Bank reports that despite the pandemic, there is adequate supply, however the challenge lies at the national level. The risks to food security include higher prices and reduced incomes, which forces households to rely on smaller portions of less nutritious foods.

“We suspected people were cutting back on their intake, especially households where the breadwinners were losing their jobs. It has shook up some of the households quite a bit. People are cutting back on the number of meals that they were having,” says Dr. Vanessa White Barrow, the Head for the School of Allied Health and Wellness at the University of Technology’s College of Health Sciences.

The effect of this, of course, has many repercussions, including malnutrition, lack of energy, obesity as a result of consuming lower-cost but unhealthy foods and a variety of health issues like diabetes and hypertension.

“What has happened is that the nutrition divide has widened as a result of COVID,” says Prof. T. Alafia Samuels, of at the Caribbean Health Research Institute at the University of the West Indies.

“We also know that before, because of the extent that many household were dependent on processed food, people have cut back (on healthy foods) and are going for cheaper alternatives, and this has long-term health implications,” she says. This especially impacts children, who need nutritious food to grow and learn adequately. In addition, children are confined to their households, doing online learning and missing physical activity they would have had at school.

Food and nutrition insecurity are just one frightening outcome of the pandemic, which has ravaged one of the most tourism-dependent regions in the world. In Jamaica alone, a minimum of 50,000 people have been laid off from the tourism industry, a number that is likely even higher when taking into account indirect employment. An estimated 135,000 people have lost their jobs in total. The country’s real GDP for fiscal 2020/21 is expected to contract by up to 12%, according to the Bank of Jamaica, and the unemployment for Oct. 2020 was 10.7%. According to the World Bank, the percentage of people living below the poverty line was 19.3% in 2017, and while this figure had been improving, it is unlikely to continue this trajectory.

With this hardship in mind, the government has introduced a series of financial stimulus measures to reach the most vulnerable, but these are not sustainable. In addition to financial measures, the government has also focused on increasing food security, an effort that existed prior to the pandemic, but has since been ramped up.

In terms of boosting food security and assisting the farming industry, Jamaica’s Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Floyd Green says that the government is investing JMD$1 billion this year.

Decreased market demand, in large part from the hotel and restaurant industry, has harmed the farming industry. So while at times there is an excess of supply, a lack of demand has impacted farmers and their production systems, which in turn erodes food security.

“The challenge with COVID is clearly the downturn in the market, which discourages the farmers from producing,” says Green, adding that they worry their supply will not be absorbed. With this in mind, the government created a “buy-back” program, which found new clients for farmers, which has helped.

“We saw an initial decline in production with COVID when it came in, but we went back into a growth position overall, and now year-over-year seeing growth.”

Ultimately, Green says COVID has forced people to examine their self-sufficiency. “Covid has brought back into sharp focus in the minds of people the need to be more self-sufficient when it comes to feeding ourselves.”

The need for self-sufficiency exists on a large scale as well, especially on an island that imports over US$1billion of goods annually. And while some of that cannot be avoided as it is inefficient or impossible to produce everything needed by Jamaicans, Green says there are some efforts to increase the nation’s self-sufficiency, as well as to ramp up exports, which can help to balance the import bill.

“A part of what we have been doing is to have to take a critical approach to analyzing our import bill, and what can we do what can we grow efficiently to reduce the import bill. We have a twofold approach, we don’t only focus onthe import bill, but export revenues. We have to look to raise export revenues as a small island state that wont be able to produce efficiently,” Green says.

To this end, the government is looking to encourage production of ginger, turmeric, cocoa, coffee, castor oil, and mangoes, which are all in demand because of their superior quality, he says. “ We are looking to further encourage incentive some of our farmers to go into some of these crops. What you will see now over the next three years is a determined push towards export stimulation.”

In terms of local food supply, Green says it is sufficient. The issue, however, is with a lack of purchasing power, especially of late as a result of the economic downturn. “Our challenges is to restart the economy to make sure people can get back purchasing power.”

Green mentions a backyard gardening program in which 2,500 families across the country, with a majority focus on urban areas, received a kit containing all the necessary tools to start a garden and become more self-sufficient.

This is one measure towards achieving food security, says Jamaica Agricultural Society vice-president Denton Alvaranga.

“A lot of persons are at home with a lot of time on their hands, the elderly, middle age, they are at home, children are at home, and most times, having very little to do.

It would be very useful at this time to re-emphasize the backyard gardening program,” he says. “This is very, very useful and timely when you look at it a lot of things produce can be grown locally in our backyard and a lot of people have a lot of space.”

In addition to backyard gardening, Both Samuels and Barrow-White add that government programs to identify and reach the most vulnerable communities and families will help increase food security. Samuels is currently working with Jamaican churches to develop a database to identify these people. “The plan is interventions, and we are proposing actually support them to roll out that kind of intervention that has worked in one church so they can have a systematic way to find out who are the vulnerable what needs to get them to the point. You need some kind of organization, you can’t go out there and look for people one by one,” Dr. Samuels says.

 

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Five-year-old Aya (right, in a wheelchair) was hit by a mortar while she was heading home from school. She said: "I was wearing my brown shoes. The shoe just flew and my leg flew with it. My leg has gone." This photo was taken in Damascus in 2013 by Carole Alfarah

By Carole Alfarah*
MADRID, Apr 2 2021 (IPS)

Syrians are among the greatest victims of this century, according to the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen.

Indeed, we are.

Syrians are the victims of a war we did not choose. When more than half of the Syrian population is internally displaced or has become refugees, it’s because we refused to take part in the conflict and have tried to escape the violence. Syrians are people of peace and life.

As a Syrian documentary photographer and photojournalist, I chose my profession 15 years ago to tell my people’s stories and create awareness about social and humanitarian issues. The war has changed the structure dramatically in our society.

Before the war, and despite many imperfections, all Syrians had access to daily essentials. But one of the high prices that civilians in Syria have paid, and are still paying, is losing access to the services that cover our fundamental human needs.

During the past 10 years and through my work, I observed how the face of Syria and its people was changing slowly, and every change was for the worst. We have lost everything; no one can bear the loss of Syrians.

I will never forget the stories that victims in Syria recounted to me to document and share with the world. The mother who lost her son after he was forcibly disappeared; another mother who lost her daughter and husband in a car bombing that targeted a crowded street; and the father who is taking care of his daughter — she lost her leg when a mortar targeted her school.

There are many stories of the internally displaced who lost their jobs, homes, safety and siblings in bombings in their neighborhoods. The millions of suffering people who are today intentionally called ‘the Syrian tragedy’ are all real people who have names, a past and lives that matter.

One of the very dangerous consequences of 10 years of conflict in Syria is that the world has become used to seeing us suffer daily. Our hunger, anguish, loss, pain and death are no longer news; it has become normal in the eyes of the outside observer.

A damaged photograph of a couple at their wedding hangs on the apartment’s charred wall, after it was burned and damaged following heavy clashes.
This photo was taken in Homs, Syria in 2014 by Carole Alfarah.

This is why my job and the job of all Syrian photojournalists and journalists is to keep telling the truth, to show the world that the conflict in Syria is still ongoing. Our photographs will remain a living document of memory and evidence of the human injustice in Syria.

War has always been a business with cost. Many international players are participants in the conflict in Syria, each of them involved for their own benefit. This is why the world needs to pay attention to the war in Syria, because it is an international issue, not a local issue. We, the Syrians, are the victims of a war that we didn’t choose.

From the beginning of the conflict, international political leaders put oil on fire instead of water. We have been left with nothing in Syria today. We have lost our loved ones, our life, safety, memory, our pride, our heritage and economy.

Syrians are sick and tired of war. A political solution is the only way to end our suffering. We need political leaders who have an agenda of peace for Syria and Syrians, otherwise their mission will be condemned with failure. It is a shame on all humanity if they permit the war in Syria to continue.

*Carole Alfarah (1981, Syria), a Visual Storyteller and multimedia editor uses the visual narrative to tell personal, humanitarian, and socially conscious stories that engage audiences and create awareness about vital subjects. Carole’s projects are extended through different platforms such as editorial, books, exhibitions, installations, and films. Her work has been shown widely in festivals, and museums also published internationally in numerous international media outlets. Alongside her work collaboration with international humanitarian organizations and press photo agencies.

She obtained a master’s in Photography and Personal Projects from EFTI School of Photography and Cinema in Madrid, Spain. At the beginning of her career in 2009, she followed a one-year training in Photojournalism by the World Press Photo Foundation.

 

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The post Syrians are Victims of a War “We Did not Choose” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer is a Syrian Independent Documentary Visual Storyteller

The post Syrians are Victims of a War “We Did not Choose” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Currently, the Climate Summit in Glasgow—COP26—is slated for 1-12 November 2021. But will even this later date work for many participants?

By Felix Dodds, Michael Strauss, and Chris Spence
NEW YORK, Apr 1 2021 (IPS)

Among the COVID-19 pandemic’s many damaging impacts, could a halt to international progress on environmental issues be added to the list?

A year ago, the Glasgow Climate Summit—originally scheduled for late 2020—was postponed to 2021, along with its preparatory meetings. This wasn’t the only critical intergovernmental process impacted. For instance, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the U.N. treaty on the high seas were also moved.

With uncertainty over travel and safety continuing into 2021, the postponement of meetings has continued, with the United Nations Environment Assembly and the Convention on Biological Diversity conference both being moved back many months.

The idea that negotiations could be held virtually has been largely ruled out. While it has worked for some processes on a limited basis, most experts acknowledge climate negotiations are too complex, sensitive, and high-stakes to be conducted over Zoom or WhatsApp

Currently, the Climate Summit in Glasgow—COP26—is slated for 1-12 November 2021. But will even this later date work for many participants?

Even though there is increased optimism in the US and Europe that they may get their populations mostly vaccinated by July or August 2021, that will not be true for many other regions. The varied pace in vaccine distribution is another example, if we needed it, of the disparities faced by developed and developing countries.

In an opinion piece by IMF Chief Kristalina Georgieva for CNN Business Perspectives on 7 March, she said:

“Even in the best-case scenario, most developing economies are expected to reach widespread vaccine coverage only by the end of 2022 or beyond.”

 

Why COP26 Needs to be In-Person and Inclusive

What does this mean for COP26? The idea that negotiations could be held virtually has been largely ruled out. While it has worked for some processes on a limited basis, most experts acknowledge climate negotiations are too complex, sensitive, and high-stakes to be conducted over Zoom or WhatsApp. They require face-to-face discussions to have any chance of meaningful success.

Furthermore, our experience in the past has told us that climate talks need to be inclusive and engage as many governments and stakeholders as possible, both in the lead-up to the conference and at the “main event” itself.

For instance, previous conferences in Cancun (2010) and Paris (2015) are remembered for their inclusivity and painstaking preparations, while less successful meetings such as those in Copenhagen (2009) or The Hague (2000) were unable to achieve this. If virtual negotiations are not a realistic option, then, it’s clear vaccines will need to be made available for government negotiators to attend and negotiate.

What about stakeholder groups who want to be there in person to lobby or put pressure on their governments? Will they be allowed to attend? If so, under what conditions? These are key questions that will need to be answered soon if COP26 is to have any chance of delivering what so many people want it to do.

 

Timing is Everything: The Case for Postponement

Already rescheduled once, COP26 is now timetabled for 1-12 November. Furthermore, the two preparatory meetings originally scheduled for 2020 were postponed to 2021, meaning there is still much to be done.

The first preparatory meeting is currently due to happen from 31 May to 10 June. This is now in doubt and a decision will be taken in the next few weeks on whether to proceed.

With such uncertainty, it could be argued that COP26 should be postponed again. Surely this would be better than trying to undertake preparatory meetings virtually, or holding a COP26 that is so diminished by travel restrictions that the meeting is but a shadow of its usual size and scope.

We hope those making these decisions take into consideration both arguments of inclusivity and the need for careful, thorough preparations as they continue to review this matter.

 

A Roadmap for a November COP

Should COP26 be held in November as currently planned, there are, however, some ways to improve its chances of success.

First, concerted efforts should be made to coordinate and strengthen the outcomes from President Biden’s planned Washington Climate Summit on 22 April, the G7 meeting in June (to be hosted by the UK) and the G20 Meetings in October (to be hosted by Italy).

Together, these could generate useful momentum and begin to refocus high-level political discussion on the climate crisis.

Secondly, the UNFCCC process could review its pre-COP26 scheduling to provide more time for in-person discussions in the lead-up to Glasgow. For instance, there is already agreement that a UNFCCC meeting will be held in Milan from 30 September to 2 October.

What if this already-scheduled event was to be expanded to at least 10 October? If this event continued through the month of October, it could have an even greater impact, allowing key negotiators ample time to prepare in person for Glasgow.

One challenge may be the timing of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s conference, now rescheduled for 11-24 October. Decision-makers will need to figure out whether the UNFCCC could meet concurrently with the CBD.

If it is not thought possible to run the two events at the same time, there are still some creative ways forward. For instance, the CBD could play an important role in accelerating discussions on nature-based solutions for climate change.

This is one of the key issues both the UK and Italy have identified for COP26. Informal negotiations could continue during the CBD meeting and the UNFCCC could reconvene formally on 25 October to see if agreement on any informal decisions could be progressed before the G20 on 30 and 31 October. In fact, the G20 meeting in Rome dovetails nicely into COP26, and could provide a welcome final impetus for it.

If preparatory meetings did take place through much of October in Italy or elsewhere, it would set up an almost continuous negotiating forum through to the start of November for national governments’ experts, diplomats and political leaders—as well as concerned scientists, business leaders, labor groups and NGOs—to meet in-person.

If planned carefully, it would mean only two or three geographically-proximate locations in Italy and the UK would be involved, which should help greatly in terms of dealing with the complexities of travel involving vaccinations, Covid testing, and so on.

In effect, it could create a climate negotiating ‘bubble’ where safe pandemic protocols would be possible and the necessary actors would have time to interact extensively and negotiate both broad agreements and details.

The G20 would also be an excellent end-point for intensifying pressure on countries to increase their National Determined Contributions as they head north for the Glasgow meeting just a short flight away.

 

What Key Issues Need Resolving at COP26?

At the most recent UN Climate Summit—COP25 in Madrid in 2019—several controversial issues remained unresolved.

In some cases, the negotiating gaps are wide. Jennifer Morgan, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, told journalists, “in the 25 years that I have been at every COP, I have never seen the gap bigger between the inside and the outside.”

Some of these issues are quite technical. For instance, reporting guidelines on annual inventories for developed countries need to be reviewed. Governments will have to agree common metrics to calculate the carbon dioxide equivalence of greenhouse gases and address the emissions from international aviation and maritime transport.

There are also outstanding issues relating to land use, land-use change and forestry, as well as market and non-market mechanisms under the Convention.

These aren’t the issues you generally find in the mainstream media, which tends to focus on where we are on National Determined Contributions (country targets) and the contributions to the Green Climate Fund, which should have reached US$100 billion a year by 2020.

Of course, the question of NDC ambition and the Green Climate Fund are absolutely essential, and progress will be key at COP26. However, the more technical issues are also critical if we are to be sure we are measuring progress consistently and fairly.

The Green Climate Fund may prove politically sensitive at COP26. For instance, the host country last year indicated a shift from an ODA contribution of 0.7% to 0.5% of GNI.

The timing is problematic, to say the least, and has been challenged in a letter by over 3000 global health experts warning that the cut will hit “some of the world’s most complex and challenging global health problems”. If you add to that the damage it will do to climate finance, are we moving to a perfect storm instead of a path to a more sustainable planet to live on?

 

Felix Dodds is a sustainable development advocate and writer. His new book Tomorrow’s People and New Technologies: Changing the way we live, travel, entertain and socialize will be out in September. He is the coeditor of Climate and Energy Insecurity: The Challenge of Peace, Security and Development with Andrew Higham and Richard Sherman.

Michael Strauss is Executive Director of Earth Media, a political and media consultancy that advises UN agencies, NGOs and governments on international environmental, development, and social issues. He served as the UN’s Media Coordinator for NGOs, Trade Unions, and Business organizations at the UN Summits on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (2002) and Rio de Janeiro (2012). He is co-author of ‘Only One Earth: The Long Road via Rio to Sustainable Development’ (Earthscan, Taylor & Francis), with Felix Dodds and Maurice F. Strong.

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

 

The post Should the 2021 Climate Summit in Glasgow Still Take Place? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

With uncertainties over face-to-face meetings resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors consider the case for postponing the Climate Summit in Glasgow again and ask how, if it does proceed, we can improve its chances of success?

The post Should the 2021 Climate Summit in Glasgow Still Take Place? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Two elephants cross a stream in Malai Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary. Thanks to a number of conservation projects run by various government agencies, non-government organisations and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the wildlife population is thriving again. The forest is now home to an estimated 500 elephants and several other big game animals, including bison and tigers. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India, Apr 1 2021 (IPS)

As the sun sets over the canopy of Albizia amara trees, a thin blanket of fog begins to descend over the forests of the Malai Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary, which lies roughly 150 km south of the Indian city of Bangalore.

Not so long ago, plumes of smoke would rise from the hamlets dotting the forests as women busily cooked dinner for their families over wood stoves. But tonight, dinner will be a smokeless affair in dozens of villages as communities have opted for the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a clean burning fuel that has given a boost to the health and safety of both the forest and its people thanks to a unique conservation project.

Spread over an area of 906 sq. km – slightly bigger than the German capital Berlin — and nestled along the border of two states, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in southern India, Malai Mahadeshwara Hills (MM Hills) was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 2013.

An estimated 2,000 elephants and 150 people, mostly police and security officers, had been killed here in the past because of rampant poaching by an infamous bandit.

But thanks to a number of conservation projects run by various government agencies, non-government organisations and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the wildlife population is thriving again. The forest is now home to an estimated 500 elephants and several other big game animals, including bison and tigers.

Besides animals, the forest landscape also includes over 50 villages of indigenous peoples. And in a dramatic shift towards sustainability, thousands of forest dwellers have moved to a forest-friendly fuel to save the habitat of these wild animals thanks to a project spearheaded by Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), a local NGO, in partnership with IUCN.

Conserving the natural habitat of elephants

Funded under IUCN’s Integrated Tiger Habitat Conservation Programme (ITHCP), the project aims to minimise human-wildlife conflict and promote a sustainable living among the forest peoples.

Dr.Sanjay Gubbi, Senior Scientist at NCF, describes the early years when his team first began work in MM Hills.

Almost every village community in MM Hills practices farming, but they were also dependent on forest resources, including using firewood for fuel.

And the destruction of one particular tree, the Albizia amara — also called the Oilcake Tree in many parts of the world — was of significance to the wildlife population.

“We conducted a survey and found that 53 percent of the firewood used by the community came from the Albizia amara tree. Elephants feed on the barks of these trees, so because of the firewood consumption, elephants were directly affected. So, we decided to begin by addressing this firewood problem, especially along the elephant corridors (forest patches used by elephants to move from one part of the forest to another),” Gubbi tells IPS.

Forest women receive LPG stove and cylinder in the Malai Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary. In a dramatic shift towards sustainability, thousands of forest dwellers have moved to a forest-friendly fuel to save the habitat of the sanctuary’s wild animals thanks to a project spearheaded by Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) and IUCN. Courtesy: Sanjay Gubbi/NCF

A solution with numerous benefits

The team focused on introducing an alternative fuel source that would be non-polluting, accessible and affordable to the community. Moreover, it had to be something that would help the forest dwellers adopt a more sustainable way of living — one of the core conservation principles practiced by IUCN.

NCF provided each family with a free LPG subscription, which came with a stove, a cylinder and accessories, and cost about 5,300 rupees ($71). In addition, they trained the community to use the stove and connected them with a nearby LPG distributor, so they could re-fill their gas supply independently.

Changing the community’s source of fuel wasn’t easy. The villagers, most of whom had never seen an LPG stove before, were scared of taking one home. Their worries ranged from beliefs that food cooked over a gas stove could cause gastric pain, to the fear that the cylinders would burst and kill them. Every day, NCF field workers travelled to the villages, facing volleys of questions from the community.

And so the team came up with a unique solution to tackle the twin challenges of breaking the taboo and convincing the villagers to embrace LPG: producing a short film in which all the actors were from the community itself.

The 16-minute film answers the questions of community members, allays their fear and informs them about the use of LPG. The film also explains the co-benefits of using LPG instead of firewood; women will spend less time searching for and collecting firewood, leaving them with more time to do other things, improved lung health and reducing their risks of facing elephants while collecting wood.

“The film was a big hit and a great communication tool,” Gubbi tells IPS. 

One of the villages where a large number of people have switched to using LPG is Lokkanahalli. The village is of geographical significance as it is located along the Doddasampige-Yediyaralli corridor, one of the paths the elephants take to Biligirirangana Ranganathaswamy Hills, an adjacent wildlife sanctuary.

“I was scared (at first) of using LPG because it might be harmful for our health. I also thought that it would mean an extra cost for our family (to refill the LPG cylinder) and we might not be able to afford it,” 28-year-old Pushpa Vadanagahalli, one of the women from Lokanahalli village, tells IPS.

The refill costs about $8.

“But after I received the first cylinder and cooked with it, I realised there was nothing to be afraid of. Actually, I feel it’s much safer than going to the forest daily and collecting firewood, so we don’t mind spending on the refill,” Vadanagahalli says.

Forty-year-old Seethamma had been braving elephants and other animals in the forest for several years as she collected firewood.

“Cutting trees and carrying them home is not easy, I used to get back pain. We also must watch out for big animals, especially elephants. It would also take so much time every day. Now, I no longer have to do that, so I am very relieved,” she tells IPS of her choice to switch to LPG. 

A case study for a global discussion on managing landscapes for nature and people

According to Gubbi, over the past four years nearly two thousand families from 44 villages in MM Hills and its adjoining forest Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary have given up using firewood as a source of fuel.

Consumption of firewood has reduced by 65 percent among these villagers.

However, the community still continues to use firewood to heat water, but for this they collect agricultural residue or dry, dead branches and twigs that have fallen onto the forest floor. We now need to address the issue of providing an alternative for heating water.

It is a harmonious managing of the landscape for both nature and the people who live there. This is in fact one of the themes of theIUCN World Conservation Congress, which will be held from Sept. 3 to 11 in Marseille. The Congress will be a milestone event for conservation, providing a platform for conservation experts and custodians, government and business, indigenous peoples, scientists, and other stakeholders.

The success of the MM Hills and Cauvery project proves that a balance between “ecological integrity for natural landscapes, a shared prosperity, and justice for custodians on working landscapes within the limits that nature can sustain” — one of the discussion points for the Congress — is possible.

Understanding how to “deliver climate-resilient and economically-viable development, while at the same time conserving nature and recognising its rights” is one of the questions around the theme ‘managing landscapes for nature and people’ that will be discussed at the IUCN World Conservation Congress. 

From Poaching to Protection

Another question is how to heed the voices of environmental custodians, especially those that are often marginalised such as indigenous peoples and women.

Perhaps the MM Hills project provides an answer to this. NCF has found a unique way to include the indigenous people of the area in their conservation efforts. And they have found that women are overwhelmingly taking the lead in these efforts.

With each LPG subscription provided by NCF, a written commitment to agree not to cut or destroy wild trees and to not engage in illegal hunting activities is required. The signatories are part of the community committee – a community-based group focused on the conservation and protection of the forest. Currently, 27 villages have a forest protection group, comprising over 80 percent of women.

Towards a sustainable future

The conservation efforts in MM Hills and Cauvery continue. Seven years after it became a protected forest, MM Hills is now home to 12 to 15 tigers and will soon become a tiger reserve. Early this year, the government of Karnataka and the federal government gave their approval and a formal announcement is expected to be made soon.

The formal status of a tiger reserve is expected to bring more funding, which could further help mitigate the human-wildlife conflict and help convert communities there to a more sustainable way of life.

 

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

Illicit financial flows (IFFs) hurt all countries, both developed and developing. But poor countries suffer relatively more, accounting for nearly half the loss of world tax revenue.

IFFs refer to cross-border movements of money and other financial assets obtained illegally at source, e.g., by corruption, smuggling, tax evasion, etc. This often involves trade mis-invoicing and transnational corporations’ (TNCs) transfer pricing via ‘creative’ accounting or book-keeping.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Staggering revenue losses
About US$500–600 billion in corporate tax revenue is lost yearly to TNCs shifting profits to low-, or no-tax ‘havens’. These often involve fictitious ‘paper’ transactions at inflated prices among subsidiaries to ‘move’ profits out of the country where a TNC actually does business and makes profits, to tax havens where they pay much less, often little or no tax.

Low-income economies account for some US$200 billion of such lost revenue, typically involving much higher shares of their national incomes than in advanced economies. This is much more than the US$150 billion or so they receive annually in official development assistance.

About US$7 trillion of private wealth is hidden in tax haven countries, such as Singapore, Panama or Switzerland; about 10% of world income may be secretly held offshore in tax havens. US Fortune 500 companies alone held about US$2.6 trillion offshore in 2017.

Various studies in 2016–2017 estimated rich individuals had stashed a staggering U$8.7–36 trillion in tax havens, depriving national authorities of personal income tax of around US$200 billion yearly worldwide. Annually, about US$20–40 billion is used for bribery, while around 2.7% of global GDP is criminally laundered.

“These abuses threaten Governments’ ability to provide basic goods and services, and drain resources from sustainable development”. This warning in last year’s interim report of the FACTI Panel, or High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda, has been largely ignored.

Anis Chowdhury

Thus, IFFs involve massive wealth theft from developing countries, typically ending up hidden in tax havens, depriving governments of revenue. The fiscal shortfall has become more dire with the huge new challenges of COVID-19 pandemic relief, recovery and reform needed to build a more sustainable future for all, leaving no one, or country, behind.

Illicit flows condoned
IFFs have long existed, but are still growing. Practices enabling them have long been condoned by authorities in many rich countries. Most major tax havens are in a few such economies or their territories.

The top three havens for TNCs – the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands – are all British overseas territories, while Switzerland, the US and the Cayman Islands are the three favourites of rich individuals.

Offshore tax havens drain ever more resources from poor countries as opportunities have grown. When one jurisdiction crafts a new tax loophole or secret facility to attract mobile money, others try to outdo them in an inevitable race to the bottom.

Meanwhile, poor countries have been encouraged to provide more generous tax benefits to corporations and wealthy individuals, e.g., by the World Bank’s Doing Business Report (DBR), now discredited for selective data manipulation and political bias.

Before the 2008-2009 global financial crisis (GFC), the OECD rich countries’ club made little serious effort to check tax evasion except for ‘offshore’ tax havens. With the GFC, it came under pressure to enhance members’ ‘fiscal space’ by limiting such massive revenue losses. It has since focused on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS).

But developing countries have long been excluded from discussions of policy and regulatory design, even those affecting them. They are only allowed to join the OECD’s BEPS Inclusive Framework (IF) if they first commit to implement measures designed without their participation.

However, the US has refused to join any initiative allowing others to tax US digital platforms such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. These tech giants have avoided paying taxes abroad, with the Trump administration even threatening retaliation against countries trying to tax them.

UN inclusion initiative
The 74th President of the UN General Assembly and the 75th President of the UN Economic and Social Council jointly appointed the FACTI Panel to identify gaps, impediments and vulnerabilities in the international economic system allowing, if not enabling abuses and related IFFs.

Its interim report recognised many international initiatives and instruments for financial accountability, transparency and integrity, but stressed that implementation has been wanting. Lack of coordination, trust and inclusion undermines enforcement of existing rules while preventing better ones from being made.

FACTI’s February 2021 final report reiterates that low income countries face tax rules and practices developed without their involvement. The OECD still calls the shots, with the G20 inconsistently chiming in. Instead, developing countries should be enabled to enhance revenue by really participating in efforts to tackle tax avoidance and evasion.

A more coherent, nuanced and equitable approach to international tax cooperation is urgently needed. But efforts to improve tax information sharing have been impeded by the absence of an authoritative multilateral body to collate and analyse tax data.

The Panel recommends a UN Tax Convention with universal participation enabling countries to come together to find comprehensive solutions. The co-chairs emphasise, “The issues at hand are global. They call for global cooperation and engagement by all stakeholders, including non-state actors as well as governments.”

UN should lead
The COVID-19 pandemic has put developed and developing countries into the same boat as all need massive fiscal resources to finance relief, recovery and reform measures. Hence, it is in the interest of all to avoid ‘beggar thy neighbour’ policies to better combat IFFs.

The exclusive OECD is not the right forum to design a multilateral tax framework to combat IFFs. It does not include, and cannot claim to represent poor countries, while its track record hardly inspires confidence to the contrary.

The IMF has near-universal membership, enabling a more inclusive and balanced approach. Currently, it provides technical support on tax issues to over a hundred countries annually. But with the Fund’s governance arrangements and track record stacked against developing countries, it lacks their support and trust.

The UN is the only forum where all countries are represented on par. Hence, international tax cooperation consultations should be in the UN, with the IMF providing fair and balanced technical support. This is the only way to ensure that developing country interests get due recognition in creating a fairer international tax architecture.

 

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UN Women announces the theme for International Women’s Day, 8 March 2021 (IWD 2021) as, “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world. Credit: UN Women/Yihui Yuan

By 49 UN women Ambassadors*
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 1 2021 (IPS)

March, women’s history month, closes with the Generation Equality Forum in Mexico and against the background of significant setbacks on the empowerment of women caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

From our seats in the General Assembly and our screens at home we have seen it growing: the increase in deaths; gender-based, including intimate partner, violence; abuse of women and girls who speak out; the widening of the gender gap for access to digital technologies; the loss of jobs, the decrease of women’s participation in public life and decision-making; disrupted access to essential health care; increase in child marriage; and the diminished access to education.

Day by day in this yearlong battle against the pandemic we have seen how women are impacted twice: first by the virus, and then by its devastating secondary effects.

We are 49 women ambassadors representing countries from all regions of the world, and we believe that such a reality is simply intolerable. Here, we tell that story and what needs to be done to urgently recover the hard-won gains of recent years.

The COVID-19 crisis has a woman’s face.

The face of women nurses, doctors, scientists, care-givers, sanitation workers, and of those leading the response to the pandemic. Women are on the front line: As leaders delivering effectively with vision and care.

But also, as victims of structural vulnerabilities and of violence and abuse.

The “shadow pandemic” of exploitation and abuse, including domestic and intimate partner violence, should be a jarring wake-up call to us all. The latest WHO data show that 1 in 3 women experience intimate partner violence during their lifetime, while the UN reports that women with disabilities have four times the risk of experiencing sexual violence in comparison to women without disabilities.

Women will also bear the heaviest toll of the socio-economic impact of the pandemic because they often carry the responsibility for unpaid dependent care and are over-represented in jobs most affected by the crisis – hospitality, tourism, health, and trade.

The lack of women’s participation in society threatens to delay the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Politically-motivated gender-based violence online and offline is a barrier to women’s ability to participate fully and equally in democratic processes.

Moreover, the persistently high rate of grave violations of women’s rights worldwide is appalling.

Against this background, this March, the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) focused on two issues: fighting gender-based violence, and scaling up women’s full and effective participation at all levels and in all sectors.

“Gender equality: From the Biarritz Partnership to the Beijing+25 Generation Equality* Forum”, hosted by France and Mexico ahead of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly, 2019. Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown

Meaningful participation of women in politics, institutions and public life is the catalyst for that transformational change, which benefits society as a whole. Only four countries in the world have a parliament that is at least 50% women.

Worldwide only 25% of all parliamentarians are women. Women serve as heads of state or government in only 22 countries today, and 119 countries have never had a woman leader.

According to UNESCO, 30% of the world’s researchers are women. While 70% of the health and social care workforce are women, they make up only 25% of leaders in the global health sector.

Current projections show that if we continue at the current rate, gender equality in the highest positions of power will not be reached for another 130 years. These figures speak of unacceptable barriers and bottlenecks that continue to block women’s participation.

As the Secretary-General of the UN says, parity is ultimately a question of power. As women, we are often reluctant to use this word. But as women ambassadors at the UN, representing countries from around the world, it is a word we cannot and will not be too shy to use.

Power is not an end in itself: it is the power to change things, to act and have equal opportunities to compete. While as women Ambassadors we are still under-represented here in New York – only 25% of Permanent Representatives are women – we are committed to being a driving force to shift mindsets. We are long past the point where women should have to justify their seat at the table.

A large body of research and scientific literature provide unequivocal evidence of the value of integrating women’s perspectives in decision-making. Countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.

Peace processes and peace agreements mediated with the active participation of women are more durable and comprehensive. Yet women make up only 13% of negotiators, 6% of mediators and 6% of signatories in formal peace processes.

When women have equal opportunities in the labor force, economies can unlock trillions of dollars. Yet last year, the International Labor Organization found that women were 26% less likely to be employed than men. In 2020 only 7.4% of Fortune 500 companies were run by women.

Worldwide, women only make 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, while the gender gap in internet access grew from 11% in 2013 to 17% in 2019, reaching 43% in the least developed countries.

The so-called “motherhood penalty” pushes women into the informal economy, casual and part-time work. After slow but steady gains over the last few decades, COVID-19 has forced millions of women out of the formal labor market.

The solution to this will not occur spontaneously nor by magic. We need positive action. We need data disaggregated by sex and age so we can better analyze the scope of the problem; we need targeted policies and earmarked investments.

We have to strengthen support services for survivors of abuse, as well as prevent violence and end impunity. And we need to reduce the digital divide and promote access for women to information and public life.

We must rebalance the composition of decision-making bodies. We need to integrate gender into the design and implementation of recovery plans. We need to ensure the availability, accessibility, quality, and continuity of health services for women, including sexual and reproductive health services.

Social protection programmes should be gender responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. We need to promote access for women to decent work and overcome the choice between family and work that is too often imposed on women. Women should have targeted support for entrepreneurship and investment in education that guarantees equal access.

This should not only start with women, but with girls. Getting more girls into school, including back into school following the pandemic, improving the quality of education girls receive, and ensuring all girls get quality education: this will enable female empowerment and gender equality, which will be critical for the effective participation of future generations of women. We must make justice accessible to all women and end impunity for sexual violence.

This will also require role models. As women ambassadors, we bear testament to young generations of girls and women across the world showing that, like us, they can make it. No career and no goal are off-limits for them, as they are in all their diversities, nor beyond their capacities.

Parity is not a zero-sum game but a common cause and a pragmatic imperative. Men can be and are our allies in achieving parity. We look forward to continuing momentum on accelerating progress on achieving gender equality through the Generation Equality Forum and its Action Coalitions. Let us together set the stage for an inclusive, equal, global recovery. Let us make this generation “Generation Equality”.

There’s no more time to lose. We’ve lost enough to COVID already.

*List of participating Ambassadors, (including one Chargé d’affaires, a.i.) who co-authored this article (and the day they took office)

AFGHANISTAN H.E. Mrs. Adela Raz (8 March 2019); ALBANIA H.E. Ms. Besiana Kadare (30 June 2016); ANDORRA H.E. Mrs. Elisenda Vives Balmaña (3 November 2015); ANGOLA H.E. Ms. Maria de Jesus dos Reis Ferreira (21 May 2018); ARGENTINA H.E. Ms. María del Carmen Squeff (31 August 2020); BANGLADESH H.E. Ms. Rabab Fatima (6 December 2019); BARBADOS H.E. Ms. H. Elizabeth Thompson (30 August 2018); BHUTAN H.E. Ms. Doma Tshering (13 September 2017); BRUNEI DARUSSALAM H.E. Ms. Noor Qamar Sulaiman (18 February 2019); BULGARIA H.E. Ms. Lachezara Stoeva (17 February 2021); CHAD H.E. Ms. Ammo Aziza Baroud (11 December 2020); CZECH REPUBLIC H.E. Mrs. Marie Chatardová (2 August 2016); DOMINICA H.E. Ms. Loreen Ruth Bannis-Roberts (22 August 2016); EL SALVADOR H.E. Mrs. Egriselda Aracely González López (21 August 2019); ERITREA H.E. Ms. Sophia Tesfamariam (5 September 2019); GREECE H.E. Ms. Maria Theofili (13 September 2017) ; GRENADA H.E. Ms. Keisha A. McGuire (12 April 2016); GUYANA H.E. Mrs. Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett (2 October 2020); HUNGARY H.E. Ms. Zsuzsanna Horváth (16 February 2021); IRELAND H.E. Ms. Geraldine Byrne Nason (18 August 2017); ITALY H.E. Ms. Mariangela Zappia (13 August 2018); JORDAN H.E. Ms. Sima Sami Bahous (22 August 2016); KYRGYZSTAN H.E. Ms. Mirgul Moldoisaeva (12 April 2016); LEBANON H.E. Ms. Amal Mudallali (15 January 2018); LITHUANIA H.E. Ms. Audra Plepytė (18 August 2017); MADAGASCAR Ms. Vero Henintsoa Andriamiarisoa (Chargé d’affaires, a.i.); MALDIVES H.E. Ms. Thilmeeza Hussain (21 May 2019); MALTA H.E. Mrs. Vanessa Frazier (6 January 2020) ; MARSHALL ISLANDS H.E. Ms. Amatlain Elizabeth Kabua (5 July 2016); MICRONESIA H.E. Mrs. Jane J. Chigiyal (2 December 2011); MONACO H.E. Ms. Isabelle F. Picco (11 September 2009); MONTENEGRO H.E. Mrs. Milica Pejanović Đurišić (21 May 2018); NAURU H.E. Ms. Margo Reminisse Deiye (27 November 2020); NETHERLANDS H.E. Ms. Yoka Brandt (2 September 2020); NORWAY H.E. Ms. Mona Juul (14 January 2019); PANAMA H.E. Ms. Markova Concepción Jaramillo (16 November 2020); POLAND H.E. Ms. Joanna Wronecka (19 December 2017); QATAR H.E. Sheikha Alya Ahmed Saif Al-Thani (24 October 2013) ;RWANDA H.E. Mrs. Valentine Rugwabiza (11 November 2016); SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES H.E. Ms. Inga Rhonda King (13 September 2013); SLOVENIA H.E. Ms. Darja Bavdaž Kuret (18 August 2017); SOUTH AFRICA H.E. Ms. Mathu Theda Joyini (22 January 2021); SURINAME H.E. Ms. Kitty Monique Sweeb (19 June 2019) ; SWEDEN H.E. Ms. Anna Karin Eneström (6 January 2020) ; SWITZERLAND H.E. Mrs. Pascale Baeriswyl (26 June 2020); TURKMENISTAN H.E. Mrs. Aksoltan. Ataeva (23 February 1995); UNITED ARAB EMIRATES H.E. Mrs. Lana Zaki Nusseibeh (18 September 2013); UNITED KINGDOM H.E. Dame Barbara Woodward (2 December 2020); UNITED STATES OF AMERICA H.E. Ms. Linda Thomas-Greenfield (25 February 2021)

 

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The post Generation Equality: Women’s Leadership as a Catalyst for Change, Say 49 UN Women Envoys appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article has been co-authored and signed by 49 UN women Ambassadors*

The post Generation Equality: Women’s Leadership as a Catalyst for Change, Say 49 UN Women Envoys appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Halima Elias Mtwethe from Mtepa Village in southern Tanzania is one of the smallholder farmers who borrowed from the Mahanje Savings and Credit Co-operative Society (SACCOS). Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
MADABA/MAFINGA, Tanzania , Mar 31 2021 (IPS)

Small agricultural loans, disbursed through mobile phones and targeting specific farming activities at different phases of production, have more than doubled food productivity among thousands of smallholder farmers in southern and central parts of Tanzania over the past three years, improving their livelihoods.

IPS travelled the region this month and spoke to many farmers who attested to how the new form of controlled village-specific lending resulted in their successful harvest.

Peter Lulandala, a smallholder farmer from central Tanzania’s Iringa Province, is one of those farmers.

Lulandala is servicing a TZS one million ($312) loan he borrowed from a local community bank. The problem was that once the money had been paid out to him in a single instalment he was unable to keep aside the funds for the various farming phases.

“We could borrow money, which was usually given in a single batch mostly during the planting season. For most of us, it was extremely difficult to keep part of the money in our houses or on personal bank accounts just to wait for the weeding or harvesting season.

“As smallholder farmers in the villages, we have many urgent things that always require cash. For example, it will be very difficult to see my children go to bed for the second day in a row without food and yet I have cash under my pillow or in my personal account,” Lulandala told IPS.

That was until three years ago when an innovative new money lending product became available in his village. Through the new model, smallholder farmers who belong to particular groups (like farmer groups or reside in certain villages), are expected to save some money with a targeted financial institution before borrowing three times their savings.

“This is an innovative product introduced to us by the Alliance for as Green Revolution in Africa in collaboration with the Small Entrepreneurs Loan Facility (SELF) project to help smallholder farmers access agricultural finance, and to help them use the money for the intended purpose,” said Khassim Masengo, the manager of Mahanje Savings and Credit Co-operative Society (SACCOS) in Madaba District, Ruvuma Province, southern Tanzania.

Farmers are guaranteed by two signatures of fellow group members. What makes the SACCOS lending different is that once the loan is approved, the farmer can only access it in phases.

“We disburse it in three phases so that the farmers can only access what they need during the planting season, then the second disbursement can only be released at the right time for weeding and top-dressing, and finally the last payment is for harvesting and post-harvest handling,” Masengo told IPS.

Lulandala said the new lending structure has worked for him.

“But since this particular cash is kept by the bank and with an agreement on how it will be disbursed, I will always look for an alternative way to feed my children as the money waits for the intended purpose,” said the farmer who hails from Itengulinyi village, 15 kilometres off the main highway that connects Makambako and Iringa towns.

The farmers are expected to pay back the loans after harvest.

“Once they harvest, we encourage them to keep their produce with particular warehouses, and based on the warehouse receipts, we can give them personal loans worth half of their produce for immediate domestic use or further investment as they wait for better prices,” explained Masengo.

According to Hedwig Siewertsen, the head of Inclusive Finance at AGRA, many African smallholder farmers fail to achieve their full potential because they have no access to agricultural finance.

She said that unless farmers have collateral to show that they can pay back loans, banks would not loan to them. Siewertsen noted that there was need to come up with innovative means through which smallholder farmers can access agricultural finance without necessarily offering collateral. 

“Our main aim is to improve the quality, cost-effectiveness, access and impact of financial and agribusiness products and services for smallholder farmers in Africa,” said Siewertsen.

Farm produce at the Igodikafu Warehouse in Mbuyuni village, Pawaga Ward in central Tanzania. Based on the warehouse receipts, the Mahanje Savings and Credit Co-operative Society (SACCOS) can give farmers personal loans worth half their produce for immediate domestic use or further investment as they wait for better prices. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

According to the Food Sustainability Index (FSI), created by Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) and the Economist Intelligence Unit, increasing food productivity is vital, given the population growth and intensifying climate change. And this, according to the report, can only be achieved through new innovations.

It also notes that sustainable agriculture needs funding and this is particularly difficult in developing countries.

“It can be hard to funnel money in from investors, particularly for developing countries. In the FSI, the top ten countries most likely to attract investment in sustainable agriculture are all European, with the exception of the US and Israel. And while most countries in the index offer some form of public financing for agricultural innovation, 12 countries—nine of which are in sub- Saharan Africa—do not,” the report notes.  

Unlike MUCOBA Bank, which works with farmers in small groups of 10 to 15 members, Mahanje SACCOS works with villages. This means that SACCOS’s offerings are specific to members of these villages and it also allows for traceability and easy service provision.

It also gives SACCOS security because they are able to engage the borrowers in person and from their homes.

“For one to qualify for a farming loan from this SACCOS, the first requirement is that they must be descendants of one of the eight targeted villages, and that must be confirmed by the village elder of that particular village,” said Masengo.

“The main reason is that we need to work with farmers who are well known by the villagers, and whom we can access for extension services,” he said.

So far, 2,847 members of Mahanje SACCOS, among them 892 female farmers who hail from the neighbouring villages of Mahanje, Madaba, Lituta, Mtepa, Magingo, Mkongotema, Lukira and Kipingo in Madaba District, Ruvuma Province, Tanzania have become net producers of maize and beans over the past three years. They are now able to export their produce to neighbouring districts.

SACCOS has since been converted into a fully fledged bank registered by the Central Bank of Tanzania, and it is offering credit and savings services, but specifically for farmers from the eight target villages.

However, MUCOBA Bank, which is a community bank headquartered in Mafinga town in Central Tanzania, covers a larger area and targets smallholder farmers in far areas that do not have good infrastructural access to urban centres. It currently has some 50 farmer member groups.

“Our bank has agents who are also our agricultural extension officers on the ground whom we use to register farmers through farmer groups, then send us information via internet,” Philipo Raymond, the general manager for MUCOBA bank, told IPS.

With MUCOBA Bank, qualifying farmers are then given their money through mobile phones, and once they harvest, they can service their loans through the same digital channel.

With both institutions, farmers have been able to borrow as little as TZS200,000 ($87) or as much as TZS15 million ($6,520).

“Besides receiving the moneys in batches to serve specific needs, use of M-Pesa payment has made it easier for us because we do not have to travel all the way to town, and we have reduced the risk of carrying hard cash in our pockets,” Emanik Mgwiranga, the chair of the Nguvu Kazi Itengulinyi farmers group from Itengulinyi Village, 44 kilometres from the nearest town, Mafinga, told IPS.

The main crops grown are maize, beans and rice, but some farmers also include Irish potatoes.

In addition, the Mahanje SACCOS has introduced indigenous poultry farming to cushion farmers when farming seasons fail or when market prices for their produce are still low.

 

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María Luz Rodríguez stands next to her solar oven where she cooked lasagna in the village of El Salamar in San Luis La Herradura municipality. In this region in southern El Salvador, an effort is being made to implement environmental actions to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/ IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN LUIS LA HERRADURA, El Salvador, Mar 31 2021 (IPS)

Salvadoran villager Maria Luz Rodriguez placed the cheese on top of the lasagna she was cooking outdoors, put the pan in her solar oven and glanced at the midday sun to be sure there was enough energy for cooking.

“Hopefully it won’t get too cloudy later,” Maria Luz, 78, told IPS. She then checked the thermometer inside the oven to see if it had reached 150 degrees Celsius, the ideal temperature to start baking.

She lives in El Salamar, a coastal village of 95 families located in San Luis La Herradura, a municipality in the central department of La Paz which is home to some 30,000 people on the edge of an impressive ecosystem: the mangroves and bodies of water that make up the Estero de Jaltepeque, a natural reserve whose watershed covers 934 square kilometres.

After several minutes the cheese began to melt, a clear sign that things were going well inside the solar oven, which is simply a box with a lid that functions as a mirror, directing sunlight into the interior, which is covered with metal sheets.

“I like to cook lasagna on special occasions,” Maria Luz said with a smile.

After Tropical Storm Stan hit Central America in 2005, a small emergency fund reached El Salamar two years later, which eventually became the start of a much more ambitious sustainable development project that ended up including more than 600 families.

Solar ovens and energy-efficient cookstoves emerged as an important component of the programme.

Aerial view of Estero de Jaltepeque, in San Luis La Herradura, a municipality on the Pacific coast in southern El Salvador where a sustainable development programme is being carried out in local communities, including the use of solar stoves and sustainable fishing and agriculture techniques. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala /IPS

The project was financed by the Global Environment Facility‘s (GEF) Small Grants Programme, and El Salamar was later joined by other villages, bringing the total number to 18. The overall investment was more than 400,000 dollars.

In addition to solar ovens and high-energy rocket stoves, work was done on mangrove reforestation and sustainable management of fishing and agriculture, among other measures. Agriculture and fishing are the main activities in these villages, in addition to seasonal work during the sugarcane harvest.

While María Luz made the lasagna, her daughter, María del Carmen Rodríguez, 49, was cooking two other dishes: bean soup with vegetables and beef, and rice – not in a solar oven but on one of the rocket stoves.

This stove is a circular structure 25 centimetres high and about 30 centimetres in diameter, whose base has an opening in which a small metal grill is inserted to hold twigs no more than 15 centimetres long, which come from the gliridicia (Gliricidia sepium) tree. This promotes the use of living fences that provide firewood, to avoid damaging the mangroves.

The stove maintains a good flame with very little wood, due to its high energy efficiency, unlike traditional cookstoves, which require several logs to prepare each meal and produce smoke that is harmful to health.

María del Carmen Rodríguez cooks rice on a rocket stove using a few twigs from a tree species that emits less CO2 than mangroves, whose sustainability is also preserved thanks to the use of the tree. Many families in the community of El Salamar have benefited from this energy-efficient technology, as well as other initiatives promoted along the Pacific coast in southern El Salvador. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala /IPS

The rocket stove can cook anything, but it is designed to work with another complementary mechanism for maximum energy efficiency.

Once the stews or soups have reached boiling point, they are placed inside the “magic” stove: a circular box about 36 centimetres in diameter made of polystyrene or durapax, as it is known locally, a material that retains heat.

The food is left there, covered, to finish cooking with the steam from the hot pot, like a kind of steamer.

“The nice thing about this is that you can do other things while the soup is cooking by itself in the magic stove,” explained María del Carmen, a homemaker who has five children.

The technology for both stoves was brought to these coastal villages by a team of Chileans financed by the Chile Fund against Hunger and Poverty, established in 2006 by the government of that South American country and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to promote South-South cooperation.

The Chileans taught a group of young people from several of these communities how to make the components of the rocket stoves, which are made from clay, cement and a commercial sealant or glue.

The blue crab is one of the species raised in nurseries by people in the Estero de Jaltepeque region in southern El Salvador, as part of an environmental sustainability project in the area financed by the Global Environment Facility’s Small Grants Programme. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

The use of these stoves “has reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by at least 50 percent compared to traditional stoves,” Juan René Guzmán, coordinator of the GEF’s Small Grants Programme in El Salvador, told IPS.

Some 150 families use rocket stoves and magic stoves in 10 of the villages that were part of the project, which ended in 2017.

“People were given their cooking kits, and in return they had to help plant mangroves, or collect plastic, not burn garbage, etc. But not everyone was willing to work for the environment,” Claudia Trinidad, 26, a native of El Salamar and a senior studying business administration – online due to the COVID pandemic – at the Lutheran University of El Salvador, told IPS.

Those who worked on the mangrove reforestation generated hours of labour, which were counted as more than 800,000 dollars in matching funds provided by the communities.

In the project area, 500 hectares of mangroves have been preserved or restored, and sustainable practices have been implemented on 300 hectares of marine and land ecosystems.

Petrona Cañénguez shows how she cooks bean soup on an energy-efficient rocket stove in an outside room of her home in the hamlet of San Sebastián El Chingo, one of the beneficiaries of a sustainable development programme in the municipality of San Luis La Herradura, on El Salvador’s southern coast. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala /IPS

Petrona Cañénguez, from the town of San Sebastián El Chingo, was among the people who participated in the work. She was also cooking bean soup for lunch on her rocket stove when IPS visited her home during a tour of the area.

“I like the stove because you feel less heat when you are preparing food, plus it’s very economical, just a few twigs and that’s it,” said Petrona, 59.

The bean soup, a staple dish in El Salvador, would be ready in an hour, she said. She used just under one kilo of beans, and the soup would feed her and her four children for about five days.

However, she used only the rocket stove, without the magic stove, more out of habit than anything else. “We always have gliridicia twigs on hand,” she said, which make it easy to use the stove.

Although the solar oven offers the cleanest solution, few people still have theirs, IPS found.

This is due to the fact that the wood they were built with was not of the best quality and the coastal weather conditions and moths soon took their toll.

Maria Luz is one of the few people who still uses hers, not only to cook lasagna, but for a wide variety of recipes, such as orange bread.

However, the project is not only about stoves and ovens.

Some families living in coastal villages in the municipality of San Luis La Herradura have dug ponds for sustainable fishing, which was of great help to the local population during the COVID-19 lockdown in this coastal area of southern El Salvador. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala /IPS

The beneficiary families also received cayucos (flat-bottomed boats smaller than canoes) and fishing nets, plus support for setting up nurseries for blue crabs and mollusks native to the area, as part of the fishing component with a focus on sustainability in this region on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

Several families have dug ponds that fill up with water from the estuary at high tide, where they raise fish that provide them with food in times of scarcity, such as during the lockdown declared in the country in March 2020 to curb the spread of coronavirus.

The project also promoted the planting of corn and beans with native seeds, as well as other crops – tomatoes, cucumbers, cushaw squash and radishes – using organic fertiliser and herbicides.

The president of the Local Development Committee of San Luis La Herradura, Daniel Mercado, told IPS that during the COVID-19 health emergency people in the area resorted to bartering to stock up on the food they needed.

“If one community had tomatoes and another had fish, we traded, we learned to survive, to coexist,” Daniel said. “It was like the communism of the early Christians.”

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Credit: International Geneva

By Michelle Langrand
GENEVA, Mar 31 2021 (IPS)

The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Hurricane Committee decided at its annual meeting to retire four tropical cyclone names from its rotating list after assessing the record-breaking hurricane 2020 season.

After 2020, the names Dorian, Laura, Eta and Iota summon memories of deadly destruction. The four hurricanes were so damaging that the WMO’s regional body that oversees storm activity in North America, the Caribbean and Central America decided to cross out the names from the rotating list they use to designate these extreme weather events in the Atlantic.

Names are given by weather forecasters to avoid confusion between events and make it easier for warning purposes. Each region has its own naming system.

For example, in the Atlantic Southern hemisphere, names are in alphabetical order and alternate between women’s and men’s names.

When the events result in great loss of life and damages, their names are taken out of rotation and replaced with new ones. The committee’s decision brings the number of retired names in the Atlantic to 93 since storms began to be named in 1953.

“The RA-IV Hurricane Committee’s work is critical to keep our nations coordinated well before the next storm threatens,” said Ken Graham, Hurricane Committee chair and National Hurricane Center director.

“Hurricanes don’t care about international boundaries. We all face similar dangers from tropical systems. Impacts from a single storm can affect multiple countries, so it is critical we have a plan, coordinate our efforts, and share challenges and best practices.”

Last year marked a record breaking season, getting off to an early and rapid start with a record nine named storms from May through July, according to the committee.

Hurricane Dorian in 2019 was the strongest one on modern records to strike the Bahamas. Damages were estimated at $3.4bn and around three quarters of all homes on the island were damaged.

Last August, category 4 hurricane Laura ravaged the US state of Louisiana, resulting in more than 70 casualties.

Major hurricanes Eta and Iota also broke records as they landed both in Nicaragua only two weeks apart in November, when the season is usually winding down. The storms affected 8.3 million people across Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

“Developing countries and small islands in the Caribbean and Central America are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of tropical cyclones, which can overturn years of socio-economic development in a matter of hours.”

“In 2020, we saw this once again with tragic effect,” said Evan Thompson, president of WMO’s regional association for North America, Central America and the Caribbean.

This season was only the second time after 2005 that the WMO had to resort to the Greek alphabet after exhausting the 21 names beginning with a letter of the alphabet. The season went through a total of six Greek letters.

However, the committee said that it would stop using the Greek system as “it creates a distraction from the communication of hazard and storm warnings and is potentially confusing”. It has replaced these with an additional list of names according to the standard alphabet, excluding names beginning with Q, U, X, Y and Z which are still not common enough in local languages for communication purposes.

Source: This article was originally published by Geneva Solutions and re-published in UN Today, the official magazine of international civil servants.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is with Geneva Solutions, a non-profit journalistic platform dedicated to International Geneva.

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By External Source
Mar 30 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a complex condition that remains misunderstood.

The effects of ASD and the severity of symptoms vary so much between individuals.

But the number of people with ASD diagnoses continues to grow globally.

The rate of ASD in the US grew by an estimated 14% in just 2 years.

According to the World Health Organization, ASD affects 1 in 160 children.

The prevalence of ASD in children is at its highest in Hong Kong.

About 1 in 54 children in the United States has an ASD diagnosis.

An ASD diagnosis is four times more likely in boys than girls.

People with ASD are often subject to stigma and discrimination.

They are often unjustly deprived of healthcare, education and opportunities to be functional members of their communities.

80% of the neurodiverse population is unemployed.

Yet, research proves that employment activities and independence help reduce Autism’s symptoms.

In some cases, neurordiversity has proven to increase the effectiveness of teams by 30%.

But the global pandemic and economic recession has severely impacted those with ASD.

This year’s World Autism Awareness Day hopes to tackle this issue.

Inclusion in the Workplace: Challenges and Opportunities in a Post-Pandemic World

 

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By Syed Neaz Ahmad FRSA
LONDON, Mar 30 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Over the Pandemic months, most activities – social, cultural, economic & philanthropic have been hit hard. The worst-hit has been patients suffering from serious diseases. Most have shied away from visiting their doctors and referral fell by 52,000 due to Covid-19. However, as they say, life goes on, and in this case, death goes on too.

Prostate Cancer UK – a charity exclusive to the disease – report that despite awareness and development in technology – every 45 minutes a man dies of this dreaded disease. It is the ‘most commonly diagnosed cancer in the UK’. In addition, Covid-19 has not made things life easier for prostate cancer patients.

“Hard times show”, says Prostate Cancer UK, “what people stand for. When the future is uncertain and the choices are tough, we stand for men with prostate cancer.” Last January despite all odds they raised some £2.2 million.

‘March the Month’ campaign has motivated some 5,000 persons – who walked 11,000 steps a day to raise funds for awareness, research & treatment of this scourge of a disease.

Experts say that prostate cancer ‘begins when cells in the prostate develop changes in their DNA’. The Mayo Clinic elaborates: ‘Prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer. It grows slowly and is confined to the prostate gland, where it may not cause serious harm.’ Some grow slowly and need minimal or no treatment while other types are aggressive and can spread quickly.

My personal motivation is that two of my elder brothers suffered from complications of this very common cancer among men. In many developing countries there is a lack of awareness about prostate cancer.

Charities strongly recommend that “Men should be educated about prostate cancer, should know their options for early detection, and should have the access to the tests available. “Experts say “the secret lies in early detection and access to PSA testing.”

Stepping out during ‘March the Month’ was very welcome for me as it provided the much-needed opportunity to be out & about in the fresh air. Launching my charity walk at NTV Europe Studios in South Woodford CEO Subrina Hossain said: “It’s a laudable step and NTV Europe being a part of the community stands behind this fund-raising ‘March the Month’ walkathon.”

Walking 11,000 steps a day (some 4.5 miles) at Norbury Park created awareness for the cause and visits of former Mayor of the Croydon Council Humayun Kabir, Deputy Mayor Sherwan Chowdhury, and Nasar Ali President of British Bangladeshi Society of Croydon who visited the Park to encourage & support the cause helped raise funds.

Prominent among those who have generously contributed to my walkathon are British journalists, medical professionals & campaigners, academics & businessmen. IPS – an international media organization, as usual, has supported this humanitarian cause.

‘March the Month’ campaign ends on Wednesday 31st March and it is expected that it’s going to be very successful because of the freak good weather. “We are investing millions to find research to transform the way prostate cancer is understood, diagnosed & treated.”

Cancer experts say that an exciting prostate cancer vaccine is in the early stages of development. “Harnessing the immune system could offer a way to stop prostate cancer and the research is creating the technology to do it.”

The post Fitness, Fundraising and Friendship for Prostate Cancer appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 30 2021 (IPS)

The world is emerging from the biggest social and economic shock in living memory, but it will be a long time before the deep scars of the COVID-19 pandemic on human well-being fully heal.

In the Asia-Pacific region, where 60 per cent of the world lives, the pandemic revealed chronic development fault lines through its excessively harmful impact on the most vulnerable. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) estimates that 89 million more people in the region have been pushed back into extreme poverty at the $1.90 per day threshold, erasing years of development gains. The economic and educational shutdowns are likely to have severely harmed human capital formation and productivity, exacerbating poverty and inequality.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

The pandemic has taught us that countries in the Asia-Pacific region can no longer put off protecting development gains from adverse shocks. We need to rebuild better towards a more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable future.

We know that the post-pandemic outlook remains highly uncertain. The 2021 Economic and Social Survey for Asia and the Pacific released today by ESCAP shows that regional economic recovery will be vulnerable to the continuing COVID-19 threats and a likely uneven vaccine rollout. Worse, there is a risk that economic recovery will be skewed towards the better off – a “K-shaped” recovery that further marginalizes poorer countries and the disadvantaged.

Building a resilient and inclusive future

The good news is that countries in Asia and the Pacific have taken bold policy measures to minimize the pandemic’s social and economic damage, including unprecedented fiscal and monetary support. Last year, developing countries in the region announced some $1.8 trillion, or nearly 7 per cent of their combined GDP, in COVID-19 related budgetary support. But investments in long-term economic resilience, inclusiveness, and green transformation have so far been limited.

The region’s vulnerability to shocks like COVID-19 was heightened by its lagging performance towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, which would have enhanced resilience by reducing entrenched social, economic, and environmental deficits.

The evidence shows that we need a better understanding of the Asia-Pacific region’s complex risk landscape, and a comprehensive approach to building resilience in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Building resilience into policy frameworks and institutions will require aligning fiscal and monetary policies and structural reforms with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

ESCAP research maps out a “riskscape” of economic and non-economic shocks – financial crises, terms-of-trade shocks, natural disasters, and epidemics – and shows that all adverse shocks have cause severe damage to the region’s social, economic, and environmental well-being. It takes several years for investment and labour markets to return to their pre-crisis levels. Adverse shocks also leave behind long-term scars by widening inequality and increasing pollution. But bold policy choices can reduce setbacks. Governments must implement aggressive policy responses to protect hard-won development gains.

Notably, policy packages should align post-pandemic recovery with the 2030 Agenda. ESCAP recommends a policy package focusing on three areas – ensuring universal access to health care and social protection, closing the digital divide and strengthening climate and energy actions. Estimates show that such an approach could reduce the number of poor people in the region by almost 180 million and cut carbon emissions by about 30 per cent in the long run.

Resilience is largely affordable

Building resilience does not add too much financial burden to the region if such investments are accompanied by bold policy actions, such as ending fuel subsidies and introducing a carbon tax. A range of policy options can meet immediate and medium-term financing needs with great potential for Asia-Pacific countries to leverage these options.

However, it is important to note that several countries will need to engage closely with international development partners and the private sector. Least developed countries with significant “resilience gaps” will also require international assistance. Developed countries that fulfil their Overseas Development Aid (ODA) and climate finance commitments will go a long way in scaling up long-term investments and addressing these countries’ vulnerability to shocks.

COVID-19 has been a trauma like no other. Yet, it offers a unique opportunity for governments and other stakeholders to chart a new path to rebuilding. Whilst being forced to adjust, the Asia-Pacific region has seen fundamental transformations in lives, workplaces and habits. It is high time that the region takes its lessons from this pandemic and commits to a foundation that ensures a solid ability to withstand future jolts to the system without its people, and the planet, having to again pay a high price.

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

 

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Prospects for post COVID-19 recovery are dangerously diverging, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) The United Nations said developing nations have spent 580 times less per capita on their COVID-19 response, in comparison to richer nations, because they do not have the money to do so. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By Nalisha Adams
BONN, Germany, Mar 30 2021 (IPS)

The inability of developing nations to spend on post COVID-19 recovery and resilience has placed the world on the “the verge of a debt crisis”. “We face the spectre of a divided world and a lost decade for development,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday, Mar. 29, during a high-level meeting on financing development post COVID-19.

He said that developing nations needed access to liquidity to allow them to sufficiently respond to the pandemic and invest in recovery and urged the global community to provide this necessary support.

Guterres highlighted the over 2.7 million COVID-19-related deaths and the over 128 million people who fell into extreme poverty over the last year.

He noted that while the world’s rich nations have benefited from an unprecedented $18 trillion of emergency support measures, setting the stage for economic recovery post COVID-19, many developing nations could not invest in recovery and resilience. In fact many have spent 580 times less per capita on their COVID-19 response, in comparison to richer nations, because they do not have the money to do so.

One third of emerging market economies where at high risk for fiscal crisis while six countries had already defaulted on loan payments. Guterres said the situation was even worse for least-developed and low-income countries.

“They face a painfully slow recovery that will put the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement completely out of reach,” Guterres warned.

The meeting titled “International Debt Architecture and Liquidity – Financing for Development in the Era of COVID-19 and Beyond Initiative” was convened jointly by Guterres, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“We are at a turning point in the COVID-19 crisis,” Guterres said.

He said the stark reality of lack of funding among developing nations was clearly evident in the access to COVID-19 vaccines.

“Many developed countries are on the brink of mass vaccination drives. In developing countries this could take months, if not years, further delaying a global recovery,” Guterres said.

Jamaican Prime Minister Holness said that while vaccine rollouts where gathering pace, “an uneven and inequitable vaccination programme will lead to an uneven global recovery and sadly a re-inforcement of poverty”.

“Unless we are prepared to enter deeper cooperation with fairer, smarter, and broader views of our world and common interests, we should temper our expectations that the crisis is nearing its end,”  Holness said.

While Guterres welcomed that steps that had been taken to date by international financial institutions, noting the G20s debt services suspension initiative and the common framework for debt treatments, he said this was still “far from enough”.

He also pointed out that the common framework for debt treatments was facing difficulties as countries were reluctant to use debt recovery mechanisms as they were concerned this would have a negative impact on their credit ratings.

He said there was an opportunity to address weaknesses in current debt architecture. 

“Ultimately we need a shift in mindsets to responsible borrowing and lending.”

Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said because of the closure of export opportunities and lowering commodity prices, COVID-19 has worsened debt dynamics for many developing countries.

“The collapse of export receipts from tourism has prompted balance of payment difficulties for many developing countries, especially island economies from the Caribbean to the Pacific to the India Ocean,” Okonjo-Iweala said.

She noted that the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, trade finance dried up for ‘several’ low-income nations as foreign banks cut existing credit lines or refused to endorse letters of credit unless guaranteed by others.

“Without trade finance countries cannot import the basic necessities, they can only do it by paying cash in advance,” she said, adding that action on trade can help alleviate debt pressures.

“Lowering trade barriers gives countries more opportunities to push down their debt to export ratios. Addressing supply side constraints and improving access to trade finance would help them take better advantage of market opportunities,”  Okonjo-Iweala said.

She said that by delivering results at the WTO, including at the organisation’s 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12), which will take place in November, “governments can reinforce the predictable framework of rules that underpin global trade and enhance the ability of countries to earn their foreign exchange they need”.

“Lost decades are a policy choice. We can and we must do better,” Okonjo-Iweala said.

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), admitted that while the global economic outlook was improving thanks to efforts on vaccines and unprecedented actions by governments and the international community “prospects for recovery are dangerously diverging”. 

“What we can now report is that relative to pre-crisis projections, and excluding China, this group [of developing nations] is projected by 2022 to have cumulative per capita income losses as high as 20 percent,” Georgieva said, noting this would be a one-fifth loss of what was already a lower income to begin with.

The per capital income loss in advanced economies would be 11 percent, she said.

“We need a comprehensive approach to support vulnerable countries and people. And it must include measures at home to improve revenue collection, spending efficiency … as well as very substantial international support, [such as] grants and concessional lending,” Georgieva said.

She said the IMF would do its part through concessional financing. She also noted that the new special drawing rights (SDRs) or supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets defined and maintained by the IMF, of $650 billion, which was endorsed by the G7 earlier this month to address the long term needs for formal assets. She said she submit a proposal in June to provide more transparency into lending.

“A new SDR allocation would support the global recovery, provide substantial direct liquidity boosts to all IMF members, without adding to debt burdens, and freeing up resources for countries under pressure to do what is right and take care of their people and their businesses,”  Georgieva said.

She said in parallel the IMF was exploring options for members with strong financial positions to reallocate SDRs to support vulnerable countries.

She added that action on debt was an integral part of the comprehensive response to COVID-19 recovery.

President of the World Bank Group David Malpass said the world faced devastating challenges, especially for the poorest countries.

“For countries with unsustainable debt we are looking for solutions that meet both the near-term liquidity challenges and the longer-term sustainability challenges,” Malpass said, explaining that solutions for both time frames was critical in helping people get access to resources for health, education and climate.

He said along with the IMF, the World Bank was supporting the G20s debt services suspension initiative that saw 40 countries benefit from $6 billion in debt services suspension last year. He added that the 6-month extension of debt services suspension initiative to June 2021 could provide an additional $7 billion of temporary relief for countries.

President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Akinwumi A. Adesina said the COVID-19 pandemic “has devastated Africa’s accounts” in a year that saw 106,000 deaths related to the virus and GDP decline of between $145 to 190 billion.

Despite the current situation, Adesina said that the AfDB projects that the Africa’s read GDP growth would recover from -2.1 percent GDP growth in 2020 to 3.4 percent for 2021. He added, however, that this growth was conditional on equitable access to vaccines and on resolving Africa’s debt distress. He said the structure of Africa’s debt had changed dramatically and its total external debt stands at $700 billion.

“We need global solidarity on vaccine access for Africa. We also need global solidarity on debt for Africa,” Adesina said.

He called for the extension of the G20 debt services suspension initiative and for it to also include vulnerable and middle income countries.

 

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By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Mar 30 2021 (IPS)

 

I was born in the winter in 1990 in a country not my own i was born with my father’s eyes maybe i stole them he doesn’t look like that anymore i was born in seven countries i was born carved up by borders i was born with a graveyard of languages for teeth i was born to be a darkness in an american boy´s bed …
                                                                                                                                                    Safia Elhillo

Many years ago, when my youngest daughter was still a child, she suddenly became sick with stomach pains, vomiting and high fever. At the hospital a nice nurse, probably to find out if the feverish little girl was cognizant enough, asked her: “Where do you come from?” The girl became confused – she was visiting her sister in London, was born in Singapore and lived in Rome, her mother came from the Dominican Republic, her father from Sweden, she had lived in several countries and spoke four languages. She pondered for a while and then she answered: “I am …. I am international”.

Many of us adopt an identity and judge our environment from that chosen position. We might call ourselves nationalists, women or men, black or white, belonging to one of the groups covered by the term LGBTQ, socialists or conservatives, Muslims or Christians. Some of us are even willing to die, or kill, while desperately clinging to such auto-definitions.

Politics and religions have been founded upon and maintain such monolithic convictions, which in reality are just parts of what constitute the mind of a human being. As a matter of fact, each and every one of us have a multitude of identities. Some might have been chosen by ourselves, while others are unavoidable.

One elusive identity is race. Millions, if not billions, suffer from that unfortunate categorization, which has given rise to a multitude of privileges, prejudices, inequalities, contempt and suppression. I recently read a masterpiece in the genre of “Afro-American literature” – Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man where every page alludes to the stigma of having been born black in the United States. I came to think of Ellison’s novel after having read John Howard Griffin’s Black like Me, in which a white man in the Deep South of the U.S. changes his skin colour and immediately enters into another existence, where he every time of the day experiences the hardship and disdain confronted by a black person. Ellison’s novel was written in 1952 and Howard Griffin’s reportage book in 1960, but unfortunately are the two authors’ experiences and observations still valid today.

In these days of globalisation and rampant xenophobia it might be pertinent to remind ourselves that each and every one of us have a wealth of different identities, imprinted by genetics, culture and experience. The Swedish poet Gunnar Ekelöf expressed this with great eloquence (though some of ther poem’s beauty is lost in my translation):

A world is everyone, inhabited
by blind beings in obscure rebellion
against the Self, who rules us all.
In every soul, thousands souls are trapped.
In every world a thousand worlds are hidden.
These blind ones, these veiled worlds
are real, alive, though incomplete,
as true as I am real.

My daughters belong to a generation characterised migration and globalisation and I, like so many others, am hurt by the xenophobic madness that haunts our world and current times. None of these phenomena are new to humankind, they have been with us during the entire existence of Homo Sapiens and just as the identities of an individual, these concepts are multifaceted.

Take migration. What does it really mean? The definition is simple – “migration” denotes any long-term movement and is constituted by the two concepts of “emigration”, which is the act of leaving a place and “immigration” referring to the arrival to another place. However, nuances make it all confusing – for example a concept like “forced migration”, which is used to label phenomena like overseas enslavement, deportation to imprisonment and forced labour, trafficking, political or religious persecution, exile, expatriation and other abuses that have formed our current world.

There exists a grey zone between “forced” and “voluntary” migration, i.e. when people themselves have chosen to move from one country to another, or from one area within a country to another. However, while talking about “voluntary” migration it is often forgotten that children are forced to move with their parents, or being left behind, while women often have to “choose” to abide to the will of their spouses.

In this “grey” zone we also find choices to leave an area characterised by war, or persecution due to political affiliations, religion, race, sexual orientation, freedom of speech and a wealth of other discriminatory realities.

So called “pull” and “push” factors are applied to choices to migrate which are based on economic reasoning; a search for a better life and greater opportunities. This striving of poor people to obtain improved living conditions is regularly and consciously simplified and abused by populist politicians, who define “economic immigrants” and particularly those labelled as “illegals”, as lazy or criminal “parasites” intending to benefit from the hard labour of “decent” nationals “born and bred in the country”.

Among such so called “parasites”, chauvinists tend to include the children and descendants of migrants, who have not chosen their destiny, as well as the millions of people who have fled from countries which turmoil originally was caused by interventions by the same countries they try to enter; like France which involvement caused misery in places like Algeria and Vietnam, Italy in Libya, Ethiopia and Somalia, Belgium in Congo, Portugal in Angola and Mozambique, and the United States in Latin America, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines, just to mention a few examples. At the same time, wealthy and privileged people who avoid paying taxes and seek pleasure are all over the world welcomed with open arms.

COVID-19 is currently accentuating the discrimination of marginalized, dispossessed, persecuted and desperate people, often described as originators and spreaders of a lethal disease that actually is a global phenomenon, which origin and spread we humans are jointly guilty of. COVID-19 is a disease that affect us all, independent of origin, race, class and wealth.

Hopefully could this global scourge teach us to consider our small, life-providing planet as an enclosed universe, which sustains our entire existence. Accordingly, everything depends on our mutual respect and care for every living organism and its unique habitat. Such a realisation might help us to understand that we are responsible for the life of every inhabitant of this planet, irrespective who s/he is and where s/he lives. As the Swedish poet Bengt Lidner wrote in 1783:

“Among Novaya Zemblas mountains, within the burned valleys of Ceylon, wherever a miserable wretch dwells, he is my friend, my brother.”

Ahmad, Dohra (ed.) (2019) The Penguin Book of Migration Literature. London: Penguin Classics. Ellison, Ralph (2016) Invisible Man. London: Penguin Classics. Howard Griffin, John (1996) Black like me. New York: Signet.

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

 

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The post Identities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: UNICEF/Grove Hermansen

By Mark Lowcock*
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 30 2021 (IPS)

The conflict in Syria is now ten years old. A decade of death, destruction, displacement, disease, dread and despair. I have spoken to Syrians in many parts of the country in recent weeks.

They see no respite. And they are right: our latest humanitarian overview, which my office released last week, shows that needs are higher than ever.

We estimate that 13.4 million people across all parts of Syria require humanitarian aid. Twenty per cent more than last year. The deep economic decay from a decade of war has deepened further over the last year, not least as a result of the pandemic.

The Syrian pound fell to its lowest point ever against the dollar this month. Because food is imported, one consequence of that is that food prices are at unprecedented levels.

And a consequence of that is that more than 12 million people no longer have reliable access to food. And a consequence of that is growing hunger and malnutrition, especially among children.

UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore will tell you more about that.

Several doctors, in different parts of Syria, have told me they are seeing many cases of malnutrition, even among breastfed children, and that the situation is getting worse.

A displaced father of 11 children told me the other day that they have all dropped out of school to look for work to help feed the family.

My update today covers three main points. First, the protection of civilians; second, humanitarian access; and third, the assistance humanitarian organizations are providing across Syria.

Just over a week ago, at least 30 communities in northern Syria were attacked by artillery shells and air strikes.

Artillery shells hit Al Atareb Surgical Hospital, forcing it to be evacuated and closed.

Two boys, cousins, 10 and 12 years old, were among the patients killed. Five medical staff are among the injured. Two of them remain in critical condition.

Al Atareb Surgical Hospital, like many others, was built underground to escape attacks like this. It seems grotesque that hospitals, which are protected under international humanitarian law, should have to operate underground, but that is the reality in Syria.

Credit: UNFPA Syria

The location of the hospital was well known to the warring parties. The UN has supported it for several years. Its location was reported again to the parties on 1 March. This was obviously a deliberate attack, and you will all have seen the statement the Secretary-General issued.

As we speak, I am also, just in the last few minutes, hearing reports of a new air strike today in the area around Idleb city.

Moving on, I have expressed my concern to you before about increasing insecurity at the Al Hol camp. An MSF staff member there was killed while off-duty in their tent on 24 February.

Insecurity at Al Hol has now reached intolerable levels, threatening our ability to operate. Forty-one residents have been murdered since the beginning of the year.

The de facto authorities in the north-east are responsible for providing security in the camp. A major security operation, involving large numbers of military personnel, began in Al Hol yesterday, with the stated intention of restoring security in the camp.

The exercise has forced the suspension of many humanitarian services. Residents, including children, are being screened and their tents are being searched.

Security must be provided in a manner that does not endanger residents or violate their rights, and that does not restrict humanitarian access.

There are almost 40,000 foreign and Syrian children at Al Hol. More than 30,000 of them are less than 12 years old. It is entirely unacceptable that they remain in this unsafe environment. Countries of origin should take their nationals home.

My next point, is humanitarian access.

On 21 March, the same day as the attack on Al Atareb hospital, multiple air-to-surface missiles hit the road leading to Bab al-Hawa border crossing in northern Idleb.

Around 1,000 trucks of UN assistance cross through Bab al-Hawa every month, as authorized by the Security Council under resolution 2533.

One of the missiles struck a lot where trucks used for transporting humanitarian supplies were parked. Twenty-four trucks were destroyed or damaged.

The air strikes also started a fire in a nearby NGO warehouse storing food and other humanitarian supplies. A quarter of the stocks there, amounting to aid for over 4,000 people, were destroyed.

To put the impact of an attack like this into perspective, let me outline the extent to which people in north-west Syria depend upon cross-border aid.

There are apparently some misconceptions over the scale of the UN’s role. In one of your meetings earlier this year, it was suggested that the UN cross-border operation accounts for 10 per cent of the assistance. I was recently asked about that informally, and I said I thought the number was in fact around 40 per cent. When I reported that conversation to my staff, they said I had got the number wrong. “So it’s not 40 per cent?” I said. “No,” they said. “Well what is it then?” I said. “We think its’s nearer 50 per cent,” they said.

There are more than 4 million people in north-west Syria. We estimate that more than 75 per cent of them depend on aid to meet their basic needs. The cross-border operation reaches almost 85 per cent of these people every month.

The proportions vary depending on the type of assistance. For example, the UN provides the vast majority of emergency food assistance. Between 70 and 80 per cent of that is delivered by the World Food Programme.

The UN also, though, plays a major role in supporting others providing assistance. Many NGO operations rely, for example, on the UN for support in logistics, financing and procurement.

The UN cross-border operation is one of the most heavily scrutinized and monitored aid operations in the world. That is because the people paying for it – who are mostly Western and Gulf donors – have been clear that they will only do so if they are sure the resources are not being diverted to terrorist groups.

Because this programme is so well monitored and scrutinized, we know aid gets to the people it is supposed to.

Some people have suggested that aid must be being diverted, because otherwise we would not see the kind of malnutrition we now observe. That, too, is wrong. The reason there is so much malnutrition is that the cross-border operation is too small to prevent it. More money and more border crossings would address that.

People in north-west Syria know that the Security Council will shortly be deciding the future of the cross-border programme.

My office last week received a letter from women’s groups in Idleb. It said: “We are 130 Syrian women: teachers, engineers, doctors and housewives. We are all civilians who have lived a full decade in the war in all its detail. As women, mothers and those responsible for our families, we stand against stopping a cross-border resolution. We do not want our children to starve.”

We have also been continuing to try to seek agreement – as we have for more than a year – on cross-line deliveries to the north-west. I updated the Council again on that last month. The various parties have each recently described arrangements that they could go along with. But we have yet to find an approach everyone can agree. Discussions continue. While we deliver 1,000 trucks a month of aid cross border into the north-west, we have yet to see even a single truck, just one, cross line.

Let me turn now to the north-east. Cross-line humanitarian assistance to the north-east has scaled up, but needs still surpass our ability to address them.

We estimate that 1.8 million people require assistance in areas of north-east Syria outside of the control of the Government. Over 70 per cent of them are considered to be in extreme need – well above the national average.

Reputable aid organizations tell us that the availability and accessibility of health care in the north-east is insufficient. Few health issues are adequately addressed due to the limited functionality and capacity of health-care facilities, the lack of adequately trained medical staff, and shortages of essential medicines.

NGOs operating in the north-east report imminent stock-outs of critical medicines like insulin, and cardiovascular and antibacterial medicines in multiple facilities.

The UN was able to support the supply chain of medical supplies through Al Yaroubiya until the Security Council authorization to do that expired. Reputable organizations operating in the north-east tell us that neither cross-line support to health facilities nor increased cross-border shipments by NGOs have since proved a sufficient replacement.

Recent assessments in Deir-ez-Zor and Al Hassakeh show that only half of the pregnant women and new mothers in these camps are able to access obstetric or antenatal care.

Humanitarian organizations are making all efforts to bridge gaps.

The World Health Organization warns, however, that funding is a key constraint, as available resources will only cover 40 per cent of estimated health supply needs for north-east Syria for 2021.

At least nine NGO-supported health facilities will close in the coming months if additional funding is not secured.

Let me finally say a few words about the assistance we are delivering across Syria, in all parts of the country, notwithstanding the complexities and constraints I have just described.

The humanitarian operation currently reaches about 7.7 million people across the country every month. A significant increase in what we were doing last year. That is a reflection of the deterioration of the situation.

On March 30, the UN will be co-hosting the Brussels V Conference in support of Syria and neighbouring countries affected by the crisis.

Humanitarian organizations coordinated by the UN are seeking an estimated US$4.2 billion for the response inside Syria, to reach 12.3 million people in need. Another $5.8 billion is required for support to countries hosting Syrian refugees in the region.

Our ability to deliver aid and stave off an even worse situation for millions of civilians will depend on the political will and financial generosity of the international community, including the countries represented in this Council.

Now is not the moment to reduce humanitarian aid to Syria. We need more money, not less, if we are to avoid a further deterioration – the consequences of which could be dramatic and widespread.

* Mark Lowcock, UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, in his address to the UN Security Council on the humanitarian situation in Syria, 29 March 2021.

 

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The post In Syria, a Decade of Death, Destruction, Displacement, Disease, Dread & Despair appeared first on Inter Press Service.