Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Aslihan Arslan, Senior Economist, Research and Impact Assessment Division, IFAD and Zoumana Bamba, IITA Country Representative, DR Congo

By Aslihan Arslan and Zoumana Bamba
Jun 29 2020 (IPS)

Warnings at the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic that Africa could be hit by a wave of up to 10 million cases within six months thankfully now seem unfounded, although it is still far too early to be over-confident.

The World Health Organization said on May 22 that the virus appears to be “taking a different pathway” on the continent, with a lower mortality rate and a slower rise in cases than other regions. However, three weeks later WHO warned that the pandemic in Africa was accelerating and noted that it took 98 days to reach 100,000 cases and only 19 days to move to 200,000 cases.

Aslihan Arslan

As of June 23, Africa had recorded over 232,000 confirmed cases and 5,117 deaths, still far fewer compared with Europe and the Americas. Experts are still analyzing how it is with widespread poverty, fragile public health systems and weak infrastructure in many countries that Africa has avoided the worst. Prompt preventative actions by governments and overwhelmingly youthful populations are cited as important factors.

While we must avoid the pitfalls of complacency and trusting sometimes questionable statistics caused in part by a lack of testing, the emerging danger now is that the life and death consequences of the economic fallout from the pandemic will be far more severe than the virus itself.

The African continent is on the verge of sinking into its first recession in 25 years.

Sub-Saharan Africa and India are projected by World Bank analysts to be the two regions hit hardest globally in economic terms. Latest projections estimate that 26-39 million more people, many of them subsistence farmers, will be pushed into extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa this year.

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, who reacted quickly to impose his country’s lockdown, has warned that some African economies could take “a generation or more” to recover without coordinated intervention.

Agricultural value chains have been badly affected by the impact of lockdowns, and not just food crops are affected. Kenya’s flower industry, for example, has been hit by the closure of markets in developed countries. More than 70,000 farmers have been laid off and it is reported that 50 tons of flowers have had to be dumped each day.

Zoumana Bamba

In the near term all this amounts to the twin threat of reduced incomes and serious food shortages, given that households buy around 50 percent of their food even in rural Africa, caused directly or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of this, devastating swarms of desert locusts in East Africa—the worst outbreak in Kenya in 70 years—combined with a year of drought and flooding have put millions of people in that region at risk of hunger and famine.

This most immediate of dangers to Africa’s food security is compounded by the longer-term trends of the fastest population and urban growth rates in the world. Africa’s urban population is projected to nearly triple between 2018 and 2050.

The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is working with governments and civil society to provide young people with the skills and opportunities they need and to create jobs in the agri-food system in order to safeguard food security, alleviate poverty, and contribute to social and political stability. The challenges are enormous and diverse.

IFAD is increasingly focusing its resources on young people as a priority, as successful rural transformation hinges on their inclusion in the process. It is partnering with the
nonprofit International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), and is a key funder of a three-year project in sub-Saharan Africa which provides 80 fellowships for young Africans pursuing a master’s or doctoral degree with the focus on research in promoting youth engagement in agriculture.

Known as CARE – Enhancing Capacity to Apply Research Evidence – the program combines mentoring with training in methodology, data analysis, and scientific writing with a view to produce research evidence and recommendations for policymakers. Young and authoritative voices are being brought to the table, increasing youth representation in domestic and policy processes.

Policy briefs produced to date illustrate how researchers, including numerous young female professionals, are challenging common narratives and stereotypes. Yes, migration out of rural areas is a seemingly unstoppable trend but many young people are still engaging in the farm sector and the agri-food system, which require considerable investment.

To highlight a few examples of their recent findings:

■ Adewale Ogunmodede of University of Ibadan in Nigeria analyses the shortcomings of the N-Power Agro Programme aimed at improving rural livelihoods and argues that the top-down approach is failing in attracting young people to agriculture.
■ Research by Akinyi Sassi in Tanzania challenges the stereotyped view that women use ICT less than men to access agricultural market information. She finds that the cost of phone use and reliability of information are critical factors.
■ Cynthia Mkong examines the issue of role models, social status, and previous experience in determining why some students are more likely to choose agriculture as their university major in two universities in Cameroon. She says her findings indicate that agriculture will rise in stature both as a field of study and occupation.
■ Grace Chabi looks at why youth engagement in agriculture continues to decline in Benin despite government initiatives. Among her policy recommendations are a call to remove gender biases from land ownership, credit, and employment practices.

With the youngest and fastest-growing population in the world, Africa’s still overwhelmingly rural communities will continue to grow, even as migration and urbanization increase. Investing in rural jobs and supporting millions of small-scale farming families are of paramount importance, as well as investing in improving connectivity (both physical and digital) in rural areas to support agri-food systems.

IFAD shares the vision of IITA to enhance the perception of and mindset about agri-food systems so that young people will see opportunities there for exciting and profitable businesses as consumers demand more diversity of food products. The CARE project filling those knowledge gaps is already starting to yield the relevant and thorough research needed by African communities to build food security and resilience against future shocks, and achieve rural transformation inclusive of rural youth.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

The post Africa’s Post-pandemic Future Needs to Embrace Youth in Agriculture appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Aslihan Arslan, Senior Economist, Research and Impact Assessment Division, IFAD and Zoumana Bamba, IITA Country Representative, DR Congo

The post Africa’s Post-pandemic Future Needs to Embrace Youth in Agriculture appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Irene Omari says that the most pressing problems women in business face includes a lack of credit. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Jun 29 2020 (IPS)

Pauline Akwacha’s popular chain of eateries, famously known as Kakwacha Hangover Hotels and situated at the heart of Kisumu City’s lakeside in Kenya, is facing its most daunting challenge yet. Akwacha and other women in business across this East African nation are bracing themselves for the post-COVID-19 economy. 

Strategically located at the heart of Kisumu’s bustling central business district, business at Kakwacha had always been very good. One could hardly find a seat at the eateries.

“We are known for our fresh, traditional foods, including meat and especially fish. This is the lakeside and fish is a big part of our lives. The meals are very affordable and the portions filling,” she tells IPS.

The first COVID-19 case in this East African nation was confirmed on Mar. 13. Within days the Kakwacha chain, other restaurants and the hospital industry closed as the government issued strict social distancing protocols to curb the spread of the virus.

“Now my doors are closed and am losing a lot of money because I still have to pay rent and do whatever is necessary to cushion my staff,” Akwacha says.

To reopen, Kakwacha will have to follow the strict guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health. Restaurant owners are required to pay from $20 to $40 for each staff member to undergo mandatory COVID-19 testing before reopening.

Still, without cash flow, Akwacha will find it difficult to re-open.

Across the street, Irene Omari, the sole proprietor of one of the biggest branding companies in Kisumu City and its surroundings, has similar concerns about the market post-lockdown. As a woman, she struggled to access loans to start her business.

“It is very difficult to run a business as a woman. In the beginning I could not even access credit because financial institutions did not take me seriously. I had to learn to spend 15 percent of every coin I made, and save 85 percent to plough back into the business. Women do not access loans easily because of strict collateral requirements,” Omari tells IPS.

Omari says that the most pressing problems women in business face, include a lack of credit, patriarchal stereotypes and naysayers who tell women that they cannot succeed — because they are not men.

But she succeeded despite this. Up until the lockdown, her printing and branding business occupied two large floors in a building in the lakeside city. There, she pays $1,500 in rent per month, a considerable sum that shows just how big and strategically-located her business is.

“I brand for hotels, schools, companies, non-governmental organisations and walk-in individual clients. We have something for everyone. Our printing department caters mostly to schools. I have invested heavily in mass production by purchasing machines worth millions [of Kenyan shillings],” Omari tells IPS.

But COVID-19 has also hit the very heart of her business. With schools, hotels and restaurants closed, and as companies face a most uncertain future, business is at an all-time low. 

Omari has diverse business interests and also invested in a trucking business to transport construction materials across the larger Western region. But this industry has also been impacted by the lockdown.

Kenya’s gross domestic product (GDP) is projected to decelerate significantly due to COVID-19. The most recent World Bank Kenya Economic Update predicts economic growth of 1.5 to 1.0 percent in 2020. Growth focus for 2020 was estimated at 5.9 percent pre-COVID. 

While COVID-19 may be the latest addition in a long list of challenges that women in business have had to endure, there are concerns that the pandemic will only widen existing economic gender inequalities.

In 2018, only a paltry 76,804 or 2.8 percent of the country’s formal sector employees earned a monthly salary in excess of 1,000 dollars. Of these employees, 36.5 percent were women, accounting for only one percent of the total formal sector employees, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.  

There are no real-time statistics available yet on the impact COVID-19 has had on women in business.

But dated statistics paint a picture of the difficulties women had have to overcome.

Overall, Kenya has significantly expanded financial access and reduced financial exclusion. The number of people without access to any financial services and products reduced from 17.4 percent in 2016 to 11 percent in 2019. But while financial access gaps between men and women are narrowing, women are still lagging behind, according to the Central Bank of Kenya financial access survey of 2019.

For instance, in 2016, 80.9 percent of women-to-women business partnerships were denied loans by micro-finance institutions, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

As such, more women in business are turning to the informal sector such as table banking or merry-go-round savings and lending groups.

“This is why investing in women and providing much-needed affirmative action support remains necessary and urgent,” Fridah Githuku, the executive director of GROOTS Kenya, tells IPS. GROOTS is a national grassroots movement led by women, which invests in women-led groups for sustainable community transformation. 

So far, this Deliver For Good local partner has invested in nearly 3,500 women-led groups. Deliver For Good is a global campaign that applies a gender lens to the Sustainable Development Goals and is powered by global advocacy organisation Women Deliver.

In the agricultural sector where, according to World Bank statistics, women run three-quarters of Kenya’s farms, the government says that women’s investments in farming does not match the amount of money they receive in loans.

Currently, women still only account for 25 percent of the total loans issued by the government’s Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC). This, experts say, is an improvement from 11 percent in 2017.  

Githuku points out that previously land title deeds were a non-negotiable requirement for loans with the AFC and prevented women-led enterprises in the agricultural sector from accessing credit.

Today, women do not have to rely on land title deeds and can support their loan applications to the AFC with motor vehicle log books and cash flow statements.

But experts are concerned that these loans might come to naught as COVID-19 continues to disrupt the entire farming chain; from the acquisition of farm inputs as farmers struggle to access seeds and fertiliser, to productivity on farms, and the transportation of produce to the markets.

For now, it is a wait-and-see situation for women in business, including Akwacha and Omari, as Kenyans continue to speculate on whether the economy will fully open up anytime soon. 

Related Articles

• Senegalese Women’s Participation in Energy Sector equals Empowerment
• For Love or Land – The Debate about Kenyan Women’s Rights to Matrimonial Property
• A Gender-equal Ethiopian Parliament can Improve the Lives of all Women

The post COVID-19 Pandemic Could Widen Existing Inequalities for Kenya’s Women in Business appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Local residents of Churia, a village of some 25 families at more than 3,100 meters above sea level in the highlands of the Peruvian department of Ayacucho, are building simple dikes to fill ponds with water to irrigate their crops, water their animals and consume at home. CREDIT: Courtesy of Huñuc Mayu

By Mariela Jara
AYACUCHO, Peru, Jun 29 2020 (IPS)

A communally built small dam at almost 3,500 meters above sea level supplies water to small-scale farmer Cristina Azpur and her two young daughters in Peru’s Andes highlands, where they face water shortages exacerbated by climate change.

“We built the walls of the reservoir with stone and earth and planted ‘queñua’ trees last year in February, to absorb water,” she tells IPS by phone from her hometown of Chungui, population 4,500, located in La Mar, one of the provinces hardest hit by the violence of the Maoist group Shining Path, which triggered a 20-year civil war in the country between 1980 and 2000.

The queñua (Polylepis racemosa) is a tree native to the Andean highlands with a thick trunk that protects it from low temperatures. It is highly absorbent of rainwater and is considered sacred by the Quechua indigenous people.

In Chungui and other Andes highlands municipalities populated by Quechua Indians in the southwestern department of Ayacucho, the native tree species has been the main input for the recovery and preservation of water sources.

Eutropia Medina, president of the board of directors of Huñuc Mayu (which means “meeting of rivers” in Quechua), an NGO that has been working for 15 years to promote the rights of people living in rural communities in the region, one of the country’s poorest, explains how the trees are used.

Women from several Andean highlands communities in Ayacucho, Peru, have played a very active role in harvesting water, including protecting the headwaters of streams. In the picture, a group of women and girls are involved in a community activity in Oronccoy, a village about 3,200 meters above sea level. CREDIT: Courtesy of Huñuc Mayu

“The women and men have planted more than 10,000 queñua trees in the different communities as part of their plan to harvest water,” she tells IPS in Ayacucho, the regional capital. “These are techniques handed down from their ancestors that we have helped revive to boost their agricultural and animal husbandry activities, which are their main livelihood.”

Medina, previously director of the NGO, explains that the acceleration of climate change in recent years, due to the unregulated exploitation of natural resources, has generated an imbalance in highland ecosystems, increasing greenhouse gases and fuelling deglaciation and desertification.

The resultant water shortages have been particularly difficult for women, who are in charge of domestic responsibilities and supplying water, while also working in the fields.

Huñuc Mayu, with the support of the national office of Diakonia, a faith-based Swedish development organisation, has provided training and technical assistance to strengthen water security in these rural Andean highland communities where the main activities are small-scale farming and livestock raising.

The queñua, one of the most cold-resistant trees in the world, is native to the high plains of the Andes, and is culturally valued by the Quechua indigenous people. It is a great climate regulator, controls erosion and stores a large amount of water, which filters into the soil and from there nourishes the springs of the Andean highlands. CREDIT: Esteban Vera/Flickr

This is an area that has recently been repopulated after two decades in which families fled the internal conflict, during which Ayacucho accounted for 40 percent of all victims.

“Huñuc Mayu helped organise the returnees and people who had remained in the communities, and we promoted the planting of fruit trees and connections to markets,”

She explains that “in this process more water and technical forms of irrigation were needed, so through a water fund the communities created projects for the conservation of basins and micro-basins in the area.”

The impact is significant, she points out, because in the past families depended on the rains for their water supply and during the dry season and times of drought they had a very difficult time because they could not irrigate their crops or water their animals.

Denisse Chavez is gender officer at the Peruvian office of Diakonia, a Swedish organisation that promotes rights in vulnerable communities around the world. In Peru it partnered with the NGO Huñuc Mayu to revive ancestral knowledge of the Quechua communities of the Andean highlands and thus strengthen water security for local inhabitants. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Today, things have changed.

Churia, a village of just 25 families at more than 3,100 meters above sea level, in the district of Vinchos, is another community that has promoted solutions to address the water shortage problem.

Oliver Cconislla, 23, lives there with his wife Maximiliana Llacta and their four-year-old son. The family depends on small-scale farming and animal husbandry.A complex, integral and sustainable solution

The NGO Huñuc Mayu is strengthening water security by reviving ancient indigenous techniques for harvesting water from streams in the highlands department of Ayacucho. The work is being carried out in that area to ensure sustainability, because it is where the rivers emerge and where water must be retained to benefit families in the middle and lower basins, the institution's director, Alberto Chacchi, an expert on the subject, tells IPS.

"It's a complex system that not only involves containing water in ponds but also recuperating natural pastures that capture water when it rains and form wetlands and springs, building rustic dikes to contain water in ponds, planting native tree species and conserving the soil," he says.

To illustrate, he mentions Alpaccocha, which was a high-altitude wetland that dried up when there was no rainfall. But since the village of Churia built a dam it has become a pond containing 57,000 cubic meters of water.

The total cost including communal labour has been 20,000 soles - about 5,700 dollars. "A reservoir of that size would have cost the state three million soles (854,000 dollars) because it would use conventional technology that also alters ecosystems and would not be sustainable," he says.

In order for local families to use water from the pond, two pipes with a valve have been placed in the dike, and the valve opens when rainfall is low, letting the water run out as a stream so people can place hoses downhill and use it for sprinkler irrigation. Communal authorities manage the system to ensure equitable distribution.

Each dike also has diversion channels at both ends that allow excess water to flow out once the pond is full, thus keeping moist the wetlands that used to dry out at the end of the rainy season.

“Here we depend on the alpaca, using its meat to feed and nourish the children, making jerky (dried meat, ‘charki’ in Quechua) to store it, and when we have enough food we sell to the market. We spin the wool, weave it and sell it too,” he tells IPS over the phone.

His family has been able to count on grass and drinking water – absolutely vital to their livelihood – for their 50 alpacas and 15 sheep thanks to work by the organised community.

“We have been working to harvest water for three years,” he says. “We’ve built dikes, we’ve been separating off the ponds and planting queñua trees on the slopes of the hill. Last year I was a local authority and we worked hand in hand with Huñuc Mayu.”

Cconislla reports that they dammed six ponds using local materials such as grass, soil and clay – “only materials we found in the ground.” They also fenced off the queñua plantations.

“Now when there is no rain we are no longer sad or worried because we have the ponds. The dam keeps the water from running out, and when it fills up it spills over the banks, creating streams that run down to where the animals drink so they have permanent pasture; that area stays humid even during times of drought,” he says.

In addition to these ecosystem services, trout have been stocked in one of the ponds to provide food for families, especially children. “As a community we manage these resources so that they are maintained over time for the benefit of us and the children who will come,” he states.

Cristina Azpur, 46, has no animals, but she does have crops that need irrigation. She runs the household and the farm with the help of her two daughters, ages 11 and 13, when they are not in school, because she does not have a husband, “since it is better to be alone than in bad company,” she says, laughing.

For her and the other families living in houses scattered around the community of Chungui, the dam ensures that they have the water they need to grow their crops and raise their livestock, she says.

“I am about to plant potatoes, olluco (Ullucus tuberosus, a tuber whose leaves are also eaten), and oca (another tuber). This month of June we have had a small campaign (special planting of some crops between May and July), and we use water from the reservoir to ensure our food supply, which is the most important thing to stay healthy,” she says proudly.

She politely adds that she cannot continue talking because she must help her daughters, who study remotely through programmes broadcast on public television, due to the lockdown in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the neighbouring town of Oronccoy, home to some 60 families and founded in 2016, Natividad Ccoicca, 53, also grows her vegetables with water from a community-built reservoir.

She and her family, who live at an altitude of over 3,300 meters, have been part of an experience that has substantially improved their quality of life.

“It used to be very hard to fetch water,” she tells IPS. “We had to walk long distances and even take the horses to carry the containers that we filled at the springs. Now with the reservoir we have water for the farm, the animals and our own consumption.”

She also explains that because of the measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 there is greater demand for water in homes. “Can you imagine how things would be for us without the reservoir? We would have a higher risk of getting sick, that’s for sure,” she says.

Women and men work communally to install hoses and irrigate their crops using a sprinkler system, and also for human consumption, in Oronccoy, a village of 60 families in the Peruvian Andes highlands. CREDIT: Courtesy of Huñuc Mayu

These experiences of harvesting water are part of Huñuc Mayu’s integral proposal for the management of hydrographic basins using Andean techniques in synergy with low-cost conventional technologies to strengthen water security.

Medina highlights the involvement of the communities and the active participation of women, who in the Quechua worldview have a close link with water.

“We see important achievements by the communities themselves and the local people,” she says. “For example, the water supply has expanded in response to the demands of agricultural production and human consumption.”

Medina adds that “women have been active participants in protecting the sources of water and the work involved in raising livestock has been reduced to the benefit of their health. These are major contributions that improve the quality of life of families” in this historically neglected part of Peru.

The post Indigenous Farmers Harvest Water with Small Dams in Peru’s Andes Highlands appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Thousands march through the streets during nationwide unrest following the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, on May 30, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Jonathan Drake

By Ahrar Ahmad
Jun 29 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The American project was founded on rank hypocrisies. On the one hand, President Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the stirring words in the Declaration of Independence that upheld “these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal”, did not free his own slaves (not even Sally Hemings, who bore him six children).

Similarly, the Constitution of the US, celebrated as one of the finest examples of a self-conscious construction of a liberal democratic order, defined Blacks as only three-fifths of a person, not a full human being. Though “slave trade” was abolished by Congress in 1808, a brisk market in slaves continued since it was considered essential to the “Southern life-style” and the mode of production in a plantation economy. Even in 1857, the Supreme Court ruled (Dred Scott v Sanford) that Black people were to be deemed “property”, not “citizens”.

It took a Civil War and three momentous amendments to the constitution (the 13th in 1865, the 14th in 1868, and the 15th in 1870) for slavery to be abolished, for Blacks to be accorded the “due process” protections of citizenship, and for them to receive the right to vote. (Women did not receive that right till the 19th amendment in 1920).

While the abject inhumanity of slavery may have been legally mitigated to some extent, the institutions, practices and values of exclusion, exploitation and devaluation were not. Constitutional guarantees, and Supreme Court decisions, could be cleverly subverted by the states. For example, Black people were denied the right to vote through poll taxes, arbitrary registration requirements, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, white primaries and so on. In 1940, 70 years after they had received the right to vote, only 3 percent of Blacks in the South were registered as voters. Less overt voter suppression efforts continue to this day.

Similarly, discriminatory laws in many Southern states also imposed second-class citizenship on them. There were restrictions on residence, employment, bank loans, travel (they had to sit in the back of the bus) and, till the Court’s decision in Brown (1954), the schools they could attend. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 removed many of these ostensible barriers, but the shadows remained long, corrosive and cruel.

II

While slavery may have been “the original sin” through which America came into being, its treatment of other minorities was not very tender. The ones who suffered the most immediately and most grievously were the Native Americans. This land which was theirs was taken away from them. Today, most live in reservations which constitute only 4 percent of US land area.

They were also physically decimated. They became collateral damage in the relentless westward expansion of the Europeans based on notions of “manifest destiny”. They were killed through forced marches—e.g. the “trail of tears” between 1830-1850, when almost 60,000 of them were uprooted from their habitats and relocated elsewhere, with almost one-fourth dying on the way. There were massacres—e.g. in Bear River, Idaho, 1863, Oak Run, California, 1864, Sand Creek, Colorado, 1864, Marias, Montana, 1870, Wounded Knee, South Dakota, 1890, and many others. And there were summary executions—e.g. the largest execution in US history was that of Dakota men in Mankato after the Sioux Wars in 1862.

When Columbus “discovered” America, the Native population was between 10-15 million. By the end of the 19th century, thanks to the efforts to civilise and Christianize those “red savages”, it had been reduced to 238,000. Today, it is less than 7m, or about 2 percent of the population.

Smaller minority groups in the US faced similar discrimination. Jews were saddled with the long-standing accusation of being “Christ-killers” and their intellectual and financial skills generated envy and anxiety. They were also considered to be consummate conspirators intent on taking over the world, ironically as bankers and financiers (Henry Ford’s argument), or as Bolshevik revolutionaries (Hitler’s conviction, also echoed in the US).

The Chinese were the only people to be formally denied immigration into the country through the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Many Chinese, welcomed earlier as “coolie” labourers to lay the railroad tracks, faced harsh treatment and even violence. The Japanese, restricted through a “gentleman’s agreement” in 1907 from coming into the country any more, were herded into internment camps after Pearl Harbor even though there was not a shred of evidence that anyone had done anything wrong. “Indians”, i.e. those from South Asia, were not considered to be “free Whites” and thus not eligible for citizenship (US v Bhagat Singh Thind, 1923). Asian immigration was completely banned in 1924 and, when the door was slightly opened in 1946, limited by strict quotas of about 100 annually from these three countries.

III

Thus racism was sown right into the fabric of American history, practices and values. The question that is frequently asked is why, while other minority groups subjected to discrimination were able to prosper later, Blacks did not. There is usually a racist subtext to that question to underscore White assumptions about Black laziness, intellectual inferiority, moral weakness, and collective inability to cooperate, organise and develop social capital. That conclusion is both self-serving and untrue.

First, no other group endured the sheer ferocity and persistence of bigotry in the same way that Blacks did. All others (except Native Americans, whose conditions have not improved) had voluntarily come to the country. The Blacks were captured, enslaved and commodified. They were not scrappy immigrants who came to the land of opportunity to pursue the American dream; they were forcibly brought here and left to contend with their American nightmare.

Second, while others also faced stereotypes and prejudice, none encountered the uncouth mockery and the sheer physical violence that were inflicted on the Blacks. Minstrel shows, which caricatured Black people as sub-human beings (played by White folks in blackface), were wildly popular.

But it was the slaps and kicks, the lashes and chains, the nigger hunting licenses and tar-and-featherings, the burning of crosses and the lynchings that were emblematic of the dehumanisation of Black people. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, between 1877 and 1950, more than 4,400 Blacks were lynched. Many of these lynchings became public events which communities enjoyed as spectacle and the celebration of White power.

It is certainly not that Blacks only understood the language of violence. But this was certainly the only language preferred by Whites to speak to them. Those attitudes and tropes remained, manifested in new forms, sometimes hiding behind police badges. This is vigilante justice dispensed and protected by the instruments of the state, and sanctioned by historical practice. Hence we hear about teaching them a lesson, demonstrating overwhelming force, putting them in their place, to “dominate” as President Trump advised the other day, threatening to use the military if needed. It is for this reason too that Philonise Floyd poignantly pointed out, in his testimony to the US Congress, that his brother had been subjected to a modern-day lynching.

Third, there was a psycho-sexual dimension to this relationship that complicated matters even further. While White men had always been fiercely protective of “their women”, their concern and insecurity regarding Black men were particularly pronounced. Even a hint, a look, a word, the slightest of moves that could be construed as expressing Black lust for a White woman, would provoke savage reprisal. This lasted well into the 20th century.

In 1921, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a Black teenager was accused of molesting a white woman, even though she never pressed charges. In the resulting carnage, there were 10-15 White casualties and, by some estimates, up to 300 Black. The entire Black neighbourhood of Greenwood was set on fire, and more than a thousand homes and businesses were destroyed. Not a single person was convicted.

Similarly, in 1955, Emmet Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chicago visiting his aunt in Mississippi, was accused of making a pass at a White woman by whistling at her. The boy was tortured to death, so badly brutalised that his mother could not even recognise her own son. The perpetrators were acquitted by an all-White jury.

One hears the same refrain in Harper Lee’s 1961 classic To Kill a Mocking Bird.

IV

According to the Sentencing Project’s Report to the UN in 2018, Blacks are three times more likely to be searched, twice as likely to be arrested, and receive longer prison sentences for committing the same crime. Thirty-five percent of all executions in the US have been Black; they constitute 34 percent of prison inmates and 42 percent of people on death row.

However, while police brutality and related injustices are obvious, the most overwhelming burden for Blacks is the political disempowerment and economic inequities which they have to bear.

Blacks are approximately 13 percent of the population. But currently, while their presence in the House is roughly equivalent (52 out of 435), they have only three Senators (the highest ever), and no Governors. Of the 189 American Ambassadors, only three are Black, usually in “hardship posts” or less relevant assignments (like Bangladesh?).

According to Valerie Wilson from the Economic Policy Institute, in 2018, a median Black worker only earned about 75 percent of what a White person does (USD 14.92 per hour to USD 19.79), and The Economist reported that in 2019 mean household wealth was USD 138,000 for Blacks, and USD 933,700 for Whites. While more than 72 percent of Whites own homes usually in nice neighbourhoods, only 42 percent of Blacks do so usually in shabbier environments. Unemployment rates are typically twice that of Whites.

Approximately 23 percent of Covid-19 patients are Black, and similar discrepancies are seen in terms of people suffering from blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, asthma, cancer, and other health challenges.

Educational disparities are pronounced. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, while almost 80 percent of Whites graduate from high school, only 62 percent of Blacks do so. While 29 percent of White males and 38 percent of White females graduate from college, only 15 percent of Black males and 22 percent of Black females do the same.

This is not because of innate intellectual differences traditionally used to explain the “achievement gap” (comparative lower scores in reading and math for Black students). As John Valant pointed out, Black performance in standardised tests has much more to do with exclusionary zoning policies that keep Black families from better school districts, mass incarceration practices that remove Black parents from children, and under-resourced Black school districts that impose relatively poor-quality teachers, weak supportive infrastructure and an environment of hopelessness and despair that students are compelled to endure. Expecting these kids to perform at the same level as others is like tying a weight to their legs and hoping that they can be competitive in a marathon.

President Johnson’s effort to “level the playing field” led to some Affirmative Action policies, and the formation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1965, to provide historically disadvantaged groups some extra educational and economic opportunities. Some progress has certainly been made. A small Black middle class of professionals has gradually come into existence, some Black entrepreneurs have been notably prosperous, and a few Black performers have gained spectacular success in the entertainment and sports industries (unrelated to affirmative action).

But, on the other hand, many Whites resented these programmes which were gradually challenged, and in some ways gutted, through charges of “reverse discrimination” (Bakke v Board of Regents University of California, 1978). The sentiment was that these policies unfairly violated a merit-based system of rewards, and created an entitlement culture for undeserving Blacks (conveniently forgetting that Whites had gained from it for centuries). Sometimes affirmative action only meant incorporating a few Blacks in various positions to prove an institution’s quantitative adherence to EEOC requirements. It was tokenist, grudging and alienating. Instead of bridging racial divides, they deepened them.

V

Ay, and there is the rub, as Shakespeare would say. The issue of racism is not about a chokehold of a White police officer, but its stranglehold on US society. It is ingrained in the predatory capitalism that the US worships with its emphasis on ugly materialism over human development, selfish individualism over collective welfare, desperate profit-seeking over social responsibility, immoral inequalities over a sharing culture, patriarchal dominance over an inclusive democracy, mindless consumerism over ecological concern, and a phenomenally successful strategy of keeping people, particularly the working class, divided and loathing each other.

It is also true that the races are prisoners of their respective assumptions, perceptions and judgments that lead them to see “the other” in radically distorted terms. Their narratives of history, their engagement with reality, and their judgment of events condemn them to their own rhetorical echo-chambers, making communications difficult. What the Blacks will see and remember will be vastly different from what the Whites will (e.g. Blacks will hear George Floyd crying out for his mother as a casually sadistic White officer chokes him to death, Whites will see the looting). In these conditions, hate becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Finally, when racism is reduced, and isolated, to a simple problem (e.g. police brutality), it will let politicians shake their cynical heads and issue condemnations with platitudes and clichés that will come trippingly to their tongues. It will permit them to tinker with this or that aspect of law enforcement and claim to have “fixed it”. It will encourage the power-elite to seek TV-rich moments such as taking a knee, or carrying a BLM placard, or raising a fist at a funeral memorial—high in symbolism but pitifully, perhaps deliberately, low in accomplishment.

As long as they ignore the larger historical, political and psychological context in which White defensiveness and Black weaknesses are located, one can treat the symptoms and not the virus of racism. The intellectual honesty and moral courage this would require has been absent in the past, and there is neither much evidence, nor much hope, that we will see it anytime soon.

Postscript: Having lived in America for many years, I can personally attest to the fairness and decency of the vast majority of colleagues, students, and general people my wife and I have met, and the genuine graciousness and warmth of many friends that we have been blessed to have. This merely underscores the point that the issue is not individual but institutional, not personal but structural.

(The cases mentioned in the article are all Supreme Court cases.)

Ahrar Ahmad is Director General, Gyantapas Abdur Razzaq Foundation, Dhaka.

Email: ahrar.ahmad@bhsu.edu

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Racism in America: Police Chokehold is Not the Issue appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Online technologies offer more secrecy and anonymity, creating a safe haven to generate, host and consume child sexual abuse material with impunity, says UN expert Maud de Boer-Buquicchio. Credit: United Nations

By Charlotte Munns
LONDON, Jun 29 2020 (IPS)

Global upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has left society’s most vulnerable exposed. Instances of child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) found online have increased at an alarming rate over past months.

The incidence is higher, the abuse is worse, and the children are younger. Self-regulated social media companies are dragging their heels implementing reform that bolsters the safety of their youngest members.

This recent upturn comes after decades of rapid growth of CSEM material. INTERPOL, a global policing organisation, reported a 10,000% increase in the amount of CSEM on the Internet since 2004.

Since lockdown measures were put in place, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has blocked nearly 9 million attempts by UK internet users to access child sexual abuse websites. The vast majority of victims identified are 7 to 13 years old.

Many instances of abuse originate on social media platforms. Private messaging services, and childrens’ broad access to the Internet have facilitated contact between victims and perpetrators. Each photo published online is evidence of a crime occurring, yet much goes undetected.

At a United Nations briefing in April concerning the effects of the pandemic on children, the European Union representative Walter Stevens noted that the scale of online abuse “continues to expand at an alarming rate.” In some countries, such as Australia, the amount of detected material has doubled in recent months.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought more children home, and increased Internet connectivity as teaching turns virtual, the most vulnerable members of society are being delivered into the hands of abusers.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres said earlier this year, “governments and parents all have a role in keeping children safe,” adding that, “social media companies have a special responsibility to protect the vulnerable.”

Maud de Boer-Burquicchio, former Special Rapporteur on the sale and exploitation of children, criticised tech companies’ intentions, “the respect of childrens’ rights and dignity, if at all, continues to come as an afterthought.”

No company is more central to this discussion than Facebook. According to the New York Times, of the 18.4 million reports of child sexual abuse material last year, 14 million came from Facebook’s platform. The Messaging service facilitates contact between victims and perpetrators, and is where images and video are easily sent and disseminated.

Following suit from most other social media organisations, Facebook’s plans to implement end-to-end encryption into its Messaging service represents a significant step backwards in combating CSEM globally. The measure is responding to users’ calls for greater privacy, yet would prevent anyone, even Facebook, from identifying exploitative messages and media sent in conversations.

Currently, hash technology within a system called PhotoDNA allows for the detection of CSEM across platforms. If end-to-end encryption is introduced, this will no longer be possible.

Andy Burrows, NSPCC Head of Child Safety Online Policy told IPS that this service “will make content moderation virtually impossible and make it easier for offenders to groom children.”

A number of leaders from countries like the United States, UK and Australia have criticised Facebook’s haste to encrypt its platform. They have called for a delay until child safety can be guaranteed.

Susie Hargreaves, Chief Executive of IWF, told IPS, “we are asking Facebook to give assurances that child protection will not be hampered and that children and victims will be protected in some way, and as yet, none of us have seen any of those assurances.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray has expressed his concerns that end-to-end encryption would prevent law enforcement’s ability to track down perpetrators of child sexual exploitation.

In October of 2019, Attorney General William Barr sent a public letter to Zuckerberg echoing this concern, and calling on Facebook to, “embed the safety of the public in system designs,” and “enable law enforcement to obtain lawful access to content in a readable and usable format.”

Fred Langford, IWF Chief Technical Officer, in an interview with IPS praised the social media company for engaging with the issue of CSEM. Facebook has partnered with other tech companies like Google and Microsoft to discuss embedded protections for children, yet many criticize these measures for providing little real change.

At a meeting last month, shareholders noted the severity of CSEM on Facebook’s platform, stating, “Facebook’s plans to expand end-to-end encryption will make it unable to track CSEM on social media enabling more offenders to evade detection.”

Past measures to protect children on the platform have not been effective enough, they said. Shareholders requested a report be compiled detailing how Facebook would address the issue prior to imposing end-to-end encryption. The Board of Directors voted against.

Without effective measures to protect children while ensuring user privacy, end-to-end encryption will make continuing to detect and prosecute offenders nearly impossible. Many are unsure of Facebook’s measures to deal with that.

“Tech companies have proven time and again that they are failing to make their self-regulated platforms safe for children,” NSPCC’s Any Burrows told IPS. The ongoing pandemic, and Facebook’s sluggish response to concerns for child welfare on its platform may further endanger our most vulnerable.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

The post Safety of Children an Afterthought for Tech Companies appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Charlotte Munns, a free-lance writer based in London, has specialized in English Literature and Middle Eastern Studies at Columbia University, New York

The post Safety of Children an Afterthought for Tech Companies appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Sudan Partnership Conference, which took place via teleconference, pledged $1.8 billion to support the transitional government as well as facilitating access to loans and partial or total debt relief by some countries. Courtesy: CC by 2.0/Nina R

By Reem Abbas
KHARTOUM, Jun 26 2020 (IPS)

This week, when Sudan’s Minister of Energy and Mining Adil Ibrahim addressed the country, stating that households will face power-cuts for up to seven hours a day, people had already been sitting on plastic chairs outside their homes, scouring the internet to purchase battery-operated fans. This Northeast African nation has seen temperature highs of up to 41 degrees Celsius recently.

Ibrahim attributed the power cuts to foreign engineers who had been working to build the country’s energy industry but left because of the COVID-19 crisis. However, the situation is more complicated.

“The government does not have money to buy the gasoline needed for the energy sector, the country does not have foreign currency and the reserve at the central bank of Sudan is very minimal,” an anonymous source at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning told IPS.

Sudan has barely emerged from the 30-year long dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, who was overthrown by a revolution in April 2019. Currently, the transitional government — a civilian and military government — is too broke to finance Sudan’s transition.

The military has controlled Sudan for almost 50 years through dictatorships and it continues to have a tight grip on power.

But yesterday, Jun. 25, the Sudan Partnership Conference, which took place via teleconference, pledged $1.8 billion to support the transitional government as well as facilitating access to loans and partial or total debt relief by some countries.

The conference, hosted by Germany and supported by the Friends of Sudan, brings together the European Union (EU), the United States, the United Kingdom and several Gulf and African countries. Senior figures in the EU, the Sudanese government as well as the Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres addressed the conference.

In total, 40 countries and institutions took part in the pledge that Sudan’s Prime Minister Dr. Abdallah Hamdok called “unprecedented”. 

But Shawqi Abdelazim, a veteran journalist in Khartoum, says that the conference was not only about meeting financial targets.

“The conference had political targets and it has put Sudan back on the map and signalled its return to the international community. Many countries asked for Sudan to be removed from the state sponsors of terrorism list which is very important for economic recovery,” Shawqi Abdelazim, who works for Sudanese and German publications, told IPS.

• Sudan remains on the United States’ State Sponsor of Terrorism list.
• As a result, the country cannot access to funding from international financial institutions.

Shawqi Abdelazim added that by working with Sudan, the international community made a decision, “it is either they work with us to save the transitional period or they leave us to face our own fate; to fight off the military leaders or self-isolate in an attempt to re-build our economy with humble means”.

A recent report by the European Council on Foreign Relations states that the military generals “control a sprawling network of companies and keep the central bank and the Ministry of Finance on life support to gain political power”.

The civilian wing of the government led by Hamdok needs reassurance as it continues to solidify civilian rule to make way for democratic elections in three years as well as fight the deep state control of the former ruling party, the National Congress Party (NCP).

“The conference gave legitimacy to the civilian government, they made it clear that they are supportive,” Mayada Hassanein, an economist in Khartoum, told IPS.

But this does not mean that the financial pledges would keep the civilian government afloat for a long time.

“The amount pledged, $1.8bn is less than what is needed for cash transfers for the ministry of finance program to support families,” said Hassanien.

The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning had been keen to secure at least $1.9 billion to support its family assistance programme, which aims to allocate $5 per family to support them with the ever-increasing living costs.

The programme was inspired by similar successful programmes in Brazil, but in the Sudanese context, it could have its flaws.

“It is fair to support vulnerable families, but this money is better spent on public services that can protect families from the volatility of the market. There is no point in having money in my pocket if I can’t find medicine or take my children to school,” Mayada Abdelazim, an economist in Khartoum, told IPS.

Sudan has serious medicine shortages and the crisis was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis.

Previously there were only ‘partners’ not donors

On the ground, the reality is dire. The transitional government, with all the external and internal support it garnered, was unable to fund the ambitious democratic transition the Sudanese people fought for.

• The country’s foreign debt stands at $62 billion.
• And even though the U.S. ended a 20-year trade embargo against Sudan in 2017, sanctions have not been fully removed.

Things looked promising in the first months after Hamdok was sworn in. In October, the European Union (EU) pledged €466 million in development assistance and various EU countries pledged funds for development and technical support. But this was not enough to help the government stand on its feet.

A report by the European Council on Foreign Relations explained that “international donors blame their reluctance to assist the Sudanese government on its inaction regarding subsidy reform”.

The International Crisis Group says that fuel subsides have damaged Sudan’s economy. They currently take up 40 percent of the country’s annual budget. “As part of the subsidies policy, fuel importers can buy dollars at a price far below market price, leaving room for corruption”.

Local economists paint a similar picture, but the government is cozying up to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“One reason Sudan is unable to get loans is its significant debt, however, the IMF and the World Bank are clear gateway to accessing international funds. The IMF is now in agreement with the government to send technical experts to support with the reforms, but this was not a clear promise to give Sudan money,” Mayada Abdelazim said.

The IMF’s structural adjustment programmes mandate lessening or lifting subsidies all together and in recent months, a familiar process is underway in the country.

“The government has already lifted fuel subsidies by offering commercial fuel (which is another word for unsubsidised) in addition to subsidised fuel. But currently, you can only find fuel at the gas stations that offer unsubsidised fuel, they basically lifted subsidies without entering into a direct confrontation with the public,” said Mayada Abdelazim.

Rising inflation impacts the population

During Al-Bashir’s tenure, Sudanese people endured numerous wars (some of which are only in the process of being resolved), severe economic impoverishment, and the oppression of all dissent and a total deterioration of all aspects of their welfare.

For years, 70 percent of Sudan’s budget was invested in the security and military sector leaving very little for healthcare and education, which were further destroyed through privatisation policies and incessant corruption by the ruling party.

A few weeks ago, the government increased the minimum wage by up to 700 percent to match raising inflation. However, inflation increased from 98.81 to 114.33 percent between April and May.

The new salaries have now become redundant as the prices of basic food items increased from 200 to 300 percent and the Sudanese pound (SDG) continued to plummet, reaching 145 SDG to the U.S. dollar in the black market versus 55 SDG to the dollar.

“Any money you give people will get eaten up as prices increase due to volatility. Business owners do not know how much they would have to pay for rent or stock next month, they have to push up their prices based on expectations,” said Mayada Abdelazim, who has been working on a paper on the partnership conference.

Outside Khartoum, the situation is even worse for ordinary citizens.

Hanan Hassan, a civil servant who lives in Damazin in Blue Nile state, over 500 kms from the capital, Khartoum, told IPS that businesses have taken advantage of the salary raises to increase their prices.

“Transportation costs inside the city went up by 300 percent, food items are increasing on a daily basis which makes it impossible to come up with a monthly budget. Traders are taking advantage of people because there is no monitoring by the authorities and others are arguing that they have to purchase fuel at commercial rates,” said Hassan.

In the meantime, the government has a dilemma, currently it has no money to pay salaries or to import basic food items.

“The Minister is opposed to financing from the Central Bank, but the bank has to print money to finance the remainder of the 2020 government budget,” said the source at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.

Reclaiming what can be reclaimed

In November 2019, the transitional government passed a law establishing the Empowerment Elimination, Anti-Corruption, and Funds Recovery Committee, which is tasked with ridding the country of the legacy of the former regime and reclaiming Sudan’s embezzled resources.

The committee has held numerous press conferences to announce the confiscation of land, companies and financial resources from old regime. All the resources will revert to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, which is supposed to integrate them into the annual budget.

“The government expects that the confiscated land and property would bring in 77 billion SDG in profit,” said the source at the Ministry of Finance.

In May, the committee announced that it now controls $3.5 to $4 billion worth of assets from the former president. This is not yet cash. Observers believe that the government will have a hard time liquidating the assets as the cronies of the former regime are the only ones with the money to buy them back.

In the meantime, there is optimism that the international community will use this conference to make up for the lost opportunities that were pointed out in recent reports indicating that the international community have wasted time and delayed much-needed support to Sudan.

“Sudan’s revolution gave people around the world hope that change can happen, it is our responsibility to support this transitional process,” German Ambassador Ulrich Klöckner told IPS.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs'); Related Articles

• Sudan, Where Illegal Abortions remain Dangerous and Deadly
• Q&A: Global Poverty Expected to Move to Middle Income Developing Nations in Asia
• Coronavirus Leads to Nosedive in Remittances in Latin America

The post Sudan’s Partners Pledge almost $2Bn but Is it Enough? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The post Q&A: Post COVID-19 Pandemic Let’s Stop the Next Wave of Medicalisation over Mental Health appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Small-scale slash-and-burn agriculture is one of the deforestation problems in Brazil’s Amazon jungle. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By External Source
Jun 26 2020 (IPS)

The coronavirus pandemic, suspected of originating in bats and pangolins, has brought the risk of viruses that jump from wildlife to humans into stark focus.

These leaps often happen at the edges of the world’s tropical forests, where deforestation is increasingly bringing people into contact with animals’ natural habitats. Yellow fever, malaria, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Ebola – all of these pathogens have spilled over from one species to another at the margins of forests.

As doctors and biologists specializing in infectious diseases, we have studied these and other zoonoses as they spread in Africa, Asia and the Americas. We found that deforestation has been a common theme.

More than half of the world’s tropical deforestation is driven by four commodities: beef, soy, palm oil and wood products. They replace mature, biodiverse tropical forests with monocrop fields and pastures

More than half of the world’s tropical deforestation is driven by four commodities: beef, soy, palm oil and wood products. They replace mature, biodiverse tropical forests with monocrop fields and pastures. As the forest is degraded piecemeal, animals still living in isolated fragments of natural vegetation struggle to exist. When human settlements encroach on these forests, human-wildlife contact can increase, and new opportunistic animals may also migrate in.

The resulting disease spread shows the interconnectedness of natural habitats, the animals that dwell within it, and humans.

 

Yellow fever: Monkeys, humans and hungry mosquitoes

Yellow fever, a viral infection transmitted by mosquitoes, famously halted progress on the Panama Canal in the 1900s and shaped the history of Atlantic coast cities from Philadelphia to Rio de Janeiro. Although a yellow fever vaccine has been available since the 1930s, the disease continues to afflict 200,000 people a year, a third of whom die, mostly in West Africa.

The virus that causes it lives in primates and is spread by mosquitoes that tend to dwell high in the canopy where these primates live.

In the early 1990s, a yellow fever outbreak was reported for the first time in the Kerio Valley in Kenya, where deforestation had fragmented the forest. Between 2016 and 2018, South America saw its largest number of yellow fever cases in decades, resulting in around 2,000 cases, and hundreds of deaths. The impact was severe in the extremely vulnerable Atlantic forest of Brazil – a biodiversity hotspot that has shrunk to 7% of its original forest cover.
Shrinking habitat has been shown to concentrate howler monkeys – one of the main South American yellow fever hosts. A study on primate density in Kenya further demonstrated that forest fragmentation led a greater density of primates, which in turn led to pathogens becoming more prevalent.

Deforestation resulted in patches of forest that both concentrated the primate hosts and favored the mosquitoes that could transmit the virus to humans.

 

Malaria: Humans can also infect wildlife

Just as wildlife pathogens can jump to humans, humans can cross-infect wildlife.

Falciparum malaria kills hundreds of thousands of people yearly, especially in Africa. But in the Atlantic tropical forest of Brazil, we have also found a surprisingly high rate of Plasmodium falciparum (the malaria parasite responsible for severe malaria) circulating in the absence of humans. That raises the possibility that this parasite may be infecting new world monkeys. Elsewhere in the Amazon, monkey species have become naturally infected. In both cases, deforestation could have facilitated cross-infection.

We and other scientists have extensively documented the associations between deforestation and malaria in the Amazon, showing how the malaria-carrying mosquitoes and human malaria cases are strongly linked to deforested habitat.

 

Another type of malaria, Plasmodium knowlesi, known to circulate among monkeys, became a concern to human health over a decade ago in Southeast Asia. Several studies have shown that areas sustaining higher rates of forest loss also had higher rates of human infections, and that the mosquito vectors and monkey hosts spanned a wide range of habitats including disturbed forest.

 

Venezuelan equine encephalitis: Rodents move in

Venezuelan equine encephalitis is another mosquito-borne virus that is estimated to cause tens to hundreds of thousands of humans to develop febrile illnesses every year. Severe infections can lead to encephalitis and even death.

In the Darien province of Panama, we found that two rodent species had particularly high rates of infection with Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, leading us to suspect that these species may be the wildlife hosts.

One of the species, Tome’s spiny rat, has also been implicated in other studies. The other, the short-tailed cane mouse, is also involved in the transmission of zoonotic diseases such as hantavirus and possibly Madariaga virus, an emergent encephalitis virus.

While Tome’s spiny rat is widely found in tropical forests in the Americas, it readily occupies regrowth and forest fragments. The short-tailed cane mouse prefers habitat on the edge of forests and abutting cattle pastures.

As deforestation in this region progresses, these two rodents can occupy forest fragments, cattle pastures and the regrowth that arises when fields lie fallow. Mosquitoes also occupy these areas and can bring the virus to humans and livestock.

 

Ebola: Disease at the forest’s edge

Vector-borne diseases are not the only zoonoses sensitive to deforestation. Ebola was first described in 1976, but outbreaks have become more common. The 2014-2016 outbreak killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa and drew attention to diseases that can spread from wildlife to humans.

The natural transmission cycle of the Ebola virus remains elusive. Bats have been implicated, with possible additional ground-dwelling animals maintaining “silent” transmission between human outbreaks.

While the exact nature of transmission is not yet known, several studies have shown that deforestation and forest fragmentation were associated with outbreaks between 2004 and 2014. In addition to possibly concentrating Ebola wildlife hosts, fragmentation may serve as a corridor for pathogen-carrying animals to spread the virus over large areas, and it may increase human contact with these animals along the forest edge.

 

What about the coronavirus?

While the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak hasn’t been proved, a genetically similar virus has been detected in intermediate horseshoe bats and Sunda pangolins.

The range of the Sunda pangolin – which is critically endangered – overlaps with the intermediate horseshoe bat in the forests of Southeast Asia, where it lives in mature tree hollows. As forest habitat shrinks, could pangolins also experience increased density and susceptibility to pathogens?

In fact, in small urban forest fragments in Malaysia, the Sunda pangolin was detected even though overall mammal diversity was much lower than a comparison tract of contiguous forest. This shows that this animal is able to persist in fragmented forests where it could increase contact with humans or other animals that can harbor potentially zoonotic viruses, such as bats. The Sunda pangolin is poached for its meat, skin and scales and imported illegally from Malaysia and Vietnam into China. A wet market in Wuhan that sells such animals has been suspected as a source of the current pandemic.

 

Preventing zoonotic spillover

There is still a lot that we don’t know about how viruses jump from wildlife to humans and what might drive that contact.

Forest fragments and their associated landscapes encompassing forest edge, agricultural fields and pastures have been a repeated theme in tropical zoonoses. While many species disappear as forests are cleared, others have been able to adapt. Those that adapt may become more concentrated, increasing the rate of infections.

Given the evidence, it is clear humans need to balance the production of food, forest commodities and other goods with the protection of tropical forests. Conservation of wildlife may keep their pathogens in check, preventing zoonotic spillover, and ultimately benefiting humans, too.

Amy Y. Vittor, Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Florida; Gabriel Zorello Laporta, Professor of biology and infectious diseases, Faculdade de Medicina do ABC, and Maria Anice Mureb Sallum, Professor of Epidemiology, Universidade de São Paulo

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

The post How Deforestation Helps Deadly Viruses Jump from Animals to Humans appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Coast guards keep watch in the Thengar Char island in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh, on February 2, 2017. Reuters File Photo

By Earl R Miller and John Cotton Richmond
Jun 26 2020 (IPS-Partners)

In late 2019, we learned of the harrowing plight of Suma Akter, a Bangladeshi woman in Saudi Arabia who secretly recorded and shared on social media her story of abuse and exploitation abroad. In Saudi Arabia, Akter said, her employer beat her and at one point poured hot oil on her hand. Later on, when she fell ill, Akter said her employer sold her to another person for 22,000 riyals (almost Tk 5 lakh).

This is just one form of human trafficking. Human trafficking is a crime; it involves exploiting someone—using them, capitalising on their vulnerabilities—for the purposes of compelled labour or commercial sex by using force, fraud or coercion. It is an appalling crime that takes advantage of often desperate people, hijacking their dreams, and robbing them of their freedom, for profit.

On June 25, the United States Secretary of State released the 2020 global Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, upgrading Bangladesh’s ranking from Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 2. This significant step reflects Bangladesh’s progress in combating human trafficking over the past year, including standing up seven anti-trafficking tribunals and taking action against recruiting agencies exploiting Bangladeshis seeking to work abroad.

We congratulate the government and committed civil society actors who fought tirelessly to pursue accountability for traffickers and freedom for victims. They are Bangladesh’s heroes in the fight against global human trafficking. The Tier 2 ranking means the Bangladesh government is making significant and increasing efforts to meet the minimum standards towards the elimination of trafficking. But there is more work to be done to fully meet these standards, and put an end to this despicable practice.

The United States is proud to work with Bangladesh in its efforts to combat human trafficking. We echo the UN Network on Migration’s June 11 op-ed in encouraging further actions to address TIP, and have four recommendations for Bangladesh to take further action in its fight to secure freedom for victims of human trafficking:

First, employ the seven anti-trafficking tribunals to manage the 5,000+ cases filed under the 2012 anti-trafficking law, and swiftly bring traffickers to justice as detailed in the 2000 UN TIP Protocol. Until the legal stakes for criminals are visibly raised, trafficking remains a low-risk, high-profit endeavour. This must change.

Second, make the Bangladesh response to human trafficking victim-centred by prioritising care for all victims, male and female, young and old. This means Bangladesh will need to allocate more government resources to enhance care for survivors—in conjunction with the robust efforts of the NGO and donor community—and to ensure all victims receive adequate protections and care plans tailored to the medical, psychological, social, legal, and rehabilitation needs necessary to begin the healing process.

Third, strengthen measures to protect individuals seeking safe channels to work abroad. This includes continuing to enforce applicable laws for recruitment agencies, cracking down on businesses that inflate official recruitment fees set in place by government-to-government negotiations, and working to end the payment of these fees by workers and placing the burden on employers to pay these costs. When individuals take out a loan to pay recruitment fees, they become acutely vulnerable to exploitation. This calculus, one that disadvantages employees from the start, needs to change entirely. Employers must do more to build accessible paths for safe migration. We were encouraged by the government’s quick actions to investigate and arrest suspected traffickers following the horrendous killing of 26 Bangladeshis in Libya, and we hope these actions lead to institutional safeguards to ensure tragedies like these never happen again.

Fourth, investigate and prosecute traffickers who are compelling thousands of people to engage in commercial sex acts, including because they were born in a brothel. We call on the government to take immediate measures to carefully investigate reports of sex trafficking in licensed brothels, identify and protect the victims.

All of this is genuinely hard work, and in the midst of the global Covid-19 crisis, the fight has only become more urgent. Traffickers are capitalising on the chaos of the pandemic and we must hold them to account for their crimes. It is time for us all to prioritise the actions necessary to protect freedom. We are committed to our partnership with Bangladesh in the critically important task to abolish human trafficking.

Earl R. Miller is the United States Ambassador to Bangladesh. He is perhaps the only US ambassador in history to have investigated and arrested human traffickers as a former sworn law enforcement officer.

John Cotton Richmond is the United States Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. He has led anti-trafficking NGOs and served as a specialised human trafficking prosecutor before coming to the highest position in the United States federal government dedicated to the fight against trafficking.

The post What still needs to happen to win the fight against human trafficking appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A mother and daughter in Kenya. The daughter was a victim of sexual violence. Credit: Tara Carey, Equality Now

By Tsitsi Matekaire
LONDON, Jun 26 2020 (IPS)

In Malawi, Mary* was only 14 years old when she was recruited and trafficked to the city of Blantyre and sold for sex in a bar. A man had arrived in her village looking for girls to work as domestic helpers for families.

He appeared genuine and for Mary – and many girls who are out of school and living in poverty – this seemed a way out and a chance to earn money to support her family. She was living with her grandmother, who had hardly enough to buy food.

When Mary arrived in Blantyre, the promised work never materialized. Instead, the man sold her to a bar owner who in turn sold her for sex to his customers. Isolated and traumatized, Mary was trapped for over three months, and only escaped when the bar owner went away one night.

Although it has now been over two years since his arrest, the case is still pending in court. With no fixed time limit, the legal process has dragged on, leaving Mary waiting indefinitely and stuck in limbo. Meanwhile, the man who recruited her from the village has never been arrested.

Mary would have abandoned her fight for justice long ago had it not been for the support of Equality Now and our partner People Serving Girls at Risk, who have been providing psycho-social assistance to help Mary rebuild her life and navigate the difficult legal process.

This includes covering her transport costs and accompanying her to numerous court hearings that to date have resulted in only postponements, disappointment, and upset.

Worryingly, the many legal obstacles faced by Mary are neither uncommon in sex trafficking cases, nor are they unique to Malawi. Across Africa, traffickers who recruit, abuse, and sexually exploit vulnerable and impoverished women and children are going unpunished because governments and criminal justice systems are failing in their duty to hold perpetrators to account.

Take for instance, the horrific case of German national Bernhard Glaser, who was arrested in Ugandan in February 2019 and charged with multiple counts of sex trafficking and abusing girls aged 10 to 16 who were living at an unlicensed shelter Glaser had established ostensibly to “help” vulnerable children.

The story made international headlines and caused huge public uproar amongst Ugandans who were appalled at how this predator had betrayed the community’s trust and abused his position of power to sexually exploit many girls over a long period of time.

Despite widespread public outrage, more than a year after Glaser’s arrest, the case was still pending, delayed by multiple adjournments, with Glaser yet to even enter his plea. He died from cancer in April 2020, a day after being granted bail.

The girls never got their day in court. Nor has the Ugandan state addressed the issues making them vulnerable to exploitation or provided assistance to help them overcome their ordeal, instead leaving them at risk of further abuse.

Meanwhile, 61-year-old American Christian missionary Gregory Dow has pleaded guilty in a US court to sexually abusing girls in Kenya. Back in 1996, he was convicted in America for assault with intent to commit sexual abuse against a teenager and was sentenced to two years’ probation and ordered to register as a sex offender.

He later travelled to Kenya and in 2008 established a home for orphaned children where he violated girls in his care.

In 2017, Dow fled back to the United States after Kenyan authorities attempted to arrest him. He was eventually taken into custody after being located by FBI agents and US police.

A statement by the US Department of Justice said: “The defendant purported to be a Christian missionary who cared for these children and asked them to call him “Dad.” But instead of being a father figure, he preyed on their youth and vulnerability.”

Sexual exploitation is both a cause and a consequence of discrimination and the unequal status of women and girls. Adolescent girls are in an especially disadvantaged position, which is underpinned by multiple layers of discrimination directed at them for being young, female, and sexualized by society.

These structural inequalities exist across Africa, as they do in all the regions of the world. High levels of poverty alongside harmful cultural practices make girls particularly susceptible to sexual predators and traffickers, who take advantage of shortcomings in social safety nets, local child protection systems, law enforcement, and judicial processes.

The current pandemic exposes and exacerbates deep-rooted structural inequalities that run along the cultural fault lines of gender, sexuality, race, disability, and class. In the wake of COVID-19, an economic crisis is placing further burdens on underprivileged communities, with many suffering severe financial hardship.

The United Nations has warned human traffickers are becoming increasingly active, targeting impoverished women and children who have lost their income as a consequence of lockdown and social distancing measures introduced to limit the spread of coronavirus.

Meanwhile, school closures have interrupted the education of over 1.5 billion students worldwide, and protection systems have been severely disrupted. Predators are seeking to take advantage of youngsters spending more time unsupervised on the internet.

Across Africa, the expansion of inexpensive, high-speed internet and the growth in smartphone, tablet, and laptop ownership is swelling the number of children who can be targeted in the digital realm. Girls are particularly vulnerable to online grooming, sexual coercion, and sextortion, accounting for 90% of those featured in online child abuse materials.

Coupled with this is a disturbing global surge in demand for child abuse content. The worldwide impact of COVID-19 means people have been spending more time online, fuelling what was already a vast and rapidly expanding form of cybercrime intersecting national boundaries.

Exponential growth in the volume of digital content is making the cybersphere harder to police, and emboldened distributors of child sexual exploitation material are targeting mainstream platforms to reach wider audiences.

It is commendable that numerous African governments, including those in Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda, have enacted anti-trafficking and child protection laws that can be used to safeguard children and punish offenders. It is an important step. However, implementation is often very weak. Sex trafficking and sexual exploitation cases are not prioritized.

In many African countries, courts have closed, reduced, or adjusted their operations, making the situation even worse for girls seeking justice. Mounting backlogs of legal cases will further prolong judicial and administrative proceedings.

Without functioning judicial oversight, girls’ access to justice and protection from sexual exploitation will be undermined to an even greater extent.

It is more urgent than ever that the justice system responds to the realities of children whose rights have been violated. States must put in place measures to ensure that girls have access to protection and justice in meaningful ways during and after the pandemic.

Governments need to do more to ensure survivors of sexual exploitation are protected and supported in their recovery. When victims and their families cannot trust the courts to deliver justice, it undermines the power of the law and emboldens offenders to continue exploiting and abusing with impunity.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

The post African Governments Failing Survivors of Child Sexual Exploitation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Tsitsi Matekaire is a London-based human rights lawyer and Global Lead for Equality Now’s End Sex Trafficking program

The post African Governments Failing Survivors of Child Sexual Exploitation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Fiji, Jun 25 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Standing in the middle of a field around a withered plant, the Pacific Community’s Plant Health Doctors conducted their first virtual meeting as they continue their work on the frontline by providing vital support for farmers in Fiji and the region.

Plant Health Doctor Mr Mani Mua conducted the virtual meeting from a farm located in Baulevu, in the Province of Naitasiri in Fiji accompanied by the Fiji Ministry of Agriculture Extension Officers and farmers from the area, linking up with the regional plant health doctor network and plant health experts from Australia and New Zealand.

SPC, through its Land Resource Division (LRD) has been training plant health doctors and conducting plant health clinics since launching the pilot program in the Solomon Islands in March 2012 as Agriculture Extension officers continue to face challenges in delivering effective services to large volumes of farmers in rural and remote communities.

To overcome these challenges, a new, free phone application, the Pacific Pest and Pathogens app was developed for use by agriculture extension officers and farmers which enables them to quickly diagnose and get treatment advice for pest and disease threats to horticulture in Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs). Adding to the app’s capacity to provide instant assistance to farmers is the addition of a new “WhatsApp” social media group in late 2017. Using WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, an extension officer – or farmer – can instantly send a text message or photo seeking assistance from the group’s growing number of experts.

“Agriculture extension officers are helping farmers to identify diseases and fight pests with the help of the handy mobile phone app which contains 350 factsheets and is particularly helpful in providing information to people in remote locations. In other words, using the app and WhatsApp, we as extension and research officers can be in many places at one time and more useful to farmers than ever before,” explained Mr Mua.

With exchange of real time information and visual inspection of diseased plants from the farm, plant health doctors and extension officers are able to provide remedies to the farmers and collect samples for testing and analysis. During the plant health clinics, farmers from the local area bring samples of plants from their farm which are infected by disease or infested with pests, for diagnosis and ideas for management.

“At the same time, we are also building our data base on local farmers and their needs. During the clinics, farmer information is collected and pests and pathogens within the locality can be identified, isolated and treated before it spreads or ruins entire seasonal crops. This is a life line for farmers,” added Mr Mua.

For a farmer like Mr Saqa Dewan whose livelihood is dependent on his seasonal crops, having plant health doctors at his door steps and providing their service has been a game changer.

“We often continue to experiment with various remedies when our crops are infested and diseased, but it is expensive and doesn’t work. Now, for the first time, we are able to learn from the extension officers, be involved in diagnosis and lean the use of proper pesticides and other remedies we can use so that our hard work does not go to waste,”Mr Dewan.

Implemented by the Pacific Community, the project focuses on integrated crop management (ICM) and identifying plant health management strategies, which has been funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) with support from the University of Queensland.

Source: South Pacific Community SPC

The post Field Connections- How technology is supporting Pacific agriculture appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jun 25 2020 (IPS)

Katharina Pistor’s recent book, The Code of Capital: How the law creates wealth and inequality shows how law has been crucial to the creation of capital, and how capital continues to survive, evolve and enhance its ability to ‘make money’, or secure wealth legally, i.e., through the law.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Legal coding makes capital
In her magnum opus, the Columbia Law School professor explains how legal systems create capital and how law enables wealth creation through what she terms ‘legal coding’. Notions of property and property rights have changed over the ages, reflecting and redefining social and economic relations more generally.

Pistor sees ‘legal coding’ — e.g., via collateral, trust, corporate governance, bankruptcy, contracts and other property laws — as means for assets to become capital, creating wealth for their holders. When “coded in law”, even “dirt” can become a valuable asset, capable of enriching its owners.

For her, institutions of private law privilege those with capital by ensuring: priority, against competing claims; durability, enabling capital to grow in value; convertibility, ‘locking in’ earlier gains; and universality, ensuring that such privileges extend transnationally.

With the emergence and growing significance of new financial products and services, intellectual property and data access in the early 21st century, the evolution of capital increasingly involves new, especially intangible assets, including debt.

New combinations and prioritization of property rights and contracts have created complex debt products, including collateralized debt obligations and credit debt swaps, the bases for much contemporary ‘financialization’.

Private interests’ flexible use of such legal institutions has been crucial to capital accumulation, but Pistor notes that the increasing private use of law also undermines its role and legitimacy as a public good, and hence, the very ‘rule of law’ itself.

Legal coding is therefore not only about how assets become capital, but also about how capital creates wealth, and laws enable such transformations involving property, ownership and entitlements.

As “capital is created behind closed doors in the offices of private attorneys”, codifying capital in law worsens inequality between capital and others, especially labour.

Role of states
State sanctioned judicial processes transform assets into capital. Legal coding thus “owes its power to law…backed and enforced by a state”. The state has thus been crucial to legally coding assets as capital, using existing as well as new laws and judicial precedents so crucial to common law.

States and other relevant legal institutions also redefine the law — e.g., through the legislative process, catering to the evolving nature and needs of capital, especially its most successful lobbyists — by amending existing laws and creating new laws.

The state and other social institutions ensure the legitimacy of the ‘rule of law’ by mitigating and managing its adverse effects, as well as by resolving problematic ambiguities and uncertainties.

The legal profession has been the main agency of legal coding, ‘making’ the law. Lawyers contribute to its evolution — by drafting and thus determining the nature, scope and impact of law — and defend the law by legitimizing it, even when challenging, criticizing and reforming the law.

Despite relying on the authority of law, common or legislated, many lawyers go to great lengths to avoid taking disputes to courts, the traditional guardians of the law, instead preferring or even insisting on private settlements or arbitration.

Crossing borders
The accumulation of capital has long been transnational, closely interlinked with the globalization of recent decades. However, legal coding is primarily national, within the realms of particular states.

Hence, the legal reach of capital does not extend to other jurisdictions except when provided for by imperial or colonial jurisdiction, and by international treaty, convention and coercion, including the use of military force, in the post-colonial era.

With globalization, private interests can increasingly choose legal systems to suit their needs, i.e., engage in jurisdiction or ‘forum shopping’. Limiting the ability to opt in and out of legal systems is hence vital for state legitimacy and societal capacity for collective self-governance.

Inter-state collaboration, among ‘independent’ central banks not beholden to national governments, or through multilateral institutions — such as the World Trade Organization, trade agreements, investment and other treaties — have thus become crucial means for extending legal coding beyond national jurisdictions.

As national judicial decisions are not typically considered extraterritorial in scope, the legal community has extended arbitration transnationally while trying to ensure — through convention as much as legislation — that national laws and courts recognize, uphold and enforce the outcomes of such private arrangements.

With new technology, capital is trying to protect and extend its privileges without conventional legal coding, e.g., new blockchain applications suggest that some digital innovations can provide attributes required by capital.

Pistor observes that ‘digital coders’ — those who develop digital code — have set their own rules, transcending national boundaries, without recourse to the law. Until now, however, digital code is still far from an adequate substitute for legal code, with digital ownership, rights and conflict resolution still based on existing laws.

Law as history
Pistor’s own academic background in comparative law appears crucial to her appreciation of how various societies have coped with different challenges, including the normative or ethical choices involved.

Her legal history of capital considers different perspectives and influences. While legal coding has been mis-used by asset owners, lawyers and states, it can also help address such abuses.

The future of capital rests on evolving complex relations and interlinkages among laws, the stakeholders involved as well as related ideologies and perspectives.

Professor Pistor has greatly advanced our shared dialectical understanding of how legal codes — essentially ideological constructs — consolidate, define and transform social relations in order to advance, extend and accelerate capital accumulation, in other words, make history.

The post The Best Law Capital Can Buy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Poor families can seldom afford the cost of private pre-schooling. They rely on free education provided by NGOs like BRAC to give their children a leg-up in life. Credit: Mahmuddun Rashed Manik / IPS

By Asif Saleh
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Jun 25 2020 (IPS)

Nazia has a herd of 5 cows. She has two daughters in secondary education, a seat on the Village Council, a savings account and a permanent home. Nazia has dignity, security and prospects beyond poverty. This is Nazia’s story because alongside her commitment and conviction to create a better life, she benefited directly from the UK government, and its global leadership in the drive to end extreme poverty.

Nazia is no longer Left Behind. And neither are millions of fellow Bangladeshis, previously struggling to survive, far below the international poverty line. Over the last two decades, the UK government, in partnership with BRAC, one of the world’s foremost NGOs, has directly enabled over 2 million of the very poorest families on the planet to graduate from poverty. And for the long-term; 97% of households continue to show dramatically improved lives and livelihoods 5-7 years after they leave poverty. We are immensely proud of this innovative, impactful Partnership – which delivers equally for the UK taxpayer and the poorest families across Bangladesh.

In fact, this ‘Ultra Poor Graduation’ approach is, this week, receiving the Audacious Award, and over 60 million USD, in recognition of its truly transformative potential. Without support from the UK government, with their laser-like focus on impact, appetite for innovation and determination to Leave No one Behind, there would be no Audacious Award for this Initiative. In fact, without support from the UK government, BRAC wouldn’t have the audacious ambition of reaching out beyond Bangladesh, to millions more of the world’s poorest people.

Much has been written in recent days on the merger of the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign Office. Undoubtedly, an independent DFID has delivered. Generation-changing impact on the global issues that matter most. But the new Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) can too. It must. The progress on ending extreme poverty, preventable child deaths, gender equality and climate change, as well as DFID’s world-class reputation on these issues, was too hard won to be side-lined. As an organisation born in the Global South and one of the UK government’s largest development partners, BRAC has seen first-hand the ability of UK Aid to make transformative change.

We choose to believe that the UK government takes incredibly seriously, and won’t consider reneging on, its commitment to Agenda 2030. We choose to believe that this merger could result in greater impact on poverty, combining the best of DFID and FCO expertise, ideals and standards to reaffirm, rather than reduce, the UK government’s contribution to the international community.

In announcing the creation of the new FCDO, the Prime Minister has continued to commit to 0.7% of GNI being used to drive development. The need to invest this budget – which, as a result of global recession, will be significantly less than in recent years – with a focus on impact, value for money and the most vulnerable, is more important than ever before. DFID has rigorous analysis of the ‘best buys’ for development. The new FCDO should trust the evidence, embrace the expertise and lean into the legacy of the UK government as a world-leader in saving, and changing, the lives of the world’s poorest people. Supporting the governments and communities of the Global South to enable families to survive, and thrive, should always be a central, and celebrated, component of the UK’s international leadership.

The COVID-19 crisis represents a moment of reckoning for our shared global commitment to ‘Leave No one Behind’. It also represents the perfect opportunity – and responsibility – for the new FCDO to prove its intent and impact in ‘Building Back Better’ with a priority on the poorest. The international community – both government and civil society – will expect, and require, no less, in line with DFID’s track record, and the true ideals of ‘Global Britain’.

This story was originally published by Thomson Reuters Foundation.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

The post Looking Beyond the Lowest-common Denominator? DFID/FCO Merger appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Asif Saleh is Executive Director of BRAC Bangladesh

 
The progress on ending extreme poverty, preventable child deaths, gender equality and climate change was too hard won to be side-lined

The post Looking Beyond the Lowest-common Denominator? DFID/FCO Merger appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Sabina Devkota
DOLAKHA, Nepal, Jun 25 2020 (IPS)

While growing up in Lele village in southern Lalitpur, Pratap Thapa watched his parents plant maize on their terrace farm and wait for the rains. He often wondered how much of their drudgery could be reduced if water could be brought up from a nearby river.

Thapa went on to study engineering at Delft University in The Netherlands, where he obsessed about how to solve the problem of irrigation for his family in the mountains of Nepal in a cheap and sustainable way.

With his Dutch classmate, he invented a unique pump that derived its energy from the kinetic energy of the flow of water, and used it to pump water up. Like all breakthroughs, it was the sheer simplicity of the technology that made it so applicable.

Called Barsha Pump (after the Nepali word for ‘rain’) Thapa’s invention won him several awards, including the Phillips Innovation Award and Bearing Point Award. This was followed by the registration of the company aQysta in the Netherlands in 2013 to promote the pumps.

It quickly caught on in Europe, but despite success there, Thapa had designed it with Nepal in mind. So, six years ago he brought a couple of prototypes and successfully tested them to irrigate nearly 130 hectares of flats above the Indrawati, Trisuli and Tama Kosi rivers.

 

 

“It’s ironic that almost two-thirds of Nepal’s farms depend on the rains when we are a country of 6,000 rivers,” says Thapa, who studied industrial engineering in India and did his Masters at the Institute of Engineering in Lalitpur.

Today, 131 Barsha Pumps have been deployed across 30 districts with subsidies to farmers from the government’s Agriculture Engineering Directorate, District Agriculture Development Office, and international agencies. Depending on capacity, the pump costs between Rs160,000 – 280,000.

The beauty of the Barsha Pump is that it uses the natural flow of water and doesn’t need fuel. Therefore it does not emit greenhouse gases, and has zero operating cost.

The pump has a special spiral pipe where the water helps compress the air, which in turn lifts water up to a maximum height of 20m or a distance of 2km.

Yuvaraj Shrestha owns a one-hectare farm on a flat above the Tama Kosi River in Ramechhap, and used to make Rs500,000 a year selling vegetables. His main problem was dependance on the rains, even though a glacier-fed river flowed just below the farm.

But in the year after he installed a subsidised Barsha Pump, he made more than Rs3 million in profit from his farm. The pump brings up 12,000 litres of water a day from the Tama Kosi. The flats along the Tama Kosi that used to be fallow in the dry season are now lush green all year round.

“It all started with this pump, this is the key to my success,” said Shrestha.

In Sindhuli district, Arjun Kumar Khatri from the village of Ratomate was practicing subsistence rain-fed agriculture. Now, he is lifting water from Sun Kosi River, 14m below his farm, with a Barsha Pump. “I didn’t believe a pump could lift water without electricity until I saw one myself, our lives are transformed,” he says.

Barsha Pumps are now bringing this miracle to 12 countries including Indonesia, Spain, Turkey and Zambia. Thapa keeps modifying the design with feedback from farmers.

 

 

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

The post Lifting Livelihoods by Lifting Water appeared first on Inter Press Service.

the ongoing conflict and continued prevalence of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Mali, creates a worrying picture for the West African nation. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

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

The current coronavirus pandemic is having a profound affect on children in conflict zones — with girls especially being at higher risk of violence and sexual health concerns.

“For adolescent girls specifically, these disruptions can have profound consequences, including increased rates of pregnancy and child, early, and forced marriage,” Shannon Kowalski, director of advocacy and policy at the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC), told IPS. 

Kowalski shared her concerns this week after an open debate on children and armed conflict at the United Nations, where experts shared the progress made in the efforts to pull children out of conflict-ridden circumstances, as well as how the current pandemic has made the issue more complex.

Virginia Gamba, special representative of the secretary-general for children and armed conflict, said her team had documented 25,000 grave violations against children. 

Henrietta Fore, executive director of U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said at the Jun. 23 briefing that although the organisation had rescued almost 37,000 children in the past three years, there remains massive concerns about the number of children still in dire situations. 

She cited UNICEF’s monitoring and reporting mechanism statistics over the last 15 years that reflect this reality.

UNICEF documented a total of 250,000 cases of grave violations against children in armed conflict, including:

• the recruitment and use of over 77,000 children;
• killing and maiming of over 100,000 children;
• rape and sexual violence against over 15,000 children;
• abduction of over 25, 000 children; and
• nearly 17,000 attacks on schools and hospitals. 

The numbers reflect a grave — and timely – reality. On May 12, terrorists blew up a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 24 people, including two infants. Médecins Sans Frontières‎ (MSF) has since pulled out from the hospital citing security concerns.  

This only deepens the problem for marginalised populations such as women and children. Fore said children in conflict zones who are now further caught in the pandemic are at a “double disadvantage”, given that they’re likely finding themselves at “increased risk of violence, abuse, child marriage and recruitment to armed groups”.

A general increase in conflict

Experts say there has been a general increase in organised violence in various parts of the world under the pandemic. Sam Jones, communications manager at Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a data collection and crisis mapping project, told IPS that they’ve documented state repression and consequential violence in some places under the pandemic, while in some other cases, “warring parties have used the pandemic as an opportunity to escalate campaigns or push the advantage”.

Jones’ concern was reflected in Fore’s speech on Jun. 23, where she pointed out that when states manipulate this kind of crisis, it’s the children who are hardest hit. 

“Far too often, parties in conflict are using the pandemic and the need to reach and support children…for political advantage,” she said. “Children are not pawns or bargaining chips – this must stop.” 

Certain areas have seen what Jones said is the largest increase in organised violence since the pandemic broke out around the world: Libya, Yemen, India, Mali and Uganda. 

For all the countries, except Uganda, it was a mere intensification of already existing violence; in Uganda, the violence came in the form of government restrictions. 

“By mid-April, ACLED had already recorded more than 1,000 total fatalities from conflict in Mali. Over the first three months of the year, we recorded nearly 300 civilian fatalities specifically, a 90 percent increase compared to the previous quarter,” he said. 

“At best, violence has continued despite the pandemic, while at worst both armed groups and state forces could be using it as an opportunity to ramp up activity and target civilians,” he added. 

How conflict affects children and girls

The crisis in Mali is especially of importance as human rights advocates released a statement of concern just a day after the briefing, about Mali’s failure to curb female genital mutilation (FGM). 

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) raised alarms about the report released by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which stated more than 75 percent of girls under the age of 14 had gone through the practice as of 2015. 

Among other findings, the committee found that government has “failed to guarantee victims of female genital mutilation access to adequate and affordable health care, including sexual and reproductive health care”. 

Concerns raised by experts such as Fore and Kowalski, when put next to the data about the ongoing conflict and continued prevalence of FGM in Mali, creates a worrying picture for the West African nation.  

The committee report found that the women and girls in Mali already had limited access to sexual and reproductive health.

Meanwhile, Fore pointed out that the pandemic has exacerbated the lack of access for women and girls in countries that were already struggled to provide access. This raises the questions about how, on top of being a country in conflict, the pandemic is further exacerbating the health of girls who suffered FGM in Mali.

Fore said the current pandemic further adds layers to the crisis surrounding children in armed conflict.

“As the pandemic spreads, healthcare facilities have been damaged or destroyed by conflict, services have been suspended, children are missing out of basic medical care including vaccination, and water; sanitary systems have been damaged or destroyed altogether making it impossible for children to wash their hands,” she said. 

Meanwhile, Kowalski of IWHC raised concerns about U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent decision to pull funding from the World Health Organisation, and what that means for girls caught in conflict. 

“In addition, in most countries affected by COVID-19 we are experiencing increases in gender-based violence, reduced access to contraception, abortion, and other reproductive health services, and a decrease in the quality of maternal health care — all which are intensified for women and girls in conflict,” she said. 

Gamba, after sharing the statistics of children suffering in conflict, ended her speech on an important note. 

“Behind these figures are boys and girls with stolen childhoods and shattered dreams, and there are families and communities torn apart by violence and suffering,” she said. “The only thing children and communities have in common today is their hope for peace, a better life and a better future. We must rise to meet that expectation.”

Related Articles

• Q&A: Sexual Violence Survivors and their Access to Care Should not Be Forgotten
• Sudan, Where Illegal Abortions remain Dangerous and Deadly

The post COVID-19 Increases Suffering of Children in Conflict appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By External Source
Jun 25 2020 (IPS-Partners)

UNESCO launches a global campaign challenging our perception of normality. The 2’20” film relies on facts to prove its point – facts about the world before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Put together, these facts make us question our ideas about what is “normal”, suggesting that we have accepted the unacceptable for far too long. Our previous reality cannot be considered normal any longer, now is the time to make a change. It all starts with Education, Science, Culture and Information.

The post UNESCO Campaign – The next normal appeared first on Inter Press Service.

”As a New Yorker and first-generation American, I have the pleasure and great honor to serve as the Commissioner for International Affairs for the most global city in the world. New York City is home to the largest diplomatic community in the world – 193 Permanent Missions, 116 Consulates and the headquarters of the United Nations”-- Penny Abeywardena, Commissioner.

By Dr. Palitha Kohona
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Jun 25 2020 (IPS)

The recent approach of the US to the UN and its agencies has left many shaking their heads. The US, under President Roosevelt, played a seminal role in creating the UN and its key agencies after World War II and subsequently nurturing them.

But the Organization that Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold once said was created not with the intention of taking mankind to heaven but to prevent it from going to hell, is today itself mired in hellish doubts about its future, particularly with the US, its physical host.

The biggest funder and the one remaining global super power, the US has been in a foul mood, pulling out of the Human Rights Council (HRC), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and ceasing cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO) while threatening funding cuts.

Despite the many criticisms leveled against it, the UN has chalked up many global successes. To begin with, despite being unable to eliminate regional conflagrations, it has, inter alia, succeeded in avoiding a global war, contributed to improving living standards and advanced the rule of law and respect for human rights.

The US for its part, a key architect of the UN, has successfully maneuvered the Organization on countless occasions to achieve its global agenda and policy goals, while maintaining a mantle of legal legitimacy and moral justification.

Following the decolonization process and the emergence of other economic and military power centres, especially China, the Organization has not always been at the beck and call of the Western alliance that has irked the West, in particular the US.

While using the UN and its agencies to castigate others, e.g., Sri Lanka, North Korea, Iran, etc over human rights issues, the US has had no qualms about using its muscle to block a recent resolution tabled by the 54 member African Group at the Human Rights Council on black deaths at the hands of the police in the US. Some of its allies, including Australia and the Netherlands supported the US, as it sought to suppress the international criticism.

This precedent set at the HRC may be difficult to manage in the future even when trying to raise genuine human rights issues. In addition, the US has studiously used its long arm to block any action by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on violations of humanitarian standards by US or Israeli military personnel while readily supporting such action in the case of African leaders.

The UN Impact Report 2016 is a cost-benefit analysis of hosting the UN in New York City. Credit: Office of the Commissioner for International Affairs, New York City

The Security Council, with US support, has referred the leaders of Libya and Sudan to the International Criminal Court. The targeting of African leaders caused some African countries to threaten to leave the ICC.

We are reminded that the US insisted on Article 98 of the Rome Statute which prohibits the ICC from requesting assistance or the surrender of a person to the ICC, if to do so would require the state to “act inconsistently” with its obligations under international law or international agreements unless the state or the third-party state waives the immunity or grants cooperation.

The U.S., having concluded over 120 bilateral immunity agreements (BIA) prohibiting such a transfer, even if the state is a member of the Rome Statute, has interpreted this article to mean that its citizens cannot be transferred to the ICC even if the state is a member of the Rome Statute.

The Bush Administration claimed that the BIAs were drafted out of concern that existing agreements—particularly the status of forces agreements or status of mission agreements (SOFAs or SOMAs)—did not sufficiently protect Americans from the jurisdiction of the ICC.

The United States, along with Israel and Sudan, having previously signed the Rome Statute has formally has given notice of its intention not to ratify the Rome Statute while United States policy concerning the ICC has varied widely.

The Clinton Administration signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but did not submit it for Senate ratification. The George W. Bush Administration, the U.S. administration at the time of the ICC’s founding, stated that it would not join the ICC.

President Trump has said, “As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority. The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process. We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.”

In April 2019, the United States revoked the visa of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, in anticipation of a later investigation into possible war crimes committed by U.S. forces during the War in Afghanistan. The investigation was authorized in March 2020. In June 2020, Donald Trump authorized sanctions against ICC in retaliation.

In 2002, the U.S. Congress passed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act (ASPA), which contained a number of provisions, including authorization for the President to “use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court”, and also prohibitions on the United States providing military aid to countries which had ratified the treaty establishing the court.

The US has also denied entry visas to certain individuals to attend meetings of the world body, including senior officials from Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Venezuela, North Korea, Russia and Cuba, among others.

The US will be severely challenged if it seeks to justify its actions as being consistent with its obligations under the Head Quarters Agreement with the UN. (HQ Agreement, 11 UNTS 1).

With the US in the present confrontational mood, and the real risk of an intractable conflict between the UN and the US, Covid19 provides a convenient way out with which the UN will be comfortable.

The members of the world body can now opt to address the organization through video link. An entry visa will no longer be sine qua non for the purpose of entering the US and addressing the UN.

This mechanism, of course, will not sit comfortably with the New York hotels and restaurants, not to mention the hire car companies.

The post The US & the UN — A Looming Confrontation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr Palitha Kohona is a former Chief of the Treaty Section in the UN Office of Legal Affairs; a one-time chairman of the General’s Assembly’s Legal Committee; and former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations

The post The US & the UN — A Looming Confrontation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Gita Gopinath is Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

By Gita Gopinath
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 24 2020 (IPS)

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed economies into a Great Lockdown, which helped contain the virus and save lives, but also triggered the worst recession since the Great Depression. Over 75 percent of countries are now reopening at the same time as the pandemic is intensifying in many emerging market and developing economies. Several countries have started to recover. However, in the absence of a medical solution, the strength of the recovery is highly uncertain and the impact on sectors and countries uneven.

Compared to our April World Economic Outlook forecast, we are now projecting a deeper recession in 2020 and a slower recovery in 2021. Global output is projected to decline by -4.9 percent in 2020, 1.9 percentage points below our April forecast, followed by a partial recovery, with growth at 5.4 percent in 2021.

These projections imply a cumulative loss to the global economy over two years (2020–21) of over $12 trillion from this crisis.

The downgrade from April reflects worse than anticipated outcomes in the first half of this year, an expectation of more persistent social distancing into the second half of this year, and damage to supply potential.

High uncertainty

A high degree of uncertainty surrounds this forecast, with both upside and downside risks to the outlook. On the upside, better news on vaccines and treatments, and additional policy support can lead to a quicker resumption of economic activity. On the downside, further waves of infections can reverse increased mobility and spending, and rapidly tighten financial conditions, triggering debt distress. Geopolitical and trade tensions could damage fragile global relationships at a time when trade is projected to collapse by around 12 percent.

A recovery like no other

This crisis like no other will have a recovery like no other.

First, the unprecedented global sweep of this crisis hampers recovery prospects for export-dependent economies and jeopardizes the prospects for income convergence between developing and advanced economies. We are projecting a synchronized deep downturn in 2020 for both advanced economies (-8 percent) and emerging market and developing economies (-3 percent; -5 percent if excluding China), and over 95 percent of countries are projected to have negative per capita income growth in 2020. The cumulative hit to GDP growth over 2020–21 for emerging market and developing economies, excluding China, is expected to exceed that in advanced economies.

Second, as countries reopen, the pick-up in activity is uneven. On the one hand, pent-up demand is leading to a surge in spending in some sectors like retail, while, on the other hand, contact-intensive services sectors like hospitality, travel, and tourism remain depressed. Countries heavily reliant on such sectors will likely be deeply impacted for a prolonged period.

Third, the labor market has been severely hit and at record speed, and particularly so for lower-income and semi-skilled workers who do not have the option of teleworking. With activity in labor-intensive sectors like tourism and hospitality expected to remain subdued, a full recovery in the labor market may take a while, worsening income inequality and increasing poverty.

Exceptional policy support has helped

On the positive side, the recovery is benefitting from exceptional policy support, particularly in advanced economies, and to a lesser extent in emerging market and developing economies that are more constrained by fiscal space. Global fiscal support now stands at over $10 trillion and monetary policy has eased dramatically through interest rate cuts, liquidity injections, and asset purchases. In many countries, these measures have succeeded in supporting livelihoods and prevented large-scale bankruptcies, thus helping to reduce lasting scars and aiding a recovery.

This exceptional support, particularly by major central banks, has also driven a strong recovery in financial conditions despite grim real outcomes. Equity prices have rebounded, credit spreads have narrowed, portfolio flows to emerging market and developing economies have stabilized, and currencies that sharply depreciated have strengthened. By preventing a financial crisis, policy support has helped avert worse real outcomes. At the same time, the disconnect between real and financial markets raises concerns of excessive risk taking and is a significant vulnerability.

We are not out of the woods

Given the tremendous uncertainty, policymakers should remain vigilant and policies will need to adapt as the situation evolves. Substantial joint support from fiscal and monetary policy must continue for now, especially in countries where inflation is projected to remain subdued. At the same time, countries should ensure proper fiscal accounting and transparency, and that monetary policy independence is not compromised.

A priority is to manage health risks even as countries reopen. This requires continuing to build health capacity, widespread testing, tracing, isolation, and practicing safe distancing (and wearing masks). These measures help contain the spread of the virus, reassure the public that new outbreaks can be dealt with in an orderly fashion, and minimize economic disruptions. The international community must further expand financial assistance and expertise to countries with limited health care capacity. More needs to be done to ensure adequate and affordable production and distribution of vaccines and treatments when they become available.

In countries where activities are being severely constrained by the health crisis, people directly impacted should receive income support through unemployment insurance, wage subsidies, and cash transfers, and impacted firms should be supported via tax deferrals, loans, credit guarantees, and grants. To more effectively reach the unemployed in countries with large informal sectors, digital payments will need to be scaled up and complemented with in-kind support for food, medicine, and other household staples channeled through local governments and community organizations.

In countries that have begun reopening and the recovery is underway, policy support will need to gradually shift toward encouraging people to return to work, and to facilitating a reallocation of workers to sectors with growing demand and away from shrinking sectors. This could take the form of spending on worker training and hiring subsidies targeted at workers that face greater risk of long-term unemployment. Supporting a recovery will also involve actions to repair balance sheets and address debt overhangs. This will require strong insolvency frameworks and mechanisms for restructuring and disposing of distressed debt.

Policy support should also gradually shift from being targeted to being more broad-based. Where fiscal space permits, countries should undertake green public investment to accelerate the recovery and support longer-term climate goals. To protect the most vulnerable, expanded social safety net spending will be needed for some time.

The international community must ensure that developing economies can finance critical spending through provision of concessional financing, debt relief and grants; and that emerging market and developing economies have access to international liquidity, via ensuring financial market stability, central bank swap lines, and deployment of a global financial safety net.

This crisis will also generate medium-term challenges. Public debt is projected to reach this year the highest level in recorded history in relation to GDP, in both advanced and emerging market and developing economies. Countries will need sound fiscal frameworks for medium-term consolidation, through cutting back on wasteful spending, widening the tax base, minimizing tax avoidance, and greater progressivity in taxation in some countries.

At the same time, this crisis also presents an opportunity to accelerate the shift to a more productive, sustainable, and equitable growth through investment in new green and digital technologies and wider social safety nets.

Global cooperation is ever so important to deal with a truly global crisis. All efforts should be made to resolve trade and technology tensions, while improving the multilateral rules-based trading system. The IMF will continue to do all it can to ensure adequate international liquidity, provide emergency financing, support the G20 debt service suspension initiative, and provide advice and support to countries during this unprecedented crisis.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

The post Reopening from the Great Lockdown: Uneven and Uncertain Recovery appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Gita Gopinath is Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

The post Reopening from the Great Lockdown: Uneven and Uncertain Recovery appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Cloud forest in Costa Rica. Credit: Germán Miranda/IPS

By René Castro Salazar and Brian Harris
ROME/SANTIAGO, Jun 24 2020 (IPS)

The lack of a coordinated international response had led to varying results worldwide in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Two countries that have long coordinated their response to global goals like promotion on democracy, human rights and environmental issues, Sweden and Costa Rica highlight how public policy matters. While with their similar approaches to climate change the two walk together, their different approaches to COVID-19 have reaped disparate results, and death tolls.

Using Gompertz mathematical modelling, we have analysed both countries’ responses to COVID-19 and found that the human and economic impact of COVID-19 will be greater in Sweden than in Costa Rica. Through May, Costa Rican public policies have resulted in fewer deaths and positive cases (in both absolute and per capita terms) than the much more economically developed Sweden.

The different results through June 21– Sweden attributing 5,053 deaths to COVID-19 compared to Costa Rica’s 12, according to John Hopkins University, cannot be attributed to geography, ethnicity or even Sweden’s slightly older population.

With the impact of COVID-19 estimated at reducing Sweden’s GDP in 2020 by 9.7 percent and Costa Rica’s by 3.6 percent, attending to the immediate impact of the virus will be a higher political priority than the high levels of investment needed for mitigating climate change over the coming decades

Additionally, Sweden’s economy is much bigger and spends more on health care than Costa Rica, dedicating 11.1 percent of its larger GDP to public spending on its health care system compared to Costa Rica’s 7.3 percent of GDP. In both cases, these countries’ universal public health systems are often cited as exemplary models in terms of the breadth and quality of services provided to their populaces, especially in comparison to countries with comparable levels of development.

The crucial element of distinction between the impact of COVID-19 in the two countries can mainly be laid at the feet of their public policies.

Sweden recorded its first COVID-19 case on January 22 and did not record a second until February 26, when its infection “curve” began its upward trend that our models indicate will reach its peak in late July with around 46,000 infections over 190 days. Costa Rica’s first case was detected March 6, but given its policy response we project its curve began to flatten in mid-April, just 35 days after the outbreak was detected. Both countries host large migrant population that appear to be less integrated in to the health systems and have higher rates of infections than citizens.

It is also noteworthy that, while Costa Rica’s initial COVID-19 testing policy was to test patients showing potential symptoms, Sweden restricted its testing only to patients showing severe symptoms. Undetected cases not reflected in national data are likely in both countries, but are not reflected in our mathematical models. In any case, given how new COVID-19 is, no universally accepted standard for testing exists.

Despite this, the wide gap in confirmed cases and deaths between the two countries clearly shows a greater and more prolonged impact in Sweden.

Although we should be cautious in drawing conclusions, Costa Rica’s more interventionist response and actions to control the spread of the pandemic may very well explain the shorter time period and flatter curve the lesser developed nation has recorded compared to its highly developed counterpart.

Costa Rica’s COVID-19 response was to take quick action in an orderly manner, starting with preventative public information campaigns and the prompt introduction of restrictive measures including the isolation of patients and the implementation of social distancing which culminated in a nationwide quarantine that saw borders and schools closed and movement within the country highly restricted.

Notoriously, Sweden went for a very different approach emphasizing individual responsibility by advising citizens to practice social distancing without restricting movement, only closing borders to non-Europeans and barring gatherings of more than 50 people. The architect of Sweden’s COVID-19 policies has since conceded this response disproportionally affected most vulnerable people like the elderly.

While the two countries enjoy very different development levels, both are seen as leaders in their regions in the areas of social services and health care—both provide their citizenry universal health coverage with infrastructure available nationwide. And both follow similar policy goals and approaches to issues facing future generations, especially with regard to climate change.

Both countries have enthusiastically joined 121 other nations in a concerted and coordinated strategy to attain so-called “carbon neutrality” by 2050—in 2019 Costa Rica’s net per capita emissions were 1.61 tonnes while Sweden’s were 4.03 tonnes; the United States’ net per capita emissions were 16.5 tonnes. Sweden has focused its emissions reduction policies on its energy and transport sectors, while Costa Rica (with its abundant hydroelectric resources) is focusing on its diesel-dependent transportation sector.

In both countries, the forestry sector- and its ability to remove or “sequester” carbon from the atmosphere- plays a fundamental role in the short- and medium-term efforts. But for both, the long-term solution lies in energy efficiency by adopting measures to reduce emissions per kilowatt hour generated and per kilometres travelled to decrease their use of fossil fuels.

Sweden has focused on emissions reductions in the energy sector, specifically by reorienting production to so-called renewable sources including hydroelectric and reducing fossil fuels and nuclear dependency. By 2030, Sweden’s energy sector aims to reduce its emissions by 44 percent and its transportation sector by 30 percent from 1990 levels.

With an emphasis on the forestry sector to attain their net emission goals, both have been implementing parallel fire-prevention and control policies to avoid the devastation wrought in other forest-dependent countries of late.

Fires in both Sweden and Costa Rica have occurred with less frequency and intensity over the last decade as a result, according to NASA observations. That is no guarantee that fires will not pose a threat in the future, but with forestry potentially sequestering 37 percent of total emissions in Costa Rica and projected to capture 18 percent in Sweden, both countries have established similar fire prevention policies and administrative structures.

In Costa Rica, succeeded in phasing out fossil fuels in its electricity generation and legal reforms helped push forest cover from 21 percent of the country’s territory in 1996 to 54 percent in 2018 and its sequestration needs will fall to 33 percent of emissions by 2050 or roughly one tonne or carbon per person per year. Now, the country needs to transform its transportation into a cleaner and more efficient one.

Sweden and Costa Rica can both attain carbon neutrality by 2050 if political consensus remains unchanged. But with the impact of COVID-19 estimated at reducing Sweden’s GDP in 2020 by 9.7 percent and Costa Rica’s by 3.6 percent, attending to the immediate impact of the virus will be a higher political priority than the high levels of investment needed for mitigating climate change over the coming decades.

Combatting COVID-19 in the absence of a vaccine, as with confronting climate change, will require international cohesion. The wide gap in cases and deaths between Costa Rica and Sweden tragically highlights that, as well as how real global public challenges like health and environmental crises need government interventions.

 

Doctor Rene Castro graduated from Harvard University and is currently ADG for FAO on climate change and biodiversity; he served as a minister in the ministries of foreign affairs and environment and energy of Costa Rica between 1994-2014.

Brian Harris is a Chilean-American consultant with extensive experience as a foreign correspondent and in the global coffee industry as the former president of Chile’s coffee association ANAPAC

The post Sweden-Costa Rica: Same Paths on Climate Change, Different on COVID-19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

By Gaudiose Mujawamariya
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar, Jun 24 2020 (IPS)

As infections with Covid-19 appear to be intensifying in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), fears of severe food shortages have prompted experts to warn that the region may be “on the brink of a hunger pandemic.” Efforts are intensifying to rally a major global response.

But averting what some experts believe could be a food crisis of immense proportions requires paying close attention to an often overlooked feature of food security in the region: African women play a large and growing role in all aspects of the region’s food systems—whether it’s growing crops and raising livestock, selling and purchasing food in local markets, or dealing with the nutritional needs of their households.

African women often assume this burden while laboring with key disadvantages due to long-standing gender roles that can limit their access to economic resources—both within their households and communities. To be effective, any intervention to avert a food crisis caused by the pandemic will need to navigate a fraught terrain of gender inequality—and not just in the interest of social justice. Women are critical to feeding all Africans. The more they suffer, the more the continent will suffer.

Most of the food consumed in sub-Saharan Africa is produced on small-scale family farms where, in many countries, 40 to 60 percent of farmers are women. Yet these women often lack equal access to quality seeds, fertilizers, good land, credit, technical advice and new technologies

Most of the food consumed in SSA is produced on small-scale family farms where, in many countries, 40 to 60 percent of farmers are women. Yet these women often lack equal access to quality seeds, fertilizers, good land, credit, technical advice and new technologies.

I work with a non-profit international research consortium that is mobilizing a global network of experts who understand how gender equality can be a powerful force in revitalizing rural economies–increasing their food security and making them more resilient to a number of challenges.

My colleagues and I realize that in the face of this unprecedented crisis, the work of the gender researchers that make up our new CGIAR GENDER Platform is more urgent than ever. The lessons that have emerged from past research conducted by GENDER’s partners can be illuminating as we seek ways to stop the fight against COVID-19 from producing an outbreak of hunger and malnutrition.

One important lesson is the need to develop solutions that account for the limited mobility many women face. Long before COVID-19, it was challenging for African women farmers to carve out time to get their goods to market, where the money they earn is often used to purchase additional food for their families.

In Western Kenya, for example, one reason women dairy farmers have not earned and produced as much as men is because their household work makes it very difficult to travel to central cooling facilities to sell their milk. In response, the New Kenya Co-operative Creameries (NKCC) promoted the use of small coolers in local neighborhoods where women can easily deliver milk for pick-up. Creating this type of last-mile linkage—for a number of commodities— can help build bridges between women producers and consumers in the midst of restrictions imposed to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Secondly, tailoring how we deliver information will be critical for women farmers. For example, as primary food vendors, women will need to be informed about when local markets will be open for business.  But information access has been a perennial challenge.

A study in Ghana, for example, found that, despite enthusiasm around Africa’s widespread adoption of mobile phones, using text messaging and smartphone apps to deliver climate forecasts to farmers might miss a lot of women farmers. Compared to men, women are less likely to own a cell phone or have the finances to purchase air time. Literacy may also be lower for women. Moreover, the social network many women use to overcome these barriers could be closed-off by the COVID-19 clampdowns.

The solution to dealing with the gender inequality around climate forecast services holds true for delivering information to farmers during this pandemic: conveying information via multiple channels, such as radio or videos, was found to be effective in reducing this technology-related gender gap.

Finally, giving women an equal voice in making decisions about the food produced on their farms can lead to better nutrition.

In Malawi, outreach to women proved decisive in community adoption of new varieties of orange-fleshed sweet potatoes that are naturally high in vitamin A. Women farmers were swayed by the nutritional benefits they offered for their children—even though men traditionally have been in charge of sweet potato crops.

In Tanzania and Ghana, women who had greater access to irrigation were more likely to use it to grow nutritious crops for household consumption. In the face of COVID-19 and its potentially devastating effects on hunger and malnutrition, any kind of aid focused on improving household nutrition must be directed towards women.

Today, there is a lot of discussion in the development community that confronting the food-related problems caused by this pandemic presents an opportunity for “building back better.” That means designing interventions that can also help address problems that pre-dated the current crisis and will be here long after it’s over.

Subjecting emergency food interventions now being planned for SSA to something of a gender stress-test is one way we can address the immediate challenge before us while helping communities emerge from the crisis on even firmer footing.

Gaudiose Mujawamariya is an economist and gender researcher, and she contributes to the CGIAR GENDER Platform as a representative of Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) in Madagascar.

 

The post The Critical Role of Women in Avoiding a Covid-19 “Food Pandemic” in sub-Saharan Africa appeared first on Inter Press Service.