Africa

Flights are diverted from the Libyan capital's sole working airport, which had only just reopened.

Ethiopian Belachew Girma can laugh for hours on end and is encouraging others to join him.

Journalist Wilf Mbanga reflects on his return home 15 years after going into exile fearing for his life.

The BabySaver can help to resuscitate babies at birth and is being hailed as a "game changer".

Liberia president George Weah - the former Fifa World Player of the Year - played in an international friendly at the age of 51.

By International Organization for Migration
GENEVA, Sep 11 2018 (IOM)

IOM, the UN Migration Agency, reports that 73,696 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2018 through 9 September, with 32,022 to Spain, the leading destination this year. This compares with 128,993 arrivals across the region through the same period last year, and 298,663 through a similar point (13 September) in 2016.

Spain, with over 43 per cent of all irregular arrivals on the Mediterranean through this year, has outpaced Greece and Italy throughout the summer. Italy’s arrivals to date – 20,319 – are the lowest recorded by IOM since 2014, lower in fact, than arrivals recorded by Italian authorities during many individual months over the past five years.

The same can be said for Greece, whose totals for irregular migrant arrivals through the first week of September this year (20,430) recently surpassed arrivals to Italy. It is the first time that has happened since the early spring of 2016.

A year ago, Greece’s irregular migrant arrivals were about one-sixth those of Italy, while Spain’s were about one-tenth (see chart below).

IOM Italy’s Flavio Di Giacomo reported late Monday that some media outlets have learned of a shipwreck off Libya with at least 100 migrants believed to have drowned. Details were few after initial reports, with some dispatches—thus far unconfirmed—suggesting as many as 115 people may be missing at sea with another 15 bodies recovered, including those of Libyan nationals who may have been among the smugglers, not passengers. These reports indicate as well that survivors had been returned to Libya.

IOM Libya’s Maya Abu Ata, later Monday, offered these details: a single drowning incident occurred on Saturday (1September) after which a Libyan Coast Guard unit returned a boat to Libya and transferred all migrants on board to a detention center. This operation references two rubber boats intercepted with a total of 278 people on board. Among the survivors were 48 women and 48 children. Authorities report the remains of two people were retrieved and that, additionally, around 25 migrants are missing, according to what survivors told the Libyan Coast Guard.

So far this year, around 13,000 migrants have been returned to Libyan shores after being rescued or intercepted at sea.

IOM Libya also reported it has resumed Voluntary Humanitarian Return flights out of Tripoli after a ceasefire was declared there.

IOM Spain’s Ana Dodevska reported Monday that 32,022 irregular migrants have arrived by sea this year via the Western Mediterranean, of those nearly 9,100 arriving in the 40 days since the start of August, a rate of 227 per day. For the first nine days of September, irregular migration arrivals on the Western Mediterranean route were running at a rate of nearly 300 per day (see chart below).

Dodevska also shared recent data on the nationalities of those arriving this year by sea. Nearly 60 per cent she reported are from Sub Saharan Africa, including large contingents from Mali, Guinea Conakry, Côte d’Ivoire and The Gambia.

About a third of all sea arrivals – have been classified as ‘Sub Saharan African’ because definitive proof of citizenship had not been obtained. Of those who can be classified by nationality, the largest group of Sub Saharan Africans appear to have arrived from Guinea Conakry, followed by Mali, The Gambia and Côte d’Ivoire. Another large contingent is arriving from Morocco.

Dodevska explained that arriving migrants in Spain first are attended to by Red Cross staff (who offer first aid assistance, blankets and dry clothes). Afterwards, the Spanish Ministry of Interior takes over for an identification process (photos, fingerprints are taken of everyone) which she said can take up to 72 hours, although often is completed much sooner.

“Afterwards,” she said, “individuals are transferred to the Humanitarian Reception Centres. These centres are under the competence of the Ministry of Labour, Migration and Social Security and are managed by NGOs.”

Dodevska explained those arriving by land route to Ceuta and Melilla are transferred to the Centres for Temporary Stay of Immigrants (CETI) and placed in the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. These two centres are also under the competence of the Spanish Ministry of Labour, Migration and Social Security.

On Monday, IOM Athens’ Christine Nikolaidou reported that over five days (04-09 September) Hellenic Coast Guard units (HCG) managed at least five incidents requiring search and rescue operations off the islands of Lesvos, Kos and Symi. The HCG rescued a total of 113 migrants and transferred them to those islands.

Additional arrivals of 753 migrants during those days to Samos and Kos – as well as to Lesvos, Chios and Rhodes – bring to 20,430 the total number of irregular arrivals to Greece by sea in 2018. In addition, some 11,050 land arrivals have been recorded on the Eastern Mediterranean through the end of July, and an unknown number since 1 August.

Greek arrivals through the first nine days of September – some 1,505 men, women and children – are already past the half-way point for each of the previous months of March through August, and more than each of all the arrivals for the full months of January and February. This may be an indicator of a shift of some migration routes away from Libya towards Italy with more irregular migrants seeking passage through Turkey and other states in the region (see charts below).

For latest arrivals and fatalities in the Mediterranean, please visit: http://migration.iom.int/europe
Learn more about the Missing Migrants Project at: http://missingmigrants.iom.int

For more information, please contact:
Joel Millman at IOM HQ, Tel: +41 79 103 8720, Email: jmillman@iom.int
Mircea Mocanu, IOM Romania, Tel: +40212115657, Email: mmocanu@iom.int
Dimitrios Tsagalas, IOM Cyprus, Tel: + 22 77 22 70, E-mail: dtsagalas@iom.int
Flavio Di Giacomo, IOM Coordination Office for the Mediterranean, Italy, Tel: +39 347 089 8996, Email: fdigiacomo@iom.int
Hicham Hasnaoui, IOM Morocco, Tel: + 212 5 37 65 28 81, Email: hhasnaoui@iom.int
Christine Nikolaidou, IOM Greece, Tel: +30 210 99 19 040 ext. 248, Email: cnikolaidou@iom.int
Julia Black, IOM GMDAC, Germany, Tel: +49 30 278 778 27, Email: jblack@iom.int
Christine Petré, IOM Libya, Tel: +216 29 240 448, Email: chpetre@iom.int
Ana Dodevska, IOM Spain, Tel: +34 91 445 7116, Email: adodevska@iom.int
Myriam Chabbi, IOM Tunisia, Mobile: +216 28 78 78 05, Tel: +216 71 860 312 (Ext. 109), Email: mchabbi@iom.int

The post Mediterranean Migrant Arrivals Reach 73,696; Deaths Reach 1,565 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

It depicts the former South African president doing a Nazi salute superimposed on a Nazi flag.

Liban Abdi admits he would love to play for Somalia but the uncertain situation in the country of his birth means he is better placed to help the nation off the pitch.

In south west coastal Satkhira, Bangladesh as salinity has spread to freshwater sources, a private water seller fills his 20-litre cans with public water supply to sell in islands where poor families spend 300 Bangladesh Taka every month to buy drinking and cooking water alone. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
STOCKHOLM, Sep 11 2018 (IPS)

Growing economies are thirsty economies. And water scarcity has become “the new normal” in many parts of the world, according to Torgny Holmgren executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).

As climate change converges with rapid economic and urban development and poor farming practices in the emerging economies of South Asia, water insecurity for marginalised people and farmers is already intensifying.

By 2030 for instance, India’s demand for water is estimated to become double the available water supply. Forests, wetlands lost, rivers and oceans will be degraded in the name of development. This need not be so. Development can be sustainable, it can be green.

Technology today is a key component in achieving water use sustainability – be it reduced water use in industries and agriculture, or in treating waste water, among others. Low and middle income economies need water and data technology support from developed countries not only to reach Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 on water, which relates to access to safe water and sanitation as well as the sound management of freshwater supplies, but several global goals in which water plays a critical role.

Speakers at SIWI’s 28th World Water Week held last month in Stockholm, Sweden, underpinned water scarcity as contributing to poverty, conflict, and the spread of waterborne diseases, as well as hindering access to education for women and girls.

Women are central to the collection and the safeguarding of water – they are responsible for more than 70 percent of water chores and management worldwide. But the issue goes far deeper than the chore of fetching water.  It is also about dignity, personal hygiene, safety, opportunity loss and reverting to gender stereotypes.

Women’s voices remain limited in water governance in South Asia, even though their participation in water governance can alleviate water crises through their traditional knowledge on small-scale solutions for agriculture, homestead gardening, and domestic water use. This can strengthen resilience to drought and improve family nutrition.

Holmgren, a former Swedish ambassador with extensive experience working in South Asia, among other regions, spoke to IPS about how South Asia can best address the serious gender imbalances in water access and the issue of sustainable water technology support from developed economies to developing countries. Excerpts of the interview follow:

Torgny Holmgren, executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), says as water scarcity becomes the new normal, traditional knowledge must be combined with new technology to ensure water sustainability. Photo courtesy: SIWI

IPS: What major steps should South Asian economies adopt for sustainable water services from their natural ecosystems? 

TH: South Asia is experiencing now a scarcity of water as demand now grows, thanks to a growing economy and also growing population. For the region specifically, a fundamental aspect is how its countries govern their water accessibility. We at SIWI have seen water-scarce countries manage really efficiently while those with abundance mismanage this resource.

It boils down to how institutions, not just governments but communities, industries at large govern water – how water systems are organised and allocated. We have instances from Indian village parliaments that decide how to share, allocate and even treat common water resources together with neighbouring catchment area villages.

One good example of this is 2015 Stockholm Water Prize winner Rajendra Singh from India who has worked in arid rural areas with local and traditional water harvesting techniques to recharge river basins, revive and store rain water in traditional water bodies and bring life back to these regions. These techniques can also help to manage too much water from more frequent climate-induced floods.

Even though the largest [amount] water is presently still being consumed for food production, more and more water is being demanded by industries and electricity producers. As competition for the scarce resource accelerates, soon we have to restructure user categories differently in terms of tariffs and allocation because households and food production have to be provided adequate water.

Even farm irrigation reforms can regulate and save water as earlier award winning International Water Management Institute research has shown – that if governments lower subsidies on electricity for pumping, farmers were careful how much and for how long they extract groundwater, without affecting the crop yield. Farmers pumped less when energy tariffs were pegged higher.

IPS: What is SIWI’s stand on the issue of sustainable water technology support from developed economies to developing countries?

TH: Water has key advantages – it connects all SDGs and it is a truly global issue. If we look around we see similar situations in Cape Town, China and California. Water is not a North-South matter. Africa can learn from any country in any region. This is the opportunity the World Water Week offers.

It is true that new technology is developing fast, but a mix of this with traditional technology and local knowledge works well. We also need to adapt traditional technologies to modern water needs and situations. These can be basic, low cost and people friendly. And it could encourage more efficient storage and use of ‘green water’ (soil moisture used by plants).

Drip irrigation has begun to be used more in South Asia, India particularly. There is need to encourage this widely. Recycling and the way in which industries treat and re-use water should be more emphasised.

Technology transfer is and can be done in various ways. The private sector can develop both technologies and create markets for them. Governments too can provide enabling environments to promote technology development with commercial viability. A good example of this is mobile phone technology – one where uses today range from mobile banking to farmers’ access of weather data and farming advisory in remote regions.

Technology transfer from different countries can be donor or bank funded or through multi-lateral organisations like the international Green Climate Fund, but any technology always has to be adapted to local situations.

Training, education, knowledge and know-how sharing – are, to me, the best kinds of technology transfers. Students and researchers – be it through international educational exchanges or partnerships between overseas universities – get the know-how and can move back home to work on advancing technologies tailored to their national needs.

Is technology transfer happening adequately? There is a need to build up on new or local technology hardware. For this infrastructure finance is (increasingly) available but needs scaling up faster.

IPS: How can South Asia best address the serious gender imbalances in water access, bring more women into water governance in its patriarchal societies?

TH: It is important that those in power need encourage gender balance not in decision-making alone but in educational institutions. Making room for gender balance in an organisation’s decision-making structure is important. This can be possible if there is equal access to education. But we are seeing an encouraging trend – in youth seminars sometimes the majority attending are women.

Finding women champions from water organisations can also encourage other women to take up strong initiatives for water equity.

When planning and implementing projects there is a need to focus on what impacts, decisions under specific issues, are having on men and women separately. And projects need be accordingly gender budgeted.

IPS: How can the global south – under pressure to grow their GDP, needing more land, more industries to bring billions out of poverty – successfully balance their green and grey water infrastructure? What role can local communities play in maintaining green infrastructure? 

TH: When a water-scarce South Asian village parliament decides they will replant forests, attract rain back to the region, and when rain comes, collect it – this is a very local, community-centred green infrastructure initiative. Done on a large scale, it can bring tremendous change to people, livelihoods and societies at large.

We have long acted under the assumption that grey infrastructure – dams, levees, pipes and canals – purpose-built by humans, is superior to what nature itself can bring us in the form of mangroves, wetlands, rivers and lakes.

Grey infrastructure is very efficient at transporting and holding water for power production. But paving over the saw-grass prairie around Houston reduced the city’s ability to absorb the water that hurricane Harvey brought in August 2017.

It isn’t a question of either/or. We need both green and grey, and we need to be wise in choosing what serves our current and potential future set of purposes best.

Be it industrialised or developing countries, today we have to make more sophisticated use of green water infrastructures. Especially in South Asia’s growing urban sprawls, we must capture the flooding rainwater, store it in green water infrastructure for reuse; because grey cannot do it alone.

Related Articles

• Why India’s Solar Water-Drawing ATMs and Irrigation Pumping Systems Offer Replicable Strategies
• How Safe Drinking Water in Rural Vanuatu Will Save Women Time While Aiding in Economic Development
• Making the Case for Investing in Water, Sanitation & Hygiene

The post Q&A: As Water Scarcity Becomes the New Normal How Do We Manage This Scarce Resource? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Manipadma Jena interviews the executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute TORGNY HOLMGREN

The post Q&A: As Water Scarcity Becomes the New Normal How Do We Manage This Scarce Resource? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The survivors, including children, are now reportedly in "arbitrary detention" in Libya.

Coral reef ecosystem at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. Credit: Jim Maragos/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

By Dr Palitha Kohona
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Sep 11 2018 (IPS)

Responding to a persistent demand by developing countries, the conservation community and science, the UN General Assembly has commenced a process for bringing the areas beyond national jurisdiction in the oceans under a global legally binding regulatory framework.

Approximately two thirds of the oceans exist beyond national jurisdiction. The Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS), concluded in 1982, currently provides the broad legal and policy framework for all activities relating to the seas and oceans, including, to some extent, for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction (BBNJ).

However, despite the comprehensive nature of UNCLOS, many feel that BBNJ is not adequately covered under it as detailed knowledge of BBNJ was not available, even to the scientific community, at the time. Advancements in science and technology have brought vast amounts of knowledge to our attention in the years following the conclusion of UNCLOS.

Today human knowledge about the oceans, including its deepest parts which were inaccessible previously, is much more comprehensive and new information continues to flood in due to significant scientific and technical advances.

UNCLOS, referred to as the ‘Constitution for the Oceans’ by the former Singaporean Ambassador Tommy Koh, came into force in 1994,and will necessarily be further elaborated as human knowledge of the oceans increases and human activities multiply.

It is already complemented by two specific implementing agreements, namely the Agreement relating to Part XI of UNCLOS, which addresses matters related to the Area as defined in the UNCLOS (the sea bed beyond national jurisdiction), and the Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of UNCLOS relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks. The proposed treaty on BBNJ will be the third implementing agreement under the UNCLOS.

The seas and oceans, which have acquired unprecedented commercial value and have become a major source of global nutrition, have also been the subject of considerable international rule making, most of it piecemeal. An estimated 200 million people world-wide make a living from fishing and related activities. Mostly in poor developing countries.

Fish provide at least 20 % of the animal protein intake of over 2.6 billion people. A treaty on BBNJ, as envisaged, while filling a gap in the existing global regulatory framework, will also result in significant areas of the oceans being set aside as Marine Protected Areas (MPA) to provide protection to marine biological diversity, its critical habitat, including spawning areas, as well as ensuring the equitable division of the benefits resulting from the scientific exploitation of such resources, especially through the development of new products.

Under the umbrella of UNCLOS, and carefully accommodated within it and its implementing agreements, a number of international instruments (and regimes) at the global and regional levels relevant to the conservation and
sustainable use of marine BBNJ, have been put in place already.

At the global level, these include inter alia, the regulations adopted by the International Seabed Authority for the protection and preservation of the marine environment in the Area; the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); instruments adopted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); measures adopted by the International Maritime Organization; measures relating to intellectual property in the context of the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization.

At the regional level, the relevant measures include those adopted by regional fisheries management organizations and arrangements (RFMO/As) by regional seas organizations having competence beyond areas of national jurisdiction.

A range of non-binding instruments/mechanisms also provide policy guidance of relevance to the conservation and exploitation of marine biodiversity, including beyond areas of national jurisdiction. These include the resolutions of the UN General Assembly on oceans and the law of the sea and on sustainable fisheries, as well as the Rio Declaration and Chapter 17 of Agenda 21 adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation adopted in 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the outcome document of the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, i.e. The future we want, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in particular Sustainable Development Goal 14 (Conservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development).

However, despite the existence of the above regimes, the need for a legally binding multilateral instrument to govern the protection, sustainable utilisation and benefit sharing of BBNJ has been advocated by a range of interest groups for some time. A champion of this process has been Argentina.

The negotiation process. Smooth sailing or rough seas ahead?

The UN ad-hoc working group (WG) on BBNJ, established by the GA in 2004, in response to the demands of a majority of the international community, took over ten years to finalise its recommendations in February 2015. Initially, the WG made little progress and was running the risk of being terminated.

Since 2010, it was co-chaired by Sri Lanka (Ambassador Dr Palitha Kohona) and the Netherlands (Dr Liesbeth Lijnzard). While the subject was not easy, and many delegations were only beginning to grasp its complexities, curious coalitions began to form. The Group of 77 (G77) and the European Union (EU) formed a common and a powerful front for different reasons.

Many strategic negotiating approaches were discussed behind the scenes and effectively deployed by these two unlikely allies resulting in a successful outcome to the work of the WG. Basically, the G77 wanted the future exploitation of BBNJ regulated globally so that the anticipated benefits would be distributed more equitably and marine technology transferred consistent with the commitments made under the UNCLOS.

Already significant numbers of patents based on biological specimens, including microorganisms (12,998 genetic sequences), retrieved from the oceans, many from hydrothermal vents, have been registered. (11% of all patent sequences are from specimens recovered from the ocean). 98 per cent of patents based on marine species were owned by institutions in 10 countries.

The German pharmaceutical giant, BASF, alone has registered 47% of the patented sequences. The financial bonanza that was expected from the commercialisation of these patents was hugely tempting. It is estimated that by 2025, the global market for marine biotechnological products will exceed $6.4 billion and was likely to grow further.

The EU, for its part, wanted to reserve large areas of the oceans for marine protected areas for conservation purposes. Conservation in this manner would result in providing space for genetic material to replenish itself naturally. The goals of the two groups were not necessarily contradictory.

The reservations on the need for a global legally binding regulatory mechanism for BBNJ were expressed mainly by the US, Japan, Norway and the Republic of Korea. Their interest was in preserving the unhindered freedom of private corporations to exploit biological specimens to conduct research and produce new materials, including drugs, biofuels and chemicals for commercial purposes.

These corporations needed the assurance that the billions that they were expending on research would produce financially attractive results. The difficulties involved in identifying the sources from where the specimens were recovered (whether beyond national jurisdiction or within), the costs usually associated with a discovery and bringing a commercially viable product into the market place, the actual need for a legally binding instrument in the current circumstances, the possibility of achieving the same goals through a non binding instrument, etc, were some of the concerns articulated.

These concerns are expected to be raised during the treaty negotiations as well. The US which held out to the bitter end preventing consensus at the WG is not even a party to the UNCLOS. A Preparatory Committee established by the UNGA to make recommendations on the elements of a draft of an international legally binding instrument (ILBI) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine BBNJ under UNCLOS, prior to holding an international conference met in four sessions in 2016 and 2017. Treaty negotiations began in September 2018 following the organizational session (in April 2018) and the conclusion of the fourth and concluding session of the Preparatory Committee.

It could be expected that the US and the like-minded group, reflecting a recognisable private enterprise oriented policy bias, would continue to raise objections affecting the smooth progress of the negotiations. The Trump administration, which has made it a habit of distancing itself from compacts to which the US had solemnly subscribed cannot be expected to be more sympathetic to the BBNJ aspirations of the G77 and the EU any more than the Obama administration.

Deposit with the UN Secretary-General

The Secretary-General is the depositary of over 550 multilateral treaties, mostly negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations. The UNCLOS and its two implementing agreements are examples. These are customarily deposited with the SG due to the recognition that he enjoys in the international community as a high level independent global authority.

The proposed treaty on BBNJ would in all likelihood, be deposited with the UN SG, when concluded. The day to day management of activity relating to these multilateral treaties is the responsibility of the Treaty Section of the UN Office of Legal Affairs, a function which dates back to the early days of the creation of the UN. Exceptionally, a major multilateral treaty may be deposited elsewhere.

For example, the NPT is deposited with the governments of the US, UK and Russia. Under Article 102 of the UN Charter all treaties, both multilateral and bilateral are required to be registered with the UN. The UN is the custodian of over 55,000 bilateral treaties so registered, currently available on line.

The post Law of the Sea Convention Expands to Cover Marine Biological Diversity appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr Palitha Kohona is former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations & former co-Chair of the UN Adhoc Working Group on Biological Diversity Beyond Areas of National Jurisdiction

The post Law of the Sea Convention Expands to Cover Marine Biological Diversity appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Newly-promoted Belgian side Cercle Brugge sign Togo international Serge Gakpe to share his experience with younger players.

By WAM
DUBAI, Sep 11 2018 (WAM)

Green capital will be the focus of discussions at the annual World Green Economy Summit, WGES 2018, amid the global commitments to build a green and sustainable world economy.

Green finance refers to the financing of investments that provide environmental benefits in the broader context of environmentally sustainable development.

WGES 2018 will host fruitful discussions on how to unlock this capital. With input from governments, businesses, financial institutions and investment advisors, the summit will examine current climate-finance gaps in order to define areas where investments are most needed. It will also shed light on green investment vehicles, climate-change reporting, carbon pricing as an instrument to raise green capital and the widespread problem of greenwashing.

The WGES is a strategic platform to share and exchange knowledge and bring the focus on new technologies that drive the growth for a green economy including improvements in energy efficiency, energy conservation and waste reduction. The WGES is set to take place on 24th and 25th October, under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai. The summit is organised by DEWA and the World Green Economy Organisation, WGEO, in collaboration with international partners under the theme, “Driving Innovation, Leading Change.”

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Vice Chairman of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy in Dubai and Chairman of the WGES, said, “His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid has launched a long-term national initiative to build a green economy in the UAE entitled, ‘Green Economy for Sustainable Development,’ by which the UAE aims to be a centre for exporting and re-exporting green technologies and products. His Highness Sheikh Mohammed also launched the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 aiming to generate seven percent of Dubai’s total power output from clean energy by 2020, 25 percent by 2030 and 75 percent by 2050.

“With a growing emphasis of governments and public and private sectors on going green and the rapidly increasing need to find ways to build a sustainable future, green capital is the new trend for innovative financing solutions. While WGES 2018 will outline several green financing options, it will also help participants develop policy frameworks to promote green capital.

“The UAE and Dubai, in particular, has always been the front-runner for accelerating green capital, and the Dubai Green Fund, DGF, was created with the aim of catalysing crowding into green economy projects. With an aim to help companies in the private and public sector, invest in green projects such as renewable energy, retrofitting existing fossil fuel-based energy systems, energy efficiency and much more, the DGF’s role is to lead the way into investments that have to date not been taken up by existing operating lenders. This model of investment will serve as a positive influence for institutional investors in the UAE, but also across the world,” Al Tayer added.

The DGF raised AED2.4 billion last year to support green financing. The new platform directly invests in environmentally focussed companies, while offering loans to businesses in the green sector at reduced interest rates.

“Mobilising sufficient public and private green capital is a key success factor. Accordingly, the DGF was created to crowd-in investors into the green economy. The DGF will not make subsidised financing; ultimately, it needs to attract private-sector institutional investors who seek market-based returns. Its role is to lead the way into investments that have to date not been taken up by existing lenders and private equity firms. Green finance should be the mainstream, not the alternative,” said Samy Ben-Jaafar, CEO of the DGF.

WAM/Esraa Ismail

WAM/Rola Alghoul/Hatem Mohamed

The post World Green Economy Summit 2018 to accelerate discussion on green capital appeared first on Inter Press Service.

One in nine people in the world is undernourished, according to a UN report.

A key crossing point between the former enemies is to reopen, as the countries' rapprochement continues.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 11 2018 (IPS)

In 2009, the world economy contracted by -2.2%. Growth in all developing countries declined from around 8% in 2007 to 2.6% in 2009 as the developed world contracted by -3.8% in 2009. The collapse of the Lehmann Brothers investment bank in September 2008 symbolized the US financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession of 2008-2009.

Demonstrations against austerity measures in Athens (May, 2010). Credit: Nikos Pilos/IPS

Demise of Keynesian consensus
In its immediate aftermath, a new consensus reversed the neoliberal Washington Consensus of the last two decades of the 20th century. Proclaimed by the G20’s London Summit of 2 April 2009, it envisaged return to Keynesian macroeconomic policies, including large-scale fiscal stimulus, supported by expansionary monetary policy.

The new policies were largely successful in tempering the recession, although much more should have been done. But with modest recovery, public debt, not economic stagnation, was soon sold as public enemy number one again.

G20 leaders at the June 2010 Toronto Summit turned to ‘fiscal consolidation’, with monetary policy accommodation to ‘contain’ its contractionary consequences, and ‘structural’ (mainly labour market) reforms, ostensibly to boost growth, especially in advanced economies. Meanwhile, despite G20 leaders’ pledges eschewing protectionism, trade restrictions grew.

Synchronized fiscal consolidation precipitated some Eurozone sovereign debt crises. Soon, several Eurozone countries experienced double dip recessions, as unemployment in Greece and Spain rose well over 25% following punitive policies required to qualify for European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF) funding which mainly went to creditors.

Economists’ complicity
Misleading, ideologically-driven empirical analyses claimed to support the new policy reversal. Alesina and his associates promoted the idea of ‘expansionary fiscal consolidation’, that contractionary government expenditure cuts would be more than offset by private spending expansion due to boosted investor confidence.

Then, Reinhart and Rogoff exaggerated the dangers of domestic debt accumulation. Although soon exposed for major methodological flaws and suppressing relevant information, these studies had served their purpose.

The IMF Fiscal Monitor ahead of the June 2010 G20 Summit grossly exaggerated public debt’s destabilizing effects, advocating rapid fiscal consolidation instead. Later, the IMF admitted it had underestimated the fiscal multiplier and hence potential growth from such debt!
Faltering recovery and rising unemployment in the Eurozone caused the public debt-GDP ratio to rise instead. Meanwhile, supposedly unavoidable short-term pain caused prolonged suffering for millions without the promised medium- and long-term gains.

UN ahead of the curve
Besides the Bank of International Settlements’ legendary William White, the United Nations was ahead of the curve, not only in warning of the impending crisis, but also by providing appropriate policy advice, albeit largely ignored.

For example, the United Nations 2006 and 2007 World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) warned of instability and growth slowdowns due to disorderly adjustment of growing macroeconomic imbalances among major world economies. WESP warned that falling US house prices could cause defaults to spike, triggering bank crises.

The IMF and the OECD simply ignored such warnings, projecting rosy futures, and a ‘soft landing’ at worst. The April 2007 IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) emphatically dismissed widely held concerns about disorderly unwinding of global imbalances, claiming economic risks had subsided. The July 2007 issue claimed: “The strong global expansion is continuing, and projections for global growth in both 2007 and 2008 have been revised up”.

The OECD June 2007 Economic Outlook insisted that the US slowdown was not heralding a period of worldwide economic weakness. “Rather, a ‘smooth’ rebalancing was to be expected, with Europe taking over the baton from the United States in driving OECD growth… Indeed, the current economic situation is in many ways better than what we have experienced in years.”

Although the IMF’s November 2008 WEO belatedly acknowledged the crisis’ severity, it forecast global recovery of 2.2% in 2009, suggesting the worst was over, thus supporting the reversal from fiscal expansion to consolidation. Depicting the ‘green shoots’ of recovery as self-sustaining, fiscal stimulus was abandoned after selective financial bailouts.

The IMF and OECD recommendations of structural reforms and fiscal consolidation have since failed to provide the long awaited, sustained global economic recovery.

The President of the UN General Assembly set up a commission led by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz to study the crisis’ impact, especially for development, and recommend policies to prevent future crises. Yet, most remain unaware of its wide-ranging findings and policy recommendations, including international financial architecture reforms and reregulating finance to better serve the real economy.

The UN Secretary-General proposed a Global Green New Deal in 2009 to accelerate economic recovery and job creation while addressing sustainable development, climate change and food security. It envisioned massive, multilateral, cross-subsidized public investments in renewable energy and smallholder food production in developing countries.

The UN also consistently advocated policy coordination and warned against prematurely ending recovery efforts.

Missed opportunity, heightened vulnerability
With UN and similar policy advice largely ignored, global economic recovery has remained tepid for the last decade. This has prompted the ‘secular stagnation’ thesis obscuring the role of political and policy failures and missed opportunities.

Unconventional monetary policy, e.g., ‘quantitative easing’, has also widened income and wealth gaps besides fuelling financial asset bubbles. Earlier capital inflows are now exiting following monetary policy normalization in the West and new fears of emerging market vulnerabilities.

Having failed to ensure robust recovery despite accumulating more debt, both developed and developing countries have less policy and fiscal space to address the looming problems threatening them.

Meanwhile, the redistributive potential of fiscal policy has been weakened by reducing progressive direct taxes and increasing regressive indirect taxes, while cutting social expenditure. Also, powerful vested interests have blocked attempts to limit obscene executive remuneration and enforce minimum wages, arguing that such measures discourage business and job creation.

Also, the hyped notion of ‘inclusive inequality’ has served to justify rising economic disparities, by arguing that deregulation has enabled wealth accumulation and middle class expansion.

The post Great Recession, greater illusions appeared first on Inter Press Service.

In certain parts of Nigeria, "rainmakers" or "rainpushers" are held in high regard. But can they control the rain?

Charles Ofori Antimpem is the inventor of a science set which is the size and price of a textbook which he now hopes to share with children across Africa.

Ebola: DR Congo health workers fight to contain virus, as new outbreak claims more lives

The show looks into the complicated series of events that followed the brutal Rwanda genocide.