Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By Ibrahim Thiaw
BONN, Aug 9 2019 (IPS)

We have known for over 25 years that poor land use and management are major drivers of climate change, but have never mustered the political will to act.

With the release of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on climate change and land, which makes the consequences of inaction crystal clear, we have no excuse for further delay.

We cannot head off the worst ravages of climate change without action on land degradation. The knowledge and technologies to manage our lands sustainably already exist.

All we need is the will to use them to draw down carbon from the atmosphere, protect vital ecosystems and meet the challenge of feeding a growing global population. We must harness the enormous positive potential of our lands and make them part of the climate solution.

With the help of our scientists, I will ensure the issues in this report that are within the scope of the Convention are presented to ministers for strong and decisive action when they meet at the world’s largest intergovernmental forum where decisions on land use and management are made, the 14th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNCCD, taking place in New Delhi, India, in three weeks’ time.

The IPCC report is one of four major assessments released over the last two years that show the wide-ranging impacts of land degradation. It is not just the climate that suffers when land quality declines.

Land degradation jeopardizes our ability to feed the world, threatens the survival of over a million species, destroys ecosystems and drives resource-related conflicts that demand costly international interventions.

These problems are no longer local problems. The report underlines that the increasingly global flows of consumption and production means that what we eat in one country can impact land in another. In the wake of land degradation and drought, communities are breaking down due to the swift and devastating loss of life and livelihoods.

Faced with these life-changing consequences, the UNCCD has developed a robust policy framework that can enable countries to avoid further land degradation and recover land that has become virtually unusable.

Change is happening, but not fast enough. In the last four years, 122 of the 169 countries affected by desertification, land degradation or drought have embarked on setting national targets to halt future degradation and rehabilitate degrading land to ensure the amount of healthy and productive land available in 2015 does not decline by 2030 and beyond.

Last year, these countries submitted baseline date to verify this achievement. And in just three years, close to 70 countries have set up national drought management plans to reduce community and ecosystem vulnerability to droughts, which the IPCC says will become stronger, more frequent and more widespread.

This shows that commitment to reversing land degradation is growing, even though much work remains. More than two billion hectares of land are degraded. Initiatives to restore land on a national or landscape level are not only vital in reversing the process.

They are critical for helping the global community mitigate and adapt to climate change in the short term, using soil and vegetations through methods that do not harm the Earth.

When the ministers meet in September (at the UN in New York), I expect the IPCC report to have a strong influence not only on the policy decisions they will debate, but the will to take them home for appropriate action.

Science can help politicians develop informed policies that will support ordinary people to prepare, act and create more positive pathways to the future.

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Excerpt:

Ibrahim Thiaw is UN Under Secretary General and Executive Secretary to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification

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Drone visual of the area in Upper East Region, Ghana prior to restoration of the land that was taken in 2015. Years later the community restored the land by planting trees. A new United Nations report has described farming, land degradation and desertification as critical frontlines in the battle to keep the global rise in temperatures below the benchmark figure of 2 degrees Celsius. Credit: Albert Oppong-Ansah /IPS

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 9 2019 (IPS)

A new United Nations report has described farming, land degradation and desertification as critical frontlines in the battle to keep the global rise in temperatures below the benchmark figure of 2 degrees Celsius.

The 43-page study from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released this week says better management of land can help combat global warming and limit the release of greenhouse gases.

“Climate change poses a major risk to the world’s food supply, and while better land management can help to combat global warming, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors is essential,” U.N. spokesman Stefan Dujarric told reporters Thursday.

The report offered “compelling evidence” for redoubling global efforts and shows that while “food security is already at risk from climate change, there are many nature-based solutions that can be taken,” added Dujarric.

Among the IPCC’s recommendations were calls for vigorous action to halt soil damage and desertification and for people globally to throw less food into trash cans, whether in private homes or out the back of supermarkets and factories.

Instead, scrap food can be used to feed farm animals, in some cases. Alternatively, food waste can be donated to charities so that homeless people and others in need get much-needed meals.

Controversially, the IPCC also noted that more people could be fed using less land if individuals cut down on eating meat and switched up their diets by consuming more “plant-based foods”.

“Some dietary choices require more land and water, and cause more emissions of heat-trapping gases than others,” said Debra Roberts, co-chair of an IPCC working group.

“Balanced diets featuring plant-based foods, such as coarse grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, and animal-sourced food produced sustainably in low greenhouse gas emission systems, present major opportunities for adaptation to and limiting climate change.”

The report was co-authored by 107 scientists and was finalised this week at talks in Geneva, Switzerland.

It is called “Climate Change and Land, an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems”.

The report’s findings would be key at the Conference of Parties of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in New Delhi, India, in September and at other confabs over the coming months, said Dujarric.

Some 500 million people live in areas facing desertification, IPCC scientists said. These regions are more vulnerable to climate change and such extreme weather events as droughts, heatwaves, and dust storms. 

Once land is degraded, it becomes less productive and unsuitable for some crops. It also becomes less effective at absorbing carbon, which drives a vicious cycle of rising temperatures degrading soils even more.

“Land plays an important role in the climate system,” Jim Skea, co-chair of an IPCC working group, said in a statement accompanying the document.

“Agriculture, forestry and other types of land use account for 23 percent of human greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time natural land processes absorb carbon dioxide equivalent to almost a third of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and industry.”

Under the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, governments pledged to limit the rise in average global temperatures to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial times, and ideally to 1.5°C. The world has already heated up by about 1°C.

Droughts and heatwaves are getting worse, according to the UNCCD. By 2025, some 1.8 billion people will experience serious water shortages, and two thirds of the world will be “water-stressed”.

Though droughts are complex and develop slowly, they cause more deaths than other types of disasters, the UNCCD warns. By 2045, droughts will have forced as many as 135 million people from their homes.

But there is hope. By managing water sources, forests, livestock and farming, soil erosion can be reduced and degraded land can be revived, a process that can also help tackle climate change.

“The choices we make about sustainable land management can help reduce and in some cases reverse these adverse impacts,” said Kiyoto Tanabe, co-chair of an IPCC task force on greenhouse gasses.

“In a future with more intensive rainfall the risk of soil erosion on croplands increases, and sustainable land management is a way to protect communities from the detrimental impacts of this soil erosion and landslides.”

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By Lakshi De Vass Gunawardena
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 9 2019 (IPS)

There are several initiatives in place to foster sustainable development– and the Global Geodetic Reference governance frame is one that has proved effective.

“This proposed governance framework, the establishment of a Global Geodetic Centre of Excellence (GGCE), will strengthen all Member States – as global geodesy is fundamental to sustainable development,” Anne Jørgensen, Senior Strategic Communications Advisor for the UN Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), told IPS.

“Global warming is the defining issue of our time,” Anne Gueguen, Deputy Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations said at a panel discussion August 6 organized by the UN-GGIM and the Subcommittee on Geodesy.

“We are in a race against time for the survival of human life on the planet as we know it, and that this global challenge can only be met by universal global efforts.”

Since its inception, the UN-GGIM has recognized the growing demand for more precise positioning services, the economic importance of a global geodetic reference frame and the need to improve the global cooperation within geodesy, according to its website.

UN-GGIM created a Working Group for a Global Geodetic Reference Frame (GGRF), which formulated and facilitated a draft resolution for a Global Geodetic Reference Frame (GGRF), adopted by UN-GGIM in July 2014 and the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in November 2014.

On 26 February 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on Global Geodetic Reference Frame for Sustainable Development that was led by the Republic of Fiji.

The Global Geodetic Reference Frame (GGRF) is a generic term describing the framework which allows users to precisely determine and express locations on the Earth, as well as to quantify changes of the Earth in space and time

Data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Gravity Recovery and Climate revealed that Greenland alone lost an average of 286 billion tons of ice per year between the years 1993 and 2016, while Antarctica lost about 127 billion tons of ice per year during the same time frame, and that the rate of Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade.

Record high temperatures, mass rainfall, and rising sea levels are occurring at unparalleled rates as well.

The Geodetic framework seeks to support the increasing demand for positioning, navigation, timing, mapping, and geoscience applications, and thus is an irreplaceable asset for reliable information on changes on Earth such as natural disaster management, rising sea levels, climate change, and information for decision-makers.

The UN- GGIM hopes to establish a Global Geodetic Centre of Excellence as well, in order to support the frame and cites that it will “act as a GGRF operational hub” that will support the objectives of the UN- GGIM – to enhance global cooperation, provide technical assistance and capacity building.

However, there are challenges surrounding the framework itself, such as degradation, a lack of open data sharing, and halted development and maintenance due to a lack of global coordination.

“Open data sharing is fundamental to science applications and also alignment to the global reference frame,” Zuheir Altamimi, Researcher at the Institut National de l’Information Géographique et Forestière (IGN) said during the panel discussion, pointing to a map that highlighted data gaps in Africa, East and South East Asia, and South America.

“It means that data is not shared,” Altamimi noted, concluding “we need to share data in order to maintain the global geodetic framework.”

“Global geodesy lacks global coordination.” Laila Løvhøiden, Deputy Director at Kartverket added. To tackle this, the UN GGIM and Subcommittee has proposed solutions, including a revised position paper and the Geodetic Centre.

“The Global Geodetic Centre of Excellence would provide the coordinating role that is key to creating synergy,” Francisco Javier Medina Parra, Director of the Geodetic Framework at National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) added.

People at home can also help sustain the framework. “There’s also a need for the broader community to communicate to policymakers and the political class how much we actually rely on these things in our day to day lives,”

Gary Johnston, Co- Chair of the UN- GGIM Subcommittee on Geodesy told IPS, that no one country can do this alone, and that we need all countries and member states to contribute “in any way that they can, and concluded that everyone has a role and everyone can benefit from it.”

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By Joseph Chamie
NEW YORK, Aug 9 2019 (IPS)

What if current fertility rates of countries remain constant for the rest of the 21st century? Under this assumption, the populations of high fertility countries skyrocket while those of most low fertility countries plummet and world population nearly triples in size by the century’s close. 

If fertility rates do not change, today’s world population of 7.7 billion increases to 21.6 billion by the end of the 21st century. That projected figure is double the commonly cited United Nations medium fertility projection of 10.9 billion for world population in 2100.

The United Nations medium fertility projection assumes that the rates of high fertility countries decline to near replacement levels of 2.1 births per woman by the century’s end. It also assumes that today’s below replacement fertility rates of countries increase slightly over the coming eight decades.

Assuming fertility rates remain at their current levels, eighteen countries, all in sub-Saharan Africa, experience the most rapid demographic growth. Each of their populations leaps more than tenfold by the end of the century.

The fastest demographic growth occurs in Niger, which has a fertility rate of 7 births per woman. Niger’s population surges thirtyfold over the century assuming constant fertility, from 23 million to 695 million.

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

The most populous country in Africa, Nigeria, experiences an elevenfold increase in the size of its current population if its fertility rate of 5.4 births per woman remains constant, leaping from today’s 201 million to 2.3 billion by the year 2100. Similarly, assuming its fertility rate of 6 births per woman remains unchanged, the population of the Democratic Republic of the Congo increases eighteenfold, surging from 87 million to 1.6 billion at the century’s close.

Without immigration the current populations of Australia, United States, United Kingdom and Canada are smaller by the century’s close, -7%, -9%, -15 and -29, respectively
Together those eighteen sub-Saharan African countries contribute an additional 8 billion people to the world’s population by 2100 if their fertility rates remain unchanged.

However, if their high fertility rates decline to near replacement levels by the end of the century, as assumed by the United Nations medium fertility projection, the eighteen countries contribute 2 billion additional people to world population, or 6 billion less than the constant fertility projection.

Nigeria’s population, for example, reaches 733 million by 2100 in the medium fertility projection rather than 2.3 billion in the constant fertility projection. Niger’s population increases sevenfold by 2100 in the medium fertility projection instead of thirtyfold if fertility remains unchanged. Also instead of growing to 1.6 billion assuming constant fertility, the population of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is 362 million in medium fertility projection at the century’s close.

In addition to rapid population increase, the population age structures of the sub-Saharan African countries stay relatively young if their high fertility rates continue. Today’s proportions of children (below 15 years), for example, remain basically unchanged at around 43% of the population by 2100 in the constant fertility projection. However, if fertility rates decline as assumed in the medium fertility projection, those proportions are halved to approximately 22%.

In striking contrast to sub-Saharan African countries, the populations of 50 countries with below replacement fertility rates decline during this century if fertility levels remain constant. Even if their below replacement fertility rates increase slightly as assumed in the United Nations medium fertility projection, those countries still experience population decline but to a lesser extent.

The current populations of a dozen countries, including Japan, Poland and South Korea with current fertility rates of 1.4, 1.4 and 1.1 births per woman, respectively, decline by about 50 percent by the end of the century if fertility rates remain unchanged (Figure 2). Significant declines in population size also occur by 2100 in Italy (-40%), Hungary (-39%) China (-30%) and Germany (-17%) and Russia (-15%).

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

In addition to population decline, the age structures of those countries with below replacement fertility are markedly older in 2100 if their fertility rates remain constant. The proportions of elderly persons aged 65 years and older in those countries increase to unprecedented high levels, the highest being more than 40 percent in Italy, Greece, Japan, Portugal, South Korea and Spain. During the 20th century the proportion elderly in countries never reached higher than 17 percent.

Furthermore, in many countries the number in the working ages of 15 to 64 years per person aged 65 years and older, the potential support ratio (PSR), falls below two. In Japan, Italy, South Korea and Spain, for example, constant fertility rates lead to PSRs that are to close to one by the end of the century.

The populations of some countries with below replacement fertility continue to increase due to immigration. Without immigration, however, the population sizes of those countries also decline over the coming decades. For example, without immigration the current populations of Australia, United States, United Kingdom and Canada are smaller by the century’s close, -7%, -9%, -15 and -29, respectively (Figure 3).

 

Source: United Nations Population Division.

 

Among the forces keeping fertility rates below the replacement level are urbanization, survival of children, widespread education, improvements in status of women including increased employment and economic independence, the costs of childrearing, delayed childbearing, voluntary childlessness and reproductive health services, including modern contraceptives. Given that those forces are continuing, it is unlikely that low fertility rates will return to replacement levels in the foreseeable future.

Countries with below replacement fertility need to anticipate and plan for the near certain consequences of population decline and aging. While smaller and older populations can certainly lead to considerable societal, individual and environmental benefits, those changes also pose challenges for economic growth, retirement, pensions, healthcare and caregiving.

If the high fertility rates of countries remain unchanged, the projected future growth of those populations, which are among poorest in the world, is extraordinary. Such enormous demographic growth not only overwhelms the development goals of those countries, but also poses serious challenges to countries worldwide as well as to the planet’s flora, fauna and ecosystems.

A variety of long-term development efforts, including education for girls and boys, employment and vocational training, lower mortality and improved healthcare, contribute to the transition from high fertility rates to near replacement levels. The invaluable contribution of reproductive health information and services in reducing high fertility levels, however, can be made available now.

The costs for providing reproductive health services, including modern methods of contraception, are small compared to the considerable benefits for families and society. In addition to permitting women and men to choose the desired number and spacing of their children, reproductive health services constitute a vital component of socio-economic development and environmental sustainability.

Governments, including those of the wealthier nations, international agencies and donor organizations need to follow through on their commitments on the provision of reproductive health services. Increased efforts are needed to ensure that all women and men have access to sexual and reproductive health care services, including modern methods of family planning.

Those efforts are especially vital in the high fertility countries of sub-Saharan Africa where usage of modern methods of family planning is relatively low. Only about half of women of reproductive age (15 to 49 years), for example, have their need for family planning met with modern contraceptive methods.

It is clearly in interests of all to facilitate the transition from high to low fertility rates, especially in sub-Saharan African countries, as has already been realized throughout much of the world.

To do otherwise makes it enormously more difficult to address the critical issues and development challenges facing humanity, including shortages of food, water and housing, poverty, unemployment, gender equality, climate change, environmental degradation, emigration and displacement, civil conflict and peace and security.

 

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By Dr. Ida Odinga, EGH
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 8 2019 (IPS)

In 2019 a female scientist created an algorithm that gave the world the first ever images of a black hole. Working with a team of astronomers, physicists, mathematicians and engineers, a young woman led the development of a computer program that in her own words enabled them to “achieve something once thought impossible.”

Photo: Heshimi Kenya

During this same year, over 200 million women in developing countries will not have access to effective methods of contraception to delay or avoid pregnancy. Approximately 830 women a day will die during pregnancy or childbirth from preventable causes. And sexual and gender based violence including harmful practices like early marriage and female genital mutilation, will still plague millions of girls and young women. Girls and women denied basic human rights and robbed of their potential to achieve the impossible.

In 1994, the visionary Programme of Action was agreed to by 179 governments at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt. The Programme of Action recognized that reproductive health and rights, as well as women’s empowerment and gender equality, are cornerstones of healthy robust societies that promote the well-being of populations and economic and social development of nations. Since ICPD, governments, civil society, youth networks have all worked towards decreasing maternal deaths, eliminating harmful practices and promoting gender equality.

The global community is now gearing up to mark 25 years since the historic ICPD through the Nairobi Summit on the International Conference on Population and Development, ICPD25 which will be held from 12-14 November 2019 under the theme “Accelerating the Promise”.

I am proud that my country Kenya, will be hosting this important Summit, which is aimed at mobilizing the political will, financial commitment and community support we need to fully realize the ICPD Programme of Action.

Indeed, by the time we leave Nairobi, we must ensure that everyone has agreed to play their part in reaching zero unmet need for family planning information and services, zero preventable maternal deaths, and zero sexual and gender-based violence and harmful practices against girls and women. Evidence shows that the benefits that would accrue from fulfilling the ICDP agenda would be far reaching in transforming lives and improving the wellbeing of families, communities, and nations.

Dr. Ida Odinga, EGH

In Kenya, significant progress in health care has been made with Universal Health Coverage(UHC) a top priority for the Government. Thanks to the leadership, passion and commitment of the First Lady of Kenya, Ms Margret Kenyatta through her Beyond Zero campaign there has been a significant drop in maternal and child mortality. We have to now go for zero deaths. Reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health is key to achieving UHC.

High rates of teenage pregnancy, take girls out of school and compromises their health. Young people face stark challenges in employment as 1,000,000 people enter a labor force that can only absorb 150,000 new entrants. Access to health services and information, school retention and quality education will help these young girls stay in school and lead healthy lives. These are among the issues that the Summit will address.

However, in order for the Nairobi Summit to be a game changer, we need to speak for those that can’t speak, speak for those who are not heard and to add our voices to those who continue to work for sexual and reproductive rights for all. We must reaffirm our commitments to the ICPD goals and Agenda 2030. We must absorb the lessons learned over the last 25 years and do better.

For Kenya, the Nairobi Summit provides a platform to showcase our Big Four Development Agenda aimed at accelerating socioeconomic transformation and economic growth by intensifying investments and programme actions on: affordable housing, food security, universal healthcare and manufacturing.

I am delighted that my country is partnering with UNFPA and the Government of Denmark to host the Nairobi Summit and reaffirm the global commitment to ICPD. This is a watershed moment as we are a mere 10 years away from our commitment to fulfill the SDGs.

I look forward to seeing all the participants in Nairobi and hope everyone will follow the proceedings of the Nairobi Summit and learn how we can all play a role in bringing about change and keeping the promise of ICPD. Ensuring that all women and girls can reach for the stars and achieve the impossible.

Dr. Ida Odinga, EGH is spouse of Rt Hon. (Eng.) Raila Odinga and a passionate campaigner of women’s rights.

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Global arms trade is booming and has become a lucrative business.

By Blerim Mustafa
GENEVA, Aug 8 2019 (IPS)

“I don’t want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.” 1

These were the words of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 22 May 1940 when he learned of individuals profiting because of the booming arms trade industry during the Second World War. Seven decades down the line, President Roosevelt’s warning against the rise of the military-industrial complex and war profiteers is more relevant than ever and a telling testimony that for many in safe places war means profit. But, should the pursuit of economic profit be allowed to supplant ethical considerations, especially when weapons often end up in the hands of terrorists, human rights violators and criminal governments?

There is no doubt that the global arms market remains a lucrative business. Arms trade raises numerous ethical issues both for the exporting and for the importing country. War profiteers operate with scant concern for ethical and moral considerations, being guided by the search for power or profit for their corporations. Those who produce and sell arms have been called “merchants of death.” 2 HH Pope Francis said it was hypocritical to speak of peace while fuelling the arms trade, which only serves the commercial interests of the arms industry. 3 It is of course the inalienable right of States to exercise their right to self-defence as stipulated in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and to maintain independent military strength to deal with periodic armed conflict or threats that may emerge. Experience shows that arms exporters fuel conflict and create an atmosphere not at all conducive to peace and development in the world. A business model the feeds on armed conflict, violence and instability must be banned in the 21st century.

According to recent statistics from the Stockholm Peace Institute, arms sales of the world’s 100 largest arms-producing and military services companies totalled USD 398.2 billion in 2017. 4 That is more than the nominal cumulative GDPs of South Africa, Denmark, Singapore, Egypt, Algeria and Malaysia, a group of countries which is home to more than 200 million people. Since 2002, annual arms sales have surged 44% and are expected to continue growing in the years to come. 5 In other words, international arms trade is “big business” and a vector for economic growth in some countries, reminiscent of John Maynard Keynes’ vision of ‘Military Keynesianism’.

In the Middle East, the irregular and black-market arms trade – estimated at USD 10 billion a year – have weaponised extremism and fuelled instability. Disturbing images of civilian infrastructure being bombed and destroyed by extremist groups are telling testimonies that the flow of arms and weapons continues to exacerbate violent conflict in the Arab region. This is particularly the case in Syria, Libya and Iraq where the supply of weapons to the warring sides has prolonged the fighting and adversely affected the civilization population. The rebuilding of societies affected by armed conflict and violence in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is estimated at USD 250 billion. A price tag that the next generations in the MENA region will have to repay for decades to come.

In this connection, world civil society must take action to curb future arms proliferation in regions prone to armed conflict and violence. Governments and arms traders must commit to respecting and to fulfilling the provisions set forth in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights of the United Nations. 6 The aim should be to identify, prevent and mitigate as the case may be, the human rights-related risks of business activities in conflict-affected areas. Civilians should not have to bear the brunt, as they do now, of the devastating consequences of military conflict. The greed involved in the arms trade must be kept in check.

As foreseen in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the promotion of just, peaceful and inclusive societies rests on the ability of world society to promote a climate conducive to peace and sustainable development. According to the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, the countries that are furthest from achieving the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are in, or emerging from, armed conflict and violence. The best investment to peace and prosperity therefore rests on the ability of decision-makers and governments to curb arms trade, prohibit economic gains from war, armed conflict and human suffering and instead commit to rally for a world where peace and justice prevails. The simple motto for all should be “disarmament for development”. What is most needed is a conversion strategy that will gradually transform war economies into sustainable peace economies. 7

1 https://www.thenation.com/article/war-profiteering/
2 https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1934-07-01/merchants-death
3 https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2017/06/03/pope-franciss-prayer-stop-merchants-death/
4 https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2018-12/fs_arms_industry_2017_0.pdf
5 Ibid
6 https://www.ohchr.org/documents/publications/GuidingprinciplesBusinesshr_eN.pdf
7 See 2014 report to the Human Rights Council by the UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/dpage_e.aspx?si=A/HRC/27/51

Blerim Mustafa, Project and communications officer, the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue. Postgraduate researcher (Ph.D. candidate) at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester (UK).

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Excerpt:

What matters more: ethics or profit?

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 8 2019 (IPS)

A crisis that has threatened to undermine the future of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is expected to have a devastating impact—not only on the credibility of the United Nations– but also on the lives of over five million Palestinian refugees whose very survival depends on the humanitarian services provided by the beleaguered UN agency based in Amman and Gaza.

Mouin Rabbani, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, told IPS: “This crisis must be resolved on an accelerated schedule in accordance with proper organisational procedures, both for its own sake, and to ensure that Palestinian refugees are not forced to pay the price of what is indisputably a political campaign led by the US and Israel to eliminate Palestinian refugees and their rights from the international agenda.”

Rabbani said one needs to look at this crisis from both an organisational and political perspective.

Viewed from an organisational perspective, he said, UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl stands formally accused of illegitimately concentrating decision-making authority in the hands of a small circle of hand-picked associates, and using these powers to engage in extremely serious abuses of authority.

Significantly, Rabbani pointed out, these accusations have emanated from within UNRWA, and also from the Ethics Office, which claims to have “credible and corroborated” evidence, presented in a detailed report forwarded to the Office of the UN Secretary General, and has been deemed sufficiently credible to result in a formal investigation by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS).

While investigations are continuing, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, have suspended their contributions to UNRWA. And back in January 2018, the Trump administration decided, primarily for political reasons, to withhold $65m out of a $125m aid package earmarked for UNRWA triggering a financial crisis.

A former senior UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed alarm that some member states had rushed to suspend their vitally needed contributions to UNRWA, which would punish innocent Palestinians, tens of thousands of whose children would be tipped into further deprivation.

“To take such a drastic step on the basis of media coverage of a confidential internal report not available to member states and which they know is still being investigated by OIOS, is far too harsh, especially at a time when even the separation of a single immigrant child from his parents is rightly considered unacceptable,” he declared.

He told IPS he was concerned about the demonization of UNRWA’s senior officials on the basis only of this confidential Ethics Office report’s media accounts, which are necessarily selective but could also be erroneous, misleading or downright malicious, especially on a charged issue like Palestine and Israel.

He said the Ethics Office is a key UN unit designed to check abuses, and its reports are taken seriously.

But it does not have the mandate or the resources to conduct definitive investigations, so it gathers and presents information and evidence to OIOS for determination, he argued.

However, he emphasized that even if OIOS found serious lapses by top managers, Palestinian refugees should not be made to suffer.

He said UNRWA was struck a near-catastrophic blow when President Trump terminated the US’s $360m annual contribution. But an intense, ongoing UNRWA campaign had by last month raised over $110m from other countries.

“If UNRWA were riddled with serious dysfunction at the top, I cannot imagine that member states would be totally unaware and would have been so exceptionally supportive,” he declared.

According to UNRWA, the UN agency is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions. The only exception is a very limited subsidy from the regular budget of the United Nations, which is used exclusively for administrative costs.

“The work of UNRWA could not be carried out without sustained contributions from state and regional governments, the European Union and other government partners, which represented 93.28 per cent of all contributions in 2018.”

In 2018, said UNRWA, 50 per cent of the Agency’s total pledges of $ 1.27 billion came from EU member states, who contributed $643 million, including through the European Commission.

The EU (including the European Commission), Germany and Saudi Arabia were the largest individual donors, contributing a cumulative 40 per cent of the Agency’s overall funding. The United Kingdom and Sweden were also among the top five donors.

Rabbani told IPS the proper thing for Krahenbuhl to do is to immediately resign if he knows these accusations to be substantiated, or, in view of the severity of the accusations, which cannot be dismissed as frivolous complaints by a hostile external party, to immediately step aside pending the conclusion of the OIOS investigation if he believes he is being falsely accused.

Should he refuse to do so, as seems to be the case, Secretary-General (SG) Guterres should exercise his responsibility and place Krahenbuhl on administrative leave with immediate effect until the matter is resolved.

“This is what would one would expect to transpire, and in fact often does, in both the public and private sectors. The removal of several of Krahenbuhl’s subordinates and appointment of an acting Deputy Director for UNRWA is an insufficient response that arguably serves only to deepen the crisis and increase the damage to both UNRWA and the UN,” he noted.

It additionally does the UN no favours, Rabbani said, that the ethics report and accusations against Krahenbuhl were communicated to the SG’s office in late 2018, and no significant action was undertaken until the report was leaked to the press over the summer.

This point is underscored by the decision of several key UNRWA funders (Belgium, The Netherlands, and Switzerland) to suspend contributions to the agency and the prospect of similar measures by other states.

From a political perspective, he said, it is vital to note that this crisis has erupted at a critical time for UNRWA. UNRWA’s very existence is under attack by the Trump administration, which hopes to leverage its campaign against the agency to liquidate the Palestine refugee question altogether.

Additionally, UNRWA’s mandate is up for renewal later this year. Many people will and in fact are raising questions about the confluence between the timing of these leaks and the intensification of the US campaign against the agency and Palestinian refugees.

The political context makes decisive action by the UN all the more urgent. CG Krahenbuhl’s mandate, which he has held since 2014, is to serve the needs of the Palestinian refugees, who are the most vulnerable sector of the embattled Palestinian people, Rabbani noted.

“This crisis, and his response to its eruption, is the ultimate test of his commitment to this mandate, and if he fails it UN senior leadership should intervene decisively and without further delay in the interests of both the UN, UNRWA, and the Palestinian refugees it serves”.

Without prejudice to the severity of the accusations being discussed, it is important to note that a) These accusations have been levelled against individuals within UNRWA rather than the agency itself; b) The UNRWA ethics report itself notes that the decision by the US to terminate contributions to UNRWA and campaign to seek the agency’s elimination, and the resultant crisis at the agency, forms the context in which these abuses of authority transpired; c) The abuses of authority and other misconduct detailed in the report are hardly unique to UNRWA, and similar and arguable more serious abuses have been documented at other UN agencies over the years; d) the accusations primarily concern expatriate senior officials (Krahenbuhl is Swiss and his former deputy an American) rather than Palestinian staff – the sole Palestinian staff member implicated has already been dismissed, Rabbani declared.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post Will Palestinian Refugees Pay a Heavy Price for UNRWA Bungling? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Donald Trump/Twitter

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Aug 8 2019 (IPS)

Trying to teach and inspire youngsters is a daunting task. Many teachers tend to suffer from a harrowing, bad conscience, obliged as they are to follow routines, rules, and regulations set down by their employers while knowing that these are difficult to apply and provide with desired results. Worst is a nagging feeling of inability to reach out to the students. Most teachers want their pupils to be good learners, critically thinking individuals who feel gratified and keen to change things for the better.

Occasionally, I return to my original profession as a high school teacher. Long intervals between such experiences make it possible for me to perceive attitude changes among students and myself. When I two years ago had another stint of teaching in Sweden I found a new obstacle to students´ interest in direct social interaction and learning – smartphones. In many schools, they are now banned from lessons, though not from the one where I was working. Many of the teachers were quite young and belonged to the mobile phone generation. They explained that smartphones had become an essential part of their lives and instead of being banned they ought to be integrated into education.

Smartphones infringed on many students´ attention. Several felt forced to look at them over and over again – texting, checking things on the web, playing games, doing selfies, nothing of which had anything to do with school work. I found some of my pupils to be incapable of concentrating on a specific task, listening to me or even watch a movie for more than five minutes. No matter how exciting they originally had found the film, they soon felt an uncontrollable urge to switch on and check their smartphones. When I asked what could be so extremely urgent, they generally lied and said it was their mother calling, or that they had been alerted about some kind of emergency. However, I soon found out that several of the girls were checking out Kim Kardashian´s website, while boys often had become absorbed in some inane game, like directing a rolling ball through meandering tunnels.

Before my latest teaching experience, I had been happily unaware of Kim Kardashian´s influence on women’s´ lives, but now I know that she and other members of her family have a combined Instagram-following of more than 536 million and that Keeping Up With the Kardashians, a reality television series following the lives of Kim and her four sisters, is running on its 16th season. However, Kim´s coffee table book Selfish from 2015, presenting selfies she had taken over the time of nine years, ”flopped” – selling ”only” 125,000 copies. Apart from ”acting” in a reality show and posting entries on Instagram, Kim has a line of clothing and other items mirroring the Kardashians´”aspirational and over-the-top lifestyle”, celebrating a body image of slim waists, large breasts and hips, ”a hyper-feminised, high-glamour look that seems calculated to entice the male gaze, sexy rather than being fashionable,”1 while Keeping Up With the Kardashians pays hommage to a fake existence of staged worries, petty concerns and idle gossip, where ”having fun” equals expensive activities at luxury resorts and spas, or the planning of and participation in clamorous, superficial and glittering parties. Kim Kardashian´s influence cannot be ignored, her fame and wealth make even a notoriously bad listener like U.S. President Donald J. Trump willing to lend her an ear.

The Kardashian style, as the family´s approach to life is called in the TV-series, is reflected by an app that was immensely popular among many of my female students. It is a role-playing game in which participants are invited to impersonate an ”up-and-coming” Hollywood celebrity climbing a status ladder passing ”levels of stardom” from E to A, completing tasks like posing for magazines and going on dates. This while the more enterprising among my school-tired male students were engaged in complicated and violent role-playing video games like Grand Theft Auto V and Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds. It felt as if the entire school system was under a massive attack from commercial interests, which apart from being mind-numbing are cementing prejudicial gender roles.

Antiquated attitudes about gender roles among several of my students made me doubt if they had participated in an obligatory subject of the Swedish elementary school system – home and consumer knowledge, which for several years train boys and girls in managing household chores and childcare. No one who has received that training might claim to be unknowledgeable about elementary household chores. Furthermore, in Swedish schools, both boys and girls are trained in needlework, as well as metal- and wood handicraft. I find this approach highly commendable as it benefits a sense of responsibility and gender equality. However, these admirable gains may be counteracted by mass communication supporting bigoted gender roles that limit and predispose abilities and perspective of both girls and boys.

If human development is to be achieved, the best resolution of any nation would be to promote general wellbeing and prosperity by providing effective and affordable health care and education to all of its citizens, irrespective of gender, wealth and social standing. Furthermore, such education has to benefit gender equality and encourage personal accountability. Most of my students were well aware of the concept of human rights, i.e. their own rights, though they were often unaware that this concept includes human duties, i.e. concerns about the welfare of others.

I recently came to think of this after reading a well-written Italian novel Sei Mia: Un amore violento by Eleonora de Nardis, which describes the suffering of a mother of three under the brutal and degrading regime of a spouse, who furthermore is married to and sharing a family with another woman. I am convinced that this novel illustrated the suffering of women all around the world. Women who on their own carry the entire responsibility of running a home and taking care of children engendered together with an irresponsible man, who furthermore, as in Sei Mia, abuses, maltreats and controls the mother of his own offspring under the feeble pretext that this is his right as a man, assuming that his gender excludes him from cooking, childcare, and expressions of emotional care for his family, as well as compassion and responsibility for the wellbeing of others.

It is scientifically proven that domestic violence generally occurs when an abuser assumes he is entitled to behave as a selfish tyrant. A male perpetrator of domestic violence is often supported, accepted and even justified by his socio-cultural upbringing and ambiance. A background and attitude that tends to be shared by his victims, who are unlikely to report this kind of violence to authorities that often condone the abuser´s behaviour. Several legal systems make a difference between ”domestic” and ”common” law and it is quite common that it is up to a victim to report domestic violence, under the pretext that this cannot be done by an ”outsider”. An absurdity considering that it often proves to be fatal for a victim to even consider accusing a violent, capricious abuser who exercises total control and to whom she is entirely dependent.2 Such a state of affairs produces an intergenerational cycle of abuse in children and other family members, who are brought up to consider such abuse as acceptable. Attitudes that may only be changed through an obligatory education, which breaks down gender inequalities. Efforts that have to be combined with the strict application of laws penalizing domestic abuse, while safeguarding male responsibilities for support of their households, making it obligatory to participate in the care of their children, for example by guaranteeing not only maternal leave from work but paternal leave as well.

There is a direct correlation between a country´s level of gender equality and rates of domestic violence, where countries with less gender equality experience higher rates of domestic abuse. Domestic violence is an abominable crime that not only cripples the ability for victims to participate ihe creation of genern tal, social wellbeing, it also tends to destroy or frustrate children´s development as compassionate and progressive human beings. Apparently, has Swedish education had a beneficial impact on gender equality and when it comes to the condemnation of domestic violence. However, I hope the impact of stereotyped gender roles propagated by trendsetters and some influential video game developers will not be able to diminish such achievements.

1 Sile, Karin (2019) “´They can sell anything´: how the Kardashians changed fashion”, The Guardian, 28 January.
2 Jackson, Nicky Ali (ed.) (2007) Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence. New York: Routledge.

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

The post Domestic Violence and the Role of Education appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Natalia Gomez
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 8 2019 (IPS)

For the family of indigenous Guatemalan activist Jorge Juc, the announcement last week by US President Donald Trump of an agreement declaring Guatemala a “safe third country” could not be more bitterly ironic.

The deal requires central American migrants who cross into Guatemala on their way to the US to apply for protections in Guatemala instead of at the US border – a move immigration advocates have called cruel and unlawful.

Juc, a 77-year-old indigenous Maya Q’eqchi community leader, was killed in a machete attack in July as he tended his cornfield. He was president of the village chapter of the Campesino Development Committee (CODECA), a national indigenous-led social movement fighting for indigenous, land and environmental rights that are being threatened by harmful mining projects.

For Guatemalan human rights defenders, particularly those who are indigenous – as for migrants and other Guatemalans – the words “Guatemala” and “safe” could never belong in the same sentence.

Their country is considered among the world’s deadliest for environmental activists, particularly those from indigenous communities fighting to protect their land, lives, livehoods and rights.

A new report by independent rights watchdog Global Witness – coming just days before the commemoration of International Day for the World’s Indigenous Peoples on August 9 – found that murders of land defenders in Guatemala skyrocketed by a shocking 500% between 2017 and last year, making it the deadliest country per capita for such activists. And most of the land and environmental activists killed were indigenous – many, leaders of the country’s campesino (peasant farmer) movement.

Four CODECA-affiliated community leaders were killed last month alone, all in Guatemala’s western Izabal department. Izabal is home to mining operations, oil palm plantations and the Maya Q’eqchi’ community, which has suffered decades of displacement as a result.

Isidro Perez and Melesio Ramirez were murdered on July 5 when armed men opened fire on a land rights protest. Julio Ramirez was shot multiple times a week later and died of his injuries.

Last December, the bodies of brothers Neri And Domingo Esteban Pedro – both vocal opponents of a hydroelectric power project in the Ixquisis region of western Guatemala – were found slumped on the banks of the Yal Witz River near the San Andres hydroelectric with bullets in their heads.

In Guatemala – as across Latin America – when indigenous rights defenders are not murdered for activism, they are criminalized and imprisoned on trumped up charges.

A 2018 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People about the rise in criminalization of indigenous Guatemalans found that people who filed legal petitions to demand protection of their rights are being falsely charged with crimes like robbery, kidnap and even murder. In a number of cases, the report claimed, companies or landlords allegedly colluded with local prosecutors and judges.

Earlier this year, The prestigious Goldman Prize – widely regarded as the environmental Nobel Prize – was awarded to indigenous Mapuche leader, Alberto Curamil, who was incarcerated after leading his community to stop two hydropower projects threatening the sacred Cautin River valley in Chile.

Ironically, while Chile preparing to host the world’s largest environmental summit – the UN’s climate change conference COP25 – in December, it has yet to sign the Escazú Agreement, a historic, regional treaty committing Latin American and Caribbean nations to protecting environmental defenders and their rights.

And in another twist of irony, Guatemala was among the first group of 14 countries to sign the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters for Latin America and the Caribbean (as the Escazú treaty is officially known) in an emotional ceremony last March.

Under the agreement, states commit to ensure a safe environment for defenders to act, take appropriate and effective measures to recognize and protect their rights, and take measures to prevent, investigate and prosecute attacks against environmental defenders.

Guatemala’s crisis for indigenous environmental defenders stretches back decades, the Global Witness report explains. New economic integration policies that emerged after the end of long running civil war in 1996 led to a boom in private and foreign investment.

As a result, large swatches of land were handed out to plantation, mining and hydropower companies, ushering in a wave of forced and violent evictions, particularly in indigenous areas.

A joint 2019 report by Guatemala’s Human Rights Ombudsman and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights found that industrial projects were routinely being imposed on communities without their consent.

Regardless of risking their lives and freedoms, environmental defenders continue to inspire us every day step up and act. Governments around the world should increase their commitment to the protection of defenders and ensure that they can develop their role without risking their life and integrity.

Specially in Latin America, the most dangerous region for defenders in the world, environmental activists have a fundamental role representing the voices of millions of people suffering the pollution of their waters, the lost of their forests and violations to their rights to health and to life.

Just in the last years two Goldman Prize recipients from this region have been murdered. Bertha Caceres an indigenous leader working to protect her community in Honduras and Isidro Baldonegro an indigenous activist who worked for the protection of forest in the Sierra Madre en Mexico.

The violent reality faced by environmental defenders in Latin America has already made some States in the region to commit to their protection. On 4 March 2018, 24 states from Latin America and the Caribbean adopted the agreement that responds to the region’s need for a stronger environmental democracy and was inspired by the Aarhus Convention adopted in Europe in 1998, rests on three substantial pillars for environmental democracy: the right to access information, the right of participation and the right to access justice in environmental matters and adds a new pillar with a regime of protection for environmental human rights defenders.

Under Escazú, States commit to ensure a safe environment for defenders to act, take appropriate and effective measures to recognize and protect their rights, and take measures to prevent, investigate and prosecute attacks against environmental defenders.

The post Your Life or Your Freedom? The Ultimate Price to Defend the Environment appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A borehole in Kenya's Turkana County. Experts say that groundwater in drylands is recharged through extreme floods. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
TURKANA COUNTY, Kenya, Aug 8 2019 (IPS)

Extreme rainfall and heavy flooding, often amplified by climate change, causes devastation among communities. But new research published on Aug. 7 in the scientific journal Nature reveals that these dangerous events are extremely significant in recharging groundwater aquifers in drylands across sub-Saharan Africa, making them important for climate change adaptation.

According to the research, which was led by the University College London (UCL) and Cardiff University, this vital source of water for drinking and irrigation across sub-Saharan Africa is resilient to climate variability and change.

“Our study reveals, for the first time, how climate plays a dominant role in controlling the process by which groundwater is restocked,” Richard Taylor, a Professor of Hydrogeology from UCL, told IPS. Taylor is the co-lead on the new study, which was conducted with a consortium of 32 scientists from different universities and institutions from Africa and beyond.

Researchers reviewed data sets of water levels from 14 wells across the region that are not generally used by people.

“Our data-driven results imply greater resilience to climate change than previously supposed in many locations from a groundwater perspective and thus question, for example, the model-driven [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] IPCC consensus that ‘Climate change is projected to reduce renewable surface water and groundwater resources significantly in most dry subtropical regions,’” Taylor said in a statement.

The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report states in contrast that “climate change over the twenty-first century is projected to reduce renewable surface water and groundwater resources significantly in most dry subtropical regions, intensifying competition for water among sectors”.

Groundwater plays a central role in sustaining water supplies and livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa due to its widespread availability, generally high quality, and intrinsic ability to buffer episodes of drought and increasing climate variability.

So the finding comes as good news for communities and governments across Africa where livelihoods are becoming more and more dependent on groundwater.
“In our current budget, we have allocated over Sh164 million (1.64 million dollars) to irrigation projects, and most of the water already being used is from boreholes,” Chris Aleta, Kenya’s Turkana County Minister for Water and Irrigation, told IPS.

Turkana is a pastoral county and one of the driest in Kenya. Research has revealed that between 1977 and 2016, cattle, which is the main source of livelihood in this county, reduced by 60 percent.

Currently thousands of households are producing horticultural crops that are sold locally in major towns and even overseas.

“Some of us do not have a single cow to graze,” Paul Samal, a pastoralist-turned-farmer from Kaptir Ward, Turkana County, told IPS.

“I had over 200 goats and a herd of 50 cattle, but most of them were consumed by the drought in 2011, and the remaining stock was stolen in 2015,” said the father of five.
So in 2016 he began using groundwater to grow tomatoes, watermelons and indigenous vegetables.

Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, depends heavily on groundwater to supplement the main source from the country’s Dakaini dam, whose recharge mainly depends on unreliable rainy seasons.

Kenya’s neighbour Tanzania will also benefit from the findings.The country’s capital city Dodoma relies solely in groundwater from the Makutapora well field.

According to Lister Kongola, a retired hydrologist who worked for the government of Tanzania from 1977 to 2012, the demand for water in Dodoma City has been rising over the years, from 20 million litres per day (l/day) in the 1970s, to 30 million l/day in the 1980s and to the current 61 million l/day.

The World Bank estimates that at least 70 percent of over 250 million people living in southern African countries rely on groundwater as their primary source of water for drinking, sanitation and livelihood support through agriculture, ecosystem health, and industrial growth.

According to scientists, understanding the nexus of climate extremes and groundwater replenishment is vital for sustainability. This improved understanding is also critical for producing reliable climate change impact projections and adaptation strategies.

The new study also found that unlike drylands, where leakage from seasonal streams, rivers and ponds replenish groundwater, in humid areas groundwater is replenished primarily by rainfall directly infiltrating the land surface.

“This finding is important because model-based assessments of groundwater resources currently ignore the contribution of leaking streams and ponds to groundwater supplies, underestimating its renewability in drylands and resilience to climate change,” said Dr Mark Cuthbert, a research scientist from Cardiff University.

According to Michael Arunga of World Vision, an international humanitarian agency that sometimes supports communities during extreme climate events, the findings are vital for spatial planning for governments in Africa.

“The good thing is that extreme droughts and rainfall seasons are predictable, and the patterns are the same across Africa,” Arunga told IPS.
“These findings will therefore make it easier for governments to draft policies for sustainable groundwater use based on knowledge.”

Since extreme floods can easily be predicted up to nine months in advance, the researchers say that there is a possibility of designing schemes to enhance groundwater recharge by capturing a portion of flood discharges via a process known as Managed Aquifer Recharge.

According to Prof Daniel Olago, a senior lecturer at the Department of Geology, University of Nairobi, groundwater in Africa remains a hidden resource that has not been studied exhaustively.

“When people want to access groundwater, they ask experts to go out there and do a hydro-geophysical survey basically to site a borehole without necessarily understanding the characteristics of that particular aquifer,” he told IPS.

However, in the recent past, the United Kingdom research councils (Natural Environment Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), the Department for International Development (DFID) and The Royal Society have been supporting studies that seek to understand the potential of groundwater resources in Africa, and how it can be used to alleviate poverty.

“Moving into the 21st century with climate change, with growing population, with rapid growing urban centres, groundwater is going to be very important,” said Olago.

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Special Envoy for Syria Geir O. Pedersen during a visit to Syrian refugees in Mafraq and Zaatari camp in Jordan. May 2019. Credit: UN Photo

By Teresa Whitfield
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 7 2019 (IPS)

“It is all about orchestration”, was Martin Griffiths’, the UN Special Envoy for Yemen, response to the question of what mediation in Yemen looks like today.

Mediation has always been about orchestration – two decades ago, in their seminal volume Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World, Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela All recognised the value of “the mediator’s dexterity with the materials at hand”.

As Jeffrey Feltman argues, there is much to be said for the equation of a mediator with an orchestra’s conductor. But in the current environment of international, national and local fragmentation and multi-level external engagement, the orchestration of relationships with and inclusion of a wide array of actors has taken on new characteristics.

Mediators or envoys in strategic conflicts such as Libya, Syria and Yemen are faced with multiple demands and constraints, yet considerable latitude in the most critical issue of all: how they spend their time.

The three UN envoys charged with leading these processes work under mandates of the Security Council, and the strategic direction of the Secretary-General. Yet in leading the peacemaking effort, they take daily decisions on what they will prioritise that have profound implications for the political direction and impact of their efforts.

These decisions span at least three areas: how to balance building relations with conflict parties with the necessity for diplomacy with regional and international actors?; how to maintain attention to the central political conflict whilst also engaging on other vital, but more localised, issues?; and how, and how much, to engage on the important question of inclusion?.

This is all in addition to the internal attention which needs to be paid to process design and preparation on a range of substantive issues including ceasefires, demobilisation and reintegration programmes, power-sharing arrangements, transitional justice or constitutional reform.

Teresa Whitfield

A mediator’s personal involvement and credibility with the parties is essential to the kind of progress seen in reaching the Stockholm agreement on Yemen in December 2018 for example, where Griffiths’ efforts were bolstered by the last minute presence of Secretary-General António Guterres.

But such efforts, as those by the UN envoy Ghassan Salamé to mediate between Libyan Prime Minister Faiez Serraj and the National Army Commander Khalifa Haftar, and other less visible conflict prevention engagements, take place in parallel to quiet consultations with regional and other actors with leverage and a stake in the conflict as well as more public meetings.

These include Security Council consultations; but also meetings in and around distinct negotiating fora such as the Astana process for Syria; or, in the case of Libya, ad hoc conferences in Paris and Palermo or interactions with the African Union and the League of Arab States.

In each case, multiple agendas are at stake. Mediators will therefore be mindful of the risk that their efforts may be derailed, or the overarching effort undermined by competing processes.

A separate but related consideration is the balancing act between time spent on smaller, short term agreements (local agreements, humanitarian pauses or confidence-building measures) versus thinking and engagement on the central political process.

Evolving military dynamics in Syria have, over the years, necessitated multiple points of focus for international efforts. More recently, in Yemen, time and effort spent forging and trying to implement a fragile agreement between local military actors in Hodeidah was imperative.

But it was also in some respects both a distraction from the core conflict, and perilous: success rested on negotiations between military actors with great potential to spoil the outcome, and its travails held progress on the larger political process hostage.

What inclusion means in today’s mediation processes deserves some pause. Research has drawn attention to the centrality of elite bargaining when stabilising violent conflict, as well as the need for a hard-headed look at the web of political, economic and predatory interests that together form what Alex de Waal termed “the political marketplace.”

Yet the dramatic combination of external and internal fragmentation in contemporary conflicts erodes the possibility of reaching agreement with political and military elites alone. It also informs a broad international consensus on the benefits of inclusion evident, for example, in the twin resolutions on “sustaining peace” adopted by the UN General Assembly and Security Council in April 2016.

Significantly, the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals are anchored in a commitment to “leave no one behind.” In 2018, the UN-World Bank study Pathways for Peace also put strong emphasis on inclusion as a tool for preventing conflict and building sustainable peace.

However, as Christine Bell has argued, there nonetheless remain practical and substantial differences among and between development actors, peacemakers and the human rights community on who is to be included, in what, and how.

Mediators have long recognised the benefits of inclusivity, but with important differences regarding the extent to which it applies to politico-military elites, whose commitment is required to stop the killing, or broader constituencies whose inclusion might contribute to the legitimacy and durability of an agreement but whose direct involvement the conflict parties frequently resist.

Human rights defenders, meanwhile, emphasise norms such as equality and the need for group participation – most visibly that of women, but also other groups such as minorities, indigenous people and youth.

Mediators have adopted specific strategies to promote the inclusion of women when – as is frequently the case – the conflict parties themselves have not favoured either a prominent role for individual women within their delegations, or a means by which a broader range of voices can be heard within a peace process.

In some instances, mediators have created access for existing structures (leading the mediation effort in Liberia in the early 2000s, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) included the Mano River Women’s Peace Network as an observer to the talks).

In others, they have established new mechanisms to access a diverse range of perspectives and advice. Notable in this respect were the efforts of the former UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, who in early 2016 created both a Syrian Women’s Advisory Board and a Civil Society Support Room with whom he engaged regularly and visibly throughout his tenure.

Such inclusion mechanisms – replicated, with modifications, in Yemen with the creation in mid-2018 of a Yemeni Women’s Technical Advisory Group – have been criticised for entrenching women’s “second tier” participation in negotiations.

However, their potential to broaden the base of a political process if and when it advances is significant, especially when complemented by other forms of outreach and engagement.

Even in the absence of formal talks, an envoy’s understanding of the conflict and legitimacy as an interlocutor will be enhanced by consultation with as wide a range of actors as possible.

This point was underlined by de Mistura’s successor, Geir O. Pedersen, who in his first briefing to the Security Council in February 2019 placed emphasis on the wide range of Syrians with whom he had already consulted, while underlining that “there will be no sustainable peace in Syria unless all Syrians are included in shaping the future of their country.”

Delivering this in practice, in Syria as elsewhere, remains extraordinarily difficult. Demands for inclusion in the evolving peace process in Afghanistan, for example, come from women who fear the erosion of hard-won rights, but also youth, victims, representatives of affected regions, ethnic minorities and others.

Meanwhile, mediators will be acutely aware that, while necessary, inclusion in the absence of buy-in from national elites and their regional and international backers will not, on its own, bring peace.

*This article was originally published in the online magazine of UN’s Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.

The post Mediating Peace in a Complex World appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Teresa Whitfield is the Director of the Policy and Mediation Division at the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs. Prior to her appointment in 2016, she was Senior Adviser to the President of the International Crisis Group.

The post Mediating Peace in a Complex World appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Atomic Bomb Dome
was the only structure left standing
in the area and was added to
the UNESCO World Heritage
List on December 7, 1996.
  Its marker reads
As a historical witness that
conveys the tragedy of suffering
the first atomic bomb in human
history and as a symbol that vows
to faithfully seek the abolition of
nuclear weapons and everlasting
world peace.

By Lakshi De Vass Gunawardena
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 7 2019 (IPS)

It has been 74 years since a nuclear devastation took place. But a clear message stands — that nuclear weapons must go and peace and love must reign.

“Because if we forget the horrific consequences of the use of these devices, the likelihood of repetition is increased.” Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute told IPS, as the United Nations marked the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Art piece From the Love to Hiroshima- Love to Nagasaki Peace Pals Art Awards by artist
Petrov Andreea Eliza – Age 15, Romania

The event took place August 6 at the Japan Society, and featured several performances, an interfaith prayer, and guest speakers.

On August 6, 1945 the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, immediately killing 80,00 people. Three days later, Allied forces unleashed another explosive, and an estimated 40,000 people perished.

Japan surrendered, marking the conclusion of World War II. However, Japan was left to face with dead bodies, illness induced by radiation, and over 70% of buildings extinguished.

Today, both cities are prospering, with Hiroshima’s population exceeding 1.1 million, and radiation levels have officially been deemed low and safe. However, the scars of the attacks linger on in the form of survivors, known as hibakusha.

“I was only 13 then, so I talked back to my mom and slammed the door and I left, and I never saw her again,” Tomiko Morimoto West, survivor of the bombings, recalled at Monday’s event.

Yet, West retained a vehement sense of gratitude citing that “Every day I wake up, I am very grateful.” She then stressed the importance of making sure loved ones know they are loved.

“When you leave home, please hug your family”, West said, concluding that “sometimes that’s the last time you may see the family”.

Against the backdrop of the anniversary, the United States last week abandoned the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).

“We have never had a nuclear war. Arms control treaties have helped enormously in building trust and taking the arsenals down by over 75%. It is irresponsible to undermine the legal tools, the diplomatic tools, in favor of increased threats,” Granoff said.

That said, “the existing United States policy seems to contemplate the actual uses in war, Granoff noted during his keynote speech, going on to read an official statement by the Joint Chief of Staff of the U.S. Military.

“The scale of Hiroshima & Nagasaki is primitive. If even one current nuclear weapon was used, the damage that one atomic bomb would do is more than 1,000 times powerful than Hiroshima & Nagasaki. It will happen in a future. Mistakes are human character, so it will happen,” Reverend Doctor T. Kenjitsu Nakagaki, President and Founder of the New York HEIWA Peace and Reconciliation Foundation told IPS, when asked if something like Hiroshima and Nagasaki could occur, if nuclear weapons are not abandoned.

Interfaith Prayers and Messages

However, there is hope. “We will learn a new technology- not the technology that melts the polar ice caps, but the technology that can melt the human heart. May we receive that blessing to melt our hearts and melt the hearts of others.” Granoff concluded in his speech.

Nuclear bans also have the support of the UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

“The only guarantee against the use of nuclear weapons is the total elimination of nuclear weapons,” he remarked, in an address, assuring that he is fully committed to working with the hibakusha and all others to realize the shared goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.

It is up to the young generation as well to help ensure the termination of nuclear weapons as well.

“We have a continuing duty to communicate to future generations and the world the inhumanity of nuclear weapons.” Tomihisa Taue, Mayor of Nagasaki urged in a letter, assuring that the government of Japan will steadily press forward with efforts to have the youths of today pass on the stories and experiences handed down to them, concluding that the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki must never be repeated, and that instead, “we must gravitate towards a more peaceful world”.

When asked what message he had for the future generation, Granoff said: “If we get every issue other than controlling and eliminating nuclear weapons right, it simply will not matter.”

“Young people should demand right knowledge. Critical learning is essential, always see pro and con. Maybe they can write articles and publish it. For me, it is important to realize the precious value of all the lives equally. Some value should be able to change people’s life.” Nakagaki said. He noted that young people should be made aware of the current conditions of nuclear weapons, and thus share what they think on social media.

The post Nuclear Weapons Must Go: Lessons of Hiroshima & Nagasaki appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The Atomic Bomb Dome
was the only structure left standing
in the area and was added to
the UNESCO World Heritage
List on December 7, 1996.

 
Its marker reads
As a historical witness that
conveys the tragedy of suffering
the first atomic bomb in human
history and as a symbol that vows
to faithfully seek the abolition of
nuclear weapons and everlasting
world peace.

The post Nuclear Weapons Must Go: Lessons of Hiroshima & Nagasaki appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By IPS World Desk
ROME, Aug 7 2019 (IPS)

There are an estimated 370 million indigenous people in the world, living across 90 countries. They live in all geographic regions and represent 5000 different cultures. These people are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to others yet are being forced to give up their ways of life.

In Latin America, for example, 40% of all indigenous peoples now live in urban areas – they account for 80% of those populations in some countries. Globally, they represent 5% of the world’s population, yet account for 15% of all of those in poverty.

Indigenous people speak an overwhelming majority of the world’s 7000 languages. These languages are extensive and complex systems of knowledge that are central to their identity, their cultures, worldviews and expressions of self-determination.

Tragically, many indigenous languages are under threat, as we lose one of these languages every two weeks. According to UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, 230 languages went extinct between 1950 and 2010. Today, a third of the world’s languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers left.

The 9th of August commemorates the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. This year’s theme will focus on the current situation of indigenous languages around the world, aiming to highlight the critical need to revitalize, preserve and promote indigenous languages to safeguard the life of indigenous cultures for future generations.

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 7 2019 (IPS)

According to their own internal evaluations, both the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have huge credibility deficits due to the policy conditionalities and advice they have dispensed to developing countries in recent decades.

Anis Chowdhury

Washington Consensus
Taking advantage of debt distress in many developing countries early in the 1980s, the WB championed neoliberal reforms, telling countries to ‘privatize, liberalize and globalize’. The IMF added ‘stabilization’ – primarily cutting government expenditure to contain inflation and balance of payments deficits – to the list of conditions for countries to qualify for BWI financial resources.

Accepting these packages of WB advice for economic restructuring, known as ‘structural adjustment programs’ (SAPs), became a condition for access to concessional credit. These claimed to reflect agreement on ‘good’ and necessary policies between the two Washington based BWIs and the US Treasury Department, later dubbed the ‘Washington Consensus’.

WB research later admitted the failure of IMF-WB inspired policy reforms, acknowledging that “…the expected growth benefits failed to materialize, at least to the extent that many observers had forecast. In addition, a series of financial crises severely depressed growth and worsened poverty… both slow growth and multiple crises were symptoms of deficiencies in the design and execution of the … reform strategies that were adopted in the 1990s…”

BWIs’ lost decades
Assessing SAPs in Latin America, where they were first imposed, Sebastian Edwards concluded, “The adjustment process has been quite costly, generating drastic declines in real income and important increases in unemployment. In fact, … in a number of Latin American countries in 1986 real per capita GDP was below its 1970 level!”

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

William Easterly, then a senior WB economist, noted that during 1960-1979, median per capita income growth in developing countries was 2.5 per cent, compared to zero per cent during 1980-1998. With SAPs including trade liberalization, Africa de-industrialized and turned from a food exporter into a net food importer.

By advising developing countries to liberalize their capital account and financial market, the BWIs also advanced the interests of big finance. Professor Jagdish Bhagwati argued that this ‘Wall Street-Treasury complex’ was responsible for the 1997-1998 Asian crisis. The WB and the IMF have provided credit as a means of influencing government policies.

Worsening financial crises
Evaluating the IMF’s role in two 1997-1998 Asian crisis countries, namely Indonesia and South Korea, its Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) observed that Fund surveillance failed to ‘adequately appreciate’ the implications of their financial sector weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The IMF also mishandled the crises, deepening some of their worse consequences.

Raghuram Rajan, then IMF chief economist, is often credited with having warned of the imminence of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis before he left the Fund. If so, the IMF ignored his advice, failing to alert its membership of the coming 2008-2009 financial crisis, leading to the Great Recession and its ongoing aftermath.

In July 2007, a month before the first tremors of the US ‘sub-prime’ mortgage crisis, the IMF updated its World Economic Outlook, claiming: “The strong global expansion is continuing, and projections for global growth in both 2007 and 2008 have been revised (upwards)”!

The IEO attributed IMF inability to recognize risks to “a high degree of groupthink, intellectual capture, a general mindset that a major financial crisis in large advanced economies was unlikely, and inadequate analytical approaches, [w]eak internal governance, lack of incentives to work across units and raise contrarian views…”

Beware BWI policy advice
The IEO found member countries wary of IMF involvement in policy advice due to its “inadequate knowledge of country-specific circumstances, frequent changes of mission chiefs and teams, a perceived lack of even-handedness… and insufficient use of cross-country perspectives or cross-cutting analysis.”

The IMF also displayed double standards, exposing its developed country and other biases. After then UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown raised over US$800 billion in additional IMF funding at the London G20 summit in April 2009, Eurozone bail-outs accounted for four-fifths of total IMF lending between 2011 and 2014, even though the currency bloc had the means to look after itself, with its lower aggregate debt ratio than in the US, the UK and Japan.

Greece, Ireland and Portugal were allowed to borrow twenty times their quotas, thrice the normal limit; such generosity has never been available to Asian, Latin American and African countries in trouble. For the global South, the IMF has imposed fiscal austerity, causing large-scale destitution, distress and malnutrition, according to the Lancet medical journal.

Meanwhile, even The Economist, usually a neoliberal cheerleader, pointed out several flaws of the WB’s most influential publication, the Doing Business Report (DBR). It considered DBR ranking unreliable as countries might amend regulations, as urged by the BWIs, only to improve their rankings to impress foreign investors and donors.

Dubious track record
After two decades of IMF-WB promoted fiscal contraction, liberalization and privatization, then WB President James Wolfensohn acknowledged, “… if we take a closer look, we see something alarming. In developing countries, excluding China, at least 100 million more people are living in poverty today than a decade ago. And the gap between rich and poor yawns wider.”

China, which has contributed most to reducing global poverty in recent decades, has gone its own way during this period, constantly revising development policies to accelerate economic growth and social progress, instead of simply implementing Washington Consensus prescriptions.

More recently, especially under its last President Jim Yong Kim, the WB has reinvented itself yet again, from a creditor for major development projects, to a broker for financialized private sector investment, a “creature of Wall Street”, according to The New York Times. Kim left the Bank early in his second term to join a private investment firm figuring in its proposed new reorientation.

The post Bretton Woods Institutions: Enforcers, Not Saviours? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Horrific violence against women is unabated and rising in South Asia.

By Farhana Haque Rahman and Raghav Gaiha
ROME and NEW DELHI, Aug 6 2019 (IPS)

On a cold night in December 2012, a ghastly crime was committed in New Delhi which stunned the world. Six men dragged helpless Nirbhaya-a 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern- to the back of the bus and raped her one by one. As she kept fighting off her assailants by biting them, one of the attackers inserted a rusted rod in her private part, ripping her genital organs and insides apart. She died a few days later. One of the accused died in police custody in the Tihar Jail. The juvenile was convicted of rape and murder and given the maximum sentence of three years’ imprisonment in a reform facility, and subsequently released. The Supreme Court awarded the death penalty but legal complications have prevented its execution.

Farhana Haque Rahman

A gruesome case occurred in Rohtak, a town in the northern state of Haryana (India). In 2017, a 23-year-old woman was gang raped by seven men, killed and smashed in the face with stones to conceal her identity. Her mangled body was found with stray dogs picking at the remains.

In January, 2019, a 16-year-old girl had simply decided to go to her boyfriend’s birthday party. A week later, her body was found along a highway, her head and one of her arms chopped off. Her face may have been burned with acid. In her small town in eastern India, it is forbidden for a teenage girl to date, and the police believe the girl’s father arranged for her to be killed — supposedly to protect the family’s honour.

Just as gruesome is the story of the 30-year-old Fatima who reported to UNFPA in Cox’s Bazar in southeast coast of Bangladesh in 2017, “My sister was killed after gang rape in front of me, and they threw hot water on my body. I can’t sleep, my life is a nightmare, I can’t bear the pain of losing my sister.”

Worse, minor girls remain highly vulnerable to brutal rapes and murder. In May, the same year, a ten-month-old baby girl was allegedly raped by a family member in Jamnagar district of the western state of Gujarat. Cases of brutal rapes of minor girls abound in Bangladesh too. The rape and murder of 13-year-old Ayesha Siddiqua Sumaiya, living in Rangpur, is a case in point. A student of Class VII, she was alone in her home – her parents were at a religious function – when a gang swooped on the minor, raping and then strangling her to death.

Raghav Gaiha

Rapes reported to the police as sexual violence surged from 39 per day to 93 per day in India in 2013. In Uttar Pradesh alone, five rapes occurred in 36 hours. Even these are underestimations, for two reasons. One is the exclusion of marital rapes, which are not a prosecutable crime. No less important is the fact that barely 1 per cent of victims of sexual violence report the crime to the police.

Report on Violence Against Women (VAW) Survey 2015, Bangladesh, paints in vivid detail high incidence of different forms of violence against women. During 2014, the most common form of partner violence was controlling behaviour, experienced by more than one third (38.8%) of ever-married women, followed by emotional violence (24.2%), physical violence (20.8%), sexual violence (13.3%) and economic violence (6.7%). Rates of lifetime partner violence (any form) were highest in rural areas (74.8% of ever-married women) and lowest in city corporation areas (54.4%). Rates in urban areas outside of city corporation areas were 71.1%, slightly lower than in rural areas.

More than one quarter (27.8%) of women reported lifetime physical violence by someone other than the husband (non-partner) and 6.2% reported experiencing such violence during the last 12 months. Rates were highest among adolescents for both lifetime (30.9%) and last 12 months (11.2%) non-partner physical violence.

Most sexual violence in India occurs in marriage; 10 percent of married women report sexual violence from husbands. The reporting percentage is low in part because marital rape is not a crime in India. Adolescent wives (13–19 years) are most vulnerable, reporting the highest rates of marital sexual violence of any age group. Adolescent girls also account for 24 percent of rape cases in the country, although they represent only 9 percent of the total female population.

Barely 1 percent of victims of sexual violence report the crime to the police in India. Similar evidence is found for Bangladesh. Notions of honour are central to the discourse on rape. The rape of a daughter, sister or wife is a source of dishonour to males within the family structure. This deters the reporting of rape to the police, reinforced by a belief in the impunity of perpetrators, the fear of retaliation, and humiliation by the police through physical and verbal abuse.

The consequences of domestic violence are grave and intergenerational: physical trauma, repeated physical assaults result in chronic disease (e.g. chronic pain); acute neurological (e.g. fainting) and cardiopulmonary (hypertension) symptoms; life-style risk behaviours (substance misuse); psychiatric disorders (depression); and children and adolescents adversely affected by witnessing domestic violence (post-traumatic stress disorder). Besides, domestic violence also results in malnutrition among women and children.

One major problem with anti-rape laws is that their enforcement is feeble and painfully slow, and thus largely inconsequential as a deterrent to sexual violence.

Dominance and control over women are set in male attributes and behaviour (“masculinity”), regarded as a shared social ideal. Violence is not necessarily a part of masculinity, but the two are often closely linked, mediated by class, caste and region.

Interventions that address masculinity seem to be more effective than those that ignore the powerful influence of gender norms and systems of inequality. Effective women-focused initiatives strengthen resilience against violence by combining economic empowerment with greater awareness of rights and women’s relationship skills. Behavioural changes are, however, slower than changes in male attitudes.

In conclusion, although rise in sexual violence against women and girls is scary and abhorrent, there are grounds for optimism.

(Farhana Haque Rahman is Director General of IPS Inter Press Service; she is a communications expert and former senior United Nations official. Raghav Gaiha is (Hon.) Professorial Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, England, and Visiting Scholar, Population Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania, USA).

The post On Brutality of Violence Against Women appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Horrific violence against women is unabated and rising in South Asia.

The post On Brutality of Violence Against Women appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Lakshi De Vass Gunawardena
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 6 2019 (IPS)

More than 24,000 violations have been committed against children across the globe, including recruitment into armed forces, abduction, sexual violence, deprivation of basic needs, attacks on schools and hospitals– and even murder.

To tackle this, Canada has launched a set of 17 principles focusing on child protection in peacekeeping, incorporating all stages of a conflict.

“These principles are motivated by an understanding that preventing the use and recruitment of child soldiers is not peripheral to UN peacekeeping, but rather it is critical to achieving overall mission success and setting the conditions for lasting peace,”
said Richard Arbeiter, Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations.

He was speaking at an event last week, organized by the Permanent Mission of Canada, and included guest speakers from Watchlist, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Canadian Defense Academy (CDA), and the Department of Peace Operations (DPO).

“In June, Canada’s Minister of National Defence announced the establishment of the Roméo Dallaire Centre of Excellence for Peace and Security, within the Canadian Defence Academy,” Dr. Simon Collard- Wexler, First Secretary, Political Affairs, at the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations, told IPS.

The Centre’s initial focus, he said, “will be to support our forces’ implementation of the Vancouver Principles”.

Canada will also be providing the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative with a contribution of over $1 million over five years “to conduct research and identify lessons learned and best practices regarding the prevention of the recruitment and use of child soldiers.”

Over 40% of the worlds armed forces use children and are known to be fighting in at least 14 countries around the world. Children are vulnerable because they are easier to manipulate than adults, do not require pay, and their cognitive sense of danger is low.
They also might become soldiers due to societal pressure and are led to believe that volunteering will provide security.

“The Vancouver principles identify key ways that peacekeeping can contribute to and enhance efforts to end child recruitment,” said Adrianne Lapar, Program Director at Watchlist.

When asked what role Watchlist will have, going forward, Lapar told IPS: “Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, which represents a network of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), will continue to push governments and the United Nations to improve programs and policies to protect children in armed conflict.”

“We would like to see more governments endorse the Vancouver Principles, along with the Paris Principles and Commitments and the Safe Schools Declaration, as a mutually enforcing package of commitments to protect the rights of children in war,” she added, but noted that “commitments mean nothing until they are put into practice”.

“For that, we urge governments to integrate these principles into their military doctrine, trainings, and operating procedures. They need to ensure accountability of their forces for any violations of children’s rights; this includes investigating any allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers, holding those responsible to account, and providing reparations and support services to survivors.”

So far, over 89 countries have endorsed the Vancouver principles. With that in mind, peacekeeping workers need to be equipped and trained appropriately as well.

“Peacekeepers have an important role in ending and preventing child recruitment, as well as other grave violations against children in armed conflict” Lapar said at the panel discussion, adding that “often times, they may be the first to identify children associated with armed forces or those at risk of being recruited.”

Thus, peacekeeping forces are extremely beneficial, coupled with the principles. However, to do that, Lapar noted “they need to mandate directives and appropriate training to do so effectively.”

She pointed out that the Vancouver principles illustrate this very sentiment. However, there are other tools than can be used to help combat child recruitment.

“The first Vancouver principle highlights the importance of integrating child protection provisions including the prevention of child recruitment into all peacekeeping mandates.” Lapar stated.

“By clearly articulating appropriate child protection tasks into peacekeeping mandates, the security council can bolster the protection of the children and enable efforts to end and prevent recruitment and other grave violations,” she elaborated.

She pointed out Principle 15 which examines the use of sanctions against those that use and recruit children. That said, sanctions are a tricky maze to maneuver.

When asked about ensuring that the sanctions would harm the targeted parties and not the civilians, Lapar said: “I want to reiterate that sanctions are just one of many tools available to the Security Council and UN Member States, to put pressure on perpetrators who commit child rights violations and to deter future violators.”

“They should be used as a last resort, after other measures have failed, and carefully considered, with attention to the context and potential impacts on civilian populations, to avoid causing greater harm,” she added, pointing out that “there are a number of Security Council sanctions regimes in place already, but only some of these include among their designation criteria grave violations against children, including the recruitment and use of children, targeting children, and attacks on schools and hospitals.”

“And yet we need to do more as children continue to be excluded from most peace discussions around the world,” Lapar pointed out.

Indeed, as since 2016, children have been used in hostilities by both armed and non-armed groups in at least 18 conflicts, and 27 countries operating “military schools, where children, as young as 15 are deemed members of the armed forces and thus are compelled to enlist upon graduation.

“Children should be protected and never recruited and used in war,” Lapar concluded.

The post Canada Effectively Addresses Children in Armed Conflict appeared first on Inter Press Service.

This week, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) complained that U.S. President Donald Trump’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran is also stopping key assistance to flood victims and refugees there. Courtesy: Iranian Red Crescent Society

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 6 2019 (IPS)

Two major humanitarian groups have warned that United States sanctions on Iran are stopping cash flows for vital humanitarian work in the country, adding another complication to the growing rift between Washington and Tehran.

This week, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) complained that U.S. President Donald Trump’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran is also stopping key assistance to flood victims and refugees there.

Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the NRC and a former United Nations official, warned that support to some 82,000 people in Iran could be cut off by mid-August because his group cannot get funds in to the Islamic Republic.

“We have now, for a full year, tried to find banks that are able and willing to transfer money from Western donors to support our work for Afghan refugees and disaster victims in Iran, but we are hitting brick walls on every side,” said Egeland.

“The sanctions imposed by the U.S. on Iran are so comprehensive that banks are unwilling to facilitate transfers for humanitarian work. If all bank channels are blocked, then so is the delivery of critical aid to vulnerable people.”

Meanwhile, the Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has collected funds from a global flood appeal that it cannot transfer to its local outfit, the IRCS.

“Due to the U.S. sanctions, IRCS has not been able to receive three million euro cash contributions that the Red Cross Red Crescent Societies, governments and organisations have donated to Iran’s flood-hit people through the IFRC emergency appeal,” it said in a statement Sunday.

Last year, Trump pulled the U.S. out of a nuclear deal with Iran and key world powers that had been agreed in 2015, and then ramped up sanctions to pressure Tehran and to lock it out of the global economy.

Trump said the landmark accord negotiated by his predecessor did not go far enough in preventing Iran from building nuclear weapons or do anything to halt its support for foreign militias and ballistic missile development.

White House officials say the sanctions are aimed at Iran’s energy sector and regime hardliners, and do not apply to essential items like food, medicine and humanitarian relief, even while these may have been indirectly affected.

The United Kingdom, Germany and France have taken steps to resist Washington, including setting up a barter-based trade scheme called the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (Instex) to allow business between Iran and Europe that is beyond the U.S. financial system.

However, reports indicate that fears over U.S. sanctions have caused western financiers to shy away from Instex and just a trickle of money has flowed in from European firms, leaving Iran scrabbling for revenue. 

According to Egeland, Europe’s bankers are just too scared to move money to Iran despite carve-outs to the sanctions regime.  

“Norwegian, European and other banks are too afraid of U.S. sanctions to transfer the money that European governments have given for our vital aid work,” Egeland said in a statement that was released Monday.

“We will run out of cash in two weeks and will no longer be able to provide relief to poor Afghan families,” he added, referencing the more than three million Afghans who fled conflict, poverty and natural disasters at home to neighbouring Iran. 

The potential shutdown of aid operations in Iran is just the latest spill-over from an escalation of tensions between Washington and Tehran, amid widespread fears that it could spiral into a military showdown.

At the peak of the crisis, Trump called off air strikes against Iran at the last minute in June after the Islamic republic’s forces shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone in the Gulf with a surface-to-air missile.

Trump has said publicly several times that he is willing to hold talks with the Iranians even as he bashes the cleric-run government as incompetent, graft-ridden, dangerous and a threat to Israel, regional security and U.S. interests.

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By Dina Ionesco
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 6 2019 (IPS)

The Atlas of Environmental Migration, which gives examples dating as far back as 45,000 years ago, shows that environmental changes and natural disasters have played a role in how the population is distributed on our planet throughout history.

However, it is highly likely that undesirable environmental changes directly created by, or amplified by, climate change, will extensively change the patterns of human settlement.

Future degradation of land used for agriculture and farming, the disruption of fragile ecosystems and the depletion of precious natural resources like fresh water will directly impact people’s lives and homes.

The climate crisis is already having an effect: according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 17.2 million people had to leave their homes last year, because of disasters that negatively affected their lives.

Slow changes in the environment, such as ocean acidification, desertification and coastal erosion, are also directly impacting people’s livelihoods and their capacity to survive in their places of origin.

There is a strong possibility that more people will migrate in search of better opportunities, as living conditions get worse in their places of origin:

There are predictions for the twenty-first century indicating that even more people will have to move as a result of these adverse climate impacts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the main UN authority on climate science, has repeatedly said that the changes brought on by the climate crisis will influence migration patterns.

The World Bank has put forward projections for internal climate migration amounting to 143 million people by 2050 in three regions of the world, if no climate action is taken.

However, our level of awareness and understanding of how environmental factors affect migration, and how they also interact with other migration drivers such as demographic, political and economic conditions, has also changed. With enhanced knowledge, there is more incentive to act urgently, be prepared and respond.

The Global Compact for Migration: a roadmap for governments

In the past decade, there has been a growing political awareness of the issues around environmental migration, and increasing acceptance that this is a global challenge.

Herders take their animals to drink water in Niger., by FAO/Giulio Napolitano

As a result, many states have signed up to landmark agreements, such as the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Global Compact for Migration, which marks a clear way forward for governments to address the issue of climate and migration.

The Compact contains many references to environmental migration including a whole section on measures to address environmental and climate challenges: it is the first time that a comprehensive vision has been laid out, showing how states can handle – now and in the future – the impacts of climate change, disasters and environmental degradation on international migration.

Our analysis of the Compact highlights the priorities of states, when it comes to addressing environmental migration. Their primary concern is to “minimize the adverse drivers and structural factors that compel people to leave their country of origin”, in particular the “natural disasters, the adverse effects of climate change, and environmental degradation”.

In other words, the main priority is to find solutions that allow people to stay in their homes and give them the means to adapt to changing environmental conditions. This approach aims to avoid instances of desperate migration and its associated tragedies.

Rohingya refugees make their way down a footpath during a heavy monsoon downpour in Kutupalong refugee settlement, Cox’s Bazar district. 2018. Credit: UNHCR/David Azia

However, where climate change impacts are too intense, another priority put forward in the Compact is to “enhance availability and flexibility of pathways for regular migration. States are thus looking at solutions for people to be able to migrate safely and through regular channels, and at solutions for those already on the move.

A last resort measure is to conduct planned relocations of population – this means organizing the relocation of entire villages and communities away from areas bearing the brunt of climate change impacts.

Humanitarian assistance and protection for those on the move already, are also tools states can use. Finally, states highlight that relevant data and knowledge are key to guide the decision-making process. Without knowing more and analyzing better, policies run the risk of missing their targets and fade into irrelevance.

A range of solutions to a complex problem

Responding to the challenges of environmental migration in a way that benefits both countries and communities, including migrants and refugees, is a complex process involving many different actors.

Solutions can range from tweaking migration practices, such as visa regimes, to developing human rights-based protection measures. Most importantly, they involve a coordinated approach from national governments, bringing together experts from different walks of life:

There is no one single solution to respond to the challenge of environmental migration, but there are many solutions that tackle different aspects of this complex equation. Nothing meaningful can ever be achieved without the strong involvement of civil society actors and the communities themselves who very often know what is best for them and their ways of life.

I also think that we need to stop discourses that focus only on migrants as victims of tragedy. The bigger picture is certainly bleak at times, but we need to remember that migrants demonstrate everyday their resilience and capacity to survive and thrive in difficult situations.

The post Environmental Migration a Global Challenge appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dina Ionesco is the head of the Migration, Environment and Climate Change Division at the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM), which has been at the forefront of efforts to study the links between migration, the environment and climate.

The post Environmental Migration a Global Challenge appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Greg Benchwick
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 6 2019 (IPS)

Over 100 years ago a little brown passenger pigeon named Martha died in the Cincinnati Zoo. She was the last of her breed. Just like that, in an instant, a bird species that had once numbered in the billions was wiped out forever.

I’ve been researching Martha and other endangered species for the past five years in my efforts to write a book that children can relate to on the importance of conservation and environmental protection.

Greg Benchwick

What’s become perfectly clear to me as I wrote and rewrote my new book, is that if we don’t educate our children on the importance of conservation today, we are likely to experience a catastrophic loss of biodiversity that will alter the course of human and natural history forever.

Think about how the lessons of Martha connect with our current disastrous state of affairs. Martha lived through a seminal time in American history that included the expansion West, industrialization, the Gilded Age (an age of decadent consumption), huge population growth, several wars (nothing new there), and the heady legacy of Manifest Destiny.

In the US, we burned coal, we raped the land, we expanded our economies, and we became, before long, the greatest industrial empire the world had ever seen. “Martha is a remarkable tale set against a vibrant historic backdrop. The story masterfully weaves together true historic elements and parables on conservation and environmentalism in a magical world that young readers will love exploring. Truly a must read for children and adults alike, this book is a wake up call. If we don't act now, we risk losing close to half of our global biodiversity by 2050. Our planet is in crisis. In the tradition of Dr. Seuss's 'The Lorax,' this new book by Greg Benchwick should be taught the world over. We can only hope it's not too late." - Alan Miller, RT World Bank Principal Climate Change Specialist and globally recognized expert on environmentalism, climate change and conservation.

But at what cost?

Facing habitat loss and other environmental impacts, passenger pigeons began to drop like flies. In just a few short decades, the bird flocks that had once stretched for miles across the American Heartland as they made their northern migration, were no more.

Our children need to know the story of Martha. They need to know the story of George the Snail, who died in Hawaii at the ripe old age of 14 earlier this year, and was the last Achatinella apexfulva snail on the planet. They need to know the story of the Dodo and how scientists are working today to restore coral reefs and protect natural habitats in its native Mauritius.

Children need to learn about the dire consequences of Planet Earth’s sixth mass extinction. At our current unchecked and unbridled rates of conspicuous consumption, pollution, habitat loss, population growth, heating oceans, rising temperatures and melting ice-caps, an estimated 1 million species could follow Martha into the history books.

An entire generation will miss out on the majesty, power and grace of wild gorillas, sea turtles, Bengal tigers and polar bears. They will miss out on swimming in the technicolor wonderlands of the Great Barrier Reef. They will miss out on the endless possibilities that our world’s insects, birds and plant life could bring to science and humanity.

In the developing world, they will miss out on much more. Climate change, species loss and environmental degradation is already triggering violent conflict and mass migration. It’s pushing children and their families to leave their homelands. It’s disrupting entire economies. This means more children go hungry, more children are forced out of an education, and more children will never get the chance to learn and grow and one day be the change we need to save planet earth.

Yes, children need to learn about these dangerous and inconvenient truths. And they need to learn about our history so we don’t repeat our mistakes.

Failing to do so puts our very existence at risk.

Think about it this way. More than 90 percent of the world’s coral reefs will die by 2050.

This is certainly bad for people that rely on fish for food. But it’s also really, really bad for our economy. With violent storms and rising sea levels, entire communities could be wiped out without the protection barrier reefs provide. Oceanic ecosystems will fall apart and coastal peoples will be forced to move.

So what does true environmental education look like?

First and foremost, we need to stop talking about the possibilities of climate and environmental disaster. We are in it!

Everyday we lose a dozen or more species, and we are still fretting about teaching subjects like climate change and conservation in public schools. In fact, more than half of US teachers do not teach climate change in their schools. I thought we had gotten past that with the Scopes Monkey Trail, but apparently not.

Second, we need teach children about history, and we need to include lessons on conservation in our art, science, reading and even mathematics lessons. Think what understanding the real social and economic facts behind Martha could teach a child about our current situation?

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need to get children out in nature. This means putting the iPad down (you’re probably reading one right now), and going out for a hike in any local park or preserve. Along the way, you will probably spot dozens of species with your son or daughter, niece, nephew, or favorite student. One of these animals will probably go extinct in that child’s lifetime. Don’t they deserve better?

 
VIDEOS:
1 – https://youtu.be/6BndONsPY38

2 – https://youtu.be/UQD0Nl4o_nE

 
About the Author

Greg Benchwick is the author of the new children’s book Martha. The new mid-grade chapter book is available for pre-sales today on Publishizer. When he’s not writing stories about passenger pigeons, Greg works for the United Nations Development Programme to tell the story of climate change and environmental protection, shares stories on sustainable travel for Lonely Planet, and writes about the pressing need to fund education for children living in crisis at Education Cannot Wait, a global fund for education in emergencies hosted by UNICEF.

The post What a Little Pigeon Could Teach Our World appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

It’s time we teach our children about conservation – before it’s too late

The post What a Little Pigeon Could Teach Our World appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Japanese troops rest in the Hiroshima railway station after the atomic bomb explosion. Photo: Us national archives

By Ramisa Rob
Aug 6 2019 (IPS-Partners)

In the summer of 1945, a jittery premonition marked the lives of the citizens of Hiroshima, as B-29 super fortresses—planes that the Japanese locals called B-San or Mr.B—had been stationed in the northeast corner of the fan-shaped city. Americans had been bombing Japan for months except in two key cities: Kyoto and Hiroshima. A rumour was lurking around, however, that the Americans were saving something special for Hiroshima. The prefectural government, sensing impending attacks, had ordered completion of wide fire lanes, hoping it would contain fire caused by raids. The depraved radioactivity of the fire to come was something that no one had comprehended.

August 6 started out as a tranquil day until at exactly five minutes past eight, a titanic flash of light cut through the sky: the Enola Gay. The rumour now manifested a deafening reality of hell on earth: a lethal “Little Boy” that killed 100,000 people. For Hatsuyo Nakamuro, a Hiroshima resident, the atomic bomb reflected that unlucky split second that buried her children in debris, and somewhere nearby, her mother, brother and sister too. The horrid aftermath unfolding around her reached so far behind human mind that it was impossible to think it was caused by human beings, like the scientists who designed the disaster, the pilot of Enola Gay, or President Truman, or even Japanese militarists who had helped to fill her surviving lungs with the aftermath of radiation, who had brought the spoils of war to her weak and destitute bones.

“The bombing almost seemed a natural disaster—one that it had simply been her bad luck, her fate (which must be accepted), to suffer,” wrote the New Yorker journalist John Hersey in his article “Hiroshima: The Aftermath” in July 1985, narrating Nakamuro and other survivors’ stories four decades after the nuclear nightmare. Almost 39 years earlier, in August 1946, a year after Japan’s surrender, Hersey had published his first coverage of Hiroshima––a 30,000-word account of six survivors. Ominously titled “Hiroshima”, it birthed a new kind of journalism—non-fiction story-telling with the elements of fiction—and changed the construction of historical narratives by extrapolating from underneath the cataclysmic mesh of politics and militarisation in war, the simplest yet omniscient cost and witness to it all: human lives.

Today, 74 years after the worst apocalyptic human actions, Hersey’s Hiroshima seems more relevant than ever, as possession of nuclear weapons has become a modicum of economic superiority, and global and regional domination.

On February 2, 2019, first the United States and then Russia announced a formal suspension of their obligations to their Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, which forbade the US and the then Soviet Union from producing, testing or deploying mid-ranged, ground-launched weapons. The exit is to officially take place on Friday, August 10. One of the reasons stated by President Trump included his frustration that China was not involved in the treaty. Arms control advocates have been warning that the termination of the INF along with trade tensions can provoke a nuclear arms race. And that seems to be a very near reality: on August 3, 2019, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters that the US was considering deploying new missiles in Asia, a move likely to anger their Chinese competitors, which also have been known to conceal and manoeuvre production of ballistic missiles.

There are plenty of other examples of nuclearisation in today’s world, painted all across world politics this year, such as the Iran-US relations that teetered on the knife edge of an imminent nuclear war, after the US imposed sanctions on Iran in May 2018. While the turbulence has subdued, it is nowhere near over. Last Wednesday, the US imposed sanctions on Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and according to the parliamentary news agency Iceana, Zarif said this Saturday that Iran will take further steps to reduce its compliance with the landmark nuclear deal from 2016. On the other hand, following President Trump’s historic visit to North Korea, Wall Street Journal’s intelligence analysts concluded that “the secretive state is accelerating its production of long-range missiles and fissile materials, both key components in nuclear weapons.”

Despite these ongoing issues between the nuclear states, India and Pakistan—closely backed by the US and China, and with 140 and 150 nuclear weapons that each possesses respectively—are the only two nuclear powers to have “bombed” each other in history, earlier this year in February, after a Kashmiri suicide-bomber, allegedly belonging to the Pakistani-based Jaish-e-Mohammad, killed 40 Indian troops. India’s subsequent launch of airstrikes—and as long as the diplomatic negotiations were being eschewed and threats of “all eventualities” were being fired, the threats of the age-old border conflict spiralling towards a flashpoint for a future nuclear war—was certainly real and deadly. The current global situation reflects the proliferation risks of nuclear power, which arguably reconstructs the chances of history repeating itself, in the midst of a regional or international crisis.

That’s precisely why revisiting the destructive birth of the nuclear age is crucial. But this commonly means fixating ourselves on the planned Hiroshima attacks, and narratives that stress the overbearing power of science that ended hundreds of thousands of human lives in a matter of minutes. But the massive human cost was rendered boundless and innumerable not only by the atomic chemicals, but the war-numbed heartlessness of those who, three days after Enola Gay wiped out Hiroshima, continued on the second mission of Operation Centerbomb II to bomb the urban and industrialised Japanese city, Kokura. The atomic payload used this time, called Fat Man, was signed by the pit crew who had assembled it, some had even written messages—“Here’s to you” and “a second kiss for Hirohito.” (Similar distasteful nationalism at the expense of war undergirded people’s reactions on social media to the Kashmir turmoil this year.)

For reasons still debated upon by historians, the visual bombing of Kokura couldn’t be managed, and in forty-five minutes or so, a secondary target was decided and destroyed: Nagasaki, where nearly twice as many were killed and injured. President Truman himself had been surprised by the second bombing, coming as it did so soon after the mass destruction of the first. The day after Nagasaki, Truman issued his first affirmative command regarding the bomb: no more strikes without his express authorisation, one he failed to give earlier. Even if Hiroshima—as the first devastating planned nuclear attack in human history—remains the most prominent deterrent example, Nagasaki, with greater consequences, saw the first use of a nuclear weapon to wage raw anger. Nations today must ensure it will be the last.

Ramisa Rob is a master’s candidate in New York University.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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