Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Credit: UNHCR

By External Source
Mar 10 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Nujeen Mustafa is a Syrian refugee, youth advocate and champion for children with disabilities for the UN Refugee Agency.

At just sixteen years old, Nujeen Mustafa made the 3,500-mile journey from Syria to Germany in a steel wheelchair. Nujeen was born with cerebral palsy and spent the majority of her life confined to her apartment in Aleppo, Syria, where she taught herself English watching shows on TV.

As war broke out, she and her family were forced to flee – first to her native Kobane, then to Turkey. Her family didn’t have enough money for them all to make it to safety in Germany, where her brother lived, so her parents stayed in Turkey while she set out with her sister across the Mediterranean, braving inconceivable odds for the chance to have a normal life and an education.

Nujeen’s optimism and defiance when confronting all of her challenges have propelled this young refugee from Syria into the spotlight as the human face of an increasingly dehumanized crisis. Since moving to Germany, Nujeen has continued to tell her remarkable story and to capture the hearts of all who hear her speak.

(YouTube video: “UK/Germany: Nujeen, No Ordinary Teenager”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3rQ3SNCn6U&feature=emb_logo

ECW: Your story of triumph over struggle has inspired people around the world. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like growing up as a girl not able to go to school in Aleppo, Syria, and how you worked to ensure you got an education?

Nujeen Mustafa: Growing up and not being able to go to school, I realized pretty early on that my life was unusual – but I kind of wanted to do the best with what I had. I mostly noticed it when the kids in the building would go and I wouldn’t, but I was surrounded by a very supportive environment that just made it so easy to live with the fact that there was something missing in the routine of my life.

When I turned about 6 or 7, my older sister taught me how to read and write in Arabic and then it was left up to me to practice. This was when I kind of used television as a way of educating myself and learning how to read and write. Then these mechanisms evolved and the things I wanted to learn also evolved, so I moved on to other things with English – a bit of general knowledge, and a bit of background in every subject and topic that I could find. Of course, my sisters also brought me the schoolbooks for each year when I was growing up. I would finish them in one day because I turned out to be such a bookworm! From then on, when I was old enough to start being self-taught, I just did it.

Of course, I still recognize it was not fair that I was not able to go to school but, as I said, I tried to do the best with what I had. I think this was my way of defying the circumstances that I was in, and it kind of gave birth to this desire to prove myself and prove that I can overcome all these obstacles, even if they are hard. To this day, I think one of my most fundamental traits is the desire to prove that I can do things and that I can accomplish a lot of things that are not expected of me.

Credit: UNHCR/Gordon Welters

ECW: Today, 75 million children and youth caught in emergencies and protracted crises are not able to go to school. Education Cannot Wait and its partners are working to get them back to learning. Why do you think this is so important, particularly for perhaps the most vulnerable: refugee girls with disabilities?

Nujeen Mustafa: I found this question quite strange because it shouldn’t even be a question as to “why” we should educate our children. It just has to be a fact of life, because everyone should know “why.” Children are always emphasized as the future of their countries and communities. But when you do not invest in a portion of the population, which is the population that has a disability, this is just not right. This is a violation of your rights as a human being, your right to education. It is discriminating against you on the basis of your disability, if you don’t get an education. It’s very unfair treatment of young people – of people who should be planning and thinking out the future.

There have been a lot of pledges and resolutions about the importance of education, especially for young people and people with disabilities. To live in this kind of cognitive dissonance, where there is this acknowledgment that this is important and yet there is nothing being done to carry it out, is very concerning. We can all agree that it has very dire consequences on our society and even the living standards of any country.

Education of the public and of youth are factors in all of these things. A prosperous and educated youth means a prosperous and thriving country. There is no logical reason as to why any country would want to ignore its children, its youth, and people with disabilities. It’s really disturbing that I even have to say that. They are not a burden on anybody. They can contribute and they are this kind of untapped treasure, untapped resource, that is not being used sufficiently.

From a human rights point of view, no one has the right to discriminate against you on the basis of something that you have no control over. You don’t make a choice to be born with a disability just as you don’t make a choice to be of a certain ethnicity. So even from that point of view, there is no logical reason as to why this should be happening.

Credit: UNHCR/Gordon Welters

ECW: What key message(s) do you have for world leaders about the urgent, important need to address and fund education for refugees and for children with disabilities in emergency and protracted crises settings?

Nujeen Mustafa: I think the most important thing for decision makers to know is that education needs to always be a priority, even in emergency situations and crisis response. It is not enough to ensure basic living conditions for survivors of conflict or people who are now living through a pandemic. There needs to be an awareness that the future of the entire generation is on the line and their need for an education needs to be prioritized. I know that it can be overwhelming at times, but I think that education needs to be viewed and seen as something as essential and crucial to the well-being of everyone – especially people with disabilities – as providing shelter, food, or water. It needs to be prioritized in emergency situations, whatever they may be. There needs to be an acknowledgement of the vitality of education to their futures and to their lives.

Of course, the situation with COVID-19 is unprecedented in this century, but we should have been better equipped to deal with such an unexpected change in our daily routines and such disruptions in our lives. That just goes back to the point of making sure that education is accessible to all and that everyone, wherever they may be and whatever their circumstances may be, has access to it and is able to smoothly transition from one mode of education to the other. It should have been essential everywhere around the world. We see that countries with a colder climate (where some children are unable to attend school during the winter months) are much better equipped, already having this kind of digital form of attending lessons and school. So, I think that countries all around the world should strive to be on that same level, ready and prepared for any kind of unprecedented situation.

When it comes to people who have fled conflict regions, refugees, and refugees with disabilities, it is not enough to make sure that they survive, but that they live and thrive as individuals. Receiving an education is a building block of that. You can’t say that you are doing them right if you don’t provide them with access to education as soon as possible. Prioritize education as a part of the essential means of survival – prioritize it in every plan of action.

ECW: You wrote an inspiring, best-selling book about your amazing journey: Nujeen: One Girl’s Incredible Journey from War-Torn Syria in a Wheelchair. Could you tell us the three books that have influenced you the most personally and/or in your current studies, and why you’d recommend them for other people to read?

Nujeen Mustafa: One of them is The Time Keeper by one of my favorite authors, Mitch Albom. It tells a story of the first person to measure time. It comments on humanity’s obsession with time, being late, and having clocks all over your environment. People have forgotten to enjoy their lives and actually live them because they’ve become obsessed with time; everyone wants to get everything on time and not be late, to the point where we have forgotten how to enjoy living in the moment. There is a quote that is very inspiring and memorable for me, which is, “when you are measuring time, you are not living it.” It’s a very inspiring and soulful book about enjoying the moment, truly experiencing it, and not being worried about whether you are late or too early. As we see in nature, only humans measure time. Nature and animals are not plagued by worries about being late to the meeting, or being too early, or what the social standard is.

The second one would have to be 1984 by George Orwell… We see it in the way that our phones watch us and how essential they have become to our lives. Even I am guilty of it. I spend my day on an iPad. But there is this voice nagging in the back of my head for my life not to turn into 1984 – using technology in that sense and giving everyone access to my thoughts. Every time we Google Search, there is some kind of record of the question that we thought about at that moment, so I think it’s very unsettling but it is necessary in this day and age.

The third one, a fairly recent read, is Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. That book is just a must-read for everyone about perseverance and resilience… even in the most dire and horrifying circumstances. That you could still maintain your humanity, even in a concentration camp. It tells of a lot of horrible, horrifying things and the lengths that we humans can go to. But it was also a message of hope that we could thrive and rise above all that and become better people because of it. So, I think it appeals to me because it essentially says that we are stronger than we thought – even in the most unimaginable, horrifying, terrible circumstances, we can be better and we don’t have to succumb to the desperation and the helplessness. It also talks a good deal about grief and how you can emerge as a stronger person from it; how suffering is also a part of life and that it initiates a part of you and builds you as a person. Your response to it is so crucial. Its essential message, I think, is that there is still hope for humanity. You’re a human being, even in situations of genocide. There are still heroes out there who have lived through it and survived. Not only physically – but emotionally and morally and every other sense of the word. And I just thought that that was inspiring. I think everyone should read it because it gives a message of silver lining, of hope, and just that you can be that person that overcomes these challenges.

Credit: UNHCR/Ivor Prickett

ECW: What were the common misconceptions about children with disabilities that you faced as you were growing up?

Nujeen Mustafa: The fifth question is just my favorite. I love to talk about this aspect of having a disability because, where I grew up, disability meant that you were expected to just live on the sidelines and not grow at all as a person – be it academically or personally. I absolutely despised meeting people for the first time because there would be a recount of how I was born and how it was discovered that I had a disability. And then I would see the looks of just people feeling sorry because they thought that I would have no future and no life. That I would just be there, not being an active member of society or contributing anything to my family or to anyone. Just be someone that wouldn’t be of use to anybody. So, I think the misconception that people may have is that we are expected to play into these expectations and act as though we were doomed – but that, of course, is not the case.

I recognize and realize that it depends on the mentality that your first caregivers and family has, and my family was absolutely adamant about me receiving and having what they had. And being as equal to them as possible. I would be hammered on to do homework and learn how to read and write and advance my education and learn English… Of course, I did it on my own, later on, in my teenage years. But there was always pressure to learn a lot about math and to enrich myself intellectually. Even if I couldn’t do it physically. Of course, many of these children didn’t have this kind of supportive and encouraging environment. How society perceived them might have damaged their sense of self and made them very insecure and have a low self-esteem. I consider myself lucky that I grew up in a family that pushed me to be better – that didn’t view me as a kind of a nuisance or as a girl who didn’t have any potential.

Credit: UNHCR/Gordon Welters

So, I think the biggest misconception that society has of these people is that it expects us not to have any ambitions or dreams. That the mere fact of us having a disability should eradicate any glimmer of hope inside of us that these dreams might come true. I encountered that even on my journey here. I would meet people who would be surprised that I spoke English or that I was socially active – and, you know, not at all awkward or hiding from anyone. Even when I was younger, I limited my exposure to that kind of negativity. I just surrounded myself with mostly adults and people who loved me and appreciated me for who I am. And I think that helped. I kind of eliminated any possible person that I thought, okay, this person doesn’t really like me, he is just pitying me or looking at me in a very condescending way. The secret to that was that we, as a collective family and everyone around, were able to kind of stay away from that type of negativity and that kind of mentality that “okay, this person has a disability, so he is useless—he or she is useless.”

Credit: UNHCR/Herwig

ECW: From your own experience, what does inclusive education mean to you and what makes a school accessible for all boys and girls with disabilities?

Nujeen Mustafa: Inclusive education, for me, has a lot of meanings. I only experienced it when I arrived here in Germany and realized how smooth and easy it can be to make education inclusive. Of course, inclusive education means not just enrolling someone with a disability in a school, it’s about accommodating their needs without making them feel isolated or separated or something different than the other students who may not have a disability. It’s not just about making the restroom or making the building accessible, it’s about capacity building.

For example – I always laugh and find it very encouraging and impressive about what I experience here – there is nothing that I do, or that I go through, that people my age do differently. I’m also applying for apprenticeships, filling out applications, filling out paperwork, and working in accountancy. I study business, that’s what we do. And I don’t think that the experience of a person who doesn’t have a disability differs so much from mine. There’s no discrepancy—there’s no, “this level is for you and this level is for that person.” It’s more about accommodating your needs and making sure that you have full access to whatever you may encounter in your professional life and you are well-versed in whatever it is that you are trying to specialize in. I would say that I have the same amount of experience in business as anyone in the same grade, or level, as I am now. So, having a disability, they wouldn’t level it down for someone who is disabled. They would accommodate your needs in such a way that you get the full content and that you grasp everything that is needed of you and that you learn about.

That, for me, is what inclusiveness means. It’s about finding methods that would make your working environment better—and equal to your non-disabled peers. It’s about making sure that you receive the same kind of treatment and that you understand the same curriculum. That your needs are accommodated. For example, if somebody’s disability is in speech, there would be all kinds of assistance to him or her, using iPads or specific programs on their PCs, and it’s very encouraging because we know – I personally know – that nobody is dumbing stuff down for me to grasp and nobody’s going a level down just to teach me about it. I know that I would be as equally qualified to a co-worker that is not disabled. So, this, for me, is what inclusive education means. It’s about accommodating the needs of a person with a disability so that it’s integrated into a non-disabled structure or a curriculum that might not originally be for people with disabilities.

For me, the key point is not isolation—I don’t want to be taught separately—it’s about the merging of education, ideas, and concepts, so that everyone can benefit and absorb information equally and effectively. And that would be the main goal – the optimal option – for everyone, just to merge these ideas and methods so that every school in the world can and would receive a person with disability.

In 2019, at the first ever Global Refugee Forum, Nujeen spoke about the importance of keeping children’s dreams alive with Grover form the children’s educational TV series Sesame Street. Credit: UNHCR/Vlolaine Martin

I also think that integrating people with disabilities into schools with people who have no disability is essential in changing any misconceptions that non-disabled people might have about people with disabilities. Because exposure lets you know how that person lives. You’ll know that he’s not pathetic, he doesn’t want you pity. You learn that he’s just like you—he or she is ambitious, is working on his plans, has career plans, has dreams he wants to achieve, and that he can be independent. He or she can have fun and dance and do stuff. And they will go far in life.

The post ECW Interviews Youth Refugee Advocate Nujeen Mustafa appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Youths like Feston Zale from Chileka area in Blantyre district of Malawi’s Southern Region are finding employment and a source of income in agribusiness. Credit: Esmie Komwa Eneya/IPS

By Esmie Komwa Eneya
BLANTYRE, Malawi , Mar 10 2021 (IPS)

After getting tired of searching for employment for seven years, Feston Zale from Chileka area in Malawi’s Southern Region decided to venture into agribusiness.

He started thinking of how to change the wetland he inherited from his parents into a horticultural farm. So he joined the Chileka Horticultural Cooperative to learn the basics.

“I started cultivating the piece of land tirelessly hoping that one day the proceeds from it would wipe away my tears of unemployment.

“The money I got from the first harvest was so satisfying and it gave me the courage to  expand my farming business,” Zale, who grows cabbage, onions and tomatoes, told IPS.

Zale has been able to make more than $4,000 per year. With the profit from his agribusiness he has managed to open a shop and buy a car. In comparison, most small family farms in generate a gross annual income of about $1,840, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

“I have received several awards for producing very quality horticultural crops such as cabbage, onions and tomatoes,” he said.

Master Kapalamula is an agri-entrepreneur from Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe. He told IPS that venturing into agribusiness has provided him with a way to support himself since he completed his studies two years ago.

“Mainly, I’m into tomato production and my last crop has fetched me around $550.

“I have used some of the money to buy a sewing machine for fashion and design business,” he told IPS.

Though Kapalamula is still searching for employment, he says he will not give up his agribusiness once he finds a job and instead wants to balance both. He also has plans to expand his agribusiness.

Zale and Kapalamula were fortunate to find a means of income through agribuisness. This southern African nation’s youth unemployment is currently at 23 percent, according to the ministry of labour. Malawi, has a population of 16.8 million.

Though Zale and Kapalamula point out that the industry has its share of challenges.

One major problem, they say, is the low prices they get for their produce due to the smuggling of similar commodities from neighbouring countries and a lack of market regulations.

Because there are no policies that help safeguard the prices and sale of agricultural commodities in the country, people practice free trade and the market is flooded. This means that farmers are forced to reduce their prices in order to make some sales.

“If we force ourselves to lower our prices further, we end up making losses hence we do not benefit a lot from the business as we were supposed to,” said Kapalamula.

“To remain in the business, one needs to be courageous enough otherwise I have seen other youths quitting the business,” said Kapalamula.

Feston Zale from Chileka area in Blantyre district of Malawi’s Southern Region has changed the wetland he inherited from his parents into a horticultural farm. He is pictured here withsome of his prize-winning cabbages. Credit: Esmie Komwa Eneya/IPS

According to experts at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), policy making processes must be supported by research.

It is one of the reasons why the Enhancing Capacity to Apply Research Evidence (CARE) in Policy for Youth Engagement in Agribusiness and Rural Economic Activities in Africa project was established. The CARE project seeks to enhance the understanding of the poverty reduction and employment impact, and the factors influencing youth engagement in agribusiness and rural farm and non-farm economy. The project is sponsored by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and managed by IITA.

According to findings of a CARE study in Malawi conducted by CARE awardee Dingase Kanchu Mkandawire, finding reliable markets for agricultural commodities is one of the deterrents of youth employment in agribusiness. 

“Youth agri-entrepreneurs face lack of access to the market and poor road networks worsen the situation,” Mkandawire told IPS.

Indeed, during the launch of the 2019/2020 annual review and planning meeting conducted by the Department of Agriculture Research Services (DARS) at Bvumbwe Research Station in Thyolo District, Malawi’s Minister of Agriculture Lobin Lowe pointed that research in agriculture has a gap if it only focuses on production.

“The habit of focusing research on how to increase productivity only has left farmers stranded since after producing, marketing [their products] becomes a bigger challenge for them,” said Lowe.

Aubrey Jolex is another CARE awardee who conducted research on the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in agribusiness. He found that intensifying the use of ICT helped youth in agribusiness find reliable markets, among other benefits.

“Since the youth are heavy users of the ICT tools, they use those tools they use for communication to market their produce which in turn helps them to identify reliable markets,” he told IPS.

 

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Credit: Simone D. McCourtie, World Bank

By Catherine Highet, Nisha Singh and Arisha Salman
WASHINGTON DC, Mar 10 2021 (IPS)

The gender gap in mobile phone ownership is well-documented. For years now, the financial inclusion community has been trying to get phones into the hands of more women at the last mile — spurred on by mounting evidence that mobile money can increase women’s financial resilience, expand their economic opportunities and improve their intra-household bargaining power.

While these efforts have undeniably increased women’s access to phones, it’s less clear to what extent the beneficiaries of these programs are using phones to improve their lives.

A common approach to improving women’s access to mobile phones has been to give phones away. When we asked the FinEquity women’s financial inclusion community about the initiatives they were seeing around the world, we learned of several examples.

For instance, the state of Chhattisgarh in India has been building cell phone towers in rural areas and distributing Reliance Jio and Micromax smartphones for free. Its goal is to have “a smartphone for one woman in every household.”

The program and government’s endorsement of the phones has contributed to greater acceptability of young women using mobile phones.

The financial services provider Opportunity International Savings & Loans Limited (OISL) is taking a similar approach in Ghana. The company offers savings and loan products to hundreds of thousands of low-income clients, including women farmers.

Convinced that phones will help these women to boost their productivity and income, OISL trained women and their spouses in digital financial literacy and gender awareness and then gave them free smartphones.

OISL also provided training-of-trainers support for select women in the community (including mobile agents) to ensure ongoing support for phone users. This is a short-term solution for the company, which is looking into another longer-term approach to increasing women’s phone ownership: helping clients to finance smartphones.

Though smartphone financing is less common than simply giving phones away, GSMA has documented similar initiatives in countries like India, Kenya and Rwanda.

In India, Reliance Jio has offered 4G-enabled phones for a $25 deposit, which comes down to less than $10 with subsidies or when purchased with large, low-cost data plans.

In another case, SIA worked with the Foundation for a Smoke Free World, to distribute $11 phones on a three-month payment plan with two agricultural organizations and a mobile network operator in Malawi.

Regardless of whether they’re given away, financed or bundled with other life-enhancing services such as agricultural or health information, phones only matter if women actually use them to meet their goals.

This doesn’t always happen. In Chhattisgarh, for example, the limited evidence to date suggests that although women are making calls and using WhatsApp, overall usage of the phones is limited.

Phone recipients complained of poor battery life, apps that crashed, insufficient monthly data provision (of 3GB) under the lowest available monthly bundle of Rs 75 (less than $1).

As these complaints illustrate (and as a soon-to-be-released GSMA and Busara study in Kenya details), there are many reasons why women may not use their free phones. Some have to do with the quality of the handsets.

Low-quality imported models often purchased for $30 or less, such as those given away in Chhattisgarh, are not necessarily user-intuitive or suited for harsh rural conditions.

And although the phone itself may be free, there are costs of phone ownership that women may not be willing or able to cover, such as data and electricity. In some instances, the use cases for the phones aren’t compelling or encouraging enough for women to learn how to use them.

Additionally, digital literacy is a barrier for many women. In both India and Ghana, GSMA tells us it found low digital skills and lack of confidence — the fear that they would do something wrong — discouraged many women from using phones.

Underlying issues like digital literacy are gendered social norms that affect how women interact with technology. In some cases, norms may convince women that technology isn’t for them.

As we wrote in our last blog post about social norms, “While there is often an assumption that the gender divide will disappear on its own as digital technologies become more widely available in the market, the reality is that men and women engage differently with digital services – including digital financial services (DFS) – because of, among other factors, gendered social norms that don’t change nearly as fast as technology.”

Despite the many barriers to women’s use of free mobile phones, there are encouraging developments when it comes to use cases. Government-to-person (G2P) payments are creating more compelling use cases for women in certain contexts to own and use mobile phones.

For example, the GEWEL Program in Zambia, funded by the World Bank with the Ministry of Community Development, distributed phones as part of its efforts to digitize G2P payments. A recent evaluation produced positive results, showing that most users withdrew their funds with mobile money.

As part of the evaluation, researchers called random participants to see who would answer the phone. Many of the women participants picked up, suggesting that the phones had not been taken by family members or sold.

COVID-19 may also be encouraging women to discover the benefits of mobile phone ownership. We have seen a shift in mobile and digital usage patterns during the pandemic, with phones facilitating interactions that can no longer be done face to face.

Additionally, research has shown that gendered social norms can relax during moments of transition and upheaval and could make it easier for women to purchase a mobile phone.

For example, in their Women and Money research, Ideo.org found that women were sometimes able to gain more economic independence (for example, by entering the workforce) when a significant shock took place, such as when a male family member and income-earner died.

But the bottom line is that handset affordability — the focus of most programs to distribute free phones to women — is far from the only barrier to women’s use of mobile phones as a tool to improve their lives.

While efforts to increase women’s access to mobile phones are important, they should be carried out together with norm-aware interventions that increase the value proposition of mobile phone ownership, address ongoing costs, tackle digital financial literacy and use behavioral nudges to help women see the phones as tools to improve their lives.

As a Harvard Evidence for Policy Design study notes, efforts to give mobile phones to women without considering the prevailing norms may have negative consequences at the household level or be quickly rendered obsolete if other household members take the phones.

Going forward, it will be important for interventions to address not only affordability constraints, but more importantly, the deep-rooted social norms that reinforce and deepen the digital divide.

*The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor is an independent think tank that works to empower poor people to capture opportunities and build resilience through financial services. Housed at the World Bank, CGAP is supported by over 30 leading development organizations committed to making financial services meet the needs of poor people.

 

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The post Can Free Phones Close the Digital Gender Divide? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The three writers are Financial Sector Analysts at the Washington-based Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP)*

The post Can Free Phones Close the Digital Gender Divide? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Minor resting after exiting the mine, Ghana. Credit: Lisa Kristine

By Lisa Kristine
SAN FRANCISCO, Mar 9 2021 (IPS)

I am about 200 feet down a rickety old mine shaft, in the Ashanti gold mining region of Ghana. It is stiflingly hot and darker than a moonless night. I can only feel the touch of sweaty bodies passing in the darkness and hear the reverberating sound of miners coughing and breaking rocks. The lack of oxygen and dust make it hard to breathe. I have no idea how deep this shaft goes – hundreds of feet? More? If there is a Hell this must be what it feels like.

The abolitionists who have brought me to this illegal operation refuse to go down the dilapidated shaft – an abandoned mine that has been taken over by small-scale outlaw operators after the legitimate owners have moved on. Instead, some of the miners in this “gang” of eight men agree to let me accompany them underground. Each miner carries three things with him – a battered old flashlight tethered to his head with a tatty elastic band, a couple of primitive tools and an empty sack that he hopes to fill with rock containing gold. They spend two to three straight days below ground, hacking at the stone walls to free rocks that they haul to the surface in sacks slung over their shoulders. When they emerge, these men are soaking wet, with bloodshot eyes and a look of exhaustion beyond description.

Slippery tree limbs are all that brace the walls of the narrow mine shaft. At one point I almost lose my grip, my legs swinging wildly in the air with no footing. I instantly think of Manuru, the man I met the other day who had lost his grip and fallen down the shaft. His leg was so severely injured the doctor insisted it should be amputated. But he continues to work; he has no choice. He has no money and is in debt to the trafficker who “hired” him for this illegal operation.

Group of miners sitting under shelter blocking the sun after working 48 hours in the mine, Ghana. Credit: Lisa Kristine

Gold mining is big business in Ghana, which in 2019 took over from South Africa to become the leading gold producer in Africa. While the major multinational mining names – Newmont Goldcorp, Kinross Gold, AngloGold – are active in the country’s biggest mines, informal small-scale operations also proliferate.

These small-scale mines operate in the shadows; lacking the proper certifications to operate legally, they turn a blind eye to regulations and worker safety or sanitation. Ghanaian law states that workers should be at least 18 years old, but boys as young as 12 commonly work the mines. In a 2020 study on small-scale gold mining, the International Labor Organization (ILO) notes that the small-scale sector is primarily poverty-driven, and despite being one of the most hazardous forms of child labor, remains an attractive option for children in poverty.

When I met Manuru, he had been working in the mines for 14 years. His uncle brought him here after Manuru’s father had died, hoping to earn money to support himself and his family, Manuru was instead trafficked into bonded labor. Ghanaians from around the country scrounge money to make their way to this region, hoping to find riches in the gold mines. They arrive with no money, to discover they lack the certifications to work in the legal mines. Instead, they are forced to take loans from “recruiters” who then traffic them into slave “gangs” of eight or ten to work as bonded labor in the illegal mines. They are often harassed by the police and private security forces for trespassing in the abandoned mines. They are not paid for their work, instead forced to sell their gold back to the recruiter in a never-ending cycle of labor-debt bondage. When his uncle died, Manuru inherited his debt as well. This is what modern-day slavery looks like.

Miner climbing down the mine shaft to work, Ghana. Credit: Lisa Kristine

Mining in the best of circumstances is a high-risk occupation. The lack of proper monitoring and regulation mechanisms for these small-scale operations have translated directly to indecent working conditions. In this ‘wild west’ of shadowy operators, workers lack any protective equipment or knowledge of safety procedures and are exposed to harmful dusts and chemicals like mercury. The abandoned mines that these illegal operators take over have not been maintained, and accidents and structural collapses are common. The ILO estimates that injuries are six to seven times more common in the small-scale operations than the big companies.

Group of minors climbing out of the shaft, sweaty from the hot belly of the shaft beneath the ground. Credit: Lisa Kristine

According to the ILO there are more than 40 million people trapped in slavery and forced labor worldwide in everything from mining to brickmaking to prostitution. That is more than the population of Canada. Given the difficulty documenting these illegal practices, this figure is considered conservative. In Ghana the estimate that figure is in the hundreds of thousands. A 2012 research project from abolitionist organization Free the Slaves found that boys as young as 12 are working at these illegal mines. Girls as young as ten are being trafficked as prostitutes for miners. Their research found widespread ignorance of legal protections for children under international and Ghanaian law, and community leaders expressed frustration in the limited government and legal intervention.

Modern slavery thrives in the dark. It is only when we shine a light on these injustices and illuminate the dignity and shared humanity of those trapped, can we begin to work towards solutions.

The author is an International humanitarian photographer, activist, and keynote speaker. She has published six books and has been the subject of four documentaries. She is a founding member of the Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ), pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7.

 

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took over as new WTO Director-General, 1 March 2021. Credit: Africa Renewal, United Nations

By Lansana Gberie
GENEVA, Mar 9 2021 (IPS)

When on 15 February the chair of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) General Council, Ambassador David Walker of New Zealand, announced that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala would be the new Director-General, the mood among delegates was of relief.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala commanded overwhelming support from the start of the selection process in July 2020, but her historic elevation—as the first African and the first woman to become Director-General of the 26-year-old trade organisation—was by no means certain only a few weeks prior.

“Without the recent swift action by the Biden-Harris administration to join the consensus of the membership on my candidacy,” the new Director-General said in her acceptance statement, delivered via video link, “we would not be here today.”

This plain statement of fact underlines the challenges she will likely face. It is also indicative of the paralyzing difficulties experienced by the world’s main trade arbiter in recent years, where key decisions are made by consensus among over 160 members.

So, what can Africa gain from an African Director-General of the world’s premier trade organization?

This question was never openly asked during the selection process, in part because as well as being an African and a woman, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s qualifications—Harvard-educated economist, top World Bank official, longest-serving Finance Minister of Nigeria (Africa’s largest economy), and Foreign Minister—towered above her rivals.

But the question will likely become a point of conversation during her tenure.

Lansana Gberie

Some will try to use it as a benchmark for evaluating her performance in office. That will make no sense. For the past 20 years, no round of trade negotiations at the WTO has been successful.

The WTO’s dispute resolution mechanism—the Appellate Body—has been stymied, including through the blocking of all its new appointees by the previous US administration, a decision that should be rescinded.

But there are important areas where the Director-General, with her political clout and proven leadership skills as a reformer, can lead “from behind… to achieve results,” as Dr. Okonjo-Iweala herself noted in her acceptance statement.

In that statement, she highlighted as a top priority an inclusive and effective approach to COVID-19 vaccine distribution, which surely must include an agreement to suspend intellectual-property protection for vaccines and other vital drugs to enable their mass production and distribution in poor countries.

This is known as the TRIPS Waiver proposal, an initiative of India and South Africa that now has more than 50 co-sponsors.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, as chair of the vaccine alliance Gavi and one of the African Union special envoys for the continent’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been consistently passionate about this issue and has called for the rejection of “vaccine nationalism and protectionism.”

In post-pandemic recovery, Africa will focus on operationalizing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which is expected to connect some 1.2 billion people across 55 countries with a combined GDP of $3.4 trillion.

The trade pact will unify and amplify Africa’s voice in urging the WTO to create a vision that reflects the continent’s economic aspirations.

The AfCFTA itself signals a preference for a rules-based multilateralism, which aligns with the WTO’s ideals. Therefore, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala should actively cheerlead for the AfCFTA and canvass for necessary technical support for its successful implementation.

Perhaps more difficult but vital to African and other developing economies is improving market access for their agricultural products. This access is severely limited in part because of the huge distorting subsidies that wealthy nations provide their farmers.

There have been encouraging overtures from European countries and Australia to African diplomats to help mitigate this problem, but it will need the leadership of the WTO to give the initiative the momentum it needs.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, who has stressed that trade must be centred around people and focused on economic development and reducing global inequities, is singularly positioned to lead this effort.

Negotiations around fisheries, which have persisted for years at the WTO, are an equally urgent concern for Africa. To date, some members even refuse to agree on what constitutes ‘fish.’

Wealthier nations lavish subsidies on their fisheries sectors, leading to over-enhanced capacity, which enables their fishing boats to infringe upon the sovereign rights of poorer countries in Africa. African-caught fish, already limited as a result of such encroachment, stand little chance of gaining market access in wealthy countries.

During her rounds of meetings in Geneva before her selection, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala advanced an important concept that was widely praised by African diplomats – trade finance.

As someone who followed her during those weeks of intense consultations, I was struck by the fact that no other candidate spoke about this issue. Providing financial and technical support particularly to least developed economies to export agricultural and fisheries products to richer countries can advance both trade and development.

Negotiations on such support for the cotton sector within WTO have, like those relating to fisheries, generated positive statements of support but no real action yet. African members have recently raised the issue of a WTO Joint Action Plan to provide support for the development of cotton by-products in poor countries.

This should be uncontroversial; it is certainly less contentious than intellectual property rights, for example. It merits urgent support.

Its realization, in addition to actions on agriculture and fisheries, will be the kind of incremental progress that will help reduce poverty and boost global trade.

For many African countries, it will constitute the kind of reform that would make multilateral cooperation – and the great honour to the continent represented by the elevation of a highly distinguished African trailblazer – truly meaningful.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

 

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Excerpt:

The author is, Sierra Leone’s Ambassador Extraordinary to Switzerland and Permanent Representative to the UN and other International Organizations in Geneva.

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 9 2021 (IPS)

Developing country governments are being wrongly advised to use their modest fiscal resources to pay down accumulated debt instead of strengthening pandemic relief and recovery. Thus, debt phobia risks deepening and extending COVID-19 recessions by prioritising buybacks.

Anis Chowdhury

Pandemic debt mounting
Nearly half (44%) of low-income countries were already debt-distressed or at high risk even before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March 2020. Limited fiscal space has constrained developing countries’ relief and recovery measures, making them far more modest than those of developed countries.

Nevertheless, their government debt ratios rose faster in 2020. Many developing countries have taken on more debt, typically on non-concessional terms—from private lenders and non-Paris Club members. Public debt in emerging markets has thus surged to levels not seen in over half a century.

In January-October 2020, the average debt burden of developing countries increased by 26% as tax revenues declined sharply. The IMF projects their average debt ratios will rise by 7-10% of GDP in 2021, with some terming this a “debt pandemic”.

Debt burdens limit fiscal resources and the policy space needed to better address the pandemic health and economic crises in developing countries. Debt is particularly debilitating in the least developed countries, where healthcare services were modest even before the pandemic.

Last October, the United Nations warned G20 senior officials of “protracted fiscal paralysis” and the “worst global crisis since WWII” if developing countries did not get significant debt relief. For the World Bank President, the “disappointing” G20 Debt Services Suspension Initiative (DSSI) only “defers debt payments” as interest mounts, without reducing debt.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Debt buybacks?
Ostensibly to avert the “looming debt crisis”, some are calling for debt buybacks while private creditors refuse to offer any debt relief. They claim “bond buy-backs present a highly attractive solution, offering substantial debt relief at a relatively low cost”.

Hence, they urge using the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) New Arrangements to Borrow plus funds from donors and multilateral institutions to buy debt at a discount. Such calls have grown with the prospect of new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) of at least US$500 bn, as the Biden administration has dropped US opposition.

Proponents do not explain why debt buybacks should now take precedence over urgently deploying fiscal resources for relief and recovery. As more countries compete for funds, driving up interest rates, buybacks should ease the credit market for others.

Successful debt buybacks?
Buyback advocates misleadingly imply that the 1989 Brady bond plan and the 2012 Greek bond buybacks were both “successful”. The plan wrote down some sovereign debt to commercial banks for several mainly Latin American countries, following the early 1980s’ spike in US interest rates.

The US debt buyback initiative was launched by George HW Bush’s Treasury Secretary, Nicholas Brady and backed with US Treasury bills after his predecessor failed to resolve the debt crises of several heavily indebted US allies.

In return for IMF support, these countries were subjected to IMF-World Bank programme conditions. These supposedly “growth promoting” policies actually resulted in many “lost years” of stagnation.

Benefits for most debtors were unclear as buybacks failed to improve market confidence in debtor countries, or their development performance. The Brady scheme was portrayed as “voluntary”, although in fact, “officials used various techniques to pressure banks into Brady deals”.

Even with fewer debt-distressed countries and more similar creditors then, “country negotiations with bank creditors often dragged on for months”, even a year. In fact, only the banks gained from the Brady deals which enabled them to close the chapter with minimal losses and move on.

The 2012 Greek debt buyback programme is said to be a “success” in “the sense of being orderly, reasonably quick”. However, it only affected private debt as governments and central banks held over two-thirds of Greece’s sovereign debt.

While treating “holdout creditors” generously, the programme did not restore Greek debt sustainability. Unsurprisingly, the “bigger winners were hedge funds, which pocketed higher profits than many had expected”.

Dubious models for emulation
Debt buyback advocates seem to ignore how debtor-creditor relations have changed since the 1980s. There are now many more types of private creditors, debtors and credit or borrowing arrangements compared to the 1980s, when government debt from US and UK commercial banks was far more significant.

The US government then had much more leverage on US commercial banks as it was seen as trying to avoid bank failures and to ensure financial sector stability. With powerful lobbyists, such as the Institute of International Finance (IIF), private finance has much more bargaining power now.

Today, no single government or multilateral institution has considerable influence on the far more varied private creditors. Such lenders have already rejected the G20 DSSI and ignored IMF and World Bank calls for debt relief. Meanwhile, rating agencies threaten to downgrade the credit ratings of countries considering participation.

Many more countries face debt problems, each with its own history and mix of debt contracts. Hence, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ buyback programme will simply not work. Each country programme will require protracted negotiations, with no guarantee of reaching a settlement.

Who really benefits?
According to World Bank Chief Economist Carmen Reinhart and her co-authors, in most cases, debt buybacks have benefited recalcitrant private creditors without providing much relief to debtors “willing to exchange higher future debt for lower payments now”.

“Private creditors are increasingly claiming outsize shares of repayment in debt restructurings even when the official sector is senior creditor to the private sector…Official creditors may be left holding the bag for the bulk of the losses, even when they start with little of the outstanding debt, as in Greece”.

Hence, they caution: “make sure new funding ends up benefiting the citizens of debtor countries affected by the pandemic rather than lining the pockets of creditors…The more official aid and soft loans can go toward helping needy citizens around the globe—and the less such assistance ends up as debt repayments to uncompromising creditors—the better”.

Get priorities right
With ‘collective action’ complications affecting negotiations, and the greater number and variety of heavily indebted countries and creditors, equitable debt buybacks are impossible to negotiate. Worse, prioritising buybacks means rejecting former debt hawk Reinhart’s current pragmatic advice to “First fight the war, then figure out how to pay for it”.

The urgent priority is for fiscal resources to strengthen relief, recovery and reform measures. Prioritising debt buybacks, instead of urgently augmenting fiscal resources, may thus contribute to another “lost decade” or worse.

 

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FAO advocates for transparent, inclusive, socially beneficial and responsible artificial intelligence. Credit: FAO

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, Mar 8 2021 (IPS)

One year after the call for a group of international and religious organizations and important multinational companies to incorporate ethics into the design of artificial intelligence (AI), Pope Francis said in a tweet: “I hope that more and more people of good will cooperate in the promotion of the common good, the protection of those lagging behind and the development of a shared algor-ethics”.

The message of the Catholic pontiff, on 28 February, was related to the Call of Rome, which seeks to actively incorporate ethics in artificial intelligence based on a transparent, inclusive, socially advantageous and responsible process.

The document, “Rome Call for Artificial Intelligence Ethics”, was launched on 28 February 2020 by the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Microsoft and IBM, with the endorsement of the Italian government.

By 2050 the world will have to feed 10 billion people and this will be possible only with transformed agri-food systems that are inclusive, resilient and sustainable; therefore, artificial intelligence in food and agriculture plays a key role in this transformation and in achieving the food objectives for all

QU Dongyu
Director General, FAO
For Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, progress can create a better world “if it is linked to the common good.” “The depth and acceleration of the transformations of the digital age create new and constantly evolving problems” and “the complexity of the technological world demands an ethical and articulated collaboration to achieve better influence.”

According to Paglia, it is necessary to build a new alliance between research, science and ethics “to build a world in which technology is in favor of the people” because “without equitable and just development” there can be no justice or peace.

The Rome Call invites governments, institutions and the private sector to adopt a common responsibility in order to ensure that digital innovation and technological progress are at the service of human creativity.

The strong increase in digitization and the renewed efforts for greater innovation improved substantially in 2020. This acceleration was a result of COVID-19 and the consequent new digital and online forms of interaction on a global level.

The Director General of FAO, QU Dongyu, recalled that by 2050 the world will have to feed 10 billion people and that this will be possible “only with transformed agri-food systems that are inclusive, resilient and sustainable”; therefore, artificial intelligence in food and agriculture “plays a key role in this transformation and in achieving the food objectives for all.”

QU recalled that FAO seeks the promotion of ethics in artificial intelligence “for better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life.”

The expanding support for the Rome Call is being sought through various means. These means include; opening channels of dialogue with the different monotheistic religions to identity a convergence in which technology can be used at the service of humanity; active action from parliamentarians and local administrators in different parts of the world; as well as by the growing support from private companies, especially technological ones.

For Microsoft’s President Brad Smith, this common effort aims to ensure that technology continues to serve humanity. He stated that “[a]s we recover from COVID-19, the Rome Call is an important instrument to reflect broadly and ethically on the future of technology” within the framework “of a balanced, respectful and inclusive dialogue on the interaction between the artificial intelligence technology and society”.

Similarly, the Vice President of IBM, Dario Gil, called for strengthening the capacity of artificial intelligence to “transform our lives and societies in many ways,” but for this, artificial intelligence must be developed, expanded and used “in a more responsible way to prevent negative results.”

Gil recalled that in his company this is applied through specific protocols, risk assessment, reliable methodologies for the development of artificial intelligence, training initiatives, innovation analysis, as well as through mechanisms designed to help other companies to strengthen their artificial intelligence.

To summarize the spirit that allowed the creation and promotion of this original global alliance on the issue of the development of digitization and innovation, Monsignor Paglia recalled that “we are not an island, we are not pulverized or divided, we are a single body, a unique family, in good and evil” and for that, common action is essential.

The post The Ethics of AI to Ensure Food Security and Development appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Mario Lubetkin is Assistant Director General at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

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A woman in Aden, Yemen prepares food at a settlement for people who have fled their homes due to insecurity. Credit: UNOCHA/Giles Clarke

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 8 2021 (IPS)

The United Nations has rightly described the deaths and devastation in war-ravaged Yemen as the “world’s worst humanitarian disaster”— caused mostly by widespread air attacks on civilians by a coalition led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

But rarely, if ever, has the world denounced the primary arms merchants, including the US and UK, for the more than 100,000 killings since 2015– despite accusations of “war crimes” by human rights organizations.

The killings are due mostly to air strikes on weddings, funerals, private homes, villages and schools. Additionally, over 130,000 have died resulting largely from war-related shortages of food and medical care.

Saudi Arabia, which had the dubious distinction of being the world’s largest arms importer during 2015–19, increased its imports by 130 percent, compared with the previous five-year period, and accounting for 12 percent of all global arms imports, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

And despite concerns in the U.S. and U.K. about Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen, both weapons suppliers continued to export arms to Saudi Arabia—with 73 percent of Saudi Arabia’s arms imports originating in the U.S. and 13 percent from the U.K.

But the newly-inaugurated Biden administration has threatened to halt some of the US arms sales proposed by the former Trump administration which sustained a politically and militarily cozy relationship with the Saudis.

The sales on-hold include $478 million in precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia and $23 billion in arms sales to UAE, including 50 F-35 fighter planes and 18 Reaper drones.

The Saudi military arsenal includes F-15 fighter planes, Apache helicopters, Stinger and Hellfire surface to air (SAM) missiles, and multiple rocket launch systems (from the US), Tornado fighter bombers, Bae Hawk advanced jet trainers and Westland combat helicopters (from UK) and Aerospatiale helicopters and air defense systems (from France).

The US weapons systems with the UAE forces include F-16 fighter planes, F-35 Stealth jet fighters, Blackhawk helicopters and Sidewinder and Maverick missiles while UK’s arms supplies include Typhoon and Tornado fighter bombers and cluster munitions. The UAE is also equipped with French-made Mirage-2000 jet fighters, perhaps upgraded to the Mirage 2000-9 version.

All of these weapons – and more –have been used to bomb civilians in Yemen in the six-year-old conflict there.

Dr. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, and founding director of the program in Middle Eastern Studies, told IPS Biden’s decision to cut off direct support for Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen was long-overdue.

The US Congress, he said, had attempted to cut off such assistance last year by passing a ban by a big bipartisan majority. Trump, however, declared a state of emergency overruling the legislative branch.

“Unfortunately, Biden has pledged to (continue) providing arms in order to support what he refers to as Saudi Arabia’s defense needs against alleged Iranian aggression, despite the fact that Saudi Arabia’s military budget is five times that of Iran and is therefore perfectly capable of defending itself,” he pointed out.

Biden also has pledged aid to protect the kingdom from attacks by Houthi rebels, who have occasionally lobbed rockets into Saudi Arabia, but only in retaliation of the massive Saudi attacks on Yemen.

In addition, “Biden has called for continued support for Saudi counter-terrorism operations, which is concerning given the monarchy’s tendency to depict even nonviolent opponents as terrorists”, said Dr Zunes, who is recognized as one of the country’s leading scholars of U.S. Middle East policy and is a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies.

Along with Biden’s refusal to place sanctions on Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (known as MBS) “despite acknowledging his key role in the murder of a prominent U.S.-backed journalist as well as his conciliatory phone conversation with King Salman last month, raises serious questions as to whether Biden is really interested in standing up to the Saudi regime,” he argued.

Credit: YPN, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch and 41 other organizations are calling on President Joe Biden to impose sanctions available under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act on officials at the highest levels of Saudi leadership, including MBS.

The coalition says laws-of war violations committed by the Saudi-led coalition amount to “war crimes”.

Dr Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, a human rights organization that works on preventing war crimes and other atrocities in the world, told IPS the massive humanitarian crisis in Yemen is not the result of an earthquake or some other natural disaster; it is entirely man-made.

“Starvation is the result of airstrikes and a merciless war that has completely destroyed people’s lives,” he added. The bottom line is that the United States should not be selling weapons to any state that has been responsible for atrocities in Yemen, he declared.
Time and again, he said, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been responsible for war crimes.

“The US is an accessory to these crimes if it continues to supply the bombs, drones and fighter planes used to bomb Yemeni civilians,” said Dr Adams whose Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect has conducted advocacy with the UN Security Council since the war in Yemen began, arguing that impunity for war crimes by all sides has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

In an oped piece last month, Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, wrote “Countless Yemeni children are dying from starvation and disease while the world shamelessly watches in silence, as if this was just a horror story from a different time and a distant place, where a country is ravaged by a senseless, unwinnable war while a whole generation perishes in front our eyes”.

Those at the top who are fighting the war are destroying the very people they want to govern; they are the evil that flourishes on apathy and cannot endure without it, he added.

“What’s there left for them to rule? Twenty million Yemenis are famished, one million children are infected with cholera, and hundreds of thousands of little boys and girls are ravenous—dying, leaving no trace and no mark behind to tell the world they were ever here. And the poorest country on this planet earth lies yet in ruin and utter despair, said Dr Ben-Meir.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council* (NRC): 4 million people have been displaced by the war since 2015; 66% of Yemen’s population – over 20 million people – need some form of aid; Half the population – 16 million – will go hungry this year.

Over 5 million people are estimated to be one step away from famine; Only half of health facilities and two-thirds of schools are currently functioning; Water infrastructure is operating at less than 5 per cent efficiency.

The war has directly killed more than 100,000 people; Another 130,000 have died from “indirect causes” such as food shortages and health crises; An average of one child dies every 10 minutes from preventable causes.

Funding cuts mean that 9 million people have had their food assistance halved, and 15 major cities are on reduced water supplies. And NRC alone has had to cut food rations to 360,000 people.

At a March 1 UN High-Level Pledging Event for Yemen, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his appeal: “We need $3.85 billion this year to support 16 million Yemenis on the brink of catastrophe”.

Pointing out that more than 20 million Yemenis need humanitarian assistance and protection, with women and children among the hardest hit, he said over 16 million people were expected to go hungry this year and nearly 50,000 Yemenis are already starving to death in famine-like conditions.

But following the conference, Guterres described the outcome as “disappointing” because the pledges, which amounted to $1.7 billion, were less than what was received for the humanitarian response plan last year, and a billion [dollars] less than what was pledged in 2019.

*Figure sources include: UNOCHA, UNICEF, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), the World Food Program

Thalif Deen is former Director, Foreign Military Markets at Defense Marketing Services; Senior Defense Analyst at Forecast International; and military editor Middle East/Africa at Jane’s Information Group.

  

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Credit: GGGI

By Frank Rijsberman, Ingvild Solvang and Bertha Wakisa Chiudza
SEOUL, Republic of Korea, Mar 8 2021 (IPS)

As the global effort to address climate change has strengthened over the last few years, so has the realization that rising temperatures and climactic disruptions disproportionately impact women, particularly in developing countries, as they tend to be more dependent upon natural resources and are thus overrepresented in resource-intensive economic sectors. Furthermore, inherent in gender inequality are disadvantages for and discrimination against women in all facets of society, including in the economy and politics. Thus, it is unfortunate, yet perhaps unsurprising, that these structural disparities are mirrored in the negative effects of climate change. Therefore, if gender differences are not incorporated into climate change plans, women will be unable to access the co-benefits that arise from concerted climate action.

Thankfully, a rethinking of how to best address the climate crisisto reflect the reality of the situation on the ground has recently taken root. Empowering, educating, and directly engagingwomen has a direct effect on the development and implementation of “environmentally friendly decision making at household and national levels.” Therefore, it is not only beneficial but also essential for any holistic strategy designed to combat climate change to contain a strong component that addresses gender equality.

Fortunately, many countries and major international organizations are taking this realization to heart. For instance, the United Nations has prioritized gender in its climate change framework, including incorporating gender equality and women’s empowerment into Sustainable Development Goal 13, and unlocking the potential of gender equality as “an accelerator of sustainable development across all 17 SDGs.” Likewise, a number of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) have brought gender to the forefront of their climate responses, with Mozambique being the first to develop a Climate Change Gender Action Plan back in 2010, and many others who have since followed.

The need for holistic yet specific approaches

In pursuing low-carbon, socially inclusive sustainable economic growth, one size does not fit all, therefore nations and the groups supporting them are cognizant of the need to tailor-make strategies and responses specific to the needs of local communities. The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) launched its Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Strategy 2021-2025 highlightingthe experiences of GGGI and its Members and Partners.

In its mission to support Members build “a low-carbon, resilient world of strong, inclusive, and sustainable growth,” GGGI has placed the ethos of “leaving no one behind” front and center to its green growth approach. As such, the new strategy is considered an essential part of the organization’s overall long-term strategy to achieve poverty eradication, social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and economic growth in its Member and Partner countries and in alignment with SDGs and human rights.

At its core, the strategy seeks to help bring about inclusive low carbon growth that creates better healthcare outcomes andempowers women and indigenous peoples by creating decent green jobs in both the formal and informal economic sectors, as well as by expanding access to services in communities that have been historically underserved or locked out of the formal economy. On the ground, this means ramping up green investment and increasing the societal and political participation of women and marginalized groups in areas that most affect them in developing countries, such as agriculture, forests, waste management, transport, green buildings, and renewable energy.

Innovative initiatives

More specifically on the issue of renewable energy –an essential component to any climate strategy –the sector contains great potential in terms of job creation and growth and is thus an area ripe for facilitating the participation of women. As the renewable energy sector emerges and expands in developing countries, governments are taking steps to decrease the heretofore male dominated nature of it and create entry points for women along the energy value chain.

In Rwanda, for example, the government has developed an energy policy that emphasizes STEM education and training for women. Furthermore, with support from GGGI, Rwanda has developed a comprehensive infrastructure gender mainstreaming strategy that aims to achieve “the equal participation of women and men in the sector by enhancing job opportunities and strengthening the capacities of infrastructure developers to address gender equality.” There are concrete targets involved as well. In the near term, Rwanda intends to increase female labor force participation in government utility groups to 30 percent. Perhaps more significantly, the country is working toward achieving universal access to electricity by 2024. This will have positive knock-on effects for the female population as the rural electrification rate in Rwanda is currently very low, and women are disproportionately represented in the rural economy. Bringing electricity to rural areas creates more opportunity for women in terms of education and jobs, including jobs in the renewable energy sector that will power that rural electrification effort. Another sector that is part and parcel to fighting climate change, as well as to providing overall environmental health and wellbeing, is waste management.

This is particularly true in developing countries where sometimes subpar sanitation systems and waste removal processes entail burning petroleum products as well as contribute to poor health outcomes. Yet, the sector also often provides important sources of income for lower-skilled and/or informal economy workers, which unfortunately includes a lot of women. These factors make sustainable interventions in this sector an important component in the intersection between climate justice and gender equality.

In Lao PDR, which has an informal economy of waste pickers who perform collection duties for recyclables, a concerted effort is underway to formalize the waste management sector and capitalize on opportunities to turn waste into resources. As part of its Green Cities Program, GGGI has identified waste management as a priority area in Lao PDR and is supporting the country’s work to “adopt a paradigm change from a waste management to a resource management approach.” GGGI is working with waste picker groups in the informal economy –workers who lack job security and health and safety protections –to integrate them into the mainstream collection service and waste recycling industry and, more broadly, to transform the sector to lead to improved workers’ benefits, health, and safety. This approach, then, helps set Laos on an inclusive green growth pathway by developing eco-friendly and renewable sources of nutrients for crops and the like, while also growing economic opportunities for women and other marginalized groups that have had to cope with the struggles of living in the informal labor force. Organizing the informal waste sector will have the benefit of helping to de-marginalize these workers and bring them some of the protections and rights afforded to those in the formal economy.

Inclusivity as a key to green growth

These two different examples in two different parts of the world, help illustrate that meaningful climate action must be taken by concurrently addressing gender disparities and inequalities. Green growth policies and approaches that do not address gender equality and inclusion can have the effect of being counter-productive or, at best, further entrenching the status quo of large segments of society prevented from access to the benefits of growth. Therefore, firm commitments and deliberate strategies are required to aggressively tackle gender disparities and inequalities in the context of climate action. This is what GGGI and its Members are doing with its Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Strategy. Maximizing social co-benefits and inclusion via GGGI’s programmatic work to combat climate change and grow economies in developing countries helps ensure that gender equality is a “pre-requisite for the green growth transformation.”

The authors : Frank Rijsberman, Director-General ; Ingvild Solvang, Deputy Director and Head of Climate Action and Inclusive Development; Bertha Wakisa Chiudza, Senior Gender and Social Development Specialist, Global Green Growth Institute

 

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The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Why Green Growth and Climate Action Fall Short Without Addressing Gender Inequality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.

The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Why Green Growth and Climate Action Fall Short Without Addressing Gender Inequality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Saul Escobar Toledo
MEXICO CITY, Mar 8 2021 (IPS)

The trend of the Mexican economy during the last two years has not been positive. INEGI, the official bureau of statistics, has just reported that GDP registered a fall of 8.5 percent compared to 2019 with seasonally adjusted figures. But in 2019 GDP also receded, although in far less measure, less than one percentage point. However, it must be considered that the Mexican economy has been falling for 6 quarters (compared to the previous year). Considering the population growth rate (1.2 percent per year), the fall in the GDP per capita is close to 11 percent. This figure matters because it gives a more accurate idea of the size of the downturn. It is also necessary to take into account the two years, since our interest should be now to try to figure out how long the recession will be the endure, that is, when will Mexico reach the pre-pandemic level of GDP.

Saul Escobar Toledo

The length of the cycle will depend on several factors: the prolongation of the pandemic; the behavior of the world economy; and internal factors. In the first case, uncertainty still prevails: vaccination campaigns are already underway, but they advance at very uneven rates in different countries (and regions of Mexico). This is because the patents, manufacture and provision of reliable vaccines are highly concentrated in a few companies. There are countries that do not yet have a single dose. And, as international health organizations have affirmed, if we are not all safe, no one really will be.

On the other hand, international trade has recovered. The drop was very severe in April 2020 (12 percent); however, considering the full year, there was a growth of 1.3% (according to the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, available at cpb.nl). China was the one who made the big push for world trade, while in North America seems to have occurred a slower recovery.

Regarding investments and the flow of capitals, things do not paint very well, especially for developing countries like Mexico; the most worrying problem lies in the possibility of a financial crisis. The World Bank said in January that during 2020, the rate of public debt in relation to GDP in the emerging and developing economies, increased from 52 to almost 61%. It would be necessary to add the increase in private debt that multiplied by five between 2014 and 2019. A good part of these debts is external, that is, they were contracted in foreign currency. All this indicates that, unless relief measures are taken at the global level, this situation could become a serious problem due to possible moratoriums on payments. If that happens, it does not mind so much the level of indebtedness of this or that country as flight capital, devaluations and shortage of new funding would affect severely those countries which, like Mexico, require currency (dollars) to cover its imports, financial operations, and monetary reserves.

As for the internal factors, we have several problems to overcome. To better understand the matter, it is worth reviewing the different sectors of the economy.

First, the primary sector, grew during 2019 and 2020, particularly in the second half of last year. This indicates that we are far from a food crisis, which is of course good news. It is likely that, in addition, some import substitution took place. The problem is that this sector contributes little to the economy, just 3.5 percent.

On the other hand, secondary activities fell 1.7 percent in 2019 and 10 percent in 2020. The construction industry has declined for 6 quarters in a row. Manufacturing has had a shorter but more intense decline. This can be explained by global disruption, especially in the US economy, as well as the decline in final consumption in Mexico of some non-food products such as clothing and automobiles. A fall in manufacturing affects the wage bill in a special way, since the best average wages in the entire economy are paid in this sector: 1.5 times more than in the service sector.

Finally, tertiary activities (service) had a negative growth rate of 7.7 percent. It must be underlined that service brings 73 percent of employment and more than two thirds of the total product. Some branches of this sector, such as the cultural and sports leisure sectors, fell by 54 percent; and those for temporary accommodation and food and beverage preparation, 44 percent.

As the economy improves, it can be expected that some small companies could find the way out. But some other will probably not, especially those linked to tourism since this branch will take several years to recover. Worse, this branch delivered a lot of foreign currency to Mexico.

The effect of the T-MEC or USMC trade agreement could boost some branches of manufacturing, but here also there is margin for uncertainty due to the new terms of the treaty. In any case, many studies have shown that towing capacity of the manufactured exports for the whole economy is restricted. In this way, even if the situation could improve, it is not going to get us out of the crisis as quickly as we would like.

In short, the duration of the depressive cycle of the Mexican economy cannot be calculated accurately at this time. What can be said is that it will depend on a set of political decisions. Governments, mainly those of the more developed countries can help by facilitating the manufacture of vaccines and providing funds (in Special Drawing Rights, SDRs) so that multilateral institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank provide resources to alleviate the burden of debts and for health and development programs. So far, little has been done in this regard.

On the other hand, an agreement is required between the three countries of the T-MEC so that the labor and environment clauses do not become an adverse factor for growth. A program for development should include Central American countries and allow Mexico to evolve from a maquiladora country into and economic export economy of goods with higher technology and inputs purchased within the country; the outcome would offer better wages for Mexican workers.

Finally, the boost to domestic production is essential. The construction branch, mainly for infrastructure works, is a field of action that requires public and private financing, but the latter will hardly increase if government spending does not direct it with new projects and financing (in addition to those that already exist.). In the case of services, the rescue of micro and small enterprises is essential. Similarly, it will be necessary to recycle the labor force that worked in sectors such as tourism to be placed in other economic branches with better prospects, through qualification and training programs, preferably in local green projects (reforestation, clean energy, recycling of polluting materials, cleaning of rivers and open dumps, etc.). Additional cash transfer for people (especially women) affected by unemployment or under employment in the formal and informal economy would help fight poverty and raise consumption levels.

The political decisions listed (and others not mentioned) are going to be made, one way or another. Nothing will happen because of the natural laws of the market. Citizens claim will play a fundamental role in putting pressure on their governments and shortening the economic cycle. If those responsible for running the institutions do not respond, the years of economic hardship will be longer, as well as the size of the political and social crisis.

saulescobar.blogspot.com

 

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By Simona Marinescu
APIA, Samoa, Mar 8 2021 (IPS)

In the February 12th editorial on the issue of illicit drug use, the Samoa Observer stated that “… there is no data currently available to show that drug abuse including meth consumption levels in Samoa have reached crisis levels, which would warrant the government considering decriminalizing drug use and consumption.” The United Nation’s position on this is clear, we must not sit by and wait for a problem to blight our communities before acting. The evidence shows that it is cheaper and more effective to prevent drug use than to deal with the consequences. To be clear, my concerns are for the drug users and their families and not for the criminal dealers.

Simona Marinescu

Addiction is a disease, not a crime. People can be addicted to many substances; alcohol, cigarettes, coffee, and sugar to name a few. Studies indicate that, due to the dopamine release that occurs when it is consumed, sugar can be as addictive as cocaine. Many people can eat and enjoy a sweet without becoming addicted, but those that do are in danger of serious health issues. Worse, they instill the addiction in their children. Sugar is a largely untreated addiction common in Pacific countries, including Samoa.

Alcohol addiction is also a well-known. As with sugar, most people can enjoy alcohol without it controlling their life or causing a problem for the community. If a person commits a crime while under the influence of alcohol, they should be prosecuted for that crime. But if a person is at home and harms no one while drunk, is that person a criminal? No. If a person needs to get drunk all the time, that person needs help. That is why we support more referrals and more programmes to help people overcome alcohol addiction.

The United States infamously learned a harsh lesson between 1920 and 1933 when it imposed a prohibition on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcohol. This did not however reduce demand for it. Instead, the 18th Amendment created a large-scale and violent criminal underground of people prepared to supply it. Unfortunately, that lesson was forgotten when it came to dealing with drug use. If the people in the US no longer craved illegal drugs there would be no billion dollar illegal drug industry. No matter how much contraband is seized and how many drug dealers are put in jail, more drugs are produced and more people fill the ranks of dealers.

According to the “Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research-Based Guide (Third Edition),” written by the US National Institute of Health “Substance abuse costs our Nation over $600 billion annually and treatment can help reduce these costs. Drug addiction treatment has been shown to reduce associated health and social costs by far more than the cost of the treatment itself.” The financial cost of incarcerating someone is enormous compared to the cost of running effective drug treatment programmes. But more importantly, we have a duty to not give up on people struggling with addiction. We should seek to rehabilitate addicts, in the hope that they can become valuable members of the community.

Methamphetamine and heroin are examples of destructive drugs that have serious side effects and should have no place in Samoa, or anywhere. People who succumb to these drugs need to be treated immediately. If threatened with a jail sentence, why would they step forward? Illegal gun owners get amnesty, but the unfortunate person who turned to drugs goes to jail. If a person who was prescribed opioids for post-surgical pain management becomes addicted, is that person a criminal? No, and treating them as criminals is unjust.

Yes, there is a difference: alcohol, cigarettes and sugar are legal and other drugs are not. The issue is that people know overuse of these legal drugs can be harmful, yet they still abuse them. If we can turn around one user and prevent others from trying drugs, it is worth the effort. Drug use, whether legal or illegal, is a pandemic that needs to be confronted with proper evidence-based prevention strategies – and prompt social responses that address the root causes.

The author is Resident Coordinator: UN Multi Country Office for Cook Islands Niue Samoa and Tokelau

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UN Women announced 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.” The theme celebrates the tremendous efforts by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: UN Women

By Maria Jose Moreno Ruiz
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 8 2021 (IPS)

To commemorate International Women’s Day, the United Nations has called for “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 World,” as the day coincides with the dark week when WHO declared the virus a global pandemic.

A year later, the virus has laid bare the stark gender inequality that continues to shape our world. Despite being at the forefront of COVID-19 response, women – particularly those in economic hardships and from marginalized racial and ethnic groups – have borne the brunt of this crisis.

On this day, we must reflect on why this happened and why it is absolutely critical for women and girls – in all their diversity – to have an equal voice and co-lead in rebuilding after COVID-19.

Recent Oxfam research revealed that, while COVID-19 lockdowns have generally increased women’s and men’s unpaid care workload, it was women who continued to do the bulk of this work.

The report also found that the crisis has forced women to make impossible choices – between abandoning paid employment and care, even when this meant risking facing further destitution.

Women living in poverty, single mothers, and essential and informal workers, many belonging to discriminated against racial and ethnic groups, have been pushed furthest to the margins.

As a result, it is not surprising that women reported feeling more anxious, depressed, overworked or ill because of the increased unpaid work, loss of income and other hardships during this period.

Violence against women also soared in many countries during lockdowns, with 243 millions of women and girls reporting sexual, physical and emotional violence during the pandemic.

Moreover, sexual and reproductive health and services were side-lined during the pandemic. Access to modern contraception, safe delivery or abortion has been reduced.

Over the coming 5 years, it is estimated that 2.5 million girls will also be forced into early marriage due to poverty, affecting their overall development and exposing them more to unwanted, and in many cases physically dangerous, pregnancies and further gender-based violence from intimate partners who are often older and hold more power in the relationships.

These realities were not born just last year but are the result of longstanding systemic practices, cultural values, patriarchal norms, and political decisions that perpetuated inequality and discrimination.

Maria Jose Moreno Ruiz

Why things must change

Diverse and equal representation of all genders in decision-making is paramount to any healthy functioning society and sustainable economy. Collective problem-solving is even more essential at this critical post-pandemic juncture. As we brace for the second year of the Coronavirus, we face common global challenges.

How are we going to deal with the unrest caused by the COVID-19 economic fallout that has exponentially deepened inequalities and pushed millions, particularly women and marginalized racial and ethnic groups to poverty and hunger?

How can we ensure everyone, not just rich nations and the privileged few, get the vaccine, so we can end this terrible disease? How can we rebuild a greener and more sustainable world and heal our beaten planet?

To address these challenges, we need the talent of all people. We need diverse perspectives, knowledge, experiences, and commitment to be valued equally, if we are to shape the way forward and rebuild a world that works for all and not just the privileged few.

For example, we want women who have been excluded from accessing land, to help propose new ways forward for land management. We would like women who migrate as domestic workers or nurses, to participate in re-imagining our national and global care systems. Without this diversity we will not be able to confront the complex global dilemmas ahead of us.

Our post-COVID-29 world will look very different if we turn this crisis into an opportunity to engage everyone, regardless of their class, race, religion, or sexual orientation – in our collective spaces at all levels: at presidencies, religious establishments, civil society organizations, boards, academic institutions or neighbour associations. Only together, we can brave COVID-19 and rebuild a more just world.

But sadly, the reality is far from this picture because many of our institutional machineries are broken and bankrupt. The protection of the common good is hitting new lows, with more citizens losing trust in their leaders to address their problems and concerns.

Many politicians appear regularly in our news feed mishandling facts or public resources, bending to suit big corporates interests, and promoting xenophobia and misogyny.

In many cases, politics has become morally and functionally compromised, since those most impacted by policies – the poorest, women and racial and ethnic minorities above all – are often excluded from decision making tables.

We have seen how in Yemen, as in other post-conflict contexts, how women have been largely excluded from formal peace talks despite their courageous participation in peace building at the local level.

We have observed how populist regimes around the world have blatantly disregarded women’s rights, and perpetuated a disrespectful rhetoric around migrants, LGBTQI+ communities, ethnic, racial and religious minorities. We have seen women farmers who lost everything to climate-fuelled events have no say in what rich nations decide at Climate Summits.

Today, we are at a critical crossroad. We have a moral choice to make. Are we going to protect the current broken global economic and social systems that favour the wealthy and privileged? Will we be able to centre our values and practices around equality and care for all people or only a few?

The issues we face together could not be more urgent, and only the collective intelligence, heart and experiences of our humanity can solve them. I strongly believe that we can and will brave COVID-19 and rebuild a better world if we focus our efforts towards ensuring everyone has a voice.

Only by fighting for universal human rights and guaranteeing equal and diverse representation of all genders is at the heart of any COVID-19 recovery, we can rebuild better and transform our societies. Only then, on International Women’s Day, we can truly celebrate all people living with dignity and freedom.

The author is Gender Justice Director at Oxfam International

 

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Why Gender Parity & Diversity are Paramount to a Just COVID-19 Recovery appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Why Gender Parity & Diversity are Paramount to a Just COVID-19 Recovery appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Mar 7 2021 (IPS)

Access to an inclusive quality education is a universal human right. When the inherent right to a good education is ignored or denied, the consequences are severe. For a girl in country of conflict or forced displacement, the impact is brutally multiplied.

Yasmine Sherif

Besides their already marginalized role in war-torn countries or as refugees, adolescent girls and girls are being disproportionately affected by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before the pandemic broke in early 2020, some 39 million girls had their education disrupted as a direct result of humanitarian crises. Of these, 13 million girls had been forced out of school completely.

Such is the level of discrimination that, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, refugee girls are only half as likely to be enrolled in secondary school as boys. There is a two in three chance girls in crisis settings won’t even start secondary school. At primary level girls in crisis settings are two and a half times more likely to be out of school.

In crisis settings, adolescent girls are more likely to be married by 18 than to finish school. Early pregnancies, gender-based violence and sexual and physical exploitation are realities faced by millions of girls daily. Take a moment and reflect on this brutal reality. Imagine if these figures were the reality of our own adolescent daughters.

The UNFPA projects that the diverse consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic could result in 13 million additional child marriages between 2020 and 2030. These traumatic experiences lead to higher dropout rates, perpetuating cycles of exploitation and entrenching millions in poverty. Such is the excruciating consequences of girls already enduring conflicts and forced displacement and now surviving another threat: the pandemic.

Providing girls and adolescent girls in crisis with an education is absolutely essential today in order to empower them and bring hope. Their access to an inclusive quality education during already challenging circumstances is as transformative for them as human beings arising from the ashes of hopelessness, as it is for their societies in urgent need of empowered girls and women to build back better.

Studies show that increased access to education dramatically raises their lifetime earnings, national economic growth rates go up, child marriage rates decline, and child and maternal mortality fall. Girls’ education breaks down cycles of exploitation, protecting and empowering young girls and adolescents to reach their potentials and become change-makers. And, the world need change-makers more than ever, not the least in countries affected by conflicts and displacement.

The World Bank estimates that if every girl worldwide were to receive 12 years of quality schooling, whether or not in a crisis setting, they would double their lifetime earnings, with the aggregate value running into trillions of dollars.

Education provides girls with practical skills and tools; it supports them emotionally and empower them process their traumatic experiences; it prepares them to face their unique challenges, helping them to not only become productive members of society, but more and more, to become confident leaders of their societies.

It is a small crowd right at the top, however. Only about 20 countries have a female head of state or government, and fewer have at least 50 percent women in the national cabinet. But as COVID-19 has demonstrated, several have played decisive roles in protecting our humanity on the basis of universal human rights.

So, what does the pathway to leadership look like when you are young? How do we get young girls in crisis situations into education and then later to play important roles in the decision-making of their communities, their economies and nations?

Education Cannot Wait – the global fund launched at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit to deliver quality education for those left furthest behind, that is 75 million vulnerable children and youth in countries affected by armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters and protracted crises. At Education Cannot Wait we place girls and adolescent girls at the forefront of our work – because it is their inaliable human right and we believe in them as the change-makers. We take affirmative action: sixty percent of our total spending is geared at an inclusive quality education for girls.

Afghanistan, for example, is one of the most dangerous countries for children because of ongoing insecurity and conflict. UNICEF estimates that 60 percent of the 3.7 million children out of school are girls. Some 17 percent of Afghan girls will marry before the age of 15 and 46 percent will marry before they reach 18. Early marriages contribute significantly to school dropout rates.
The Welfare Association for the Development of Afghanistan, an ECW implementing partner, reaches out to community leaders to deliver real results for girls in the most remote areas of Afghanistan, who until recently were held back from going to school and from receiving a quality education.

ECW has given priority in Afghanistan to female teacher recruitment. This is being achieved in Herat, where 97 percent of teachers are women and 83 percent of students in accelerated learning classes are girls. The first year of ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programme – with teaching starting in May 2019 – saw some 3,600 classes established in nine of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. This required newly recruited teachers, 46 percent of whom are women, to teach 122,000 children. Nearly 60 percent of the enrolled children are girls.

In Rodat district in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, for example, community stakeholders and religious elders agreed the lack of qualified female teachers was hindering girls’ access to education, and immediately set about to find one. It was no easy task but eventually a female graduate in chemistry and biology was hired and she has turned into a beacon of hope, helping some 40 girls return to classes.

This emphasis on girls’ education is crucial for our future as a human family and the priority must be with those girls and adolescent girls left furthest behind. As Deputy-Secretary of the United Nations, Amina J. Mohammed, recently stated: “Girls’ education is particularly under threat in emergencies and for children on the move and we need to continue to empower this next generation of women leaders through a quality education.”

On March 8 we celebrate International Women’s Day with this year’s theme of ‘Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world’. From the perspective of those living in developed countries, what that equal future might look like for girls in crises settings has been perversely highlighted by the grim consequences of the new coronavirus world. As each month of lockdowns in rich countries passes, reports mount up of the mental health issues and child abuse being suffered by those unable to get to their normal safe learning environment at school. Girls especially are at risk and the ones more likely to be pressed into domestic chores and subject to discrimination – deprived of a future.

Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the ECW High-Level Steering Group, reminds us that the world in 2030 risks being as far away from meeting the Sustainable Development Goals for education (SDG4) as we are now – unless we act decisively. No one should be left behind and that means addressing support needed by over 75 million children and youth in need of urgent education support in crisis-hit countries.

Education cannot wait for a conflict or crisis to be over so that crisis affected children and youth can resume normal life, or refugee children can go home. Protracted crisis often last for decades and families caught up in conflicts spend an average of 17 years as refugees. When education is denied to children, hopes for a better, the last glimmer of hope is extinguished.

Education Cannot Wait is about hope and action. We were established to accelerate the race for meeting Sustainable Development Goal 4 in crisis and disasters. By bringing together all actors in both the humanitarian and development community, we sprint forward to meet the deadline of 2030. Thanks to host-governments, UN agencies, civil society and communities, we move fast, effectively and efficiently. However, a quality education for girls and adolescent girls in crisis requires financial investments. Provided that the funding is available, we can together win this race for girls’ education. Of this, we have no doubt.

The author is Director, Education Cannot Wait

 

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The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Every Girl Has a Right to An Education appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.

The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Every Girl Has a Right to An Education appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Mar 6 2021 (IPS)

Power is an intriguing concept and it means different things to different people. In simple words, power is the ability to influence the behavior of others to get what you want. Power distribution is usually visible in most societies when there is a clear and obvious division between the roles of the men and expectations from women. One can’t talk about power without talking about patriarchy – in which men always hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. Women are almost always taught power and ambition are two dirty words, and should not be linked to their personalities.

In 2020, as the world tried to survive the global pandemic, women across the world were trying to survive a lot more along with COVID-19, also at times claiming their power and negotiating their spaces in various different ways.

Kawkab Al-Thaibani

In Yemen, Kawkab Al-Thaibani, a women’s rights activist and former Director of Women4Yemen Network has been pushing for women’s meaningful participation in the country’s current peace process.

“War is the face of toxic masculinity, and it will never give women space, because women are peace agents. The war in Yemen is the biggest challenge we are facing, but the lack of desire by the negotiators to include women in any talks, another challenge,” Kawkab said in an interview to IPS News.

“Yemeni women are one of the most resilient groups in the society. In this Pandemic, the businesses run by women were forced to shut down, whereas shops run by men were not. There is discriminaiton and they think businesses run by women are not important, though it’s very obvious now that it’s the Yemeni women who are leading the financial responsibility of the family,” Kawkab said.

Speaking at the Webinar organized by the IPS United Nations Bureau in mid july 2020 on the impact of Covid-19 on Women and Children, Saima Wazed, Advisor to the Director General of WHO on Autism and Mental Health, and Chairperson, Shuchona Foundation The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank”>said, “Women already are subject to a double burden of duties which includes unpaid housework. The pandemic drew a common picture across cultures of women with jobs having to juggle being employee, homemaker, cook, cleaner, teacher to her children overnight. Those in the informal sector were the first ones to lose all of their choices of small income sources they may have had.”

One of the other alarming impacts of COVID-19 pandemic has been on girls’ education. “11 million girls might not return to school this year due to COVID-19s unprecedented education disruption.” According to this report by UNESCO, “This alarming number not only threatens decades of progress made towards gender equality, but also puts girls around the world at risk of adolescent pregnancy, early and forced marriages, and violence. For many girls, school is more than just a key to a better future. It’s a lifeline.”

Addressing the deeply rooted gender disparities in and through education, Yasmine Sherif, Director, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) says because of the many risks and barriers that continue to constrain girls and adolescent girls from accessing education, in context where girls are under-represented, ECW encourages its country-level partners to ensure that at least 60% of learners reached are girls and adolescent girls. “This affirmative action to address these inequalities entails promoting a ‘whole-of-child’ approach. It also considers their safety, their food security, their physical and mental health,” Yasmine said to IPS.

Nazlan Ertan

“COVID-19 risks damaging much of the progress towards gender equality that myself and other women activists have spent our lives working towards,” said Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, Chair of The Elders to IPS. “We are deeply concerned that women already seem to be bearing the brunt of the socio-economic fallout from COVID-19, and that this pandemic may deepen the gender inequality rift,” said Mary Robinson.

In Turkey, in 2019, 474 women were murdered, mostly by partners and relatives and the figures in 2020, affected by coronavirus lockdowns, are expected to be even higher. “Women have been on the streets and various hashtags have surfaced, domestic violence has increased, nearly half of all the women claim that they have faced some form of physical or psychological abuse in their lives, said journalist Nazlan Ertan to IPS News.

In Bangladesh, in October 2020, citizens took to the streets, outraged by the reports of gruesome gang rapes and sexual violence that were taking place in the country. 975 women were raped in the first nine months of 2020 during the pandemic, 43 women were killed after being raped and 204 women were attempted to be raped by men in Bangladesh.

Shireen Huq

“There is a culture of impunity in the country and when it comes to accessing justice, corruption continues to be a major obstacle,” said Shireen Huq, women’s rights activist and founder Naripokkho, a non-profit organization that has been working on women’s rights and the impact of sexual violence in Bangladesh since 1983 to IPS News.

“Violence, male dominance and male aggression have existed for years, the tendency to glorify that these things didn’t happen in the past, and that it’s only happening now in our lifetime, is not true. Misogyny has been part of our culture, politics and society for centuries, especially across South Asia,” said Shireen.

In Egypt, Mozn Hassan, one of the most outspoken voices on human rights, founder and Executive Director of Nazra for Feminist Studies has had a travel ban imposed on her since June 2016, following previous incidents of judicial harassment against Nazra for Feminist Studies, including summons in relation to foreign funding case.

In an interview to IPS News Mozn said, “Being an independent femisnist voice can cost you a lot, targeting by state actors, asset freeze, travel ban, charges of supporting women to have “irresponsible liberty”, or facing threats of charges that could bring you to life time in prisons are just a few examples.”

Mozn Hassan

“What is happening to Nazra is a clear example of how patriarchal and conserverative individuals cannot accept feminism and feminist acts. I am only one amongst other human rights defenders who has been charged for supporting women to have ‘irresponsible liberty’. Being an activist is hard, being a feminist is harder and being a person who is not part of a social gang, even harder in Egypt. It really is a choice,” said Mozn.

In addition to these pre-existing social, political and systematic barriers to women’s participation and leadership, there are multiple new barriers that have emerged with the COVID-19 pandemic. However countries with women in leadership positions have suffered six times fewer confirmed deaths from COVID-19 than countries with governments led by men, only 20 countries have women as Head of State and Government worldwide.

The stories of strong female leaders navigating their countries through the pandemic crisis will be remembered for a long time to come, and perhaps also change the overarching narrative of what a strong leader should look and behave like – as compared to the reckless, often pompous and populist male leaders of the world. We are still a long way from fully leveraging the potential of women’s leadership, expertise and intelligence, but that’s not stopping women from taking charge.

The very nature of power is dominance, and women in their own quiet or not-so-quiet and resilient ways have sent the message out, that they are no longer willing to negotiate this space, they are simply going ahead and claiming it.

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

 

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The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Women Must Continue To Claim Power & Challenge The Unseen Barriers appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.

The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Women Must Continue To Claim Power & Challenge The Unseen Barriers appeared first on Inter Press Service.

UN Women China Qinghai programme beneficiaries. Credit: UN Women

By Siddharth Chatterjee
BEIJING, Mar 6 2021 (IPS)

Today is International Women’s Day (IWD), and the theme for this year’s celebration is “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.” We recognize the tremendous contribution and leadership demonstrated by women and girls around the world in shaping our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and a more sustainable future.

A global review of the progress achieved towards commitments made at the Fourth World Conference on Women 25 years ago in Beijing, conducted by UN Women in 2020, reveals that no country has fully delivered on the Beijing Platform for Action, nor is close to it. Globally, women currently hold just one-quarter of the seats at the tables of power across the board and are absent from some key decision-making spaces, including in peace and climate negotiations.

This reality is despite the advances that we can see globally: there are now more girls in school than ever before, fewer women are dying in childbirth, and over the past decade, 131 countries have passed laws to support women’s equality.

However, progress has been too slow and uneven.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is further exacerbating pre-existing inequalities and threatening to halt or reverse the gains from decades of collective effort – with data revealing that the pandemic will push 47 million more women and girls below the poverty line globally.

We also witness new global challenges emerging from the pandemic, such as the increased reports of violence against women trapped in lockdown throughout the world, forming a Shadow Pandemic. Women with disabilities facing further obstacles in accessing essential services. Women have lost their livelihoods faster, being more exposed to hard-hit economic sectors as they make up the majority of informal sector workers. Access to technologies have become a necessity, but the gender digital divide lingers, particularly in the least developed countries.

But in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, women have stood tall at the frontlines, serving as health workers and caregivers, where they make up 70% of the global workforce. Women also lead in their capacities throughout government and civil society to give vital assistance, bringing their irreplaceable perspectives and skills to the table.

Answering these complex global challenges while tearing down the barriers to women’s participation and leadership now requires bolder political commitment backed up by adequate resources and targeted approaches to accelerate progress towards parity through legislation, fiscal measures, programmatic change, and public-private partnerships.

China has made progress in safeguarding women’s rights and promoting gender equality. Notably, China’s poverty alleviation achievements have had a multiplier effect on advancing women’s empowerment beyond alleviating poverty among women. Advances in girl’s education, access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, social protection and assistance are admirable – and important not just for the advancement of women’s rights – but in creating a “moderately prosperous” Chinese society with a “bright shared future” for all. Yet, as in many countries, there are still challenges that persist across the course of women’s lives.

Like elsewhere, systemic issues remain in equal pay for equal work and promotion opportunities for decent work in China. Under-representation of women in senior leadership roles impacts many sectors, with less than 10% of board members of listed companies in China being women.

Disproportionate sharing of unpaid care work leaves women in China carrying 2.5 times the burden of men, all of which impacting the female labour force participation rate. The shadow pandemic of gender-based violence, like anywhere else, continues to be a concern for women and girls in China as widely reported and discussed in media already.

The newly enacted Civil Code offers opportunities to strengthen legislation, including judicial mechanisms, law enforcement and service delivery for addressing sexual harassment, sexual abuse and violence against women and girls. Robust implementation of the provisions for ending sexual harassment and abuse will be a step towards China’s demonstration of “Zero Tolerance” towards ending all forms of violence against women and girls.

The 14th Five-Year National Development Plan, 2021-2025 and the new 10-Year Plan on Development of Women and Children, 2021-2030, also present opportunities for China to ensure gender equality and women’s empowerment are at the centre of the development agenda and address the remaining gender gaps and challenges in the country. The world now looks to China for continued leadership on the SDGs and the Beijing Platform for Action.

We welcome the Government of China’s recent commitment to prioritizing women’s empowerment in its future development cooperation and global engagement. This comes at a time, when we need stronger global action and multilateralism to alleviate the long-lasting impacts of COVID-19 and accelerate actions towards the achievement of the SDGs. As we look at women’s rights issues that many countries are grappling with – poverty, maternal health, livelihood and food security, access to continued education, to name a few – are also the areas where China has seen the most progress domestically. South-South cooperation enables China to share its lessons and continue learning from others, to achieve genuine empowerment for women and girls around the world.

We recognize that gender equality and women’s empowerment are drivers for transformative change and a prerequisite for the achievement of all SDGs. The UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework, 2021-2025, signed between the United Nations System in China and the Government of China, is underpinned by this principle and prioritizes the advancement of women’s rights as a key programming area of its own. As the UN Country Team (UNCT), we stand ready to support and continue to work with the Government of China and all national actors for our concerted efforts towards advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment.

2021 is only the beginning of our journey on the Decade of Action for the SDGs. We have an unprecedented opportunity to do things differently for current and future generations of women and girls. On International Women’s Day, we call upon our partners and supporters to celebrate the leadership and contribution of China’s women, and become advocates, champions, and influencers that promote gender equality and women’s empowerment today, and every day.

The author is UN Resident Coordinator in China & Smriti Aryal, Head of Office, UN Women in China
On behalf of the UN Country Team in China for International Women’s Day 2021

 

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The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Women’s Leadership in the Global Recovery from COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.

The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Women’s Leadership in the Global Recovery from COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By UNESCO
Mar 6 2021 (IPS)

UNESCO will launch a campaign on online violence against women journalists this 8 March for International Women’s Day.

In a recent UNESCO-ICFJ survey, 73% of the women journalists surveyed reported having faced online violence while doing their job. They are often targeted in coordinated misogynistic attacks.

This violence harms women’s right to speak and society’s right to know. To tackle this increasing trend, we need to find collective solutions to protect women journalists from online violence. This includes strong responses from social media platforms, national authorities and media organizations.

The campaign will highlight key results from the UNESCO-ICFJ global survey on online violence against women journalists, which were published last December in the report ‘Online violence against women journalists: a global snapshot of incidence and impacts’ 

 

The post International Women’s Day 2021
Online Violence against Women Journalists Harms everyone. Let’s End It! appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The theme for International Women’s Day 2021 is Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in the COVID-19 World. A new United Nations report says progress towards gender parity in public life and decision-making has been too slow. The report encourages countries to remove the barriers that prevent women from entering public life, to help tackle the COVID-19 and climate change crises. Credit: UN Women/Yihui Yuan.

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 6 2021 (IPS)

The theme for International Women’s Day 2021, ‘Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in the COVID-19 World,’ is grounded in the reality that this women’s day is unlike any other.

It is being observed against the devastating health, social and economic impacts of the pandemic. As vaccination campaigns bring hope for recovery, United Nations Women says that shift must include women ‘at every table where decisions are being made.’

“Women’s full and effective participation and leadership in all areas of life drives progress for everyone. Yet, women are still underrepresented in public life and decision-making,” the agency said.

According to the most recent UN Economic and Social Council’s Commission on the Status of Women, progress towards gender parity in public life and decision-making has been too slow. The report encourages countries to remove the barriers that prevent women from entering public life, to help tackle the COVID-19 and climate change crises.

It also calls for urgent action to facilitate women in the ‘political pipeline,’ noting that young women are particularly underrepresented in politics. IPS spoke to Lisa Jawahir, a young communications professional who was appointed by the Saint Lucia Labour Party to the Senate in August 2020, about her experience, goals and vision for women in politics. 

“The reality is that in Saint Lucia, young women in leadership, particularly political positions are very rare. While we had a young woman run for political office at the age of 21 in 1997, since then, there hasn’t been a bold step by administrations to have young women serve at the highest order of the land. For me, at the age of 31, being appointed as the youngest Parliamentarian in the House of Assembly means that women and young girls can believe again that anything is possible,” Jawahir told IPS.

Senator Lisa Jawahir (left) and Environmental Consultant and Youth Climate Activist Snaliah Mahal (right).

UN Women says while women have been influential in political decision-making, they often face push-back, both online and offline. It is something that Jawahir says she has experienced.

“I once participated in a political forum, representing young women interested in politics.  In an interview with a print journalist, I shared my desire to run for political office and the article made the cover page. While this felt like a remarkable step in the right direction, a few days later, I lost my biggest client who shared concerns that I was now politically affiliated.  

“Unfortunately, in my country, victimisation based on political affiliation is rampant, especially for women. It’s become a challenge to operate my small business, but I’m driven by the desire that one day I will be in a position on the governing side, to ensure that no young person, woman or vulnerable group will be unjustly treated due to their political interests,” she told IPS.

Voices like Jawahir’s, according to UN Women, must be multiplied and amplified. As the world pivots to pandemic recovery, the agency says women and girls will be key leaders and change agents, particularly in areas like climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Saint Lucia’s Snaliah Mahal is a recognised personality in sustainable living, environmental protection and climate change education. As an undergraduate student in Mexico, she interned with the UN Information Centre and volunteered in relief efforts post-flooding in Mexico and following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. She completed a post-graduate degree in Climate Change and International Development and volunteers with the Caribbean Youth Environment Network. She also runs 7K’s, a small business that produces zero waste and eco-friendly home and personal care products.

“I believe that citizens from Small Island Developing States, because of their inherent disadvantages and vulnerabilities, must do whatever they can to ensure that our voices are heard not only internationally which sometimes is the focus, but locally and regionally and be part of the discourse no matter how small you may consider your contribution,’ she told IPS.

Mahal’s contribution is part of what UN Women describes as the critical role that women play in climate action and natural resources management. The agency says in many countries, women also serve as energy managers in the home. As entrepreneurs, they continue to offer innovative solutions to climate change impacts.

Mahal says women and girls who want to be part of the movement for a more sustainable future can start small; wherever they are, with whatever resources are available.

“Find a cause that you believe in and focus on it. It does not have to be something big. It can be as simple as deciding to share your knowledge with friends and family, or something a little more challenging such as starting a backyard garden or a compost heap. These are important first steps,” she said.

This International Women’s Day, an important message by UN Women is that ‘when women lead, we see positive results.’ As women lead campaigns for social justice, environmental justice and a sustainable future and as they seek to amplify their voices, the agency is calling for countries to make space for women and encourage their participation in public life, private sector leadership and parliaments.

As the world focuses on building back better, the role of women as caregivers, lawmakers, community organisers and innovators is being celebrated – even as calls for increased representation in decision-making continue. Mahal and Jawahir say women and girls can continue to make positive change in their communities.

“You can join an organisation that advocates climate change and other environmental issues and implements projects. Most importantly, individuals especially women already in the field, who have the knowledge and skills should not hesitate to share their experiences with other women and girls, to ensure that there is continuity in action,” Mahal says.

Jawahir’s message to young women is “if you were to remember anything after reading this article, remember that there is absolutely nothing stopping you from reaching your goals whether you decide to enter politics or become an entrepreneur. Not your age, not your gender. You decide what it is that you want. Stay focused, and go after it.”

 

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The post International Women’s Day 2021
A Post-COVID World Needs Amplified Women’s Voices in Politics, Climate Change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.

 
The UN says young women remain particularly underrepresented in politics and disproportionately excluded from consultation on issues that affect them such as climate change. This IPS International Women’s Day article features 2 young Saint Lucian women; one in her first year as a senator and the other, a champion for sustainable living and environmental protection

The post International Women’s Day 2021
A Post-COVID World Needs Amplified Women’s Voices in Politics, Climate Change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Agricultural biodiversity at the market in Western Bengal. Credit: Krishnasis Ghosh

By Haley Zaremba
ROME, Mar 6 2021 (IPS)

In times of crisis, policymakers have a tendency to prioritize economic recovery while leaving “social issues” like women’s empowerment on the backburner. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, women’s leadership is as essential to full and meaningful recovery as it is to basic human rights. As the world mobilizes to design and build a post-COVID landscape, women’s rights, interests and priorities must not only be included in international recovery agendas but pushed to the forefront. To achieve this, women themselves must not simply be included in the discussion, but equitably represented in leadership roles.

For these reasons the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day, “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world” is a cause for celebration as much as a call to action. Women’s considerable achievements at the forefront of global pandemic response have been as laudable as they are essential. They also call into stark relief the disproportionate and undue labor burden that continues to fall upon women in this time of global crisis.

While there is a clear and pressing need to achieve more gender-equitable representation in leadership – just a quarter of parliamentary seats are held by women worldwide – women are already on the front lines of COVID-19 response efforts. As the United Nations has stated, women have played outsized roles in this crisis as “health care workers, caregivers, innovators, community organizers and as some of the most exemplary and effective national leaders in combating the pandemic.” At the same time, women are also among those most vulnerable to the pandemic and its devastating externalities. Among other disproportionate and gendered impacts, women’s unpaid domestic and care-based labor burdens have increased during the spread of COVID-19, as has the frequency and severity of gender-based violence in a frightening phenomenon that the UN has called the “shadow pandemic.”

This increased vulnerability is particularly relevant for rural women. Women in rural areas already stood a higher risk of disenfranchisement, and their considerable social and economic struggles have only been exacerbated by the pandemic. Already confronted with the devastating combination of climate change, decreased biodiversity, severe and worsening land degradation, and resulting food insecurity, rural women have been pushed further below the poverty line than men and into the margins by COVID-19 .

Secure land tenure, essential to the well-being and livelihoods of rural women, has increasingly come under threat with the advance of the novel coronavirus. COVID-19 widows are at a high risk for disinheritance in several countries, and many more rural women are being displaced as unemployed men return to rural communities, thereby “increasing pressure on land and resources and exacerbating gender gaps in agriculture and food security.”

Safeguarding the rights, livelihoods, empowerment and agency of rural women should be a goal unto itself, but doing so is also essential to safeguarding ecological health and food security writ large. Already, COVID-19 has not only compromised progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but has undone some of the progress made. Rural women are central to sustainable development and post-COVID resilience as natural resource managers, land stewards, food growers, sellers, buyers and preparers. They are not merely victims of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are also essential – and all too often overlooked – agents of change. They are also part of the solution.

The restrictions brought on by the pandemic have isolated rural women and inhibited their abilities to maintain their livelihoods as well as to “fulfill their fundamental roles as farmers, social organizers, wives, and mothers.” What’s more, as women have been kept from gathering in common spaces such as marketplaces, an essential forum for communication in rural communities, misinformation has proliferated. All of these effects are exacerbated by the “digital gender divide,” which is heightened in rural areas where women are even less likely to have access to phones, computers and other technologies which would allow for innovation and resilience in isolation.

As illustrated by one case study of rural women in Burkina Faso by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, social distancing requirements keeping rural women from the marketplace, as well as keeping them from each other, has greatly compromised these women’s ability to earn a living, as well as their ability to support one another in community-led efforts and organization. Women’s stories documented in this study show that, “As pillars for their households and communities, rural women’s needs and priorities must take center-stage in efforts to rebuild a better world.”

Despite being essential to safeguarding biodiversity, combating climate change, and shoring up food security and food sovereignty, rural women’s labor is often carried out in the background, with little recognition (not to mention little compensation). This International Women’s Day, we urge that post-COVID recovery initiatives not repeat these mistakes; and that the needs and priorities of rural women are not only recognized but prioritized. As we advocate for more women in leadership in COVID-19 recovery efforts and across all spheres of social life to create more resilient societies, those calls to action must intentionally and explicitly include rural women, their rights, and their perspectives.

The author is a gender researcher at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT

 

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The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Recognizing Rural Women as Central to Cost-COVID Recovery: An Imperative for International Women’s Day appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.

The post International Women’s Day, 2021
Recognizing Rural Women as Central to Cost-COVID Recovery: An Imperative for International Women’s Day appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Groundnut farm in Torit, South Sudan. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS.

By Sabdiyo Dido
NAIROBI, Mar 6 2021 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic is arguably one of the biggest disruptors to modern day life as we know it. The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating; millions of people have lost their lives, tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty and nearly half of the global work force is at risk of losing their livelihoods. Africa is facing its first economic recession in 25 years due to the impact of the pandemic.

In a continent where agriculture accounts for 23% of the GDP and about 40% of the workforce is engaged in the sector, agriculture has not been spared from the worst impacts of the pandemic.

Across the globe, it has been inspiring to see prior investments in empowering women-led agribusiness begin to pay off—and that the measures have enabled women farmers to contribute to the fight against COVID-19. This could be the case for Africa too

Border closures, trade restrictions and confinement measures have been preventing farmers from accessing inputs such as seeds and fertilizers, markets and agricultural workers from harvesting crops, thus disrupting domestic and international food supply chains and reducing access to healthy, safe and diverse diets.

Through all this, about 50% of the global population has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, women.

The pandemic has exacerbated existing structural economic, social, and technological inequalities that women face as they struggle to perform their multiple roles in society. These inequalities undermine women’s capacity to respond and recover from the disruptions that result from the pandemic. Women are a key pillar in the Africa’s food and agricultural systems.

They constitute 50% of the agricultural workforce and own one-third of the small and medium enterprises (SME’s) that produce, process and trade in agricultural products and services. The pandemic not only affected their livelihoods and agri-business enterprises, but also increased women’s workloads, threatened their families’ wellbeing, and increase incidences of gender-based violence.

As we commemorate the International Women’s Day this year, we are acutely aware that as the narrative now shifts to building back better, we must ensure that women are at the center of short term and longer term recovery efforts to create a more equal and resilient society.

Over the course of my career as an agricultural economist and development practitioner and, I have seen the change that can be realized when women receive the support, they need during times such as these. A growing body of evidence demonstrates the power of interventions designed for and targeted to women in agriculture that can help protect their lives and livelihoods in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

African governments need to design and support such interventions. This means providing avenues for continued access to inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, mechanization and advisory services. It also means women accessing knowledge and skills to make best outcome of their labour inputs.

As economies open after months of lockdowns and restricted movement, access to financing, grants for those that closed due to pandemic and flexible loans for those that kept going albeit in a small way- is key for recovery. Accessing high value markets is an important factor, not only for recovery, but for higher incomes that help build financial resilience in women’s agri-enterprises.

During the pandemic, digital services have provided a crucial lifeline for businesses. Women business managers have used social media to market their products while accessing information on production, weather and agronomic advisories, financing and accessing markets. Deploying digital capacity building at scale and increasing women entrepreneurs’ participation in the digital economy through digital finance, digital marketing and digital trade is key as we rebuild economies.

Initiatives such as VALUE4HER, a platform whose aim is to increase incomes and employment opportunities for women by linking women-led agribusinesses with competitive high value regional and global markets, and improving women business leader’s technical and managerial skills, with training on market dynamics are key to growing women-owned agribusinesses further.

Currently hosting over 750 users from 36 countries across the continent, the platform provides real-time access to relevant knowledge, market information, buyers, financiers, business development services, technical assistance, capabilities and social networks.

These services hosted under one roof provide a conducive ecosystem for female owned agribusinesses to access the tools they need to become profitable businesses.

Also key is providing tailored training and capacity building for women to respond, recover, and build resilience. With low literacy levels and limited networks, women’s access to relevant information and support mechanisms is curtailed.

Programs such as the African Resilience Investment Series for Women Executives (ARISE), which AGRA kicks off today in celebration of international women’s day- seeks to equip women-owned and women-led SMEs with the necessary tools and practical management skills, needed to recover from the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

Across the globe, it has been inspiring to see prior investments in empowering women-led agribusiness begin to pay off—and that the measures have enabled women farmers to contribute to the fight against COVID-19. This could be the case for Africa too. Investing in women makes good business sense; it leads to increased incomes for women and boosts the wellbeing of their families, which means better lives for families, communities and society as a whole.

 

Sabdiyo Dido is the Head of Gender and Inclusiveness at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

 

The post Women Are the Future of Africa’s COVID-19 Recovery appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of a series of stories and op-eds launched by IPS on the occasion of this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8.

The post Women Are the Future of Africa’s COVID-19 Recovery appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Education Cannot Wait

By External Source
Mar 5 2021 (IPS-Partners)

The Honourable Karina Gould was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Burlington in 2015.

A graduate of McGill University and the University of Oxford, Minister Gould is passionate about public service and international development. Before her election as the Member of Parliament for Burlington, she worked as a trade and investment specialist for the Mexican Trade Commission in Toronto, a consultant for the Migration and Development Program at the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C., and spent a year volunteering at an orphanage in Mexico.

Minister Gould has deep roots in her hometown of Burlington, Ontario, and is an active member of the community and an advocate for women’s issues and affordable housing. She has volunteered with and actively supports the Iroquoia Bruce Trail Club, the Burlington chapter of the Canadian Federation of University Women, the Mississauga Furniture Bank, Halton Women’s Place, and other local organizations.

Minister Gould lives in Burlington with her husband Alberto and son Oliver.

With the birth of Oliver, Minister Gould became the first federal cabinet minister to have a baby while holding office. She is passionate about breaking down barriers for women, youth, and underrepresented groups.

ECW: As Canada’s Minister of International Development and as a key member of ECW’s High-Level Steering Group, could you please elaborate on the importance of linking emergency humanitarian response with development to achieve quality education for vulnerable children and youth in countries affected by armed conflict, forced displacement, and natural disasters.

Karina Gould: We have heard from children and youth affected by armed conflict, forced displacement, and natural disasters, as well as their families, that education is a priority for them. And we know that education in emergencies is an issue that ideally works across humanitarian and development responses.

Working through the humanitarian-development-peace nexus is crucial to ensuring that both immediate and long-term educational needs are fulfilled. By working through a nexus approach, we recognize that the immediate response of humanitarian actors is vital to keeping children engaged and protected, while the long-term vision of the development community is critical to maintaining gains towards SDG4 and to strengthen education systems and make them more resilient to crises in the future.

Education is often the first thing that is disrupted and the last thing to be rebuilt during an emergency. Despite the importance of maintaining a system of quality education, especially in protracted humanitarian situations, education is still not sufficiently prioritized for immediate humanitarian funding and development actors need to do more to support resilient national education systems that ensure education is not disrupted. This is why Canada supports organizations like Education Cannot Wait, which is emerging as a leader in demonstrating how education programming can be quickly and efficiently rolled out within the humanitarian-development-peace nexus space.

ECW: Canada is a staunch defender of multilateralism in addressing the world’s challenges and opportunities. With almost 80 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, including 26 million refugees, Education Cannot Wait will dedicate its First Emergency Response to refugee education in its upcoming COVID-19 response actions this month. How do you see ECW’s progress so far in responding to COVID-19 and how can we strengthen collective efforts to deliver quality education to forcibly displaced populations, who often are left furthest behind?

Karina Gould: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how connected we all are to one another across the globe. At the height of the pandemic, 164 countries had closed their schools, which affected 1.4 billion students worldwide – over 90% of the world’s learners. This is on top of the already marginalized populations such as refugees and internally displaced peoples who did not previously have consistent access to quality education.

In the past months, the world has come together to try to stop the spread of the virus. We shared innovative ideas for how to make education and learning more accessible for those who had their education disrupted, to ensure a continuity of learning for all. These solutions are made more effective and are amplified when we work in partnership, including through our major multilateral institutions like Education Cannot Wait.

I have been impressed with Education Cannot Wait’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the speed with which they responded to the crisis in the first round of COVID-19 funding, and the commitment to focus the second round of funding on education for refugees, particularly adolescent girls. This is a group of children and youth who are often left behind and who are disproportionately affected by education disruptions due to displacement, and now even more so due to COVID-19. It is important that we take this time to strengthen our efforts to ensure these marginalized populations remain a priority in our global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These groups must not be forgotten.

We can strengthen our collective efforts to deliver quality education to forcibly displaced populations, who often are left furthest behind, by continuing to work through multilateral organizations like Education Cannot Wait and ensuring strong coordination with other partners on the ground, including other multilateral partners, civil society and local refugee organizations.

In January, I traveled to Congo and the DRC and witnessed firsthand the important work that ECW’s partner organizations like War Child Canada are doing on the ground to support improved access to education for refugees and displaced peoples, especially girls. Their radio program allows adolescent girls and boys to continue with their learning during school closures by transmitting lessons and allowing learners to access teachers through dedicated hotlines. There are even question and answer periods to keep things dynamic and to keep the youth engaged in learning. I have seen how these initiatives are making a difference on the ground, and it is by building on these partnerships that we can maximize our ability to reach the most marginalized children and youth, particularly girls, refugees, and displaced children, to ensure they have the opportunities they deserve.

ECW: Education Cannot Wait greatly appreciates Canada’s continued strong support in meeting the educational needs of children and youth caught in emergencies and protracted crises – including Canada’s new contribution of CAD $5.5 million a few days ago, and the Charlevoix Declaration to strengthen girls’ education in emergencies. ECW is committed to ensuring that 60% of our beneficiaries are girls. As a strong advocate for girls’ education, why is it so important for girls, including refugee and adolescent girls, to have access to education in crisis contexts?

Karina Gould: Girls and adolescent girls face a unique and additional set of challenges that limits their chances of accessing and completing an education. These challenges include poverty, unequal gendered roles in the household and at school, gender-based violence, and school environments and curricula that perpetuate inequalities. In crisis contexts, these barriers to girls’ education can be even further entrenched, with girls being 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than boys.

Through the Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP), Canada recognizes that gender equality is key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Access to education is a pathway to achieving this goal. It can significantly reduce poverty, provide for better economic opportunities, and can improve health outcomes such as maternal and child health, protecting women and girls from a child, early and forced marriage, and providing essential sexual and reproductive health services that can enable women to engage in improved family planning.

Yet access is only part of the solution. We also need to make sure that once the children are in school, they are learning. Quality teaching and learning, and ensuring that schools are safe places for children, particularly girls, are equally important and require additional efforts and resources, especially during a crisis. Ensuring that teachers are well-trained and equipped to instruct children who have or are living through a crisis; that curricula and learning materials reflect relevant cultural realities and do not perpetuate negative gender norms; and that girls and boys have access to adequate hygiene and WASH facilities are all required in order to keep children engaged and for families to continue to see the value in sending their children, particularly their girls, to school. This is why Canada, as President of the G7 in 2018, championed the Charlevoix Declaration on Quality Education for girls, adolescent girls, and women in developing countries to further address these challenges in order to ensure that girls – especially those affected by crisis and conflict – have access to quality education.

I personally believe that it is essential for girls, including refugee and displaced girls, as well as adolescent girls, to have access to education in crisis contexts.

ECW: Prior to becoming Minister of International Development, you were appointed Minister of Democratic Institutions in 2017 by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, becoming the youngest female cabinet minister in Canadian history. Congratulations! You are an inspiration and a role model for girls and women around the world. What message and guidance would you like to share with girls who face education challenges – including the COVID-19 pandemic – in achieving their hopes and dreams?

Karina Gould: My message to girls around the world facing education challenges would be this:

“You are worth it. I know it is hard and there are a lot of challenges you are facing. But your hopes and dreams are worth fighting for. You have so much to offer the world. You and your voice and your experience matter. The world needs you to keep studying, to keep dreaming, to keep pushing for what you want to see in the world.”

ECW: We’d love to learn a bit more about you on a personal level. Could you tell us what are the three books that have influenced you the most (or that you’d recommend to others to read), and why? We’d also love to know what kind of music gets you energized and motivated to address the challenges you face as Minister. Finally, is there an inspirational or motivational quote (or two) that you often turn to in life?

One of my favourite quotes is by Margaret Mead. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

It was hard to pick just three books, so here are my top four!

To Life by Ruth Minsky Sender

I read this book in grade 7, I was 12 years old. As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, this book opened my eyes to the experiences of my own family. It helped me talk to my grandmother and understand what it was like to be a survivor and to have to pick up and restart life after living through unimaginable trauma and loss. It is an incredible story of loss, tragedy, strength, courage, and renewal.

Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn

I have always been a feminist. I have always believed in seeking and fighting for equality. But this book woke me up to the distinct disadvantages that women face around the world. Until I read this book I didn’t understand how dangerous giving birth was for the majority of women in the world. I learned so much and it made me want to learn even more. This book put me on a path to fight for women’s rights and women’s health around the world.

What is the What by Dave Eggers

This a fictionalized biography of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the “Lost Boys” of Sudan. This book ignited my passion for protecting children from the ravages of war, building a more compassionate world, and fighting for the rights of refugees. It also led me to explore books about Africa written by Africans, which opened up a whole new literary world for me.

Anne of Green Gables Series by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Was one of my favourite series as a child, written by a great Canadian author!

ECW: Are there any final comments you would like to share with ECW’s global audience on the importance of refugee children’s education in emergencies, as well as the importance of not only prioritizing education in humanitarian contexts but also delivering quality education with ‘the fierce urgency of now’, rather than waiting until the crisis is over?

Karina Gould: When schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was quick to mobilize to ensure – to the best of our abilities – that we focused on continuity of learning for out of school children. What I would like to reiterate is that we need to remember the vulnerable populations, including refugees and displaced children, who were not in school before the pandemic and who never had access to quality education. These children deserve the chance to learn, and must not be left behind.

 

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