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UN Leadership Necessary for Fairer Tax Cooperation

Thu, 04/01/2021 - 08:09

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

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

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

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

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

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

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

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

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

Anis Chowdhury

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Categories: Africa

Generation Equality: Women’s Leadership as a Catalyst for Change, Say 49 UN Women Envoys

Thu, 04/01/2021 - 07:38

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Excerpt:

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

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

Categories: Africa

Farming-Specific Loans Help Tanzania’s Smallholders Increase Productivity

Wed, 03/31/2021 - 16:43

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lulandala said the new lending structure has worked for him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Categories: Africa

Recipes with a Taste of Sustainable Development on the Coast of El Salvador

Wed, 03/31/2021 - 14:11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLIMATE CHANGE: Clean, Efficient Wood Stoves Good for People and the Planet

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Categories: Africa

What’s in a Hurricane Name? Dorian, Laura, Eta & Iota Retired from WMO List

Wed, 03/31/2021 - 06:32

Credit: International Geneva

By Michelle Langrand
GENEVA, Mar 31 2021 (IPS)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Excerpt:

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

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Categories: Africa

World Autism Awareness Day – 2 April 2021

Tue, 03/30/2021 - 23:35

By External Source
Mar 30 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a complex condition that remains misunderstood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

People with ASD are often subject to stigma and discrimination.

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

80% of the neurodiverse population is unemployed.

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

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

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

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

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

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Categories: Africa

Fitness, Fundraising and Friendship for Prostate Cancer

Tue, 03/30/2021 - 21:11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Categories: Africa

Covid19 a Wake-up Call to Address Development Fault Lines in Asia and the Pacific

Tue, 03/30/2021 - 18:38

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

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

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

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

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

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

Building a resilient and inclusive future

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

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

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

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

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

Resilience is largely affordable

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

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

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

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

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Categories: Africa

Developing Countries COVID-19 Debt Crisis Could Put SDGs & Climate Agreement Completely Out of Reach

Tue, 03/30/2021 - 15:05

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Categories: Africa

Identities

Tue, 03/30/2021 - 08:57

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Identities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

In Syria, a Decade of Death, Destruction, Displacement, Disease, Dread & Despair

Tue, 03/30/2021 - 08:24

Credit: UNICEF/Grove Hermansen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Credit: UNFPA Syria

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My next point, is humanitarian access.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Humanitarian organizations are making all efforts to bridge gaps.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories: Africa

IMF, World Bank Must Urgently Help Finance Developing Countries

Tue, 03/30/2021 - 07:58

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 30 2021 (IPS)

COVID-19 has set back the uneven progress of recent decades, directly causing more than two million deaths. The slowdown, due to the pandemic and policy responses, has pushed hundreds of millions more into poverty, hunger and worse, also deepening many inequalities.

Anis Chowdhury

Development setbacks
The outlook for developing countries is grim, with output losses of 5.7% in 2020. Compared to pre-pandemic trends, the expected 8.1% loss by end-2021 will be much worse than advanced countries dropping 4.7%.

COVID-19 has further set back progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As progress was largely ‘not on track’ even before the pandemic, developing countries will need much support to mitigate the new setbacks, let alone get back on track.

The extremely poor, defined by the World Bank as those with incomes under US$1.90/day, increased by 119–124 million in 2020, and are expected to rise by another 143-163 million in 2021.

Fiscal response constrained
Global fiscal efforts of close to US$14tn, plus low interest rates, liquidity injections and asset purchases by central banks, have helped. Nonetheless, the world economy will lose over US$22 trillion during 2020–2025 due to the pandemic.

Government responses have been much influenced by access to finance. Developed countries have accounted for four-fifths of total pandemic fiscal responses costing US$14tn. Rich countries have deployed the equivalent of a fifth of national income for fiscal efforts.

Meanwhile, emerging market economies spent only 5%, and low-income countries (LICs) a paltry 1.3% by mid-2020. In 2020, increased spending, despite reduced revenue, raised fiscal deficits of emerging market and middle-income countries (MICs) to 10.3%, and of LICs to 5.7%.

Government revenue has fallen due to lower output, commodity prices and longstanding Bank advice to cut taxes. Worse, they already face heavy debt burdens and onerous borrowing costs. Meanwhile, private finance dropped US$700bn in 2020.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Developing countries lost portfolio outflows of US$103bn in the first five months. Foreign direct investment (FDI) flows to emerging and developing countries also fell 30–45% in 2020. Meanwhile, bilateral donors cut aid commitments by 36% between 2019 and 2020.

Meanwhile, the liquidity support, debt relief and finance available are woefully inadequate. These constrain LICs’ fiscal efforts, with many even cutting spending, worsening medium-term recovery prospects!

Debt burdens
In 2019, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) assessed half the LICs as being at high risk of, or already in debt distress – more than double the 2013 share. Debt in LICs rose to 65% of GDP in 2019 from 47% in 2010.

Thus, LICs began the pandemic with more debt relative to government revenue, larger deficits and higher borrowing costs than high-income countries. And now, greater fiscal deficits of US$2–3tn projected for 2021 imply more debt.

Debt composition has become riskier with more commercial borrowing, particularly with foreign currency bond issues far outpacing other financing sources, especially official development assistance (ODA) and multilateral lending.

More than half of LIC government debt is non-concessional, worsening its implications. External debt maturity periods have also decreased. Also, interest payments cost more than 12% of government revenue in 2018, compared to under 7% in 2010.

Riskier financial flows
Developing economies have increasingly had to borrow on commercial terms in transnational financial markets as international public finance flows and access to concessional resources have declined.

Low interest rates, due to unconventional monetary policies in developed countries, encouraged borrowing by developing countries, especially by upper MICs. But despite generally low interest rates internationally, LIC external debt rates have been rising.

Overall ODA flows – net of repayments of principal – from OECD countries fell in 2017 and 2018. Such flows have long fallen short of the financing needs of Agenda 2030 for the SDGs. Instead of giving 0.7% of their national income as ODA to developing countries, as long promised, actual ODA disbursed has yet to even reach half this level.

Although total financial resource flows (ODA, FDI, remittances) to least developed countries (LDCs) increased slightly, ODA remained well short of their needs, falling from 9.4% of LDCs’ GNI in 2003 to 4.3% in 2018. Meanwhile, FDI to LDCs dropped from 4.1% of their GNI in 2003 to 2.3% in 2018.

There has also been a shift away from ‘traditional’ creditors, including multilateral financial institutions and rich country Paris Club members. Some donor governments increasingly use aid to promote private business interests. ‘Blended finance’ was supposed to turn billions of aid dollars into trillions in development finance.

But the private finance actually mobilised has been modest, about US$20bn a year – well below the urgent spending needs of LICs and MICs, and less than a quarter of ODA in 2017. Such changes have further reduced recipient government policy discretion.

Inadequate support
The 2020 IMF cancellation of US$213.5m in debt service payments due from 25 eligible LICs was welcome. But the G20 debt service suspension initiative (DSSI) was grossly inadequate, merely kicking the can down the road. It did not cancel any debt, with interest continuing to accrue during the all-too-brief suspension period.

The G20 initiative hardly addressed urgent needs, while private creditors refused to cooperate. Only meant for LICs, it did not address problems facing MICs. Many MICs also face huge debt, with upper MICs alone having US$2.0–2.3tn in 2020–2021.

World Bank President David Malpass has expressed concerns that any change to normal debt servicing would negatively impact the Bank’s standing in financial markets, where it issues bonds to finance loans to MICs.

The Bank Group has made available US$160bn for the period April 2020 to June 2021, but moved too slowly with its Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF). By the time it paid out US$196m, the amount was deemed too small and contagion had spread.

Special Drawing Rights
Issuing US$650bn worth of new special drawing rights (SDRs) will augment the IMF’s US$1tn lending capacity, already inadequate before the pandemic. But US$650bn in SDRs is only half the new SDR1tn (US$1.37tn) The Financial Times considers necessary given the scale of the problem.

To help, rich countries could transfer unused SDRs to IMF special funds for LICs, such as the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) and the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT), or for development finance.

Similar arrangements can be made for the Bank. A World Bank version of the IMF’s CCRT could ensure uninterrupted debt servicing while providing relief to countries in need. Investors in Bank bonds would appreciate the distinction.

Hence, issuing SDRs and making other institutional reforms at the Spring meetings in April could enable much more Fund and Bank financial intermediation. These can greatly help finance urgently needed pandemic relief, recovery and reforms in developing countries.

The post IMF, World Bank Must Urgently Help Finance Developing Countries appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Gathering Dark Clouds: China, US, and a Rapidly Dividing World

Mon, 03/29/2021 - 14:07

By Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Mar 29 2021 (IPS-Partners)

The China-US meeting in Alaska last week was an unmitigated disaster. It did not bridge any differences. On the contrary, it may have widened them. If the purpose of diplomacy is to keep the lines of dialogue and communications open through the understanding the protocols, traditions, and culture of the other side, this discussion provided little evidence of even a desire for success. The art of negotiation in the international arena provides a substantial lexicon of nuanced language to advance rewarding discourse. In Alaska, this lesson was ignored. Style and substance were in tatters. Repairs now seem an impossibility anytime soon.

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

How did this come about? When President Joe Biden came into office, his natural proclivities were to take what his predecessor President Donald Trump had done, and do the opposite thing. But that strategy seemed fraught with political risks. That is because Trump had carried much of America with him in many of his actions, and the margin of the Democratic victory in the legislature, particularly in the Senate, is woefully thin. It is a fact of politics Biden cannot afford to dismiss. His toughness on China flows largely from this, though in all fairness, it is more than just pandering to the right. Presumably, his own convictions also plays a role. But as a result, he might run the risk of being thought of as “Trump Lite”. That would create an unenviable situation for him. The Trump base would see that as a justification of their own convictions,and hanker for more. Biden’s Democrat supporters in the lower middle class would lose out from the benefits of trade with China, just as affordable consumer-items, which they hoped would accompany the political change.

In any case, the Trump Team in Anchorage, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan received the tough brief from their boss, and carried it out to the T. Normally in such negotiations, the host uses the warmth of hospitality as a tool to obtain an advantage, but the Biden team seemed uninterested in this option. Instead, they began firing with hard munitions right at the start, and the Chinese, State Councillor Yang Jieche and Foreign Minister Wang Yi responded in kind, and then some. Both sides were playing to the domestic galleries. The US team was obviously seeking to use anti-Chinese sentiments as the glue to bind either side of the political aisle at home. The Chinese team had a gallery of one, President Xi Jinping, who did not deem it necessary to rein in his negotiators. The early reports of the conference must have led him to conclude that China must be shown as having come a long way since its negotiator in the Boxer Protocol of 1901, the ageing and by then weak,Li Hongzhang was made to secure peace through unequal treaties from eight western nations in lieu of huge indemnities. Indeed, a section of the Chinese media referenced that episode in its praise of the Yang-Wang duo, eulogizing their bold retorts to their American interlocutors.

Earlier on, because of the same reasons, there was not much comfort to be drawn from the two-hour phone-talk between Biden and the Chinese President Xi Jinping. In the past both had spent ample time together as Vice presidents of their respective countries. As a gesture, Biden scheduled the call to greet Xi for the Lunar New Year of the Ox, and it was well received. But Biden’s position was a repeat of what was made known publicly. It was focused on what the American’s perceive as China’s unfair trade practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and assertive action in the maritime region including towards Taiwan. Xi, in response also repeated the usual Chinese mantra: that most of the issues were internal affairs of China, and were related to Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity. Speaking to the media, Biden said he had told Xi that he would “work with China when it benefits the American people”. It was unclear as to why he had thought that would be a compelling reason for China to engage. Clearly it was not.

The truth was that China has concluded that America and the West were actually on the decline. It views its own rise as in consonance with Marxist -Leninist determinism which still frames China’s policy. The play of structural forces would impede the cooperation of a rising China with a declining America, except in clearly secular subjects as climate change which would bring win-win rewards for both. America, on the other hand, sees an adversarial relationship as a tool to deter the rise of China to a peer status, but agrees on the possibilities of cooperation on the common topic of Climate change. The problem is the relationship has soured so much that the political will to muster the wherewithal to engage even on climate change appears to be eroding. Interestingly one common historical paradigm, frequently, used by both sides is the syndrome in the Greek classics known as the “Thucydides trap”. The Greek philosopher by that name had warned that in those ancient times, when Athens grew strong, there was great fear in Sparta, and war became inevitable. But the current US apprehension is more that the Chinese may fancy themselves as being Rome to America’s Greece, the succeeding preponderant imperial power.

Biden’s relationship with President Vladimir Putin of Russia got off to a good start with a far more friendly the extension of the START treaty, despite Putin’s known preference for Trump over him. But then confronted with evidence suggesting possible Russian hacking the polls in support of Trump, Biden referred to Putin as a ‘” killer’’, who needed to be “punished”. Putin was not amused. He returned the compliment, recalled his Ambassador to Washington and dispatched his Foreign Minister, the sharp and cerebral Sergey Lavrov to China to strengthen bilateral ties. This Lavrov did by calling China a “true strategic partner and like-minded friend”, seeking to promote together “a constructive and unifying agenda”. An alliance between China and Russia seemed on the cards. To compound Biden’s woes, the North Korean leader Kim Jong- un, who obviously missed Trump in the White House, got his sister to urge Biden to keep his “stink” on his side of the Atlantic. Thereafter he warmed to Xi who called China-North Korean relations “common treasure”. The Biden Administration had sent messages to Kim for resumption of dialogue. Kim’s response seemed to be test-firing of two short-range missiles last weekend. Biden observed that ‘’nothing has changed””. That is very true. It is also true that any likely change may be for the worse. All this may have put paid to Biden’s attempts to reach out to North Korea through China’s help. China is now the only conduit to Kim. But for Biden to expect China’s assistance at this time seems a very unreal proposition.

The Biden Administration has had some success in getting the allies marshalled vis-à-vis China. It has energized the Quad, an informal group of security partners comprising the US, India, Japan and Australia. It has managed to get the European Union and Canada to agree with it on slapping sanctions on China on the issue of Human rights violation of the Uighur Muslims. China has reacted sharply to each of these developments. Beijing has responded with its own sanctions against the European Union. It seems to be in the process of forging an alliance with Russia and deepening ties with North Korea. It has created huge economic stakes for many countries in Asia and Africa through its Belt and Road Initiative. China has sought to couch its rivalry with its adversaries in terms of emerging Asia versus the past imperial powers of the West. In this rapidly dividing world, we can see the gathering of dark clouds of potential conflict. We have seen how in the past alliance-building of adversaries led nations to sleep- walk into the disastrous first Great War. It is true that history does not always repeat itself. Just as it also true that logic shows that similar causes tend to produce similar effects.

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is the Honorary Fellow at the Institute of South Asia Studies, NUS. He is a former Foreign Advisor (Foreign Minister) of Bangladesh and President & Distinguished Fellow of Cosmos Foundation. The views addressed in the article are his own. He can be reached at: isasiac @nus.edu.sg

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Categories: Africa

Why Rehabilitation is as Vital as Rescue for Child Trafficking Survivors

Mon, 03/29/2021 - 12:07

A survivor of child trafficking in Bihar, India. Extreme poverty, illiteracy and socio-economic inequalities are the main drivers of child trafficking for forced or bonded labour. [captured via videolink] Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPS

By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY, Australia, Mar 29 2021 (IPS)

Twelve-year-old Babloo’s (Name changed) parents, who worked as daily wage agricultural labourers in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, were finding it difficult to feed their family of six. They had recently lost their eldest son to sudden illness, when a distant relative convinced them to send Babloo with him to work in a city. He promised to pay Rs 5000 ($70) a month, a significant amount for the impoverished family.

The relative took Babloo and his 14-year-old cousin from the village and handed them to a trafficker, who took them by rail to Jaipur, capital of the western Indian state of Rajasthan, nearly 1200 kilometre away from their home.

“We were locked in a small room. The windows were sealed and there was no natural light. There were 10 other children already there. We were made to grind glass stones and then stick the stone embellishments and beads on lac bangles from 6am till midnight everyday,” Babloo tells IPS via Zoom from his village in Nawada district in southern Bihar.

“If we slackened out of fatigue, exhaustion or illness, we were beaten with a wooden pole. We would cry in agony and fear for our lives. But we were so terror stricken that we didn’t attempt to escape,” adds Babloo, who was trafficked in 2018 and rescued after six months in 2019.

Extreme poverty, illiteracy and socio-economic inequalities are the main drivers of child trafficking for forced or bonded labour. Traffickers have been manipulating vulnerable rural families by using relatives or giving reference of a relative to gain their trust.

“There is only one breadwinner in some families with six to eight children. These families, seeking a better life, become easy targets of traffickers, who have started recruiting fewer than four children at a time to evade suspicion from authorities,” Kanhaiya Kumar Singh, Director of Tatvasi Samaj Nyas, a Bihar-based NGO, tells IPS via WhatsApp.

Children comprised one-third of the overall 48,478 detected victims of trafficking in 106 countries, according to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2020.

Though Bihar has formulated a comprehensive action plan, Astitva, for preventing and combating human trafficking and rehabilitation of the victims and survivors, similar fate awaited Ramu (name changed). He was trafficked at the age of 13 years in 2017 with another boy from his village and two others from a nearby village in Nalanda district (Bihar). They were also taken to Jaipur to work in a bangle-making sweatshop.

“We were always hungry because we were given limited food twice a day. If we requested to speak with our family, we were verbally abused and thrashed. I still get nightmares,” Ramu, who was rescued in 2018, tells IPS via Zoom from his village.

These children are amongst the fortunate ones to have been rescued by law enforcement agencies with the support of other government departments and civil society organisations, including the Child Labour Free Jaipur (CLFJ) initiative. CLFJ is a multi-stakeholder partnership, which has been working with the government, businesses, non-governmental organisations and local communities in Jaipur and Bihar to end child labour.

Almost 80 percent of trafficked children rescued from garment, handicrafts and jewellery sweatshops and factories of Jaipur, are from Bihar, one of the country’s poorer states. In 2019, 261 boys and 33 girls were rescued in Bihar and 636 boys and 17 girls were rescued in Rajasthan.

“Children rescued from Jaipur are repatriated to Bihar, where we help them reintegrate in their community with measures such as, enrolling them in school, providing them vocational training, helping them with access to victim compensation and government entitlements, and assisting them and their families to pursue legal cases against the traffickers,” says Abhijit De, Programme Advisor for CLFJ based in Patna (Bihar).

These boys are now part of CLFJ’s Survivors’ Collective, which meets twice a month. “We provide them with skills and training to become advocates for anti-trafficking in their own communities,” De tells IPS via Zoom.

A survivor of child trafficking. Traffickers have been manipulating vulnerable rural families by using relatives or giving references from a relative to gain their trust. [captured via videolink] Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPS

Ramu, who is studying in Year 8, wants to be a policeman. “I want to protect my family and villagers from criminals, especially traffickers, so no child has to experience the torture that I did,” he tells IPS via Zoom. His fellow survivor, Babloo, who has been enrolled in Year 5, wants to become a doctor. “Our village only has a dispensary. The hospital is too far away and many people die for want of proper medical care,” he tells IPS via Zoom.

Another survivor, sixteen-year-old Veer (name changed), who was also freed from a workshop in Jaipur, wants to be a farmer. “We don’t have enough to eat that is why we are easily deceived by traffickers. I want to study agriculture and improve crop production,” he tells IPS via Zoom from his village in Nalanda district.

“If these children can receive their [state] compensation amounts as soon as possible or within six months of being rescued, it would fast track their rehabilitation and further reduce re-trafficking. Now we have less than two percent re-trafficking rate amongst this survivors’ group,” De tells IPS via Zoom.

“Time lag in receiving compensation has been a major challenge,” agrees Sanjay Kumar, Chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Nalanda District. CWC is the statutory body tasked with dealing with children in need of care and protection.

Seventeen-year-old Ali (Name changed), who was trafficked in 2019 from Katihar district (Bihar), was escorted by CLFJ to Jaipur to provide testimony in a court case against the trafficker. “It was terrifying to come face-to-face with the trafficker. He kept making signs, telling us not to say anything against him in court,” he tells IPS via Zoom from his village. Now courts are pioneering the use of video testimony by child survivors of trafficking to provide them effective protection from potential intimidation or retaliation.

“There have been six convictions against child traffickers, four with life sentences between August 2019 and December 2020 in Jaipur. These convictions really send a strong message to deter the traffickers, and it helps everyone to see that child exploitation is no longer accepted and tolerated,” Ginny Baumann, Senior Program Manager with The Freedom Fund, tells IPS via WhatsApp.

In 2019, 27 traffickers were chargesheeted, [A charge-sheet is a final report prepared by the investigation or law enforcement agencies for proving the accusation of a crime in a court of law] by the police in Bihar, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

“The biggest problem is that cases can take several years to be decided. It puts survivors, their families and civil society assisting them in the prosecution of traffickers at grave risk. We have formed voluntary Community Vigilance Committees, which alert villagers if they see anyone suspicious looking for soft targets to traffic,” says Singh via WhatsApp.

According to the NCRB’s Crime in India 2019 Snapshot, there were 2,914 children out of a total of 6,616 victims reported to have been trafficked. In Bihar, 180 people trafficked were for forced labour, 59 for domestic servitude and 50 for sexual exploitation and prostitution.

“Many boys trafficked for labour may sometimes also be sexually abused,” Priti Patkar, co-founder of Prerana Anti-Trafficking Centre in Mumbai, tells IPS via WhatsApp.

The UNODC’s 2018 findings confirm the 15-year trend of changing age and sex composition of detected victims. The share of children has increased to over 30 per cent of detected victims and the share of boys detected has risen significantly when compared to girls globally.

PM Nair, a career Indian Police Service officer and a national expert on human trafficking, emphasises the need for agencies – the police, the CWC, the district administration, the caregivers, and NGOs – in destination states to converge and liaise with the corresponding agencies in the source state, where the children have been returned.

“This lack of liaison has created a mess and it is impeding progress in stemming child trafficking,” Nair, who is currently with the Indian Police Foundation, tells IPS via WhatApp. “The post-rescue care is grossly inadequate and insensitive.”

“The Anti-Human Trafficking Units [an integrated taskforce of personnel from police and other departments, and the NGOs, in districts], together with Anti-Human Trafficking Clubs set up in the colleges across the country, Panchayats Against Human Trafficking [grassroots democratic institutions], and the NGOs including the Childline has the potential to be a dominant force against human predators and therefore all concerned must strengthen them and help the mission to end human slavery,” Nair adds.

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.

The post Why Rehabilitation is as Vital as Rescue for Child Trafficking Survivors appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Arab Region Counts Cost of Devastating COVID-19 Pandemic

Mon, 03/29/2021 - 11:25

Delegates at the hybrid conference held virtually in Beirut, Lebanon. The conference discussed the impact of COVID-19 the regions’ ICPD25 commitments. Credit: APDA

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Mar 29 2021 (IPS)

More than eight million people moved onto the poverty line in the Arab region, a conference of Arab and Asian parliamentarians heard.

The hybrid conference, held simultaneously in Beirut, Lebanon, and via video conferencing to delegates in Asia and the Arab region, was a follow up on earlier discussions on the regions’ ICPD25 Commitments.

Dr Luay Shabaneh, Regional Director, UNFPA ASRO, said research showed that women were impacted more than other groups – especially as they made up 70% of front-line workers. Women’s health and reproductive rights needed to be high on the agenda because the pandemic’s mortality rate was higher for women. He called on parliamentarians to take care of reproductive health and rights, ensure laws to punish perpetrators of gender-based violence were enacted, and finance for programmes was available.

“Every two hours, a woman dies while giving birth in Yemen,” Shabaneh said. During a recent visit to the country, he met a divorced woman who was 14 years old and a grandmother of 27. Her husband and her mother-in-law abused the grandmother until she decided to leave.

“These case histories were not unusual in the Arab and Asian region,” he said and needed addressing.

Other delegates at the conference, organised by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development (FAPPD), agreed. The conference heard that in the Arab world, female circumcision impacted 55% of girls aged between 15 and 19 years old, and one in five girls marry before there are 18. The diversion of resources and attention away from ICPD25 commitments impacted child marriages and female circumcisions – with estimates that 13 million child marriages and two million female circumcisions could have been prevented.

Teruhiko Mashiko, a Japanese MP and member of APDA Board of Directors and Vice-Chair of the Japan Parliamentarians Federation for Population addresses a hybrid conference of parliamentarians from Arab and Asian countries on impact of COVID-19 the regions’ ICPD25 commitments. Credit: APDA

Teruhiko Mashiko, a member of the Parliament from Japan, member of APDA Board of Directors and Vice-Chair of the Japan Parliamentarians Federation for Population (JPFP), reminded delegates the means to fight against pandemic were being developed. It was crucial, however, to keep an eye on population issues to achieve sustainable development. More than 115 million people had been affected by COVID-19, and more than 2.5 million people died globally. However, tens of millions of unwanted children were born every year.

Minister Plenipotentiary Tarek El-Nabulsi, representative of the League of Arab States, said a report on the region had shown the dire implications of COVID-19 and the need to prioritise the ICPD and Sustainable Development 2030 plan.

“The report estimated 1.7 million jobs would be lost in the region, and the middle class would decline,” El-Nabulsi said. “Eight million people could move down onto the poverty line.”

Moving education onto digital platforms had not benefited the poor who did not have access to technology, and it also disadvantaged people with visual and audio disabilities.

Minister El-Nabulsi said the Arab League had arranged a meeting of high-level officials to enhance national initiatives to control COVID-19 and its impact on vulnerable people. A 15-point plan was set up to reduce its impact on women and girls, protect women, and support and protect pregnant women. The social sector segment also launched an initiative to protect women in refugee camps and women under occupation.

With the support of the UNFPA, an education campaign to confront the coronavirus under the hashtag #COVID-19TalkAboutYourStory was launched.

El-Nabulsi was one of several delegates who expressed concern over the refugees. The refugees in the region placed a heavy burden on the states because it was crucial to extend healthcare services to refugees and displaced.

Asem Araji, an MP from Lebanon, said 1.5 million displaced Syrian refugees and Palestinian people would need vaccinations. He said this should be international responsibility and not just the responsibility of Lebanon.

The impact of the pandemic on education was high on the agenda of the parliamentarians’ concerns. Elyas Hankash, an MP in Lebanon, said the COVID-19 lockdowns had a social, psychological, and physical impact on the youth.

“Unemployment and the lack of prospects had impacted their psychological health,” he said. This led some to drugs and others to depression.

The disruption to education was a disaster, especially as many youths could not connect to the internet and could not participate in the online educational offerings—this resulted in school dropouts.

Lebanon’s economy was fragile, and many young people work in the informal sector, lacking worker protection.

Forty-one percent of the country’s youth had been negatively affected. Unemployment increased when many businesses closed.

He called on other countries in the region to assist – this was a burden that needed to be shared.

Hankash said that while $50,000 had been set aside for youth development, what was needed was a proper plan, including a cheaper housing plan.

Pierre Bou Assi, an MP in Lebanon, expressed concern that the pandemic’s solution – the vaccine programme was problematic as there was no equality of access between countries. He too feared with two years of education lost, “a generation of children was sacrificed”.

The post Arab Region Counts Cost of Devastating COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Bangladesh Welcomes a New High Yielding Biofortified Zinc Rice

Mon, 03/29/2021 - 10:30

Credit: HavestPlus

By Nuhara Syeda
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Mar 29 2021 (IPS)

The Bangladesh National Seed Board has approved the release of the newest biofortified zinc rice variety in the country: the BRRI dhan100. This latest zinc rice variety was developed by the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI). HarvestPlus assists BRRI in crop development and breeder seed production of biofortified zinc rice.

According to the Director General of BRRI, Dr Muhammad Shahjahan Kabir, it was momentous to release the 100thvariety- BRRI dhan100- during Mujib Year—declared to celebrate the centennial birth anniversary of the founding leader of Bangladesh, Bangobondhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

The Government of Bangladesh has declared the year 2020-21 as Mujib Year starting from March 2020 until December 2021.

This new zinc rice variety has zinc content of 25.6 milligrams per kilogram rice. The rice is slender and non-sticky when cooked, in comparison to previous zinc rice varieties. The average yield is 7.7 metric tons per hectare after trials were conducted in 10 locations across the country.

The life span of this variety is 148 days and is approved for cultivation in boro season, which is the dry season for irrigated rice crop planted from December to early February and harvested between April and June.

Dr. Kabir said: “’BRRI dhan100’ has a higher yield than that of BRRI dhan29 and the lifespan is similar to that of BRRI dhan28, which is a reflection of our long-standing aspirations. BRRI dhan29 is one of the popular mega non-biofortified variety.”

He added: “Our plan is to make this variety popular with the farmers very soon to increase production on the one hand and provide nutrition on the other.”

BRRI dhan100 has the farmers’ preferred trait of high yield and consumers’ preferred trait of slender grain and non-sticky. The other zinc rice varieties for boro season are BRRI dhan74 which has a medium-bold grain with high yield, and BRRI dhan84 with medium-slender grain. Rice is a staple in Bangladesh.

Agriculture Secretary Mesbahul Islam, president of the National Seed Board, said: “Hopefully, it will be a popular variety. Most of the calories, proteins, and minerals in the diet of the poor people of the country come from rice. Rice is easily available to them.”

Harvestplus will be conducting demonstration and awareness-creation activities for farmers for this variety and ultimately promote it for commercialization.

Zinc deficiency contributes to stunting and a loss of appetite, lowers immunity, and increases the risk of diarrheal disease and respiratory infections. About 36 percent of children under five in Bangladesh do not get enough zinc in their diet.

According to the World Bank, Bangladesh loses over USD 700 million annually in GDP to the human and productivity impacts of vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

HarvestPlus improves nutrition and public health in Bangladesh by promoting biofortified rice that can provide more zinc in the diet. HarvestPlus has been working with the BRRI and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to develop zinc rice since 2004.

In 2013, BRRI succeeded in developing and releasing the first biofortified zinc rice variety in the world, BRRI dhan62, through HarvestPlus support.

HarvestPlus has been working on the promotion and distribution of zinc rice, reaching more than 24,54,000 Bangladeshi households directly since 2013 through its core program and three main projects: the Enhancing Nutrition Services to Improve Maternal & Child Health (ENRICH) Project (2016-2020); the Bangladesh Initiative to Enhance Nutrition Security and Governance (BIeNGS) Project (2018-2022); and the Commercialisation of Biofortified Crops (CBC) Program (2019-2022).

*CGIAR is a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future. Its science is carried out by its 15 research centers in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations

The post Bangladesh Welcomes a New High Yielding Biofortified Zinc Rice appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Nuhara Syeda is with HarvestPlus, which is part of the CGIAR* Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH).

The post Bangladesh Welcomes a New High Yielding Biofortified Zinc Rice appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Nobel Economist and 100 Experts Condemn Corporate Action against Argentina and Bolivia after Rollback of Failed Pension Privatization

Mon, 03/29/2021 - 08:10

The World Bank, an organization that aims to end poverty, hosts the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) where corporations are suing Argentina and Bolivia over pensions.

By Joseph Stiglitz, Juan Somavia, Jeffrey Sachs, Jose Antonio Ocampo and 100 experts
NEW YORK, Mar 29 2021 (IPS)

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Juan Somavia, Jeffrey Sachs, Jose Antonio Ocampo and more than 100 high-level development experts have issued a statement protesting insurance corporations suing Argentina and Bolivia over the reversal of their failed pension privatizations at closed sessions of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) of the World Bank. If Argentina and Bolivia lose the disputes, it means that impoverished citizens and elderly pensioners will have to compensate wealthy financial corporations. Read their letter:

“We the undersigned —economists, social security and development experts— strongly condemn and oppose the cases:

Metlife Insurance vs. Argentina

BBVA Bank vs. Bolivia

NN Insurance International vs. Argentina

Private insurance corporations are suing Argentina and Bolivia for loss of potential profits as a result of the reversal of privatization of pension programs.

Financial corporations started administering the pensions of Argentinians in 1993 and of Bolivians in 1996. Argentina and Bolivia are among only 30 countries (of the world’s 192) that experimented with privatization of their pension systems. Today, the majority of these countries are reversing the privatization of pensions. In accordance, the Government of Argentina returned to a public pension system in 2008 and Bolivia in 2009.

Pension policy is not about securing profits for private insurance corporations. Pension systems exist to provide income security in old age—to ensure that older persons retire with adequate pensions.

It is the duty of the governments of Argentina and Bolivia to best ensure the welfare of their citizens. In 2008-09, this involved reinstating a public pension system. They did not act alone; other governments also reversed pension privatization because of demonstrated inadequacies/failures in the private pension system:

The governments of Argentina and Bolivia took legitimate decisions in the interest of their citizens that must be respected, as part of a country’s sovereignty. It is reprehensible that investment treaty arbitration allows corporations to initiate dispute settlements against governments —and ultimately people— in order to continue profiting.

We also oppose the lack of transparency of the process at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). While corporations may argue that procedural protections are needed, these cases affect the lives of millions of Argentinians and Bolivians. They must be open and transparent.

If Argentina and Bolivia lose the disputes, it means that their citizens —ordinary people who have had to suffer low pensions because of the privatization— will now have to pay millions of dollars to wealthy financial corporations.

These legal cases should serve as a warning for the majority of countries of the world that have not privatized mandatory pensions but may have pressures to do so: On top of suffering lower pensions, more old-age poverty, and high fiscal costs, you may be sued by the private insurance administrators. We hope that other countries are dissuaded from pension privatization by this corporate attack on government’s right to set policy to promote the welfare of their citizens, an attack made in pursuit of profit and at the expense of impoverished citizens and elderly pensioners.

1 In Argentina, coverage rates for men fell from 46% (in 1993, prior to the reform) to 35% (in 2002) and for women to only 31%; in Bolivia, they stagnated.
2 In Bolivia, after privatization, the replacement rate fell to 20% of the average salary during working life; this is far below ILO international standards.
3 In Bolivia, the proportion of elderly women receiving a contributory pension fell from 23.7% in 1995 to 12.8% in 2007 as a result of privatization.
4 In Argentina, initial estimations put the cost at 0.2% of GDP; later the World Bank increased the cost estimate to 3.6% of GDP, 18 times the original estimate; in Bolivia, the actual transition costs of the reform were 2.5 times the initial projections.
5 In Argentina, administration costs jumped from 6.6% of contributions in 1990 before privatization to 50.8% in 2002; in Bolivia, from 8.6% in 1992 to 18.1% in 2002 after privatization.

This letter has been signed by more than 100 high-level economists and social security/development experts. See the full list of signatories here.

The post Nobel Economist and 100 Experts Condemn Corporate Action against Argentina and Bolivia after Rollback of Failed Pension Privatization appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

After the Ever Given: What the Ship Wedged in the Suez Canal Means for Global Trade

Fri, 03/26/2021 - 17:43

Suez Canal Authority.

By External Source
Mar 26 2021 (IPS)

In the early hours of March 23, the container ship Ever Given was blown off course by high winds on its way through the Suez Canal. At 400 metres long, the Ever Given is longer than the canal is wide, and the ship became wedged firmly in both banks, completely blocking traffic.

Dredgers, excavators and tug boats are working frantically to free the ship, but the operation may take weeks, according to the head of one of the rescue teams. About 10% of the world’s maritime trade passes through the canal, which allows ships to shorten the trip between Europe or the American east coast and Asia by thousands of kilometres, saving a week or more of travel time.

Coming on top of the COVID-19 pandemic, this event has highlighted the fragility of global supply chains – and is likely to accelerate changes in the world economy that were already under way

Around 50 ships a day pass through the canal under normal circumstances, split almost equally between dry bulk carriers, container carriers (like the Ever Given) and tankers. As the blockage continues, some shipping lines are considering diverting ships around Africa rather than wait for it to clear.

Coming on top of the COVID-19 pandemic, this event has highlighted the fragility of global supply chains – and is likely to accelerate changes in the world economy that were already under way.

Good news for oil tankers

The blockage is disrupting important energy trades, but probably not dramatically as there are alternative routes and sources should the blockage last a long time.

About 600,000 barrels of crude oil are shipped from the Middle East to Europe and the United States via the Suez Canal every day, while about 850,000 barrels a day are shipped from the Atlantic Basin to Asia also via the Suez Canal. While the SUMED pipeline, which runs parallel to the Suez Canal, will enable some crude to continue to flow between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, European and North American refiners will want to replace Middle East oil with oil from sources that don’t usually pass through the canal. Similarly, Asian refiners will want to replace North Sea crude oil.

Interest is growing in shipping crude oil around the Cape of Good Hope, which adds seven to ten days to the shipping time from the Middle East to Europe and North America, increasing the demand for ultra large crude carriers.

While the rerouting of crude oil is unlikely to have much effect on oil prices generally, as inventory levels are currently high, this comes at an opportune moment for crude oil tanker owners, as the charter rates for such ships have been rock bottom due to the depressed global demand for oil and the aftereffects of pandemic lockdowns. Owners of tankers carrying refined oil or LNG can expect a similar increase in demand for their ships and therefore charter rates.

A reminder of supply chain fragility

For commodities such as oil, LNG, coal and iron ore, there is a world demand and a world supply which must balance. However, one source can often be substituted by another. This means the blockage of the Suez Canal will affect the spot price of commodities locally and the charter rates for the ships that carry them, but the trade will continue.

It’s a different story for products carried by container ships like the Ever Given. These products tend to be highly differentiated and more difficult to substitute. The blockage of the Suez Canal will undoubtedly cause shortages of specific products around the world, either because they don’t arrive at their destinations on time or because manufacturers run short of key inputs or components.

Shortages will remind manufacturers of the fragility of global supply chains, and they may look at how to reduce their dependency on specific sources, particularly those that are distant and rely on container shipping.

Global supply chains are already shrinking

Advances in technology associated with digitisation and automation are making manufacturers less dependent on large skilled workforces found only in certain parts of the world. Production is becoming more mobile and therefore able to locate closer to the markets served.

More mobile production, along with the continued miniaturisation of some products (for example, flat screen TVs becoming ever flatter) and the advancing digitisation of things like books and manuals, is gradually shrinking global supply chains and reducing freight-kilometres, measured in terms of value or volume. Major disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the blockage of the Suez Canal can only hasten this development.

This trend predates the pandemic and the current blockage. It can be seen in a number called the world seaborne trade-to-GDP multiplier, which measures how much of the world’s economic activity depends on shipping.

After the global financial crisis of 2008-09, this number fell below 1% on average. This tells us that a 1% increase in world GDP now leads to a less than 1% increase in world seaborne trade.

Who will pay the price?

The cost of the disruption caused by the blockage of the Suez Canal will weigh heavily with the insurers of the Ever Given. The ship is owned by Japanese firm Shoei Kisen Kaisha and chartered to the Taiwanese line Evergreen. The hull and machinery are insured on the Japanese marine insurance market, but at the moment damage to the ship appears to be minimal.

The major costs are loss of earnings by the Suez Canal Authority while the canal is closed to traffic, and losses incurred by the owners of the cargo in the many ships held up by the blockage. Depending on how long the blockage lasts, these may lead to huge insurance claims. Third party claims are covered by the London P&I Club, which is reinsured by the International Group of P&I Clubs.

In the long term, however, the blockage may be a good thing. If it offers a further nudge to shorten supply chains, the benefits to the global economy and environment will surely outweigh the cost to the insurers.

Michael Bell, Professor of Ports and Maritime Logistics, University of Sydney

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

The post After the Ever Given: What the Ship Wedged in the Suez Canal Means for Global Trade appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Maquila Female Workers in Their Own Words: Fighting COVID and Labor Abuse

Fri, 03/26/2021 - 16:56

To Enrique González Rojo (1928-2021), friend, comrade in many struggles, admirable poet, and Marxist thinker

By Saul Escobar Toledo
MEXICO CITY, Mar 26 2021 (IPS)

A compilation of testimonies collected by Blanca Velázquez Díaz and published by the Ebert Foundation (available at: http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/mexiko/17328.pdf) offers an account of the harsh reality by which some workers of the maquila industry in the Mexican state of Morelos have gone through over these last twelve months. Their words reflect, undoubtedly, similar experiences of millions of workers in different parts of the country.

Saul Escobar Toledo

The author explains the interviews were conducted by phone in mid-2020; the workers´ ages range from 20 to 40 years; their level of education is elementary and middle school; they come from the countryside or small urban communities where there are few chances to get a job, so they move to the larger cities of the State of Morelos, where the maquiladoras are set to produce for major brands belonging to international consortia.

Their working conditions were already very unfavorable: in the textile sector and specifically in the branch of clothing and footwear, working days exceed eight hours a day, time in which they are permanently seated in non-designed chairs ergonomically, supporting extremely high temperatures in closed places with little ventilation.

The spread of COVID-19 made matters worse. Mainly, the bosses of the maquilas in Morelos did not respect the official recommendations and opted for the dismissal of their employees or cut half of the wages they received weekly.

For example, a worker identified as Lili said, “The company is paying me 280 pesos (14 dollars) a week …” while another, Anita says, “I am now working cleaning houses, the truth is that $ 400 pesos (20 dollars) the factory is giving me now is not enough”. Other interviewees indicated that they have received half of their salary.

Vicky: “Getting only half the salary the situation is bad, what am I going to do with only $ 400 pesos a week? that’s tough for me, and the company has us on hold, no one knows when I will get back to work … ”

Some more, a little luckier, affirmed that “From April 3 they sent us to rest with a base salary, which is really very little, 833 pesos (41 dollars) a week …”

There were also cases in which the workers decided to stop working so as not to get infected, and were fired:

Brenda: “… the company chose me to continue working on contingency days, but I saw that several colleagues went home sick with symptoms of COVID-19 and that was why I decided not to expose myself to the Coronavirus, my supervisor was terribly angry with me for making that decision, but I was sure that what I had decided was the right thing to do, to stay home and protect myself. Now I am fired, I was no longer called. ”

Almost all confessed going through a very tense emotional situation:

Justina: “Well, personally in the mental sphere I want to take things easy, but it is a bit impossible when I watch television or social networks, since they are flooded with what is happening in the pandemic and with bad news. They have been very outrageous at the time of reporting, I think that’s why, so sometimes I can’t get to sleep … ”

Finally, the workers were questioned about government aid. All answered they did not receive any support from the federal, state, or municipal governments:

María: ” No, at least nothing to me, I only remember that once the assistant of the mayor of the municipality (Emiliano Zapata) was distributing pantries, but they had a cost …”

Vicky: “Oops! nothing, not a glass of water …! ”

Anita: “The truth is, nothing, at least not even a pantry has arrived here in my neighborhood. ”

The author of the compilation concludes that, according to the testimonies collected,

“The more important consequences (observed) were unjustified dismissals … during these months of health emergency. The major concern of workers is how to generate an income … since the current employment situation looks increasingly difficult. Their mental and emotional health is in constant tension…, especially due to the low economic resources to support their families; besides, they are fearful about the possible spread of COVID-19 when they must exit their homes and go to the streets looking for an (extra) income … Add to this situation the double and triple work burden. Home education of their minor sons and daughters is generating many more hours of work for them. The care, especially of children, continues to fall primarily on women, just because they are females, with multiple responsibilities and little or no help from their partners, a situation that has led to stress, worry, anxiety, and insecurity, to mention some consequences ”

Another important piece of information refers to the behavior of the unions. According to the testimonies collected, Blanca Velázquez assures that in normal times the unions do not defend their affiliates; neither they have done in times of pandemic since they abided unashamedly business decisions and left the worker abandoned to their fate.

Finally, the text calls our attention about the almost total absence of the Mexican State in this situation, particularly the federal government. Rightly concludes the author of this collection, that:

“The social programs that the federal government has promoted for particular sectors, especially vulnerable ones, should be expanded for the workers laid off or when the bosses did not comply with the full payment of wages. We believe that programs for people who were laid off should be promoted immediately or, failing that, (legislate) unemployment insurance to alleviate this serious situation and train those who require it to be able to be employed in other trades or professions”.

Millions of wage earners have been deprived of any help and it has had a high social cost and become an obstacle to economic recovery. It is difficult to understand the reasons that led the government to this oversight. Perhaps they expected companies would pay total wages or that layoffs could be resolved quickly. However, it was likely that they did not, as indeed happened, due to the behavior of many companies in the past decades, as they have constantly violated labor laws and promoted lack of representative trade unions, especially in industry of maquila.

The absence of a worker protection policy during the pandemic seems to be due rather to an economic project based on budget cuts and austere public spending that does not admit emergency measures. The testimonies collected in the book show the unfortunate effects of these decisions. Waiting for the US economy to be the main factor in the recovery may be successful in the coming months. However, it will not correct the damage done to working class families. Nor will boost employment if it is not accompanied by other measures, such as unemployment insurance and promotion of domestic production and consumption.

The words of grief and pain shown in this publication are a very expressive testimony of what the Government of the Republic could have done (as in other countries and even in Mexico City) but refused to do.

Saul Escobar Toledo, Economist, Professor at Department of Contemporary Studies in INAH (National Institute oh Anthropology and History, México) and President of the Board of the Institute of Workers Studies “Rafael Galvan”, a non-profit organization. His recent work : “Subcontracting: a study of change in labor relations” will be published soon by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Mexico City.
saulescobar.blogspot.com

The post Maquila Female Workers in Their Own Words: Fighting COVID and Labor Abuse appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

To Enrique González Rojo (1928-2021), friend, comrade in many struggles, admirable poet, and Marxist thinker

The post Maquila Female Workers in Their Own Words: Fighting COVID and Labor Abuse appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

A Country with too Many Victims and Few Shelters

Fri, 03/26/2021 - 11:28

By Rosi Orozco
MEXICO CITY, Mar 26 2021 (IPS)

In March 2014, Noemi N. took her own life inside a refuge camp in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, where up until now there are no specialized shelters for victims of human trafficking.

Noemi N hung herself with a shower curtain around her neck after being rescued from a migrant smuggler who took her to be sold in the US without any personal documents. She was only 8 years old.

Rosi Orozco

Her death started a news wave about the victim shelters in Mexico where the most conservative figures indicate 120,000 new human exploitation victims each year, mainly girls and women.

The Mexican criminals who lead this racketeering are as varied as they are dangerous. They compose of 47 groups, ranging from entire families dedicated to sexual exploitation to the most powerful cartel in the world, Jalisco Nueva Generación, considered as the most important touristic destinations encouraging sexual tourism.

The criminals create a spike in victims, while the country suffers a shortage of safe places where the victims can be protected, can seek justice and start a new life. Only four Mexican states have a government specialized shelter.

These government buildings often run with a limited budget and reduced staff capacity who work extra hours to attend to the 1% of victims who manage to flee from their captors and survive to tell their story.

The rest of the Mexican shelters —about 10— are administrated by non-governmental organizations that go to enormous lengths to keep them open and staffed through donations and lotteries.

Comisión Unidos Vs Trata and Fundación Camino a Casa are pioneering civil organizations in the creation of these safe spaces. Their shelters have housed more than 300 survivors since 2007 and they do not rely on governmental funds.

In Mexico, the last three federal administrations have been held by three different political parties: the conservative Acción Nacional, the centrist Revolucionario Institucional, and the leftist Morena.

Due to these political changes, an economic model that requires money from the government would make shelters dependent on each election campaign.

Only the independence of political power guarantees that these safe spaces remain open every day of every year, regardless of any events including the elections.

However, that freedom has its costs. Sometimes very high costs. For example, human rights defenders who run shelters never know exactly how much they will be able to raise each year and whether that money will be enough to cover the basic needs.

Each survivor requires an investment of about $ 900 per month for food, clothing, legal services, medical and psychological fees, school assistance and some recreation or fun.

Also, other costs vary according to each victim: Comisión Unidos Vs. Trata and the NGO Alas Abiertas have arranged free reconstructive surgeries for Zunduri, tortured at a dry cleaners; the purchase of two vehicles so that Erika and Estrella, forced into prostitution, could have an income by driving taxis; or the salary for one of the best activists in the world, Karla, who survived more than 43 thousand rapes since she was 12 years old.

And, of course, there is the safety issue. A shelter is the last barrier between a victim and a perpetrator. It is where a victim recovers, gets healthy, empowered, speaks up and decides to start a judicial investigation against her perpetrator.

That is why shelters are targeted by organized crime. Criminals locate the houses, watch over them, stalk those who go in and come out of there, chase up to the courts and send death threats expecting that the walls that protect their victims are pulled down or demolished.

The risk also extends to the legal field of those who manage the shelters. These are places where users have a high chance of committing suicide, physically assaulting the staff who care for them… even sexually assaulting other survivors.

These are complex, but also wonderful spaces. Without the shelters, it would be impossible to have more than a thousand sentences against human traffickers, especially in Mexico City and the State of Mexico, where authorities have done an extraordinary job keeping shelters open, despite the difficulties and repeated violence.

This month, the Secretary of the Interior of the Mexican government, Olga Sánchez Cordero, made a historic announcement: the current government will seek greater ties with civil society shelters to advance in the defense of human rights.

The frequent visits from the government to oversee the daily operations of these shelters give hope and open a new chapter in the cooperation between authorities and activists.

For this reason, millions of us dream of opening a shelter in each entity of the country, due to its incalculable value for a country that yearns for peace and justice.

The author is a human rights activist who opened the first shelter for girls and teenagers rescued from sexual commercial exploitation in Mexico. She has published five books on preventing human trafficking; she is the elected Representative of GSN Global Sustainability Network in Latin America.

The post A Country with too Many Victims and Few Shelters appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

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