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European Energy Crisis Hits Roma Populations Hard

Thu, 01/05/2023 - 07:39

Roma community protest in the Serbian city of Nis after dozens of families in a settlement in the city had their electricity cut off. Credit: Opre Roma Srbija

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jan 5 2023 (IPS)

As European households brace for energy shortages this winter and leaders draw up support packages to help people heat homes in the coming months, experts fear that the largest minority on the continent, the Roma, will be left behind.

Many of the 12 million Roma in Europe have a low standard of living, and even before the energy crisis, energy poverty was rife among their communities.

Roma leaders and rights organisations say the current crisis has only deepened the problem and are calling for governments to ensure that one of the continent’s most vulnerable groups gets the help they need this winter and beyond.

“EU leaders and policymakers must ensure that energy policies already agreed, or any agreed in future, must be tailored and implemented in such a way that the most vulnerable, including the Roma, can access and benefit from them,” Zeljko Jovanovic, director of the Open Society Roma Initiatives Office at the Open Society Foundations (OSF), told IPS.

Roma living in Europe are among the most discriminated and disadvantaged groups on the continent. In many countries, significant numbers live in segregated settlements where living conditions are often poor, and extreme poverty is widespread.

Energy poverty is also common. It is estimated that at least 10% of the roughly 6 million Roma living in EU countries have no access to electricity at all.

Roma protest after electricity supplies to 24 families in the ‘12 February’ Roma settlement in the southern Serbian city of Nis was cut off over unpaid bills. There are calls for European countries to take into consideration the plight of the Roma during the energy crisis. Credit: Opre Roma Srbija

Meanwhile, where utilities are available, many struggle to afford them.

Rising energy prices this year have exacerbated the problem. But while governments have rolled out help in the form of one-off payments and other support for families and businesses to pay energy bills, this aid is often not filtering through to Roma despite the minority being among those most in need, say rights activists.

Unemployment in Roma communities is often high, with only one in four Roma aged 16 years or older reporting being employed, and many earn money working in the grey or black economies. But because of this, they often struggle with accessing state support schemes. This is especially true for measures approved to provide financial aid during the energy crisis.

“Even before the energy crisis, there was a problem with energy poverty in Europe, and for the Roma, this was even more so because so many were not in the formal system.

“Measures [approved] for the energy crisis are made for those in the formal system. Many Roma are not in that system – they are unemployed, or not formally registered, or earning money and paying into the social welfare system – so they cannot access those measures,” explained Jovanovic.

Roma NGOs working in some countries say they have already seen these problems.

In Romania, which has a Roma population of 1.85 million according to the Council of Europe, a programme to help the vulnerable with energy payments has been launched.

But Alin Banu, Community Organiser at the Aresel civic initiative, told IPS some Roma are unable to access it precisely because “they work in the grey or black economy and don’t have the right documentation of social insurance payments, wages etc.”.

Meanwhile, even those who are eligible for help are often being denied it, he claimed. He said that some municipalities had put conditions on receiving help to pay energy bills – for example, evidence of historical tax debt, or car ownership, makes an individual ineligible for the help.

The group says this is illegal.

“We have solved this problem in some cases, but most Roma will not complain about this because often they simply will not know it is illegal,” Balu said.

There are also concerns that other measures already adopted will actually make things worse for Roma.

Last year European leaders agreed on a non-binding goal for EU countries to reduce overall electricity demand by at least 10% by 31 March 2023, and a mandatory reduction of electricity consumption by 5% for at least 10% of high-demand hours each week.

Jovanovic fears that politicians’ first steps to save on energy consumption could involve simply cutting off power supplies to those not formally connected to the energy grid.

“Countries’ reductions in energy demand might come from cutting energy to those who do not have formal access to it, like the Roma,” said Jovanovic.

Nicu Dumitru, a Community Organiser at Arsesel, agreed – “the Roma would be the first to be cut off in that case,” he told IPS – but said that even if that does not happen, many Roma are already struggling with soaring energy costs.

Information collected by his group suggests that a fifth of all Roma households have had their electricity cut off since the start of the crisis because they cannot afford to pay. They are then connecting informally to the grid – usually through one person in their community who has a connection and who then charges high prices for others for use of that power – often borrowing money to do so, and worsening their already precarious financial situation.

There are an estimated over 400,000 people informally connected to the power grid in Romania, many of them Roma.

“The situation is getting critical for Roma,” Dumitru said.

Meanwhile, Roma activists in other countries are worried that politicians will use the energy crisis as an excuse to ignore long-term problems with energy poverty among the Roma or even as a justification to allow Roma settlements to be cut off from supplies.

In May this year, electricity supplies to 24 families in the ’12 February’ Roma settlement in the southern Serbian city of Nis were cut off over unpaid bills. The families claim this debt pre-dates their time living there, but the local power distributor demanded proof of house ownership from the families before reconnection.

People in many Roma settlements often lack such documents as the process for obtaining them is costly and difficult for many to navigate without expert legal help, and none of these families was able to provide the required proof.

It was only after both local and nationwide protests by members of the community themselves and negotiations between the families, who were represented by the Opre Roma Serbia rights group, local authorities, and the local distributor Elektrodistribucija Nis, that in December, limited supplies of electricity were restored to the families involved.

Jelena Reljic of Opre Roma Serbia said she was pleased those affected could now access electricity again but warned “the situation in this settlement is an example of a much wider systemic problem” which politicians are not doing enough to solve.

“The last cut off in this settlement was because of historic debt, but the problems with electricity [there] have been going on for a decade. Politicians are relying on being able to cut Roma settlements off from electricity during the energy crisis without too much public outrage or resistance. Around 99% of the reaction we have seen to the problem in this settlement has been of the type ‘oh, no one should be getting energy free during this crisis, we pay, so why shouldn’t they?’” she told IPS.

“Politicians are using the energy crisis to cover up the fact that they have never dealt with the problem of energy poverty for years and years,” she added.

The OSF’s Jovanovic wants European policymakers to review their proposed help during the crisis, including not just the approved reductions in energy demand but plans for energy price caps and a solidarity levy on the profits of businesses active in the oil, natural gas, coal, and refinery sectors.

He said the 5% reduction must not lead to electricity cuts for those already in energy poverty and that public revenues from the energy cap and solidarity levy – estimated at €140bn within the EU – should be redistributed along principles that are both morally and macroeconomically justified.

He has been involved in high-level EU committee meetings on energy crisis support policies, but, he told IPS, at those meetings, there seemed to be “little idea of the perspective of Roma and other vulnerable groups and how they would cope in the crisis”.

Now he and other activists are trying to arrange further talks with EU and national policymakers to urge them to address shortcomings in current policies affecting vulnerable groups, including Roma.

“We want to raise these issues,” he said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Categories: Africa

China: From Zero-Covid to Zero-Control

Wed, 01/04/2023 - 08:26

Medical equipment supplied by the World Food Programme (WFP) arrives in Beijing. Meanwhile, as COVID-19 infections surged in China, coronavirus experts gathered at the UN health agency in Geneva on January 3, to discuss next steps. Photo courtesy of Yingshi Zhang

By Jan Servaes
BRUSSELS, Jan 4 2023 (IPS)

Three years after the coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the Chinese government began in December to abruptly scrap its harsh containment policy known as “zero-Covid.”

This zero-Covid policy relied on strict lockdowns, use of a Covid tracking app, domestic travel restrictions, and quarantining those who test positive along with their close contacts. But the strategy isolated the country from the rest of the world and dealt a severe blow to the world’s second-largest economy.

The government announced that from January 8 onwards, mandatory quarantine on arrival for travelers to China will end and Chinese people will be able to travel abroad again after three years.

The switch followed unprecedented protests against the policies championed by President Xi Jinping, marking the strongest display of public defiance in his decade-long presidency and reminiscent of the 1989 Tiananmen tragedy in many minds.

“What matters is that we reach consensus through communication and consultation. When the 1.4 billion Chinese work with one heart and one mind, and stand in unity with a strong will, no task will be impossible and no difficulty insurmountable”, Xi stated in his nationally broadcast New Year’s message.

“We have now entered a new phase of COVID response where tough challenges remain. Everyone is holding on with great fortitude, and the light of hope is right in front of us. Let’s make an extra effort to pull through, as perseverance and solidarity mean victory.”

The question is: how many Chinese are still being taken in by this tough language now that hospitals have been hit by a tidal wave of mainly elderly patients since the lifting of the zero-covid policy, crematoriums are overloaded and many pharmacies no longer have anti-virus and fever medication.

Initially, photos and video fragments of these harrowing conditions were still censored, but recently even the China Daily reported on them. The magnitude of the outbreak remains unclear for now, and the lack of transparency can be attributed to strict censorship and the fact that government officials have stopped reporting asymptomatic cases and introduced a new definition of covid-related deaths.

Only patients with the virus who die due to pneumonia and respiratory failure now meet the criteria, according to China. The National Health Commission (NHC) further announced that it is no longer releasing an official daily Covid death toll.

In addition, the state news agency Xinhua reported that from January 8, China will lower its priority management of Covid-19 cases and treat it as a class B infection rather than a more severe class A infection. Liang Wannian, head of the expert panel for the COVID-19 response under the NHC, said the shift does not mean China is letting go of the virus, but instead is focusing more resources on rural areas to contain the epidemic.

According to Nikola Davis, science correspondent for The Guardian, China is experiencing this surge for a number of reasons. The relaxation of restrictions has allowed the virus to spread more. Plus, the slow vaccination campaign in much of China, coupled with the use of the less effective locally produced Sinovac vaccine, means the population has little protection and many vulnerable people are still at risk from the virus.

In addition, the tight restrictions previously in place mean few people have contracted Covid before. That means there is little natural immunity at play in the current wave.

As a result, many people are now simultaneously getting Covid and requiring hospital care, leading to increasing pressure on the healthcare system. In addition, the inadequate medical infrastructure (there remains a major shortage of intensive care beds and well-trained staff) as well as substandard general hygiene (clean toilets, washing hands, etc.) must also be added.

So the ink of my contribution on ‘China: From A Health Crisis to A Political Crisis?’ was barely dry before my fears came true: China is in the middle of a relentless covid wave. Chinese authorities estimate that about 250 million people, or 18 percent of the population, were infected with the COVID-19 virus in the first 20 days of December.

Despite this increase, the government insists it has the rising infections and circulating variants under control. Yet these ‘official’ figures do not seem to correspond with the reality on the ground.

People will continue to grope in the dark about the correct figures. The Chinese government and the so-called worldometers are still counting only 5250 covid deaths, while the World Health Organization (WHO) recently published the number of 31,585.

Some academic friends and former students, though not epidemiologists, whisper that up to 60% of the Chinese have or have been exposed to covid.

Airfinity, a UK-based company that analyzes health risks worldwide, also comes with worrying figures. They currently estimate 11,000 daily deaths and 1.8 million infections per day in China, while it expects 1.7 million fatalities by the end of April 2023.

The researchers say their model is based on data from China’s regional provinces, before changes in infection reporting, combined with case growth rates from other former zero-Covid countries.

It is feared that the numbers will rise even more in the coming weeks. Especially around the Chinese New Year on January 22, when almost every Chinese goes to visit friends and family.

Is Xi Jinping firmly in the saddle?

Xi Jinping secured a historic third term as leader in October, emerging as China’s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong. He thus further consolidated his power in a process that began a decade ago, a concentration that has steered China in a more authoritarian direction and which critics warn increases the risk of policy missteps.

The year 2022 ended with unprecedented street protests, followed by the sudden reversal of its zero-Covid policy and coronavirus infections sweeping through the world’s most populous country. This, together with the sluggish economy, has damaged his image considerably.

For decades, China has been the world’s leading economic growth engine and the hub of industrial supply chains. The World Bank and other experts expect the reopening of the Chinese economy to boost growth to 4.3% in 2023, compared to the forecast of 2.7% for 2022.

This is still reasonable by international standards, but remains below the official target of about 5.5%. Choked consumption and disrupted supply chains continue to weigh on the crisis in the huge real estate sector. A prolonged economic slowdown or new logistical concerns, whether due to COVID or geopolitical tensions, could reverberate globally.

Beijing’s relations with the West deteriorated over Xi’s partnership with Moscow just before Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, as well as rising tensions over US-backed Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory.

Xi traveled abroad for the first time since the pandemic began in September, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In November, he met US President Joe Biden at the G20 in Indonesia, where both sides sought to cement relations.

According to Chinese diplomacy, a recent phone call between China’s new foreign minister Qin Gang (the outgoing ambassador to Washington and Xi’s confidant) and US secretary of state Antony Blinken has ironed out the folds.

Diplomatically, Xi appears to be trying to ease some of the tension that has made relations with the West increasingly fraught, even as Beijing tries to strengthen its position as a counterweight to the post-World War II US-led order. Xi’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia and meetings with representatives of Gulf states could be viewed in this context.

But things are also rumbling within the government and the almighty Communist Party (CCP). Leaked excerpts of an internal policy brief published in the Sydney Morning Herald, discussed at a recent Politburo, state that “the zero-Covid dynamic was an unqualified success and demonstrated the superiority of the Chinese communist system over the cowardly and immoral West, but that it can now be brushed aside because omicron is ‘just like the flu’”.

“We must resolutely follow the line of the party. We must never deviate from the notes,” Xi told the Politburo during the “self-criticism” session, a Maoist practice that is back in vogue.

Authoritarian regimes with near-absolute control over the media can sometimes facilitate breathtakingly destructive policies. It is difficult to think of a more unhinged policy than suddenly exposing an inadequately vaccinated population to massive infection in the middle of winter, just before the great Chinese New Year inland migration.

Fortitude appears to be one of Xi Jinping’s principles, as his New Year’s letter affirmed: “Everyone stands firm with great fortitude, and the light of hope stands right before us.”

Jan Servaes was UNESCO-Chair in Communication for Sustainable Social Change at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He taught ‘international communication’ in Australia, Belgium, China, Hong Kong, the US, Netherlands and Thailand, in addition to short-term projects at about 120 universities in 55 countries. He is editor of the 2020 Handbook on Communication for Development and Social Change.
https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-981-10-7035-8

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Women Commuters Travel Safe in Innovative Bus Scheme in Pakistan

Wed, 01/04/2023 - 08:21

Women students and workers travel free from harassment in the BRT buses, which reserves seats for them in the conservative region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Jan 4 2023 (IPS)

A bus rapid transport (BRT) system in Peshawar is benefiting female students and working women by providing a safe journey – something women passengers could not take for granted on regular public transport.

“Prior to the launch of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, girls faced enormous hardships in reaching colleges and universities, but now, we don’t have any issue in getting to our respective institutions in a timely manner,” Javeria Khan, 21, a student at the University of Peshawar, told IPS.

She said that two of her elder sisters had left education after completion of secondary school because of a lack of proper transportation services.

“Now, there is a sea-change as far transportation is concerned; thanks to BRT through, we reach home on time without any hindrance,” Javeria, a student at the Department of Chemistry, said.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of Pakistan’s four provinces, is considered conservative where most women cover their faces while venturing out in public and avoid traveling with men in buses; the new service has proved a blessing for the female population living in the capital city of Peshawar.

There is a 27 km long corridor with as many stations to facilitate about 400,000 people every day, including 20 percent women.

BRT launched in April 2020, fleet contains a fleet of 150 air-conditioned buses imported from China, which charge people USD 0.24 from the first to the last station, and the fare is only USD 0.09 for a single stop.

“We have allocated 25 seats to women in each bus, so they don’t face any harassment. The buses go along the main road, which provides a service to the general public as well as the students,” Umair Khan, spokesman for BRT, told IPS.

Before the BRT, there were complaints of harassment and high fares charged by private buses, which deterred the women from traveling, he said. “Now, women have separate compartments with security measures in place to ensure the safe journey of all the commuters.”

In February 2022, the BRT received Gold Standard Award for transforming transport through its clean technology buses and promoting non-motorized traffic. A month before, it received the certificate of International Sustainable Award from the International Transport Organization, while UN Women has also honored the BRT for providing a safe traveling facility to women.

Transport Ticketing Global, UK presented the award to BRT for easing the lives of a large segment of society using innovative solutions, Khan said.

A local resident, Palwasha Bibi, 30, told IPS that she thinks that the BRT has been constructed to assist women workers.

“It was a Herculean task to get a seat in a private bus before the BRT. Even if one was lucky to get a seat, the fares were high, and the drivers were reluctant to drive fast as they waited for more people to embark on the bus to earn more money,” Bibi, who works in a garment factory in Peshawar’s industrial Estate, said.

More often than not, my colleagues and I encountered pay cuts for arriving late at the factory, she said. “Now, we reach 15 minutes before duty time because the BRT has a strict timing schedule. It stops at every station for 20 seconds only,” Bibi said.

BRT is also helping the common people.

Muhammad Zaheer, 31, a salesman at a grocery shop, said that he had been using a motorbike to reach the outlet, which cost him more money and time.

“Many times, I also faced minor accidents due to huge rush on the road, but now the BRT has a signal-free route with no chance of accidents, and the cost is very low,” he said.

Our manager is very happy that I get to the shop early than my duty time, and the same is true for over a dozen of my co-workers, Zaheer, father of three, said.

Naureena Shah a female student at the Islamia College Peshawar, said the BRT had been a blessing for her.

“My parents have asked me to stop education because every day we encountered problems, but the BRT has helped me to continue my studies because I arrive at the college and get back home well on time,” she said. My parents are no longer opposing my studies because they also use BRT for shopping and so on, she said.

Now, I will get medical education to serve patients, she said.

Nasreen Hamid, a schoolteacher, is all praise for BRT services.

“It has benefitted me in two ways. I use the service for going to duty and getting back home and also for going to market,” she said.

Spogmay Khan (17), a second-year student at the Jinnah College for Women, said that all her class fellows were praising former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who started the service in the city.

She said most of the students who were dropped off by fathers or brothers at the college were now traveling alone because the buses were safe.

“The main road remains flooded with vehicles, making it difficult to attend classes with punctuality, but the BRT route is smooth, and no traffic jams, due to which we enjoy traveling in the buses,” she said.

Khan said that it has really improved women’s education and the credit goes to former Prime Minister Imran Khan. “Many of our classmates wouldn’t have been able to take admission because of the messy traffic and worn-out buses, but the BRT has solved this issue, once and for all,” she said

BRT’s spokesman Umair Khan said they had started feeder routes to ensure passengers can use the facility near their homes. The feeder buses use the roads, and the passengers take these buses after disembarking from the buses on (BRT) corridors.

“About 20 percent of the BRT’s 4000 employees are females,” he said.
IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Money Laundering & Corruption Risks in Latin America

Tue, 01/03/2023 - 10:08

Data collected by Transparency International looks at bribery, the diversion of public funds, officials using their office for private gain, conflicts of interest and legal protections for those denouncing corruption. Credit: UN News/Daniel Dickinson

By Lakshmi Kumar
WASHINGTON DC, Jan 3 2023 (IPS)

Over the last decades, the private investment fund sector has grown into a multi trillion-dollar industry. Private investment funds are vulnerable to money laundering because they contain a variety of structural risk factors that help camouflage illicit behavior.

A 2020 leaked bulletin from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found that criminals were using “private placement funds including investments offered by private equity firms and hedge funds, to circumvent the anti-money laundering (AML) programs of other financial institutions and launder money.”

The new Global Financial Integrity (GFI) report Private Investment Funds in Latin America: Money Laundering & Corruption Risks examines the money laundering risk factors associated with these private investment funds in Latin America.

It analyzes the ring of actors and facilitators involved, the methods of contact used by perpetrators and the channels utilized to move illicit money. The report provides a series of case studies and analyzes AML regulation of private investment funds in four countries; Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Argentina.

“Despite the scale of wealth under management, ‘family offices’ have little to no regulatory oversight in most parts of the world,” noted Tom Cardamone, President and CEO at GFI. “This is especially concerning given the close nexus between wealth and corruption in many parts of the world. The unregulated nature of these funds makes them a particularly useful vehicle to mask proceeds of corruption or money laundering.”

Additionally, Private Investment Funds in Latin America uses a series of case studies to highlight how money laundering, corruption and organized crime risks exist in private investment funds in Latin America.

The risk factors include a customer base often composed of wealthy individuals, including politically-exposed persons; a close relationship between fund managers and their clients (i.e. investors); the use of shell companies and trusts to manage investments; outsourcing operations and risk management; weak transparency around source of wealth and source of funds; and investment structures which may include multiple accounts in different jurisdictions, including secrecy and tax havens, with funds moving through a concentration account.

GFI in this report offers the following key recommendations:

Global Financial Integrity is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, producing high-caliber analyses of illicit financial flows, advising developing country governments on effective policy solutions and promoting pragmatic transparency measures in the financial system to promote global development and security.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

The writer is the Policy Director at Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank specializing in research, advocacy, and advisory services.

Categories: Africa

Africa’s Maternal Deaths Need Urgent Action to Meet SDG Goals

Tue, 01/03/2023 - 09:27

Africa needs to urgently invest in health programmes to reduce maternal deaths, which is more than five times above the 2030 SDG target of fewer than 70 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births. Measures include ensuring women access to skilled birth attendants. Credit: Ernest Ankomah/IPS

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Jan 3 2023 (IPS)

As the effects of COVID-19 on Africa’s health sector become clearer, it looks the continent will need to take urgent steps to overcome the disruptions suffered in the breakdown in antenatal and postnatal care for women and newborns and neonatal intensive care units. The pandemic brought some setbacks to the gains achieved in maternal mortality over the past decade.

Consequently, the continent needs to race against time to improve its health sector to meet the Sustainable Development Goals against the backdrop of a new report, the Atlas of Health Statistics 2022, which called for increased investment to avert the growing number in maternal mortality across the continent.

The report said that inadequate investment in health and funding for programmes were some of the major drawbacks to meeting the SDG in the sector.

“For example, a 2022 WHO survey of 47 African countries found that the region has a ratio of 1.55 health workers (physicians, nurses, and midwives) per 1000 people, below the WHO threshold density of 4.45 health workers per 1000 people needed to deliver essential health services and achieve universal health coverage.”

It noted that 65% of births in Africa are attended by skilled health personnel – the lowest globally and far off the 2030 target of 90%, adding that “skilled birth attendants are crucial for the well-being of women and newborns. Neonatal deaths account for half of all under-5 mortality. Accelerating the agenda to meet its reduction goal will be a major step toward reducing the under-5 mortality rate to fewer than 25 deaths per 1000 live births.”

The Ghanaian authorities might have taken note of the trend last year and launched a national campaign to avert all preventable deaths related to pregnancy dubbed “Zero Tolerance for Maternal Deaths.”

Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, said the campaign was to remove all barriers and unfair treatments that increased the vulnerability of pregnant women and girls to maternal mortality and also push those with unintended pregnancies to indulge in unsafe abortions and other risky action.

Kuma-Aboagye said the campaign was critical to accelerating the decline of maternal mortality from 308 out of every 1,000 live births to 70 by 2030, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “The slow decline in maternal mortality in Ghana is of great concern to the Ministry of Health, the GHS, and its partners.”

Reacting to the Atlas report, WHO Regional Director for Africa, said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said: “This means that for many African women, childbirth remains a persistent risk and millions of children do not live long enough to celebrate their fifth birthday.”

She asked governments to take note.

“It is crucial that governments make a radical course correction, surmount the challenges, and speed up the pace towards the health goals. These goals aren’t mere milestones, but the very foundations of a healthier life and well-being for millions of people.”

The report estimated that, in sub-Saharan Africa, 390 women will die in childbirth for every 100 000 live births by 2030. This is more than five times above the 2030 SDG target of fewer than 70 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births and much higher than the average of 13 deaths per 100 000 live births witnessed in Europe in 2017.

“It is more than double the global average of 211. To reach the SDG target, Africa will need an 86% reduction from 2017 rates, the last time data was reported, an unrealistic feat at the current rate of decline,” the report said.

The region’s infant mortality rate is 72 per 1000 live births. At the current 3.1% annual rate of decline, there will be an expected 54 deaths per 1000 live births by 2030, far above the reduction target of fewer than 25 per 1000.

The report assessed nine targets related to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on health and found that at the current pace, increased investment is needed to accelerate progress on the targets. Among the most difficult to achieve will be reducing maternal mortality.

Physician and chief executive officer of Medway Health, Dr Omotuyi Mebawondu, has expressed concern that despite the worldwide reduction in maternal mortality rate, sub–Saharan Africa still accounts for two third of an average of 800 daily deaths of women from pregnancy and its complications.

Mebawondu said one of the key interventions is to ensure that pregnant women have access to antenatal care principally to identify danger signals early and enjoy delivery with the assistance of skilled birth attendants.

Accordingly, he has suggested that another way of reducing maternal mortality is to look into the use of technology. “The challenge of human resources for health in sub-Saharan Africa imposes a great responsibility on policymakers to explore technology in delivering health interventions to hard-to-reach populations.

Mebawondu said this must be preceded by adequate internet penetration and access, especially in rural areas, as such technology will help update and upgrade the health workers’ skills and educate the women on the challenges of pregnancy.

“A database of all pregnant women in poor rural localities must be collated and followed up through such technology. In addition, technology can be used to enhance emergency response to common causes of maternal deaths like bleeding, sepsis, and eclampsia. It can also be used to deliver most needed family planning services,” he said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Living Another Year Dangerously

Mon, 01/02/2023 - 13:22

By Anis Chowdhury
SYDNEY, Jan 2 2023 (IPS)

2022 has been a year of great uncertainty when it seemed the world perilously reached the brink of self-destruction – be it human-induced climate change or military conflict. Welcoming 2022, we had enough reasons to be optimistic; but it was another ‘year of living dangerously’ – Tahun vivere pericoloso in the words of Soekarno, or an annus horribilis in the words of the late Queen Elizabeth.

Anis Chowdhury

No end to Covid-19
The joy of the COVID vaccine discovery quickly vanished as the ‘vaccine apartheid‘ blatantly prioritised lives in rich nations, especially of the wealthy, over the ‘wretched of the earth’, and corporate profit triumphed over people’s lives. Meanwhile, Dr Anthony Fauci’s sober warning of a more dangerous COVID variant emerging this winter may come to be true as China, the country of 1.4 billion, struggles to deal with the surge in cases since it has largely abandoned its unpopular ‘zero COVID’ policy.

New cold war turns into proxy war
Whereas the global pandemic required extraordinary global unity, unfortunately, a ‘new cold war’ quickly turned into a ‘hot war’, bringing the world to the verge of a devastating nuclear war for the first time since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Russia, finding itself cornered by an expanding NATO, decided most foolishly to invade Ukraine, believing it could overrun the country without any resistance. While the heroic Ukrainians continue to defend their motherland, Russia seems to have become bogged down in a proxy war with NATO.

If the proxy war with Russia was not enough, the US is recklessly provoking China towards another ‘hot war’, following Trump’s trade war. Clearly the monopoly capital of the US and its military-industrial complex are pushing the US to a ‘Thucydides Trap‘. More than 60 years ago, President Eisenhower, in his farewell address to the nation, warned about the military-industrial complex, a formidable union of defence contractors and the armed forces. Eisenhower, a retired five-star Army general, who led the allies on D-Day, saw the military-industrial complex as a threat to democratic government and global peace. Alas, his dire warning fell on deaf ears.

Western hypocrisy exposed
The Russian invasion of Ukraine exposed Western pretence. The Western mainstream media unashamedly declared the dislocation of Ukrainians intolerable because the victims are blue-eyed, blond-haired Europeans, not “uncivilized” third world inhabitants or “barbaric” Arabs. Western duplicity is nowhere as blatant as it is in the case of the Palestinian plight. To them, Russia’s occupation and annexation of parts of Ukraine is illegal; but Israel’s occupation and annexation of Palestinian land as well as gross human rights violations are justified on various professed grounds, e.g., right to protection from “terrorist acts”.

Leadership vacuum
The world now needs Eisenhower to resist the military-industrial complex; it needs Teddy Roosevelt to break monopoly capital’s stranglehold and to protect consumers, workers and the environment; it needs Franklin Roosevelt to promote multilateralism and social justice; it needs Kennedy to defuse crises. At the height of the ‘old cold war’, Kennedy ate humble pie by quietly removing the security threat to the USSR posed by offensive weapons (Jupiter MRBMs) deployed in Turkey, and publicly pledging that the US would never invade Cuba or attempt another Bay of Pigs operation. Eisenhower was magnanimous enough to bear the lion’s share of financing the USSR’s proposal for global efforts to eradicate smallpox – the leading cause of death and blindness then.

Alas, we see no such signs in a world of Trump, Biden, Johnson, Marcon and Scholz. Even ‘out of touch‘, billionaire Sunak does not inspire any hope, despite being the first coloured person of colonial descent to occupy the 10 Downing Street. Sunak will probably try to prove himself holier than the Pope, instead of promoting the interest of former colonies or descendants of colonial subjects or downtrodden.

No better leadership in the South
The South is also devoid of visionaries, such as Nkrumah or Nehru who promoted non-alignment and Southern unity. Nehru’s land is now overtaken by Modi’s Hindutva movement, openly promoting violence against minorities. Unsurprisingly, Modi was in sync with Trump; but he equally cosies up to Biden professing to promote democracy and human rights. Sadly, Mandela’s South Africa is mired in scandal after scandal.

Although many, including myself, eagerly looked forward to Lula’s victory in Brazil, neither his return to power nor the so-called ‘second pink tide’ in Latin America should make one overly joyous. The Left has demonstrated its propensity to fracture or implode easily, e.g., contributing to Correa’s defeat in Ecuador, or aiding the Right to strike back in Peru. In Colombia, Finance capital, mining giants and the elite have already ganged up on Petro’s vow to tackle inequality with tax and land reforms and his proposed ban on new oil and gas exploration. Chile’s Boric has faced setbacks including the rejection of a new constitution, forcing his concessions to the Centre-Right. Constitutional coup is a common strategy of the established vested interest.

Some inspirations down under
Down under, the Australians soundly defeated an increasingly autocratic and unaccountable conservative government in May. It was the government that implemented inhumane off-shore detention centres for people seeking to escape persecution and starvation in their own countries (about to be emulated by the UK Tory Govt.). It also was cruel enough to pursue vulnerable people on social security payments with a robotic program whilst cutting taxes for the wealthy and letting them evade tax. It was the government which created plumb jobs for the boys. It was the government which continued to deny climate science and refused to act.

Finally, the Australians got rid of it. Labor showed extraordinary discipline in opposition, and in government, it stood up to big business and vested interests. It has quickly moved to put in place the processes to:

Its progressive agenda is quite long. Let me end here, wishing the Australian Labor Government success to inspire other nations – large and small, developed and developing; and with best wishes for you to be safe and remain healthy, even if not quite bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Digitizing Africa: Key to Stronger Institutions

Mon, 01/02/2023 - 12:39

Good governance and strong institutions enhance a country’s ability to mobilize domestic resources through revenue collection. Credit: UN-OSAA

By Kavazeua Katjomuise
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 2 2023 (IPS)

I recently overheard a conversation among three young people at a café in an African city. It was a passionate discussion on the management of funds allocated to the COVID-19 response and the effectiveness of the mechanisms in place to manage the money to achieve the intended purposes.

The concerns of my young brothers and sister resonated with me, as I could not help but reflect on how COVID-19 exposed cracks in Africa’s fragile revenue institutions and contributed to widening the financing gap for the region’s development.

Weak institutions, especially revenue collection and customs authorities, are a challenge in Africa, which loses billions in potential tax revenue, including through tax avoidance and evasion, especially by multinational companies.

UNCTAD’s Economic Development Report 2020 says Africa lost $88.6 billion through illicit financial flows in 2019.

This undermines efforts to mobilize domestic resources to finance the continent’s development as outlined in the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda and African Union Agenda 2063, which both recognize the primacy of strong and effective institutions in driving sustainable development.

African countries fare poorly on domestic resource mobilization compared to other developing countries. The share of revenue to gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 averaged 16 per cent for Africa, compared to 35 per cent for Asia-Pacific, and 24 per cent for Latin American Countries. Africa’s Least Developed Countries fared even lower at 13.3 per cent.

Governance influences tax revenue collection considerably in Africa. Good governance and strong institutions – measured through regulatory quality, the enforcement of the rule of law, strong institutional capacity and lower corruption – enhance a country’s ability to mobilize domestic resources through revenue collection.

However, corruption erodes tax compliance. Citizens in countries with high corruption are reluctant to pay taxes because of the perception that resources will be misused.

Empirical evidence shows that countries with a low Corruption Perception Index (CPI) score collected 4.3 per cent more in tax revenue to GDP than those with a high CPI score (2).

Addressing governance issues and improving transparency in the use of public resources is vital to building trust and generating increased domestic resources. Efforts should be geared at supporting African countries to strengthen governance and tackle corruption.

Digitization

Technological improvements and digitization could be leveraged to improve scale and efficiency and prevent corruption through increased transparency.

The pace toward digitization on the continent has quickened in recent years, particularly in the wake of COVID-19. Before the pandemic, Africa recorded progress toward digitization, albeit driven by the private sector mainly through incubators, start-ups, technological hubs and data centres.

Digitization is already transforming African economies in several ways, such as revolutionizing retail payment systems, thus allowing consumers and businesses to save billions in transaction costs, facilitating financial inclusion, and enhancing the efficiency of fiscal and revenue administration.

For example, the launch of M-Shwari in Kenya increased access to financial services for millions who may otherwise have been excluded from the financial sector. Taking advantage of this trend, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) introduced electronic banking in 2016 to expedite the payment of taxes through secure electronic payment.

This, coupled with the launch of iTax, has enabled a single view of taxpayer information, allowing for real-time monitoring of revenue collection, thus improving the efficiency of payment to government suppliers and social protection grants.

Digitization has also enabled developed countries to build effective and robust Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems, critical to ensuring Africa’s recovery from COVID-19.

However, despite the widespread adoption of digital technologies across the world, the digital divide excludes many African countries from the benefits of digital technology.

Digitizing tax administration in Africa has been relatively slow. An International Monetary Fund’s analysis (ISORA 2018: Understanding Revenue Administration) shows that, relative to other developing regions, African countries scored below the world average on almost all indices related to tax administration performance, especially on the degree of digitization.

The average score for the degree of digitization was 29 per cent for Africa compared to 49 per cent and 46 per cent for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as East Asia Pacific, respectively.

The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to an erosion of tax collection in Africa due to a lack of digitization, as countries could not fully work remotely. This underscores the urgency of investing in the digitalization of tax collection processes, paired with other digitization initiatives such as digital identification, digital finance, and electronic payment systems.

Evidence shows that enhanced tax collection has followed the introduction of ICTs, including the computerization of tax and customs administration to support tax payments.

Countries that have modernized and digitized tax revenue administration have benefited from increased revenue due to improved efficiency, reduced corruption through enhanced transparency, and increased tax compliance.

For example, the introduction of electronic cash registers by the Ethiopia Revenue and Customs Authority increased Value Added Tax (VAT) collections by 32 per cent.

Opportunity arises

COVID-19 provides an opportunity for African governments to embrace digitization by leveraging information and communications technology (ICT) as well as mobile technology.

Increased mobile penetration is an opportunity for African countries to digitize their fiscal and revenue administration. Development partners can support African countries in bolstering DRM systems by channeling substantial Official Development Assistance (ODA) towards strengthening capacities and institutions, including tax authorities, to improve tax collection.

By digitizing fiscal and revenue collection institutions and modernizing customs systems, African countries can build robust systems and overcome the challenge of weak institutions.

This would help enhance African countries’ ability to address tax evasion and avoidance, tackle money laundering and tax havens, and curtail Base Erosion and Profit Sharing (BEPS).

Development partners and international organizations can increase support to Africa to strengthen its capacity for tax assessment, including through training, mentorship and coaching.

Complementary measures are also necessary to enhance African countries’ capacity to enact and implement policies and legislation to tackle BEPS and transfer pricing, starting with a comprehensive review of all tax treaties, tax incentives, and trade and investment agreements to eliminate all loopholes for BEPS and other IFFs.

This is central to de-risking Africa’s fiscal space for long-term sustainable development in the post-pandemic era.

In conclusion, building strong institutions through digitizing key institutions, especially revenue authorities, is critical to boosting domestic resource mobilization systems.

By digitizing fiscal and revenue collection institutions and modernizing customs systems, African countries can build robust DRM systems and overcome the challenge of weak institutions.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

The writer is a Senior Economic Affairs Officer and leader of the Policy Analysis and Coordination team in the UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (UN - OSAA).

Categories: Africa

US in Proxy War with Russia Doles out 100 Billion Dollars in Aid & Arms to Ukraine

Mon, 01/02/2023 - 12:19

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (on screen) of Ukraine, addresses the Security Council meeting on the situation in Ukraine. “We are dealing with a State that is turning the veto of the United Nations Security Council into the right to die”, President Zelynskyy warned. If it continues, countries will rely not on international law or global institutions to ensure security, but rather, on the power of their own arms. April 2022. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 2 2023 (IPS)

A US Senator once described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, perhaps facetiously, as “a Winston Churchill in a tee shirt”.

And last month, when he addressed the US Congress – with the presence of about 100 Senators and 435 Congressmen – he tried to re-live that moment.

While most of the Senators and Congressmen were in business suits for the formal occasion, Zelensky opted for green military fatigues and a matching sweatshirt

And he was the second war-time head of government to address the US Congress, after British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s 1941 address to Congress during World War II.

In his address December 21, the 44-year-old Zelensky appealed for increased economic aid, sophisticated weapons and security assistance.

According to a report in the New York Times last month, if Congress passes the budget bill (it did), the US aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion last February would amount to a hefty 100 billion dollars “allocated over four emergency spending packages.”

“We have artillery, yes thank you,” Zelensky told Senators and Congressmen, “We have it. But is it enough? Honestly, not really?”

Although the US has been sending a staggering array of weapons, including 1,400 Stinger missiles, GPS-guided joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and the Patriot missile system, Ukraine has requested even more advanced weapons, including M1A2 Abrams battle tanks and F-16 fighter planes.

But the US is holding back both for security reasons.

According to the State Department, more than 40 US allies, have provided economic aid, political support or weapons to Ukraine in its hard-fought battle with Russia, one of the world’s major nuclear powers.

Norman Solomon, Executive Director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) told IPS while the Russian government is entirely responsible for its horrendous decisions to invade Ukraine and to persist with warfare there, the United States has refused to engage in actual diplomacy to avert the war or to seek a workable end to it.

The vast ongoing shipments of arms from the U.S. to Ukraine are of such a huge magnitude that they signify many billions of dollars in profits for U.S.-based weapons makers, he pointed out.

And those shipments of weapons represent eagerness in Washington to escalate the conflagration rather than seek ways to reduce and end it, said Solomon, author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death”

“The tremendous quantity of weaponry flowing from the USA to Ukraine can be understood as an extension of the U.S.-led NATO approach to Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union — encirclement and confrontation with Russia instead of trying to find genuine geopolitical solutions for Europe as a whole.”

The U.S. withdrawals from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 and from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019, he argued, were reckless steps for conflict between the world’s two nuclear superpowers that could end in global omnicide.

Now, the United States is proceeding to maximize the profits of its military-industrial complex while boosting the likelihood that the war in Ukraine will keep getting worse. The vows of victory in Ukraine, he noted, are fervent expressions of madness in Washington and in Moscow.

“Rather than pursue avenues for diplomacy that could bring the terrible suffering in Ukraine to an end, the U.S. government policy is to further enrich U.S. military contractors and escalate even further a war that is already a catastrophic reality,” he declared.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters last month the United States will continue to work closely with more than 40 allies and partners in support of the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom and independence with extraordinary courage and boundless determination.

“We will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, so it can continue to defend itself and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table when the time comes,” he declared.

In a “Fact Sheet” released last July, the State Department provided a partial breakdown of US arms to Ukraine, which includes:

Over 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems; more than 6,500 Javelin anti-armor systems.

Over 20,000 other anti-armor systems.

Over 700 Switchblade Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems.

126 155mm Howitzers and up to 411,000 155mm artillery rounds.

72,000 105mm artillery rounds.

126 Tactical Vehicles to tow 155mm Howitzers.

22 Tactical Vehicles to recover equipment.

16 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and ammunition.

Four Command Post vehicles.

Two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS).

20 Mi-17 helicopters.

Counter-battery systems.

Hundreds of Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles.

200 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers.

Over 10,000 grenade launchers and small arms.

Over 59,000,000 rounds of small arms ammunition.

75,000 sets of body armor and helmets.

Approximately 700 Phoenix Ghost Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems.

Laser-guided rocket systems—and more.

The United States also continues to work with its allies and partners to provide Ukraine with additional capabilities to defend itself

According to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Russian Federation’s military and paramilitary services are equipped mostly with domestically-produced weapons systems, although since 2010, Russia has imported limited amounts of military hardware from several countries, including Czechia, France, Israel, Italy, Turkey, and Ukraine.

The Russian defense industry is also capable of designing, developing, and producing a full range of advanced air, land, missile, and naval systems. As of 2021, Russia is the world’s second largest exporter of military hardware.

The Russian armed forces include approximately 850,000 total active-duty troops (300,000 Ground Troops; 40,000 Airborne Troops; 150,000 Navy; 160,000 Aerospace Forces; 70,000 Strategic Rocket Forces; approximately 20,000 special operations forces; approximately 100,000 other uniformed personnel (command and control, cyber, support, logistics, security, etc.); estimated 200-250,000 Federal National Guard Troops.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Generation and Self-Consumption, the Path to Clean Energy in Argentina

Fri, 12/23/2022 - 16:56

Aerial view of the 5000 square meter roof full of solar panels, in one of the pavilions of La Rural, the busiest fair and exhibition center in Buenos Aires. It is the largest private solar park in the capital of Argentina and required an investment of almost one million dollars. CREDIT: Courtesy of La Rural

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Dec 23 2022 (IPS)

With large projects held back by the economic crisis and lack of infrastructure, Argentina seems to be looking at an alternative path towards a more sustainable energy mix involving small renewable energy projects, promoted by environmentally aware industries, businesses and private users.

The initiatives are aimed at covering their own consumption, sometimes with the addition of so-called distributed generation, in which user-generators who have a surplus of electricity can inject it into the national power grid and thus generate a tariff credit.

Distributed generation initiatives have just surpassed 1,000 projects already in operation, according to the latest official data.

At the same time, this month saw the inauguration of the largest private solar energy park in the city of Buenos Aires, an initiative of the Argentine Rural Society (SRA), the traditional business chamber of agricultural producers.

The park was installed in the exhibition center the SRA owns in the capital of this South American country, to supply part of its consumption with an investment of almost one million dollars and more than 1,000 solar panels.

“Small private renewable energy projects and distributed generation will be the ones to increase installed capacity in the coming years, because the electricity transmission and distribution system sets strong limits on large projects,” Mariela Beljansky, a specialist in energy and climate change issues, told IPS.

Beljansky, who was national director of Electricity Generation until early 2022, added: “Otherwise there will be no way to meet the growth targets for renewable sources set by Argentina, as part of its climate change mitigation commitments under the Paris Agreement.”

Argentina presented its National Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Plan, which includes 250 measures to be implemented by 2030, at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) on climate change held by the United Nations in the Egyptian city of Sharm El Sheikh in November.

The National Secretariat for Climate Change estimated the total value of the plan’s implementation at 185.5 billion dollars, four times more than the debt Argentina incurred in 2018 with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has generated a sharp deterioration of the economy since then.

According to the data included in the plan, the energy sector is the largest generator of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the country, generating 51 percent of emissions.

Although renewable sources (with wind projects in first place and solar in second place) reached a record in October, supplying 17.8 percent of total electricity demand, the energy mix continues to be sustained basically by oil, natural gas and large hydroelectric projects.

Furthermore, the country has not decided to slow down the development of fossil fuels. The main reason is that it has large reserves of shale natural gas in the Vaca Muerta field in the south of the country, which has been attracting the interest of international investors for years. The climate change plan sets the goal of using natural gas as a transition fuel to replace oil as much as possible.

The plan also includes the objectives of developing a variety of renewable energy sources (wind, solar, small hydro, biogas and biomass) and also distributed generation, “directly at the points of consumption” and connected to the public power grid, at the residential and commercial levels.

Large renewable projects experienced strong growth between 2016 and 2019, on the back of an official plan that guaranteed the purchase of electricity at attractive prices for investors, but since then there have been virtually no new initiatives.

This truck functions as a mobile health center, travelling through towns in Patagonia, in southern Argentina. The roof of the vehicle is covered with solar panels that provide electricity to the four mobile consulting rooms and diagnostic imaging equipment. CREDIT: Courtesy of Utorak

Consumption subsidies

“In Argentina’s current situation, where there is practically no financing, and there are restrictions on importing equipment, high inflation and economic uncertainty, it is difficult to think about large renewable energy parks, and small projects become more attractive,” Marcelo Alvarez, a member of the board of the Argentine Renewable Energy Chamber (Cader), told IPS.

Alvarez pointed out that what conspires against small private and distributed generation projects are the subsidies that the Argentine government has been providing for years to energy consumption, including those families with high purchasing power that do not need them.

“Artificially cheap electricity rates and the scarcity of credit discourage the growth of renewables,” Alvarez said.

“The proof of this is that more than half of the distributed generation projects in operation are in the province of Cordoba (in the center of the country), where electricity prices are three times more expensive than in Buenos Aires and there is a special line of credit from the local bank (Bancor, which grants ‘eco-sustainable loans’) for renewable equipment,” he said.

Indeed, according to data from the Energy Secretariat, there are 1,051 user undertakings that generate their own electricity and inject their surplus into the grid and 573 of them are in the province of Cordoba.

Argentine state energy subsidies totaled 11 billion dollars in 2021 and this year, up to October, they already exceeded seven billion dollars, according to data from the Argentine Association of Budget and Public Financial Administration (Asap).

As for sources of financing, there is a line of credit endowed with 160 million dollars from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Banco de Inversión y Comercio Exterior (Bice), financed in part by the Green Climate Fund, which is aimed at renewable sources and energy efficiency projects for small and medium-sized businesses. However, most companies are unaware of its existence.

View of photovoltaic panels in a private neighborhood in Pilar, some 50 kilometers from Buenos Aires. Solar panels have become part of the landscape in the suburbs of Argentina’s capital city. CREDIT: Courtesy of Utorak

Private ventures

On Dec. 15, the Rural Society inaugurated the largest private solar park in Buenos Aires, in the 42,000 square meter covered area where the country’s most important fairs and exhibitions are held. The investment reportedly amounted to almost one million dollars.

“We have 42,000 square meters of roofs in our pavilions. It is a very important flat surface for the placement of solar panels, so we had been thinking about it for several years. We had done a pilot project in 2019, but then everything was delayed by the pandemic, which forced us to close the venue,” Claudio Dowdall, general manager of La Rural, told IPS.

“At this stage we used 5,000 square meters of roofs, on which we placed 1,136 photovoltaic panels, with a total power of 619 kW. This is equivalent to the average consumption of 210 family homes and, for us, it is between 30 and 40 percent of the electricity we use,” he added.

Andrés Badino, founder of Utorak, a company that has been dedicated to renewable energy for families and companies for more than five years, confirms that consultations and demand are growing in the sector.

“People’s interest has been growing because of increased environmental awareness and, also, because of what can be saved on electricity bills for residential users and for educational institutions and healthcare centers as well,” Badino said.

“Argentina has a national industry for the production of solar thermal tanks, but not for the manufacture of panels, inverters or batteries, despite the fact that the country has one of the largest reserves in the world, the main component. But we are confident that international prices will go down and drive demand,” he said.

Categories: Africa

Raising Retirement Age Coming Soon

Fri, 12/23/2022 - 16:08

Over the past fifty years the world’s life expectancy at birth increased by 16 years, i.e., from 56 in 1970 to 72 in 2020. Credit: Maricel Sequeira/IPS

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Dec 23 2022 (IPS)

Despite the objections, resistance and protests taking place in many countries around the world, raising the official retirement age to receive government provided pension benefits is coming soon.

The primary reason for raising the official retirement age is the rapidly rising costs of national old-age pension programs, which are mainly the result of two powerful global demographic trends: population ageing and increased human longevity.

The age structures of populations worldwide are becoming older than ever before. Over the past half century, for example, the median age of the world’s population has increased by 10 years, i.e., from 20 years in 1970 to 30 years in 2020. Many countries have attained median ages in 2020 well above 35 years, such as France at 41 years, South Korea at 43 years, Italy at 46 years and Japan at 48 years (Figure 1).

Source: United Nations.

Moreover, the median ages of populations are expected to continue rising over the coming decades. The median age for the world, for example, is expected to reach close to 40 years by 2070. Also in some countries, including China, Italy, Japan and South Korea, the median ages of their populations by 2070 are projected to be 55 years or older.

Even with the ageing of populations and increases in human longevity, official retirement ages in order to receive government pension benefits have remained largely unchanged at relatively low levels, typically below 65 years

The pace of changes in the population age structures of China and South Korea are particularly noteworthy. In 1970 their populations had a median age of 18 years, i.e., half of their populations were children. By 2070 the median ages of China’s and South Korea’s populations are expected to triple to 55 and 61 years, respectively, with the proportion of children declining to 12 and 10 percent, respectively.

Many countries will see their elderly population increase rapidly, reaching about one-third of their total populations by midcentury. In addition, by 2070 the proportion aged 65 years and older in some countries, such as China, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Spain, are expected to be approximately 40 percent.

In addition to markedly older population age structures, life expectancies have increased significantly during the recent past with both men and women living longer than ever before. For example, over the past fifty years the world’s life expectancy at birth increased by 16 years, i.e., from 56 in 1970 to 72 in 2020.

The gains in life expectancies at birth for some countries were even more impressive, with increases of more than 20 years during the past five decades. Again, the gains in life expectancy achieved by China and South Korea are particularly noteworthy. China’s life expectancy at birth increased by 21 years, i.e., from 57 years in 1970 to 78 years in 2020, and South Korea’s increased by 22 years, i.e., from about 62 years in 1970 to 84 years in 2020.

Moreover, the life expectancies of the elderly have also increased over the recent past. At age 65, for example, the world’s average life expectancy increased by four years, from 13 years in 1970 to 17 years in 2020. And in many developed countries, including Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, life expectancies at age 65 years have reached 20 years or more (Figure 2).

Source: United Nations.

Some of the largest gains in life expectancies at age 65 years have been in East Asia. For example, gains in China, South Korea and Japan were 7, 8 and 9 years, respectively, resulting in life expectancies at age 65 of 18, 22 and 23 years, respectively. In other words, people in those countries on average can expect to live to ages 83, 87 and 88 years, respectively.

Despite the recent setbacks in life expectancies due to deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, life expectancies of the elderly are expected to continue rising throughout the remainder of the 21st century. For example, by 2070 the world is projected to have an average life expectancy at age 65 of 21 years. Also, many developed countries by that time are expected to have life expectancies at age 65 of 25 years or more, i.e., people surviving on average to age 90.

Even with the ageing of populations and increases in human longevity, official retirement ages in order to receive government pension benefits have remained largely unchanged at relatively low levels, typically below 65 years. For example, the official retirement age in France and South Korea is 62 years and in Brazil and Russia the retirement age is also 62 for men, 57 years for women (Figure 3).

Source: OECD.

However, some countries are now proposing to raise their retirement ages. China, for example, recognizing its rapidly ageing population, shrinking labor force and its national pension’s expected insolvency by 2035, has said that over the next five years it would gradually delay the legal retirement ages, which have been unchanged for more than 70 years.

Despite public objections in the past, China took an initial step several months ago to raise its current retirement age, which is 60 for men and 55 for white-collar women workers and 50 for blue-collar women workers. In one of its eastern provinces people were permitted to start voluntarily applying for delayed retirement.

Also, the French government, remarking “vivre plus longtemps, travailler plus longtemps”, has proposed that beginning in 2023 the minimum retirement age to receive a full pension be gradually increased from today’s 62 to 65 by 2031. Although previous proposals were shelved due to nationwide strikes, the French government has said that without those proposed changes a decrease in the size of pensions would be needed.

One OECD country, the United States, was among the earliest in legislating an increase in the official retirement age to 67 years to receive full benefits, which is above the current average age for OECD countries. Also, seven OECD countries have introduced linkages between life expectancy and retirement age.

In addition to being unpopular among the general public, raising the official retirement age is an issue that governments are not eager to address. Typically, government officials remain silent on the issue and postpone making decisions regarding projected financial shortfalls in national retirement programs.

In the United States, for example, the Social Security Board of Trustees in its 2022 annual report concluded that if no changes are made, the program will not be able to meet its financial responsibilities by 2035. Although various political statements have been made by government officials, the U.S. Congress has yet to propose the needed legislation to address Social Security’s projected insolvency in a dozen years.

In general, the three major options available to governments to address pension insolvency are: reduce benefits, increase taxes and raise retirement age. Reducing benefits, however, would create financial difficulties for many of the elderly. Increasing taxes is also unlikely to be well received by today’s workers and business communities. Consequently, raising the retirement age may be the least objectionable option to address projected pension insolvencies.

The consequences of the demographic realities of older population age structures and increasing longevity are unavoidable. In particular, those consequences include: decreasing numbers in the labor force per retired person: increasing proportions in old age who are living longer; and rising costs for old age retirement benefits that threaten the solvency of the national programs.

In sum, raising the retirement age addresses many of the consequences of those seismic demographic changes as well as expands the size of the labor force, provides additional years for workers to save for retirement, and deals with the projected insolvencies of government pension programs.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Births, Deaths, Migrations and Other Important Population Matters.”

Categories: Africa

All Girls Must be Allowed to Return to Education in Afghanistan

Fri, 12/23/2022 - 14:53

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Dec 23 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Education Cannot Wait stands in solidarity with every girl and woman in Afghanistan. Each one has an inherent human right to education. We also stand in solidarity with every Afghan father, brother, husband and son, suffering the pain of seeing their daughter, sister, wife and mother brutally denied their right to an education.

Yet, in recent days, the Taliban has taken drastic measures to ban girls from attending university, has for over a year banned girls from attending secondary school, and reports indicate possible further bans of girls from elementary school and of female teachers from the classroom.

Any ban on girls’ education is a despicable attack on human rights and on Afghanistan, as a country. Afghanistan has suffered decades of brutal conflict, extreme poverty, starvation and climate-induced disasters. The people of Afghanistan have experienced excruciating hardship for far too long. How much more can the Afghan people take?

In preventing girls and women from going to school and higher education, 50% of the population is excluded from rebuilding Afghanistan, their communities and their families. There will be no female doctors, nurses or teachers to provide basic services to girls and women. There will be no Afghan children whose mothers or sisters can help them learn and develop.

As the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, Education Cannot Wait joins UN Secretary-General António Guterres in urging the de facto authorities to ensure equal access to education at all levels for women and girls. Afghanistan needs all of its people in order to rebuild from four decades of conflict.

All over the world, women and girls have a basic human right to an education. By denying them the inherent right to an education, the de facto authorities are causing great harm to the people of Afghanistan – girls, women, men, and boys alike.

Education and knowledge are cornerstones of the teachings of Islam, cornerstones of an enlightened society, and cornerstones of peace, economic prosperity, and progress everywhere. Girls and women who are guaranteed their human rights – especially their right to seek knowledge – are the backbone of a greater society arising out of war and poverty.

Education Cannot Wait will continue to advocate for the rights of all girls to quality education in Afghanistan and beyond. We stand with the global community and will continue to work tirelessly to fulfil the universal, moral obligation to protect girls and women and ensure that their right to an education is fulfilled.

We urge people everywhere to join the world in calling on the de facto authorities to end this despicable and unconscionable ban. It is an open wound bleeding for our collective humanity. It is a painful blow to the inherent rights of millions of women and men already suffering in Afghanistan. It is time to alleviate their suffering – not inflict more of it.

The ban does not represent Afghanistan. It does not represent Islam. It does not represent culture. The ban on education for girls represents brutality and ignorance in its utter form. Most of all, it represents absolute inhumanity and irresponsibility towards the long-suffering people of Afghanistan. Ending the ban immediately will also contribute to ending the anguish and sorrow of the Afghan people.

Excerpt:

ECW Director Yasmine Sherif Statement

Categories: Africa

2022: An Apocalyptic Warning of the Frailty of Our Planet

Fri, 12/23/2022 - 11:00

By External Source
Dec 23 2022 (IPS-Partners)

2022 has been an apocalyptic warning of the frailty of our planet…

…and the woeful shortcomings of humankind.

It started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

And it’s ending with famine in Africa.

More than 7.8 million Ukrainians have fled the country.

And the impact of the war has been felt worldwide.

Prices of basic commodities have skyrocketed.

Somalia used to import 90 per cent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

And now it is enduring the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in 40 years.

Women and girls are paying “an unacceptably high price” among affected communities. – UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

2022 is on its way to becoming one of the five hottest years on record.

Agriculture and food security joined the COP27 agenda.

More than 25% of arable soils worldwide are degraded, according to the FAO.

The equivalent of a football pitch of soil is eroded every five seconds.

The planet’s bio-diversity is being devastated as a result.

Still unresolved, however, is which countries will give money and to whom.

Only 1.7% of all climate finance reaches small-scale producers in developing countries.

As little as 8% of overseas aid goes to projects focused primarily on gender equality.

One seismic milestone event happened in late 2022.

The birth of the 8 billionth person was celebrated on November 15.

“We’ve just welcomed the 8 billionth member of the human race on this planet. That’s a wonderful birth of a baby, of course. But we need to understand that the more people there are, the more we put the Earth under heavy pressure,”
– Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Categories: Africa

War, Famine, Disease, Disasters – 2022 – a Year Staring at Apocalypse

Fri, 12/23/2022 - 10:32

By Farhana Haque Rahman
TORONTO, Canada, Dec 23 2022 (IPS)

A year that started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is ending with famine in Africa, while still spreading death and misery through an enduring pandemic and a deteriorating climate crisis — 2022 has been an apocalyptic warning of the frailty of our planet and the woeful shortcomings of humankind.

Farhana Haque Rahman

Beyond the stark statistics of millions of people displaced by war and natural disasters, it has been a 12 months that tragically highlighted our global interconnections and how a confluence of events and trends can bring another year of record levels of hunger.

Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians (numbers given by the UN and involved parties vary enormously) have been killed in Ukraine since Russia launched war on February 24. More than 7.8 million Ukrainians have fled the country. Billions of dollars have been spent on armaments.

But the impact of the war has been felt worldwide, driving up prices of basic commodities such as oil, gas, grain, sunflower oil and fertilisers. Somalia, now in the grip of the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in 40 years, used to import 90 per cent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

Commodities have been weaponised. Countries slipped back into recession, just as they were slowly recovering from the economic distress of Covid-19 lockdowns. A deepening relationship between sanctioned Russia and an energy- hungry China exacerbated existing tensions with the US over Taiwan. The result? China broke off climate cooperation efforts with the US in the run-up to the COP27 climate conference hosted by Egypt in November with 200 countries and 35,000 people attending.

Against the backdrop of devastating floods in Pakistan and West Africa, and with 2022 on its way to becoming one of the five hottest years on record, agriculture and food security joined the COP27 agenda. Talks ran into extra time, as they tend to, and countries of the global South emerged with the landmark creation of a special fund paid by wealthier countries to address the Loss and Damage caused by climate change in the most vulnerable nations.

“After 30 contentious years, delayed tactics by wealthy countries, a renewed spirit of solidarity, empathy and cooperation prevailed, resulting in the historic establishment of a dedicated fund,” said Yamide Dagnet, director for climate justice at the Open Society Foundations, reflecting a sense of hard fought victory among developing countries.

Still unresolved however is which countries will give money and to whom. China in particular seems uneasy over which category it belongs to. However COP27 joined its 26 forerunners since 1995 in not reaching a binding agreement on cutting fossil fuel burning which has continued to rise globally, except for a brief pandemic dip. For this, many branded it a failure. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact – or a Collective Suicide Pact,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the opening plenary session. By the end, many felt the conference had concluded with the latter. Rather than falling, the latest estimates from the Global Carbon Project show that total worldwide CO2 emissions in 2022 have reached near-record levels.

Victims of devastating floods, heatwaves and forest fires, and severe drought in Central Sahel and East Africa surely needed no confirmation from the final decision text of COP27 which recognises “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger” and the vulnerability of food production to climate change.

In this respect, COP27 recognised the importance of nature-based solutions – a theme driven by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in ringing alarm bells on the degraded soil, water sources and eco-systems caused by intensive agriculture with overuse of fertilisers and pesticides. According to FAO, more than 25 percent of arable soils worldwide are degraded, and the equivalent of a football pitch of soil is eroded every five seconds. The planet’s bio-diversity is being devastated as a result. As highlighted by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in stressing the vital connections between Nature and people, a landmark report in July found that 50,000 wild species provide food, osmetics, shelter, clothing, medicine and inspiration. Many face extinction. As international agencies and NGOs (and media outlets) jostled and competed for funding to deal with the fallout from wars and climate emergencies, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) which is active in the Sahel cautioned that only 1.7 per cent of all climate finance reaches small-scale producers in developing countries and as little as 8% of overseas aid goes to projects focused primarily on gender equality. Women’s empowerment has been made a major focus of ASAP+, IFAD’s new climate change financing mechanism.

Women and girls are paying “an unacceptably high price” among communities hit by severe drought in the Horn of Africa, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). It launched a $113.7 million appeal to scale-up life-saving reproductive health and protection services, including establishment of mobile and static clinics in displacement sites.

Also overshadowed by wars and pandemics in 2022 were marginalised communities lacking a voice, suffering diseases such as leprosy or exploited in the form of child labour.

Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, says many issues have been sidelined because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Society has the knowledge and means to stop and cure leprosy, he says in the ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative.

“When people are still being discriminated against even after being cured, society has a disease. If we can cure society of this disease—discrimination—it would be truly epoch-making,” he told IPS.

A similar message was delivered by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi who told the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour that a mere $53 billion per annum – equivalent to 10 days of military spending – would ensure all children in all countries benefit from social protection. International Labour Organisation and UNICEF statistics from 2020 show at least 160 million children are involved in child labour, a surge of 8.4 million in four years. Children denied education became a burning issue in Afghanistan in March when the Taliban declared that girls would be banned from secondary education. The UN said 1.1 million girls were affected. The late-night reversal of a decision by Taliban authorities to allow girls from grades 7 to 12 to return to school was met with outrage and distress, inside and outside Afghanistan. Denial of human rights to girls and women has fuelled the desire of many to get out of Afghanistan and seek a better life elsewhere, adding to the millions around the world forced to flee their homes because of conflict, repression or disaster. The Ukraine conflict has displaced more than 14 million people, about a third of the population.

A UN Office on Drugs and Crime report on trafficking warns that refugees from Ukraine are at risk of including sexual exploitation, forced labour, illegal adoption and surrogacy, forced begging and forced criminality.

As they come over border crossings into Poland, refugees – including victims of rape – are greeted with posters and flyers carrying warnings about jail terms for breaking local abortion laws, images of miscarried foetuses, and a quote from Mother Theresa saying: “Abortion is the greatest threat to peace”.

UNDP, which is assisting the Ukraine government in getting access to public services for IDPs, says in its 2022 report, Turning the tide on internal displacement, that earlier and increased support to development is an essential condition for emerging from crisis in a sustainable way.

“More efforts are needed to end the marginalization of internally displaced people, who must be able to exercise their full rights as citizens including through access to vital services such as health care, education, social protection and job opportunities” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.

Nearly one million Rohingya refugees languishing in refugee camps in Bangladesh after being driven out of Myanmar in waves since 2016 would surely agree.

Asif Saleh, executive director of BRAC, said to be the world’s largest NGO and founded by Sir Fazle after the independence of Bangladesh in 1972, says work needs to “shift towards a development-like approach from a very short-term umanitarian crisis-focused approach”. But the only solution for the Rohingya refugees is their sustainable and voluntary repatriation to Myanmar. As 2022 closes, that unfortunately looks highly unlikely as the military junta that seized power in 2021 fights ethnic armed organisations on multiple fronts.

There was one seismic milestone event that happened in late 2022 although no one is quite sure exactly where and when. The few people to witness it were not aware either – not that it prevented the UN from declaring it a special day. The birth of the 8 billionth person was celebrated on November 15. The world’s population has doubled from 4 billion in 1974 and UN projections suggest we will be supporting about 9.7 billion people in 2050. Global population is forecast to peak at about 10.4 billion in the 2080s.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN environment programme, sent a message to the baby, and the rest of the world, as countries meet in Montreal for the COP15 biodiversity conference this month.

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS Noram; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

After 43 Years of Negotiations, Security Council Reforms Move at the Pace of a Paralytic Snail

Fri, 12/23/2022 - 09:53

The UN Security Council. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 23 2022 (IPS)

The reform of the Security Council, the most powerful body at the United Nations, has remained a never-ending political saga.

According to the President of the General Assembly, Csaba Kőrösi of Hungary, 43 years have passed since the question of Security Council reform first appeared on the UN agenda.

“It has been 17 years since world leaders expressed their support for the so-called “early reform” of the Council, calling it an essential element of the overall effort to reform the United Nations”.

“And it has been 13 years since the General Assembly launched an intergovernmental negotiations (IGN) process”, he added.

But a lingering question remains?

Will reforms be ever achieved in the lifespan of the United Nations, which has made significant contributions as a humanitarian relief organization but remains deadlocked as a political body, outliving its usefulness?

After more than four decades, the reform process has been at a virtual standstill –or perhaps moving at the combined pace of a paralytic snail and a limping tortoise.

Pointing out the deadlock, Kőrös said there are groups of Member States who are very much for the expansion of the permanent and non-permanent membership. There are others who favour expansion only—of non-permanent memberships.

And then, there are countries that favour the preservation of existing veto rights, while others would like to abolish all veto rights.

There are also countries supporting the expansion of non-permanent memberships with similar veto rights or reformed veto rights compared with the one today, he pointed out.

“It would be intellectually very easy to suggest a solution but it’s not my role. I cannot step out of my role, So, it will be the responsibility of Member States to iron out a compromise”

“As we stand, compromises are not on the horizon,” he declared.

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics, University of San Francisco, who has written extensively on the politics of the Security Council, told IPS given that the veto-wielding members of the Security Council have a strong stake in maintaining the status quo, it is hard to imagine that these latest efforts at reform will be any more successful than previous attempts.

This can only hurt the credibility of the United Nations, whose enforcement mechanisms will continue to be trapped in a 1945 worldview, he noted.

“It was the Soviets who primarily abused their veto power during the first quarter century of the United Nations. During the next four decades, it was the United States which emerged most frequently as the lone dissenting vote blocking scores of otherwise unanimous Security Council resolutions”.

During the past decade, he pointed out, it has been Putin’s Russia which has emerged as the greatest obstacle to unity.

In almost every case, the negative consequences of vetoes by Washington and Moscow have most seriously impacted not each other, but peoples of the Global South.

“It is a travesty that while only 16% of the world’s population is white, 80% of the permanent seats in the Security Council are held by majority white countries,” said Zunes.

Currently, the 15-member Security Council is composed of five permanent members (P5)– the US, UK, Russia China and France, armed with veto powers, along with 10 non-permanent members, without veto powers, elected for two years, on the basis of geographical rotation.

Meanwhile, the contenders for permanent seats include India, Japan, Germany and Brazil– with or without vetoes.

Africa seeks two seats, and the countries staking their claims include Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt. But the 55-member African Union is now seeking a seat of its own. Last week, Algeria made a case for a permanent seat on behalf of North Africa.

The reform process known as Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN), that began in 2009, is co-chaired by Permanent Representatives Alya Ahmed Saif Al-Thani of Qatar and Martin Bille Hermann of Denmark.

David M. Malone, Rector of the United Nations University and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, told IPS: “I fear Security Council reform involving permanent seats– rather than working methods, and perhaps some variations on elected seats, with some of these perhaps becoming semi-permanent with or without vetoes– is likely to be blocked for as long as the UN is around, not least precisely because the world has changed so much that each of the P-5, with the possible exception of China, has something to lose, if even modest reform on composition occurs”.

Adding more vetoes is likely to make the Council even less effective than it is now, and likely slower, he pointed out.

“The reason I put my comment this way is that each of the P-5 has its own reasons for not wanting further competition in terms of power within the Council”, he said.

France may fear the emergence of the idea of an European Union (EU) seat, if the debate gets serious. For the UK, more permanent seats would simply devalue its own, which is a rare jewel (at least in terms of self-image) in the crown after BREXIT.

The US already finds it very hard to get its own way, said Malone, a former Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations.

Nobody wants more Russias, particularly at the moment. And China, while formally supporting more permanent seats for countries of the Global South has, noticeably, done nothing concrete to help make this happen.

“The circumstances generating a new multilateral dispensation representing the global community in the sphere of security are likely to arise only after a global catastrophe, just like the UN’s creation was an outcome of World War II”.

And who really wants another World War II type disruption of the current global order, even recognizing the gross equity deficit in the Security Council’s current disposition?
he asked.

“As I’ve observed (and, for my country, at times, on and off played a role relative to) the Council for slightly more than thirty years, I’ve come to think of the Security Council reform issue (as it pertains to composition, rather than to, say, working methods) as a parlour game greatly enjoyed by delegates and observers of the UN.”

They so enjoy it because they know the score is bound to be a nil-one in the final reel.

So, the debate is gratis and gratuitous, however good the intentions of a number of delegations may be, said Malone author of The UN Security Council in the 21st Century (as co-editor; 2015, Lynne Rienner Publishers) and the second edition of Law and Practice of the United Nations (co-authored graduate textbook; 2016; Oxford University Press).

Martin S. Edwards, Professor and Chair, School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, told IPS since President Biden opened the door on this, it makes every bit of sense to rise to the moment.

“But it also means that the window here is narrow, as he will soon have to focus on reelection. And we know that the UN is not going to be a focus in a Republican administration. So, the time for serious dealing is now.”

Recognizing US domestic constraints is important for a second reason as well. What many do not understand is that for the P5, these proposals require ratification, he said.

For the US, that’s a 2/3 vote in a polarized Senate. It is difficult for me to imagine circumstances that would cause Republican Senators to give President Biden a win. And delay on the part of countries will again cause that window to close, Edwards noted.

Many countries are seeking the perfect at the expense of the good. For example, if the issue is representation, then is pursuing a veto really needed?

“Countries have spent several years trying to delegitimize the veto, so it makes little sense to ask for it. Rhetorically, no one wants to propose anything less, and this also makes it difficult to find a deal: you either have a veto or you don’t”.

Some of these proposals are clearly self-serving, said Edwards.

By itself that’s not a bad thing, but since the goal of the African countries was to develop a common negotiating position – the Ezulwini Consensus – it would be a shame for African countries to try to break it.

“To me, there are two questions about that consensus, which is two permanent seats and two elected seats for Africa. Can Africa live with less? And then what does the rest of the SC look like?”

The P5 countries were accorded veto power because of their status as both great powers and the victors in World War II. They continue to exercise that power even though they do not represent the changing global demographic composition or realities of current geopolitical power.

Moreover, whereas the Council was bestowed with the powers to maintain peace and international security with enforceable mechanisms, it has generally failed to reach consensus on enforcing some of its own resolutions, declared Edwards.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Security Council Reform: Big Five are the Heart of the Problem

Fri, 12/23/2022 - 09:28

An emergency Security Council meeting on Ukraine. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By James Paul
NEW YORK, Dec 23 2022 (IPS)

The UN Charter mandates the Security Council to maintain international peace, but wars rage on and nations arm themselves with ever more lethal weapons. No wonder that the Council’s critics are so many and calls for its reform so urgent.

On December 11, 1992, with post-Cold War optimism, the UN General Assembly voted to gather comments from member states on Council reform. Eighty governments made submissions, many sharply critical.

In the thirty years since, there have been endless meetings and initiatives. Year after year, governments, scholars, NGOs, and citizen movements have advanced proposals for Council renovation. In all that time, little progress has been made.

The Council’s five Permanent Members (the P-5) are the heart of the problem. Armed with vetoes, never-ending Council membership, and many other special privileges, they perpetuate their power, protect their global interests and shield their incessant war making.

They shape international law to suit themselves. The United States, the global giant, has by far the most dominant role in the Council. But it is adverse to following the rules itself and rarely inclined towards peaceful conflict solutions. Many ask: should the foxes guard the global chicken coop?

Various powers outside the P-5 want to be elevated to the highest rank. Brazil, India, Japan and Germany have long announced that they want to join the Permanent club. They argue that they would bring fresh ideas to better “represent” world regions and promote world peace.

Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt want to belong to the exclusive club too, bringing (they say) an African voice. But (to use an African metaphor) would these new crocodiles protect the world’s little fish? It seems unlikely!

Other reformers insist on more seats (and longer terms) for the Elected Members of the Council, presently ten in number. Smaller members are very vulnerable to pressure, threats and bribes from the P-5. Further, these lesser countries manage to have only the slightest influence on the Council’s proceedings.

They are, said the exasperated Singapore ambassador, “like short-term commuters on a long-distance passenger train.” So, a simple increase in Elected Members would not be a sure bet.

Limiting the veto or abolishing it entirely would have a very positive result but, needless to say, the P-5 fiercely oppose it. Reformers have also pressed for fairer membership elections and more frequent open public meetings.

Yet (with the exception of cosmetic tweaks) the reform process constantly runs up against P-5 blocking power. Their veto can stop any reform proposal dead in its tracks. But we should not forget that the world is changing and that autocratic power in history never lasts forever!

All reform proposals reflect an idealistic notion that the Council can be changed to restrain the enormous power, appetite and influence of the strongest and richest nations. This idea is rooted in the dream of democratic institutions within nation states, that rich and poor can elect representatives and determine policy in what passes for the general interest.

Difficult as it is at the national level, how could it possibly work in the war-torn world of global politics? Might one day the P-5 Ancien Regime collapse in a great crisis, under desperate pressure from a global citizens’ movement? What would it take to set such a process in motion? It may seem impossible, but so was the French revolution. We can be skeptical, but if we want peace we must press for change.

So, watch out, P-5 autocrats! Change is coming!

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

The writer is former Executive Director, Global Policy Forum and author of “Of Foxes and Chickens”—Oligarchy and Global Power in the UN Security Council.

Categories: Africa

Forget About All this Humanitarian Blah Blah (And Buy More Weapons)

Thu, 12/22/2022 - 17:22

Sales of arms and military services by the 100 largest companies in the industry reached 592 billion US dollars in 2021, a 1.9% increase compared with 2020 in real terms. Credit: Shutterstock

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Dec 22 2022 (IPS)

Day after day, international humanitarian organisations launch desperate appeals for funding to continue saving some of the many lives at high risk. When they get a handful of dollars –even just one million– from a rich country, they welcome it as manna from heaven.

Not only the available funding for humanitarian aid is already short, but next year will also set another record for humanitarian relief requirements, with 339 million people in need of assistance in 69 countries, an increase of 65 million people compared to the same time last year, the United Nations and partner organisations on 1 December 2022 said.

“The estimated cost of the humanitarian response going into 2023 is US$51.5 billion, a 25% increase compared to the beginning of 2022.”

The estimated cost of the humanitarian response going into 2023 is US$51.5 billion, a 25% increase compared to the beginning of 2022. Such highly needed 51.5 billion US dollars amount to less than one-tenth of the total sales of weapons which reached 592 billion US dollars just in one year: 2021

Such highly needed 51.5 billion US dollars amount to less than one-tenth of the total sales of weapons which reached 592 billion US dollars just in one year: 2021.

As if humanitarian aid funding were not already short enough in times when it is more needed than ever, UN Members Try Defunding Budgets for Human Rights Work, warns Louis Charbonneau, United Nations Director at Human Rights Watch.

“United Nations member countries need to overhaul the budgetary approval process for UN human rights work. The current system, overseen by the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee, is inefficient and overly politicised.”

Human rights mechanisms, exposed

It unnecessarily exposes UN human rights mechanisms – teams of independent experts established to investigate serious international crimes – to attempts by hostile governments to curtail their resources or defund them, adds Charbonneau.

Russia has repeatedly tried to defund investigations of its ally Syria, just as China has done for Myanmar. China and Russia have also worked hard to chip away at funding and staffing levels for other human rights activities and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, he said.

“It’s not only China and Russia. The United States and some European Union countries joined Israel last year to try to defund the Commission of Inquiry on Israel and Palestine. They may try again.”

Social services, dismantled

Even in their own rich countries, politicians go on cutting further the funding of social services such as public health, public education, and other programmes which citizens and taxpayers have voted for them to provide.

Simply, the wave of privatising all social public services now blows strongly from the United States to an overwhelming majority of countries.

Meanwhile, amidst growing social unrest, protests and strikes, politicians seem to have leaned under the heavy pressure of the arms industry, therefore devoting more and more public funds to purchasing weapons.

Arms sales increase for the seventh year

No wonder: sales of arms and military services by the 100 largest companies in the industry reached 592 billion US dollars in 2021, a 1.9% increase compared with 2020 in real terms, according to new data released on 5 December 2022 by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Such an increase marked the seventh consecutive year of rising global arms sales. It took place despite the fact that many parts of the arms industry were still affected by pandemic-related disruptions in global supply chains in 2021, which included delays in global shipping and shortages of vital components, says SIPRI.

‘We might have expected even greater growth in arms sales in 2021 without persistent supply chain issues,’ said Dr Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, Director of the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.

“Both larger and smaller arms companies said that their sales had been affected during the year. Some companies, such as Airbus and General Dynamics, also reported labour shortages.”

Need to replenish weapons sent to Ukraine

According to the Stockholm-based peace research institute, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has added to supply chain challenges for arms companies, not least because Russia is a major supplier of raw materials used in arms production.

“This could hamper ongoing efforts in the United States and Europe to strengthen their armed forces and to replenish their stockpiles after sending billions of dollars’ worth of ammunition and other equipment to Ukraine.”

So far, the United States has reportedly spent 100 billion dollars on weapons provided to Ukraine.

US companies dominate the Top 100

The arms sales of the 40 US companies in the listing totalled 299 dollars billion in 2021, the research further explains. North America was the only region to see a drop in arms sales compared with 2020. The 0.8 per cent real-term decline was partly due to high inflation in the US economy during 2021.

Since 2018, the top five companies in the Top 100 have all been based in the USA.

A recent wave of mergers and acquisitions in the US arms industry continued in 2021. One of the most significant acquisitions was Peraton’s purchase of Perspecta, a government IT specialist, for 7.1 billion US dollars.

Private equity companies are becoming more active in the arms industry, particularly in the USA. This could affect the transparency of arms sales data, due to less stringent financial reporting requirements compared with public companies, according to the report.

Chinese companies drive rapid growth in Asian arms sales

The combined arms sales of the 21 companies in Asia and Oceania included in the Top 100 reached 136 billion US dollars in 2021—5.8 % more than in 2020, SIPRI reports. The eight Chinese arms companies in the listing had total arms sales of 109 billion dollars, a 6.3% increase.

There has been a wave of consolidation in the Chinese arms industry since the mid-2010s, said Xiao Liang, a researcher with the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. In 2021 this saw China’s CSSC becoming the biggest military shipbuilder in the world, with arms sales of 11.1 billion US dollars, after a merger between two existing companies.

Europe, Russian and the Middle East among the top 100

In 2021 there were 27 Top 100 companies headquartered in Europe. Their combined arms sales increased by 4.2% compared with 2020, reaching 123 billion US dollars.

Meanwhile, six Russian companies are included in the Top 100 for 2021. Their arms sales totalled 17.8 billion US dollars—an increase of only 0.4% over 2020. There were signs that stagnation was widespread across the Russian arms industry, reports SIPRI.

And the five Top 100 companies based in the Middle East generated 15.0 billion US dollars in arms sales in 2021. This was a 6.5% increase compared with 2020, the fastest pace of growth of all regions represented in the Top 100.

Categories: Africa

The Trap: A Journey from Afghanistan to Europe

Thu, 12/22/2022 - 14:08

Some Afghan women put their lives at risk by migrating to Europe. Along the way, and even at the destinations, they face sexual violence at the hands of traffickers, but they often take the risk so that they can live free from the constraints of the Taliban. This photo shows a woman from the Hazara minority in Bamiyan. She used to be a singer and appeared on local TV but is now forced to stay at home. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS

By Sara Perria
KABUL & ATHENS, Dec 22 2022 (IPS)

Maliha looks confident in a café in Athens as she tells the story of her journey from Afghanistan to Europe. But as she starts recounting how a smuggler assaulted her in Turkey two years ago, she pauses, looking the other way and fiddling with her loose hair.

It makes her anxious when she remembers it. She was traveling alone and soon realized she was the only woman on board a bus to the border with Greece.

“[The smuggler] told me to get off. He wanted me to himself.” With unusual strength, the young woman managed to escape as the man was trying to rape her. Still shaken, she tried to report the crime to the local police, but she felt they were more concerned about her status as an illegal migrant than the attempted rape. “Luckily, I had a contact on Facebook [who is] a cousin who I knew lived in Turkey but whom I never met.” He happened to live near that police station, and he convinced the officials to let her go.

Afghan refugees picnic in a park in Athens. Their journeys to Europe are often dangerous. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS

Now Maliha lives in Athens as a “free woman” – a fact that she remarks upon while wearing leggings and no head covering.

The violence experienced by Mahila is not an isolated case. An investigation into the journey of Afghan women from their home country to Europe carried out in Afghanistan, Turkey and Greece has revealed a pattern of systematic violence throughout, their vulnerability heightened by lack of documents and money. Women, some traveling alone or only with their children, pay to get to Europe only to become victims of trafficking and sex slaves.

According to 31-year-old Aila, an Afghan refugee and former Médecins sans Frontières worker in refugee camps in Athens, “some 90% of women suffer a form of violence during the journey.”

“When your life is in the hands of smugglers,” continues Aila, “it’s not up to you to decide whom to stay with, what to do, where to go: it’s the smuggler who decides. Even if you are with your family or the members of your family, he can still threaten you with a weapon, and if he wants to separate you from them, he’ll do it”.

Afghans are now the second largest group of asylum seekers in the EU after Ukrainians, but the flow of asylum seekers started well before the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021. According to the International Organization for Migration, nearly 77,000 women and girls were registered at arrival by sea and by land in Europe between 2018 and 2020, making up 20 percent of total arrivals. Women make up an increasing percentage of asylum requests globally, all facing gender-based risks.

The reasons behind Afghans’ search for a safe place run deep in a country torn by decades of war. Social and financial restrictions within a deeply patriarchal society and the hope for a better life abroad had already pushed many to leave the country even before the arrival of the Taliban.

However, the challenges of the journey can be harrowing. “I remember traveling with a 10-year-old and her grandmother,” Aila recalls. “During the journey, her grandmother died, and she was handed over to the trafficker,” says Aila, describing one of the most traumatic episodes she witnessed.

“Was she raped? Of course. For them, she was a woman”.

Women escaping from the increasingly restrictive Taliban regime in Afghanistan find their journeys to freedom are fraught with dangers. This week the Taliban banned women from universities. They are increasingly forced to remain at home. Credit: Sara Perria/IPS

The risks are so stacked against women that word of mouth has led to the development of ‘survival’ techniques, such as dressing up as a man. Aila says she put on a similar short jacket, jeans, and sneakers to that of other boys. “I kept my hair hidden under my cap. And when the trafficker gave me his hand to get on the boat, he said, “Hey, boy.” I didn’t answer. “Never talk to traffickers,” is the second ‘tip’ dispensed by Aila.

Acceptance rates of Afghan asylum seekers are now high, especially in countries such as Spain and Italy, with 100% and 95% in 2021, respectively, and 80% in Greece, the first EU frontier for the many who come after spending months or years in Turkey or Iran.

Yet getting adequate assistance after suffering abuse, rape and forced prostitution is a different story. The violence suffered often doesn’t get denounced by the police due to cultural or linguistic barriers and the stigma surrounding rape or forced prostitution. Lack of adequate protection in Europe is also a reason, so NGOs set up by fellow Afghans try to step in.

Months of interviews with Afghan asylum seekers in Afghanistan, Turkey, and Europe expose the extent of the danger for women who embark on a journey organized by smugglers. Direct witnesses’ accounts and NGO transcripts, seen exclusively by this reporter, reveal a pattern of how women – and in particular Afghans belonging to ethnic minorities – fall into a ‘trap’ of violence.

Freshta spent years between Iran and Turkey with a sick brother before eventually succeeding in reaching a refugee camp in Greece and then a place in Athens hosted by a friend. However, her attempts to find a job and become independent soon turned into a prolonged series of tortured experiences. The possibility of asking for help was radically reduced by her illegal status and lack of documents.

“One day, I was in a café with my friend, and she introduced me to this man. We only knew that he was a trafficker of Iraqi nationality.” He, himself a refugee, knew very well how vulnerable women like Freshta are. “He started following me and kept saying that I should go with him.” Her constant rejections didn’t work. On the contrary, he threatened to kill her brother, who was still in the refugee camp – a sign of the long reach of influence traffickers can call upon.

One day, despite attempts to protect herself, hiding for days at a friend’s house, the man managed to kidnap her and take her to her apartment. He then hit her on the head, threatening her with a knife pointed at her stomach and forcing her to get into his car. At that moment, Freshta became a slave, first suffering violent rape, with beatings that made her pass out because she also suffered from asthma.

“When I woke up, he wasn’t there. I was full of pain and didn’t know what to do; I was in shock. I went to the bathroom, got washed, dressed, and cried.”

Upon his return, the trafficker told her that she now belonged to him. If she went out and told anyone what had happened, then he would kill her.

Freshta managed to hide at her friend’s again, but again the man managed to take her by force, beating her and locking her up at home for weeks, repeatedly raping her. Freshta got pregnant. “He told me I couldn’t do anything because he had become a Greek citizen, and I was nothing; I didn’t have any document.”

It took many weeks and the help of an association to allow her to report the incident. She had an abortion. The woman has since been moved by the Greek government to a secure facility in an undisclosed location.

To add to Freshta’s tragic testimony is the fact that, as the operator of an NGO in Athens explains, “There are many cases of sexual slavery like this, which are not reported by the victims because they are afraid of being stigmatized and of their lack of documents.” The perpetrators of the violence can be fellow nationals, generally belonging to a different ethnic group and, to a lesser extent, other nationalities.

The lack of support is accentuated by a form of class distinction within the refugee community and by the way resources are thus distributed, according to some of the Afghan women interviewed in Athens. “The refugees who arrived in Europe through the evacuation program [in Kabul] consider themselves ‘different’ from those who arrived here on foot, with the traffickers. And they are also treated differently by the authorities,” says Aila.

While for men, the lack of documents, money, and a family network leads more easily to labor exploitation, women can often fall victim to sexual exploitation. Some women are “passed from trafficker to trafficker,” says Aila, while the local association also reports cases of forced prostitution just outside the camps. But even in the aftermath of a violent attack, NGOs are worried about the short time women are allowed to spend in safe structures, as well as the limited space available there. Resources do not meet the seriousness and extent of the problem.

“When they asked me if I wanted to report the man [who kept me as a slave], I said yes, but only if I had a safe place to stay first,” says Freshta. “I was so desperate that I left behind everything I had.”

This project on trafficking has been developed with the financial support of Journalismfund.eu

https://www.journalismfund.eu/

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Raising the Alarm on the Slow Pace of Family Law Reform

Thu, 12/22/2022 - 10:39

Adolescents in Gujara Municipality of Rautahat District in Nepal perform a skit on child marriage as part of UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme on Ending Child Marriage. Credit: UNICEF/Kiran Panday

By Hyshyama Hamin
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Dec 22 2022 (IPS)

In September 2021, in the midst of a pandemic-related lockdown, a 15-year-old Muslim girl from Colombo, Sri Lanka was married off by her relatives to a much older man.

A local women’s rights group reported this case to the national child protection authorities, however, because child marriage is still legal under the country’s Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA), little could be done.

Nine months later, the girl was divorced by her husband at the Quazi (Muslim-judge) led court under a provision in the MMDA that allows him to unilaterally divorce at will and without any reason.

Many countries, especially in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and Africa, continue to have civil, religious, or customary laws and practices on marriage and family matters that curtail the rights of women and girls.

An alarming finding in a new report, ‘Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2022’, released by UN Women and the UN Statistics Division, indicated that at the current rate of progress it may take up to 286 years to close gaps in legal protection between men and women and remove laws that discriminate against women and girls on the basis of their sex.

The report concluded that the world is not on track to achieve gender equality by 2030.

Sex discrimination in family law

Discrimination in family laws, specifically when it relates to marriage and family, spans from the time of entry into marriage, during the marriage, and at the time of dissolution of the marriage.

Organizations like Musawah have been mapping Muslim family laws in over 38 countries in three regions. Their research shows that the male guardianship system, where men are considered heads of the household and have legal authority over wives, daughters, and mothers, is very prevalent in MENA, South and Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Divorce rights continue to be unequal for women. In Algeria, Maldives, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, women have more conditions and procedures than men in seeking a divorce.

Equal right to child custody and custody arrangements that center on the needs of the child, remains a challenge for mothers in the MENA region, and in Latin American countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.

Inheritance rights are still unequal in many parts of the world. World Bank (2018) data showed that at least 39 countries prevent daughters from inheriting the same proportion of assets as sons.

Family law is a critical issue of our time

Inequalities faced by women and girls under discriminatory family laws and practices affect all other areas of their lives.

According to the report by international women’s rights organization Equality Now, Words and Deeds: Holding Governments Accountable in the Beijing +25 Review Process, “sex discriminatory personal status laws violate women’s civil and political rights.” It gives examples of legal discrimination in numerous countries and notes that such laws, especially relating to property and inheritance, inhibit women’s full social and economic participation and opportunities.

There is also a direct correlation between legal authority and power afforded to males in the family, and restrictions on women’s autonomy and agency, along with an increased likelihood of experiencing sexual and domestic violence.

These inequalities have surged during the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing economic, political, and climate crises. In April 2020, UNFPA predicted that the COVID-19 pandemic may result in 13 million extra child marriages in the years immediately following this global health emergency.

Women activists calling for reform face serious opposition

For decades, women’s rights groups and activists in countries such as Malaysia, Morocco, India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Uganda, to name a few, have been advocating for the reform of unequal family laws. In Iran, women are currently leading the national struggle for free will to decide on matters of personal choice like dress code and other fundamental freedoms.

Activists calling for change face heavy opposition, including intimidation and threats from conservative religious and right-wing groups, who often claim that family laws and practices are a matter of freedom of religion and belief.

But rights groups are pushing back by repeatedly making the case that freedom of religion or belief can never be used to justify inequalities towards women and girls and that human rights cannot stop at the front door of a family home.

Despite growing evidence of the impacts of discriminatory family laws, state action and political will towards reforming discriminatory laws, especially family laws, is almost non-existent. In fact, in countries like Iran and Afghanistan, women activists also face direct risk and harm to life and limb from state authorities themselves.

The need for global action

The Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law was launched in March 2020 by eight leading women’s rights and faith-inspired organizations, as well as UN Women. The Campaign is calling for governments to prioritize equality in family law, policy, and practice, especially in light of multiple other crises that affect women and girls disproportionately.

In tandem, efforts of courageous community and national activists pushing for reform of discriminatory family laws need to be amplified and resourced. Regionally and globally, feminist movements must further promote family law reform as a crucial issue.

Achieving gender equality without equality in the family is impossible. We cannot wait 286 years before countries are free of laws, procedures, and practices that discriminate against women and girls.

The time to put family law reform on the agenda is now!

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

The writer is Campaign Manager - Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law

Categories: Africa

The Energy Dilemmas of Roraima, a Unique Part of Brazil’s Amazon Region

Wed, 12/21/2022 - 14:20

A riverside park in Boa Vista, which would probably disappear with the construction of the Bem Querer hydroelectric plant, 120 kilometers downstream on the Branco River. The projection is that the reservoir would flood part of the capital of the state of Roraima, in the extreme north of Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
BOA VISTA, Brazil , Dec 21 2022 (IPS)

“Roraima did not have a Caribbean character; now it does, because of its growing relations with Venezuela and Guyana,” said Haroldo Amoras, a professor of economics at the Federal University of this state in the extreme north of Brazil.

The oil that the U.S. company ExxonMobil discovered off the coast of Guyana since 2015 generates wealth that will cross borders and extend to Roraima, already linked to Venezuela by energy and migration issues, predicted the economist, the former secretary of planning in the local government from 2004 to 2014.

Roraima, Brazil’s northernmost state, which forms part of the Amazon rainforest, is unique for sharing a border with these two South American countries on the Caribbean Sea and because 19 percent of its 224,300 square kilometers of territory is covered by grasslands, in contrast to the image of the lush green Amazon jungle.

It is also the only one of Brazil’s 26 states not connected to the national power grid, SIN, which provides electricity shared by almost the entire country. This energy isolation means the power supply has been unstable and has caused uncertainty in the search for solutions in the face of sometimes clashing interests.

From 2001 to 2019 it relied on imported electricity from Venezuela, from the Guri hydroelectric plant, whose decline led to frequent blackouts until the suspension of the contract two years before it was scheduled to end.

The closure of this source of electricity forced the state to accelerate the operation of old and new diesel, natural gas and biomass thermoelectric power plants. It also helped fuel the proliferation of solar power plants and the debate on cleaner and less expensive alternatives.

Alfredo Cruz would lose the restaurant and home he inherited from his great-grandfather, who registered the property in 1912. The Bem Querer reservoir would lead to the relocation of many riverside dwellers and would even flood part of the capital of the northern Brazilian state of Roraima, Boa Vista, 120 kilometers upriver. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

In search of energy alternatives

Against this backdrop, the Roraima Alternative Energy Forum emerged, promoted by the non-governmental Socio-environmental Institute (ISA) and the Climate and Society Institute (ICS) and involving members of the business community, engineers from the Federal University of Roraima (UFRR) and individuals, indigenous leaders and other stakeholders.

The objectives range from influencing sectoral policies and stimulating renewable sources in the local market to monitoring government decisions for isolated systems, such as the one in Roraima, as well as proposing measures to reduce the costs and environmental damage of such systems.

“Not everyone (in the Forum) is opposed to the construction of the Bem Querer hydroelectric plant, but there is a consensus that there is a lack of information to evaluate its benefits for society and whether they justify the huge investment in the project,” biologist Ciro Campos, an ISA analyst and one of the Forum’s coordinators, told IPS.

Bem Querer, a power plant with the capacity to generate 650 megawatts, three times the demand of Roraima, is the solution advocated by the central government to guarantee a local power supply while providing the surplus to the rest of the country.

For this reason, the project is presented as inseparable from the transmission line between Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas with a population of 2.2 million, and Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima, population 437,000. The line involves 721 kilometers of cables that would connect Roraima to the national grid.

Indigenous people in the northern Brazilian state of Roraima are striving to install solar plants in their villages and are studying how to take advantage of the winds in their territories, which are considered favorable for wind energy. Their aim is to prevent the construction of Bem Querer and other hydroelectric plants that would affect indigenous lands, according to Edinho Macuxi, coordinator of the Indigenous Council of Roraima. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

“In its design, Bem Querer looks towards Manaus, not Roraima,” Campos complained, ruling out a necessary link between the power plant and the transmission line. “We could connect to the SIN, but with a safe and autonomous model, not dependent on the national system” and subject to negative effects for the environment and development, he argued.

Hydroelectric damage

The plant would dam the Branco River, the state’s main water source, to form a 519-square-kilometer reservoir, according to the governmental Energy Research Company (EPE). It would even flood part of Boa Vista, some 120 kilometers upstream.

The hydropower plant would both meet the goal of covering the state’s entire demand for electricity and abolish the use of fossil fuels, diesel and natural gas, which account for 79 percent of the energy consumed in the state, according to the distribution company, Roraima Energia.

But it would have severe environmental and social impacts. “It would make the riparian forests disappear,” which are almost unique in the extensive savannah area, locally called “lavrado,” of grasses and sparse trees, said Reinaldo Imbrozio, a forestry engineer with the National Institute of Amazonian Research (Inpa).

A view of the Branco River, five kilometers above where its waters would be dammed if the controversial Bem Querer hydroelectric plant is built, which would generate enough electricity to meet the entire demand of the Brazilian state of Roraima as well as a surplus for export, but would have environmental and social impacts magnified by the flatness of the basin that requires a very large reservoir. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

In addition to the flooding of parts of Boa Vista, the flooding of the Branco and Cauamé rivers, which surround the city, will directly affect nine indigenous territories and will have an indirect impact on others, complained Edinho Macuxi, general coordinator of the Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR), which represents 465 communities of 10 native peoples.

The CIR, together with ISA and the ICS, built two solar energy projects in the villages and carried out studies on the wind potential, already recognized in the indigenous territories of northern Roraima.

“The main objective of our initiatives is to prove to the central government that we don’t need Bem Querer or other hydroelectric projects…that represent less land and more confusion, more energy and less food for us,” he stressed to IPS at CIR headquarters.

“We will have to leave, said the engineers who were here for the studies of the river,” said Alfredo Cruz, owner of a restaurant on the banks of the Branco River, about five kilometers upstream from the site chosen for the dam. At that spot visitors can swim in the dry season, when the water level in the river is low.

Economics Professor Haroldo Amoras says the state of Roraima is becoming more Caribbean, because its economy is increasingly linked to its neighboring countries to the north of Brazil, Guyana and Venezuela, which, in addition to being importers, are the route to the Caribbean for Roraima’s agricultural and agro-industrial products. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The rapids there show the slight slope of the rocky riverbed. It is a flat river, without waterfalls, which means a larger reservoir. The heavy flow would be used to generate electricity in a run-of-river power plant.

Cruz inherited his restaurant and house from his great-grandfather. The title to the land dates back to 1912, he said. But they will be left under water if the hydroelectric plant is built, even though they are now located several meters above the normal level of the river, he lamented.

Riverside dwellers, fishermen and indigenous people will suffer the effects, Imbozio told IPS. The property of large landowners and people who own mansions will also be flooded, but they have been guaranteed good compensation, he added.

What the Forum’s Campos proposes is the promotion of renewable sources, without giving up diesel and natural gas thermoelectric plants for the time being, but reducing their share in the mix in the long term, and ruling out the Bem Querer dam, which he said is too costly and harmful.

Energy issues will influence the future of Roraima, according to Professor Amoras. The most environmentally viable hydroelectric plants, such as one suggested on the Cotingo River, in the northeast of the state, with a high water fall, including a canyon, are banned because they are located in indigenous territory, he said.

The participation of civil society is important for the Brazilian state of Roraima to make progress towards sustainable energy alternatives that can reduce diesel consumption, offer energy security and avoid the impacts of hydroelectric dams, according to Ciro Campos, an analyst with the non-governmental Socio-environmental Institute. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Oil wealth, route to the Caribbean

In the neighboring countries, oil wealth opens a market for Brazilian exports and, through their ports, access to the Caribbean. The Guyanese economy will grow 48 percent this year, according to the World Bank.

Roraima’s exports have grown significantly in recent years, although they reached just a few tens of millions of dollars last year.

Guyana’s small population of 790,000, the unpaved road connecting it to Roraima and the fact that the language there is English make doing business with Guyana difficult, but relations are expanding thanks to oil money.

This will pave the way to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), whose scale does not attract transnational corporations, but will interest Roraima companies, said Fabio Martinez, deputy secretary of planning in the Roraima state government.

Venezuela expanded its imports from Roraima, of local products or from other parts of Brazil, because U.S. embargoes restricted trade via ports and thus favored sales across the land border, he said.

“The liberalization of trade with the United States and Colombia will now affect our exports, but a recovery of the Venezuelan economy and the rise of oil can compensate for the losses,” Martinez said.

Roraima is a new agricultural frontier in Brazil and its soybean production is growing rapidly. But “we want to export products with added value, to develop agribusiness,” said Martinez.

That will require more energy, which in Roraima is subsidized, costing consumers in the rest of Brazil two billion reais (380 million dollars) a year. If the state is connected to the national grid through the transmission line from Manaus, there will be “more availability, but electricity will become more expensive in Roraima,” he warned.

Categories: Africa

Gender Parity at the UN Willfully Ignores the Facts

Wed, 12/21/2022 - 09:36

By Sanam Naraghi Anderlini
WASHINGTON DC, Dec 21 2022 (IPS)

There are two sides to the problem of Gender Parity at the United Nations.

On the one hand, member states need to appoint more women to their senior ambassadorial ranks. There is always tremendous competition for the post of UN ambassador, especially if a member state is on the UN security Council.

It’s a pipeline question for the member states. To reach that level of seniority, a diplomat has to have the years of service. It will likely take time for countries to have the flow through of women ambassadors. So, the UN Secretary-Genera (SG) is correct in putting the onus on member states to change or accelerate their systems.

That said, there is still a problem within the UN itself.

In the last 5 years, many governments notably the UK, Italy, the Scandinavians have sponsored the regional women’s mediation networks. For example. I’m a member of the Women Mediators Across the Commonwealth (WMC).

The vision was to identify women with the requisite skills and experience in mediation efforts and provide a new pathway into senior UN positions particularly as Envoys and mediation work. In the WMC we have 50 amazingly experienced women from across Commonwealth nations.

Similarly, the Mediterranean Women’s Mediation Network has members from that region. For senior positions, our governments have to support our candidacy, and they have done so.

But the UN system is a blockage, because when it comes to determining eligibility, their criteria still include things like ’15 years of UN experience’. Well, the whole point is that most of us have gained experience outside of the UN bureaucracy or as expert consultants with the UN, but not as UN staff.

We bring a wealth of other valuable expertise, yet the skill and knowledge that outsiders might bring seems of less value to the recruiters, than then traditional institutional knowledge. As a result, the female candidates that member states might endorse, are blocked by the UN.

If they are serious about having more women in the peace and security sector, particularly women with the relevant experience in inclusive and gender responsive peacemaking, security humanitarian work, they need to look for us in civil society. This is where most of the innovation has happened and is happening.

The work being done by women on the ground and lessons sharing that goes on through our networks is invaluable. It is exactly what the UN needs to be more fit for purpose. It is also the path towards actual reform and renovation of the UN architecture and practice.

But it can only happen if the member states and the UN leadership and bureaucracy have the vision, political will and willingness to change their recruitment priorities and practices.

Anyone claiming they can’t find the women, is willfully ignoring the facts.

Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, MBE, Founder & CEO, International Civil Society Action Network in Washington DC.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

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