Africa

He revealed his sexuality at the elite Zimbabwe boys' school before a newspaper outed him.

Houseboats line the Nile bank in Cairo. Some 85 million Egyptians depend on the Nile for water. According to the United Nations, Egypt is currently below the U.N.’s threshold of water poverty. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.

By Maged Srour
ROME, Sep 27 2018 (IPS)

Local residents in Cairo are becoming concerned and discontent as water scarcity is reaching a critical point in the capital and the rest of the country.

Although not all areas of the country are affected in the same way, many Cairo residents say they don’t have water for large portions of the day. And some areas are affected more than most.

“Where my grandmother lives, in a central area and near a hospital, water is almost never missing, but where I live with my family in a more peripheral area, water is missing several times during the week if not during the day,” one local resident from Cairo, who did not want to be named, tells IPS.

According to the United Nations, Egypt is facing an annual water deficit of around seven billion cubic metres and the country could run out of water by 2025, when it is estimated that 1.8 billion people worldwide will live in absolute water scarcity.

The U.N. World Water Development report for 2018, warns that Egypt is currently below the U.N.’s threshold of water poverty, it is currently facing water scarcity (1,000 m3 per capita) and dramatically heading towards absolute water scarcity (500 m3 per capita).

“The water goes away all the time, we don’t know how to handle this issue. The other day I even opened the tap and the water that came out was stinking of sewer,” the Cairo resident adds.

As highlighted in the ‘Egyptian Journal of Aquatic Research’, problems affecting the Nile River’s flow are many and range from inefficient irrigation to water pollution. In addition, the uncontrolled dumping of anthropogenic waste from different drains located along the Nile River’s banks has significantly increased water contamination to a critical level, warns the research. 

The pollution of the river—considered the longest river in the world—is an issue that has been underestimated over the past few decades. “Most of the industries in Egypt have made little effort to meet Egyptian environmental laws for Nile protection, where, the Nile supplies about 65 percent of the industrial water needs and receives more than 57 percent of its effluents,” the study says. 

As so many people rely on the Nile for drinking, agricultural and municipal use, the water quality is of concern. 

The reality is that the Nile is being polluted by municipal and industrial waste, with many recorded incidents of leakage of wastewater and the release of chemical waste into the river. 

But Dr. Helmy Abouleish, president of SEKEM, an organisation that invests in biodynamic agriculture, says there is increasing awareness in the country about its water challenges.

“I can see the awareness towards the water insecurity challenge is now spreading in society more than before,” Abouleish tells IPS. “We all should be quite aware of the fact that whatever we are doing today, our children will pay for it in the future. None of the current resources will be available forever,” he adds.

SEKEM has converted 70 hectares of desert into a green and cultivated oasis north east of Cairo, which is now inhabited by a local community.  

These futuristic innovations is what Egypt needs more of, considering that water availability is progressively worsening in the country.

“In Egypt rainfall is limited to the coastal strip running parallel to the Mediterranean Sea and occurs mainly in the winter season,” Tommaso Abrate, a scientific officer in the Climate and Water Department at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), tells IPS. 

“The amounts are low (80 to 280 mm per year), erratic and variable in space and time hence rainfall cannot be considered a reliable source of water.”  

“Climate models indicate that Egypt, especially the coastal region, will experience significant warming and consequent substantial drought by the end of the century, while rainfall is expected to show just a small decrease in annual means,” Abrate says. 

He warns that other factors like abstraction (removal of water from a source) and pollution, have major effects on water quality. 

Another concern is the fact that the country uses 85 percent of its water resources for agricultural activities—with 90 percent of this being used for conventional agriculture. 

But agricultural wastewater, which carries the residual of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, is drained back into the Nile River.

It is a vicious cycle that is worsening the quality and the sustainability of Egypt’s farmlands.

However, this year the Egyptian government and partners announced the allocation of about USD4 billion in investment to address the water shortage.

“Major efforts are being invested in the desalination of water from the Red Sea and the Mediterranean (for example the mega scale project in Ain Sokhna, which will purify 164,000 cubic litres per day). A regional centre unit will be established to follow water movement using the latest remote sensing techniques to combat this problem,” Abouleish adds.

SEKEM says that it is working to develop a “sustainable and self-sustaining water management system in all of Egypt.” 

“We foster several research projects that are developed by the students and the research team at Heliopolis University to realise this mission. For instance, researching water desalination models from salt water, recovery systems for water from the air as well as waste water recycling systems is now considered in our core focus,” says Abouleish. 

The U.N. agrees that in the next few years Egypt will face a water crisis of considerable size, which will require a more effective management of the available, scarce resources. This should involve a modernisation of the irrigation systems to avoid the current waste. 

If water scarcity is not addressed by those accountable, there is a risk that in the coming decades, a country of nearly 80 million people could run out of water. It could result in a humanitarian crisis that would probably destabilise the entire Mediterranean region with unpredictable consequences.  

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The post Water Scarcity and Poor Water Management Makes Life Difficult for Egyptians appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Anita Käppeli is European Outreach Director at the Center for Global Development (CGD) & Lee Robinson is a researcher at the Center for Global Development.

By Anita Käppeli and Lee Robinson
WASHINGTON DC, Sep 27 2018 (IPS)

We just published the Commitment to Development Index (CDI) 2018, which ranks 27 of the world’s richest countries on how well their policies help the more than five billion people living in poorer countries.

European countries dominate this year’s CDI, occupying the top 12 positions in the Index and with Sweden claiming the #1 spot. Here, we look at what these countries are doing particularly well in the past year to support the world’s poor, and where European leaders can still learn from others.

Each year, we look at policies beyond aid (only one of seven policy areas included in our analysis). We also measure policy efforts of rich countries in the areas of finance, technology, environment, trade, security and migration.

Within each of these seven components, countries are measured on how their domestic policies and actions support poor countries in their efforts to build prosperity, good governance, and security. We encourage you to explore the detailed results with our interactive tool below.

 

RELATED EXPERTS

Anita Käppeli
Director of Policy Outreach, Europe

Sweden shows biggest commitment to development
Sweden makes it to the top this year, a first since 2011, relegating its neighbors Denmark and Finland to second and joint-third (with Germany) respectively. Sweden’s top performance was driven by excellent scores on foreign aid quantity and quality, environment, and trade.

It also led the migration ranking, with a high share of refugees and strong policies to help integrate migrants. By accepting a relatively large share of migrants from poorer countries, Sweden contributes to poverty reduction and income redistribution as working abroad enables migrants to earn higher incomes and gain valuable skills, while at the same time filling gaps in the local labor market.

Migrants contribute to Sweden’s booming economy, which has the highest share of employment among EU-countries (Eurostat data, 2004-2017). However, as the recent election demonstrates, while Sweden’s integration policies are among the best of all the countries evaluated by the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), challenges remain and the country’s openness to migrants has resulted in a political backlash. It remains to be seen how this will affect the country’s migration policies moving forward.

Denmark comes second in this year’s CDI, performing very well on aid and leading on the security component. It demonstrates that even small countries can support peace and international security beyond their borders.

Denmark punches above its weight on the international stage by contributing disproportionately to international peacekeeping and sea lanes protection. Further, it fully supports the international security regime through ratification of all treaties assessed in the CDI and acts coherently by having very low arms exports to poor and undemocratic countries.

However, it could learn from its neighbor Sweden by putting in place a more open and welcoming migration policy. This also applies to Finland, which comes joint-third with performances above average on all components except migration.

Germany proves economic powers can also be development drivers
For the first time since the Center for Global Development started producing the CDI in 2003, a G7-country has made it to the top three. Germany comes joint third with Finland, demonstrating that even the largest economies in the world can put domestic policies in place that also benefit poorer countries.

The country’s top score was driven by its development-friendly policies on trade and migration. Germany ranked second in migration due to the acceptance of an exceptional number of migrants from poorer countries. It also came second on trade, with the most efficient trade logistics of all CDI countries and by being a leader on openness to services trade.

Still, it is penalized for its relatively large EU agricultural subsidies, and has room to learn from its G7-peers Canada (ranking 17th overall) and the United States (ranking 23rd overall) which each provide significantly smaller agricultural subsidies. Germany was held back from the top overall position by its moderate scores on aid and security policies.

European development policies are among the best
European countries take up the first 12 positions on the CDI, highlighting European leadership on development issues. France comes in seventh this year, being one of the few countries to increase its aid spending (by 0.05 percent to 0.43 percent of gross national income [GNI]).

This development conforms with President Macron’s pledge to increase ODA-spending to 0.55 percent/GNI by 2022, which he renewed this past August. While France still has room for improvement on aid quality, it does particularly well on security and finance. Ranking third on the finance component, France demonstrates that a successful and powerful economy can at the same time be a transparent financial jurisdiction.

The United Kingdom, coming in eighth place, is the third G7 country in the top 10, scoring especially well on trade and security. The UK is one of the few countries meeting the international commitment of 0.7 percent of GNI spent on aid, but still ranks in the lower end of the table on migration and technology.

On the latter, it could learn from Portugal, ranking ninth overall and third on technology, with its heavy investments in Research and Development (R&D). The “Benelux” trio—Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg—complete the top 10.

The Netherlands and Luxembourg share position five and Belgium ranks 10th. All three countries have smart policy designs in place: Luxembourg tops the aid component; the Netherlands the trade component; and Belgium the finance component.

Australia and Japan: two countries on the rise
Australia and Japan are among the countries which have improved notably since the 2017 publication. Australia ranks 14th in this year’s CDI, with good migration policies and a top-three position in the trade ranking. Australia is a CDI leader in providing equal access to goods from developing countries.

It has the second-lowest income weighted tariff rate and the second-lowest agricultural subsidies. Its improvement by four positions from last year was propelled by improvements in its foreign aid policy. However, Australia lags on environment, having the highest greenhouse gas emissions of all 27 CDI-countries. By increasing its gasoline taxes, which are currently the second lowest after the United States,

Australia could take a simple step to help fighting climate change—an issue with a disproportionately damaging effect on people in poorer countries.

While it comes in 24th this year, it is worth noting that Japan rose 10 slots in this year’s trade ranking to 15th place. Japan scored well on measures of customs speed and trading infrastructure. And while Japan’s tariffs are high relative to other advanced economies, they are reduced for many lower income trading partners. More on how this year’s trade component and Japan’s results can be found here.

The CDI demonstrates how we all benefit from good policies.
In times of fading commitment to multilateralism and the threat of increasing protectionism, this year’s CDI findings demonstrate that all countries can do more to put coherent, development-friendly domestic policies in place. They also serve as a reminder that advanced economies’ policies across a wide range of sectors have a lasting impact on people in poorer countries and that their well-being is in everyone’s best interest.

Many European countries have recognised the benefits of mutual development, but with billions left in poverty worldwide, high inequality levels and insufficient provision of global public goods, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

More trade, innovation, and investment, but also a reduction in damaging spill-overs of instability in other parts of the world—triggered by violence, conflict, and climate change—will benefit us all directly.

The post Europe Leads the Way in Development Index 2018 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Anita Käppeli is European Outreach Director at the Center for Global Development (CGD) & Lee Robinson is a researcher at the Center for Global Development.

The post Europe Leads the Way in Development Index 2018 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The annual Orthodox Christian festival marks the finding of the cross that Jesus was crucified on.

By WAM
NEW YORK, Sep 27 2018 (WAM)

Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, today confirmed that the UAE is proceeding with grants totalling US$34.5 million (AED126.7 million) to fund renewable energy projects in the Caribbean that are built to withstand Category-5 hurricanes and located for enhanced resilience. This amount builds on $15 million of projects announced last year as part of the UAE-Caribbean Renewable Energy under Reem bint Ibrahim Al Hashemy, Minister of State for International Cooperation.

The announcement was made at the second annual Bloomberg Global Business Forum, held on the sidelines of the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, USA, where Minister Al Zeyoudi was invited to speak in the climate segment with President Bill Clinton and Kristalina Georgieva, CEO of the World Bank.

Addressing the forum, Minister Al Zeyoudi said, “The UAE is honoured to have partnered with over 30 island countries since 2013 to implement renewable energy projects that reduce energy costs and create jobs. Today’s announcement on our partnership in the Caribbean builds on this legacy, simultaneously expanding our cooperation into climate resilience.”

“Hurricanes Irma and Maria were a wake-up call for us,” Minister Al Zeyoudi added. “We realised that the kind of projects we pursue had to change. As a result, we have implemented a resilience standard for all of our Caribbean projects that reflects the reality of climate vulnerability in the region. Inspired by this precedent, we are now preparing for global roll-out of a resilience standard across over $5 billion of annual aid from the UAE.”

The Minister described plans for 7 new projects in Belize, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, St Kitts and Nevis, and St Lucia. He also announced that the UAE had increased its allocation by 50% to the rebuilding of the Barbuda power system, devastated by Hurricane Irma, in order to relocate and strengthen its main plant, where a solar and battery solution will be installed.

The Minister additionally announced that the UAE will allocate $12 million for the next cycle of the fund, to be launched in January 2019 at the Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

In tandem with the Bloomberg Global Business Forum, Minister Al Zeyoudi also participated in the One Planet Summit organized by President Emmanuel Macron of France. The UAE is a core member of a sovereign wealth fund working group on carbon accounting, announced under the summit.

UAE foreign aid for renewable energy has reached nearly $1 billion since 2013. In addition to the UAE-Caribbean Renewable Energy Fund, the UAE notably has launched the US$50 million UAE-Pacific Partnership Fund, which has implemented projects in 11 Pacific island countries, and runs a $350 million soft loan facility with IRENA.

WAM/Hazem Hussein/Hatem Mohamed

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Tanzania coach Emmanuel Amuneke admits leading the Taifa Stars is a challenge but that his team are ready to build for the future.

Two mothers and their children look to shore after arriving by boat to Mingkaman, Awerial County, Lakes State, South Sudan. In 2014 in less than a month close to 84,000 fleeing the fighting in Bor crossed the river Nile. South Sudan has been mired in civil conflict since December 2013. Some 2.8 million people, a majority of whom depend on livestock for their livelihoods, are now facing acute food and nutrition insecurity, according to FAO. Credit: Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 27 2018 (IPS)

Reversing years of progress, global hunger is on the rise once again and one of the culprits is clear: conflict.

A high-level side event during the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly brought together, U.N. officials, governments, and civil society to assess and recommend solutions to the pressing issue of conflict-based food insecurity. “The use of hunger as a weapon of war is a war crime. Yet, in some conflict settings, parties to conflict use siege tactics, weaponise starvation of civilians, or impede life-saving humanitarian supplies to reach those desperately in need." -- Action Against Hunger’s CEO Veronique Andrieux

“Conflict-related hunger is one of the most visible manifestations to human suffering emerging from war…this suffering is preventable and thus all the more tragic,” said United States’ Agency for International Development’s (USAID) administrator Mark Green.

According to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018, the number of hungry people increased to over 820 million in 2017 from approximately 804 million in 2016, levels unseen for almost a decade.

The Global Report on Food Crises found that almost 124 million people across 51 countries faced crisis-level food insecurity in 2017, 11 million more than the year before.

Conflict was identified as the key driver in 60 percent of those cases.

The report predicts that conflict and insecurity will continue to drive food crises around the world, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

Panellists during the “Breaking the Cycle Between Conflict and Hunger” side-event noted food insecurity is often a tell-tale sign of future potential conflict and can lead to further insecurity.

“Building resilience…is indeed fundamental for strengthening social cohesion, preventing conflict, and avoiding forced migration. Without that, there is no peace,” said Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. (FAO) director-general Jose Graziano da Silva.

World Food Programme’s executive director David Beasley echoed similar sentiments, stating: “If you don’t have food security, you’re not going to have any other security. So we have to address the fundamentals.”

In an effort to address conflict-based hunger and the worrisome reversal in progress, the U.N. Security Council for the first time recognised that armed conflict is closely linked to food insecurity and the risk of famine earlier this year.

The group unanimously adopted resolution 2417 condemning the use of starvation as a weapon of war and urged all parties to conflict to comply with international law and grand unimpeded humanitarian access.

While participants lauded the historic resolution, they also highlighted that it alone is not enough.

“Humanitarian action and technical solutions can mitigate the effects of food crises but we desperately need political solutions and we need to implement [resolution] 2417 if we are to reverse the shameful, upwards trajectory of hunger primarily resulting from conflict,” said Action Against Hunger’s CEO Veronique Andrieux.

In order to prevent food crises and thus conflicts from escalating, the international community must take a holistic, preventative approach and strengthen the humanitarian-development nexus.

Before the long-running war began, Syria faced a drought which caused a spike in prices and led to food shortages. Many theorise that it was these very conditions that set off the civil war in 2011. This is a picture dated August 2014 of the then rebel-held Aleppo city, Syria. The government has since taken control of the city. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

Beasley pointed to the case of Syria where a seven-year long conflict has destroyed agricultural infrastructure, local economies, and supply chains and has left over six million food-insecure.

“The cost for us to feed a Syrian in Syria was about 50 cents a day which is almost double the normal cost because it is a war zone. If that same Syrian was in Berlin, it would be euros per day,” he told attendees.

“It is a better investment if we address the root cause as opposed to reacting after the fact,” Beasley added.

Before the long-running war began, Syria faced a drought which caused a spike in prices and led to food shortages. Many theorise that it was these very conditions that set off the civil war in 2011.

“Early action response to early warning is critical. We cannot wait for the conflict to start. We know that it will start,” said Graziano da Silva.

And it is data that can help establish early detection and prevent such crises, Graziano da Silva along with the other panelists stressed.

The Global Network against Food Crises (GNFC), which publish the Global Report on Food Crises, brings together regional and national data and analysis to provide a comprehensive picture of food insecurity globally.

It was the GNFC that enabled agencies to mitigate food crises and avert famine in northern Nigeria and South Sudan.

Just prior to the side event, FAO and the European Commission partnered to boost resilience and tackle hunger by contributing over USD70 million.

Panelists stressed the importance of such partnerships in addressing and responding to the complex issue of conflict-based food insecurity.

“At the ground, when we work together, it’s not only that we do better…we are much more efficient,” Graziano da Silva said.

Andrieux highlighted the need to uphold respect for international humanitarian law and that the U.N. and member states must hold all parties to the conflict to account.

“The use of hunger as a weapon of war is a war crime. Yet, in some conflict settings, parties to conflict use siege tactics, weaponise starvation of civilians, or impede life-saving humanitarian supplies to reach those desperately in need,” she said.

“We believe this is failing humanity,” Andrieux added.

Green pointed to the conflict in South Sudan where fighters have blocked desperately needed humanitarian assistance and attacked aid workers.

The African nation was recently ranked the most dangerous for aid workers for the third consecutive year.

“All the parties to the conflict are culpable, all the parties to the conflict are guilty, and they have all failed themselves, their people, and humanity,” Green told attendees.

Though the task of tackling conflict-based hunger is not easy, the solutions are there. What is now required is commitment and collective action, panelists said.

“All of us working together with effective solutions—we can truly end world hunger,” Beasley said.

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The post Without Food Security, There Is No Peace appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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A mother and a child in Melghat district, an area in India with high rates of malnourishment. The government’s new POSHAN campaign aims to curb malnutrition by a significant margin by also using smartphones to collect relevant data. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
MAYURBHANJ DISTRICT, India, Sep 26 2018 (IPS)

Kanaklata Raula from Kaptipada village in India’s Mayurbhanj District is on duty 24×7. The 52-year-old community health worker from Odisha state rides a bicycle for hours each day, visiting community members who need nutrition and reproductive healthcare.

Raula’s main job is to ensure that the women and young children in her community are using the integrated free basic healthcare and nutrition services at the government-run community health and nutrition centre, locally known as Anganwadi.“Technology alone is not enough, we need to also reach the unreached population like the migrants who are too poor to afford a nutritious meal.” -- Laila Garda, the director of the KEM Hospital Research Centre in Pune city.

Raula monitors the health of all children under the age of six, checks their weight and their growth, ensures they are immunised and advises their mothers and other pregnant and nursing women on basic healthcare and nutrition. She then encourages them to regularly visit the Anganwadi.

But most important of all her duties, Raula is the record keeper of the community and notes, through numbers and statistics, the health of her patients. She then submits regular reports on the health of the community to the government.

“I am in charge of five villages. There are 300 families and more than 80 percent of them are poor tribal people. Without Anganwadi they will not be able to get proper nutrition for their children or necessary health supplements for themselves,” Raula, who received the best Anganwadi worker award in July by Plan India, the Indian arm of Plan International, tells IPS.

Life has gotten a little easier for Raula as the ministry of women and child development has decided to provide Anganwadi workers with smartphones or tablets with software especially designed to make their record-keeping and reporting easier.

India currently has the fourth-highest number of stunted people in the workforce in the world. Of these, 66 percent of  stunting is a result of childhood malnutrition, says a new World Bank report.

The recent National Family Health Survey 2015-2016 shows that while there is a declining trend in child stunting, the levels remain high at 38.4 percent in 2015/2016.

The survey noted increased levels of child wasting (where one’s weight is too low for their height); from 19.8 percent in 2005/2006 to 21 percent in 2015/2016. The country also has high levels of anaemia among children–58.4 percent of children under the age of six are anaemic.

To curb the alarming rate of malnutrition and stunting, India launched a new nutrition drive last November called Partnerships and Opportunities to Strengthen and Harmonise Action for Nutrition (POSHAN). With a total budget of nine billion rupees (USD126 million), the campaign has an ambitious goal: to reduce stunting, under-nutrition, anaemia and low birth weights by about two to three percent per annum.

According to information shared in national parliament by India’s minister of women and child development Maneka Gandhi, POSHAN is using:

• a mobile application that is made available to the community healthcare workers and is pre-loaded on mobile phones and,
• a six-tier monitoring dashboard for desktops.

 

IT for ground data

But how will smartphones be used by the Anganwadi workers while in the field?

Pramila Rani Brahma, the social welfare minister for Assam state, in north eastern India, explains that the phones will be loaded with software called the Common Application System or CAS, which was specially built for the POSHAN campaign and developed in collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Anganwadi workers will use the software to enter the details of their patients, including the number of children they see, their health updates, weight etc., and will send this report to headquarters.

Data on service delivery and its impact on nutrition outcomes will also be collected.

The desktop monitoring system will be used to monitor the delivery of services to children, pregnant women and lactating mothers. It will analyse the ground data and map the weight efficiency, height and nutrition status of children under five years.

“There are a total 11 registers which I have to regularly maintain. It [usually] takes many hours. I think it will save me a lot of time, which I can spend on serving the community better. I think it will also help send the information much more quickly to the higher officials,” Raula tells IPS.

According to Brahma, the 61,000-strong Anganwadi workers in Assam state have been struggling to submit their daily reports and even demanded computers or laptops.

There are currently nearly 1.3 million Anganwadi workers across India – all of whom will receive a simple, android data-enabled smartphone, according to the government. The phones will be distributed by the respective state governments, while the federal government and its ministry of women and child development will provide the funds.

“I was informed that, there are provisions to provide smartphones to the Anganwadi workers and several other states have already taken this initiative. We will provide the smartphones to the Anganwadi workers within a short period of time,” Brahma said to a group of journalists – which included IPS – at a state-organised workshop on nutrition in Guwahati, Assam.

An early success story

The IT-enabled nutrition campaign has already reaped some results, when it was first rolled out in June.

“We have given over 50,000 cellphones to Anganwadi workers through which they give us daily reports on how many children were provided food, how many were weighed, etc,” Gandhi said at press conference in New Delhi. “Until now, we have identified 12,000 children (as severely underweight) and we are following up on their status with the district officials,” she said.

Besides collecting numbers, Anganwadi workers are also using the smartphones for  surveying houses in their neighbourhoods and even sending photos of children eating a hot cooked meal at the Anganwadi.

An uphill task ahead

However, despite the new campaign, the road ahead for India to become malnutrition-neutral remains a difficult one.

One of the main reasons for this is that the country still has a huge population that continues to face acute hunger. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nation’s report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2018, some 159 million of the country’s 1.3 billion people are undernourished.

The Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition’s Food Sustainability Index (FSI) 2017 ranks 34 countries across three pillars: sustainable agriculture; nutritional challenges; and food loss and waste. India ranks close to bottom on the index at 33. According to the index India ranks 32 in the world in food sustainability and human development. The centre will be hosting an international forum on food and nutrition this week as a side event to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. One of the topics it will be discussing is food and migration.

Kavita, a 22 year old domestic worker in Hyderabad’s Uppal neighbourhood, presents a perfect example of this.

She is a migrant labourer from Mahbubnagar—a rural district some 150 km away from Hyderabad—and despite labouring for nearly 12 hours each day, she is unable to afford a nutritious meal for her and her 18-month old daughter.

Every day Kavita cooks a simple meal of rice and tomato chutney for her and her child. Both the mother and daughter appear underweight and malnourished with a yellowish tinge to their hair and dark circles under their eyes. But the mother says that she has no time to visit an Anganwadi.

“I start working at 5 am and finish only at 4 pm. I have to work seven days a week. If I take one holiday, my employers will fire me. I heard that at the Anganwadi they give dhal, curry and even eggs to children. But I can’t afford to leave work and take my child there,” she tells IPS.

There are millions of poor migrants and floating workers like Kavita across urban India who are not aware of the government facilities or the POSHAN campaign and continue to be left out of these initiatives. According to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, there were 326 million internal migrants in the country as of 2007/2008.

Unless this huge population is covered, it will be difficult to achieve the targets of the POSHAN campaign, says Laila Garda, the director of the KEM Hospital Research Centre in Pune city, Maharashtra.

“Technology alone is not enough, we need to also reach the unreached population like the migrants who are too poor to afford a nutritious meal,” Garda, who has been working in community health for nearly two decades, tells IPS.

Chuna Ram, a community reporter and nutrition activist in Barmer, Rajastahan—one of the states in the country with the highest rate of malnutrition—says that government action must go beyond the rhetoric.

In Rajasthan, he says, the government has talked of providing smartphones  to the Anganwadi workers, but it has not happened yet.

“The general election is going to take place in 2019, so the government is making a lot of promises to woo the voters. But how much of these promises will actually be kept will decide how far the situation will change,” he tells IPS.

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The post India Uses Tech to Power its New Battle Against Malnutrition appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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In Cameroon, a nutritionist assesses the health of a child: red indicates severe malnutrition. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

By Matthew L. Norman
NEW YORK, United States, Sep 26 2018 (IPS)

Each year as hundreds of billions of dollars are invested and critical decisions are made in agriculture, there is often little evidence or research to back these choices. 

According to experts, this lack of data “leads to less than optimal decisions, causing losses in productivity, lost agricultural income, and ultimately more hunger and poverty.”

“The data gaps in agriculture are widespread, affecting 800 million, or 78 percent of the world’s poorest. The problem is especially dire in Sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly half of countries have incomplete information about the [agriculture] sector and farmers,” Emily Hogue, a senior advisor with Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), explains to IPS.

“Assessments have shown that those countries are able to meet half or less of their basic data needs, largely due to a lack of [agriculture] surveys.”

Citing the foundational role data plays in directing development efforts and monitoring progress towards the U.N’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Gates Foundation, World Bank, FAO and others have launched a partnership aimed at investing in the agricultural data capabilities of low and middle-income countries. 

Dubbed the 50 x 2030 Initiative, the plan aims to invest USD 500 million in data gathering and analysis across 50 developing nations by 2030.

On Monday, the governments of Ghana, Kenya and Sierra Leone joined the coalition in hosting an event at the U.N. General Assembly to announce the initiative. Panellists representing several of the initiative’s key partners shared the impetus behind their involvement.

Rodger Voorhies, executive director for Global Growth and Opportunity at the Gates Foundation, noted that “almost no country has come out of poverty in an inclusive way without agricultural transformation being at the centre of it.” 

However, the panellists noted, the data needed to design evidence-based agricultural policy and target agricultural investments is severely deficient in many developing nations. This data gap represents a “critical obstacle to agricultural development,” according to Beth Dunford of USAID.

“There is no efficient path to meeting SDG2 or other [agriculture] development goals without improved agricultural data. Improved data will promote more effective targeting of interventions, improved national [agriculture] policies, and increased resources for the sector. As FAO is the organisation that is at the forefront of the activities to promote [agriculture] development and reduce hunger and malnutrition, we see filling in the agricultural data gap as a prerequisite to achieving agricultural development goals,” Hogue says. SDG2 is the goal to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

The 50 x 2030 Initiative’s announcement comes in the wake of the FAO’s recent revelation that world hunger has risen for a third straight year, with 821 million people worldwide facing chronic food deprivation. 

Panellists emphasised that the data gap limits the ability of many nations to direct resources towards populations most in need, including smallholders affected by gender inequality or climate change. 

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) president Gilbert Houngbo, formerly the prime minister of Togo, observed that granular data could reveal regional, ethnic or gender disparities that are obscured by aggregate data. He recalled that during his time as Togo’s leader, progress in achieving inclusive poverty reduction was made more challenging because the country “did not have the disaggregated data to better adjust the implementation of our policies.”

In addition to driving better policy design and implementation, improved agricultural data will make it possible to better monitor progress in achieving the SDGs. 

Claire Melamed, CEO of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, noted that many countries lack any data for several of the most critical SDG indicators, making it impossible to set a baseline and monitor progress towards the goals.

José Graziano da Silva, director general of FAO, explained that the initiative would initially focus on scaling up existing surveys of farming households. The FAO’s AGRISurvey is expected to expand to nineteen nations by 2021, and Graziano da Silva noted that this initiative would allow it to eventually expand to 50 or more. The initiative will also build upon the World Bank’s Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (ISA), part of the Bank’s Living Standards and Measurement Study (LSMS).

“The goal of this initiative is to have 50 low and lower-middle income countries (LMICs) with strong national data systems that produce and use high-quality and timely agricultural data for evidence-based decision-making. The survey programs are the vehicle through which we will build capacities and strengthen the institutions in those systems. We also aim to include the private sector, especially agribusinesses, as users and supports of these data,” Hogue adds.

Over time the initiative should allow more countries to take advantage of advances in data gathering and analytics. Laura Tuck, vice president of Sustainable Development at the World Bank, suggested that new tools for “real-time, high-definition data” would lead to smarter policies that increase sustainable food production. Tuck also noted that the structure of the 50 x 2030 initiative would allow countries the autonomy to drive their own use of data.

*Additional reporting by Carmen Arroyo in New York.

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Former France under-21 international Gilles Sunu is cleared to switch national allegiance to Togo to follow in the footsteps of his father Manu.

Secretary-General António Guterres (centre) poses for a photo with youth participants of the high-level event on Youth2030, to launch the United Nations Youth Strategy and the Generation Unlimited Partnership organized by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). UN Photo / Mark Garten 2018

By International Organization for Migration
Sep 26 2018 (IOM)

There are an estimated 1.8 billion people aged 10–24 around the world; nearly 90 per cent of these young people live in developing countries. This is the largest generation of young people in history, and in recognition of its significance, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres made youth a priority from the onset of his mandate.

This commitment was manifested on 24 September 2018 when the Secretary-General presented Youth 2030: The United Nations Youth Strategy.

“With Youth 2030, I want the UN to become a leader in working with young people: in understanding their needs, in helping to put their ideas into action, in ensuring their views inform our processes.”

 
– UN Secretary-General António Guterres

The Strategy is aimed at guiding the entire United Nations (UN) system to empower young people to realize their full potential and stand up for their rights. It also aims to ensure youth engagement and participation in the implementation, review, and follow-up of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as other relevant global agendas and frameworks.

“I have come to love myself for who I am, for who I was, and for who I hope to become. Now I urge you to speak yourself.” A member of the band BTS, also known as the Bangtan Boys, from the Republic of Korea, speaks at the Youth 2030 event. UN Photo: Mark Garten / 2018

Globally, there were an estimated 258 million international migrants in 2017. Of these international migrants, 14 per cent were under 20 years of age; this means 36 million young people are international migrants.

Whether on their own or with family, adolescents and youth are increasingly migrating in search of security, improved standards of living, education, and protection from discrimination and abuse.

Young migrants have a lot to offer. They fulfill many roles in their communities and societies; they are agents of social progress and development; they are crucial to peace-building and security; they are important contributors to political change; and they are crafters of new solutions.

Youth participants in Jordan discussing how to film the closing scene of a video they created. Photo: IOM 2017

During the President of the General Assembly’s 2018 Youth Dialogue and International Youth Day 2018, many of the youth representatives present were migrants, bringing important migrant voices to the debate and highlighting the need to engage and work with young people and recognize the different experiences that they have.

It is also noteworthy that young migrants are a large constituency whose lives will be impacted by implementation of the Global Compact for Migration, which is the first, intergovernmentally negotiated agreement to cover all dimensions of international migration in a holistic and comprehensive manner, and which will be adopted in Marrakesh, Morocco this December.

More generally, one of the greatest opportunities we have today to eradicate poverty and promote prosperity is to take advantage of the shifting demographics in the world. To do this, we need to pay attention to the situation of young people around the world.

Young boys and girls at school in Pohnpei, Micronesia. Photo: Muse Mohammed/ IOM 2017

While young people are key players when it comes to the future and health of our planet, they currently experience many challenges. For example, 61 million adolescents of lower secondary school age (about 12 to 14 years old) and 139 million youth of upper secondary school age (about 15 to 17 years old) are out of school.

Today, nearly 64 million young people are unemployed, and they are three times more likely than adults to be unemployed. Furthermore, young people are not at the centre of political decision making even though more than half of the world’s population is under 30 years old.

Poverty, displacement, conflict, climate change and restricted access to accessible, youth-friendly health services can further compound existing challenges or threats. Young women in particular continue to face multiple barriers when trying to enter the labour force, including unequal pay for work of equal value, and widespread violence and harassment in different contexts.

Syrian youth in Turkey get ready for class. Muse Mohammed / IOM 2016

The UN has set five priorities for the next 12 years in order to operationalize the UN Youth Strategy. The priorities of the strategy include amplifying youth voices for the promotion of a peaceful, just and sustainable world; supporting young people’s greater access to quality education and health services; supporting young people’s greater access to decent work and productive employment; protecting and promoting the rights of young people and supporting their civic and political engagement; and supporting young people as catalysts for Peace and Security & Humanitarian Action.

2018 is a landmark year for shaping the ways in which the international community will approach working with young people for years to come. When given the opportunity, they can effect positive change in several fields.

By recognizing this key demographic as the future leaders of tomorrow, the UN Youth Strategy will empower youth to recognize their potential and become the positive agents of change that the world needs. 2018 is also a landmark year for the international governance of migration.

We know that well-managed migration provides a net benefit to countries of origin and destination, as well as to migrants themselves. Migrants give more back to the societies that they have moved to, and those they have come from, than what they take out.

Central African Republic. Photo: Amanda Nero / IOM 2018

As a significant demographic within the migrant population, and one which has so far arguably been largely underserved, young migrants stand to gain significantly from both the implementation of the UN Youth Strategy and the adoption and subsequent implementation of the Global Compact for Migration.

Multiple factors have compounded the challenges faced by young people, and young people on the move in particular; these two historic documents can work to realize their true potential — especially in the many areas where the two initiatives see real overlap.

In turn, the world stands to gain much from young people and young migrants in particular.

The article was prepared by Amira Nassim, Migration Policy Officer at IOM’s Office to the United Nations.

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