Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

A Rohingya girl goes to fetch water in Balukhali camp, Bangladesh. Credit: Umer Aiman Khan/IPS

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 15 2019 (IPS)

Judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday authorized an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity, namely deportation, which have forced between 600,000 and one million Rohingya refugees out of Myanmar, into neighboring Bangladesh since 2016.

The pre-trial judges “accepted that there exists a reasonable basis to believe widespread and/or systematic acts of violence may have been committed that could qualify as crimes against humanity of deportation across the Myanmar-Bangladesh border” the Court said in a press statement, in addition to “persecution on grounds of ethnicity and/or religion against the Rohingya population.”

After a reported military-led crackdown, widespread killings, rape and village burnings, nearly three-quarters of a million Rohingya fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August 2017 to settle in crowded refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the world’s only permanent criminal tribunal with a mandate to investigate and prosecute individuals who participate in international atrocity crimes, including genocide and crimes against humanity.
This is the second strike against the alleged crimes this week, as the tribunal’s decision follows a Monday submission by Gambia to the UN’s principal judicial organ, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Myanmar of “mass murder, rape, and genocidal acts” which violate its obligations under the Genocide Convention, in addition to destruction of villages, arbitrary detention, and torture.

As a member to the Genocide prevention treaty, Gambia “refused to stay silent”, and as a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the small African nation has taken legal action to assist the persecuted majority-Muslim Rohingya, with support by other Muslim countries.

While the UN’s ICJ, known as the ‘World Court’, settles disputes submitted by States on a range of matters, the ICC is the world’s only permanent  criminal tribunal with a mandate to investigate and prosecute individuals who participate in international atrocity crimes, including genocide and crimes against humanity.

In July, the ICC’s top Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, requested an investigation be open into the alleged crimes committed since October of 2016, concerning Myanmar and Bangladesh.

At that time, her Office’s preliminary examination found “a reasonable basis” to believe that at least 700,00 Rohingya were deported from Myanmar to Bangladesh “through a range of coercive acts causing suffering and serious injury.”

Under the Rome Statute that created the ICC, which highlights crimes against humanity as one of its four crucial international crimes, the top Prosecutor concluded sufficient legal conditions had been met to open an investigation.

While Myanmar is not a State party to the treaty, Bangladesh ratified the Statute in 2010, meaning authorization to investigate does not extend to all crimes potentially committed in Myanmar, but will focus on violations committed in part on Bangladeshi territory, the ICJ said in July.

 

‘Only justice and accountability’ can stop the violence

Judges forming the pre-trial chamber, Judge Olga Herrera Carbuccia, Judge Robert Fremr, and Judge Geofreey Henderson received views on this request by or on behalf of hundreds of thousands of alleged victims.

According to the ICC Registry, victims insist they want an investigation by the Court, and many “believe that only justice and accountability can ensure that the perceived circle of violence and abuse comes to an end.”

“Noting the scale of the alleged crimes and the number of victims allegedly involved, the Chamber considered that the situation clearly reaches the gravity threshold,” the Court said.

The pre-trial Chamber in addition authorized the commencement of the investigation in relation to any crime, including future crime, so long as it is within the jurisdiction of the Court, and is allegedly committed at least in part in the Rome Statute State Party, Bangladesh, or any other territory accepting the jurisdiction.

The alleged crime must also be sufficiently linked to the present situation, and must have been committed on or after the date of the Statute’s entry into force for Bangladesh or the relevant State Party.

Judges from the ICC have given the greenlight for prosecutors to commence collection of necessary evidence, which could result in the judge’s issuance of summonses to appear in court or warrants of arrest. Parties to the Statute have a legal obligation to cooperate fully with the ICC, nonmembers invited to cooperate may decide to do so voluntarily.

This story was originally published by UN News

The post ICC Gives Greenlight for Probe into Violent Crimes Against Rohingya appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Nov 15 2019 (IPS)

This year the Worldwide Web is thirty years old. For the first time since 1435, a citizen from Brazil could exchange their views and information with another in Finland.

The Internet, the communications infrastructure for the Web is a little older. It was developed from the ARPANET, a US Defense Department project under the Advanced Research Projects Agency; the military designing it to decentralize communications in the case of a military attack.

That network enabled scientists to communicate over email in universities. Then in 1989 Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in Switzerland invented the Hyperlink and the Worldwide Web (the Web) rapidly moved from scientists automating information sharing between universities and research institutions to the first Websites now available to the general public.

In 2002 the first social media sites began as specialised websites. LinkedIn launched in 2003 then FaceBook in 2004, Twitter in 2006, Instagram in 2010 and so on…

Will the Internet become a tool for participation? How will this be done? These are questions that political institutions, if they really care for democracy, must address as soon as possible. The Zuckerberg era must make this choice now, in a few years time it will already be too late…

My generation regarded the arrival of the Web as a great prospect for democracy. We come from the Gutenberg era, an era that in 1435 changed the world. From manuscripts drafted by monks to be read by a few people in monasteries, the invention of reusable movable type meant that in just 20 years already eight million copies of printed books went all across Europe.

Among many other things it also meant the creation of information. People who heretofore had merely a scant horizon beyond their immediate surroundings, could suddenly access information about their country, and even the entire world. The first newspaper was printed in Strasbourg in 1605. From then until 1989, the world was filled with information.

Information had a very serious limit. It was a vertical structure. Just a few people sent news to a large number of recipients; there was little feedback. It wasn’t participatory, it required large startup investments, it was easily used by economic and political powers.

In the Third World, the media system was part of the State. In 1976, 88% of World news flows emanated from just three countries: the US, the UK and France. International news agencies based in these three countries included Associated Press (AP), United Press International (UPI), Reuters and Agence France Press (AFP).

The world’s media were dependent on their news services. Some alternative news agencies, like Inter Press Services, were able to put a dent in their monopoly. But what this Western media published, by and large was a biased window on the world.

Then came the Internet, and with it, came horizontal communication. Every receiver was also a sender. For the first time since 1435, media were no longer the only window on the world. Like-minded people could take part in social, cultural and economic interactions.

This change was evident in the United Nations Woman’s World Conference in Beijing, 1995. Women created networks prior to the conference, and came with a common plan of action. Governments were not so prepared, so the Declaration of Beijing was a turning point, one which was entirely unlike the bland declarations from the previous four World Conferences.

Another good example is the campaign to eliminate anti-personnel landmines, started by the Canadian activist Jody Williams in 1992. This soon blossomed into a large coalition of Non-Governmental Organizations from more than 100 countries.

Under mounting pressure Norway decided to introduce the issue to the UN, where the US, China, and other manufacturers of landmines like the USSR, tried to block the debate, declaring that they would vote against it.

Roberto Savio

The activists did not care, and 128 countries adopted the Mine Ban Treaty in 1997 with the US, China and the USSR voting against. A vast global movement was more powerful than the traditional role of the Security Council. The Internet had become the tool to create world coalitions.

Those are just two examples of how far the Internet could change the traditional system of Westphalian state sovereignty as defined at the Conference of Westphalia in 1648. The Internet spanned national frontiers to bring on a new era.

Let’s say, for the sake of symbolism, that the Internet brought us from the Gutenberg Era, to the Zuckerberg Era, to cite the inventor of Facebook and a leading instance of what went wrong with this medium.

The Internet came upon us with an unprecedented force. It took 38 years for the radio to reach 50 million people: television took 13 years; and the Web just four years. It had a billion users in 2005, two billion in 2011, and it now has three and a half billion users, three billion of those using social media.

So the two traditional pillars of power, the political system and the economic system, also had to learn how to use the Internet. The US provides a good example. All of American media (national and regional publications) involves printing 50 million copies daily.

Quality newspapers — both the conservative broadsheets like the Wall Street Journal, and progressive ones like the Washington Post or the New York Times — together print ten million copies a day. Trump has sixty three million followers on Twitter; they read Trump’s tweets but don’t buy newspapers.

The Web has had two unforeseen developments. One was the dramatic reinforcement of the consumer society. Today advertising budgets are ten times larger than budgets for education, and education only lasts a few years compared with a lifetime of advertisement.

With the development of social networks, people — now more consumers than citizens — have become objects for marketing goods and services, and recently also for political campaigns. All systems of information and communications extract our personal data, selling us on as consumers.

Now the TV can see us while we watch it. Smartphones have become microphones that listen in on our conversations. The notion of privacy is gone. If we could access our data, we would find out that we are followed every minute of the day, even into our bedrooms.

Secret algorithms form profiles of each and every one of us. Based on these profiles platforms provide us with the news, the products, and the people that these algorithms believe we will like, thus insulating us in our own bubbles.

Artificial intelligence learns from the data that it accumulates. China, with 1.35 billion people, will provide its researchers with more data than Europe and United States together. The Internet has given birth to a digital extractive economy, where the raw material is no longer minerals, but we humans.

The other development that went awry is that the digital extractive economy has created unprecedented wealth.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was recently divorced from his wife. In the settlement she received 36 billion dollars yet Bezos remains among the 10 richest people in the world. This is just one story from an increasingly sad reality of social injustice, where 80 of the world’s richest persons hold the same wealth as nearly three billion poor people.

A new sector is evolving, the “surveillance capitalism” sector, where money is made not from the production of good and services, but from data extracted from people.

This new system exploits humans to give to the owners of this technology, a concentration of wealth, knowledge and power without precedent in history. The ability to develop facial recognition and other surveillance instruments no longer lies in the realms of science fiction.

The Chinese government has already given every citizen a digital number, where all their ‘good’ and ‘bad’ behaviours converge. If a citizen goes below a level, their children will not be allowed to go to a good school, and the citizen themselves, though they may still be able to travel by train, won’t have access to planes.

These technologies will soon be in use all over the planet. London town now has 627,000 surveillance cameras, one for every fourteen citizens; in Beijing it’s one for every seven.  A study conducted by The Rand Corporation estimates that by 2050, Europe too would also have one camera for every seven citizens.

The interrelationship between democracy and the Internet is now creating a belated awareness in the political system. The European Parliament has just released a study, about the negative impact of the Internet. These impacts are:

1.        Internet Addiction
   There is unanimity among doctors and sociologists that a new generation is coming, one which is very different from the previous one. Over 90% of those aged 15-24 uses the Internet, as against 11% for those over 55. Young people spend 21 hours per week on the PC, and 18 hours on a smart phone. This leaves little time for social and cultural interaction. 4.4% of European adolescents now show pathological Internet use “that affects their lives and health”. The American Academy of Psychology has officially included Internet Addiction as a new ailment. Magnetic resonance studies of those with Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) show that they exhibit the same brain structure alterations as those who suffer from drug or alcohol addiction.
2.        Harming cognitive development
   A particular warning is given about children under two years of age. More than 20 minutes a day of screen use reduces some of their neural development. People pushed to isolation tend to develop symptoms of distress, anger, loss of control, social withdrawal, familial conflicts, and an inability to act in real life. Internet users in tests were faster than non-users at finding data, but they were less able to retain data.
3.        Information Overload
   The condition of having too much information hampers the ability to understand an issue, or to make effective decisions, an important issue for managers, consumers, and social media users. According to Microsoft, attention span for a title has gone from 12 seconds in 2000 down to 8 seconds in 2016. The attention span for reading has gone from 12 minutes to 8 minutes. Two new terms can be used: one, the ‘popping brain’, describes a brain less adept to adapt to a slower pace of real life and then there is ‘Neuroplasticity’; i.e. the ability to alter one’s behaviour after a new experience. Frequent immersion in virtual worlds can reduce neuroplasticity and also make it more difficult to adapt to the slower pace of real life. The need to compete in speed between social media channels is well known. For example Amazon estimates that one second of performance delay would cost 1.16 billion losses per year in sales.
4.        Harmful effects in knowledge and belief
   The fact that social media deliberately tends to gather together users with similar views, tastes and habits, is fragmenting society in a negative way for democracy, resulting in closed systems that don’t allow for alternative viewpoints. Adolescents no longer discuss significant subjects. They go to their virtual world, and if they come across somebody from another group, they tend to insult each other. The Internet is full of fake news and misleading information, and users have great difficulty distinguishing accurate from inaccurate information. Echo chambers appear to be far more pervasive, and may unite those with more extreme and partisan political and ideological positions, therefore undermining possibilities for civil discourse and tolerance, supporting radicalization.
5.        Harming public/private boundaries.
   The Internet blurs the distinction between the private and the public. Private life becomes public. This is especially negative for teenagers who lose the concept of privacy, for example by sending private photos across the Internet. One important observation is that teenagers now get their sexual education from pornography, where women are always an object to satisfy men’s sexual phantasies. This is in turn creating a lack of respect for women, and a new generation that risk, for new reasons, returning to a patriarchal society. Group violations of teenage girls are clearly a result of this trend.
6.        Harming social relationships
   The Internet is clearly a powerful instrument to create new communities. However, when used negatively, it can also damage communities, because of the migration to Internet of many human activities such as shopping, commerce, socialising, leisure, professional activities and personal interaction. That migration creates impoverished communication, incivility and a lack of trust and commitment.
7.        Harming democracy
   The Internet has been a powerful tool for participation, and therefore for democracy. However the study notes with concern that a growing number of activities are also harmful to democracy. These include: a) The incivility of many online political discourses, b) Political and ideological polarisation, uniquely possible using the Internet. c) Misinformation, and, in particular, fake news, d) Voter manipulations through profiling based on harvested social media information. We all know what happened in the US elections with Cambridge Analytica data, gathered by Facebook, and how thousands of false web users and bots now heavily interfere in elections.

We should add to this study some other considerations. The first is that finance now is now also run by algorithms. The algorithms do not only decide when to sell or buy shares, but now also decide where to invest.

The Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) last month reached 14,400 billion dollars in trades, more than that traded by humans. This trend will continue with the development of artificial intelligence and soon finance will become even more dehumanized.  Even when Internet users invest themselves they too will be directed by machines and algorithms.

A second consideration is that young people read less and less. Reading a book is very different to scrolling a screen. We are experiencing a progressive reduction in levels of culture. It’s not uncommon to have university students that make grammar and spelling mistakes.

Let us remember that when the Internet was still new, its proponents told us: it is not important to know, rather it is important to know how to find. We are more and more dependent on search engines, learning less and less, and we are unable to connect that data in a personal holistic logical system.

There is clearly a need for regulation to reduce the negative aspects of the Internet and to reinforce positive values. The owners of social media platforms are now under increased scrutiny so they have taken the road of self-regulation.

Twitter, for instance, has decided that it cannot be used for political purposes. Zuckerberg is an exponent of market myths telling us that good news will automatically prevail over fake news. Except that platforms help users to read and find only what they like, to maintain our attention, providing us what is striking, unusual and provocative. This is not a free market.

The Zuckerberg era is clearly creating an entirely different generation, very different from the generations of the Gutenberg era. This raises many questions, from privacy to freedom of expression (now in private hands), from who will regulate, what to regulate and how.

A five year-old child is now very different from a Gutenberg five year-old. We are in a period of transition. The meaning of democracy is changing. International relations are moving away from the search for common values via multilateralism, to a tide of nationalist, xenophobic and selfish views of the world.

Terms like peace, cooperation, accountability, participation and transparency are becoming outdated. What is clear is that the present system is no longer sustainable. Policies disappear from debate, now referred to only as ‘politics’. Vision and paradigms are getting scarce.

Over and above all of this the threat of climate change is looming; yet last year toxic emissions from the five largest countries increased by 5%. Young people are largely absent from political institutions as is shown by the vote on Brexit where only 23% of the 18-25 age group participated.

At this very moment we have large demonstrations in thirteen countries all over the world. In those streets young people do participate, frequently demonstrating rage, frustration and violence. If we cannot bring back horizontal communication to the Internet and we do not free it from the commercial fracturing of young people, the future is hardly rosy.

Yet as the marches against Climate Change clearly demonstrate, if young people want to change the world, values and vision will return. It is evident that the Internet can be a very powerful tool. But who will redress these failings? Will the Internet become a tool for participation? How will this be done?

These are questions that political institutions, if they really care for democracy, must address as soon as possible. The Zuckerberg era must make this choice now, in a few years time it will already be too late…

 

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

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GGGW2019 was held in InterContinental Seoul COEX from Oct. 21 – 24

By Ha Young Kim
Nov 15 2019 (IPS-Partners)

It has been a great experience for me to attend the Global Green Growth Week (GGGW) 2019 hosted by the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), a treaty-based international, inter-governmental organization dedicated to supporting and promoting strong, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth. Through this year’s event, I had the opportunity to learn more about green growth and listen to diverse opinions from policymakers, researchers, environmental experts, and representatives of the private sector from all over the world. Even though I had attended only two days of the one week event, I gained valuable knowledge from many interesting seminars and informative specialized sessions on topics regarding green growth and renewable energy,. I realized the importance of GGGI as a leading institute to implement a new development paradigm on a model of economic growth that is both environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the event, GGGW2019 is GGGI’s flagship conference to accelerate and scale-up the transition toward renewable energy in support of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement. This year was the 3rd instance event under the banner of “Unlocking Renewable Energy Potential” and it was held in InterContinental Seoul COEX from Oct. 21 – 25.

GGGW2019 Schedule at a Glance

On October 21, GGGW2019 began with the welcoming and opening remarks by the Director-General of GGGI, Dr. Frank Rijsberman, and the President and Chair, Mr. Ban Ki-moon. In his recorded address, President and Chair Ban Ki-moon emphasized the importance of the green energy transformation. He stated that it is important for the international community to adopt resolute measures to transform fossil fuel-based energy systems. He added that, “This transition towards renewable energy sources is not only about challenges. It presents new opportunities to modernize our energy systems, accelerate and diversify their economies, create green jobs, increase productivity and competitiveness and reduce poverty.”

Dr. Frank Rijsberman, the Director-General of GGGI, delivers his welcome and opening remarks

Chair and President Ban Ki-moon calls for international effort to achieve transition toward the sustainable development in his recorded address

Arthouros Zervos, Chair of REN21 presents his keynote on the first day of GGGW2019

After the opening remarks and keynote, there was a high-level panel moderated under GGGI Director-General, Frank Rijsberman. The panelists discussed the key approaches used in countries to support new clean energy systems and infrastructure as well as country experiences and their perspectives on approaches in achieving national economic growth and energy security objectives.

A special session on ‘Youth and Entrepreneurship in the 2030 Agenda’ organized by the Deputy Director-General, Hyoeun Jenny Kim.

In the afternoon, I attended the Parallel Session: Integrated Approaches to Clean Energy Infrastructure (GGKP Partner Presentations), during which panelists discussed to what extent energy infrastructure is significant for achieving the SDGs and how integrated approaches could be practiced to accelerate the action for the social, environmental, and economic aspects of sustainability. The speakers emphasized the role of the government to optimize the outcome by implementing policy and imposing subsidy.

GGGW2019 also offered the platform for the announcement of many new milestones for GGGI; the launch of GGGI’s Green Growth Index, the adoption of the GGGI Strategy 2030, and the announcement of Mr. Ban Ki-moon’s re-election as GGGI Assembly President and Council Chair were momentous proceedings of the event.

The Green Growth Index is the first benchmarked composite index designed to track and assess the performance of green growth based on efficient use of sustainable resources, natural capital protection, green economic opportunities, and social inclusion. Through this launch event, I could learn how the new index can be used to measure countries’ green growth performance and what the index means regarding their current green growth progress. Even though, at the regional level, some countries scored moderate in the index, considerable efforts are still needed to improve the performance at a global level. As a student majoring in Economics, I realized that there is a correlation between the environment and the country’s economy. It was interesting to observe how the concepts and theories that I learned in class were applied in the real-world situation to make the world a greener place.

Ms. Hyo-jung Go from the University of Utah Asia Campus delivers her speech on the role of youth in achieving the SDGs

I would like to express my sincere thanks to people who made the GGGW2019 possible and those who shared their experiences, knowledges, and perspectives during this event.

To learn more about GGGI, please visit gggi.org

The post Summary Report on the event of GGGW2019 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Council of Canadians

By Vi Bui
OTTAWA, Canada, Nov 15 2019 (IPS)

On November 6, Los Angeles became the first major city in the United States to earn the designation of “Blue Community” – a bold move that will keep water protected from privatization.

Situated in the heart of the most water stressed region in the country, this is a historic move for LA, and signals the growing movement globally of communities standing up to protect their water.

The Blue Communities Project encourages municipalities and Indigenous communities to support the idea of a water commons framework, recognizing that water is a shared resource for all, by passing resolutions that:

1. Recognize water and sanitation as human rights.
2. Ban or phase out the sale of bottled water in municipal facilities and at municipal events.
3. Promote publicly financed, owned and operated water and wastewater services.

Around the world, our water is under threat from over-extraction, pollution, industrial agriculture, and other projects. The looming climate crisis further intensifies all these risks. In fact, the New York Times recently reported that a quarter of the world’s population is facing a looming water crisis.

Maude Barlow, Honorary Chairperson of the Council of Canadians calls our situation “the myth of abundance.” We take water for granted. Communities are going thirsty due to dried up rivers, lakes are being turned into tailing ponds, oceans are filling up with plastics, and yet governments are welcoming corporations to privatize their water with open arms.

The Blue Communities Project has resonated with water activists and communities across the world. Working to safeguard the human right to water from the ground up, the project promotes the water commons framework, shifting the view of water from a resource to extract and exploit, to a public trust and a commons to protect and promote.

Credit: Council of Canadians

We are fighting everyday against corporate water takings, new pipeline projects, and government austerity. Turning our communities “blue” presents an opportunity to reimagine a different kind of relationship to the resource that nourishes us.

Blue Communities around the world are also inoculating themselves against any risks threatening our water, like privatization, by building community resilience and grassroots power.

That is exactly why Los Angeles becoming a Blue Community was such a historic moment for the global water justice movement. Angelenos, as well as residents of surrounding regions, are no strangers to the water shortage and other threats facing their water.

A hot and dry climate and growing population quickly forced LA to look for other sources of water. Today, its residents get their water from a mix of groundwater, the nearby lakes and rivers, snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada, and imported water from the Colorado River through the Colorado River Aqueduct.

The region regularly experiences severe droughts, and access to water source has been a main source of conflict. Climate change has exacerbated the dry conditions through prolonged droughts, reduced rainfalls, and limits to the amount of snowpack available that feeds the many lakes and rivers in the region.

These threats put tremendous pressure on LA’s water and wastewater infrastructure, and putting many residents’ access to safe drinking water and sewer system at risk. Black and Hispanic communities in the Los Angeles – Long Beach area, are more likely to distrust the quality of their drinking water, according to the American Housing Survey in 2015.

Lower income communities are also more likely to experience negative health outcomes due to exposure to poorly treated coastal waters. To receive the Blue Communities designation, the LA Department of Power and Water has committed to assisting residents who need help paying their bill and avoiding shutting off water.

More than that, the city has guaranteed access to safe, clean drinking water and sanitation to its most vulnerable communities.

The City of Los Angeles has embraced an integrated water management system, and a mix of public education, innovative water recycling, and new technologies to deliver drinking water to its residents. This complex and vulnerable system requires a publicly owned and operated water and wastewater systems and services to survive crises and make sure it serves the communities first.

Recently, Californians recently got a taste of what its private utility does under a time of crisis during wildfires. The state private utility, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), was found to have caused past fires and cut off electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes to avoid liability from its equipment as the blazes spread.

PG&E’s many cost-cutting practices have put millions at risk, and reveals the danger of having essential services owned and operated by private companies, which put their shareholders’ interests above the public’s.

When the climate crisis is unravelling, letting corporate control run free could put vulnerable communities at risk. As the call to nationalize PG&E grows, we must work to keep our water and wastewater services public, and in the case of a vulnerable water sphere in Los Angeles, it is critical. Becoming a Blue Community s commits to just that.

Since the Blue Communities Project started in 2009, communities and water justice activists have brought the made-in-Canada vision around the world. Faith-based communities, universities and school boards joined the fight, and the movement has resonated in Europe, a hotbed of privatization and home to many multinational private water companies.

Paris, Berlin, Bern, and Munich have become Blue Communities after decades fighting privatization to solidify their commitment to protect their water in public hands. With Los Angeles on board, 23 million people around the world have embraced the water commons ethics.

As the first major U.S city to turn “blue”, LA is leading by example that protecting our water is a fight anyone can take up. We look forward to many other American communities joining this growing movement.

If you are looking for a handbook of where to start, read Maude Barlow’s latest book, Whose Water Is It Anyway: Keeping Water Protection in Public Hands (ECW Press). You can find out more about our project at www.canadians.org/bluecommunities.

The post Los Angeles Joins a Global Movement to Protect Human Right to Water appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Vi Bui is Water Campaigner with the Council of Canadians

The post Los Angeles Joins a Global Movement to Protect Human Right to Water appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Young people at ICPD25 youth session. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi / IPS

By Crystal Orderson
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 15 2019 (IPS)

Q: At ICPD25 we heard that women and girls are still waiting for the unmet promises to be met? DO you think this time around there is a commitment to ensure that these promises are met?

The Nairobi Summit is about the Future of Humanity and Human Prosperity.

We all have an opportunity to repeat the message that women’s empowerment will move at snail-pace unless we bolster reproductive health and rights across the world. This is no longer a fleeting concern, but a 21st century socio-economic reality.

We can choose to take a range of actions, such as empowering women and girls by providing access to good health, education and job training. Or we can choose paths such as domestic abuse, female genital mutilation and child marriages, which, according to a 2016 Africa Human Development Report by UNDP, costs sub-Saharan Africa $95 billion per year on average due to gender inequality and lack of women’s empowerment.

Fortunately, the world has made real progress in the fight to take the right path. There is no lack of women trailblazers in all aspects of human endeavour. It has taken courage to make those choices, with current milestones being the result of decades of often frustrating work by unheralded people, politics and agencies.

Leaders like the indefatigable Dr. Natalia Kanem the Executive Director of UNFPA and her predecessors, are pushing the global change of paradigm to ensure we demolish the silo of “women’s issues” and begin to see the linkages between reproductive rights and human prosperity.

Siddharth Chatterjee

Numerous studies have shown the multi-generation impact of the formative years of women. A woman’s reproductive years directly overlap with her time in school and the workforce, she must be able to prevent unintended pregnancy in order to complete her education, maintain employment, and achieve economic security.

Denial of reproductive health information and services places a women at risk of an unintended pregnancy, which in turn is one of the most likely routes for upending the financial security of a woman and her family.

As the UN Resident Coordinator to Kenya, I am privileged to serve in a country, which has shown leadership to advance the cause of women’s right-from criminalizing female genital mutilation to stepping up the fight to end child marriage and pushing hard on improving reproductive, maternal and child health.

Q: At ICPD25 we heard that innovative partnerships are needed to ensure commitments to women and girls. 25 years on do you think this will happen? Can you site an example in Kenya or Africa on this?

Achieving the SDGs will be as much about the effectiveness of development cooperation as it will be about the scale and form that such co-operation takes. There is a lot of talk about partnership, but not enough practical, on-the-ground support to make partnerships effective in practice, especially not at scale.

Under the leadership of the Government of Kenya therefore, the UN System in Kenya in 2017 helped to spearhead the SDG Partnership Platform in collaboration with development partners, private sector, philanthropy, academia and civil society including faith-based stakeholders.

The Platform was formally launched by the Government of Kenya at the UN General Assembly in 2017 and has become a flagship initiative under Kenya’s new UN Development Assistance Framework 2018-2022 (UNDAF). As the entire UNDAF, the Platform is geared to contribute to the implementation of Kenya’s Big Four agenda in order to accelerate the attainment of the Country’s Vision2030.

In 2018, the Platform has received global recognition from UNDCO and the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation as a best practice to accelerate SDG financing. This clearly implies that we are on the right track, and as you can read in this report are developing a blueprint for how 21st Century SDG Partnerships can be forged and made impactful, but much more needs to be done.

Primary Healthcare (PHC) – in the SDG 3 cluster – has been the first SDG Partnership Platform window contributing to the attainment of the Universal Health Coverage as a key pillar of the Big Four agenda. We are living in a day and age where we have the expertise, technology and means to advance everyone’s health and wellbeing. It is our moral obligation to support Kenya in forging partnerships, find the right modalities to harness the potential out there and make it work for everyone, everywhere.

With leadership as from my co-chairs, Hon. Sicily Kariuki, Cabinet Secretary for Health in Kenya, and H.E Kuti, Chair of the Council of Governors Health Committee and Governor of Isiolo, and the strong political commitment, policy environment, and support of our partners we have in Kenya, I am convinced that Kenya can lead the way in attaining UHC in Africa, and accelerate the implementation of the ICPD25 agenda.

Q: Funding remains a crucial challenge- do you think there is a commitment to fund the initiatives?

Yes, there is a clear commitment to fund the ICPD Plan of Action.

I applaud partners whom have been doing so for long as the governments of Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and UK, and Foundations as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

But increasingly there is also the recognition that we cannot reach our ambitions through aid and grants.

At the global scale we need to let better regulation evolve for advancing greater equality and support to those furthest left behind.

Especially within middle-income-countries / emerging economies, our ICPD25 funding models need to be underpinned by shared-value approaches, and financed through domestic and blended financing.

I feel encouraged therefore by the Private Sector committing eight (8) billion fresh support to the acceleration of the ICPD Plan of Action.

Considering the trillions of dollars being transacted however by the private sector, this should be only the start and we should continue to advocate for bigger and better partnership between public and private sector targeting the communities furthest left behind to realize ICPD25.

Q: What do you think should be done to ensure young people’s participation?

Africa’s youth population is growing rapidly and is expected to reach over 830 million by 2050. Whether this spells promise or peril depends on how the continent manages its “youth bulge”.

Many of Africa’s young people remain trapped in poverty that is reflected in multiple dimensions, blighted by poor education, access to quality health care, malnutrition and lack of job opportunities.

For many young people–and especially girls– the lack of access to sexual and reproductive health services is depriving them of their rights and the ability to make decisions about their bodies and plan their families. This is adversely affecting their education and employment opportunities.

According to UNDP’s Africa Human Development Report for 2016, gender inequalities cost sub-Saharan Africa US$ 95 billion annually in lost revenue. Women’s empowerment and gender equality needs to be at the top of national development plans.

Between 10 and 12 million people join the African labour force each year, yet the continent creates only 3.7 million jobs annually. Without urgent and sustained action, the spectre of a migration crisis looms that no wall, navy or coastguard can hope to stop.

Africa’s population is expected to reach around 2.3 billion by 2050. The accompanying increase in its working age population creates a window of opportunity, which if properly harnessed, can translate into higher growth and yield a demographic dividend.

In the wake of the Second World War, the Marshall Plan helped to rebuild shattered European economies in the interests of growth and stability. We need a plan of similar ambition that places youth employment in Africa at the centre of development.

In the meantime, the aging demographic in many Western and Asian Tiger economies means increasing demand for skilled labour from regions with younger populations. It also means larger markets for economies seeking to benefit from the growth of a rapidly expanding African middle class.

Whether the future of Africa is promising or perilous will depend on how the continent and the international community moves from stated intent to urgent action and must give special priority to those SDGs that will give the continent a competitive edge through its youth.

The core SDGs of ending poverty, ensuring healthy lives and ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education all have particular resonance with the challenge of empowering youth and making them effective economic citizens.

Many young people in Africa are taking charge of their futures. There is a rising tide of entrepreneurship sweeping across Africa spanning technology, IT, innovation, small and medium enterprises.

They are creating jobs for themselves and their communities.

We need to empower young people to sustain our planet, and let peace and prosperity thrive.

Q: Lastly, we heard strong commitments from President Uhuru Kenyatta on the issue of FGM- do you think it will really happen by 2022?

President Uhuru Kenyatta needs to be lauded for his strong commitment to ending FGM.

Despite being internationally recognized as a human rights violation, some 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM, and if current rates persist, an estimated 68 million more will be cut between 2015 and 2030.

We cannot accept this any longer and should step up for this cause.

Without leaders as H.E Kenyatta championing the fight to address cultural harmful practices as FGM – rapid strides will never be made.

The post Empower Young People to Sustain Our Planet, and Let Peace and Prosperity Thrive appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

We need to empower young people to sustain our planet, and let peace and prosperity thrive says UN's Resident Co-ordinator in Kenya, Siddharth Chatterjee speaks to IPS on reflections on the ICPD25 Summit.

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(L-R) Somappa, 52, Muniraju, 37, and Kaverappa, 54, finish manually emptying a pit, in Bangalore, India in August 2019. Courtesy: WaterAid/ CS Sharada Prasad/ Safai Karmachari Kavalu Samiti

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 15 2019 (IPS)

People who empty out sewage tanks and scrub down latrines doubtless perform a vital, thankless and even undesirable task. A new report, however, shows that doing such jobs could also cost workers their lives.

A study from the World Health Organization (WHO) and others has revealed that millions of sanitation workers in low-income countries are routinely exposed to contagious bugs, powerful chemicals and filthy conditions that can turn out to be deadly.

The 61-page study titled ‘Health, safety and dignity of sanitation workers‘ holds up the world’s sanitation workers as unsung heroes who risk their lives cleaning other people’s muck, saying they should at the very least get protective clothing and basic employment rights.

Speaking with reporters in New York on Thursday, United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric described the “unsafe and undignified working conditions of sanitation workers” across nine developing countries.

Researchers focussed on muck-cleaners in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Haiti, India, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda who typically toiled in an “informal economy” lacking basic “rights and protection,” added Dujarric.

The report by WHO, together with the International Labour Organization, the World Bank, and WaterAid, a charity, described people around the world emptying pits and septic tanks, cleaning sewers and manholes and handling fecal sludge at treatment and disposal works. 

Researchers shone a spotlight on the case of Wendgoundi Sawadogo, a sanitation worker in Ouagadougou, capital of the landlocked West African country, Burkina Faso, a city of some 2.4 million people.

The 45-year was photographed climbing into latrines and open pits, holding muck-smeared ropes without gloves. In a statement accompanying the report, he described finding discarded syringes and broken calls in fetid pits. 

Sawadogo spoke of colleagues struggling to lift the concrete slabs that cover pits, occasionally breaking fingers, toes, and feet. The work is “really dangerous” and some of his co-workers have perished in such trenches, he added.  

“You have no paper to show that this is your profession. When you die, you die,” said Sawadogo.

“You go with your bucket and your hoe without recognition, without leaving a trace anywhere or a document that shows your offspring that you have practiced such a job. When I think of that, I’m sad. I do not wish any of my children to do the work I do.” 

Another emptier in the same country, Inoussa Ouedraogo, described a slab crushing his finger in an injury that cost the 48-year-old about $100 in local currency during 11 months of “painful”  treatment, in which time he had to carry on working. 

Researchers described sanitation workers toiling in sewage pits around the world without safety gear — risking exposure to cholera, dysentery and other killer bugs. Some 432,000 people perish from diarrhoeal deaths each year, the report said.

They also have to work in tanks amid fumes of ammonia, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and other toxic gases that can cause workers to lose consciousness and die, or face long-term breathing and eyesight problems.

Few low-income countries have health and safety guidelines to protect sanitation workers, researchers said. There are no reliable global statistics, but it is estimated that one manhole worker dies unblocking sewers by hand in India every five days.

Dr Maria Neira, a public health director at WHO, called for much sanitation work to be mechanised so that workers do not have to touch human waste with bare hands. She called for better health and safety laws, training, protective gear, insurance, and health checks.

“Sanitation workers make a key contribution to public health around the world – but in so doing, put their own health at risk. This is unacceptable,” said Neira. “We must improve working conditions for these people.”

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By Boubaker Ben Belhassen and Vikas Rawal
ROME, Nov 14 2019 (IPS)

Pulses are highly nutritious and their consumption is associated with many health benefits. They are rich in proteins and minerals, high in fibre and have a low fat content. Pulses are produced by plants of the Leguminosae family. These plants have root nodules that absorb inert nitrogen from soil air and convert it into biologically useful ammonia, a process referred to as biological nitrogen fixation. Consequently, the pulse crops do not need any additional nitrogen as fertilizer and help reduce the requirement of fossil fuel-based chemical nitrogen fertilization for other crops. Expansion of pulse production, therefore, can play a vital role in mitigating the effects of climate change.

Boubaker Ben Belhassen

Between 2001 and 2014, the global production of pulses increased by over 20 million tonnes. This increase came about primarily on account of an increase in the production of common beans, chickpeas, cowpeas and lentils. Globally, between 2001 and 2014, the annual production of dry beans increased by about 7 million tonnes. In the same period, the annual production of chickpeas went up by about 5 million tonnes, that of cowpeas by about 3.8 million tonnes and that of lentils by about 1.6 million tonnes.

While pulses are produced in all regions of the world, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa together account for about half of global production. Cultivation of dry bean, a category comprising many different types of beans, is the most widespread across different regions of the world. In 2012-14, sub- Saharan Africa accounted for 24 percent of global production of dry beans, Latin America and the Caribbean for about 24 percent, Southeast Asia for about 18 percent, and South Asia for about 17 percent. South Asia accounts for about 74 percent of chickpea production and 68 percent of pigeonpea production. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 96 per cent of the production of cowpea, a legume specific to arid regions. North America is the biggest producer of lentils and dry peas.

India is the biggest producer and consumer of pulses. Indian demand for pulses is a major driver of the global economy of pulses: India accounts for about 24 percent of global production of pulses and 30 percent of global imports. In contrast with stagnation of production of pulses from 1960s through 1990s, the last 15 years have seen a doubling of production of pulses in India. In 2017, India produced about 23 million tonnes of pulses.

Concerted efforts of agricultural scientists and breeders under the aegis of CGIAR institutions and national agricultural research systems (NARS) have played a critical role in facilitating the growth of pulse production over the last fifteen years. Research on pulses under CGIAR is led by ICRISAT, ICARDA and CIAT. Significant work has been done by these institutions to conserve genetic resources of pulse crops and also develop new cultivars. Currently, ICRISAT holds 20 764 accessions of chickpeas and 13 783 accessions of pigeonpeas, ICARDA has 11 877 accessions of lentils and CIAT holds 37 938 accessions of Phaseolus beans. In addition, many national gene banks hold substantial repositories of genetic resources. For example, national gene banks in India have over 63 000 accessions of different pulse crops. The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, adopted by the 31st Session of the Conference of FAO in 2001, has provided the institutional framework for international collaboration in using these genetic resources. These genetic resources have been used to develop short-duration and disease-resistant varieties, and varieties that can be grown in diverse climatic conditions across the world.

Vikas Rawal

With the increase in globalization and trade liberalization across the world, the last two decades have seen a particularly large increase in international trade of pulses. Between 2001 and 2013, the quantity of pulses exported went up from about 9 million tonnes to about 14 million tonnes. There has been a considerable increase in Asia’s dependence on imports of pulses, primarily on account of an increasing shortfall in domestic supply in India and China’s transformation from being a net exporter of pulses to being a net importer. On the other hand, Canada, Australia and Myanmar have emerged as major exporters of pulses. High prices of pulses in the past decade have made farming of pulses attractive in these countries.

Experience of many countries over the last two decades shows that considerable improvement in the yields of pulses can be achieved with greater adoption of improved varieties and scientific agronomic practices. Large, industrial-scale farms in developed countries like Canada and Australia benefit from economies of scale, particularly in the deployment of machines, and higher use of improved varieties of seeds, inoculants and plant protection chemicals. On the other hand, pulse production on smallholder farms in most countries continues to be characterized by low yields and high risk. Given the low and uncertain returns from pulses, most of the smallholder production takes place on marginal soils, on land without irrigation facilities and with little access to technological improvements. Smallholder producers of pulses in developing countries lack access to improved varieties of seeds, knowledge about appropriate agronomic practices, and resources for buying modern inputs. Consequently, yield gaps on smallholder farms are high. In countries marked by smallholder production, pulse crops remain unremunerative compared with other competing crops. Low levels of per hectare margins act as a double disadvantage for smallholder producers of pulses: given the small sizes of their farms, low per hectare margins result in abysmal levels of per worker and per farm incomes.

The growth of pulse production over the last decade-and-a-half has been a result of concerted public action towards developing improved varieties and identifying suitable agronomic varieties, to make cultivation of pulses attractive for farmers under diverse agro-climatic conditions and economic contexts across the world. Increasing support to smallholder pulse production in the form of public extension services, provision of improved technologies and inputs, and availability of credit and insurance facilities can go a long way towards closing yield gaps on smallholder farms and making production of pulses more remunerative. The key lies in simultaneously ensuring that production of pulses is remunerative for smallholder producers and prices of pulses are affordable for consumers.

Boubaker Ben Belhassen is Director, Trade and Markets Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Vikas Rawal is Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University. The Trade and Markets Division of FAO recently released a report titled The Global Economy of Pulses that can be accessed here: http://www.fao.org/3/i7108en/I7108EN.pdf.

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Ann Kihii (25) spends time with other young women from poor communities in Nairobi and use embroidery to create images that tell a story about the daily challenges they face. They also get a chance to discuss the issues among themselves in a safe space. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi / IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 14 2019 (IPS)

While women find it hard to talk about their painful experiences, some have found a way of expressing themselves through art. Women, trained as artists, from Nairobi’s informal settlements Kibera and Kangemi, have produced a beautiful quilt that tells stories about their daily challenges.

Displayed at the Pamoja Zone of ICPD25, the quilt is used to lobby delegates to rally behind girls and women by ensuring that they enjoy sexual reproductive rights and end gender-based violence.

Being able to express yourself through art

While the embroidered quilt is a beautiful piece of work, each square that forms part of it it is sewn by different women who are expressing their sad experiences.

“I live in a community where violence against women is the order of the day,” she told IPS. “Unfortunately, women find it hard to talk about it.” Ann Kihiis (25) is one of the young women who have turned out to be a fine quilt maker. Using small square pieces of fabric, she sewed an image of a woman who was experiencing violence in her marriage.

In the same image, there is a shadow which she says symbolises the anger and hurt that an abused woman carries with her all the time unless she is able to talk about it and heal from the experience. Although she has never been in an abusive relationship, she said observing it from a young age in her family and community has traumatised her.

Ann Kihii showcases the quilt that she contributed in making where she designed an image of a woman in an abusive relationship who always carries the anger and hurt. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi / IPS

“I love art and this is a way of creating awareness about gender-based violence and letting people know that it’s okay to talk about it,” said Kihiis.

She said she is aware that women who are abused end up believing that they do not deserve to be loved, something that is not true.

Art brings women together

On the same quilt, other artists made images depicting crime, drugs and teenage pregnancy. For example, there is an image of a young girl who is sitting on a desk with a baby on her back. This, according to Bobbi Fitzsimmons, a quilter from the Advocacy Project is the story of a young girl who was abandoned by her father after falling pregnant. When she fell pregnant for the second time, she decided to take control of her life and returned to school even if it meant studying with much younger learners.

Bobbi Fitzsimmons, a quilter from The Advocacy Project, trains women groups across the world to express the challenges they face by using embroidery, painting and applique to raising awareness so as to get support in addressing gender-based violence and sexual reproductive health rights. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi / IPS

“Art is a very effective way of expressing oneself,” she said. “What’s more, the women came together while working on the quilt and discussed their issues, in what was a safe space for them to talk.”

The Kenyan women artists are trained by the Kenya Quilt Guild under Fitzsimmons’ directorship.

The United National Population Fund (UNFPA) funded The Advocacy Project to train the women. They also funded the exhibition of quilts from women in other parts of the world. For example, there is a quilt from Nepal on display with squares of paintings through which a group of women from the Eastern part of the country expresses themselves after they were treated for uterine prolapse, a painful condition affecting 600 000 women in Nepal. Another quilt donning the walls of the Pamoja Zone is one from survivors of sexual violence from the Democratic Republic of Congo, while another depicts child marriages in Zimbabwe.

In total, 18 quilts are on display at the exhibition, where delegates are fascinated by the stories.

Karen Delaney, the deputy director of The Advocacy Project believes that through this initiative, women do not only come together to talk about their issues but they also get a lifetime skill for income generation. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi / IPS

In making the quilts the artists are trained to use the following skills: beadwork, painting and applique.

“Apart from the opportunity of bringing together the women, they gain skills that they can use to generate income for the rest of their lives,” said Karen Delaney, the deputy director at The Advocacy Project.

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Bettina Maas / UNFPA Ethiopia. Credit: Crystal Orderson / IPS

By Crystal Orderson
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 14 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA Ethiopia country representative, Bettina Maas speaks to IPS at the ICPD25 Nairobi Summit and she says she is optimistic that this time around that the three critical commitments; bringing preventable maternal deaths, gender based violence and harmful practices, as well as unmet need for family planning to zero will be realized.

Crystal Orderson spoke to Maas at the Nairobi Summit.

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Credit: Food Tank

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 14 2019 (IPS)

When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a global appeal for “zero hunger” on World Food Day last month, he provided some grim statistics rich in irony: more than 820 million people do not have enough to eat, he said, while two billion people are overweight or obese.

“It is unacceptable that hunger is on the rise at a time when the world wastes more than one billion tonnes of food every year.”
Still, the United Nations is hoping for the eradication of extreme hunger by 2030 as part of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

How realistic is this? And can Artificial Intelligence (AI), touted as the new panacea for some of the world’s ills, help facilitate increased agricultural crops and farm output?

In a New York Times article titled “Harvesting Corn, Wheat and a Profit” October 13, Tim Gray points out that as the world’s population rises, from the current 7.6 billion to nearly 10 billion in 2050, the United Nations has estimated that 70 percent more food will be needed by then, but it will have to be produced on just five percent of arable land.

But AI, meanwhile, is on the move with farmers operating self-guided tractors guided by GPS navigation systems, drones being used to monitor crops, AI being employed in irrigation and robots likely to take cow hands’ jobs.

Asked if there is a role for AI in agriculture, Sonja Vermeulen, Director of Programs, CGIAR System Organization, told IPS: “Absolutely. CGIAR’s role in this is creating and scaling up affordable AI and big data solutions – so they are relevant and accessible to a wide diversity of farmers regardless of gender, culture, wealth or literacy.

For example, CGIAR (described as a global partnership that unites international organizations engaged in research for a food-secured future and formerly known as the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research ) won former UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon’s innovation prize for work using big data to better predict rice harvests from weather patterns so farmers can match planting places and times (and save a lot of money), she said.

Danielle Nierenberg, President, Food Tank, described as a think tank for food, told IPS while AI, Big Data, and other technologies can hold a lot of potential for farmers of all sizes, they are not a silver bullet for solving hunger.”

“The question we need to ask with all technologies is what problem are they trying to solve and who will they help?”

Unfortunately, she said, many high-tech innovations are not helping farmers who need it the most—the world’s small and medium sized farmers who produce much of the food on the globe.

Those farmers need to be part of the research and development of new technologies so that they actually solve the challenges those farmers face, she added.

And there needs to be an emphasis on combining “high” and “low” tech innovations and making sure that farmers indigenous and traditional knowledge is respected, said Nierenberg.

An article titled “Artificial Intelligence: What AI Can do for Smallholder Farmers” in the Food Tank website, says “Imagine one hundred years ago if farmers had access to huge volumes of information about the soil profile of their land, the varieties of crops they were growing, and even the fluctuations of their local climate?. This kind of information could have prevented an environmental crisis like the Dust Bowl of the 1920s in the American Midwest. But even ten years ago, the idea that farmers could have access to this kind of information was unrealistic.”

For the team behind the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture, farming is the next frontier for using artificial intelligence (AI) to efficiently solve complex problems. The team—which includes biologists, agronomists, nutritionists, and policy analysts working with data scientists—is using Big Data tools to create AI systems that can predict the potential outcomes of future scenarios for farmers.

By leveraging massive amounts of data and using innovative computational analysis, the CGIAR Platform is working to help farmers increase their efficiency and reduce the risks that are inherent in farming, according to the article.

Asked for her comments, Ruth Richardson, Executive Director, Global Alliance for the Future of Food, told IPS: “When it comes to the future of food in the climate emergency, we need to go beyond just looking to “technology” as a silver bullet solution. Instead, we need to broaden the discussion to be about wider food system transformation and interrogate whether technology is the end or a means to an end?”

After all, she said, some farmers operate using advanced technology but many globally are still reliant on small scale operations and tools. It’s important to also note that technology and innovation, more broadly, are important tools to achieve sustainable food systems but technology itself – especially the access to it — is not neutral.

Richardson pointed out that one of the biggest challenges related to technology is related to governance.

“A concentration of power and highly unequal power relations are a deep problem in today’s broken food system so we need to ensure that technology and its implementation is managed in a way that promotes equity and environmental sustainability. Any developments need to be assessed holistically with a focus on risks and trade-offs,” she declared.

Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director at the San Francisco-based Oakland Institute, told IPS today nearly 800 million people are hungry and this number is expected to grow, despite grand declarations by the governments at UN summits.

“But we already produce enough food to feed at least 10 billion people (the current population is around 7.6 billion). It is therefore essential to understand the true causes of hunger—when there is no shortage of food.”

Focus on technology driven industrial agricultural system as a solution to hunger, has created a food system that is upside down and backwards. Denying family farmers their basic rights to land, seeds, markets, and food sovereignty has rendered food producers hungry, argued Mittal.

Take the case of India – primarily an agrarian economy with 60% of its population employed in agriculture. India is world’s 14th largest agricultural, fishery, and forestry product exporter – in 2018, India accrued a $14.6 billion trade surplus of agricultural, fishery, and forestry goods.

And yet, she pointed out, farmer suicides continue to dominate newspaper headlines nationally while the country is home to the largest number of hungry people in the world. In 2017 Global Hunger Index, India ranked 100 out of 119 ranked countries.

The last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report focused on climate change and land, makes it clear that fixing our food system is imperative. Industrial food production has led to increased greenhouse gas emissions; monopoly of a few corporations over seeds to chemical inputs; monoculture production which threatens biodiversity globally; and more.

“This has made our agricultural system both a major driver of climate change—and majorly vulnerable to its effects.”.

“Instead of seeing artificial intelligence as the next silver bullet solution to hunger, we need a food system that respects and protects the intelligence of family farmers, traditional knowledge and agroecological principles of farming,” declared Mittal..

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ICPD25 Youth delegates: Michele Simon (left) and Botho Mahlunge. Credit: Joyce Chimbi / IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 14 2019 (IPS)

Every day in developing countries it is estimated that 20,000 girls under the age of 18 give birth. This amounts to 7.3 million births a year.

Complications from pregnancy and childbirth are still the leading cause of death among adolescent girls, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) statistics.

Let us be heard

Born long after the Cairo Promise, the 18-year-old Michelle Simon and the 19-year-old Botho Mahlunge both youth representatives from Botswana, lament that years later a world where girls can enrol and stay in school is far from the lived reality for millions of adolescents across the globe.

“When I was 13 years old I started to see the connection between girls getting pregnant and dropping out of school. “These girls were very bright but when they left school they never returned.

I started to talk about preventing these pregnancies at that young age,” Simon tells IPS.

Simon says that 25 years after the promise, “it is very sad because those who should be protecting us have failed us. Parents cannot even close the gap between them and their adolescent”.

She argues that parents have abdicated their responsibility to the education system and the entire society. “But where is the parent’s responsibility towards adolescent health?” she asks.

Simon says that in this era of technology and information, adolescent health should not be the problem area that it is. “We cannot hide behind culture and say that ours is a conservative society.

Culture should reflect problems

“Culture evolves and it must so that it can reflect the problems we are facing,” she says.

Mahlunge says that failure to educate our young people on sexuality “is the reason so many girls are getting pregnant and infected with HIV.”

She says the continued exclusion of young people in rural areas from sexual and reproductive health and rights discussion is also to blame for the prevailing state of affairs.

“Young people in rural areas are completely vulnerable. They are so far removed from the little information and services available to young people in urban areas,” Mahlunge observes.

We need sexual health education

Denis Otundo from the Network for Adolescent and Youth of Africa says that the ICPD25 conference has a lot in store to offer adolescents.

He notes that the stigma attached to providing adolescents with comprehensive sexuality education in many African countries is unfounded.

“This Summit is very clear on what needs to be done. As early as at the age of 15 years, adolescents should start receiving information on sexuality. The focus is to provide the right information, at the right time so that adolescents can make the right decisions,” he says.

Otundo says that this information includes life skills “on how to say no to sex because this is part of promoting adolescent health. It is also about training them on identifying all forms of violence, teaching them about available channels to report violence, and how to report”.

Experts at UNFPA argue that if laws support access to adolescent sexual and reproductive health rights, this could delay early sexual debut because such rights encourage and enable young people to make sound decisions.

He says that when young people lack access to proper information, they turn to fellow adolescents for information.

Invest in young people says the Asian Population and Development Association

Dr Osamu Kusumoto from the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) says that the capacity of countries to accelerate and achieve ICPD25 commitments is dependent on the extent to which countries invest in their young people.

“Unplanned pregnancies are a big problem in developing countries. When you have a large population of young people pregnant while they should be in school, this is a problem for the economy too,” he says.

In Kenya alone, UNFPA statistics show that many young girls are likely to have repeated pregnancies.

As many as one in five girls give birth before the age of 18 years, even worse, as a majority of then will get married. Girls between 15 to 19 years are particularly at risk of acquiring HIV.

Kusumoto says that interventions must address young people’s most pressing problems. In this way, they can stay in school and acquire the skills needed to participate in the economy.

Young people are the heart of this Summit

“Adolescents are at the heart of the Summit. All the commitments that have been made, in one way or another, touch on adolescents,” says Otundo.

He says that adolescents are the most affected by sexual and gender-based violence, and harmful practices including female genital mutilation and child marriages.

Among the private sector partners who have committed funds to deliver the Cairo promise include Plan International who will allocate $500 million to improve the sexual and reproductive health and rights of girls and adolescents by 2025.

“I speak out about unwanted pregnancies and violence against young people. I also speak out about the need to stay in school because I believe this is what we need to accelerate the promise made to us even before we were born,” Simon says.

Botho encourages young people wherever they may be “to engage and to dialogue. If you see an opportunity to hold government accountable, do not hold back.”

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Credit: UN photo, Mark Garten

By Andreas Bummel, Lysa John and Bruno Kaufmann
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 14 2019 (IPS)

Next year the United Nations will commemorate its 75th anniversary. The General Assembly determined that all the UN’s activities in 2020 shall be guided by the theme “The future we want, the United Nations we need: reaffirming our collective commitment to multilateralism”.

In January the Secretariat plans1 to launch “the biggest-ever global conversation” on the role of global cooperation and to build a “global vision of 2045.”

The UN Charter begins with the words: “We the Peoples”. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights clearly states in article 21.1. that everyone has the right to take part in the government of their country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

Thus, it should not come as a surprise that this right to participation will now also extend to the forthcoming “global conversation”, as the UN has stated that anybody who wishes to, will be able to join.

At the same time, this is a bold statement in times of deep divides on not just the role of the UN but even more so about the role of citizens and civil society in shaping its affairs. It was only after contentious debates among member states, for instance, that a minor role for civil society was included in the formal resolution on UN75 adopted earlier this year.

The problem is well known.

Fifteen years ago, the Cardoso panel on the relations between the UN and civil society established by then Secretary-General Kofi Annan outlined2 the democratic deficit of global governance in clear terms.

They argued among other things that the UN should help “strengthen democracy for the twenty-first century” by emphasizing participatory democracy and deeper accountability of institutions to the global public.

Unfortunately, most member states had no appetite to look into this further. Despite all efforts to include non-state actors, the UN’s democratic deficit remains critical and undermines the world organization’s credibility.

The alternative People’s Assembly that was held in parallel to the UN’s summit on the Sustainable Development Goals in September in New York concluded3 that the “world is on fire” not least due to a dramatic “crisis of accountability and governance” that extends to the UN.

As well-intentioned it may be, the UN’s global PR campaign that will be rolled out in the course of next year on the occasion of the 75th anniversary will not be able to alleviate the problem unless it leads to tangible institutional change.

From our point of view the UN is an indispensable centre for global deliberation, collaboration and action. The role of the UN as conscience keeper and upholder of universal norms and values remains steadfast.

However, the notion of multilateralism needs to evolve beyond purely intergovernmental engagement and open up to avenues for public and civil society participation. In itself this is a challenging task when “civic space” remains constrained for large swathes of the globe’s population.4

A commitment to multilateralism at present should acknowledge more than ever that the UN’s success depends on strong partnerships with major groups and stakeholders across the world.

As the Earth Summit 2012 stated, sustainable development requires their meaningful involvement and active participation in processes that contribute to decision-making, planning and implementation of policies and programmes at all levels.

A global civic participation campaign5 launched today by a broad alliance of citizens’ initiatives, civil society groups and networks from across the world, jointly coordinated by Democracy Without Borders, Democracy International and CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, calls on the UN and its member states to go a step further.

The UN we need and the UN we want welcomes and seeks the input of “We the Peoples” in whose name it was established 75 years ago. Yet, there is no formal and well-structured UN instrument that enables individual citizens to influence the world organization’s work and this has to change.

A global organization that wishes to leave no one behind – as member states pledged when they adopted the Agenda 2030 – needs to include everyone.

In fact, the General Assembly has repeatedly stated the “right to equitable participation of all, without any discrimination, in domestic and global decision-making”. Informal consultations and public relations exercises to polish the UN’s image are not enough. The UN needs to lead by example through innovations in participation.

Our campaign calls for the creation of a World Citizens’ Initiative on the occasion of the UN’s 75th anniversary. This new and innovative instrument will enable global citizens to submit proposals to the General Assembly or the Security Council if they manage to collect sufficient support from fellow citizens across the world within a specified time.

Similar participatory mechanisms already exist in many cities, regions and countries worldwide. A powerful example is the European Citizens’ Initiative, the first transnational tool of modern direct democracy. It helps to understand how a World Citizens’ Initiative could function.

Certainly, many technical details need to be discussed and political will mobilized. Still, we emphasize that a World Citizens’ Initiative is feasible and that the UN and member states will be able to overcome all challenges if they are actually interested in the participation of “We the Peoples.”

We are convinced that the UN, member states, civil society and global citizens alike will benefit from the direct link a World Citizens’ Initiative will establish, and that its creation will represent an important step forward for the UN.

Clearly, a World Citizens’ Initiative is a proposal that is complementary to other important efforts such as the inclusion of major groups and civil society in the UN’s work or the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly.

The World Citizens’ Initiative is a proposal that is in line with the concept of people-centered multilateral cooperation in a spirit of global citizenship and it is in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, among others6 . It may be a key element in the long-sought revitalization of the General Assembly.

We urge the UN and member states to study the proposal and to launch open and inclusive preparations for the creation of a UN World Citizens’ Initiative. Civil society groups and individual citizens are invited to join the campaign and help us build the necessary political momentum and public pressure for transformation.

1 https://www.un.org/en/un75
2 P. 9: https://undocs.org/A/58/817
3 https://gcap.global/news/peoples-assembly-declaration/
4 https://monitor.civicus.org/
5 https://www.worldcitizensinitiative.org/
6 https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/global-passport-modern-direct-democracy

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Excerpt:

Andreas Bummel is Executive Director of Democracy Without Borders. Lysa John is Secretary-General of CIVICUS. Bruno Kaufmann is co-president of the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy and board member of Democracy International.

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A protest against the welcoming of Mohammad bin Salman at Downing Street, last year. Rights organisations have started an online petition against the involvement of bin Salman’s Misk Foundation with the United Nations Educational Scientific And Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Youth Forum being held in Paris next week. Courtesy: Alisdare Hickson/CC by 2.0

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 14 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations faces renewed criticism over its partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Misk Foundation amid revelations that the charity is headed by the mastermind of a recent Twitter spying operation.

An online petition against the tie-up has received some 6,000 signatures, with organisers saying the U.N.’s cultural agency, UNESCO, should “have nothing to do” with Misk, the private charity of Saudi crown prince and de facto ruler Mohamed bin Salman. 

The campaign comes days before Misk takes part in the Nov. 18-19 UNESCO Youth Forum in Paris, and days after revelations that Misk official Bader al-Asaker led a Saudi effort to gather private details about dissidents via their Twitter accounts.

“Thousands of people are urging UNESCO to cut ties with Misk, a fake Saudi charity that’s really a front for spying run by the Saudi dictator as he tries to track and kill critics,” Sunjeev Bery, director of campaign group Freedom Forward, which organised the petition, told IPS.

“It’s time for the world to wake up and realise that you cannot dance with a brutal despot without becoming implicated in their public relations efforts. The Saudi dictatorship uses its international affiliations to hide the violence it deploys to silence opponents.”

Bery says Misk is used by the powerful crown prince as “propaganda” to divert attention away from Riyadh’s spying operations, a crackdown on critics and the “mass slaughter” during its military operations in neighbouring Yemen.

UNESCO has worked with Misk since 2015 in a deal worth $5 million to the Paris-based U.N. agency. Misk promotes young entrepreneurship at glitzy gatherings in New York, Paris and elsewhere, featuring such speakers as soccer legend Thierry Henry.

UNESCO spokesman Alexander Schischlik said the agency and Misk have co-hosted several events in recent years, and that Misk had helped select a candidate to take part in this month’s forum at UNESCO headquarters.

“It is our role and obligation to work with all member states within our mandate,” Schischlik told IPS. 

“We will continue to do so. Saudi Arabia has been a valuable partner in many issues, including heritage protection, and culture.”

Critics of the tie-up point to revelations this month that Misk’s secretary-general, al-Asaker, ran a Saudi effort to track down dissidents using Twitter, and claims last year linking him to the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi

Last week, the United States Department of Justice charged three men of spying for Saudi by digging up private user data of suspected dissidents and passing it to Riyadh in exchange for cash and luxury wristwatches.

A 24-page FBI complaint accuses two former Twitter employees and an individual who previously worked for the Saudi royal family as being part of a spy ring that tapped private data from thousands of accounts.

The document does not name Asaker or the crown prince, but references to “Foreign Official-1” and “Royal Family Member-1” have been identified as Asaker and prince bin Salman, who is the kingdom’s de facto ruler and is better known as MbS. 

Asaker runs MbS’ private office and heads Misk, which promotes entrepreneurship in Saudi, where high unemployment rates and a demographic bulge of youngsters raise tough questions for an economy that seeks to wean itself off oil.

The complaint describes Asaker cultivating Twitter employees and paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars to discover the email addresses and other private details related to Twitter accounts that had criticised the kingdom.

It was not the first time that Asaker made headlines. Last year, Turkish pro-government daily Yeni Safak reported that the head of Saudi hit squad that killed dissident journalist Khashoggi phoned Asaker four times as the gruesome operation was carried out.

Transcripts of the calls were never published, and it remains unclear whether Asaker was involved. Saudi officials initially denied links to Khashoggi’s murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, but later described a “rogue operation” that did not involve MbS.

The CIA has concluded that the prince ordered the hit, according to reports. Saudi officials point to a trial in Saudi of alleged plotters, in which Asaker is not a defendant, but which has been widely criticised for lacking in transparency.

The U.N. has faced repeated blowback over its ties with Misk. In September, the U.N.’s youth envoy, Jayathma Wickramanayake, pulled out of an event she was co-hosting with Misk at the last minute amid controversy over Khashoggi’s murder.

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MARTIN KARADZHOV, Global Youth Commitee speaking at ICPD25. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi / IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 13 2019 (IPS)

Governments across the world must ban all state-implemented harmful practices against the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) community delegates at the ICPD25 tells IPS.

Adding his voice in bridging the gap of Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) among the youth, Martin Karadzhov, chair for Global Youth Steering Committee, told delegates at a youth event themed “our bodies, our lives, our world”, at the 25thInternational Conference on Population Development (ICDP25).

LGBTQI young people remain voiceless

Although there are 1.8 billion youths between the ages of 10 and 24 years, they continue to be marginalised when it comes to SRHR issues. Karadzhov said LGBTQI youth in many countries were subjected to harmful practices including pressure on them to convert, a practice with no scientific basis which is also unethical and, in most instances, a torture. “Justice for one is justice for all,” he said.

He urged governments to repeal discriminatory laws against the LGBTQI community, adding that they were denied access to Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) services on the basis of their sexuality. “Our human rights are not controversial,” said Karadzhov.

Young people often only a statistic

Echoing his sentiments was Mavis Naa Korley Aryee, a youth programme national radio host at Curious Minds. She said although there are 1. 8 billion reasons why young people should be involved in decision-making process, they are only mentioned as statistics.“Being part of a minority should not be a reason for discrimination,” said Aryee.

Young people speak out at Nairobi Summit. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi / IPS

She advocated for access to SRH services to be made available to all young people, adding that they have a right to make choices about their bodies. She was, however, encouraged by the way the global youth had stood up to be counted despite the challenges they face. Aryeenoted that the youth contributed to the development agenda leading to ICPD25, adding that the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are also about them.

“We have then numbers. No one will ignore 1.8 billion reasons. The more we collaborate, the more we advance our agenda,” she said.

Fighting for a seat a the table

The global youth is fighting for a seat on the decision-making table where Marco Tsaradia, a Member of Parliament from Madagascar, said young people are told: “things have always been done like this”. He said the youth are keen to bring about new ideas because they are talented and innovative. However, he complained that the existing decision-making structure prevented them from achieving this objective.

It gets worse if young persons with disabilities want to enter the table because, said Leslie Tikolitikoca from the Fiji Disabled Peoples Federation, they tend to be “judged on their disabilities rather than their abilities”. For example, he said, instead of providing services to those who are unable to hear or see, those in power would rather make decisions on their behalf instead of helping them to contribute to the discussion.

“How are we going to ensure that we leave no one behind if we don’t involve all young people?” he wondered.

EU commits funding

Following the youth’s proposed solutions to their SRHR, Henriette Geiger, from the directorate of people and peace at the European Union Commission, said it was time to act. She said the EU has proposed that governments should consider reducing the voting age to 16 years.

Young people at ICPD25 youth session. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi / IPS

“That would make a huge impact in decision-making on youth policy,” she said, adding that the EU was funding key initiatives to change public perceptions about the LGBTQI community by using film.

Although she said the EU was involved in many SRHR programmes in Africa, she further pledged €29 million towards SRHR programmes for the youth, urging organisations to take advantage of this initiative.

Not all doom and gloom

During the opening address of the ICPD25, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) executive director, Natalia Kanem, told delegates “good progress is not good enough”, insisting that the promises made to girls, women and everyone should be kept.

Kanem paid special tribute to the youth, for bringing new ideas and resources to make rights and choices a reality.

“To the youth, you’re inspiring in pushing us to go further Thank you,” said Kanem.

It is not all sad and gloomy for the youth, said Ahmed Alhendawi, the secretary-general of the World Organisation of the Scouts Movement. The fact that the youth have formed themselves into a global youth movement should be celebrated because that is how they are going to win the fight to be part of decision-making processes.

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Teruhiko Mashiko, Japan Parliamentary Federation for Population

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 13 2019 (IPS)

The Japan Parliamentary Federation for Population represented by Mr Teruhiko Mashiko and its secretariat, the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) has made a clear and concrete commitment to endorse the ICPD25 agenda. Mashiko tells IPS that Japan, as should every country driven by the well-being of its population, should create the best possible conditions to achieve the ICPD25 agenda.

Interview by Joyce Chimbi at the ICPD25 in Nairobi, Kenya

Q. What lessons are there for developing countries from Japan to accelerate the achievement of sustainable development?

A. The focus of the ICPD25 debate should be focused on how sexual and reproductive health and rights parallel to other development concerns such as food security and women empowerment. Gender equality and freedom for women to make their choices freely is a priority for Japan.

Q. Why are the twin issues of population and development so critical for Africa and for developing countries across the globe?

A. Population is a global issue for both developed and developing even for countries like Japan. This is despite Japan being the first country to achieve a successful demographic transition. Population and development issues are very important for us even though we are already enjoying demographic dividends.

Q. How did Japan achieve this very important demographic transition?

A. Post Cairo, many of the countries which are considered to be developed today prioritized population issues as a key development agenda. Africa must now focus on managing its population so that every pregnancy is wanted. Today, the continent has high unmet needs for family planning and unplanned pregnancies, especially among young people.

Investing in children and young people is critical for sustainable growth in Africa. Importantly, designing special sexual and reproductive health and rights services will prevent early and unplanned pregnancies among Africa’s young. Consequently, they will stay in school and acquire important skills to contribute to building the economy.

Q. High youth unemployment rates prevail across Africa, what lessons can Africa learn from Japan?

A. Economic development is critical because, without a healthy economy, job creation becomes an impossibility. Africa will need to address itself to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and develop sound economic policies.

This will require an in-depth analysis of the challenges facing each country respectively. Matching these needs to specially tailored economically sound policies is very important. An economically active society will accelerate the fulfilment of the ICPD25 agenda.

Q. Why is it so critical for parliamentarians to be involved in developing commitments around the ICPD25 agenda?

A. Parliamentarians are the backbone of legislation in every country. They are key in developing legislation that is progressive and that speaks to the needs of its people. Africa, for instance, will need sound legislation that responds to each country’s most pressing needs including food security, women empowerment, job creation and social security. Without this critical role, populations cannot be managed and provided with what they need to lead fulfilled lives.

Policy direction and planning is the role of parliament after which the government steps in to implement. It is a very clear and complementary relationship that will become even more critical as countries accelerate the ICPD Programme of Action (Poa).

Q. What happens when progressive laws remain unimplemented?

A. Political stability and the quality of politics itself will become increasingly critical for Africa and other developing countries. Democracy and political goodwill is the cornerstone on which Cairo promise will be delivered.

Educating old and new parliamentarians on the need to develop a legislative framework that speaks to the ICPD25 agenda is very important. It is through such initiatives that countries will be able to accelerate and achieve their targets as discussed at this Summit.

Q. How important is consensus around ICPD25 commitments for priority countries where many of the population and development challenges prevail?

A. Consensus on the inter-relationship between population growth and economic development is very important. The overwhelming consensus among stakeholders including governments, political leaders and the people they serve will ensure that these commitments are flagged as critical areas of sustainable development. This will ensure that resources will be mobilized to facilitate their achievement.

Q. How important is political transparency and accountability?

A. Political transparency and accountability must be encouraged at all levels of political representation. In their absence, people will lose trust in the leaders they have in place to represent them. We need more and more self-less politicians, state men and women.

Leaders must feel disturbed by the discomfort of their people. Having only a few of this kind of leaders will derail progress. People’s opinions, desires and aspirations must pass through parliament. Consequently, very country’s legislative framework must be the true reflection of these needs, aspirations and desires. It is the people that should decide what is most needed.

However, it is not all about politics, the goodwill of the people is also very important. Dialogue and inclusivity around these commitments must be encouraged and dissenting voices heard.

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Jeffrey Jordan/ President of the Population Reference Bureau with ICPD25 participants. Credit: Joyce Chimbi / IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 13 2019 (IPS)

One in five women globally lives with a disability even as they have same needs and interests as women without disabilities, their access to sexual and reproductive health services and rights remains severely limited.

Delegates representing people living with disabilities at the ICPD25 Conference painted a grim picture of barriers and challenges they face.

“We are perceived to be asexual and therefore offering us reproductive health information is considered wasteful,” says Josephta Mukobe, principal secretary of the Kenya’s Ministry of Culture and Sports.

Motherhood remains taboo for differently abled women

Mukobe says motherhood for them is taboo, and that a pregnant woman with a disability is a phenomenon to be pitied, even ridiculed by society.

“We cannot enjoy pregnancy because people look at us and wonder what poor beast this is with a disability. They are even shocked that you even have sexual organs,” she expounds, and adds: “We desire love and active and healthy sexual life to raise a family.”

Under international law and multilateral agreements, governments have a responsibility to ensure equal respect, protection and access to sexual and reproductive health, as well as rights for people with disabilities. But this is policy – and a long way to practice.

Fighting Exclusions

Veronica Njuhi, chairperson of Women Challenged to Challenge, a movement that ensures women with disability develop a capacity to overcome barriers and discrimination, speaks of how she was continually excluded from training on HIV/Aids.

“My employer never included me in any training on HIV/Aids even though it was offered to all employees. When I confronted him, he was very shocked because he did not think I needed training on HIV/Aids,” she says.

Raising awareness

According to the Population and Reference Bureau, the ratio of people living with disabilities accounts for one in seven globally. Critically, 80 percent of them are living in developing countries where sexual and reproductive health and rights interventions are not only limited, but are most wanted.

Veronica Njuhi I’m conversation with ICPD25 participant. Credit: Joyce Chimbi / IPS

Raising awareness and strengthening protection for the rights of the one billion people with disability around the world has never been more urgent.

Girls and women are particularly vulnerable, and are more likely to experience violence. Young people with disabilities, under the age of 18, are especially vulnerable as they are nearly four times more likely than youth without disabilities, to be abused.

“When people with a disability overcome barriers, it is a representation of what is possible. The world is about all of us, no one should be left behind,” says Jeffrey Jordan, president of the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), told IPS.

Jordan argues that the ICPD25 commitment cannot be achieved when one in seven people in the world are left out of deliberations.

Reaching out to the most vulnerable

“As we strengthen sexual and reproductive health and rights globally, it is crucial that we reach out to the most vulnerable communities,” he says.

Given that they are the least likely to be educated about their sexual and reproductive health and rights, people with a disability are predisposed to greater risk of exploitation, unplanned pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections.

“Sex is a private issue which we would also like to explore in private. This is not always possible because if we do not speak out, we will continue to be ignored,” Mukobe says.

She says that interventions must be tailored to suit their special needs, and that they need to be informed on what does not work for them. “A female condom cannot be used among those of us whose legs are crooked. A blind person cannot read without using braille to figure out if a male condom has expired because expiry dates are not written on the condoms,” she adds.

For women with a hearing impairment, the scenario is dire. When seeking health services, they often need to be accompanied by a person who understands sign language. Njuhi says this person is not always available.

“We are pushing for change and now public hospitals in Kenya have at least one person who can understand sign language,” she says.

“A person who is not deaf can easily be treated for a sexually transmitted infection in private. But those who are deaf are humiliated and shamed because they need someone who understands sign language,” Mukobe explains.

Njuhi further reveals that because of existing communication barriers, women with a hearing impairment have for a long time received the injectable even when it was not their primary or preferred contraceptive option.

“The health providers who did not want to struggle explaining various methods, their benefits and side effects, have found the injectable easy to administer. A woman will just be told to return after three months for their follow up dose,” Njuhi reveals.

We will not be silenced

Njuhi further notes the attitude that most health providers have towards pregnant women with disability has contributed to many of them delivering at home without a skilled attendant.

“Just because a woman with disability is pregnant does not mean she was raped. She deserves all the services that will help her travel the safe motherhood route without judgement,” Njuhi advises.

Mukobe decries the state of many health facilities, particularly public sector hospitals, for being extremely unfriendly to those with a disability. She says that beds are often not adjustable, adding on to the list of the many barriers they have to overcome.

Against this backdrop, delegates from this vulnerable community like Njuhi have vowed to take their rightfully place at ICPD25 “because it is not a global conference without us.”

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Another deal signed on second day of the Africa Investment Forum 2019

By African Development Bank
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Nov 13 2019 (IPS-Partners)

The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and Thelo DB on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the Africa Investment Forum in Johannesburg. The agreement will give both parties an opportunity to develop, finance and operate railway projects across Africa.

Thelo and Afreximbank have agreed to collaborate to modernise the continent’s railways, thereby promoting trade, investment, and economic and skills development. Both see the urgent need for efficient and effective transportation and logistics on the continent, particularly in the freight railway sector.

African governments have long been discussing the importance of the regional integration of infrastructure projects as one of the ways to both free and speed up the movement of goods in order to stimulate intra-Africa trade.

Afreximbank President Prof. Benedict Oramah said the two companies were committed to supporting trade on the continent. “That includes creating capacity to deliver to the markets. With Thelo DB’s capacity to deliver and operate railway mobility systems and Afreximbank’s ability to finance projects, we have an incredibly strong team,” said Oramah

Thelo DB is looking at projects in Southern, East and West Africa, which the company believes are home to corridors that transcend country borders.

The MOU is part of the realisation that the African Continental Free Trade Agreement will face challenges without the logistical capacity to move goods.

“The MOU solves a very important part of the puzzle for us, which is, when we’re doing these big capital projects, how do we finance them? Rather than building our own expertise as Thelo DB, working in an integrated manner with Afreximbank magically gives us a solution to that challenge. So we can now sit down with our clients and say not only do we bring technical capacity of a global standard, we bring you unbelievable capital mobilisation in the MOU we signed this morning,” said Ronald Ntuli, Thelo Group Chairman.

Thelo DB is an incorporated partnership between the African industrial group, and leading European railway conglomerate, Deutsche Bahn Engineering & Consulting. Thelo DB brings unmatched capacity to the continent’s railway sector. Some of its expertise include construction supervision, rolling stock leasing capabilities, rehabilitation of existing infrastructure and transferring skills through training and development programmes.

Afreximbank is a multilateral African trade finance institution, with the mandate to facilitate, promote and develop intra- and extra-African trade.

Last year’s inaugural Africa Investment Forum “Market Days” secured record levels of investment interest in deals worth billions of dollars in just 3 days.

Investors, project sponsors and government representatives discussed 63 projects valued at $46.9 billion involving seven sectors in 24 countries. Investment interest worth $38.7billion was secured for 49 projects.

AIF 2019 hopes to better that figure between November 11 and 13.

Media contact: Gershwin Wanneburg, Communication and External Relations Department, African Development Bank, email: g.wanneburg@afdb.org

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Excerpt:

Another deal signed on second day of the Africa Investment Forum 2019

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South Sudanese refugee, Priscilla Nyamal

By Crystal Orderson
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 13 2019 (IPS)

Young women and girls are still subjected to a range of harmful practices and violence, including early marriage. Every year, an estimated 12 million girls get married before the age of 18.

In an IPS exclusive from the ICPD25 summit one young brave woman from South Sudan tells us her story of how she had to fight her family and community from becoming a child bride. With the help of the UNFPA in Kenya, Priscilla Nyamal is now advocating for young girls and wants the world to know that child marriage should stop. Priscilla shares her story to IPS.

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Nov 13 2019 (IPS)

Almost nine decades ago, newly elected US President Franklin Roosevelt introduced the New Deal in 1933 in response to the Great Depression. The New Deal consisted of a number of mutually supportive initiatives, of which the most prominent were: a public works programme financed by budget deficits; a new social contract to improve living standards for all working families, including creation of the US social security system; and financial regulation to protect citizens’ assets and channel financial resources into productive investments.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The New Deal was effectively a fiscal stimulus for recovery, employment, development and environment goals. The Citizens Conservation Corps (CCC) created two million jobs in environmental projects for young Americans aged 18-25 years when the US population was 125 million.

The best known public works project was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), an integrated regional development programme for an underdeveloped region. It built infrastructure to generate hydroelectric energy to sustain industrial and agricultural growth in the US Southwest.

Thus, the New Deal helped ensure US economic recovery, but also successfully addressed unsustainable practices that had caused widespread ecological, social and economic crises in environmentally fragile regions, and helped usher in a new era of economic growth and expanding prosperity, especially in poorer regions.

Sustainable development crises
Today, the world is in protracted economic slowdown. This crisis needs a similarly bold response, as the United Nations urged following the 2008-2009 financial crisis. But its New Deal was to be more global and sustainable. Public works programmes should move countries to more sustainable development pathways to achieve the United Nations 2030 Agenda for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

First, it has to involve international solidarity, following decades of globalization, and inequalities among and within countries. Second, it has to be sustainable — economically, socially and ecologically. We face profound environmental crises, with global warming the greatest new threat with unprecedented ramifications.

Anis Chowdhury

While much attention has recently focused on climate change, sustainability is also threatened by air and water pollution, natural resource degradation, loss of forests and biodiversity, as well as socio-political instability due to growing inequalities, repression and resistance.

A new New Deal
A New Deal for our times should have key elements similar to Roosevelt’s, namely public works programmes and measures to encourage productive investments for output and job recovery, social protection and prudent financial regulation.

Most developing countries are vulnerable to the global financial system. While varied, they are generally less resilient and more susceptible to market volatility, often forced to pursue pro-cyclical macroeconomic policies, exacerbating economic instability and undermining long-term growth.

This New Deal should support counter-cyclical responses in three main ways. First, national stimulus packages in both developed and developing countries to revive and ‘green’ national economies. Second, international policy coordination to ensure that developed countries’ stimulus packages not only create good jobs in the North, but also have strong developmental impacts in the South.

Third, greater financial support for developing countries, as long promised, especially for development and climate change. The North should also enable the South to more effectively mobilize domestic resources, especially through taxation, and stemming illicit outflows of funds.

Setbacks
In light of the slowing world economy, and dim prospects for imminent recovery, resources are needed to strengthen social protection to contain poverty and hunger. Hundreds of millions in developing countries are at risk due to lower incomes, declining export earnings and other challenges.

A strong fiscal response should make long-term investments to accelerate ecologically sustainable and socially inclusive growth. Front-loading massive, multilaterally cross-subsidised public investments in developing countries in renewable energy and sustainable smallholder food agriculture should induce complementary private investments as spontaneous market forces alone will not generate the investments needed.

The Global Green New Deal (GGND) should include mutually beneficial collaborative initiatives between governments of rich and poor countries. Reforms of the international financial and trading systems should support sustainable development for all.

There was a glimmer of hope for such a bold coordinated multilateral initiative at the 2009 London Summit of G20, but cooperation and progress have been disappointing since, e.g., little meaningful progress on its Global Jobs Pact. With the mid-2010 G20 Toronto Summit U-turn, fiscal austerity became the new normal.

Meanwhile, creeping protectionism all around set recovery back further. Growing precariousness and declining living standards, blamed on imports and immigrants, have fuelled the ethno-populist backlash against Others, with multilateralism as collateral damage.

Global Green New Deal urgent
The urgency of an ambitious GGND has risen as most countries drift further off track in achieving Agenda 2030. After almost a decade of stagnation, countries must prioritize recovery, but not at the expense of others. Stimulus packages must lay the foundation for sustainable development.

Policy coordination among major economies should minimize adverse spill-over effects, especially on developing countries, which have become more vulnerable than ever, after decades of economic liberalization and globalization. Socially useful public works could contribute to climate adaptation and mitigation, and improve public goods provision.

To be sure, many other complementary interventions are needed. But such investments and government spending require significantly improved public finances. While revenue generation requires greater national incomes, tax collection can be greatly enhanced through fairer international tax cooperation.

Clearly, the agenda for a new New Deal requires not only bold new national developmental initiatives, but also far better and more equitable multilateral cooperation, through improvement of the inclusive multilateral United Nations system.

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