Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 1 2022 (IPS)

Inflation hawks are winning the day. The latest ‘beggar thyself’ race to raise interest rates has begun. This ostensibly responds to the spectre of runaway inflation, supposedly retarding economic growth and progress, and thus threatening central bank ‘credibility’.

Anis Chowdhury

Inflation fetish
The ‘one size fits all’ policy of raising interest rates to contain inflation is being touted again, the world over. This will surely kill national efforts to revive economies reeling from COVID-19 pandemic slowdowns.

Central banks in many emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) – such as Brazil, Russia and Mexico – began raising policy interest rates right after inflation warning bells were set off after mid-2021. Indonesia and South Africa have since joined the bandwagon.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has warned that US interest rate rises would “throw cold water” on global recovery, especially hurting struggling emerging markets.

An earlier IMF blog had urged EMDEs to prepare for earlier than expected US interest rate hikes. The Fund has lowered its growth projections as the inflation bogey induces monetary and fiscal tightening.

Inflation paranoia
Inflation hawks denounce price increases, claiming – without evidence – that it impedes growth. Former World Bank chief economist Michael Bruno and William Easterly refuted these popular, but false prejudices.

Using 1962-1992 data for 127 countries, they found, “The ratio of fervent beliefs to tangible evidence seems unusually high”. They also found extremely high inflation – over 40% yearly – mainly due to very exceptional circumstances, e.g., Nicaragua after the Sandinista takeover.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Bruno and Easterly concluded that inflation under 40% did not tend to accelerate or worsen. They concluded, “countries can manage to live with moderate – around 15–30 percent – inflation for long periods”.

Bank economists Ross Levine, Sara Zervos and David Renelt confirmed a negative inflation-growth relationship to be exceptional, and due to a few extreme cases.

Rudiger Dornbusch and former IMF Deputy Managing Director Stanley Fischer came to similar conclusions. They too found moderate inflation of 15–30% did not harm growth, emphasizing “such inflations can be reduced only at a substantial short-term cost to growth”.

Citing IMF research, Harry Johnson also argued that while very high inflation could be harmful, there was no conclusive empirical evidence of the alleged inflation-stagnation causal nexus.

Even monetarist guru Milton Friedman acknowledged, “Historically, all possible combinations have occurred: inflation with and without development, no inflation with and without development”.

Thus, the Fund and the Bank have no sound bases for promoting draconian policies to eliminate inflation above, say 5%, by citing a few exceptional cases of very high, runaway inflation and low growth.

Inflation misdiagnosed
Friedman’s sweeping generalization that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” ignored other factors possibly contributing to inflation.

Without careful consideration of inflation’s causes, the same old policy prescriptions are likely to fail, but not without causing much harm. Prices tend to rise as demand outstrips supply. This can also happen when demand rises faster than supply, or if demand does not decline when supply falls.

The IMF attributes the current inflationary surge to supply chain woes, higher energy prices and local wage pressures. While demand has been boosted by pandemic relief and recovery measures, where existent, supply shortages remain vulnerable to disruptions.

Rising food costs are also pushing up consumer prices. Extreme weather events – droughts, fires, floods, etc. – have affected food output. More commodity price speculation – e.g., via indexed futures – has also raised food prices.

Although wages have risen in some sectors in some countries, economy-wide wage-price spirals are unlikely. Employment suffered during the pandemic while unionization is at historically low levels.

Labour’s collective bargaining powers have declined for decades, especially with technological change, casualization and globalization lowering the labour income share of GDP.

As the profit share of income continues to rise, rising mark-ups and executive remuneration also push up prices. With more market monopoly powers, price gouging has become more widespread with the pandemic.

Understanding what causes particular prices to rise is critical for planning appropriate policy responses. Although devoid of actual diagnoses, inflation hawks have no hesitation prescribing their standard inflation elixir – raising interest rates.

Raising interest rates may help if inflation is mainly due to easier credit fuelling demand. But tighter credit is unlikely to effectively address ‘supply-side’ inflation, which typically requires targeted measures to overcome bottlenecks.

Interest rates harm
Higher interest rates increase borrowing costs, squeezing investment and household spending. This hits businesses, hurting employment, incomes and spending, and can result in a vicious downward spiral.

Higher interest rates also increase governments’ debt burdens, forcing them to cut spending on public services including healthcare and education. Incredibly, elevated interest rates – harming investments, jobs, earnings and social protection – supposedly benefits the public!

The adverse spill-over impacts of rising interest rates are also considerable. Raising rates in major advanced economies weaken EMDE capital inflows, currencies, fiscal positions and financial stability, especially as sovereign debt has ballooned over the last two years.

Indeed, the interest rate is a blunt weapon against inflation. How can raising interest rates curb food or oil price increases? While supply blockages persist, essential consumer prices will rise, even with high interest rates.

Higher interest rates may even aggravate inflation as businesses cut investment spending. Thus, supply bottlenecks, especially of essential goods, are likely to be more severe, pushing up their prices.

Most people are indebted, with the poor often borrowing to smoothen consumption. Thus, the poor are hurt in many ways: losing jobs and earnings, coping with less social protection, and having to borrow at higher interest rates.

Hence, the standard medicine of higher interest rates has massive social costs. Meanwhile, the principal beneficiaries of using higher interest rates to lower inflation are rich net creditors and financial asset owners.

Toxic prescription
Premature reversal of expansionary fiscal policy has been largely due to debt hawks’ successful fear mongering. Thus, debt paranoia nipped in the bud the ‘green shoots’ of robust recovery following the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

In the early 1980s, inflation paranoia led to interest rate spikes, triggering debt crises, stagnation and lost decades in much of the world, especially developing countries. Now, inflation hawks are poised to derail global recovery, stop adequate climate action and otherwise undermine sustainable development.

Policymakers the world over, but especially in developing countries, must reject the inflation hawks’ paranoid screeches. Instead, they must identify and address the sources, causes and nature of the inflation actually faced. And then, take appropriate measures to prevent inflation accelerating to harmful levels.

There are a host of alternative policy measures available to policymakers. They must reject the lie that they have no choice but to raise interest rates – widely recognized as a blunt weapon, with deadly ‘externalities’.

While all available policy options may involve trade-offs, policymakers must seek and achieve socially optimal results. This requires robust, resilient, green and inclusive recoveries – not fighting quixotic windmills of the paranoid mind.

 

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The larger the population size, the greater are the consequences on climate, environment, biodiversity and pollution. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Jan 31 2022 (IPS)

Demographic denialism is increasingly appearing in countries across the globe. Various government officials, politicians, business leaders, media commentators and others are blatantly denying demographic realities and likely future trends and advancing falsehoods.

The apparent reasons behind the denials and falsehoods include politics, profits, power, discrimination, notoriety, hopes, beliefs, contrariness, trepidation and escapism. Some of the more frequently promoted denials are considered below with information on demographic realities and likely future trends.

First, world population is NOT collapsing any time soon. World population has quadrupled over the past 100 years, from 2 to 8 billion and is expected to reach 10 billion around midcentury (Figure 1).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

While the rapid growth of world population in the 20th century has passed, the world’s population is expected to continue growing over the coming decades. World population is now increasing by about 80 million annually and 2 billion additional people are expected by 2056.

Second, the distribution of the world’s population across the planet will NOT remain as it has been throughout much of the past. In 1950, for example, six of the ten largest populations were developed countries. By the close of the 20th century, however, three developed countries were among the ten largest populations and by 2050 one developed country is expected to be among them.

Today some populations, largely in developed regions, are declining mainly due to more deaths than births and will likely be considerably smaller over the coming years. Other populations, mainly in developing regions, are increasing rapidly with substantially more births than deaths.

For example, of the projected 1.8 billion increase in world population by 2050, 1.1 billion, or about 60 percent, is expected to occur in Africa and about a 0.6 billion, or 32 percent, in Asia. In contrast, the populations of Northern America and Europe, are projected to increase by 52 million, a 3 percent increase, and decrease by 37 million, a 2 percent decline, respectively (Figure 2).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Third, international migration is NOT being resolved by high walls, long fences, sea patrols, immigrant visas or calls for people not to come. Immigration is a 21st century crisis with the numbers wishing to migrate far exceeding the levels acceptable to destination countries.

Governments, international agencies and regional organizations have not come up with workable solutions to address immigration. Authorities appear at a loss at what to do about the waves of migrants desiring employment, claiming asylum, seeking refuge, escaping climate change and risking their lives for decent living conditions.

International migration is NOT being resolved by high walls, long fences, sea patrols, immigrant visas or calls for people not to come. Immigration is a 21st century crisis with the numbers wishing to migrate far exceeding the levels acceptable to destination countries

Also, most unauthorized migrants are not being repatriated. Once unauthorized migrants are in the country, governments encounter difficulties sending them back to their home countries. After a lapse of time, an amnesty or a path to citizenship may be offered to those who are established. However, such actions can also serve as an incentive for others to migrate illegally.

Fourth, population size is NOT inconsequential for climate change, environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and pollution. The larger the population size, the greater are the consequences on climate, environment, biodiversity and pollution through increased demands for energy, water, food, housing, land, resources, material goods, machinery, transportation, etc.

Government leaders as well as many of their economic advisors are not prepared to acknowledge that population stabilization and degrowth are essential for addressing climate change. As witnessed at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, limiting population growth was not part of climate change negotiations.

In contrast to most country leaders who favor the continued growth of their respective populations, thousands of scientists worldwide are urging governments to stabilize or reduce the size of their populations along with other critical actions related to energy, short-lived pollutants, nature, food and the economy. Such actions would contribute significantly to efforts to address climate change and environmental degradation.

Fifth, the ageing of human populations is NOT a temporary phenomenon, and most governments are ill-prepared to deal with its wide-ranging consequences. For most countries and much of the world, youthful populations are the past and significantly older populations are the inescapable future.

Population ageing is the result of lower birth rates and increased longevity. The world’s fertility rate is half the level of the 1950s, 5 versus 2.5 births per woman, and life expectancy at birth has increased by more than 50 percent since then, from 47 to 73 years.

Population ageing is increasingly affecting fundamental aspects of human societies, including economics, taxes, employment, housing, pensions, healthcare and disabilities. Rather than hoping for a return to youthful age structures, government officials, business leaders and others need to prepare for population ageing.

Sixth, the vaccinated and unvaccinated for the coronavirus do NOT have similar mortality and morbidity rates. Being vaccinated substantially decreases the chances of death and illness from the virus.

Remaining unvaccinated unequivocally results in higher rates of mortality and morbidity. Unfortunately, those higher levels have contributed to declines in life expectancies at birth and heavily burdened communities where large numbers remain unvaccinated.

In brief, being unvaccinated increases the chances of death and illness from the coronavirus. In contrast, the coronavirus vaccines, like past vaccines for major diseases, such as smallpox, tetanus, hepatitis, rubella, pertussis, pneumonia, measles, and polio, are effective in reducing mortality rates, illness, the virus’ spread and societal costs.

Seventh, women do NOT want to remain in the home. During the 20th century, significant social, economic, and political progress was achieved in women’s equality. That progress has been greatly facilitated by improvements in women’s health, education, employment, urbanization, delayed marriage and childbearing, and declines in family size.

The traditional stay-at-home mom is increasingly being replaced by the working mom. Growing numbers of women are seeking higher education, careers, economic independence and personal social identity.

Also, many women do not want to return to matrimonial inequalities where husbands were household heads, made major decisions and controlled finances and property. However, some conservative groups are resisting attempts to achieve gender equality and seek to maintain traditional roles and lifestyles. Simply stated, those groups want women to remain in the home and love, honor and obey their husbands.

Eighth, couples do NOT want to have many children. Despite public hissy fits, policies and incentives by officials, business leaders and others aimed at raising fertility, birth rates are not likely to return to the comparatively high levels of the past.

In country after country, most couples who decide to have children are having one or two. As fewer women are giving birth to four or more children, fertility rates have fallen in every major region. Except for sub-Saharan Africa, the fertility rates of most countries will likely be below replacement in the coming decades (Figure 3).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Ninth, most nations are NOT against induced abortion. Countries vary in their policies concerning abortions depending on the specific grounds. Abortions are permitted in 98 percent of countries to save the life of the woman, 72 percent for a woman’s physical health, 60 percent for rape, incest or fetal impairment, and 34 percent at the woman’s request (Figure 4).

 

Source: United Nations.

 

Over the past five decades, an unmistakable trend has taken place in the liberalization of abortion laws. The trend has coincided with a decline in abortion rates worldwide.

Making abortions illegal, however, does not prevent abortions from occurring. Even when abortions are severely restricted, illegal abortions take place in relatively large numbers. Approximately 8 percent of maternal deaths globally are the result of complications from unsafe abortions, with nearly all taking placing in developing countries.

Tenth, the traditional family is NOT the overwhelming societal norm worldwide. A working father, stay-at-home mom, several children, and a marriage “until death do us part” are increasingly characteristics of families in the past.

In many countries being married has become less of a necessity for financial survival, social interaction and personal fulfillment. More people are cohabiting, increasing proportions of couples are having births outside marriage, and many governments help single-parent families. In addition, same-sex marriages are now performed and recognized in 31 countries.

In conclusion, it is worrisome that demographic denialism is spreading in countries worldwide. Some are not only denying demographic realities but also advancing falsehoods. Presenting demographic realities and likely future trends openly, accurately and objectively can contribute to debunking demographic denialism.

* 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.”

Trafficking survivor turned activist, and consultant Shamere McKenzie trains authorities and mentors survivors. The use of technology and awareness of how to spot and avoid traps used by human traffickers. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

By Zadie Neufville
Kingston, Jan 31 2022 (IPS)

A single line at the end of the United States State Department 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report made headlines in Jamaica and had many perturbed. “Some police allegedly facilitated or participated in sex trafficking,” it read.

While the report cited no incidents, investigations, or police officers’ convictions for sex trafficking, Jamaicans on social media called for investigations. People cited the increasing levels of sexual abuse reported during the COVID-19 pandemic as justification.

US authorities have categorised Jamaica as “a source, transit, and destination country for adults and children trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labour”.

Manager of the Trafficking in Persons (TiP) Secretariat Chenee Russell Robinson told journalists recently that more than 110 victims of sex trafficking were rescued in the last ten years. At an average of ten per year, she believes the number is far too high “because this number represents only the tip of the iceberg”.

Some matters are before the court, and investigations into other activities were ongoing, noting that while girls make up the majority of sex trafficking victims, there are a growing number of boys, too, she said.

Between 2015 and 2019, the number of teens reported missing on the island averaged approximately 1,400 a year, data from the Child Protection and Family Services Agency shows. With numbers increasing annually and the figures for those returning home or recovered declining, the spectre of a rising sex trafficking trade is becoming one of the biggest worries for local authorities.

Child protection activists believe that most missing children who do not return home are victims of sex trafficking. Here, it is not uncommon for families, including mothers, to traffic their girl children in exchange for monetary or material payment, police say. This form of child sex trafficking may be more widespread in some communities.

Experts say that children who are sent by their parents to live with their more affluent relatives in urban areas regularly become victims. And according to the State Department report: “Sex trafficking of Jamaican women and children, including boys, occurs on streets and in nightclubs, bars, massage parlours, hotels and private homes, and resort towns”.

So, while the report commends Jamaica for its strides and multi-agency approach to combatting human trafficking, it scolds the government for reduced spending, a fall-off in apprehension and training. It also criticised the absence of “long-term services to support victims’ reintegration, prevent re-exploitation, or sustain protection throughout lengthy court cases”.

The report noted that Jamaica “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so.” These efforts included a trafficking conviction with significant prison terms and restitution paid to the victim, a national referral mechanism that aims to standardise procedures for victim identification, referral to cross-government entities services and an annual report.

Significantly, authorities hold up several improvements The Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Suppression and Punishment) Act, first enacted in 2007. Amendments speed up the prosecution of cases by introducing bench trials and increasing the penalties.

On July 9, 2013, the government amended the Act to increase incarceration periods to 20 years. The 2021 amendments removed the alternate and often controversial fine in place of imprisonment.

“Now a person convicted of trafficking can only be imprisoned or imprisoned and fined, so you cannot be fined only,” Russell explained.

Trafficking survivor turned activist, and consultant Shamere McKenzie told IPS in an interview that community awareness, involvement, and the use of technology to enhance the safety of possible victims could be the tools that tip Jamaica into Tier 1.

“There’s a lot we can do as a community to help our young people shape their morals and values and build their sense of awareness,” she said, noting that traffickers can recognise people with low self-esteem.

Since 2016 authorities have funded the development of two apps – Stay Alert and Travel Plan – to make it safer for especially young girls and women who use public transport. McKenzie believes communities and parents must learn to use technologies to keep their children safe.

“We should be teaching people how to protect themselves, how to memorise numbers, develop code words, develop safety methods and use text messages to protect themselves,” said McKenzie, who mentors survivors and educates others on how to spot and avoid the traps.

A former student-athlete, she was lured by someone she thought was a caring friend into 18-months of living hell. Sidelined by a serious hamstring injury, the young Jamaican’s athletics scholarship to a top United States university was suspended. She was forced to work for the extra money she needed for school fees and rent when she accepted a friend’s help.

The short-term offer of a rent-free basement apartment and ‘extra work’ at the trafficker’s nightclub turned into forced sex work after being beaten into submission by a man she believed to be her friend.

While this episode took place in the US, it is not uncommon for Jamaicans and foreigners to be lured young women into prostitution by offering them jobs or simply ’a better life’.

In 2016, a court sentenced Rohan Ebanks to 40 years and imprisoned and fined his common-law wife Voneisha Reeves after trafficking a 14-year-old Haitian girl. The judge convicted Ebanks for rape, trafficking, and facilitating trafficking in person while his co-accused had pleaded guilty to facilitating trafficking.

The fisherman had met the girl’s father on one of his many trips to Haiti and had convinced him to send her to Jamaica for a better life. Three years after the ordeal began, police rescued the teen from Ebanks and Reeve’s home, where she had been looking after the couple’s children.

As the pandemic progresses, Robinson and other members of the Traffic in Persons (TiP) task force warn parents that traffickers have gone online, making it more difficult to track them. They’ve also warned teens and their parents that families are also trafficking their relatives.

The 110 rescued by the TiP task force are among the .04 per cent of the estimated human trafficking survivors worldwide identified. The number is an indicator that most go undetected.

Experts conclude that assessing the scope of human trafficking is difficult because many cases go undetected. However, estimates are between 20 million and 40 million people n modern slavery today earn the perpetrators roughly 150 billion US dollars annually. Some 99 billion US dollars comes from commercial sexual exploitation.

“We must begin to teach our youth to use the technology we have to protect themselves,” McKenzie said.

This article is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.
The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN )  is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7, which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.
The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such as exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking”.

 

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By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Jan 31 2022 (IPS)

Regardless of a success or failure to reach a new agreement with Iran, Israel must not attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and must work closely with the US to develop a joint strategy to curb Iran’s ambition to acquire nuclear weapons and potentially end the conflict with Iran on a more permanent basis

Righting the Wrong

Israel’s repeated threats to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities irrespective of any outcome in the negotiations in Vienna between the P5+1 (France, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, the US, and Germany) and Iran is a recipe for disaster.

Prime Minister Bennett’s argument that Israel will not abide by any agreement, not only because Israel is not a party in the negotiations but because Israel alone will determine what’s best to safeguard its national security, is a fallacy.

Given the complexity and the far-reaching implications of a potential Israeli attack, the only proper path to address Iran’s nuclear program is by fully coordinating and developing a joint strategy with the US to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambition to acquire nuclear weapons while seeking an end to the conflict.

It is critical that the Bennett-Lapid government not repeat Netanyahu’s disastrous mistake of opposing the JCPOA, which subsequently Netanyahu persuaded Trump to withdraw from altogether. As a result of the US’ withdrawal from the deal, Iran has only advanced its nuclear weapons program—enriching a significant amount of uranium to 60 percent, which is only a short leap to enriching it to weapons-grade 90 percent, and in enough quantity to produce one nuclear weapon in short order.

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said recently, “The reason we’re in the situation we’re in right now is because the previous administration pulled out of the Iran deal and we are paying the wages of that catastrophic mistake.”

Bennett’s repeated threats to attack Iran could lead to miscalculation and dire unintended consequences that Israel cannot possibly cope with on its own. Israel must work hand-in-hand with the US to address Iran’s nuclear program now and in the future, and must not resort to a military option without the full support of the US.

The Bennett government must carefully consider the ominous outcome such an attack could precipitate, from which Israel as well as the entire region will suffer unimaginably.

The ominous repercussions of an Israeli attack

Israel’s repeated threats are unwise and do nothing but provide Iran ample time to prepare for any contingency. Mossad director David Barnea recently stated that “Iran will not have nuclear weapons—not in the coming years, not ever. This is my personal commitment: This is the Mossad’s commitment.”

Knowing the Iranian mindset, such a statement is counterproductive and does nothing but stiffen Iran’s position. Even if Israel is planning such an attack, advertising it repeatedly in advance drastically undermines its effectiveness.

Iran is already fortifying its air defenses, especially around its nuclear facilities, and putting in place offensive capabilities that can exact a heavy price from Israel should such an attack materialize. Indeed, Israel can inflict a devastating blow on Iran’s nuclear facilities, but it cannot destroy all of them nor the Iranian knowhow. Such an attack, however overwhelming, would only set back Iran’s nuclear program for two to three years.

It is a given that an Israeli attack would force Tehran to retaliate directly against Israel by firing ballistic missiles that can reach major Israeli cities, potentially causing widespread destruction and thousands of casualties. Iran will also ensure that Hezbollah, which is in possession of 150,000 rockets, will enter the fray and fire thousands of rockets that can reach every corner of the country.

Regardless of how effective Israel’s air defense may be, its Iron Dome and Arrow interceptors cannot possibly intercept tens of thousands of short, medium, and long-range rockets. Moreover, Hamas too may well join the fight, in addition to a third front with Syria, from where Iranian proxies will attack Israel. Israel’s economy will be shattered, and past conflagrations with Hamas alone attest to this fact.

Many Israeli military experts believe that Israel does not have the aerial capability to attack Iran more than once, nor can it destroy all of Iran’s nuclear facilities, as they are scattered around the country and several are built a hundred or more feet underground. It will require several days and multiple attacks, which Israel does not have the capability to conduct.

Although all the Arab Gulf states would like to see Iran’s nuclear facilities eliminated, they want to avoid a war because even a limited Israeli attack could engulf the entire region and beyond. In many conversations I had with officials from the Gulf, nearly all of them prefer containment of Iran’s nuclear program and deterrence spearheaded by the US to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and to ensure that Iran will be unable to threaten or intimidate its neighbors.

Finally, whereas Israeli attacks on Iraq’s and Syria’s nuclear facilities (in 1981 and 2007, respectively) did not spread radioactive material into the atmosphere because no uranium was present, Iran has a stockpile of uranium purified to various degrees. Thus, an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would have disastrous environmental consequences.

From the Iranian perspective, acquiring nuclear weapons would deter any aggressor, including the US, from attacking it. Iran wants to stand on equal footing with Sunni Pakistan to its east and Jewish Israel to its west, both of whom are nuclear powers.

This partly explains why Iran does not bend easily and why it is assuming such a hard position at the negotiations in Vienna, even though it wants badly to have the sanctions lifted to salvage its ailing economy.

The need for a full US-Israeli collaboration

Attacking Iran without the US’ acquiescence, if not outright support, will seriously undermine Israel-US relations which Jerusalem cannot afford. Collaboration and coordination between the two countries is and will remain central in dealing effectively with Iran.

This is particularly important because the Iranian clergy wants to avoid any military confrontation with the US, fearing a disastrous outcome. Indeed, a US military assault on Iran could precipitate regime change, which the Iranian leadership fears the most and wants to prevent at any cost.

For this reason, to deter Iran, it is critical for the Bennett-Lapid government to work closely with the Biden administration and support any new agreement that may be reached between Iran and the P5+1. The Biden administration is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and Israel must trust the US to do whatever necessary to that end, especially because Israel cannot and must not act alone.

The failure or the success to reach a new agreement

Should the P5+1 fail to reach a new agreement, the US and Israel must develop a joint strategy to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons based on containment and deterrence. This includes the imposition of additional crippling sanctions, cyber-attacks on vital Iranian installations, and sabotaging its nuclear facilities, among other disabling measures.

In addition, the US should make it clear that all options are on the table, including military force, which could pose a significant risk of regime change, which terrifies Iran. In addition, the US should seriously consider a strategic game-changer move by providing a nuclear umbrella to cover Israel and the Gulf states.

Should a new agreement be reached, which seems increasingly likely, it will be expected to include rolling back the number of operational centrifuges and reducing the quantity and the enrichment quality of uranium, while extending the sunset clauses beyond the original dates to prevent Iran from resuming its nuclear weapons program within a few years. In addition, a new deal will obviously restore the most stringent and infallible monitoring system to thwart Iran from cheating.

Beyond these measures, however, the US must strive to end the conflict with Iran on a more permanent basis. The Biden administration ought to initiate back-channel talks to address Iran’s nefarious regional activity, its arming and financially aiding of extremist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, its ballistic missile program, and its hegemonic ambitions.

In addition, due to Israel’s profound and legitimate concerns about its national security, the Biden administration must make it unequivocally clear to Iran that it must end its repeated existential threats against Israel. Iran’s clergy must understand that such threats could precipitate a disastrous conflagration—intentional or unintentional—that could engulf the entire region from which Iran will suffer greatly.

In return, if Iran embraces such a moderate path, the US should promise publicly that it will not seek now or at any time in the future regime change, which for the clergy is a do-or-die proposition. Moreover, the US would embark on a gradual normalization of relations on all fronts.

To be sure, when there is a breakdown in any conflict there is often an opportunity for a breakthrough. Iran does not want to remain a pariah state and always be on the defensive, and the US and Israel will be much better off if Iran joins the community of nations as a constructive player on the international stage.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU). He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies for over 20 years.
alon@alonben-meir.com
www.alonben-meir.com

 

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WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, Yohei Sasakawa, would like to create a society where there is social inclusion. It is this philosophy that motivates his life-long campaign to end discrimination against people affected by leprosy. Credit: Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative

By Cecilia Russell
Johannesburg, Jan 30 2022 (IPS)

For the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, Yohei Sasakawa, ensuring affected peoples’ human rights is fundamental to the campaign to eradicate the disease.

In an exclusive interview with IPS on the eve of World Leprosy Day, he recalled his first encounter with people affected by leprosy, saying they were “without dreams or hopes and there was no light in their eyes.”

Sasakawa’s father, Ryoichi, hugged the patients in the newly opened hospital in Korea. He then realized that returning hope to people affected by leprosy could be his life’s work.

This work has continued for more than 40 years, but it is not over yet.

“People who should be part of society remain isolated in colonies facing hardships,” Sasakawa, who is also the chairman of the Nippon Foundation, says.

“Isn’t it strange that someone cured of a disease can’t take their place in society? I belatedly realized that if the human rights aspect wasn’t addressed, then elimination of leprosy in a true sense would not be possible,” explaining the rationale for approaching the United Nations in 2003.

As a result, a resolution on the elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members was unanimously adopted by 192 countries voting in the UN General Assembly.

While Covid-19 has temporarily ended his travels, his work is far from complete. Once the pandemic is over, Sasakawa intends to continue his travels worldwide to bring onboard top officials and politicians – presidents and prime ministers – while spreading hope to affected people.

In the interim, the global ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative continues. The initiative strategically links the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, Sasakawa Health Foundation, and the Nippon Foundation towards achieving a leprosy-free world.

Sasakawa says his message is clear:  1) Leprosy is curable. 2) Medication is free. 3) Discrimination has no place.

“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.”

Here are excerpts from the interview:

Yohei Sasakawa, Chairman of The Nippon Foundation, has served as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination since 2001. He plays a leading role in the Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative, which has organized the “Don’t Forget Leprosy” campaign.

Cecilia Russell: In your message to the world for World Leprosy Day, you expressed concern that the decrease in the number of cases detected was because the Covid-19 pandemic meant that less testing was done. How can leprosy-affected people get back on track?

Yohei Sasakawa: Many issues have been sidelined because of the Covid-19 pandemic, among them the challenges posed by leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease. According to the Global Leprosy Update for 2020, there was a 37% year-on-year decrease in new cases due to disruptions to case-finding activities. There are concerns that hidden cases will lead to increased transmission and result in more cases with disabilities. On the other hand, while figures vary from country to country, the overall treatment completion rate remains at the same level as the previous year, indicating that stakeholders are working hard to maintain services, even in the midst of the global pandemic.

Even in normal times, health ministries have jurisdiction over all kinds of diseases. Compared to diseases such as TB, AIDS, or malaria, however, there are few cases of leprosy, so budgets and personnel are limited. Patients, meanwhile, might not visit a hospital because the long history of stigma attached to the disease makes it difficult, or because in its early stages, symptoms are painless. That’s why I feel it is necessary to meet with those at the top of the country and have them issue a call to eliminate leprosy. Once the COVID situation eases, I want to visit countries and encourage presidents and prime ministers to recognize the importance of this issue and seek their cooperation in helping activities against the disease to resume.

At the same time, I believe that the participation of people who have experienced the disease is also very important. There are so many things that people can do, such as active case-finding, mental support for people undergoing treatment, and awareness-raising. In 2011, the WHO issued guidelines on strengthening the participation of persons affected by leprosy in leprosy services in such areas as a way to improve the quality of leprosy services.

CR: You have chosen as a life’s work to raise awareness of both the disease and the impact of the stigma of leprosy. This is an age-old stigma and was considered a sign of impurity in Christian biblical times. How has an awareness of leprosy as a human rights issue changed perceptions about the disease? What more needs to be done?

YS: I started working on leprosy in the 1970s and have been the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination since 2001. People who should be part of society remain isolated in colonies facing hardships. The more you look into it, the more you see the restrictions they live under, including legal restrictions in some cases. Isn’t it strange that someone cured of a disease can’t take their place in society? I belatedly realized that if the human rights aspect wasn’t addressed, then elimination of leprosy in a true sense would not be possible. That’s when I first approached the United Nations about this in 2003.

In 2007, the Japanese government appointed me as its Goodwill Ambassador for the Human Rights of Persons Affected by Leprosy. Collaboration with the Japanese government led in December 2010 to a UN General Assembly resolution on the elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members to call on states to full consideration of Principles and Guidelines. The resolution was adopted unanimously by 192 countries.

Discrimination toward persons affected by leprosy and their families should never be tolerated. That’s why the Principles and Guidelines were approved.

Although they are not binding, given the reality that even treaties ratified by states, such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, are difficult to implement, we need to think of them as a tool to be used by stakeholders, including persons affected by leprosy, when advocating with governments to fix the problems.

When people are still being discriminated against even after they have been cured, then society has a disease. If we can cure society of this disease—discrimination—it would be truly epoch-making.

CR: Could you please tell our readers about your father and his role in influencing you to make this mission a life’s work?

YS: My father Ryoichi also served as a member of Parliament. He was a man who was especially compassionate toward the vulnerable and dedicated his life to them. Concerning leprosy, in particular, there was an incident where a young lady living in the neighborhood suddenly disappeared, and he later found out she had been segregated due to leprosy. He had a very strong sense of justice and took exception to the fact that something so unreasonable was permitted on the basis of a disease.

In 1962, my father established the Japan Shipbuilding Industry Foundation, the forerunner of The Nippon Foundation, and began social contribution activities. In 1967, he started work in earnest on realizing his long-held dream of eradicating leprosy with the construction of some new facilities for a leprosy center in Agra, India. With the establishment of the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation (now Sasakawa Health Foundation) in 1974, efforts to tackle the disease stepped up.

My father built leprosy hospitals, mainly in Southeast Asia. I was young and often accompanied him, but I didn’t go inside the hospitals. In the mid-1970s, he responded to a request to build a leprosy hospital in Korea. I went with him to the opening ceremony and entered a leprosy hospital for the first time. Everyone sat on the bed facing us, but they were completely expressionless. Their faces were ashen-colored; they were without dreams or hopes, and there was no light in their eyes.

I was really surprised to see my father go to every bed, hug each person, and encourage them in a very natural way, unconcerned by the pus oozing from their bandages. Discovering a world that I had not encountered before and seeing how naturally my father behaved, I wondered if this would be my life’s work. Since then, I have been active in leprosy.

CR: In some countries, people affected by leprosy are still confined to leprosy colonies. How do you see your role as WHO Goodwill ambassador and the Don’t Forget Leprosy campaign changing these perceptions around a treatable disease? What is needed to change the perception about leprosy and remove the stigma?

YS: Thinking strategically about how to make people aware of the importance of this problem and how to solve it is very important. You have to convince heads of state in each country. If a budget is allocated as a result of meeting with and explaining the situation to the head of state, if the president orders it—then the person in charge at the ministry of health or the leprosy program manager will be greatly encouraged in their work.

On the other hand, it is also very important to reach the many people without knowledge of leprosy and allay their fears explain that it’s not hereditary, it’s not divine punishment, it’s not highly contagious. Wherever I go, I always stress: 1) Leprosy is curable; 2) Medication is free; 3) Discrimination has no place. For that, the help of the media is necessary, so one of my very important tasks is to have a proper media strategy.

Also, as we now live in an era where every individual can publicize leprosy issues via social media, I think it is important that everyone concerned with these issues actively raises them, not as issues affecting someone else, but as personal issues.

CR: You have been involved in numerous other humanitarian endeavors, apart from your 40-year-old association with leprosy and your role as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination. These include the Change for Blue campaign, and you acted as a special envoy of the Japanese government to try to bring peace to Myanmar. Do you have a philosophy about humanitarian work that guides you?

YS: One of my philosophies in life is the ‘on-site principle’: problems and their solutions are found in the field. Another is that social actions require that you keep your enthusiasm bubbling over, regardless of your age, and have the mental fortitude to withstand any difficulties. In addition, you have to keep going until you achieve results. I’ve acted on the basis of these three ideas.

CR: Is there anything else you would like to add?

YS: There are more than 1 billion people in the world living with disabilities, including persons affected by leprosy. We need to create an inclusive society where everyone can have an education, find work and get married if they want to. People have the passion and the motivation; often, all they lack is opportunity.

I would like to create a society where everyone feels fully engaged, able to express their opinions, and appreciated. The coming era must be one of diversity, and for that, we need social inclusion. There is such ability and potential in the world, and to have everyone participate in society will create a truly wonderful future.

That’s why it’s important for persons affected by leprosy to have confidence and speak out. To support them, Sasakawa Health Foundation and The Nippon Foundation are helping them to build up their organizational capacity. I’d like to see a society in which everyone is active, able to express their opinions to the authorities with confidence, and their contribution is valued.

 

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Building the knowledge, self-confidence, voice, and mobility of women can have a positive impact on women’s participation in politics | Credit: Flickr

By Shevika M
Jan 28 2022 (IPS)

For most young girls, a career in politics is not even on the radar. For the few that are interested, building a career in politics in India seems unachievable.

One such example is of a 15-year-old student from Chennai who said she wanted to be the prime minister of New Zealand when she grows up. It’s unfortunate to imagine that there may be others like her who aspire to be the prime minister of another country rather than get involved in politics in their own country.

As a country, we have made significant progress. Both men and women in India now vote in equal numbers, but we have a long way to go when it comes to women’s political participation beyond voting

India has completed 73 years of being a republic, but we are still very far from reaching equal representation and making politics an aspirational career choice for young girls. We currently have 78 (out of 543) women parliamentarians.

At 14.3 percent, this is the highest representation of women we have seen since 1947. This figure is much lower at the state-level—we have an average of nine percent of women in our state assemblies. Six Indian states have no female ministers.

As a country, we have made significant progress. Both men and women in India now vote in equal numbers, but we have a long way to go when it comes to women’s political participation beyond voting. This includes campaigning for candidates, running for office, and holding political office.

When we dig a little deeper, we find that less than 10 percent of the candidates in the 2019 elections were women. At the state level, we see similar data, where between 1980 and 2007, women comprised 5.5 percent of state legislators but only 4.4 percent of the candidates were women.

A study from Uttar Pradesh in 2019 suggests that women lag behind in several determinants of political participation, such as knowledge of how political institutions work and confidence in their own leadership abilities.

Building the knowledge, self-confidence, voice, and mobility of women can have a positive impact on women’s participation in politics. This needs to happen early for young girls so that they can build the ability to think critically and play a role in shaping India’s future.

While setting up Kuviraa, an initiative that works to build political engagement and leadership among young girls, we found that most schools (apart from a few progressive, alternative ones) and parents shy away from speaking to students about politics given how polarised our society has become. This unfortunately leaves young people to get most of their information on politics from unverified sources and social media, which has built cynicism among our youth.

In October 2021, we conducted a workshop with a group of 13 year olds and asked them to draw their perception of India’s politicians. We made two observations:

1. None of the participants drew women political leaders. When asked why, they said it was because they did not know any female politicians.
2. All the participants described politicians as ‘selfish’ or ‘corrupt’ and did not have anything positive to say about our elected representatives.

To further understand how young people, especially young girls, across India perceive politics, we collected data from over 400 children and young adults—between the ages of 11 and 24—across 24 Indian states. We found similar trends with respondents using ‘corrupt’, ‘confusing / complicated’ and ‘dirty’ as the top adjectives to describe India’s politics.

 

There is a difference in political aspirations between girls and boys

We also found that even though both male and female respondents stated in equal numbers that they would vote (when they would be eligible), there was a significant difference when it came to their political aspirations. Thirty-two percent of male respondents said they would be interested in getting involved in politics in the future, compared to only 19.7 percent of female respondents.

Female respondents also reported being less familiar with political processes and their local elected representatives compared to their male counterparts. Additionally, they were less likely to discuss politics with their friends and family.

Interestingly, although the overall faith in our current political leaders was low among young people, boys were nearly twice as likely as girls to think our current politicians are effective (16.4 percent vs 8.9 percent).

Our study further showed that at a younger age (11–17 years), girls are more interested in politics than boys, but when they are eligible to vote, boys’ interest overtakes that of girls (despite the interest of both groups growing with age).

Similar trends are seen in a recent US-based study published in the American Political Science Review which finds that not only do children see politics as a male-dominated space, but also that with age, girls increasingly see political leadership as a ‘man’s world’. The research also states that as a result of this, girls express lower levels of interest and ambition in politics than boys.

 

We need to make politics accessible for young girls

The example of the young girl who aspires to be the prime minister of New Zealand helped us realise the importance of portraying relatable role models for Indian girls. The global media has done a great job praising PM Jacinda Ardern, especially after her initial response to the pandemic.

This contributed to her becoming a role model for girls across the world. Further, research from the US shows that over time, the more that women politicians are covered in the national news, the more likely it is for adolescent girls to indicate their intention to be politically active.

Our survey also found that young people who were more exposed to politics—by participating in democratic processes in school or college and those who knew politicians personally—were more likely to express interest in politics than respondents who weren’t.

To make politics an aspirational career choice we need to break down narratives about young girls and political power. In the West, we see several examples of civil society organisations such as Teach a Girl to Lead and IGNITE National that prepare the next generation of women voters who are interested in becoming political leaders by introducing them to their local political representatives and hosting dialogues around politics.

Kuviraa aims to fill this gap in India by working with schools and nonprofits to deconstruct politics for young girls, building positive narratives for politics by highlighting women politicians as role models, and creating opportunities for them to engage with democratic processes that will ignite political ambition.

As we prepare for five state elections in 2022 and a general election in 2024, educators, civil society, and philanthropy must come together to create an enabling environment for young girls to be engaged in political processes as we cannot have a truly functional democracy without equal representation.

Shevika M is the founder of Kuviraa, a non-partisan initiative that aims to build political engagement and leadership in girls across India This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

Friends Ajay and Durgesh are returned to their families with the help of ActionAid India and the All India Bonded Labour Liberation Front. The boys were tricked into bonded labour by a trusted fellow villager. Credit: ActionAid

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, India, Jan 28 2022 (IPS)

Friends Ajay and Durgesh were lured from the same village in the remote and poverty-stricken countryside of eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP) in January 2021.

Friends Ajay and Durgesh were lured from the same village in the remote and poverty-stricken countryside of eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP) in January 2021.

The boys, aged 16, were whisked away from their homes, transported, and sold as bonded labour to a garment factory in Rajkot in the western state of Gujarat. Rajkot is some 2000 km from Ajay and Durgesh’s village in UP.

Along with two other boys from the same village, Sanjay (15) and Pavan (14), Ajay and Durgesh were befriended by a man, only identified as Gulab, and promised an eight-hour a day job, with a salary of Rs 7500 (about US 100 dollars) per month at a garment factory. The boys accepted the offer immediately because Gulab was from the same village and had known them since childhood.

“At the factory, the boys were thrown in with dozens of other children who were never paid. They were woken at 7 am and forced to work till 11 pm. The factory owner threatened to kill them if they stepped out of the factory,” Dalsinghar told IPS speaking from Lucknow. “The children were abused and kicked when the supervisor felt that they were not working fast enough. None of the children was given enough to eat.”

Dalsinghar, who goes by his surname, is a trade union leader and head of the UP office of the All India Bonded Labour Liberation Front. With ActionAid India, Dalsinghar helped to rescue the four boys in August 2021. The boys are now finishing their studies in their village.

These boys are lucky to have escaped the clutches of traffickers. Ajay found a mobile phone one day and quickly called his family. He told them the exact location of the factory in faraway Gujarat.

The family got in touch with Raju, a volunteer with ActionAid India, who lived near their village. With the help of Dalsinghar, Raju and the district administrations of Kushinagar in UP and Rajkot in Gujarat, the boys were rescued, and their eight-month ordeal at the hands of the garment factory owner ended.

There are numerous incidents of victims being deceived by people they know.

Families celebrate the return of four boys trafficked into bonded labour in a factory far from home. Credit: ActionAid, India

Take Gulab as an example. Gulab came from the same village as the four teenagers he trapped and sold to a garment factory owner.

In the hope of avoiding deprivation and starvation in difficult economic times, the teenagers took up Gulab’s offer. They trusted him and fell for his lies because it did not occur to them that he would betray them.

ActionAid quotes other instances when a loved one has tricked victims. When that happens, the victim often does not fight back.

Sita was sold to traffickers by her alcoholic father in a West Bengal village as a bride. She was taken from place to place until she found shelter in an ashram in a city in UP. The police were informed, and she returned to her village in West Bengal.

Frequently missing children and adults cases include abduction and trafficking. Most of the time, missing people are not reported to the police, and if reported, the reports are not registered.

Children from the poorest of low-income families are most vulnerable. They are the main target of traffickers as poor and illiterate families are most likely not to approach authorities for help. There are instances of children and adults leaving home searching for glamour and fortune in big cities like Mumbai. Once there, touts find them and force them to beg or work as sex slaves without remuneration or concern for their health.

ActionAid India continues to work in villages providing support to survivors of trafficking and violence with medical, psycho-social and legal support.

The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that times are extremely challenging for communities. Schools closures and work opportunities in most villages have shrunk, which means that social activists like Dalsinghar need to be more vigilant today than ever before.

Nobel Peace Prize winners Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai have rescued thousands of children from the worst form of child labour and trafficking.

Satyarthi has led a Bharat Yatra, a nationwide march in India to demand legislation against child rape, child sexual abuse and trafficking.

The Kailash Satyarthi Children Foundation conducted a study in 2020 that concluded there was a high likelihood of an increase in human trafficking in the post-lockdown period for labour.

About 89 per cent of NGOs surveyed said that trafficking of both adults and children for labour would be one of the biggest threats in the post-lockdown period as household incomes of the most vulnerable deplete.

There is concern that the desperate and vulnerable populations of unorganised workers, who are in no position to negotiate wages or their rights, will be a massive pool for cheap labour. Many of these labourers could be children, forced out of school and forced to earn a living.

The fear is that thousands of children will likely be trafficked across the country to work in manufacturing units where they will be paid meagre to no wages and will most likely face extreme physical, mental and sexual violence.

Thousands of children like Ajay, Durgesh, Sanjay and Pavan are easy targets for an organised crime network of human trafficking. It is feared that many more children will be enslaved during the pandemic by those looking for cheap labour when many economic activities have come to a standstill.

“It is tragic when people betray the trust of children,” concludes Dalsinghar.

This article is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.
The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) http://gsngoal8.com/ is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7, which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.
The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such as exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking”.

 

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Yohei Sasakawa, Chairman of The Nippon Foundation, has served as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination since 2001. He is part of Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative, which has organized the “Don’t forget leprosy” campaign.

By External Source
Jan 28 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative is collaborating with 32 organizations from 13 countries to promote the message “Don’t forget leprosy” in the run-up to World Leprosy Day on January 30. The international campaign includes awareness-raising events and outreach to governments and is being publicized via newspapers, television, radio, and social media.

Based in Tokyo, Japan, Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative launched the “Don’t forget leprosy” campaign in August 2021 to ensure efforts against leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, are not sidelined amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Taking part are NGOs, organizations of persons affected by leprosy, research institutes, and government agencies from Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Portugal, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and the United Kingdom.

The Initiative’s Yohei Sasakawa, who serves as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, said: “The impact of the coronavirus pandemic has been particularly hard on persons affected by leprosy and their families who were in a vulnerable situation to begin with. Lockdowns and other measures to prevent the spread of the virus have caused many problems at the field level, making access to medical services difficult, causing loss of livelihoods, and exacerbating the difficulties that persons affected by leprosy already encounter due to stigma and discrimination. They must not be forgotten.”

From India, which accounts for around 60% of all new cases of leprosy diagnosed globally each year, 13 8 organizations are participating. Activities include intensive awareness-raising events aimed at school children and university students to provide young people with correct knowledge about leprosy and help prevent discrimination from taking root.

In Brazil, the country with the second-highest number of annual new cases and which has yet to eliminate leprosy as a public health problem (with elimination defined as a prevalence rate of less than 1 case per 10,000 population), the campaign is being carried out by more than 2,000 persons affected by leprosy and volunteers from MORHAN (the Movement for the Reintegration of Persons Affected by Hansen’s Disease). Activities include a focus on healthcare professionals and involve training local public health nurses, strengthening the functions of leprosy referral centers and case-finding.

Activities for World Leprosy Day by Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative
The Initiative has launched a special website (https://gasasakawa.org/) for the Global Appeal to End Stigma and Discrimination against Persons Affected by Leprosy. Inaugurated by Sasakawa in 2006 and released in conjunction with World Leprosy Day, the annual Global Appeal underlines the messages that leprosy is curable, treatment is available free of charge throughout the world, and that social discrimination has no place.

As side events of this year’s Global Appeal, the Initiative is hosting two webinars on raising awareness of leprosy (“The role of health professionals at the grassroots level” and “The role of young people: sharing discussions from three regions”) as well as a photo contest on social media. A selection of the best photos, which depict the daily lives of persons affected by leprosy and relief activities, will be displayed on the Global Appeal website.

In addition, Sasakawa has posted a message for World Leprosy Day on the WHO website.

About Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative
The Initiative is a strategic alliance between WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination Yohei Sasakawa, The Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation for achieving a world without leprosy and problems related to the disease. Since 1975, The Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation have supported the national leprosy programs of endemic countries through the WHO, with support totaling some US$200 million to date. In cooperation with the Japanese government and other partners, the foundations have played an important role in advocating with the United Nations, helping to secure a 2010 UN General Assembly resolution on the elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members and the appointment of a UN Special Rapporteur on leprosy by the UN Human Rights Council in 2017.

See the Initiative’s home page for further details.

About leprosy
Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, is an infectious disease that mainly affects the skin and peripheral nerves. Around 200,000 cases are newly reported each year. Leprosy is curable with multidrug therapy, but left untreated can result in permanent disability. An estimated 3 to 4 million people in the world today are thought to be living with some form of disability as a result of leprosy. Although completely curable, many myths and misunderstandings surround the disease. In various parts of the world, patients, those who have been treated and cured, and even their family members continue to be stigmatized. The discrimination they face limits their opportunities for education, employment, and full participation in society.

Chart1: List of participating organizations

View of downtown Nur-Sultan, the capital of Kazakhstan. Credit: World Bank/Shynar Jetpissova
Amid alarming reports of deadly violence in Kazakhstan, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Central Asia called for restraint and dialogue. 6 January 2022

By Anit Mukherjee and Alan Gelb
WASHINGTON DC, Jan 28 2022 (IPS)

Consider the situation. Faced with growing fiscal stress, the government of an energy exporting country decides to cut generous subsidies, doubling the fuel price overnight.

Protestors are out on the streets, clashing violently with security forces called in to maintain law and order. They vent their frustration not only with rising fuel prices but also with living costs, lack of social services, crumbling infrastructure, corruption and political repression.

Faced with the prospect of a popular uprising, the government backtracks on reforms and re-institutes subsidies, postponing the hard decisions for a later date.

This is Kazakhstan in 2022. It is also Ecuador in 2019, Nigeria in 2012, Bolivia in 2010, Indonesia in 2005 and several other energy exporters which have tried to end, or at least reduce, fuel subsidies over the last two decades.

The list will grow significantly if we include importers who are more exposed to the vagaries of international energy prices. What is interesting is that the story plays out in almost exactly the same way, and the consequences of both action – and inaction – are very similar as well.

For resource rich countries like Kazakhstan, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nigeria, subsidized energy, especially from fossil fuels, is one of the few tangible ways by which citizens can feel that they have a claim to a national resource.

While the level of subsidies varies, at some $228 dollars per head or 2.6% of GDP in 2020, those of Kazakhstan are high but not the highest among exporters. In a situation where the government is generally perceived to be repressive, incompetent and corrupt, food and fuel subsidies keep a lid on deeper grievances. It is economically damaging but politically expedient, a delicate equilibrium that many countries have sought to manage over the last several decades – with little success.

Our research has shown that there is a better way to do energy subsidy reform. Providing direct cash transfers to compensate for the rise in energy prices can be a “win-win” solution. To put it simply, energy compensatory transfers (ECT) enable households, especially the poor and the vulnerable, to absorb the shock and reallocate resources as per their needs.

By removing the arbitrage between subsidized and market prices, ECTs can also reduce corruption, improve distribution and incentivize efficient use of energy. Countries like Iran, India, Jordan and the Dominican Republic have been relatively successful in this type of reform, and their experience holds lessons for other countries that choose to embark on this path.

Digital technology can help significantly to identify beneficiaries, provide them necessary guidance and information, and transfer payments directly to individuals and households. Three key enablers of ECTs are an identification system with universal coverage of the population, strong communications and wide access to financial accounts.

Multiple databases can be cross-checked to verify eligibility norms and grievance redressal systems can help reduce exclusion of genuine beneficiaries. As shown, for example, by India’s LPG subsidy reform, countries can progressively tighten the eligibility criteria over time to target the poorest sections of the population.

Finally, ECTs can provide the impetus for a more transparent and accountable system of subsidy management, helping improve public confidence and support to the government’s reform agenda over the long run.

So, why don’t more countries follow this approach? For one, most energy subsidy reforms are pushed forward in times of economic crisis. ECTs require political commitment, openness to engage in public dialogue, building consensus among stakeholders and powerful vested interests, setting up implementation systems and working across different government ministries, departments and agencies.

Direct compensation is also more transparent than the frequently opaque systems of price subsidization that favor the rich, with their higher energy consumption, even if justified by the need to protect the poor.

ECTs are not simple solutions and often require time to be put in place. On the surface, it may seem simpler to just raise energy prices overnight through an administrative order. But the payoffs are significant in terms of sustainability, economic outcomes, social cohesion and political stability.

The sooner countries can take a longer term approach, the better will they be able to manage the transition to a more sustainable system that supports those who need it most.

Kazakhstan is the first country in 2022 to see popular unrest due to fuel price hike. It almost certainly would not be the last.

Anit Mukherjee is a policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. Alan Gelb is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development.

 

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UN staff in New York. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 27 2022 (IPS)

“Racism and discrimination have no place in our world — least of all at the United Nations”, warns UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who will soon appoint a Special Adviser to investigate the growing discrimination based on racial, national or ethnic origins in the world body.

“The diversity of our personnel is a source of profound richness. Yet I am fully aware and deeply concerned that colleagues have experienced the indignity, pain and consequences of workplace racism and racial discrimination. This is unacceptable,” says Guterres in a message to UN staffers January 25.

He has also pledged to establish a Steering Group to oversee implementation of the Strategic Action Plan on racial discrimination —and report progress to the Executive and Management Committees.

“These are the first steps in a relentless effort to address issues which tarnish the Organization’s core values and behaviours and demean our shared humanity”.

“With your support, we will build a culture of solidarity and anti-racism where every individual can bring their whole self to work in a safe environment, regardless of racial, national, or ethnic origin. This is the most effective way to transform the lives of the people we serve through enhanced professionalism, equality, dignity, and the promotion of racial diversity”, he implored.

According to his annual report submitted to the UN’s Administrative and Budgetary Committee last month the United Nations currently has more than 36,000 staffers in 463 duty stations world-wide.

“The work of the United Nations Secretariat is underpinned by the effective management of finance, human resources, information and communications technology, supply chains, facilities, conference services and security and safety operations, as well as communicating the work of the Organization to global audiences,” the report said.

A protest by UN staff in Geneva. Credit: United Nations

Asked for his comments, Aitor Arauz, President of the UN Staff Union (UNSU) and General Secretary of the UN International Civil Servants Federation (UNISERV), told IPS the publication of the SG’s Strategic Action Plan (SAP) is the culmination of a process of collective introspection, truth-telling and resolve to change that stemmed from a momentous town hall meeting convened by the New York Staff Union in June 2020, at the height of the global movement for racial justice.

“We praise the bravery of the colleagues who raised their voices to denounce the discrimination they experience in the workplace and to say, “Enough! The UN needs to do better.”

The Secretary-General listened, responded with determination, and “we could not be prouder to see how far the process has come since then”.

The inclusive consultations that fed into the SAP, Arauz said, provide solid guarantees of the UN staff community’s buy-in and support. The staff unions are ready to mobilise volunteers and ideas, but staff’s commitment must be matched with resources and political drive from senior leadership, he noted.

“A plan remains just a plan until it is realised… the work to meet our ambitious commitments starts now,” he declared.

Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and head of the Department of Public Information (now re-christened Department of Global Communications) told IPS obviously racism and discrimination have no place in the United Nations.

“It is an integral requirement—almost an oath of office— and inherent in the spirit of the U.N. Charter”.

Since its establishment, most U.N. staff dedicated their careers and often risked their lives in areas of conflict to uphold human dignity and confront racism and discrimination, he pointed out.

A declaration to appoint “a Special Adviser and establish a Steering group to report to the Executive Management Committee” reflects a need to deal with a disappointing erosion of U.N .principles.

It seems to entail various appointments-including for aspiring diplomats and require some time to meet review, report and implement.

The Secretary-General, he said, must have perceived a certain requirement to declare the decision

“Clearly, in a changing world and shifting times, the UN and its role has changed. Yet its inclusive global framework and human objectives remain” declared Sanbar, who had served under five different secretaries-generals.

Meanwhile, a survey of over 688 UN staffers in Geneva in 2020 came up with some startling revelations re-affirming the fact, which has long remained under wraps, that “racism exists within the United Nations”.

The survey revealed that “more than one in three staff have personally experienced racial discrimination and/or have witnessed others facing racial discrimination in the workplace. And two-thirds of those who experienced racism did so on the basis of nationality”.

A separate survey by the UN Staff Union in New York was equally revealing.

According to the findings, 59% of the respondents said “they don’t feel the UN effectively addresses racial justice in the workplace, while every second respondent noted they don’t feel comfortable talking about racial discrimination at work”.

Meanwhile, the UN Secretariat in New York, faltered ingloriously, as it abruptly withdrew its own online survey on racism, in which it asked staffers to identify themselves either as “black, brown, white., mixed/multi-racial, and any other”.

But the most offensive of the categories listed in the survey was “yellow” – a longstanding Western racist description of Asians, including Japanese, Chinese and Koreans.

A non-apologetic message emailed to staffers read: “The United Nations Survey on Racism has been taken offline and will be revised and reissued, taking into account the legitimate concerns expressed by staff.”

The findings of the Geneva survey also revealed:

1. Among those who experienced or witnessed racism, a majority of staff indicated that racial discrimination affected opportunities for career advancement. A significant number of staff also indicated that racial discrimination manifested itself in the form of verbal abuse and exclusion from work events, such as decision-making, trainings, missions, assignments etc.

2. A large number who experienced or witnessed racial discrimination, harassment or abuse of authority indicated that they did not take any action. Lack of trust in the organization’s recourse mechanisms was cited as the most common reason. Many also stated that that they feared retaliation.

3. Respondents believed racism needed to be addressed in a number of different ways. These include accountability and zero tolerance, training and sensitization, greater transparency in hiring, broader diversity, and a more open dialogue on the issue.

In his message to staffers, Guterres also said: “I am committed to ensuring that our Secretariat benefits from the diverse perspectives, skill sets, and lived experiences of all our personnel. Addressing racism and racial discrimination is central to that effort. This will require robust investigative and accountability measures, coupled with persistence and sustained collective actions to enhance support and build trust.

In that spirit, “we launched an Organization-wide discussion on racism in our workplace in October 2020 under the leadership of the Task Force on Addressing Racism and Promoting Dignity for All. Today, I am pleased to share the Strategic Action Plan developed by the Task Force.”

The Plan outlines concrete actions to tackle racism in the workplace through accountability. It includes immediate actions to:

(a) review past allegations of racism, derive lessons learned, address retaliation and provide context for the consideration of future cases;
(b) institutionalize the Racial Justice Focal Point Volunteer Network at all duty stations, giving the network management backing to support staff;
(c) provide personnel with clear information on how to report complaints; and
(d) continue dialogue and raise awareness to ensure a common understanding of racism and its manifestations at our workplaces around the world.

“I look forward to working with you in ensuring an inclusive and diverse workforce where everyone is respected and feels recognized and valued,” Guterres said.

 

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Africa’s Practical Realities on Energy and Climate Change. Credit: United Nations

By Bitsat Yohannes-Kassahun
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 27 2022 (IPS)

A year ago, we welcomed 2021 with a sense of cautious optimism when the newly developed vaccines promised a shift in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The focus turned towards building back better and doing things differently as many countries started to rethink and rebuild their shattered economies.

For African countries, however, the pandemic exposed the stark realities of global inequality. These countries scrambled to buttress their shattered food systems; they lacked industries to shift production to life-saving personal protection equipment even as young Africans were left out of schools because of lack of access to electricity and the internet, which made the shift to virtual learning almost impossible.

The pandemic revealed how Africa, despite its best efforts, was unprepared for some of the pressing emergencies of our times, be it the pandemic or the looming threat of climate change.

The UN Office of the Special Adviser for Africa is advocating for Africa to transition into 2022 with a sense of utmost urgency in building the continent’s resilience. We firmly believe that the foundational building blocks to this resilience lie in Africans’ access to reliable, affordable and sustainable energy.

For over a decade, the United Nations has touted energy as “The golden thread that connects economic growth, social equity, and environmental sustainability” to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Energy is the key to unlocking Africa’s future envisioned in the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

Whether it is for economic transformation, ensuring food security, digitalizing education, revolutionizing health systems, building manufacturing and industrialization capacities, or sustaining peace by creating quality jobs and delivering services, no country in the world has achieved these ambitions without abundant and affordable access to energy.

Bitsat Yohannes-Kassahun is the Programme Management Officer at the UN Office of the Special Adviser for Africa.

Access to energy will make or break the continent’s effort to tackle climate change effects, including adverse weather events, water scarcity and significant threats to livelihoods.

However, Africans are getting the short end of the stick in the global race to combat climate change when it comes to energy.

First, the promised financing to invest in reliable energy systems and adaptation is trickling very slowly to where it is needed most.

Second, Africa could be handicapped if the global-level policies designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions and the proposed timelines toward net-zero emissions do not take the continent’s unique and nuanced circumstances into account.

Looking ahead at what 2022 holds for Africa’s quest for equitable energy access, it would be remiss not to reflect on three major events that took place in 2021 namely, the High-Level Dialogue on Energy (HLDE), the Food Systems Summit and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26).

Among other factors, energy remains vital to the full implementation of promises made at these events. In the roadmap that ensued after the HLDE, UN Secretary-General António Guterres set a target date of 2025 to ensure 500 million more people gain access to electricity and 1 billion more people gain access to clean cooking solutions.

The Food Systems Summit called for a transformation in global food systems “in ways that contribute to people’s nutrition, health and well-being, restore and protect nature, are climate neutral, adapted to local circumstances, and provide decent jobs and inclusive economies.”

The COP 26 outcome document calls for bold and strengthened goals by countries to reduce emissions through more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for COP 27.

What do these mean for African countries? These ambitious proposals require massive investments in capacity building, infrastructure development and regulations. Indeed, the amounts needed are much more than anything currently on the table.

While significant financial pledges have been made at these summits, African countries are wary of them being fulfilled, and rightfully so. Developed countries are still “progressing” towards delivering the $100 billion by 2020 climate finance goal (a broken promise) and now hope to reach it by 2023.

Added to previous failed promises, trust has further been eroded with a significantly varied and unequal pace of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic evidenced, for example, in the mismatch between promised COVID-19 vaccine distribution pledges versus what has been delivered for African countries.

There are increasing calls for the private sector to fill these financing gaps. However, the private sector inherently operates on a profit-making model that differs from the public good model expected of the public sector. It requires tailored incentives, foolproof technologies that can guarantee certain profit margins, and risk minimization models for the sector to come in at a large enough scale.

In addition, the nuanced approach and extended timelines needed for Africa to achieve a balanced energy mix are getting lost in the shuffle. African countries should not be confined to limited options or cornered into untenable paths to energy access, especially with the call for public finance institutions to stop international support for the unabated fossil fuel energy sector in 2022.

The stakes are high for Africa to get it right, hence this urgent call to action towards building the continent’s energy systems. Energy presents a compelling multiplier effect for Africa’s renaissance. It is the cornerstone to ensuring food security by improving efficiency in food production, storage, transportation, and job creation through value addition.

Reductions in post-harvest losses, combined with improved cooking solutions, would have an added benefit of minimizing deforestation. Africa’s industrial revolution and achieving the African Continental Free Trade Area’s potential hinge on access to reliable, affordable, and adequate energy.

Finally, energy access is among the major building blocks to deliver services, adapt to climate risks and provide sustainable livelihoods, ensuring the continent’s peace, security and development for the next generation.

As we prepare for COP 27, we cannot be complacent. We must jointly advocate for Africa’s equitable future through a balanced energy mix and realistic timelines. We owe it to all Africans—past, present and future—to move beyond negotiating for the bare minimum.

Source: Africa Renewal, January 2022

 

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Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Jorgelina Hiba
BUENOS AIRES, Jan 26 2022 (IPS)

Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, the three major agricultural producers in South America, are currently experiencing a prolonged period of drought and low water levels in their main rivers. This is severely impacting harvests, as well as river transport of important summer crops, with maize and soybeans the main casualties. 

Although conditions may yet improve, the grain harvests of 2021 and 2022 could result in losses that will impact the economies of three countries, though experts say the potential magnitude is still difficult to foresee.

For soy, South America’s star grain, projections for possible losses caused by adverse weather in the countries vary. The most conservative forecasts come from the United States Department of Agriculture, which anticipates a 9.5 million tonne shortfall, while others forecast more acute losses, such as the Brazilian agency AgRural, which estimates a 20 million tonne reduction in production across the three countries.

Brazil is the world’s leading producer and exporter of soybeans and the world’s third largest producer of maize. Both grain crops are suffering this season due to the lack of rain in the country’s southern states, and will see smaller harvests than were expected a month ago

As for maize, it will be difficult for Argentina and Brazil to reach the output that they expected even a few weeks ago, according to a report by agribusiness consultant Marianela de Emilio. “The weather continues to put South America’s production projections on a tightrope, with planting area adjustments and potential yields down,” she explained.

Weather projections, at least until the end of March or early April, are not too encouraging for the entire region, as the La Niña climate pattern continues to impact South American weather, and contributes to drought in the three countries.

“As long as La Niña remains active, these patterns will continue, and projections are not optimistic for the short term, as we are still under the influence of a circulation pattern that inhibits rainfall in the Paraná basin area,” said Cindy Fernández of Argentina’s National Meteorological Service (SMN).

 

A trio in trouble

Brazil is the world’s leading producer and exporter of soybeans and the world’s third largest producer of maize. Both grain crops are suffering this season due to the lack of rain in the country’s southern states, and will see smaller harvests than were expected a month ago.

Forecasts already show what has been lost. Due to the drought, Brazil’s state-owned National Supply Company (Conab), which oversees agricultural planning, cut crop estimates for coarse grains that it had made in December. For soybeans, these were reduced from 142.8 million to 140.5 million tonnes, while for maize, the authority expects an output of 112.9 million instead of 117.2 million tonnes.

In Argentina, a lack of rainfall in the central-eastern region during the crop cycle forced estimates for the maize harvest to be cut by 8 million tonnes, from 56 million to 48 million tonnes, and soybeans from 45 million to 40 million tonnes. A heat wave hit the most fertile part of the country in the first weeks of January.

Meanwhile in Paraguay, the situation is no better, according to the country’s agriculture minister, Moisés Bertoni. “We were doing well until the last weeks of November, but December was very dry and in January very high temperatures arrived, which had an impact on soya, which is Paraguay’s main export crop,” he said.

The Rosario Stock Exchange (BCR) estimates that the drought will cut Paraguay’s expected soya production by 30%, which, along with a projected 5 million tonne shortfall in the maize harvest, could mean a loss of income of around US$4.5 billion for the nation. “Many producers have opted to feed the [damaged] maize to cattle, although we are still waiting for conditions to improve,” Bertoni added.

 

An unusual climate

This season’s difficulties aren’t entirely new, however. Paraguay, southern Brazil and northeastern Argentina cover a vast region of South America crossed by rivers that make up the Río de La Plata Basin, and have been experiencing a severe water deficit for almost three years, with two consecutive summers under the influence of La Niña.

According to Fernández of the SMN, it has been more than 20 years since normal or above-normal rainfall has been recorded in southern Brazil, with some exceptions. This means that the region has been suffering from a long-standing water deficit. In Argentina, the northeastern Litoral region has recorded below-normal rainfall for the last two years, particularly during the summer.

According to Paraguayan agronomist Luis Recalde, while this year’s event is not a completely unknown or new phenomenon, it is unusual in its magnitude and duration. “This above-average intensity and duration is partly attributable to climate change, and the likelihood for the future is that these events will recur more frequently,” he said.

For Recalde, the problems of the drought go beyond production and are socio-environmental. These range from losses in agricultural and livestock productivity “that will have lasting effects on the prices of basic food basket products” to the amplification of forest fires, which generate “great loss of biodiversity and damage to health in terms of air quality”.

 

River levels remain low

The rivers that make up the Río de La Plata basin, which covers an area of over 3 million km2, are experiencing extraordinarily low water levels, which began in the southern winter of 2019 and are still persisting. This phenomenon has various consequences for the human use of the rivers and their productive functions.

“The impacts of the lack of flow in the rivers are enormous and very diverse, but the most obvious for people are the shortage of water for consumption, and the rise in the prices of electricity, goods and fuels that are moved through the rivers or the energy generated in dams,” said Recalde.

For Paraguay, which transports part of its grain production by barge to the agro-export ports of Rosario in Argentina, the river’s low water level has become a problem for the state. “The barges go without a full load and that means a double cost for exports,” said Bertoni, the agriculture minister.

Argentina’s agro-industrial sector is also suffering millions of dollars in losses due to the Paraná river’s low water level. According to the Rosario Stock Exchange, in 2021 alone, some US$620 million were lost as ships were unable to fill their cargo to capacity due to drought-related production problems.

 

Economic impacts

The current drought has and will have severe economic impacts. The impact on the Argentine economy will be at least US$4.8 billion – equivalent to 1% of the country’s GDP – according to a report from the Rosario Stock Exchange.

“Even with the recovery of prices, the loss of net income for the producing sector already amounts to US$2.93 billion, which will result in less freight, less financial and intermediary services and less consumption,” the exchange’s report explains.

But the weather does not affect everyone equally. The stock exchange argued that the drought affects small and medium-sized producers in particular, many of them tenant farmers who no longer have their own fields. In rented fields, the result of the current agricultural campaign is already negative.

“There is a good chance that with the current costs, the producers who continue to pursue these activities will go back to making more soybeans and return to monoculture,” warned the BCR.

Carlos Achetoni, the president of the Federación Agraria Argentina, which represents medium and small producers across the country, said many are already in debt. “A bad harvest leaves many in a situation of bankruptcy, and this could force more producers out of the production circuit if help does not come from the state,” he said.

In Paraguay, according to Bertoni, agriculture accounts for 25% of GDP directly, a percentage that rises to 50% if one considers the activity it generates indirectly through services such as transport or agricultural machinery. “The impact of the drought in Paraguay is brutal, and even more so if we talk about soya, which accounts for 40% of our total exports,” he explained.

In Brazil, last year alone, the drought and the energy crisis it generated caused losses of some US$1.464 billion, according to the National Confederation of Industry (CNI).

 

Forecasts offer no relief

The outlook for weather across South America’s agricultural region does not look promising, according to the January–March 2022 quarterly forecast from Argentina’s meteorological service.

“There is an increased likelihood of warmer than usual average temperatures across much of the country. The regions with the highest probabilities in this category are the south of the Litoral, centre-south of [the provinces of] Santa Fe, Córdoba, Buenos Aires and La Pampa,” the report states. It is not good reading for these provinces, which are Argentina’s agricultural heartlands.

As for rainfall, the forecast shows that the Litoral is almost 50% more likely to see below-normal rainfall for this quarter of the year.

These conditions, said meteorological expert Cindy Fernandez, will extend across the whole of southern South America, including the large agricultural production area shared by southern Brazil, Paraguay and northeastern Argentina: “The area shares weather patterns, and is under the influence of La Niña for the second consecutive summer. The projections are not good, at least until the end of the summer.”

This article was originally published by ChinaDialogue

Reef fish and corals in the waters of Seychelles archipelago. Credit: UNDP

By Geetika Chandwani and Ira Chandwani
NEW JERSEY, Jan 26 2022 (IPS)

Coral reefs are one of the world’s most biologically diverse and productive ecosystems. They provide abundant ecological goods and services and are central to the socio-economic and cultural welfare of coastal and island communities – throughout tropical and subtropical ocean countries – by contributing billions of dollars to the local and global economies, when combined with tourism and recreation.

Coral reefs also play a vital role in the protection of shorelines, fisheries, biodiversity and unique ecosystems. Building magnificent reefs, tiny coral polyps have developed an incredible ability to calcify and are the most prolific mineralizers on the planet.

They form immense structures like the Great Barrier Reef, which is a world heritage site. And in doing so, they make more minerals than any other organism and have adapted specialized structures that are well worth imitating.

Biomimicry is the concept of the imitation of models, systems, and elements of nature to solve complex human problems. It is an efficient, innovative, and sustainable way compared to conventional techniques, and hence it has scope in the future of sustainable habitats.

Biomineralization expert Brent Constantz of Stanford University was inspired to make a new type of cement for constructing buildings by copying how corals build reefs.

Making this cement through biomimicry removes carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas that causes global warming, as noted by Carla A. Wise (12 March 2010) in “Biomimicry inventors tackle environmental problems” in https://www.hcn.org/issues/42.5/inspired-by-nature.

Corals have evolved chemical defenses to protect themselves from predators. These substances are important sources of new medicines that are being developed to treat cancer, arthritis, human bacterial infections, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, and other maladies.

Further research is being developed for potential medical treatments, nutritional supplements, pesticides, cosmetics, and other commercial products. Unfortunately, the adverse effect of human activities adversely impacts upon these valuable maritime resources.

Among the most critical of threats are improper fishing activities (bottom trawling), land-based sources of pollution (such as sewage discharge, microplastic pollution), climate change, ocean warming and acidification, and habitat destruction through rapacious overfishing with China and Taiwan among the chief culprits.

Corals reefs are the foundation of tropical marine ecosystems that exist in a symbiotic relationship with algae and plankton that keep the world’s fish stocks sustained. Corals obtain their energy by consuming compounds derived from photosynthesis by the microorganisms inhabiting coral tissue.

This symbiosis is very sensitive and subject to subtle environmental changes, such as increased ocean acidity and rising temperature. When excessively stressed, the colorful algae are expelled from the corals, causing the corals to bleach and eventually die.

The most significant threat to coral reefs ever documented was the high temperature-related coral bleaching caused by the El Nino Southern Oscillation of 1997-98. Recovery of affected reefs has been primarily through the regrowth of surviving colonies.

Since then, significant coral recruitment has been observed, raising hopes for the recovery of several reefs if other major threats do not transpire in the near term.

Nevertheless, threats to coral reefs continue due to human activities including overfishing, destructive fishing practices, pollution, human settlement and development, mining, commercial shipping industry and rampant tourism in tropical coastal regions.

The effects of overfishing and bottom trawling on structurally complex habitats and fauna have been compared to the impacts of forest clear-cutting. As nets, beams, trawl doors, chains, and dredges pass over the seabed, the sediment surface and a considerable proportion of the vital habitat of animal and plant life are disturbed, sometimes permanently.

China’s distant water fishing where the fishing boats often use bottom trawling, dragging a net across the seabed entailing significant bycatch (including juvenile fish, sharks, seabirds, marine turtles), damages the seafloor, and irrevocably harms coral reefs. Trawling can also disturb areas where fish breeding stocks congregate, which artisanal fishing communities have traditionally used to identify critical fishing grounds.

Data on the dimensions of various destructive fishing practices (such as blast fishing, anchor damage, and the use of poisons), coral regrowth estimates, and time graphs of fish diversity, all reveal the full extent of all current destruction of coral reefs and their habitat.

Many countries have laws prohibiting blast fishing, but they are not fully implemented unfortunately, and are challenging to enforce in remote areas. The sound waves from the explosions of fish bombs are trapped underwater, making it difficult to detect from the surface. Effective management of Marine Protected Areas (MPA) is key to patrolling illegal fishing areas.

In northern Tanzania, illegal blast fishing poses a critical danger to its coral reefs. Blast fishing was banned in Tanzania in 2003 under the revised Fisheries Act. Such fishing practices carry a penalty however, such illegal practices provide fisherfolk an easy way (short cut) to boost their catch, especially in countries where enforcing maritime laws can be difficult.

A spot check by Anadoly News agency revealed that illegal fishing practices continue unabated in parts of the region as noted by Kizito Makoye (31 August 2021) in “Blast fishing by Tanzanian fishermen endangers marine life in Indian Ocean” in https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/blast-fishing-by-tanzanian-fishermen-endangers-marine-life-in-indian-ocean/2351382.

Dynamite fishing destroys both the food chain and the corals where fish hatchlings nest and grow in safe ecosystems. Without healthy coral reefs, these ecosystems and the fish that live within them die off. It kills the entire food chain, including algae, plankton, large and small fish, and the juveniles that do not grow old enough to breed.

Sustaining the needs of local fisherfolk requires careful examination, given the implications for their livelihoods and socioeconomic wellbeing. One study found that decline in the shark fin trade among communities in eastern Indonesia, led fisherfolk to pursue high-risk activities, including blast fishing, illegal transboundary fishing, and transnational crimes – as noted by the California Environmental Associates in “Trends in Marine Resources and Fisheries Management in Indonesia: A 2018 Review” in https://www.ceaconsulting.com/casestudies/indonesia-report/.

Given the complexity of these socio-economic conditions, additional research is required to identify sustainable and practical fisheries management measures that can reduce pressure on the most vulnerable fishing communities and thereby protect coastal livelihoods. Adverse conditions arising from a cycle of poverty results in resource degradation, and if pushed too hard, coral reefs may eventually lose their ability to bounce back even when economic conditions improve.

According to a World Bank report, 56% of the coastline of Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Togo is subject to average erosion of 1.8 meters per year. Benin’s erosion rates are exceptionally high, with an average loss of 4 meters per year.

Beyond the economic cost, coastal degradation takes lives and destroys livelihoods – as noted in the World Bank publication (14 March 2019) in “West Africa’s Coast: Losing Over $3.8 Billion a Year to Erosion, Flooding and Pollution” in https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr/publication/west-africas-coast-losing-over-38-billion-a-year-to-erosion-flooding-and-pollution

Today, with many nations and communities practicing sustainable ecological programs, human perceptions of nature, the environment, climate and the oceans is changing. Undoubtedly, humans are an integral part of creation, nature, and the environment and therefore developing a new concept of environmental ethics is essential for a sustainable future for the planet.

There are projects that range from education programs, plastic pollution control, Crown of Thorns Starfish (COTS) eradication, coral nurseries, renewable energy development, and responsible stewardship.

The Global Fund for Coral Reefs (GCF) is a 10-year, USD 625 million blended finance vehicle consisting of a grant window, designed to incubate a pipeline of investible projects, and an investment window which GCF is funding as noted by GCF staff (11 Nov 2021) in “Global Fund for Coral Reefs brings together grant and investment windows at GCF COP26 event” in https://www.greenclimate.fund/news/global-fund-coral-reefs-brings-together-grant-and-investment-windows-gcf-cop26-event

Marine biologists vigilantly monitor coral reefs with the help of scuba divers and by deploying autonomous or human-operated underwater vehicles to capture visual data on coral reefs. There are research materials on the effects of oceanographic variables, such as sea temperature, turbulence, salinity, and nutrients feeding coral reefs and their influence on coral growth, reproduction, mortality, assimilation, and adaptation.

Coral plantations are costly and time-consuming, and species introductions are often very challenging. King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), located on the shore of the Red Sea, offers a unique combination of wonderful access to coral reefs and world-class research laboratories.

KAUST is working to identify heat-resilient corals and crossbreed them with coral populations elsewhere to increase their heat tolerance – as noted by Marta Vidal (17 Jan 2022) in Deutsche Welle (DW) News in “Could the Red Sea’s heat-resilient corals help restore the world’s dying reefs?” in https://www.dw.com/en/could-the-red-seas-heat-resilient-corals-help-restore-the-worlds-dying-reefs/a-60389699.

The CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing system is also helping scientists understand, and possibly improve, how coral reefs respond to the environmental stresses of climate change.

The economic value of coral reefs is rarely appreciated. Gains and losses in numbers activate a sense of realization when confronted with risky decisions related to the environment. Governments, key decision-makers, and individuals working together must advocate more of the actual value of coral reefs when used sustainably.

This will help specifically in restructuring aid and sustainable-conservation efforts to tackle causes of coral reef decline. The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2022 as the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA 2022).

This timing from the world’s leading multilateral agency can serve as an excellent opportunity to promote the socioeconomic importance of coral reefs and the maintenance of vibrant coastal communities steeped in the culture of the peoples of the sea.

Gabriel Grimsditch, a marine ecosystem expert at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said, “Apart from urgently cutting carbon emissions, humans can design a network of effective and equitable marine protected areas or locally managed marine areas to protect coral reefs”. Provide reference Combatting Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing is one of the United Nations critical Sustainable Development Goals – SDG 14 is a problem of grave global concern.

At risk is a significant source of protein for hundreds of millions of people and the health of coral reefs. Stop Fish Bombing, an NGO registered as a charity in Hong Kong, has developed underwater bomb location technology in collaboration with the Californian tech company ShotSpotter to adapt their gunshot location technology to help detect and alert law enforcement and ultimately eradicate destructive fishing practices.

This innovative technology testing by the NGO Stop Fish Bombing must extend to all continents. Local announcements of such innovations can allow administrations to create alerts.

Coral reefs form barriers to protect the shoreline from waves and storms – where coral reef structures buffer shorelines against erosion and floods, helping to prevent loss of life and property damage.

Shoreline protection is necessary to retain and rebuild natural systems (such as cliffs, dunes, wetlands, and beaches) and to protect man’s artifacts (buildings, infrastructure, etc.). Working together with governments and law enforcement coastal communities can significantly improve the operational efficiency of enforcement activities and legal processes, which has the potential to have a global impact.

Geetika Chandwani is finishing her M.A. at the School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, New Jersey and her daughter Ira Chandwani is a high school student in New Jersey.

 

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Excerpt:

“A lack of respect for human life from conception to natural death and a lack of respect for the environment are both signs of a person claiming power over something that is not theirs to control”- Pope Francis

Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 2022 (IPS)

When Israeli Ambassador Gilat Erdan made an unusual presentation before the Security Council last week displaying a large rock, which he claimed, was hurled at Israeli vehicles in the Occupied Territories, a reporter at a UN press conference asked whether Palestinians will be given the right of reply— by displaying in the Security Council chamber an Uzi sub- machine gun or a bulldozer deployed by Israeli armed forces against civilian demonstrations.

Stephane Dujarric, the UN Spokesperson, provided a diplomatically cautious response: “I’m not going to get into that… it’s not for me to speak.”

During a debate on January 19, Ambassador Erdan sharply criticized the “Security Council’s bias, and in particular, the Council’s utter disregard for Palestinian rock-throwing terrorism”.

To make it clear that rocks are life-threatening weapons, Ambassador Erdan presented the Council with a rock to illustrate what was happening on the roads of Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem, asking the participants “how they would react if a similar rock were thrown at their vehicles”.

In 2021, he said, “Israelis suffered 1,775 rock attacks by Palestinian terrorists in addition to thousands of missiles, shootings, stabbings, and car ramming attacks”.

But for obvious reasons the rising Palestinian body count went unmentioned—nor Israeli military attacks on civilians.

Asked for his comments, Ian Williams, President of the Foreign Press Association in New York, told IPS having no sense of perspective is career plus for any Israeli representative at the UN.

“But Erdan seems to have forgotten his claimed history. King David felled Goliath with a stone and Erdan invites legitimate comparison between the Palestinian kids and the Israeli Goliath, poor and defenseless protected only by drones, missiles, planes and tanks from the rapacious stone throwers”.

Israeli ambassadors have been getting away with this risible posturing for too long, he added.

“It is time other delegates punctured their pretensions and challenged them – or just audibly hooted in derision”, declared Williams, a former President of the UN Correspondents’ Association (UNCA) and author of UNtold: The Real Story of the United Nations in Peace and War.

Dr Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, and coordinator of the program in Middle Eastern Studies, told IPS he “doesn’t recall stones ever being brought into a debate (in the UN Security Council), though there have certainly been props used before” (i.e., US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s vial of anthrax, when he addressed the Security Council in 2003 on information and intelligence he believed showed the possibility of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which eventually proved false).

“What I do find interesting is that the reporter chose to highlight the absurdity of a representative of a government– engaged in a foreign belligerent occupation which has been repeatedly cited for war crimes against the besieged population– would expect to be taken seriously in claiming they were justified in their repression out of fear of rocks,” said Dr Zunes, who is an authority on the politics of the UN Security Council and has written extensively on the UN’s most powerful political organ.

A demolished home in Beit Sira village, Ramallah, in the central West Bank. Credit: UNOCHA

The UN’s Middle East envoy, Tor Wennesland, told the Security Council January 19 “urgent action is required to prevent further deterioration of the economic, security and political situation across the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

Dr Ramzy Baroud, a Palestinian author and editor of The Palestine Chronicle, told IPS Erdan was clearly aiming at creating a distraction from the horrific events transpiring in Sheikh Jarrah and throughout occupied East Jerusalem at the moment.

He said the Salhiya family’s home was demolished January 19, rendering 15 people, mostly children, homeless. A few days earlier, a heart-wrenching event took place, when members of the Salhiya family threatened to set themselves ablaze as they agonized over the imminent loss of their family home.

“These events are being watched closely, first by Palestinians but also by people around the world. If the momentum of Israeli destruction continues, chances are we could witness another popular uprising. Erdan’s spectacle at the UN on Wednesday is a desperate act of preemptive propaganda to sway members of the international community from criticizing Israel,” he noted.

“Moreover, criticizing Palestinian weapons, however primitive or destructive, engages Israel in a misleading conversation that creates a moral equivalence between the occupier and the occupied, the colonialist and the colonized.”

Whether Palestinians use a stone, a gun or a clenched fist to resist and to defend themselves, Dr Baroud argued, their resistance is morally and legally justifiable. Israel, on the other hand, like all other military occupiers and colonialists, has neither a moral nor a legal argument to justify its oppression of Palestinians, the destruction of their homes and the killing of their children.

“Judging by the growing solidarity with Palestinians at all fronts, it is clear that Erdan’s sorry display is another exercise of political futility,” he declared.

Meanwhile, the overwhelming Israeli firepower that continues to be unleashed on Palestinian militant groups in the longstanding battle in the Occupied Territories is perhaps reminiscent of the Algerian war of independence (1954-1962) when France, the colonial power, used its vastly superior military strength to strike back at the insurgents with brutal ferocity.

While France was accused of using its air force to napalm civilians in the countryside, the Algerians were accused of using handmade bombs hidden in women’s handbags and left surreptitiously in cafes, restaurants and public places frequented by French nationals living in occupied territory.

In one of the memorable scenes in the 1967 cinematic classic “The Battle of Algiers,” which re-created Algeria’s war of independence against France, a handcuffed leader of the National Liberation Front (NLF), Ben M’Hidi, is brought before a group of highly-partisan French journalists for interrogation.

One of the journalists asks M’Hidi: “Don’t you think it is a bit cowardly to use women’s handbags and baskets to carry explosive devices that kill so many innocent people [in cafes and night clubs]?”

Responding with equal bluntness, the Algerian insurgent retorts: “And doesn’t it seem to you even more cowardly to drop napalm bombs on unarmed villages on a thousand times more innocent victims?”

“Of course, if we had your fighter planes, it would be a lot easier for us,” he adds. “Give us your bombers, and you can have our handbags and baskets.”

Like the Algerian insurgents, Palestinian militants were not fighting on a level battle field – as the Israeli military keeps unleashing its massive firepower on a virtually defenseless population in the Occupied Territories.

On the looks of it, it was not a level battle field but an uneven killing field.

“Perhaps it would be interesting to see the roles reversed: the Palestinians with American fighter planes and battle tanks and the Israelis with homemade rockets,” says one Arab diplomat, striking a parallel with the Algerian insurgency.

Besides F-16 fighter planes, the Israelis also used a wide array of U.S. weaponry, including Apache helicopters, M60 battle tanks, armored personnel carriers and heavy artillery. Israel’s prodigious military strength and its economic stability were attributed largely to unlimited US assistance and political support from American politicians.

In a statement released January 21, the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) said news in occupied East Jerusalem is rapidly escalating following Israeli police demolishing a Palestinian family’s home in Sheikh Jarrah on January 18 at around 3 AM local time. Along with demolishing the Salhiya family’s home, Israeli police arrested and beat several members of the family, including a 9-year-old-girl. Israel has even banned the family from returning to the neighborhood for 30 days.

Several members of Congress have spoken out against the recent home demolition in Sheikh Jarrah. Congresswoman Marie Newman tweeted, “15 Palestinians were left homeless after Israeli police evicted them in the middle of the night and demolished their homes in Sheikh Jarrah. This is one of more than 1,000 evictions or demolitions in the area since 2016. This must end.”

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez expressed her dismay about Israel’s ongoing human rights abuses, including the recent killing of 80-year-old US Palestinian citizen Omar Abdalmajeed Assad, who was arbitrarily detained, beaten and, according to eyewitness, left unresponsive by Israeli soldiers while driving to his home in the occupied West Bank.

This article contains extracts from a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That.” The link follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

 

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Alice Cruz-UN, Special Rapporteur on eliminating discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members, told the youth that their participation was crucial to removing legal discrimination. Her young son Leo asked the global audience not to forget leprosy. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Kenya, Jan 25 2022 (IPS)

Yohei Sasakawa said the youth have the power to change the world, and their participation in removing the stigma and myths about leprosy is crucial to the campaign to end the disease.

Sasakawa, the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination and Chairman of the Nippon Foundation, was speaking at a webinar held in the run-up to World Leprosy Day on January 30. He engaged youth from Africa, Asia, and Latin America in an online discussion dubbed ‘Raising Awareness about Leprosy – Role of Youth’.

“The history of the world is changed by young people. The spirit of young people is essential in the fight against leprosy. Speak out and let the world understand leprosy better. Use online tools at your disposal to tell the world not to forget leprosy,” Sasakawa told participants.

“The younger generation has joined our efforts. Our goal is to hear from you, work with you and take action with you towards a day when there will be zero stigma and discrimination against those affected by leprosy.”

At the heart of discussions were highlights from three regional forums, stimulating conversations about leprosy and its related challenges and efforts to build collaboration and networks to combat an ancient disease at risk of being forgotten.

The webinar was organized against the backdrop of the global ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative. The initiative strategically links the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, Sasakawa Health Foundation, and the Nippon Foundation towards achieving a leprosy-free world.

Stigmatized, forced to migrate, denial of education, abandonment of children affected by leprosy, difficulties for those affected by leprosy, and women finding marriage partners – were highlighted in the discussions. Leprosy is even recognized as grounds for divorce in some countries.

These were only a few of the many challenges faced by those affected by the disease, speakers said.

Yohei Sasakawa, the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination and Chairman of the Nippon Foundation, told youth from Africa, Asia, and Latin America that they had the means to change perceptions about leprosy. They were educated and knew how to use social media to benefit leprosy-affected communities. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

“We need collective efforts to address the disease itself and, at the same time, the rampant stigma associated with leprosy. Today, the second generation of those affected by leprosy still find difficulties getting a job because of the stigma,” Sasakawa said.

He said efforts to address leprosy are two-pronged, engaging global and well-respected figures and grassroots actors for community-level engagement.

Participants heard that youths learning about leprosy and sharing that it is curable could accelerate progress towards a world free from medical and social problems related to leprosy.

Youth participation could significantly help dispel myths rooted during the many centuries in which leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, was incurable.

The online discussion followed three preparatory regional youth forums held in December 2021 and January 2022. The engagement was in anticipation of a Global Youth Forum on the theme, ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’, organized by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative slated for March 2022.

Dr Michael Chen from HANDA, China, told participants how the first Asia Youth Forum engaged young people in a virtual meeting to discuss the reduction of stigma and discrimination faced by people affected by leprosy.

He said six Asian countries, including Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Nepal, participated. Discussions included the need to engage the younger generation in a world free of stigma and discrimination.

Similarly, Marcos Costa, from Morhan in Brazil, spoke of the first Latin American and Caribbean Virtual Meeting of young people affected by leprosy, their family members, and supporters.

The meeting, he said, sought to engage young people and their families in a dialogue centered on the challenges faced by those affected by the disease and to explore policy solutions to the problem.

“In Brazil, 45 percent of new leprosy cases were not diagnosed in 2020 because of COVID-19. The pandemic has compounded challenges facing young people as many of them are unemployed due to the stigma attached to people affected by leprosy,” he said.

Likewise, Tadesse Tesfaye from ENAPAL in Ethiopia summarized discussions during the first-ever Africa Youth Forum, with attendance from nine African countries, including Kenya, Nigeria, and Mozambique.

Tesfaye said the forum explored “how stigma and discrimination manifest upon persons affected by leprosy and their families and the need to build national, regional and international alliances to address social and medical challenges related to the disease.”

Within this context, Alice Cruz, the UN Special Rapporteur on eliminating discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members, reminded the younger generation that leprosy was also a political factor and their voices were needed.

She called for diversity, new faces, ideas, innovations, and the engagement of young people and families affected by leprosy.

Cruz stressed that young people’s contribution to enforcing the human rights of people affected by leprosy should be encouraged. Their contribution was crucial to reforming the more than 150 laws and regulations in various parts of the world that discriminate against persons affected by leprosy.

Her young son, Leo, finalized her address calling for a world free of all forms of discrimination and one where leprosy was not forgotten.

Chen and Costa further drummed support for the engagement of young people especially through social media to raise awareness of leprosy and challenge long-standing stereotypes.

“We need to cultivate the potential of young people, provide sufficient funding to young people, and a supportive platform for young people to learn, grow, communicate and solve problems,” Chen said.

Dr Takahiro Nanri, the Sasakawa Health Foundation executive director, moderated a session between the Goodwill Ambassador and young participants, including Costa, Rahul Mahato from ATMA Swabhiman in India, and Joshua Mamane from IDEA in Niger, who is also from a family affected by leprosy.

The discussion stressed the need to engage young people in the fight against leprosy actively.

Sasakawa said youth participation would usher in a new and much-awaited era in global and grassroots efforts to fully tackle leprosy as medical, public health, and human rights issues.

 

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Food systems can disenfranchise marginalised and vulnerable communities worldwide. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By External Source
Jan 25 2022 (IPS)

The pandemic – alongside growing threats from climate change, widespread malnutrition, economic instability and geopolitical conflict – has heightened problems with the ways we produce, distribute and consume food. And it’s made clear the urgent need to make global food systems more just.

An example of modern food injustice is that if you’re poor or an ethnic minority in the US, you’re less likely to have easy access to healthy food. This situation, worsened by COVID-19, has been termed food apartheid. It’s also often the case that corporations, not local growers, control the food produced by communities: taking money out of their hands.

If this is to change, it’s important to understand who wins within existing food systems and, more importantly, who loses by being pushed to the sidelines and losing out on access to healthy food.

To do this, those who design food systems need to consider how different factors that determine if someone is marginalised – like gender, age, disability, ethnicity and religion – can combine or intersect, making some people more vulnerable.

For example, international development programmes by governments and charities often focus on helping women because they are considered vulnerable. But this risks overlooking different causes of poverty including class and race issues, marginalising other vulnerable groups.

In Tanzania, this kind of oversimplification when deciding who receives resources has been found to reinforce existing power hierarchies within communities, meaning that those who had little social power to begin with – such as poorer women – don’t get to benefit from the resources provided.

 

Including people in the processes designed to help them is vital to ensure systems are improved. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

 

In contrast, research shows that development projects tend to do better when they take local community norms into account. For example, in Bangladesh, men and women from Hindu and Muslim communities work in wetlands, but each group plays a different role. Researchers found that community wetland management projects did better when people worked in accordance with their traditional roles according to both gender and religion.

Decolonising research can also encourage us to identify and challenge power, privilege and inequality in research. For example, it’s usually scholars from developed countries, rather than their counterparts in developing countries, who set research agendas and determine how money is spent

An intersectional approach helps us to move beyond simplistic categories like the “vulnerable woman”, instead drawing attention to the unequal flows of power that shape access to resources. This should be embedded at the deepest level within food science to ensure marginalised and vulnerable people are at the forefront of change.

 

Power dynamics

It’s also vital to understand how power dynamics structure decisions within food systems, whether that’s within households or inside government institutions.

When tackling issues faced by women and girls in Burundi, CARE International worked with a network of local male gender equality champions to analyse power systems, reflect on gender roles and encourage equal, active participation by women in community decisions. Outcomes included improvements in agricultural productivity as well as increasing women’s empowerment and gender equality.

Creating inclusive, safe spaces for marginalised voices is also critical. Creative approaches, such as theatre, dance and music, provide a powerful medium through which to achieve this.

For example, Roktim: Nurture Incarnadine, an Ananya Dance Theatre
production, explores feminist food politics through dance. Their performance highlights issues around sustainability and justice in food systems, and demonstrates the power of community action.

 

Injustice

Historical injustice has a large part to play in the ongoing failure of food systems. For example, when it comes to global food systems, we need to understand how colonialism has shaped food processes and how it continues to do so today.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the colonial government in Zambia promoted maize production over that of indigenous crops like millet and sorghum. Nowadays, maize production continues to receive substantial support, with almost 80% of the government’s annual agricultural budget spent on producing maize. Consequently, maize – which provides limited nutrients – dominates the Zambian diet, contributing to chronic food insecurity in the region.

Understanding how to better design food systems requires researchers to take into account how colonisation helped shape them in the first place. This allows us to acknowledge how colonial processes of exploitation and destruction, such as the transatlantic slave trade, are reflected in modern maize-dominated food systems across Africa.

Decolonising research can also encourage us to identify and challenge power, privilege and inequality in research. For example, it’s usually scholars from developed countries, rather than their counterparts in developing countries, who set research agendas and determine how money is spent.

And research from across the world is frequently only published in English, limiting the accessibility of that information within communities where English isn’t spoken.

Traditionally, science has seen itself as a process of impartial observation. Yet all research reflects cultural biases, and as researchers we are profoundly influenced by our own values. Becoming aware of how our scientific knowledge is created is a key step in achieving justice.

From the co-development of agricultural technologies to the design and launch of food programmes, researchers have a huge impact on what kind of science gets prioritised – and who benefits from it.

Harriet Elizabeth Smith, Research Fellow in Climate Risk, University of Leeds; Ruth Smith, PhD Researcher in Agriculture, University of Leeds, and Todd Rosenstock, Senior Scientist, Agriculture and the Environment, World Agroforestry (ICRAF)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Muslims at a mosque in Sri Lanka. Credit: Financial Times, Sri Lanka

By Alan Keenan
BRUSSELS, Jan 25 2022 (IPS)

On 28 October, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed the militant Buddhist monk Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara to head a presidential task force on legal reforms, shocking many in Sri Lanka and beyond. Gnanasara is the public face of the country’s leading anti-Muslim campaign group, Bodu Bala Sena (Army of Buddhist Power, or BBS). He is widely accused of inciting inter-communal violence, including two deadly anti-Muslim pogroms in June 2014 and March 2018.

Convicted of contempt of court for a separate incident, Gnanasara was sentenced to six years in prison but received a presidential pardon from Rajapaksa’s predecessor, Maithripala Sirisena, in his final months in office. The act of clemency came after intensive lobbying by nationalist monks and an upsurge of anti-Muslim sentiment in the aftermath of the 2019 Easter bombings, a series of attacks on churches and tourist hotels carried out by a small group claiming allegiance to the Islamic State, or ISIS.

Observers across the Sri Lankan political spectrum, including some Buddhist nationalists, expressed dismay – at times, outrage – that the president could name someone whose disrespect for the law and hostility to non-Sinhala Buddhist minorities are a matter of public record to head a commission ostensibly designed to prevent “discrimination” and ensure “humanitarian values”. Critics have called the appointment “irrational” and even “incomprehensible”.

In fact, it is anything but. The Rajapaksa government is deeply unpopular, including among large sections of its core Sinhala Buddhist constituency, and desperate to divert public attention from its economic mismanagement.

There is thus a clear if deeply unfortunate logic for it to bring back to the fore the best-known proponent of a theme that was key to getting the president elected: fear of Muslims as a source of “religious extremism”.

While it was in one sense surprising to see the open affirmation of Rajapaksa’s active support for the controversial monk after many years of distancing himself from Gnanasara, tight links between Sri Lankan government officials and the Buddhist clergy are nothing new. The 1978 constitution gives Buddhism the “foremost place” in the country’s religious landscape and the state the duty to “protect” it.

There is nothing comforting in this history, however. The Sinhala Buddhist majoritarian nature of the Sri Lankan state – ie, the extent to which the state represents and enforces majority interests at the expense of the rights of other communities – has had disastrous effects on the country’s ethnic and religious minorities.

The state’s transition from being structurally discriminatory to openly hostile toward Tamils (who are Hindu or Christian) – a process fed by Sinhala politicians’ warnings about the threat the community allegedly posed – ultimately led to three decades of devastating civil war.

During that period, from 1983 to 2009, terrorist attacks by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam provided some objective grounds for Sinhalese fears, reinforcing the narrative that the majority community was under threat. Now, there is growing reason to fear that this pattern may be repeating itself in the Sri Lankan state’s interactions with its Muslim citizens.

Credit: Sunday Times, Sri Lanka

The Rise of Anti-Muslim Politics

In November 2019, Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s successful campaign for Sri Lanka’s presidency made much of the slogan “one country, one law”, which had gained popularity after the 2019 Easter bombings. Its ambiguity was useful: at one level, it could be interpreted as merely asking for uniform treatment of all citizens and resonated with voters angry at the impunity with which politicians and their powerful supporters are able to violate the law.

But its discriminatory implication was also obvious from the start, hinting at a need to “protect” the Buddhist nature of state and society by eliminating the separate rules and treatment that many Sinhalese believe Muslims use to gain economic and political advantages.

Many Sinhalese have for years held the view that Sri Lankan Muslims are more concerned with advancing their own interests than working for the larger national interest. Even during the civil war, when Muslims remained overwhelmingly loyal to the state and played a critical role in fighting the Tamil insurgency, one regularly heard complaints in Sinhalese (as well as Tamil) circles that they were exploiting the conflict for personal and collective economic benefit.

Because Muslim lawmakers held the balance of power in parliament between the two major Sinhala-dominated parties, they were commonly accused of using their “kingmaker” role to gain undue advantages for their co-religionists.

By the early 2000s, many Sinhalese had also begun to express discomfort at the increasing numbers of Muslims, especially women, wearing religious attire and the growing focus among Muslims on practices meant to demonstrate religious piety. Many interpreted this trend as Muslims deliberately distancing themselves from the majority.

With the arrival of BBS ultra-nationalists on the political scene in late 2012 – whose message was amplified by the smaller militant Sinhalese groups Sinhala Ravaya and Ravana Balakaya – the public portrayal of Sri Lankan Muslims rapidly took on more overtly hostile forms. (The decade earlier had seen organised Buddhist activism, at times violent, directed against the growing number of evangelical churches; pressure on Christian evangelicals continues today, though not on the scale of anti-Muslim campaigns.)

At the height of its influence, in 2013 and 2014, BBS dominated news coverage and helped set the political agenda through rallies, speeches and vigilante actions aimed at containing the threat Muslims’ alleged “extremism” posed to Sri Lanka’s Sinhala Buddhist character. The range of allegations promoted by BBS and like-minded organisations, often through online hate speech, was broad and shifting.

They claimed that population growth meant that Muslims would eventually overtake the Sinhalese majority; that Muslim-owned businesses were secretly distributing products to sterilise Sinhalese in order to keep their numbers down; and that the system of halal food labelling was encroaching on the religious rights of others and covertly funding Islamist militants.

More generally, conservative religious practices adopted by increasing numbers of Muslims in a quest for greater piety were read by ultra-nationalists as evidence of growing “extremism” that threatened other communities. These charges were based on either outright falsehoods or malicious misinterpretations of complex social and religious developments among Sri Lankan Muslims.

The anti-Muslim rhetoric helped set off inter-communal violence late in the presidency of Gotabaya’s brother Mahinda Rajapaksa (2005-2015). These years saw a series of attacks on Muslim-owned businesses (with many alleging that Sinhala business rivals were backing the attackers) and disruption of political meetings held by anyone daring to challenge the Buddhist militants, against the backdrop of mass rallies denouncing the alleged threat posed by Muslims’ “extremism”.

In a June 2014 speech in the town of Aluthgama, Gnanasara declared to a large crowd: “This country still has a Sinhala police. A Sinhala army. If a single Sinhalese is touched, that will be the end of them all [Muslims]”. Minutes later, hundreds of his supporters marched through a nearby Muslim neighbourhood, sparking two days of devastation that left three Muslims and one Tamil security guard dead. Sinhala rioters, many of them brought in from outside the area, targeted mosques and Muslim-owned shops and homes for arson and destruction. The police were widely accused of standing by or even assisting the rioters.

Despite government denials, many independent observers told Crisis Group at the time that the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration was actively supporting the BBS and other anti-Muslim campaigns. They suspected the government of executing an electoral strategy designed to consolidate the Sinhala vote behind the government, which projected itself as the defender of Sinhalese Buddhist identity. The appearance of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, then defence secretary, at a BBS event in March 2013, and his known connections with senior monks associated with the group, fuelled the speculation.

More tangible evidence of state backing lay in the fact that police gave BBS and like-minded groups permission to hold rallies at a time when government critics were not allowed to do so. Police took no apparent action, moreover, to prevent or investigate repeated vigilante raids on Muslim-owned shops or violent efforts to silence critics of militant Buddhist organisations.

Nor was anyone prosecuted for any of these crimes. Multiple sources told Crisis Group that Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police Anura Senanayake, who worked closely with Gotabaya at the time, led efforts to persuade victims not to press charges. Following Mahinda’s defeat in the January 2015 election, officials announced they had evidence of close ties between Buddhist militants and military intelligence units, confirming what Muslim community leaders had previously told Crisis Group.

With the 2015 election of President Maithripala Sirisena, representing a united opposition determined to end the Rajapaksas’ rule, the strategy of demonising Muslims for electoral ends seemed to have failed. Sirisena’s yahapaalanaya (good governance) coalition won in part through strong Muslim and Tamil backing based on its promises to end the BBS-led reign of terror.

But while the new administration stopped tacitly encouraging anti-Muslim violence and hate speech, it lacked the political courage – and possibly the necessary support within the police and intelligence agencies – to crack down on Buddhist militant groups.

After a brief lull in anti-Muslim activism, 2016 and 2017 saw a series of small attacks on Muslim businesses by unknown assailants, encouraged by sustained hate speech campaigns in traditional and social media, backed by effective local networks.

In February 2018, Buddhist militants in Ampara damaged a mosque and Muslim-owned shops as the police looked on, following social media rumours that a Muslim-owned restaurant had injected sterilising chemicals into Sinhala customers’ food. The following month, four days of anti-Muslim rioting shook the central hill district of Kandy, sparked by the death of a Sinhala man assaulted weeks earlier by four Muslim men.

Gnanasara visited the victim’s family and later joined other militant leaders to address a crowd of protesters just hours before the riots began. Videos later appeared to show local politicians from the Rajapaksa family’s party, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, taking part in the mayhem. Two people were killed, many injured, hundreds of Muslim-owned houses and shops destroyed, and at least a dozen mosques damaged. The violence was severe enough for President Sirisena to declare a state of emergency, during which the army eventually brought things under control.

President Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and senior ministers all condemned the violence and promised tough action in response. But despite hundreds of arrests, including of several prominent Buddhist activists, no one was held accountable for these incidents, which included well-documented attacks on Muslims by security forces, with eyewitnesses telling Crisis Group of numerous cases of complicity between the police and Buddhist rioters.

In August 2018, courts eventually convicted Gnanasara of contempt of court and criminal intimidation of a prominent Sinhala human rights activist. Many hailed his six-year sentence as a landmark, though Gnanasara has faced no jail time for attacks on or other actions against Muslims, and most of the slow-moving criminal cases against him in lower courts have now been dropped.

The partial victory over impunity was, however, short-lived. In 2019, in the aftermath of the horrific Easter Sunday suicide attacks, the Sri Lankan state for the first time adopted policies that directly discriminated against the Muslim minority. With tensions running high, President Sirisena’s government used the post-bombing state of emergency to prohibit the niqab, or full face covering, invoking national security concerns (the ban was rescinded in August 2019 when the emergency was lifted).

It also enacted new rules for government employees that, in effect, barred the full-length abaya, worn by many Muslim women teachers, especially in the Eastern Province (these were later withdrawn after being challenged by Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission). Anxious to salvage his sinking political fortunes as the November 2019 presidential election drew near, Sirisena then pardoned Gnanasara.

The nationalist monk immediately leapt into the political fray, joining his peers in protests demanding the resignation of Muslim ministers Rishad Bathiudeen and Azath Salley, accusing them – to date without convincing evidence – of involvement in the Easter attacks.

For many Sinhalese, especially Christians, as well as some Tamils, the Easter attacks seemed to confirm earlier warnings of a growing threat from “Islamic extremism”. Authorities responded to these fears in the attacks’ aftermath with what appeared to be the criminalisation of Muslims’ everyday practices.

Police arrested more than two thousand Muslims under emergency and terrorism laws, in all but a few cases with no evidence of links to the bombings or any threatening behaviour; they picked up many merely for having a Quran or other religious materials in Arabic script at home.

After the Easter bombings, the previously failed electoral strategy of shoring up Sinhala support through vilification of Muslims gained new traction. Gotabaya announced his candidacy just days after the attacks, promising to eradicate new forms of religiously motivated terrorism just as he had previously destroyed the Tamil Tigers when he was defence secretary.

At the polls, Gotabaya received overwhelming support from Sinhala voters, including many Catholics who had not previously backed him. The new president himself seemed to acknowledge the strategy’s success, declaring in his inaugural speech given in front of a Buddhist shrine: “I knew that I could win with only the votes of the Sinhala majority”.

Growing Tensions

Within months of taking office, Gotabaya deepened the state’s hostility toward Muslims on several fronts. His administration used COVID-19 lockdowns and ad hoc village-level quarantines to harass the community, which pro-government media outlets accused of spreading the virus. More damaging was the government’s decision on 1 April 2020 to ban burial of anyone even suspected of having died of the disease.

Announced the day after the first Muslim victim died, the decision was justified by a claim – quickly rejected by the World Health Organisation and Sri Lankan experts – that the virus could spread from interred remains through the groundwater. The policy, which stayed in place for nearly a year, had a profoundly cruel effect on Muslim families, who were forced to cremate their loved ones’ bodies against their religious convictions.

It was rescinded on 26 February, after a global advocacy campaign that sought to mobilise the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and member states of the UN Human Rights Council, which was due to assess Sri Lanka’s human rights record weeks later. Even after the ban was lifted, however, Sri Lanka has allowed burials in only one remote location, heavily guarded by the military – a limitation that continues to impose hardships on Muslims, as well as the smaller number of Christians and Hindus who choose to bury their dead.

On 12 March, the government also announced new regulations for “deradicalisation” of those “holding violent extremist religious ideology”. Issued under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act, the rules allowed the defence ministry to detain anyone accused of causing “acts of violence or religious, racial or communal disharmony or feelings of ill will or hostility between different communities or racial or religious groups” for up to eighteen months, without any judicial process or oversight.

Human rights lawyers and Muslim leaders quickly filed suit in the Supreme Court, which in August put the measures on hold until it decides the case. Even if the court quashes the regulations, however, the government’s clear intention to establish a “deradicalisation” program leads some to believe it may enshrine similar powers in revisions to the counter-terrorism law it is presently preparing.

The regulations were issued without evidence that any significant number of Muslims in Sri Lanka posed a threat to security or would benefit from a program along the contemplated lines. They did, however, offer the government a face-saving way to release some of the hundreds of Muslims arrested after the Easter attacks who are still detained, in some cases without charge, by putting them into a “deradicalisation program”.

Holding large numbers of Muslims in special camps for another year or more, as the proposed deradicalisation program would do, however, would risk contributing to a collective sense of humiliation and anger that could itself push some toward “violent extremist religious ideology”. As Muslim activists regularly warn, the risk is particularly high as long as the government’s approach leaves no room for the possibility that Buddhists could promote their own forms of violent extremism.

Overlapping enquiries into the Easter bombings have, meanwhile, been politicised in ways that appear aimed at keeping alive fears of Muslims as a source of insecurity. As part of its broader attack on the independence of police and courts, Gotabaya’s government replaced the entire team looking into the bombings soon after coming to power, arrested the chief investigator, Shani Abeysekera, on what appear to be trumped-up charges, and demoted other officers. Another key investigator fled the country fearing arrest.

The administration has also refused to act on the key recommendations of a separate commission of enquiry – appointed by President Sirisena – into the bombings. These included, among others, prosecuting Sirisena, who is now a key government ally, and banning BBS, whose anti-Muslim incitement the commission found had contributed to the bombers’ turn to violence in a process of “reciprocal radicalisation”.

In what seems to be an attempt at maligning Muslim leaders, the Gotabaya administration also detained or charged a number of prominent Muslim personalities, seemingly without credible grounds. Ex-minister Bathiudeen faces terrorism and extremism charges – despite having been cleared of links to the Easter bombings by the presidential commission of enquiry.

On 2 December, a court released another Muslim lawmaker, Salley, after he had spent eight months in jail, citing lack of evidence. The prosecution of human rights lawyer and political activist Hejaaz Hizbullah for his supposed links to the Easter terrorist attacks also appears to be groundless, relying in part on coerced testimonies.

The government’s approach has angered Sri Lanka’s Catholic leadership, which has accused it, and the president himself, of covering up the “masterminds” behind the Easter bombings. Church leaders suggest that the government has been protecting Sirisena and refusing to follow up on evidence uncovered by the presidential commission that implies military intelligence officers had contact with some of the bombers before and on the day of the attack.

Backed by Pope Francis, Colombo’s archbishop Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith has called for an international investigation. Following an October online meeting that aired church criticisms, the police summoned one of the cardinal’s top advisers for three days of questioning.

A Dangerous Slogan

Stung by growing criticism of its handling of the Easter bombings investigation, and facing a grave economic crisis that has badly damaged its popular support, including among Sinhala Buddhists, the Rajapaksa government signalled with Gnanasara’s appointment that it is returning to the “one country, one law” agenda that helped get it elected.

Given the concept’s vagueness, however, and the deep contradiction between it and the explicit privileges that Buddhism enjoys under the constitution, no one is sure what Gnanasara’s task force will actually do. While it can, in principle, look into the practices of all religious and ethnic groups, few observers doubt that it will focus its attention on the Muslim minority.

It is expected to consider reforms to the madrasa education system – Muslim leaders have submitted proposals to the government – as well as government plans to regulate activities in mosques, monitor the import and translation of the Quran and other Arabic texts, ban the niqab and burqa, and outlaw cattle slaughter (an industry dominated by Muslims and often criticised by Buddhist activists).

Gnanasara’s task force also seems certain to weigh in on long-discussed changes to the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act, a new version of which the cabinet approved in August. Over the past years, Muslims and others have bitterly debated possible reforms to the Act, with complicated overlap between human rights and feminist critiques of the legislation as patriarchal and oppressive and Buddhist nationalist criticisms of Muslims having their own marriage and family law.

Sri Lankan law enshrines distinct traditions of family law for Sinhalese in Kandy and Tamils in Jaffna, as well as for Muslims, but this Act has come in for particular criticism on account of allowing polygamy, setting no minimum age for marriage, requiring no explicit consent from the bride and establishing all-male courts to hear divorce cases.

But Gnanasara’s involvement in government efforts to alter it will likely weaken the leverage of Muslim feminist reformers pushing to strengthen women’s marriage and divorce rights and strengthen resistance to change from the all-male communal leadership, which has argued that feminist criticisms of the law, in effect, endorse Buddhist militant portrayals of Islam as a backward religion.

It remains to be seen, however, how far the government will allow or encourage Gnanasara to go. On the one hand, Buddhist nationalists appear to see “one country, one law” as a call for “a single law” that gives pre-eminence to Buddhist institutions while denying those of other religions official recognition.

Some top officials clearly see things the same way: it was particularly revealing that Gnanasara’s appointment was followed three weeks later by a series of large-scale Buddhist religious ceremonies in the sacred city of Anuradhapura, featuring the president, cabinet and top military brass alongside the Mahanayakes, Sri Lanka’s most powerful Buddhist clerics.

The two days of ceremonies were grand displays of the government’s project of more fully integrating state, military and Buddhist clergy on the basis of an overtly Sinhala nationalist political vision. On the other hand, in a December meeting, Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris assured ambassadors from Muslim countries that Sri Lanka would “continue to retain” “personal laws specific to Muslim, Kandyan and Tamil communities”.

Moreover, to date, Colombo has carefully calibrated its anti-Muslim policies so as to keep the backing of its hardline Buddhist nationalist supporters and win a degree of international support for helping “counter violent extremism”, while maintaining good relations with economic and political allies in the Muslim world.

The government may as yet have no precise agenda for the task force, but given Gnanasara’s charisma and theatrical skills, he is a potentially powerful, and dangerous, asset for reframing political debate, deepening divisions between Tamils and Muslims and possibly even provoking a new round of anti-Muslim unrest. He has been central in propagating Buddhist nationalist ideology over the last decade.

There is little that those outside of Sri Lanka, concerned about the rule of law, religious harmony and political stability, can do directly to address these dynamics. Foreign partners of the Sri Lankan state, can, however, be more careful about not inadvertently strengthening them.

Following the Easter bombings, a range of new programming by foreign donors has focused on counter-terrorism, preventing “violent extremism” and building “social cohesion”. In the words of one activist, though, “There is a lot of foreign funding to the government for ‘countering violent extremism’ but it only targets one faith. … No one dares tell the government to ‘rehabilitate’ Gnanasara or other extremist monks”.

Until such programming finds – or creates – the space to name and challenge the violent history, rhetoric and exclusionary political projects of all communities, it is more likely to perpetuate, rather than resist, the anti-Muslim ideology that today poses the greatest risk of destabilising violence in a country that has yet to recover from decades of brutal civil war.

The link to the original article: “One Country, One Law”: The Sri Lankan State’s Hostility toward Muslims Grows Deeper.

Alan Keenan is Senior Consultant, Sri Lanka, at the International Crisis Group in Brussels.

Source: International Crisis Group

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jan 25 2022 (IPS)

Many factors frustrate the international cooperation needed to address the looming global warming catastrophe. As most rich nations have largely abdicated responsibility, developing countries need to think and act innovatively and cooperatively to better advance the South.

Climate action
The world is woefully offtrack to achieving the current international consensus that it is necessary to keep the global temperature rise by the end of the 21st century to no more than 1.5°C (degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels two centuries ago.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warns that temperatures are then likely to exceed 2.2°C. Many climate scientists fear many underlying interactions and feedback effects are still little known or poorly understood. Hence, they have not been factored enough into current projections.

Although the threat of global warming was scientifically recognized almost half a century ago, there has been much foot ragging since. Contrary to widespread belief, industrialized nations – the earliest and biggest greenhouse gas emitters –have actually held back much more adequate responses to the climate threat.

Although the UN’s 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro secured the international community’s commitment to sustainable development, actual progress since has been modest at best. Undermining multilateralism – particularly since the end of the Cold War around the same time – has certainly not helped.

By effectively killing the Kyoto Protocol, the US has undermined the UN system and other multilateral initiatives not in its own interest since the first Cold War’s end. Consequently, most other signatory rich nations have not even tried to meet the Kyoto Protocol obligations they had signed up to.

Unsurprisingly, then Vice-President Al Gore – who presided over the US Senate’s 95-0 vote against the Kyoto Protocol – did not stress climate change in his 2000 presidential campaign. His public advocacy against global warming only began after his political ambitions ended with his controversial loss to George W. Bush.

Likewise, President Obama did little against global warming during his first presidential term – e.g., at the 2009 Copenhagen UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP) – before the US actively shaped the 2015 Paris Agreement.

But, unlike Kyoto, the Paris deal is voluntary – i.e., not binding. Nonetheless, climate action was dealt yet another blow when President Donald Trump withdrew the US in early 2017 before President Joe Biden brought the US back in 2021.

Climate finance
To induce developing countries to accept binding new obligations at the 2009 Copenhagen COP, the European Commission President, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown all pledged US$100 billion of climate finance annually – far from enough, but still a decent start.

But not even half this grossly inadequate, originally European commitment has actually been delivered. Other rich countries have generally given even less than the Europeans. All this is far short of what developing countries need to cope, worsened by requiring more aid to donor country export sales.

Most concessional climate finance since has been to mitigate climate change, with much less for adaptation. Worse, almost nothing has gone to help the typically impoverished victims of global warming for their cumulative ‘losses and damages’!

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 seeks to combat climate change and its impacts. Meanwhile, current global warming continues to worsen the effects of accumulated greenhouse gas emissions by industrialized countries.

In December 2015, the Paris COP reached agreement on a range of voluntary promises. Yet, climate scientists agree that neither the binding Kyoto Protocol nor the voluntary Paris Agreement can keep global warming by the end of the century under 1.5°C.

Economic damage to developing countries due to global warming so far is currently assessed at more than double the better documented adverse impacts on rich nations. But its victims get little help adapting to the daunting consequences of climate change, let alone ‘compensation’ for irreversible ‘losses and damages’.

Meanwhile, ostensible climate finance book-keeping involves considerable ‘creative accounting’. Thus, such resources have been exaggerated in various ways – e.g., by citing numbers for ‘blended finance’ and other dubious arrangements.

Thus, official ‘overseas development assistance’ or aid funds have been abused to subsidize ‘greenwashing’ public-private partnerships – e.g., by ‘de-risking’ profit-seeking private investments presented to the public as ‘climate-friendly’.

Climate justice
More recently, ‘climate justice’ is increasingly being demanded, especially of Western nations – instead of mere ‘climate action’. Although the climate action approach claims to treat all countries equally, by ignoring existing inequalities and disparities, climate action inevitably deepens them.

Invoking justice implies equitable actions are needed to redress the unequal implications of climate actions – e.g., reducing energy generation and use – for the poor and the rich – both people and countries. Thus, without addressing the need for equitable sustainable development, climate action often worsens inequities.

Hence, while claiming to offer seemingly fair solutions, some climate action measures – e.g., simply raising carbon prices, and thus, fuel costs for all – will be unfair in impact. Instead, climate justice measures must equitably address global warming and other climate change challenges.

The challenge – from a sustainable development perspective – is to address climate change while improving living standards equitably, especially for the worse off. This requires widespread generation and use of affordable renewable energy – instead of using fossil fuels – to slow global warming.

But markets are not going to do so on their own. Hence, novel, including hybrid means and much more affordable transfer of relevant technologies are needed to rapidly promote renewable energy use and ecological adaptation to global warming without adversely affecting the worse off.

 

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Fortunata Palomino is an experienced community organizer from Carabayllo and general coordinator of the Network of Soup Kitchens of Metropolitan Lima, which includes 2,247 soup kitchens. She is critical of the neglect by the authorities and hopes that women will be trained, certified and incorporated into the labor market with respect for their rights. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Jan 24 2022 (IPS)

It’s nine o’clock in the morning and Mauricia Rodríguez is already peeling garlic to season the day’s lunch at the Network of Organized Women of Villa Torreblanca, one of more than 2,400 solidarity-based soup kitchens that have emerged in the Peruvian capital in response to the worsening poverty caused by the partial or total halt of economic activities in the country due to COVID-19.

Up to Mar. 16, 2020 – when the government of then President Martin Vizcarra declared a state of national emergency in an attempt to curb the pandemic – Mauricia made a living selling snacks and meals at a school, while her husband drove a rented motorcycle cab, with which he provided local transportation services. But from one day to the next, they were left without their livelihood.

They were not alone. In this Andean country of 33 million people with solid macroeconomic fundamentals, the pandemic exposed structural flaws that cause deep inequality gaps. For example, seven out of 10 workers were working in the informal sector as of 2019, lacking pensions, health insurance and other labor rights, and with no possibility of saving money, like Mauricia and her husband.

As a result of the health emergency measures and the pandemic more than six million people became unemployed in 2020, most of them in the informal sector in the areas of commerce and services, where women play a predominant role. In Latin America, 34 million jobs were lost that year, according to the International Labor Organization.

In addition, according to a report by the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI), poverty had climbed 10 percentage points to 30 percent, pushing another 3.33 million people into a precarious situation, who could no longer afford the basic basket of goods, estimated at 360 soles (92 dollars) a month.

Families in impoverished neighborhoods in the capital were among the hardest hit.

“The already existing poverty was aggravated by the pandemic. We saw people getting desperate, they had nothing to eat,” Esther Alvarez, a lawyer in charge of advocacy at the non-governmental CENCA Urban Development Institute, which has been working for more than 40 years in poor neighborhoods on the outskirts of Lima, such as those in the San Juan de Lurigancho district, told IPS by telephone.

Soup kitchens spontaneously emerged thanks to food donations and community organization based on solidarity, reciprocity and a humanitarian and rights-based approach, combining efforts with the local parishes, to address the growing hunger in areas invisible to the authorities, in the country’s capital itself.

In Lima, where a third of the national population is concentrated -almost 10 million inhabitants- poverty climbed from 14.2 percent to 27.5 percent, and it is estimated that with the crisis another 250,000 people have fallen into extreme poverty, unable to afford a basic food basket of 196 soles (49 dollars) a month.

Alvarez explained that in alliance with other civil society institutions, they organized the soup kitchens that emerged in different districts of Lima, creating a permanent online communication space, which continues to this day, while promoting the formation of the Network of Soup Kitchens of Metropolitan Lima.

The network and online communication space enable interaction between the organizers of the soup kitchens, mainly women, who have emerged as leaders in the fight against hunger and for the right to food, issues that should be addressed by the authorities.

Three women community organizers whose solidarity and efforts contribute to the food security of impoverished families in the area stand outside their local soup kitchen. From left to right, Mauricia Rodríguez, Fortunata Palomino and Elizabeth Huachilla. During the visit by IPS, the menu, cooked with firewood because of the lack of cooking gas, consisted of rice with panamito beans and fried bonito, a fish rich in Omega 3. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Solidarity-based community efforts for a better life

The Network of Organized Women of Villa Torreblanca soup kitchen emerged in the upper part of the district of Carabayllo, located on the slopes of hills in the northern part of the capital. A few days after the national pandemic emergency was declared, it began to operate in the wooden house of Elizabeth Huachillo.

A native of Ayabaca in the northern highlands of Peru, she came to Lima at the age of 15 to find work and today, 40 years old and the mother of Lizbeth, 17, and Tracy, seven, she is the driving force behind the soup kitchen.

Huachillo drove a motorcycle taxi to support her family, but as a result of the lockdown she was unable to work and they were going hungry. “We had nothing to eat and I began to investigate how to create a soup kitchen. I looked up Señora Fortunata, who is a well-known and respected leader in the district, and together with her we launched it on Mar. 23,” 2020, she says while showing IPS the fish that will be served in today’s lunch.

Fortunata Palomino is 57 years old. From her native Ayacucho – a central Andean region devastated by the 1980-2000 internal armed conflict – she was sent to the capital by her parents when she was still a child. She went through many difficult situations to get ahead and put a roof over her head. She has four daughters who have managed to become professionals and she is proud she was able to make it possible for them to have an education.

While she and her husband ran their household, she became involved in different organizations to promote the rights of local people, including nutrition and a life free of violence for women and children.

She is familiar with the district and the plight of its people, especially in the shantytowns built on the hillsides where the houses are made of wood, families have no drinking water or sanitation and the roads are unpaved. “The authorites are absent here,” she complained.

She feels like a survivor when she thinks back to March 2020 and the terrible uncertainty, anxiety and fear that swept through the poorest families in her neighborhood.

“We were the first to start up a soup kitchen in Carabayllo, and many more followed suit, until there were 137,” she said.

In order to coordinate and strengthen their activities, they formed the Network of Soup Kitchens of Metropolitan Lima, of which she was elected general coordinator. As of November 2021, a total of 2,468 soup kitchens were registered there, feeding 257,000 people a day.

“Here in our soup kitchen we served 250 lunches a day at the peak of the crisis. Now we make 120 because some people have managed to return to their jobs as collectors, drivers or street vendors,” said Elizabeth Huachillo.

The solidarity price is two soles (51 cents). But nothing is charged in special cases, such as the elderly or people with tuberculosis. When the women find out someone has COVID, they leave the meals in plastic containers on their doorstep. And children orphaned by the death of their parents due to COVID-19 also receive free meals.

According to the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations, in 2021, there were 98,000 minors orphaned by the pandemic.

“We are doing what the authorities should be doing because we could not remain indifferent to such desperation. Despite our efforts, it has been a struggle to achieve legal recognition of the soup kitchens so they can access budget funds; the law was passed last year and now it is time for it to be implemented,” Huachillo said.

With the political instability that Peru has experienced in recent years, four governments have already managed the pandemic, and each one has made some achievements in coordination with civil society organizations and the Food Security Board of the Municipality of Lima, a multisectoral body that brings together social organizations, non-governmental institutions and the State.

Esther Álvarez of CENCA said the challenges for this year include achieving the implementation of the food emergency law and the allocation of a budget for the soup kitchens to address the food emergency, and to get the government to approve a regulatory framework that incorporates them into a Zero Hunger Program.

For her part, Fortunata Palomino is thinking about the post-pandemic world and suggests that the government should train and certify the women currently running the soup kitchens in various activities so that they can join the formal labor market in the future. “We need our own incomes with jobs that respect our rights,” she said.

Students attending class at the Souza Gare school in the Littoral region, Cameroon. The school hosts displaced children who have fled the violence in the North-West and South-West regions. The school is supported by ECW. Credit: ECW/Daniel Beloumou

By Busani Bafana
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Jan 24 2022 (IPS)

Education lifts millions out of poverty, but because the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out gains made in recent decades, a holistic approach to providing education in crises is crucial, says German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Svenja Schulze.

“Education is a human right and can provide stability and protection for children and adolescents in times of crisis. Yet education is often one of the first services to be suspended, and among the last to be resumed,” Schulze noted following Germany’s announcement of €200 million (US$228.3 million) in new, additional funding to Education Cannot Wait (ECW), a United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crisis.

“Through Germany’s additional contribution to Education Cannot Wait on the International Day of Education, we intend to make a strong call for more international solidarity to support the education of crisis-affected girls and boys worldwide,” Schulze told IPS. She other countries with strong economies, such as G7 partners and private donors to invest in and prioritize education in times of crisis.

German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Svenja Schulze today announced €200 million (US$228.3 million) in new, additional funding to Education Cannot Wait. Credit: Stefanie Loos

Germany’s contribution brings ECW’s Trust Fund to $1.1 billion. Over $1 billion has been leveraged through ECW in-country programmes, making ECW a US$2 billion global fund in just a few years since its establishment in 2016. Appropriately the announcement was made on the International Day of Education with the theme: ‘Changing Course, Transforming Education’.

“This new funding brings Germany’s total contributions to ECW to over €318.8 million ($362.7 million),” ECW’s Director, Yasmine Sherif, told IPS.

“It is a shining example of multilateralism being both bold and results-driven. With this new multi-year announcement, Germany becomes ECW’s number one donor, and Germany becomes the leading donor to commit to multi-year funding,” Sherif says.

IPS reporter Busani Bafana spoke with Schulze and Sherif following the announcement of the new funding. He asked them about the impact of global investments in realizing inclusive and equitable quality education.

Here are excerpts from the interview:

IPS: Why is it important to Germany to invest in multi-year resilience programmes in education through Education Cannot Wait – particularly for vulnerable children and adolescents impacted by armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters, and protracted crises?

Schulze: Germany is committed to the guiding principle of the 2030 Agenda, Leave No One Behind. The international community has agreed to focus on the most vulnerable and reach those who are currently the furthest behind.

Today, one in four school-aged children and adolescents worldwide lives in a country affected by crises. ECW’s multi-year resilience programmes are an appropriate response to the educational needs of crisis-affected children because they bridge the divide between short-term humanitarian interventions and longer-term development cooperation. Education Cannot Wait – the name ECW points out so clearly: now, with COVID-19, we can see the serious consequences of disrupted education even in our own country. For children and youth living in countries affected by crises, the situation is much worse. They need our ongoing assistance, and we need their talents in these challenging times.

With today’s new, additional contribution to ECW, Germany has become ECW’s number one donor – congratulations! What is it about ECW’s mandate and its work with other strategic donors and partners in delivering quality education for crisis-affected children and youth that appeal to Germany? 

Schulze: In order to resolve today’s education challenges, we need multi-stakeholder partnerships. For Germany, ECW is a ground-breaking initiative because it brings together public and private actors in humanitarian aid and development cooperation. By combining innovative short-term and medium-term financing, ECW strengthens the international aid architecture to deliver quality education in emergencies.

Germany is also a strong partner of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Last year, we launched the Support Her Education (SHE) Initiative with a pledge of €100 million towards GPE’s Girls’ Education Accelerator. The focus on girls’ education is a priority for us in development as we know that girls can be agents of change for entire societies – just think of Greta Thunberg and her outreach for climate change. As a former Environment Minister, I am very aware of this. So, this money is an investment with a high return. And we will continue to strengthen international partnerships and improve coordination amongst development partners.

IPS: Today, ECW and BMZ announced a major contribution to the ECW global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. Do you have a specific plan for this significant contribution? 

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait, pictured in Afghanistan during a recent visit, welcomed the donation saying it would give children living in protracted crises an opportunity to be educated.
Credit: ECW/ Omid Fazel

Sherif: The money will be pooled into the ECW Global Trust Fund and delivered via our Multi-Year Resilience Programmes (MYRPs). In all, ECW supports MYRPs in 24 countries along with fast-acting First Emergency Responses (FERs) in 35 countries worldwide. Since ECW was launched, a total of 42 emergency and protracted crisis countries have benefitted from the fund’s investments. Our goal is to scale up our responses to reach even more children and youth with the safety, hope, and opportunity of quality education. This significant and generous contribution by Germany will enable ECW to scale up its added value and results in achieving results-driven and impact-yielding multi-year investments based on the humanitarian-development nexus in crisis-impacted countries and to ensure sustainability, local empowerment, and the Grand Bargain for those left furthest behind.

Education is an inherent human right, but it remains inaccessible to millions of crisis-affected children and adolescents. How successful is ECW in ensuring that this human right becomes a reality?

Global leaders have committed to providing universal and equitable education by 2030 as outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDG4). ECW supports our global efforts to achieve these goals, specifically for the 128 million children and adolescents whose education has been disrupted in their young lives due to conflict, forced displacement, and climate disasters.

Decades of progress in achieving SDG4 have been pushed aside by the multiplying impacts of armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters, COVID-19, and protracted crises. According to UNESCO, as many as 258 million children and youth don’t attend school worldwide. Two out of three students are still impacted by full or partial school closures from COVID-19. Girls are particularly at risk, with estimates projecting that between 11 million and 20 million girls will not return to school after the pandemic. And over 617 million children and adolescents cannot read or do basic math. That’s more than the total population of Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States combined.

As you mention, ECW has a $1 billion funding gap for education in emergencies and protracted crises. How do you plan to close this gap?

Sherif: In just five years, ECW has met and surpassed its goals for resource mobilization. Part of our mission is underscoring the value of education in achieving our global goals for sustainable development. For every $1 spent on girls’ education, we generate approximately $2.80 in return. Making sure girls finish secondary education could boost the GDP of developing countries by 10 percent over the next decade.

As we’ve seen from Germany’s generous contribution today, key public donors are rising to this challenge and prioritizing education in their official development or/and humanitarian assistance. Now it’s time for others to follow suit, and we certainly hope Germany’s leadership will inspire them to do so.

The private sector needs to step up too. In a world where football teams sell for billions of dollars and billionaires fly themselves into space, how is it possible that we are not finding the resources to send every child to school?

Investing in a child’s education means investing in all of humanity. It is time to transform our perception of the world, our priorities, and how we shoulder our responsibility as a human family. I encourage world leaders and the private sector to join ECW’s movement to support crisis-affected children to realize their human right to quality, inclusive education.

ECW recently approved a $91.7 million Multi-Year Resilience Programmes investment in Bangladesh, Burundi, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, and Sudan. How many children are being reached through these investments? 

Sherif: We recently announced a total of S$91.7 million in catalytic grant financing for new and expanded Multi-Year Resilience Programmes in Bangladesh, Burundi, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, and Sudan. All but Bangladesh are new multi-year investments, accelerating ECW’s growing expansion into countries impacted by protracted crises. These new multi-year investments announcements add to the multi-year catalytic grant announced earlier in 2021 for Iraq.

Across all countries, the catalytic grants aim to reach over 900,000 vulnerable children and adolescents, of whom 58 percent are girls. Half of the children and adolescents targeted are refugees or internally displaced, and 13 percent are children with disabilities.

These grants aim to leverage an additional US$250 million worth of public and private donors’ funding aligned to the multi-year programmes in these countries to reach a total of 3.3 million crisis-affected children.

You have traveled to schools where children access education in a safe environment for the first time. What impressed you most about the children, the teachers, and the parents?

Sherif: The vastness of human potential is what impresses me most when I meet with children, teachers, and their parents in places like Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, and beyond. If you teach a girl to read, she can lift up a nation. If you teach a boy to write, he can build a better world. In these places – truly the world’s toughest contexts – all that these children want is the opportunity to go to school, to learn, to grow, to thrive. When we deny their human right to an education, we are denying our own humanity. We can, and we must all do better for them, by working together.

We can still say Happy New Year … what is the biggest challenge for ECW at this stage in January 2022?

Sherif: Together with governments, UN agencies, civil society organizations, public donors, the private sector, and local communities, we need to transform the way we think about delivering education in emergencies and protracted crises. No single stakeholder can do it alone. At this year’s Transforming Education Summit, convened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, we will ask ourselves how we can avert a generational catastrophe and rethink our education systems and financing to make good on our commitments and promises.

Are you optimistic that the world can achieve the SDGs, particularly SDG #4?

Sherif: Yes, I am optimistic by nature, but also realistic as this will require a global moonshot to achieve the SDGs by the 2030 deadline. We can do it. But every nation, every government, every person truly needs to come together to commit to them and deliver on our promises.

 

 

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