Africa

Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), interacts with Sudanese refugee children in Egypt. Sherif appealed to the global community to empower girls in crises to receive the education, training, and resources they need to improve their knowledge and skills base in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Credit: ECW

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Feb 11 2025 (IPS)

Today is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science and a time to take stock of progress, successes, and setbacks towards open and gender-inclusive science. Gender equality remains elusive in science, as only one in three scientists is a woman. Not only do these inequalities hold women back, but they also limit scientific progress.

“The future of the human race hangs in the balance. With science and technology far outpacing the capacity of most humans to keep up, we must arm our future scientists and future leaders with the knowledge, skills, and critical thinking abilities they need to survive and thrive in the brave new world of the 21st century,” says Education Cannot Wait (ECW) Executive Director Yasmine Sherif.

To achieve these goals, Sherif says the global community must empower an entire generation of girls in crises to receive the education, training, and resources they need to improve their knowledge and skills base in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM).

Today, less than two out of five STEM graduates are women, and only 12 percent of national academies of science members are women. The gender gap varies across scientific disciplines. Some fields, such as physics, tend to attract more men than women.

In spite of and because of these concerning gender inequalities in STEM, Sherif says this 10th anniversary of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science is a time to also “recognize the groundbreaking work of leading women scientists throughout history, such as Marie Curie, who pioneered research on radioactivity and was awarded two Nobel Prizes in Science.”

“Today, we also recognize the power and potential of an entire generation of future scientists. Brave leaders such as ECW Global Champion Somaya Faruqi, who led the Afghan Girls Robotics Team in Kabul and built a ventilator out of car parts. Together with ECW and our strategic partners, strong visionaries like them inspire our global charge to ensure girls have access to STEM education from an early age, and women can break through the glass ceiling to find their rightful place in universities, labs, and research facilities across the globe.”

Faruqi is the former captain of the Afghan Girls Robotics Team. Their story is featured in the inspiring new movie Rule Breakers, premiering early March in theaters across the United States. In building the ventilator, the team had the support of their former governor in Herat City. It took them about three months to build the ventilator under very difficult times, as it was during the COVID-19 quarantine period and all the shops were closed.

The publicity material for a new film based on ECW Global Champion Somaya Faruqi’s life as the captain of the Afghan Girls Robotics Team.

“For one screw, we had to call for the shop owner to open the store, and it took days to do that. But after that, when we saw that the ventilator was working, it was a feeling of relief, and I feel that it is something that I want to do to help the people. It is not just about building robots—it is about building robots and devices that can help people in the community,” says Faruqi.

Sherif stresses that STEM is not an easy road, especially for girls living on the frontlines of armed conflict, climate change, and forced displacement, where the thought of even attending school is elusive at best. Emphasizing that in all, there are now nearly a quarter of a billion crisis-affected girls and boys whose right to a quality education fit for the 21st century is interrupted by these protracted crises.

“Girls are among the most vulnerable. Rather than studying science or learning about technology, they are exposed to forced child marriage and unwanted pregnancies without their potentials ever being achieved,” says Sherif.

Faruqi was born in Herat, Afghanistan, in 2002. She says it has not been easy pursuing science and breaking barriers “in a country like Afghanistan, which is a very traditional society. It was really hard for girls and women to go to shops and work on cars, but I’m happy that I had the support of my dad, and by chance, I joined the robotics team.”

“When we started our robotics team in 2017, there were many, many negative comments on social media about us as girls in STEM engineering in Afghanistan. But after a while, when they started to see us go to other countries, participate in competitions, and win awards and medals, it was then that their behavior and mindset changed about girls and women in STEM and technology,” she says.

It all nearly came to an abrupt end. In 2021, the Afghan Girls Robotics Team traveled from Herat City to Kabul, the heart of Afghanistan—the Taliban had taken over Herat City, cutting off electricity and internet. The all-girls team had driven to Kabul to rehearse for a competition. Three days later, when Faruqi woke up and looked outside the window, the Taliban were already in the streets.

The #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign is a compelling and poignant campaign developed in collaboration with ECW Global Champion, Somaya Faruqi. CREDIT: ECW

It is the dramatic escape to Qatar and a scholarship from the Qatar Fund for Development to pursue engineering studies in the United States that has kept Faruqi’s STEM dream alive, inspiring other girls and boys, including those in crises and emergency situations globally, to dream on.

She says that, in the United States, men and women in science work together. She hopes to see the same in Afghanistan, where the door to education for women and girls is narrowing with every new Taliban edict.

Sherif says it is possible to achieve this equity in science.

For instance, in Chad, through ECW investments delivered by UNICEF and partners, Khadidja is learning about science, math, and mechanics in a classroom designed to provide non-formal education to children that have been impacted by the various crises facing the nation.

On another continent, “Nadejda, a Ukrainian refugee in Moldova, is building up her digital skills and even learning to develop a website thanks to support at an ECW-funded EDUTech lab in her new school.

“Technology, artificial intelligence, and breakthroughs in science have the potential to save humanity from our collision course with our own demise,” Sherif observes.

“We need to train the young women—and young men—who will guide us through this technological transformation. Our best investment is to ensure that every girl and boy on planet earth is able to access the quality education they need to bravely thrive in a world undergoing rapid transformation and face it head-on.”

Meanwhile, Faruqi uses her platform as an ECW global champion to amplify the voices of those left behind through the #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign. The campaign elevates to the global stage the voices of girls being denied their right to education in Afghanistan. Featuring moving testimonies, artwork, poetry, cartoons and more from Afghan girls demanding their right to education, the campaign aims to build wide support for the cause.

 

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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• Report Exposes Silent Global Emergency as More Crises-Affected Children Need Urgent Education Support
• Embedding Education into Climate Finance Will Deliver Desired Learning, Climate Action Outcomes

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Feb 11 2025 (IPS-Partners)

A global alert is not an option. It requires global action. Over the past three years, the number of crisis-impacted school-aged children in need of urgent quality education support has grown by an alarming 35 million, according to Education Cannot Wait’s new Global Estimates Report.

The recently published report offers a stark and brutal alert for the future of 234 million girls and boys enduring the frontlines of the world’s most dire humanitarian crises. Their access to a quality education is non-existent. We cannot stand by and let the consequences avalanche into a total collapse. They desperately need our urgent collective global action, now.

The complex and horrific disruption of education in Gaza, the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Ukraine and beyond are utterly dangerous and harmful to them and all of us. Without action, we are pushing even more children into harm’s way. Without a quality education, we risk repeating cycles of displacement, instability, insecurity, uncertainty, chaos and mayhem. We risk leaving an entire generation behind. This will have severe impact on their lives, as well as all our lives.

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and all our partners – be it strategic donors, the private sector, ministries of education, UN agencies, civil society and local communities – have proven again and again that it is indeed possible to make a difference and a bold impact. It is indeed possible to extinguish the fire, reduce the speed of the avalanche and turn challenges into opportunities. In just a few years, we jointly and collectively delivered a continued quality education to over 11 million children and adolescents in the harshest circumstances on earth.

With more funding, we could double that number in just over a year. With even more funding, we can and will eventually become a collective force of nature that makes sure that every child and young person in crises reaches their potential. When they reach their potential through a quality education, they will be the force of nature for their societies and the world at large, be it in science, in business, as highly-qualified teachers, or any other profession that every society needs to thrive and make an impact.

The needs have never been greater. At the same time, the evidenced-based model for success has never been stronger. This is not the time to fear to fail, nor for closing our eyes to the reality, or the power of education to resolve it.

This is an investment in the human potential at its best. It is an investment in stronger economies and greater stability across the globe. No one loses. All are winners.

According to the United Nations, there is a US$100 billion annual financing gap to achieve the education targets in low- and lower-middle income countries. ECW is calling for a tiny part of that figure to make a major impact. That is US$600 million to deliver on the goals outlined in our four-year strategic plan: to reach 20 million crisis-impacted children and adolescents.

The need for collaboration has never been more important. In January, ECW and our close strategic partner the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) issued a Complementarity Note that underscores the value-addition of our individual organizations and charts a path toward increased results, impact, coordination and collaboration. We ensure that there is no duplication, nor double funding. Rather, we provide a holistic approach based on each other’s comparative advantage. The same applies for the third funding mechanism of IFFEd, the International Finance Facility for Education. With the resources required, these three funds work with all our partners to deliver comprehensively and completely. It is possible.

In Sudan, for example, recent analysis from OCHA indicates that of the 4.2 million targeted through the humanitarian response toward education, only 777,000 have been reached thus far, and of the US$131 million humanitarian funding ask for education, only US$22.8 million has been funded thus far. That is an 83% funding gap.

It is astonishing considering that education is both lifesaving and has the power to reduce aid-dependency in the long run. Now, more than ever, we need to step up funding for education in emergencies and protracted crises. Humanitarian, development, public and private sector funding can make a huge contribution to address the vicious cycle of humanitarian crises.

We should make no mistake: the children and adolescents in crises are extremely resilient due to their soul-shattering experiences. Once they get an education, they will certainly tap into extraordinary innovation, unbreakable courage and a limitless source of creativity. Then, they will show us how to make the impossible possible.

In conclusion, we need to connect the dots and see the whole picture. Climate change is no less of a major factor in disrupting education than conflict. Indeed, conflicts, climate change and forced displacement are all interconnected humanitarian crises. In this month’s high-level interview, we discuss the connection between education and climate change with ECW’s Climate Champion Adenike Oladosu. Funding climate change demands funding education, too. We cannot afford to separate the two.

Or, as the multi-faceted Leonardo da Vinci once said: “Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

The 234 million children and adolescents deprived of a quality education are connected to 8 billion people, our future as a human species and the progress of our world. Making an investment requires us to see the whole picture. It is not an option. It is a call for action.

Yasmine Sherif is Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Pakistan’s once-thriving trout fish farming industry, a vital source of livelihood for communities in the country’s mountainous northern region, is now on the verge of collapse due to the devastating impacts of climate change. Rising temperatures, glacial melt, erratic rainfall, and catastrophic floods have dealt a severe blow to this promising sector, leaving farm owners […]

After a quiet couple of days, residents in South Kivu woke up to heavy shelling.

The price of not providing equitable grant-based, public climate finance will be economic losses, health impacts, increased disaster costs, food insecurity, biodiversity loss, and infrastructural damage. Credit: Hivos

By External Source
Feb 11 2025 (IPS)

The global commitment to fair climate finance is at a crossroads. COP29 concluded with a disappointing New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG), leaving developing nations at risk of being left behind. With the U.S. withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and slashing development aid, prospects for more ambitious fair climate finance are getting out of sight.

Decisions like these not only threaten global cooperation on climate change but will also fail to meet its core purpose in supporting the most affected communities in adapting to and mitigating climate change. Now, more than ever, fair and equitable climate finance – such as increased grant-based funding and debt relief – is critical.

Much of the climate finance provided is in the form of loans rather than grants, worsening existing debt burdens and limiting investments in sustainable development. Without stronger commitments to public grants and additional funding, developing countries risk falling into a cycle of debt that hinders climate action

In Africa, the impacts of climate change are stark and undeniable. Extreme weather events on the continent surged from 85 in the 1970s to over 540 between 2010 and 2019, causing 730,000 deaths and USD 38.5 billion in damages.

The increasing frequency and severity of floods, droughts, and storms are threatening food security, displacing populations, and putting immense stress on water resources. According to the World Bank, climate change could push up to 118 million extremely poor people in Africa into abject poverty by 2030 as drought, floods, and extreme heat intensify. A stark reality that underscores the urgent need for robust climate finance to implement adaptation and mitigation strategies to safeguard and secure the continent’s future.

At the same time, climate response remains critically underfunded in Africa. From the figures released by the Climate Policy Initiative, the continent will need approximately USD 2.8 trillion between 2020 and 2030 to implement its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.

However, current annual climate finance flows to Africa are only USD 30 billion, exposing a significant funding gap for climate adaptation and mitigation strategies.

 

Climate Finance at COP 29

COP 29’s main objective was to deliver on a finance goal that would see the world off the tipping point. However, after two weeks of nearly failed climate diplomacy, negotiators agreed to a disappointing USD 300 billion annually by 2035. This amount falls short of the USD 1.3 trillion per year figure, supported by the Needs Determinant Report, that many developing countries had advocated for.

Collins Otieno, Hivos

Nevertheless, the Baku to Belem Roadmap has been developed to address the climate finance gap. This framework, set to be finalized at COP30 in Brazil, offers a crucial opportunity to refine finance mechanisms to effectively and equitably meet the needs of developing countries.

 

Why the finance outcome of COP 29 could leave developing countries behind

Beyond the insufficient funding, the NCQG lacks a strong commitment to equity, a key principle of the Paris Agreement. The principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) emphasizes that developed countries should bear a greater share of the financial burden. However, the NCQG merely states that developed nations would “take the lead” in mobilizing USD 300 billion, reflecting a lack of firm commitment.

A major concern is the climate debt trap for developing nations. Much of the climate finance provided is in the form of loans rather than grants, worsening existing debt burdens and limiting investments in sustainable development. Without stronger commitments to public grants and additional funding, developing countries risk falling into a cycle of debt that hinders climate action.

 

Moving forward: shaping conditions for fair, equitable and enduring climate finance

To ensure COP 29’s finance outcomes do not leave the Global South behind, several actions are needed.

Firstly, debt relief is crucial. Approximately 60% of low-income countries are already in or near debt distress. Between 2016 and 2020, 72% of climate finance to developing nations was in loans, while only 26% was in grants. Reducing debt burdens would allow developing countries to allocate more resources to climate projects, improve fiscal stability, and attract additional investments.

Similarly, given the mounting climate finance debts in low-income developing countries, increased grant-based financing for climate action is needed. In 2022, developed countries provided around USD 115.9 billion in climate finance to developing countries, but a significant portion was in the form of loans.

Jaël Poelen, Hivos

Heavy reliance on debt-based financing exacerbates financial burdens on these nations. Grant-based finance, on the other hand, aligns with equity principles and ensures that funding effectively supports adaptation and mitigation.

Another potential path is leveraging private sector investment. The private sector plays an essential role in climate finance. However, its involvement often prioritizes profit over genuine climate benefits. Strategies must ensure that private investments align with climate justice principles. To address this, approaches are needed such as those used by Bill and Melinda Gates.

Lastly, implementing robust governance and transparent mechanisms is critical. This includes developing detailed reporting templates, public participation in decision-making, and clear monitoring systems to track climate finance flows and prevent double counting.

While the developed world is rapidly changing its relationship with the rest of the world from aid to trade, the price of not providing equitable grant-based, public climate finance will be economic losses, health impacts, increased disaster costs, food insecurity, biodiversity loss, and infrastructural damage. Quite simply, taking the equity conditions into account is the way forward if we are to ensure that the outcomes of COP 29 leave no low-income developing nation in the Global South behind.

 

Collins Otieno is a Climate Finance and Innovations Officer at Hivos. He is a licensed Associate Environmental Impact Assessment expert with the National Environment Management Authority of Kenya, a certified policy analyst, and has extensive experience in climate finance, having worked in the sector for over eight years.

Jaël Poelen is the Global Advocacy and Communications Officer at Hivos for the Voices for Just Climate Action Program, which aims to amplify the voices of people and communities most affected by climate change.

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President Touadéra says it could "unite people" but many have lost money on similar investments.

Credit: UNFPA Namibia
 
Communities in the Kavango West region of northern Namibia have firsthand experience of the severe impacts of climate change. The dry, cracked soil and emaciated livestock provide a constant reminder of the lack of access to water in this part of the country. While the challenge of water scarcity is not new, the country is facing one of its worst droughts in more than a hundred years. Exacerbated by the impacts of El Niño, this drought has triggered widespread food insecurity, environmental degradation, health threats and rising unemployment, affecting more than half a million people.
 
To support the government and the people of Namibia, particularly those most vulnerable, including nursing mothers, other women and children, the UN in Namibia mobilized resources through the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to tackle the crisis. Even as women and girls disproportionately feel the impact of droughts, we have an opportunity to leverage their leadership and boost drought resilience in communities.—Office of the Special Adviser on Africa.

By Hopolang Phororo
WINDHOEK, Namibia, Feb 11 2025 (IPS)

Communities in the Kavango West region of northern Namibia have firsthand experience of the severe impacts of climate change. The dry, cracked soil and emaciated livestock provide a constant reminder of the lack of access to water in this part of the country.

While the challenge of water scarcity is not new, the country is facing one of its worst droughts in more than a hundred years. Exacerbated by the impacts of El Niño, this drought has triggered widespread food insecurity, environmental degradation, health threats and rising unemployment, affecting more than half a million people.

To support the government and the people of Namibia, particularly those most vulnerable, including nursing mothers, other women and children, the UN in Namibia, under my leadership, mobilized resources through the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to tackle the crisis.

Even as women and girls disproportionately feel the impact of droughts, we have an opportunity to leverage their leadership and boost drought resilience in communities.

Meeting women’s immediate needs

To tackle urgent needs, our UN team works with government and partners, including the Society for Family Health, Catholic AIDS Action and Mobile Telecommunication Company (MTC), to leave no one behind.

Mupuni village Ext. 1 stands as a shining example. The World Food Programme (WFP) has been distributing food vouchers and has established a soup kitchen for children aged 6 months to 9 years old, reaching nearly 65,000 people facing acute malnutrition in the regions of Omaheke, Kavango East and Kavango West.

Complementing this, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) provides lifesaving support to breastfeeding mothers and children impacted by the drought emergency while the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) provides protection initiatives, including family planning and counseling services to women. These are delivered through mobile clinics set up in these areas.

The UN in Namibia is also paving the way to transition towards long-term resilience, climate action and sustainable development.

Building women’s long-term resilience

The national drought response plan, which is supported by the United Nations, prioritizes building the resilience of drought-affected communities, boosting food security and protecting livelihoods, particularly for vulnerable members of the population including women.

Through targeted interventions, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) support the introduction of initiatives that are helping diversify livelihoods.

Women farmers are provided with irrigation equipment for more efficient and sustainable water use, reducing dependence on rain-fed agriculture. Vulnerable households receive seeds, tools, poultry and pig feed, fencing, shade netting materials, and most crucially, access to markets. These initiatives boost agricultural productivity and build community resilience to effectively weather drought conditions.

Supporting teen mothers and children-at-risk

Compounding the impact of the drought crisis, teenage pregnancy also undermine development in Namibia. Teenage mothers often interrupt their education to care for their infants while older relatives take on added domestic and childcare responsibilities to support their younger counterparts. This perpetuates a vicious cycle of lost opportunities across generations.

The well-being of children borne by teenage mothers also suffers as part of these challenges. For example, children weaned at an early age, to give mothers time to earn a living, face increased risks of malnourishment and related health issues.

In communities heavily impacted by drought, disruptions to healthcare infrastructure and the resulting economic instability increase the challenges of providing adequate medical care and counseling, including reproductive health services to counter the spread of HIV and the provision of maternal and child health support.

Ultimately, teen mothers and their children stand to lose more, exposed to added risks of poor education, malnutrition, stunting and serious diseases. The UN has been a committed player contributing to the work to support vulnerable populations with rapid and coordinated interventions.

Joint solutions for long-term impact

The UN in Namibia puts building local resilience at the heart of its work, engaging communities through an integrated, gender-sensitive approach. As the Resident Coordinator overseeing the UN’s climate adaptation, mitigation and disaster response work and our initiatives to tackle poverty and gender inequalities, I ensure our collective efforts bear fruit, especially for those who need it most.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) 2025-2029 is our north star, centered on poverty eradication (SDG Goal 1) and resilience-building while empowering women and youth. Our UN team’s work support key government interventions, such as Namibia’s national flood and drought monitor and early warning system that provides crucial information to communities, enabling them to prepare for and respond to climate-related disasters. This work includes making climate information easily accessible and usable by women.

The UN in Namibia also works to integrate risk management into national policies and planning processes, including provisions for disaster risk reduction into legal frameworks. These efforts boost Namibia’s ability to respond to environmental threats, protect lives and livelihoods, minimize the impacts of extreme weather events, and foster a culture of preparedness.

An integrated programme, co-created with communities, addressing multifaceted challenges, including the needs of women and girls, is crucial. This work requires a whole of society approach and the UN in Namibia remains committed to working with national authorities and other partners to continue delivering meaningful results.

A solid foundation has been established in Kavango West. Even as the country prepares for the next drought cycle, let us build on this, work together, empowering communities to take ownership of Namibia’s resilient and sustainable future.

Hopolang Phororo is UN Resident Coordinator in Namibia. For more information about the UN’s work in Namibia, visit namibia.un.org.

Source: UN Sustainable Development Group

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
HARARE, Zimbabwe, Feb 11 2025 (IPS)

Many in the West, of the political right and left, now deny imperialism. For Josef Schumpeter, empires were pre-capitalist atavisms that would not survive the spread of capitalism. But even the conservative Economist notes President Trump’s revival of this US legacy.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Economic liberalism challenged
Major liberal economic thinkers of the 19th century noted capitalism was undermining economic liberalism. John Stuart Mill and others acknowledged the difficulties of keeping capitalism competitive. In 2014, billionaire Peter Thiel declared competition is for losers.

A century and a half ago, Dadabhai Naoroji, from India, became a Liberal Party Member of the UK Parliament. In his drainage theory, colonialism and imperial power enabled surplus extraction.

As the Anglo-Boer war drew to a close in 1902, another English liberal, John Hobson, published his study of economic imperialism, drawing heavily on the South African experience.

Later, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin cited Hobson, his comrade Nikolai Bukharin and Rudolf Hilferding’s Finance Capital for his famous 1916 imperialism booklet urging comrades not to take sides in the European inter-imperialist First World War (WW1).

Three pre-capitalist empires – Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman – ended at the start of the 20th century. Their collapse spawned new Western nationalisms, which contributed to both world wars.

Germany lost its empire at Versailles after WW1, while Italian forays into Africa were successfully rebuffed. Western powers did little to check Japanese militaristic expansion from the late 19th century until the outbreak of World War Two (WW2) in Europe.

Imperialism and capitalism
Economists Utsa and Prabhat Patnaik argue that the primary accumulation of economic surplus – not involving the exploitation of free wage labour – was necessary for capitalism’s emergence.

Drawing on economic history, they clarify that primary accumulation has been crucial for capitalism’s ascendance. Thus, imperialism was a condition for capitalism’s emergence and rapid early development. Ensuring continued imperial dominance has sustained capitalist accumulation since.

The 1910s and 1920s debates between the Second and Third Internationals of Social Democrats and allied movements in Europe and beyond involved contrasting positions on WW1 and imperialism.

For most of humanity in emerging nations, now termed developing countries, imperialism and capital accumulation did not ‘generalise’ the exploitation of free wage labour, spreading capitalist relations of production, as in ‘developed’ Western economies.

Due to capitalism’s uneven development worldwide, the Third International maintained the struggle against imperialism was foremost for the Global South or Third World of ‘emerging nations’, not the class struggle against capitalism, as in developed capitalist economies.

After decades of uneven international economic integration, including globalisation, the struggle against imperialism continues to be foremost a century later. Imperialism has reshaped colonial and now national economies but has also united the Global South, even if only in opposition to it.

Blinkers at Versailles
After observing the peace negotiations after WWI, John Maynard Keynes presciently criticised the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, warning of likely consequences. In The Economic Consequences of the Peace, he warned that its treatment of the defeated Germany would have dangerous consequences.

But Keynes failed to consider some of the Treaty’s other consequences. Newly Republican China had contributed the most troops to the Allied forces in WW1, as India did in WW2.

Germany was forced to surrender the Shantung peninsula, which it had dominated since before WW1. But instead of China’s significant contributions to the war effort being appreciated at Versailles with the peninsula’s return, Shantung was given to imperial Japan!

Unsurprisingly, the Versailles Treaty’s terms triggered the May Fourth movement against imperialism in China, culminating in the communist-led revolution that eventually took over most of China in October 1949.

Even today, popular culture, especially Western narratives, largely ignores the role and effects of war on these ‘coloured peoples’. By contrast, understating the Soviet contributions to and sacrifices in WW2 was probably primarily politically motivated.

Another counter-revolution
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected US president in 1932. He announced the New Deal in early 1933, years before Keynes published his General Theory in 1936.

Many policies have been introduced and implemented well before they were theorised. Unsurprisingly, it is often joked that economic theory rationalises actual economic conditions and policies already implemented.

Keynesian economic thinking inspired much economic policymaking before, during, and after WW2. Both Allied and Axis powers adopted various state-led policies. Keynesian economics remained influential worldwide until the 1960s and arguably to this day.

The counter-revolution against Keynesian economics from the late 1970s saw a parallel opposition movement against development economics, which had legitimised more pragmatic and unconventional policy thinking. From the 1980s, neoliberal economics spread with a vengeance and much encouragement from Washington, DC.

This Washington Consensus – the shared ‘neoliberal’ views of the US capital’s economic establishment, including its Treasury, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund – has since been replaced by brazenly ethno-nationalist ‘geoeconomic’ and ‘geopolitical’ responses to unipolar globalisation.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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A protester holding a sign declaring the death of democracy during social protests against the authoritarian policies of Peru's President Dina Boluarte in downtown Lima, July 2024. Credit: Walter Hupiu / IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Feb 10 2025 (IPS)

“We are facing a deeply conservative government that is opening the doors to all kinds of setbacks. We have a failed state with a democracy that is no longer a democracy,” said Gina Vargas, a Peruvian feminist internationally recognized for her contributions to women’s rights.

In an interview with IPS from her home in Lima, Vargas shared her perspective on Peru, a country of 34 million inhabitants, which is undergoing a profound political crisis that is weakening its democratic institutions, ultimately harming the rights of the most vulnerable populations, such as women and the LGBTI+ community.

The female population is just over 17 million, according to the government’s National Institute of Statistics and Computing, while a 2019 study by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights estimated that LGBTI+ adults could reach 1.7 million.“The conservatives are taking away everything they believe goes against their traditional principles, while the reality for Peruvian women is one of discrimination, violence, femicide, sexual abuse of girls, and the denial of therapeutic abortion”: Gina Vargas.

Vargas, one of the founders of the feminist Flora Tristán Peruvian Women’s Center, one of the oldest organizations in Latin American feminism, argued that the conservative forces, which manifest as the far-right in Peru, are seeking to reclaim what they lost in terms of their values over the last three decades.

This period began with the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action, which established norms and mechanisms for the advancement of women.

In September 1995, 30 years ago, the Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development, and Peace, convened by the United Nations, was held in Beijing, China. Representatives from 189 countries participated, not only from governments but also from women’s and feminist movements.

A sociologist, Gina Vargas will turn 80 in July. She coordinated the participation of Latin American and Caribbean civil society organizations in the global forum, as well as their contributions to the Platform, which outlines the commitments of states regarding 12 areas of action on the status of women worldwide.

She highlighted that within this framework, mechanisms were established at the highest level to promote equal rights, which in Peru’s case is currently the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations (MIMP). However, this ministry will be diluted in a regressive wave through an upcoming merger with the Ministry of Inclusion and Social Development.

“The conservatives are taking away everything they believe goes against their traditional principles, while the reality for Peruvian women is one of discrimination, violence, femicide, sexual abuse of girls, and the denial of therapeutic abortion,” she lamented.

Peruvian feminist Gina Vargas believes that democracy no longer exists in Peru and that the growing influence of conservative groups is harming the rights of women and sexual diversity. Pictured third from the left during the launch of the 46th anniversary of the non-governmental Flora Tristán Center, of which she is one of the founders, on January 30. Credit: Mariela Jara / IPS

According to official figures, 170 femicides occurred nationwide in 2024. The number for the last three years rises to 450 when including victims from 2022 and 2023. Peru has a law against violence toward women and family members, and it has incorporated the crime of femicide into the Penal Code.

These are serious issues that three decades ago were weakly addressed by the state or absent from its agenda. But Vargas emphasized that the Beijing Platform left a set of commitments to be fulfilled and expanded, as has happened in many countries.

“But in Peru, we are facing brutal resistance in a context where there is no balance of power, and the Legislature passes laws to co-opt democratic institutions in their desire to control the country,” she stressed.

The legislative Congress of the Republic has an approval rate of 5%, and President Dina Boluarte’s administration has 6%, according to recent polls, reflecting one of the most discredited periods for state branches in the country.

Both branches of government are seen as colluding for personal interests, closely linked to corruption, and unable to address citizen insecurity and poverty, two of the most pressing issues in this South American and Andean nation.

Vargas warned: “We are facing a failed state, with the rise of fundamentalism, authoritarianism, and the imposition of the right-wing. What is not good for democracy is definitely not good for us or for sexual diversity.”

A banner featuring victims of femicide in Peru during a demonstration in Lima. Peru suffered 170 femicides in 2024, reflecting the severe violation of women’s human rights. Credit: Mariela Jara / IPS

Fear of Losing Rights

Antonella Martel, a 29-year-old psychologist, grew up in a country that already had a favorable framework for women’s rights and guaranteed gender equality, established in the 1979 Constitution and maintained in the current one from 1993.

She is aware that she has had more opportunities than her mother and grandmothers. “Now, traditional roles for women and men are being questioned; they are no longer normalized as before. There are also laws against gender-based violence, although access to justice is complicated,” she told IPS.

In the current context, she fears that the rights gained could be lost. “There is distrust in institutions that are not allies of women’s struggles and do not play a protective role for their rights,” she said.

One of her biggest concerns is that the setbacks and the disappearance of the Ministry of Women through its merger with another ministry will weaken the state’s action against violence. “We women face this problem every day, and it could get worse,” she warned.

Maria Ysabel Cedano, a lawyer with the Demus organization and the non-governmental Lifs, criticized the lack of protection for the rights of the LGBTI population. “Lesbians are not invisible because we are hidden in the closet, but because no one wants to see you or let you be seen,” she stated. Credit: Mariela Jara / IPS

They Don’t Want to See Us

María Ysabel Cedano, a 59-year-old lawyer from the feminist human rights organization Demus and an associate of the non-governmental Independent Feminist Socialist Lesbians (Lifs), believes that the world is experiencing a new fascist stage, which in Peru has its own version in Fujimorism and its conservative political allies, whether ideologically right-wing or left-wing.

The late Alberto Fujimori ruled autocratically between 1990 and 2000 and established an ultra-conservative movement that now manifests in the Popular Force party, the leading legislative group led by his daughter Keiko Fujimori.

Fujimori was the only head of state to attend the Beijing Conference, where he promoted his new National Population Policy and birth control measures. It was later revealed that this included the  forced, mass, and non-consensual sterilization of poor and indigenous people, especially in rural areas, a practice that victimized around 300,000 women.

“We are witnessing the hijacking of democracy as a political horizon, a system that, despite its flaws, allowed us to expand freedoms and rights such as equality and non-discrimination, access to justice, and those related to women, which have been the result of sustained struggles,” Cedano reflected in an interview with IPS.

She explained that anti-rights groups have not been satisfied with taking over the state as a spoil through corruption but are operating as a regime that attacks everything opposing their beliefs, seeking to impose totalitarian thinking.

In late 2024, the institution Transparencia issued a report on 20 laws passed by this Congress of the Republic that weakened democracy, favored the actions of criminal groups, and undermined human and environmental rights.

“They don’t need typical wars with lethal weapons; they have developed technological mechanisms to appropriate minds and hearts through denialism and disinformation,” she emphasized.

Cedano talked about Argentina, where libertarian President Javier Milei is dismantling progress in rights, and the massive rejection by the population on February 1. Along with her LIFS collective, she joined the solidarity sit-in in front of the Argentine embassy.

“Argentina generates and radiates indignation. It experienced and enjoyed dignity and knows what it has lost, whereas in Peru we don’t know it because we’ve never had anything,” she said regarding rights for the LGBTI+ population.

She adds there are no laws on gender identity or equal marriage. “In reality, we survive without enjoying rights; we live in a so-called democracy without being citizens,” she added.

The lesbian activist also denounced that they have been stigmatized and accused of atrocities such as wanting to homosexualize children, using them to attack comprehensive sexual education in schools.

She noted that the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights study reveals that 71% of the population perceives that lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and trans people suffer discrimination. “We swell the lists of suicides, bullying, school dropouts, and sexual assaults. They want us to live in the ghetto, on the margins,” she asserted.

In a context where democratic institutions are unable to guarantee people’s rights and the Ministry of Women, as the governing body for gender equality, is about to disappear through the merger, the prospects for the rights of non-heterosexual people are at greater risk.

“Lesbians are not invisible because we are hidden in the closet, but because no one wants to see you or let you be seen. They make you feel guilty and responsible for the consequences of living fully in the light… and that results in multiple and terrible acts of violence,” Cedano stressed.

Laila Soueif has not eaten for 134 days as she campaigns for the release of her pro-democracy activist son from jail in Egypt.

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Senamile Masango, dubbed by some as the "queen of science", set out to inspire a younger generation.

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Flashback to 2020 protests against a rigged election. Credit: Andrew Keymaster/Unsplash

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Feb 10 2025 (IPS)

In the months leading up to presidential elections at the end of January, Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko ordered the release of hundreds of political prisoners. Some observers saw this as a sign that the man who had led the former Soviet state for the last three decades could be planning a relaxation of his regime’s brutal repressions in return for a lessening of Western sanctions.

But having secured an inevitable further term in office, human rights groups and Belarusians who have survived persecution under his regime say they see no signs he is preparing to loosen his iron grip on the state.

“If we have learned anything from the last four years, it is that repression in Belarus is not lessening, despite the fact that Lukashenko has everything under his power. There are no protests, people have been forced into exile, there are no legal ways for rights groups to do their work, yet the repression continues,” Anastasiia Kruope, Assistant Researcher, Europe and Central Asia, at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told IPS.

In August 2020, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in Belarus to protest against what they saw as the rigged result of an election which had just returned Lukashenko, who has ruled the country since 1994, to power.

Security forces launched a violent crackdown on those involved. Over the next six months, tens of thousands were detained and at least 11 people were killed.

Although the protests eventually stopped, repression has continued, with any form of dissent severely punished. There have been mass arrests, imprisonment, and torture for those deemed to be opposing the regime, while secret police and party loyalists have been installed in institutions as official ideological gatekeepers to ensure people toe the government line.

Independent media has been muzzled—almost 400 journalists have been arrested in the last four years—and much of the NGO sector has been effectively shuttered through repressive legislation on foreign funding and authorities’ misuse of anti-terror and anti-extremism laws. The closures of these groups have impacted everything from human rights work to vital healthcare services.

But while the wider international community largely sees Belarus as a pariah state—Lukashenko has the explicit political support of Moscow, and China maintains close ties with the country—and the West has imposed sanctions on individuals in Belarus, there has been no let-up in government efforts to bring the population to heel.

However, the slew of releases of political prisoners, which began last summer and went right up to the elections, had prompted speculation that Lukashenko may be looking to repair relations with the West, especially as the conflict in Ukraine—Lukashenko has backed Russia and allowed Moscow to use Belarus to launch assaults on Ukraine—appears to be heading towards some kind of, at least temporary, end, and he looks to extract his country from ever-increasing dependence on Moscow.

But people who live in Belarus, and some who have fled into exile, told IPS they are not expecting the pervasive climate of fear that Lukashenko has spread to cement his control in the country to lift any time soon.

“Usually the human rights situation in Belarus after elections becomes calmer, with fewer arrests. But it doesn’t look that way this time. We are still getting information about repressions,” Natallia Satsunkevich, a human rights defender with the Belarussian NGO Viasna, told IPS.

She said Lukashenko could even decide to intensify his crackdown on opponents of his regime.

“Of course [he could], the repressive machine is huge and works fast. Police are still looking for and arresting people that participated in protests in 2020,” Satsunkevich said.

Others who have suffered under Lukashenko agree.

“Any expectations that the repression will ease are just wishful thinking,” Lidziya Tarasenka, co-founder of The Belarussian Medical Solidarity Foundation (Bymedsol), which operates outside Belarus helping doctors who have left the country, told IPS.

Tarasenka, who worked in healthcare in the capital, Minsk, before fleeing the country after the 2020 protests, said she saw no sign that repression in Belarus was easing off.

“First of all, the number of political prisoners that have been released is less than the number of those newly imprisoned. The government has learned their lessons and is trying to make new prosecutions as unnoticeable as possible, but the process is in full swing. Secondly, there is a whole army of different police/secret services and so on, their number is growing and they have to be doing something. [Repression] cannot be stopped that easily,” she said.

Some Belarussians who spoke to IPS gave some insight into the regime’s persecutions.

Sviatlana (NOT REAL NAME) fled Belarus last year after she feared she was about to be arrested. Her work in healthcare had brought her into contact with former political prisoners, some of whom had been tortured in prison, and she had given some money for treatment to help their recovery. She managed to escape, but she fears now that her former colleagues will be targeted by the security services simply for having worked with her.

“I’m expecting there will be repressions against the staff and management at my work now,” she told IPS.

Kruope added that while Belarusians not actively opposing the regime could try to adopt a “keep your head down and don’t make any trouble” approach to ensuring they avoid any repressions, even that carried no guarantees.

“One thing people have to watch out for is that you never know what might suddenly become a problem. You may have, in the past, liked a social media comment or followed someone, not even for their political views, or simply followed a media outlet that is then declared a terrorist group or something, and now find yourself in trouble. It is difficult to know what activity might suddenly become a criminal offense,” she said.

So far, it is unclear what Lukashenko may be planning as he begins his latest term in office. But the initial signs suggest he is not planning any kind of rapprochement with the West in the immediate future.

In a press conference immediately after his election win and as western leaders threatened more sanctions and dismissed the elections as a “sham,” he pointedly said, “I don’t give a damn about the West.”

However, even if repressions continue, rights defenders have not given up hope that things will improve in the future.

“I personally believe that one day Belarusians will live in a free and democratic country,” said Satsunkevich.
IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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