Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Jamaica is increasingly cited as a model of meaningful youth engagement. Here Environment and Climate Change Minister Pearnel Charles Jr plants trees with a young environmentalist. Credit: NDC Partnership

By Alison Kentish
DOMINICA, Sep 21 2021 (IPS)

When the NDC Partnership, the alliance which helps governments to determine and achieve their climate goals, held its first-ever Global Youth Engagement Forum in July, several segments were underpinned by Jamaica’s model of engaging young people and sustaining youth interest in climate initiatives.

The Caribbean country, a co-chair of the NDC Partnership, has committed to ensuring that youth have a say on national climate programs, through representation on boards such as the Climate Advisory Body and the NDC Partnership.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Pearnel Charles Jr told IPS that policymakers are committed to a well-defined and permanent space for young people in climate change decision-making.

He spoke to IPS on Jamaica’s blueprint for youth engagement, how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted plans for an on-the-ground campaign to meet youth at primary, secondary, and tertiary education institutions and why engagement must be universal and equitable.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): Why is it so important for you that space at the center of climate discussion and action is dedicated to young people?

Pearnel Charles Jr (PC): The best use of our time and energy and the best investment that we can make is in building the capacity of our young people. It’s a sensible, strategic decision based on the fact that they will very soon control the policy, legislation, and decisions of the country.

It is also the right decision as young people can have a wider impact than most because of their energy, creativity, innovation, and interest. We don’t have issues with having to inform the youth as much as we think. That is not the issue. They are informed and in large part involved, but they do not get enough avenues to shine or platforms to perform and be engaged. My responsibility is to create platforms for them to simply express themselves, learn more, and become more aware of how they can play a greater role and influence others around them.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Pearnel Charles Jr believes it’s important to create platforms for young people to interact with environmental issues. Credit: NDC Partnership

I have found in the several roles that I have had that whenever I have targeted the young, it has not been just because they are young. Once you get youth on board, they will not only influence the younger generation, but they become soldiers in their homes and communities. They speak to the elders, urge them to conserve, and suggest new methods for sustainable action.

It is also easier to change behavior at an early stage. Those of us who are over 35 are set in our ways, in a pattern of life. Science teaches that it is more difficult to change behavior after a certain time. So again, I think it is a sensible and sustainable decision and why I always get young people involved, engaged, and energized.

IPS: Jamaica is often highlighted for its youth engagement in climate change. How do you ensure that young people are part of decision-making?

PC: As it relates to the climate change portfolio, I have a climate change advisory board. It is led by a distinguished professor, the principal of the University of West Indies, but what I have ensured is that on that high-level board, we have strong youth representation. It is not one person, not token youth representation. I have about three or four young leaders on the board. I have also ensured that there is gender equity in addition to strong youth representation.

We also have youth who are always engaged in consultations taking place in our ministry. We keep connected and ask for their views on policy decisions and how best to execute in communities.

We have two representatives on the NDC Partnership Youth Taskforce, which is significant. They play a role in how that global partnership impacts the world and how we create an arena where young people can feel safe to speak up.

We make sure to include young people in everything. Sometimes they host events, other times they moderate panel discussions. They are leading the conversation, as opposed to being attached to the conversation.

We have the Jamaica Climate Change Youth Council, which is an affiliate of my advisory board. The Council raises awareness about climate change and its effects on young Jamaicans aged 15 to 35. The members drive advocacy in that regard.

We also have the Caribbean Youth Environment Council and we have environment and climate change clubs in schools which help to coordinate and get the message out to students.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Pearnel Charles Jr interacts with the Climate Change Youth Council. Credit: NDC Partnership

IPS: How has COVID-19 impacted your activities?

PC: COVID has handicapped the capacity to have in-person meetings and initially, I intended to go from school to school and university to university, to create forums and opportunities for the youth to be able to not just be engaged, but exposed to cutting edge climate change issues and also to share their solutions, whether they have invented something or researched an issue and have a hypothesis, but I have not been able to do that.

I do intend to once the circumstances change and if I am still in this position, to drive a robust campaign across all of our tertiary, secondary, and even primary institutions, to raise awareness and directly allow our youth and children to learn and be involved in climate action.

IPS:  In terms of success stories, are you buoyed by the climate discussions and initiatives of young people in Jamaica?

PC: You know, young people are bold. They are not afraid to be offensive in telling you what they think. It may not always be correct, but they will give you the truth, as opposed to saying, “yes, Minister,” so even outside of the public space where everybody’s watching, I always rely on the interrogation of young minds. I appreciate the criticism that they have.

We have created platforms where young people get an opportunity to not just speak, but to create solutions and that is one of the things that I am very happy for, that from the public or private sector, we have initiatives that allow them to display their skills in creating solutions, whether it is to reduce the carbon footprint or through entrepreneurship by cultivating some type of plant or whatever sustainable practice that we are trying to advance.

When we create an opportunity for them to do that, it not only raises awareness, but it provides them with a long-term avenue for participation and it is the best type of participation, as they are gaining profit from promoting sustainability.

I still stand as a youth representative for UNESCO although I am not in the youth category anymore. Recently, I had a meeting with one or two of my representatives on the UNESCO Ambassador Programme, an initiative I created where young people can become representatives of the sustainable development movement. We intend to use that group as an avenue to carry out online engagements, educate youth on climate change and environment issues and give them an opportunity to ask questions, share their thoughts and recommendations.

IPS:  The recently held Global Youth Engagement Forum was a landmark event for the NDC Partnership’s Steering Committee and its Youth Task Force. What do you think it achieved?

PC: It was a genuinely safe and open space for youth to participate, strengthen their commitment to being ambassadors for climate action, share best practices, and ultimately, build capacity.

What we have done with this engagement is build the ability of our youth to take charge of their actions and drive the participation of others around them in the policies that we have designed to advance sustainable development.

We have failed over the years to truly advance sustainable practices. It is the youth who will do it, they are doing it.

I do not have to call. I get calls from young people saying, “minister, we want to do a beach cleanup,” and I have to remind them that this is not possible during COVID. But it shows that they are not wasting time. They have organized beach cleanups, recycling drives, they are picking up plastics, they are designing climate-smart communities and we don’t have to beg them, we only need to provide a platform for them.

So, I think that the youth you know that engagement for all is critical. It is a critical roadmap of participation on a wide level for our youth and for them now to drive implementation of the policies and practices that we need across the country and region.

Also, it speaks to the level of consultation and dialogue that has to continue. It is not about having one engagement and feeling comfortable. The need for consistency in our communication to ensure that we continue to have meaningful youth engagement. The meaningful must come before the youth engagement it has to be designed to really know the youth inclusive approach, where you’re speaking to them, getting them involved, you have an opportunity to bend and shape policy.

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sep 21 2021 (IPS)

As developing countries struggle to cope with the pandemic, they risk being set back further by restrictive fiscal policies. These were imposed by rich countries who no longer practice them if they ever did. Instead, the global South urgently needs bold policies to ensure adequate relief, recovery and reform.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Bold fiscal responses needed
Governments must mobilise and deploy resources sustainably and fairly, consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With rich countries’ refusal to help more, adequate government financing is crucial.

Taxation is typically a more sustainable, effective and accountable way of raising government fiscal resources. But the pandemic has imposed extraordinary demands requiring massive urgent spending.

National authorities can generate fiscal resources in two main ways, by collecting revenue or borrowing. Government borrowing is generally needed as revenue has been hit by the slowdown.

Massive fiscal resource mobilization and appropriate spending are needed to contain the contagion and prevent temporary recessions – e.g., due to lockdowns – from becoming debilitating protracted depressions.

Fiscal policy involves both government resource generation and spending. But developing countries have been far more conservative in spending compared to the rich. The latter have introduced much bolder relief and recovery packages.

In the short, medium and long term, both government spending and taxation must be progressive. Much depends on how revenue is raised and spent. Hence, both taxation and expenditure need to be considered.

Taxes less progressive now
Governments must quickly develop progressive ways to finance massive spending needed to protect both lives and livelihoods. Over the last four decades, many governments reduced progressive direct taxation, instead embracing regressive indirect taxes.

Higher tax rates on the wealthy made direct taxation progressive. The regression was mainly due to lobbying by powerful elites, including foreign investors. The influential Washington-based Bretton Woods international financial institutions led such advocacy.

Incomes of the wealthy are mainly from assets, rather than wages, salaries or payments for goods or services. But tax rates on the highly paid, as well as property, inheritance and corporate incomes have declined in most countries.

Wealth is often untaxed, or only lightly taxed at lower rates. New rules now allow assets to be moved and hidden abroad. Depending on how one estimates, between US$8–35 trillion is held offshore, obscuring wealth concentration and inequality.

Taxation can reduce existing inequalities, but rarely does so despite the widespread presumption that taxes are progressive overall. Worse, most state spending is regressive, little mitigated by highly publicised social spending.

Difficult to measure, pandemic impacts on various inequalities vary considerably. Nevertheless, the vicious cycle connecting economic disadvantage with vulnerability has worsened disparities.

Ensure progressive taxation
To be equitable, taxation must be progressive. More equitable tax systems should get more revenue from those most able to pay while reducing the burden on the needy. Wealth taxes are the most progressive way to raise revenue while also reducing inequalities.

Direct taxes on wealth and incomes are potentially progressive. Progressively higher rates and exemptions for the poor can ensure this. Low rates on investment income and assets – such as property, wealth and inheritance – can be increased. Besides reducing inequalities, these can finance progressive spending.

Taxing windfall and excess profits is not only publicly acceptable, but can also raise considerable funds. Some corporations and individuals have benefited greatly during the pandemic, e.g., US billionaires have reportedly become over a trillion dollars richer over the last year and a half.

In the longer term, progressive taxation means less reliance on indirect taxes – such as sales or consumption taxes, including value-added, or goods and services tax – which burden those with lower incomes much more.

Tax evasion by the wealthy must also be deterred. Companies using tax havens to pay less can be penalised, e.g., by disqualifying them from all government and state-owned enterprise contracts. Tax systems can thus be made more progressive by improving design and with strict, equitable enforcement.

Equitable recovery?
Ensuring equitable recovery requires urgent systemic reforms. Although unlikely to yield much more revenue in the near term due to the economic slowdown, introducing such reforms now will be politically much easier.

Taxation can transfer fiscal resources from the wealthy to the needy. Those living precariously, including those now at risk due to the pandemic and its broad impacts, urgently need help. But financing relief and recovery provides liquidity, averting protracted economic contraction and stagnation.

Some pandemic relief spending in many countries has been ‘captured’ by the politically well-connected, as political elites and their cronies seize the lucrative new opportunities. These compromise not only relief and recovery, but also reform efforts.

When relief and recovery are treated as temporary ‘one-off’ measures, they are unlikely to address pre-pandemic problems, including inequities. Governments should instead use the crisis to advance SDG solutions for both the medium and long-term.

Multilateral cooperation needed
International cooperation can help, but the rich countries’ Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has long focused on addressing offshore tax evasion to secure more revenue for themselves.

A decade ago, it broadened its attention, but continued to insist on its own leadership at the expense of developing countries. It has thus effectively blocked multilateral tax cooperation for decades, ignoring the UN’s strong mandate from various Financing for Development and other summits.

Equitable international tax reforms remain urgent. But these have been undermined by earlier reforms encouraging cross-border flows of funds, enabling illicit financial flows from developing countries.

Although unlikely to yield much revenue for some time, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s global minimum corporate income tax proposal deserves strong qualified support.

Developing countries need to ensure that transnational companies are better taxed, instead of the current G7 proposal for a low rate. Revenue should be distributed according to where both production and consumption take place instead of just where sales occur.

Effectively checking tax abuses also requires access to financial information and common, equitable and transparent rules, not those imposed by the rich. But such outcomes can only be achieved through UN-led multilateralism with developing country governments participating as equals.

 

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By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Sep 20 2021 (IPS)

Last year, as the world grappled to survive the Covid-19 Pandemic, Megan Fernandas an accountant living in Toronto, was trying to face her biggest fear, not the COVID-19 virus, but missing her doctor’s appointment after surviving a rigorous fight against stage 2 breast cancer.

Meagan had just gotten back to her normal life when the news of the pandemic hit the world. “I live with my family here in the city and we were all at home, even now we barely go out, so we knew we could ensure not getting infected, but god forbid if I had a health escalation or a reaction to any medication, this was a very stressful time for me.

Dr. Monsura Haque

“We all know how difficult it is to get a doctor’s appointment, sometimes even if it’s an emergency, the wait period can take weeks, and only the lucky ones are able to find a personal physician. My fear was missing my monthly check-ups. This pandemic could ruin it all, just because we can’t get to a doctor on time. I just wish meeting a doctor was a simple and easy process,” says Fernandas.

Fast forward to September 2021, as Canada continues to fight the pandemic, come snap elections, parties have made several pledges to make sure Canada is prepared for the next pandemic – though experts warn “this could be trickier than politicians make it out to be”.

Earlier this month, Toronto-based research group ICES said that between August 29 and September 4, Peel, a region which has cases steadily rising, had the sixth highest positivity rate – 4.46 percent out of 34 public health regions in Ontario, which is Canada’s most populous province. The region has reported more than 114,000 cases since the pandemic began, with over 960 deaths.

The COVID-19 pandemic generated uneven experiences for millions of healthcare workers and physicians across the world. In Canada, with a health system battered by the pandemic, the country has reported more than 1.45 million cases and more than 26, 000 deaths since the pandemic began, according to John Hopkins University data.

What makes this worse is a report in 2019 stated that only 241 physicians per 100,ooo population were available in the country, indicating the sheer overburden on Canada’s health system through this global health crisis.

Dr. Joel Parungao

While there are a lot of discussion on making the integration of Internationally Trained Medical Doctors (ITMD) easier in Canada, Joel Parungao a trained physician from the Philippines with more than 5 years of experience in public health and hospital medicine managed to contribute his bit during the pandemic last year.

Despite experience and qualifications, Parungao joined the Ontario Ministry of Health as a Covid Case Manager.

“This job gave me an opportunity to “be in the frontline,” Parungao says. “A remote work-from-home job and we were deployed to a specific Public Health Unit conducting COVID case investigations and helping them deal with outbreaks. I was able to help the province and the country in fighting the pandemic,” Parungao says in an interview given to IPS News.

Parungao being amongst the very few who played a role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic is amongst the 13,000 ITMDs in Canada who despite qualifications and experience are yet to become licensed doctors in the country.

“I am still pursuing my dream to be a licensed doctor here in Canada. It’s difficult, given the amount of time and money you have to invest in just credentials verification, qualifying exams, and other required medical residency training,” says Parungao. “You have to be ready to work in ‘survival jobs’ that are completely out of the medical field at first and then find a way to move to an alternative health profession afterwards,” Parangao says.

One of the key challenges as reported here for ITMDs in Canada remains cost associated with licensing examinations, the CaRMS application process is often a barrier for newcomers. A report states that 47 % of foreign-educated health professionals are either unemployed or employed in non-health related positions that require only a high school diploma.

Dr. Monsura Haque, an international Medical Graduate from Bangladesh with almost 16 years of experience in medical practise says, “there is no doubt that Canada needs more doctors for all types of work, either clinical or alternative pathways. This pandemic reveals that need and the crisis in the healthcare system.”

While Dr. Monsura has no practical experience in clinical settings, with her speciality in Public Health, she volunteered in hospitals and University to gain more experience, while they were excellent opportunities for her, “those settings were really just using volunteers without any remuneration,” Haque says.

Health care systems across the world are undergoing massive challenges, strains and are not without faults. During the pandemic, access concerns, quality of care and the high costs of services which are not covered by insurance or by those who can’t afford it are few common traits across borders. For healthcare professionals the challenge has been access to PPE kits, long exhaustive hours, mental and physical trauma and these issues are further complicated in Canada by just the lack of the number of doctors available per person for COVID and non-COVID related cases.

The cost of healthcare is increasing, and Canada cannot afford to say it is going to focus on health care without including or evening mentioning the pool of ITMDs available and under utilized.

“Integration of ITMDs into the Canadian healthcare system requires a national strategy and approach by government policymakers and other regulatory bodies,” says Dr. Shafi Bhuiyan, ITMDs Canada Network (iCAN) Char and Global Health Expert.

“Canada has the opportunity to make these changes right now, I always say it will be a win-win situation for all. We have a pool of talented ITMDs who are under utilized or leaving their professionals due to such roadblocks. If these changes can be made, and we find a way to include ITMDs into our healthcare system, a lot can be achieved.” says Bhuiyan.

 

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Food experts have many and varied expectations of the UN Food System Summit. It's hoped decisions made here will help the world get back on track for the Sustainable Development Goals 2030. Credit: Alison Kentish

By Alison Kentish
DOMINICA, Sep 20 2021 (IPS)

Dubbed ‘the People’s Summit, the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) hopes to put the world back on a path to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, through food systems overhauling. From the tempered to the extremely optimistic, experts in various food system sectors share their expectations of transformation.

The world has been lagging on ambitious climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals, but the UNFSS is hoping that commitments to transform global food systems will get the world back on track to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

The inaugural UNFSS will take place virtually during the UN General Assembly High-Level Week, under the leadership of UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

It promises to bring together the public and private sectors, non-governmental organisations, farmers groups, indigenous leaders, youth representatives and researchers to outline a clear path to ensure that the world’s food production and distribution are safe, healthy, sustainable and equitable.

Learning from the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, the summit also hopes to make food production and distribution more resilient to vulnerabilities, stress and shocks.

Experts in sustainability and various food system sectors have been speaking about their expectations and hopes for a summit that is built on solutions to some of the world’s most pressing issues such as land degradation, inequality, rising hunger, and obesity.

Panellists at a Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) ‘Fixing the Business of Food’ webinar held on September 16, 2021, were asked how optimistic they were, on a scale of 1 to 10, of real food systems transformation in the next 12 months, triggered by the private sector.

“I am going to give a full 10,” said Viktoria de Bourbon de Parme, Head of Food Processing at the World Benchmarking Alliance. “I am super optimistic,” she added. “I think we are there. Momentum is there, and it is going to happen.”

Executive Director of Food and Nature at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development Diane Holdorf is similarly optimistic.

“I would say an 8 out of 10, but I do have to preface this by saying that systems change is complex. With individual leading companies demonstrating what is possible and bringing others along, we are going to see for sure actual system changes,” she said.

Not all experts are optimistic that the UNFSS will bring about the urgent changes required for food systems transformation.

IPS spoke with Million Belay, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) head, about his expectations for the summit.

Belay, who is also an advisory board member for BCFN and a food systems researcher, said that he and alliance members disagree with the summit’s agenda and structure. The alliance represents farmers, pastoralists, hunter/gatherers, faith-based organisations, indigenous peoples and women’s groups,

“The pre-summit has happened in Rome. During that presummit, we had our own summit, organised by civil society mechanisms, and it was clear that farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous people, local groups, and women’s organisations were all saying no, the UNFFS summit does not represent us. There is no reason to be part of that,” Belay said.

Belay believes that the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) should have been responsible for organising the Summit.

“This is a space where the civil society in general and the civil society mechanism and governments come together to negotiate about food-related issues, so the agenda should have been set there,” he said, adding that, “the UNFSS has set up a scientific body as part of the structure, but we already have a scientific body in the CFS, that is called the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition. It is a scientific body, and you can say that we need to beef up this body, but they have established a totally different scientific body.”

While expectations from the summit differ, the experts are unanimous in their view that the world is in urgent need of radical change in how food is grown, sold and distributed to tackle food insecurity, land degradation and rising poverty.

“(The Summit) is one step on a very, very long journey. Perhaps more than ever, as the UN General Assembly opens, we feel the weight and burdens of non-sustainability in the world,” said Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

Sachs says the transformation to sustainable development will demand deep energy and fiscal policy change.

With land-use accounting for about 30 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions and ensuing issues like deforestation and loss of habitat, he is calling for fundamental change in land-use policies across the globe, adding that current, unsustainable use is a ‘massive contributor to crises the board.’

Another aspect of the complex global food system that requires urgent attention is the need for healthy diets.

“About half the world does not have a healthy diet. Of the 8 billion people on the planet, roughly 1 billion live in extreme hunger. Another 2 billion live with one or more micronutrient deficiencies, anaemia, vitamin deficiencies or omega-three fatty acid deficiencies, which are absolutely debilitating for health. Another billion people are obese,” Sachs said.

This week’s UNFSS hopes to get commitments from governments, the private sector, farmers and indigenous groups to work together and change global food production and consumption.

By tackling the food crisis, organisers hope to address the climate, biodiversity, and hunger crises.

 

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A market vendor sells produce at Victoria Market in Port Victoria, Seychelles. Credit: UN Women/Ryan Brown

By Nick Nisbett, Lesli Hoey and Jose Graziano da Silva
BRIGHTON, UK, Sep 20 2021 (IPS)

COVID-19 has exposed numerous fractures in global food systems that leave millions at risk of food insecurity. Like the numerous political failures in dealing with COVID, the repercussions of food system failings are experienced by rich and poor countries alike, with the poorest and most marginalised paying the greatest price.

To be clear, while the numbers of those who are undernourished remain shamefully high, this is a food crisis that is not just about hunger or famine. There is also a silent and growing crisis of an estimated 38.9 million children worldwide affected by overweight and in too many cases, these children grow into adults facing unhealthy eating and chronic diseases associated with obesity (diabetes, heart disease and some cancers etc.).

Alongside these dual burdens of malnutrition, there is a third crisis – climate change – which the food and agriculture is a major contributor to as well as being vulnerable to its impacts, and therefore further threatening food security.

The United Nations (UN) Food Systems Summit on 23 September 2021 was conceived (in the jargon of the UN) to develop equitable, healthy and sustainable responses to ensure that “no one is left behind” as we “build back better” from COVID-19.

Forty one thousand people have taken part in Summit dialogues but the process has been marred by continual criticism, particularly for its inadequate attention to human rights, the sovereignty of indigenous peoples over their own food systems, and worker rights across the food system.

More than anything, criticism of the Summit has focused on its inclusion of ‘Big Food’, including names such as PepsiCo who were invited to ‘fireside chats’ as part of the Pre-Summit in Rome.

Of course, food companies are an essential part of the food system. Indeed, had the Summit engaged first in a root cause analysis of the problems that have contributed to the syndemic (synergistic epidemic) – of undernutrition, obesity and climate change – all issues the Summit portends to address – corporate concentration, negligence and unbridled power would have been identified as the primary cause of policy inertia.

There is no doubt that corporations will need to radically transform as part of the changes advocated by the Summit. But they won’t do that on their own and they certainly won’t do that as part of cosy fireside chats.

Yes, this will take dialogue, but the record on this to date is poor. In many global and national spaces, rather than be “part of the conversation”, there is widely documented academic evidence of big food companies trying to shape the outcomes in their interest: towards voluntary measures and empty promises, away from the regulation (such as front of packet labels) and taxation (such as soda taxes) which have been shown to be most effective in minimising the damage from unhealthy, highly and ultraprocessed foods.

Discussion of such issues, alongside such products’ environmental impacts, have been minimised as part of the Summit process. Was that to avoid Big Food’s’ discomfort at discussing the most unhealthy and unsustainable foods?

UN organisations and their staff are well aware of such issues but have been pressured to “come to the table” with companies they know are more interested in driving shareholder value than contributing to sustainability and public health.

Such companies have a history of unethical marketing of unhealthy foods to children, or persuading poor mothers not to breastfeed. Fortunately, there are conflict of interest rules and protocols that exist to protect the day to day work of UN organisations so that they can fulfil their public mandate without such unethical interference.

As part of our own contribution to the Summit planning and to help it overcome such criticisms, two of us led an ad-hoc committee focused on the Summit’s own ‘principles of engagement’. We also wrote to the UN Secretary General and the Summit leadership to suggest that the Summit simply follow the UN’s own conflict of interest rules and be transparent about who was involved in shaping Summit processes and why.

Our letter was initially signed by 100 individuals and international organisations across five continents, ranging from dietary disease activists in Ghana to organisations such as Save the Children and researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

The UN’s own Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food was an early supporter and 40 additional signatories were added recently when we re-opened the letter due to popular demand, including the American Heart Association and a co-author of this opinion article, the ex-Director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (now Director General of Brazil’s Zero Hunger Institute).

But from the leadership of the summit itself, nothing in reply.

You may ask who cares about these UN summits, really? We do and everyone else should too. Such summits set the scene for national action, they define future funding patterns for UN and bilateral aid organisations, they spawn decades of debate on the issues raised, and, if not well conceived, they provide nice sounding cover for the status-quo.

Behind the multiple fights that have raged in the privileged world of these global debates, there are real issues that will play out in multiple ways in every country faced with the global food and climate emergencies and the inequities that caused them, made all the more raw by the COVID pandemic.

What we have seen ahead of this week’s Summit is a lot of “nutri-washing” and thousands of proposals reflecting the voices of well-nourished people and little (if any) proposals for putting an end to hunger and other forms of malnourishment as a political priority by governments around the world.

The final speech by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres could be a turning point to change this, but not if he chooses to paper over the sensitivities when addressing contentious issues, as UN leaders are wont to do.

If you haven’t yet, get involved, even after the Summit on 23rd September. This battle will rage on including in your own country as it faces up to these multiple food and climate crises and as policy makers face numerous influences over policy directions in response.

All future UN processes should be governed by a simple set of rules set by the precedent of past UN organisations and international summits where conflicts of interest have been taken seriously. This will set the standard for national debates across the world, which is where the real work begins.

Nick Nisbett is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies; Lesli Hoey Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan; and Jose Graziano da Silva is former Director General of FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organization) and Director General of the Zero Hunger Institute. Nick Nisbett is based in Brighton, UK, Lesli Hoey in Michigan, USA and Jose Graziano da Silva in Campinas, SP Brazil.

Footnote: The UN Food Systems Summit, scheduled to take place on Thursday 23 September , will be a completely virtual event during the UN General Assembly High-level Week.

According to the UN, the Summit “will serve as a historic opportunity to empower all people to leverage the power of food systems to drive our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and get us back on track to achieve all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.”

 

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The Chichipicas spring is one of the San Huitzizilapan indigenous community's water sources, in the Lerma municipality, in the state of Mexico -adjacent to Mexico City-, where several community systems manage the resource. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
LERMA/COYOTEPEC, Mexico, Sep 18 2021 (IPS)

In the San Lorenzo Huitzizilapan Otomí indigenous community, in the state of Mexico –adjacent to the country’s capital–, access to water has been based on collective work.

“Public services come from collective work. What we have done is based on tequio (free compulsory work in benefit of the community), cooperation. The community has always taken care of the forests and water,” Aurora Allende, a member of the sector’s Drinking Water System, told IPS.

In San Lorenzo Huitzizilapan, a town of 18,000 people in the municipality of Lerma – about 60 kilometres west of Mexico City – some 10 autonomous community water management groups are responsible for the water supply in their areas.

The first community system emerged in 1960 to meet local needs. “The water falls by gravity and we pipe it. The water runs through 200 drains that come from the hill, and there are two or three wells for the smaller neighbourhoods,” explained Allende, whose father started the first autonomous system in the community and who is a homemaker in addition to her community work.

The Drinking Water System serves some 150 families who pay about two dollars a month for the maintenance of the facilities.

Huitzizilapan, whose name means “river of hummingbirds” in Nahuatl and which owns about 4,000 hectares of land, half of it forests, is part of a strip of water factories that supply the Cutzamala System, the set of dams that supplies water to both the capital and the state of Mexico.

The Otomi people are one of Mexico’s 69 native groups, numbering some 17 million people, out of a total national population of 128 million. More than400 000 indigenous people belonging to five groups live in the state of Mexico.

Despite being guardians of the cultural and biological heritage of this Latin American country, they suffer discrimination and poverty. Almost 50 percent of the headwaters of Mexico’s watersheds are in areas inhabited by indigenous peoples and the regions with the highest rainfall are located in their territories.

The 1992 National Water Law does not recognise the rights of native inhabitants and allows the government’s National Water Commission (Conagua) to grant water permits throughout the country to anyone who applies for them. In 2012, a constitutional amendment recognised the human right to water. However, approval of a new law to implement the constitutional reform is still pending.

In addition, water faces the three horsemen of the apocalypse: the effects of the climate crisis, such as drought; overexploitation; and pollution.

Native peoples suffer from restrictions on new uses of water, put in place by Conagua with the argument that there are water shortages. Today, at least nine of these measures apply in eight of Mexico’s 31 states and the federal district of Mexico City.

Autonomous initiatives have become a mechanism for organising and defending access to water, despite the fact that they are not recognised by law, although they are not prohibited either. But there is no estimate of how many operate in the country nor has there been an assessment of how they function.

But for Conagua and the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission, these systems are a nuisance, because they fall outside the jurisdiction of the former and, for the latter, electricity to operate wells serves as a means of pressure to promote the municipalisation of the service, due to the costs paid by the independent systems.

Aurora Allende, seen here outside the gate of one of the local waster plants, is an autonomous water management system member in the San Lorenzo Huitzizilapan indigenous community, in central Mexico. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Struggles over water

The water issue is a reflection of how native groups are treated in Mexico, because Conagua has granted individuals, companies and municipalities more than 29,000 concessions for the use of water in their territories, covering about 35 billion cubic meters.

For that reason, water is a recurring source of political, social and environmental conflicts in this country with the second-largest population and economy in Latin America and the third largest area, as indicated by recent reports.

Mexico faces a high risk of water stress, surpassed in the region only by Chile, according to the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas developed by the Aqueduct Alliance, made up of governments, companies and foundations. In 2021, the country has been suffering from a severe drought that has had a major impact on agriculture, livestock and water availability in urban centres.

The 2015 report “Conflicts among Indigenous Peoples and Communities of Mexico” prepared by the official National Institute of Indigenous Peoples and seen by IPS, documents 246 disputes over agrarian issues, mining projects and violations of indigenous rights.

Of these, 16 involve water issues, such as the construction of thermoelectric plants, aqueducts and hydroelectric dams.

In the Coyotepec municipality, in the state of Mexico -adjacent to the capital of the country-, the official National Water Commission manages 11 wells to supply the resource on site. Community liquid management systems pose a challenge for the authorities to control the water. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

The 2019 “Report on Violations of the Human Rights to Drinking Water and Sanitation in Mexico,” drawn up by a collective of NGOs, provides a more detailed picture of conflicts over water, outlining 72 cases of violations of the right to water in 16 states.

The municipality of Coyotepec, also in the state of Mexico, illustrates like few others the struggle for water.

In June 2013, the municipal government tried unsuccessfully to take control of the water service, a move that was opposed by the public. The local water supply was managed by the autonomous Coyotepec Drinking Water Administration (AAPCOY), founded in 1963 to provide water to the town of about 41,000 people.

In May 2016, local residents prevented a municipal consultation because they considered it was rigged and aimed at approving the transfer of water to nearby real estate projects.

“The conflict persists. The state government saw that we were winning the battle and forcibly removed us. We oppose municipalisation, because it is the door to the privatisation of the service. They want to take control of our water,” a retired accountant who is a member of the June 9 Popular Front in Defence of Natural Resources of Coyotepec told IPS.

In Coyotepec, which means “place of coyotes” in Nahuatl, located about 40 kilometres north of Mexico City, AAPCOY serves some 12,000 members, who pay about 2.50 dollars a month, and is complemented by two other water systems. For its part, Conagua manages 11 wells and a pumping plant.

In San Lorenzo Huitzizilapan, Coyotepec and other localities with a majority indigenous population, there were violations of rights to water availability, physical and economic accessibility, water quality, as well as access to information and participation, accountability and justice, according to organisations that defend the right to water.

Seeking a remedy, indigenous peoples have sought legal protections that denounce the breach of the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007, which recognise native territory and the right to water.

Claudia Gómez, a non-governmental Lawyers Collective member, and Wilfrido Gómez, the head of Social Data Ibero at the private Iberoamerican University, agree that legal questions are at the root of the problem.

“There are not enough legal mechanisms to guarantee the protection of water as part of indigenous territory,” Claudia Gómez told IPS. “Neither the Water Law nor the constitution has adequately regulated water for the people. There is a battle to gain recognition for native practices and use of water.”

Wilfrido Gómez (no relation) said that “if water is available and if they meet certain legal requirements, companies are given concessions, but for the communities it is more complicated. Control over water is gained by whoever has the money to obtain permits. One implication is the widespread dispossession of land and water, which go together.”

Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the urgent need for clean water, the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs urged governments in its 2020 report “Indigenous Peoples and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Considerations” to improve access to and management of water and sanitation, especially for indigenous people in remote villages, and said this should include “relevant indigenous practices, such as watershed management.”

Despite this situation, Mexico’s National Indigenous Peoples Program 2018-2024 does not mention water once.

Community water rights advocate Sergio Velázquez is fighting for the continuity of an independent water management system in the municipality of Coyotepec, in central Mexico, which has brought him up against pressure from the city council for control of the resource in the municipality. Photo: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Caught between risks and promises

The solution seems to lie in a new water law, which has been held up in the Chamber of Deputies. The lower house of Congress has received at least six initiatives, including the first in the country developed by organisations defending the human right to water, indigenous peoples, agricultural producers and academics.

After seven years of forums and workshops, the citizens’ initiative was built on 12 consensuses.

These include respect for the water rights of local communities, a ban on water permits for toxic mining and fracking endeavours, an end to the hoarding of water permits, prevention of the privatisation of water services, a guarantee of full access to information and sufficient public funds for water supply.

Allende said “all they want is our water and our forests. There are projects for bottling plants and real estate developments in the highlands. They’re doing everything they can to have access to that area. There is a threat of urbanisation; we are afraid that they will enter our territory.” She lamented that they receive no compensation for taking care of the forest and the water.

Claudia Gómez and Wilfrido Gómez advocate the approval of the citizens’ initiative.

“We believe that the approval of a new law that recognises the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities is necessary. There should be conservation and care policies, so that there is no shortage of water in other regions. Therefore, we ask for consensual regional plans, which are achieved through planning by region or basin, and thus priorities are selected,” said the lawyer.

Wilfrido Gómez stressed that the citizens’ initiative provides tools for controlling water concessions. “Very soon there will come a time when there will be no access to water and there will be no guarantees for the right to it. Today, Conagua has no legal tools to deny or withdraw concessions,” he explained.

In Coyotepec, the solution lies in new elections to lead AAPCOY and “oust the usurpers”, in Velázquez’ words, although it is also necessary for the beneficiaries to pay on time for the service, one of the shortcomings of the system.

“Thus, we could return to representative management that guarantees the right to water,” said the activist.

The project for this report was the winner of the Journalistic Research Grants on community water management in Mexico, a Fundación Avina, Cántaro Azul and Fondo para la Paz initiative. But this resulting content is solely the responsibility of IPS.

"Resistance and Popular Rebellion" reads a banner held by demonstrators in San Salvador in a Wednesday, Sept. 15 protest against measures they consider authoritarian adopted by the government of President Nayib Bukele. The latest was the replacement of the constitutional court judges by the ruling party, which paves the way for Bukele to seek immediate reelection, banned up to now in El Salvador. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR, Sep 17 2021 (IPS)

The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, has been widely criticised for his authoritarian tendencies, but has said that the changes he plans will be long-term – which to his critics means a further undercutting of the weak democratic institutions that he has already begun to dismantle.

The president gave the commemoration of the bicentennial of Central America’s independence on Wednesday, Sept. 15, a symbolic touch and pledged that his government would not reverse the changes put into motion.

“This country has suffered so much that it cannot be transformed overnight; important changes, real and worthwhile changes, take time, they are not immediate, they are made step by step”, said Bukele, in a nationwide address broadcast on radio and television on Wednesday night.

The opposition, however, sees the changes as an attack on democracy in this Central American nation of 6.7 million people.

Bukele for president in 2024?

Perhaps the most abrupt change pushed through by the Bukele administration since it took office in June 2019 was the removal of the five judges in the Supreme Court’s constitutional chamber.

They were removed on May 1 when the new legislature, controlled by the lawmakers of Nuevas Ideas, Bukele’s party – who now hold 56 of the 84 seats – was installed.

The governing party’s majority allowed the president to appoint like-minded judges to the constitutional chamber, whose first move was to strike down the legal obstacle to consecutive presidential reelection."Apparently we are in democracy, but the president's actions run counter to democracy, he is dismantling the state's institutionality, and is thus attacking the rights of the entire population." -- Loyda Robles

That opened the door for the president to run again at the end of his current five-year term, in 2024, which was prohibited by the constitution until just two weeks ago.

Bukele, a 40-year-old of Palestinian descent from a wealthy business family, first emerged in politics as a popular mayor of San Salvador from 2015 to 2018. He is described by observers as a millennial populist who uses social media to communicate with the public, often announcing his decisions via Twitter.

The constitutional chamber ruled that the country’s president can serve two consecutive terms in office, whereas according to a 2014 ruling by the same court a president could only run for office again after two terms served by other leaders, based on an interpretation of article 152 of the constitution.

But the new constitutional court judges named by the legislature on May 1 reinterpreted this controversial and confusing article of the constitution and ruled on Sept. 3 that presidents can stand for a consecutive term if they step down six months before the election.

The legal ruling, which drew fire from the opposition and global rights watchdogs, thus makes it possible for Bukele to seek a second term in 2024.

President Nayib Bukele gave a carefully staged speech to the country on the night of Sept. 15, addressing public authorities, as well as civilian and military representatives. CREDIT: Presidency of El Salvador

Manual for Latin American authoritarianism

The Salvadoran president is apparently following, virtually letter by letter, the manual used by other Latin American populist presidents with an authoritarian bent, whether on the right or the left, who, by means of rulings handed down by judges under their control, have overturned laws and perpetuated themselves in power.

“If the people grant power, and the people demand these changes, it would be no less than a betrayal not to make them,” the president said in his speech before civilian and military leaders.

The president now controls the three branches of government, with no checks against his style of government where everything revolves around him, a millennial who usually wears a backwards baseball cap and is intolerant of criticism, whether from the media, international organisations, the U.S. government or other countries.

On the morning of Wednesday Sept. 15, thousands of people marched through the streets of the Salvadoran capital to protest the president’s increasing authoritarianism, in the most massive demonstration against Bukele since he came to power.

“I’m marching to defend our rights and to protest against President Bukele’s abuses,” a trans woman who preferred to remain anonymous told IPS.

Bukele won a landslide victory in February 2019 as an anti-establishment candidate riding the wave of voter frustration and disappointment with the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), in power from 1989 to 2009, and the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), which governed from 2009 to 2019.

Holding a sign reading “This government turned out to be more fake than my eyelashes,” a young trans woman participates in the march called by social organisations on Sept. 15 to protest against President Nayib Bukele and his style of government that, since June 2019, has been dismantling democratic institutions in this Central American nation. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

His party then swept the legislative elections in May 2021 and now, having replaced the members of the constitutional court, Bukele pulls the strings of an important segment of the country’s justice system.

He also controls the Attorney General’s Office, after the governing party’s legislative majority removed then Attorney General Raúl Melara on May 1, replacing him with the pro-Bukele Rodolfo Delgado.

“Apparently we are in democracy, but the president’s actions run counter to democracy, he is dismantling the state’s institutionality, and is thus attacking the rights of the entire population,” lawyer Loyda Robles, of the Foundation for Studies for the Application of Law (FESPAD), told IPS.

She added that there were warning signs that El Salvador could be heading towards an even more authoritarian, dictatorial, Nicaragua-style regime.

The president of that country, Daniel Ortega, has already served three consecutive terms since his return to power in 2007, and is heading for a fourth term in 2022. To this end, the judiciary, under his control, has imprisoned almost a dozen opposition candidates who could challenge him at the polls.

Slippery slope of anti-democratic measures

Emboldened by his overwhelming triumph in the 2019 presidential elections, Bukele has taken a series of steps that have angered opposition sectors, because they believe that he intends to undermine all checks and balances and govern at will.

In addition to the removal of the constitutional court judges and the attorney general, the legislature passed a decree on Aug. 31 that forced some 200 judges to retire.

The government claims it is purging corrupt judges, who do exist. However, the process has not been based on investigations but on an across-the-board decision to make retirement mandatory for all judges over the age of 60 or who have worked for 30 years.

Some analysts have interpreted the move as a purge within the judicial system in order to later fill the vacuum with judges aligned with Bukelismo.

The government denies this charge and says the aim is to make way for young lawyers, arguing that judges in El Salvador do not hold lifetime positions.

But all of these moves have set off alarm bells both inside and outside El Salvador.

Demonstrators in Francisco Morazán square, in the historic center of San Salvador, who came out to protest on Sept. 15 against the increasingly authoritarian moves by Nayib Bukele’s government, in the most massive demonstration against the president since he came to power, called by social organisations on the country’s Independence Day. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

However, analyst Dagoberto Gutiérrez told IPS that the struggle between Bukele and his opponents is rooted in a silent struggle between two economic groups: the traditional oligarchy that has pulled the strings of the country’s politics, and new small, medium and even large businesspeople aligned with the president.

Gutiérrez, a former guerrilla commander now close to the president, said the opposition is demanding independence of powers that has actually never existed in the country, since the oligarchy always put in place officials who would maintain the status quo.

That “democracy” touted by the oligarchy, with its fallacies and abuses, is being taken up by another political project, that of Bukele, who stressed that the extent of the transformations he has planned “is yet to be seen.”

For the time being, according to the constitutional court’s recent ruling, Bukele can, if he wishes, seek reelection at the end of his current term. But he would not be able to run for a third consecutive term.

However, lawyer Tahnya Pastor remarked to IPS: “Who can assure us that in the future, by means of another legal precedent, they won’t pull another reelection out of their sleeve? This doubt remains, obviously.”

She added that when all the warning signs are analysed, “we can conclude that we are heading towards the ultimate concentration of power, and history has shown that no concentration of power is good.”

But like Gutiérrez, Pastor criticised the opposition because in the past they have also manipulated, for their own political interests, the same institutions over which they are now crying foul.

“The constitution has indeed been reformed in the past depending on the makeup of the constitutional court, and the jurisprudence has responded to partisan political interests,” she said.

Bukele seems to be confident that, despite the criticism, his policies and vision are welcomed by the majority of Salvadorans, who continue to support him.

According to a survey by the José Simeón Caña Central American University carried out in June, during Bukele’s second year in office, nine out of 10 respondents said the president represented a positive change for the country.

He obtained an overall high score of 8.1, and those surveyed identified the government’s good management of the Covid-19 pandemic as its main achievement.

Not everyone shares this enthusiasm for Bukele, obviously, nor does all the criticism come from academic, political or activist circles.

“It’s not good for someone to govern as he pleases, that’s how things were done when there were kings, but we are no longer in those times,” Hernán Campos, a farmer from the Cangrejera canton in the municipality and department of La Libertad, in the central part of the country, told IPS.

FAO is working to urgently raise $ 36 million to accelerate support for Afghan farmers. The support aims to ensure that they do not lose their crops, wheat and other winter grains, which could otherwise result in a food emergency that would deepen the crisis in the Asian country. Credit: FAO

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, Sep 17 2021 (IPS)

The traumatic events that occurred in recent weeks in Afghanistan have once again placed this Asian country at the center of the world’s attention with high-impact coverage and analysis in the media.

Perhaps one of the arguments least addressed in the current situation is the state of agriculture and food in the country and the possible effects on these sectors that, if not addressed in time, could intensify an already very delicate situation.

Failure to face the critical autumn that is approaching, the anticipated drought, the economic crisis, the instability and the COVID-19 pandemic may lead to a devastating scenario of hunger and migratory flows, both internally and abroad

In an extraordinary ministerial meeting held on Monday, 13 September, convened by the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, to discuss the urgent measures to be taken to alleviate the critical humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, the potential issue of hunger, especially suffered by girls and boys, arose in several interventions carried out by numerous countries, donors and international organizations.

Failure to face the critical autumn that is approaching, the anticipated drought, the economic crisis, the instability and the COVID-19 pandemic may lead to a devastating scenario of hunger and migratory flows, both internally and abroad.

The drought threatens the subsistence of seven million Afghans if the support for the season’s harvest does not arrive in time.

In Afghanistan, 70 percent of its population (around 36 million people) live in rural areas, and agriculture guarantees the survival of 80 percent of the population.

The Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, requested an urgent contribution of $36 million dollars to immediately address the agricultural and food situation in Afghanistan, in order to provide relief to 3.5 million people.

FAO currently supports more than 1.5 million people in 28 of the 31 Afghan provinces. Assistance in this sector must consist of technical aid, seed donation, training and small financial aid to guarantee basic nutritional needs.

The projected drought this year will reduce plantations by 20 percent and require an increase in cereal needs of 30 percent, while three million head of cattle will be at risk.

Advances in technology and information technology enable many catastrophes to be anticipated before they take place and cause human suffering increase threats to food security and rural livelihoods in countries in severe crises, like in the case of Afghanistan. Such advances require a massive intensification of these digital instruments.

The Director of Emergencies and Resilience of FAO, Rein Paulsen, considers that given the complexity, frequency and intensity of new countries that add to dramatic food crises, it is not possible to continue resorting to strategies of the past. It is necessary to advance in innovation and more efficient and wiser investments.

In this context, immediate action in Afghanistan must be based on previous experiences and adapted to have better immediate results with lower costs.

In the last five years, the number of people in the world affected by a food crisis has risen to 155 million in 2020 in 55 countries, while another 41 million face emergencies due to food insecurity, thus running the risk of suffering from famine or similar conditions unless they receive immediate assistance to survive.

More than 811 million people go hungry around the world, a trend that has been increasing in recent years.

The increase in humanitarian funding for the food sector – from $ 6.2 billion to nearly $ 8 billion between 2016 and 2019 – has been significant, although it is still not enough to provide basic emergency relief.

In the case of Afghanistan, multiple countries have listened to the request of the United Nations to undertake urgent cooperation with the country, multiplying the humanitarian emergency contributions in a country where half of the national budget depended on the international contribution.

Increasing contributions promptly and using them effectively will reduce costs.

In its new reality, the situation in Afghanistan is a challenge for the entire international community. Resolving it positively will demonstrate that it is possible to reverse negative trends in global food security. Let us be reminded there are less than 10 years to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, the second of which is the eradication of world hunger, set forth in the 2030 Agenda.

Excerpt:

Mario Lubetkin is Assistant Director General at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Women produce more than 50 percent of the food in the world but are disadvantaged when it comes to access to resources such as land and financial services. Credit: Busani Bafana, IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Sep 17 2021 (IPS)

Women, key contributors to agriculture production, are missing at the decision table, with alarming consequences, says Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg in an exclusive interview with IPS.

Giving women a seat at the policymaking table could accelerate Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and keep the world fed and nourished. This necessitates a transformation of the currently lopsided global food system, she says.

Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg.

Nierenberg, a top researcher and advocate on food systems and agriculture, acknowledges that women are the most affected during environmental or health crises. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted global food production, affecting women farmers and food producers who were already excluded from full participation in agricultural development.

“We still have a long way to go in making sure that policies are not gender blind and include the needs of women at the forefront when mass disasters occur,“ Nierenberg told IPS, adding that policymakers need to understand the needs of farmers and fisherfolk involved in food systems.

“I think it is time we need more people who are involved with agriculture to run for political office because they understand its challenges,” she said. “If we had more farmers in governments around the world, imagine what that would look like. If we had women farmers running municipalities, towns and even countries, that is where change would really happen.”

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), women contribute more than 50 percent of food produced globally and make up over 40 percent of the agricultural labour force. But while women keep families fed and nourished, they are disadvantaged in accessing critical resources for food production compared to men. They lack access to land, inputs, extension, banking and financial services.

“Until we end the discrimination of women around the globe, I doubt these things will change even though women are in the largest part of the world’s food producers,” said Nierenberg, who co-founded and now heads the global food systems think tank, Food Tank.

Arguing that COVID-19 and the climate crisis were not going to be the last global shocks to affect the world, Nierenberg said women and girls had been impacted disproportionately; hence the need to act now and change the food system. Women have experienced the loss of jobs and income, reduced food production and nutrition and more girls are now out of school.

“It is not enough for me to speak for women around the globe. Women who are actually doing the work need to speak for themselves; they need to be included in these conversations,” Nierenberg said.

“What happens is that in conferences, there are a lot of white men in suits talking on behalf of the rest of the world. But we need the rest of the world, and women included, to be in the room.”

A food system is a complex network of all activities involving the growing, processing, distribution and consumption of food. It also includes the governance, ecological sustainability and health impact of food.

Noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted invisible issues, like the interconnectedness of our food systems, she said it was urgent to invest in regional and localized food systems that included women and youth. Food Tank and the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) work collaboratively to investigate and set the agenda for concrete solutions for resetting the food system.

Divine Ntiokam, Food Systems Champion and Founder and Managing Director, Climate Smart Agriculture Youth Network Global (GCSAYN), agrees. While youth are ready to engage in promoting a just and inclusive transformation of rural areas, it was unfortunate they were rarely involved in decision-making, she said. They are excluded from the household level to larger political institutions and companies and need better prospects of financial security to remain in the farming sector.

“Young men and women need to be given special attention in formulating legislation to purchase land and receive proper land rights,” Ntiokam told IPS.

“International donors and governments need to invest in youth, particularly young women and girls, for their meaningful participation along with the food systems value network,” he said.

“Youth need to have a ‘seat at the table’, as they have at the Summit, in terms of decision-making on where governments and international donors invest their resources to make agriculture and food a viable, productive and profitable career.”

Researchers say current food systems are unfair, unhealthy, and inequitable, underscoring the urgency to transform the global food system. According to the FAO, more than 800 million people went to bed hungry in 2020, and scores of others are malnourished.

Jemimah Njuki, Director for Africa at IFPRI and Custodian for the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Lever of the UN Food Systems Summit.

For food systems to be just, there is an urgency to close the gender resource gap, says Jemimah Njuki, Director for Africa at IFPRI and Custodian for the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Lever of the UN Food Systems Summit.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will, on September 23, 2021 host the UN Food Systems Summit during the UN General Assembly High-Level Week. The Summit is billed as a platform to push for solid support in changing the world food systems to help the world recover from the COVID-19 pandemic while spurring the achievement of the SDG by 2030.

The Summit, the UN says will “culminate in an inclusive global process, offering a catalytic moment for public mobilization and actionable commitments by heads of state and government and other constituency leaders to take the food system agenda forward”.

“They (food systems) must also transform in ways that are just and equitable, and that meaningfully engage and benefit women and girls,” Njuki told IPS. She added that harmful social and gender norms creating barriers for women and girls by defining what women and girls can or cannot eat, what they can or cannot own, where they can go or not go should be removed.

“This transformation has to be driven from all levels and all sectors in our food systems: global to local, public to private, large scale producers to smallholder farmers and individual consumers,” Njuki said.

Leaders should enact policies that directly address injustices – such as ensuring women’s access to credit, markets, and land rights, Njuki said, noting that individual women and men need to confront social norms and legal prejudices and demand changes.

Njuki believes that current food systems have contributed to wide disparities among rich and poor.

“These negative outcomes are intimately linked with many of the biggest challenges facing humanity right now – justice and equality, climate change, human rights – and these challenges cannot be addressed without transforming how our food systems work,” Njuki told IPS.

“We are at a pivotal moment on the last decade before the deadline for the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This must be the decade of action for food systems to end hunger.”

 

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Millets, which grow well in rain-fed regions such as Chhattisgarh, used to be a mainstay for household cultivation and consumption. Credit: Picture courtesy - Neeraja Kudrimoti.

By External Source
Sep 17 2021 (IPS)

Chhattisgarh was one of the first few states in the country to universalise the public distribution system (PDS) and provide ‘Right to Food’ to its people. In order to ensure access to quality foodgrains for its vulnerable population, the state introduced the Food Security Act in 2012. The state has been providing support—35 kg of rice at INR 1 and INR 2 per kg; 1 kg of iodised salt and 1 kg refined oil at no cost; 2 kg of grams at INR 5 per kg—to each eligible family (as defined in the act).

Despite these efforts and others by the state, the statistics on nutrition for children and women in Chhattisgarh, almost a decade since the act, look grim. According to the latest data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, 40 percent of children below the age of five are underweight and 41.6 percent of girls and women are anemic.

Promoting millet cultivation and consumption can be one way to improve nutritional outcomes. The focus on millets stems from the history and significance of millet cultivation in the region, the crop’s nutritional value, its ability to grow well in Chhattisgarh’s climate, and its impact on improved agro-biodiversity

While several factors—access to quality food and health care, livelihood opportunities, and context-specific vulnerabilities—impact health and nutrition outcomes, this piece specifically looks at how promoting millet cultivation and consumption can be one way to improve nutritional outcomes. The focus on millets stems from the history and significance of millet cultivation in the region, the crop’s nutritional value, its ability to grow well in Chhattisgarh’s climate, and its impact on improved agro-biodiversity.

 

A brief background on cultivation practices in Chhattisgarh

Eighty percent of Chhattisgarh is largely dependent on agriculture, which is mainly rain-fed. Additionally, there is a widespread culture of monocropping—growing a single crop every year after year, on the same land. The state is known as the rice bowl of India, as it mainly grows paddy (or rice) under monocropping.

This wasn’t always the case. Over the years, there has been a marked shift towards the cultivation of rice. The Green Revolution, which introduced the use of high-yield seed varieties and chemical fertilisers to boost the production of wheat and rice, played a big role here.

Since then, there has been a push to expand the areas under cultivation through the use of hybrid paddy seeds, and to invest in research and development around the cultivation of paddy. And in 2019, the Government of Chhattisgarh promised its farmers a minimum support price of INR 2,500 per quintal of paddy, thereby encouraging them to focus on rice. The PDS becoming predominantly rice-oriented has also contributed to farmers shifting towards growing paddy. Over time, monocropping has damaged the soil’s nutrient diversity and has led to increased crop vulnerability and dependency.

Prior to the Green Revolution, rice, millets, sorghum, wheat, maize, and barley were the major crops produced. The production of rice and millets was higher than the production of wheat, barley, and maize combined. Many of the indigenous varieties used for cultivation, especially for millets, have been lost. The traditional farming and dietary practices were more aligned with the climate conditions of the region. Millets in particular, which grow well in rain-fed regions such as Chhattisgarh, used to be a mainstay for household cultivation and consumption.

 

Why millets?

Nutritionally, millets are high in protein, vitamins, and minerals. They are one of the highest sources of natural calcium. Older generations of tribal households talk about how a drink made from millets, called ragi pega—ragi cooked in hot water—was especially helpful. The drink kept them full and energised for long periods of time, especially when they had to spend hours, sometimes days, in the forest collecting produce.

Additionally, diets that heavily rely on cereals (such as rice) and pulses—which are heavily subsidised by the government under the current system—can lead to deficiencies in micronutrients such as iron, zinc, calcium, vitamins, and more.1 Therefore, promoting millet cultivation and consumption in the region can help combat issues of malnutrition, especially micro-nutrient deficiencies among children and women in the state.

Cultivating millets is also useful because they are better for the environment. They have a lower water footprint, are climate-smart crops, and are climate-resilient. Moreover, they are ‘farmer-friendly’ because they require a very low input cost. In Chhattisgarh, 21 out of 28 districts are water-scarce. This, coupled with climate change, erratic rainfall, and continued cultivation of water-intensive crops will eventually affect productivity and production, which in turn will affect food availability and price variations. In the long run, this will have an adverse impact on food security in the region.

 

Where are millets now?

Today, tribal households cultivate small quantities of millets, mainly for household consumption, using home-preserved seeds and traditional cultivation methods. Culturally as well, millets are used as offerings to deities or to hang millet cobs in homes on auspicious occasions. Despite the benefits of millets to both farmers and the environment, the crop has not been commercially produced since it has almost no supporting policies or markets.

Today, the area under paddy cultivation is 27 lakh hectares, almost 27 times more than the area under millet cultivation (1 lakh hectares). The Government of Chhattisgarh procured a record-breaking volume of paddy, worth INR 20,000 crore, at the minimum support price (MSP) in FY 2020-21. On the other hand, millets—which are far more nutritious, farmer-friendly, and planet-friendly smart crops—were not procured at all.

Although the state has made some efforts to increase millet cultivation, there was a shortage of seeds under various government schemes for the cultivation of millets. Further, local or indigenous seed varieties have been excluded from these schemes. Given that dietary staples may typically constitute 70 percent of a meal, and are often eaten three times a day, diversifying these staples can have a huge impact on health and nutrition. It would also address the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, as well as the socioeconomic and political factors that influence food patterns, choices, and access.

 

What needs to be done?

1. Develop an integrated ecosystem
The government of Chhattisgarh has declared procurement at MSP for ragi and kodo and kutki (little millet). However, there is also a need to adopt a comprehensive and integrated ecosystem involving multiple stakeholders—farmers, middlemen, households, markets, government, community-based organisations, and nonprofits. This would entail government support on several fronts—increasing production, promoting household consumption, developing a decentralised processing infrastructure, and developing the local market for millets. The government must also include millets in the PDS, by making them available at local Fair Price Shops.2 This will ensure that there’s diversity in the staples available—currently, only rice and chana (bengal gram) are supported.

2. Land reforms
Ragi, kodo, and kutki should also be integrated into land reforms aimed at shifting to a multi-cropping system, in a traditionally rice-growing state.

3. Processing, infrastructure, and transportation support
Millet cultivation is mostly undertaken by indigenous groups who are scattered across the Bastar region of south Chhattisgarh, and the Sarguja area in north Chhattisgarh. Processes that aid drudgery reduction, produce aggregation, and shortening the local value chain should be encouraged. Such support, especially for small and marginal farmers, communities that benefit directly from the Forests Rights Act (FRA), and Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, will help them bring their produce to procurement or aggregation centers.

4. Strengthen insurance for farmers cultivating millets
Insurance products should also be linked to millet production to provide a safety net, especially at the beginning of the production cycle. This will ensure that farmers are protected against losses during the initial shifting of cultivation to millets, and until production stabilises.

5. Increase consumption of millets
There is a need for formal linkages to welfare schemes, specifically those related to supplementary nutrition. For example, linkages to local fair price shops in PDS, Anganwadis under Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), schools under the Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDM), and tribal hostels under Integrated Tribal Development Agency Business, among others. Such linkages can help secure acceptance and behaviour change in the direction towards the consumption of millets.

6. Invest in research on millets
Investing in research on markets, consumption patterns, transportation and infrastructure support, and traditional crop varieties is essential. This will help build important knowledge around nutrition, quality food, access, capacity, and viability of millets in Chhattisgarh.

7. Capacity building
Building on farmers’ knowledge, strengthening capacity for crop planning, using suitable agronomic practices, and increasing access to tools, subsidies, and registration support for government procurement is crucial. Further, it is mainly women—who are not widely recognised as farmers—who currently cultivate and manage production. Therefore, it is important to develop sustainable livelihood and social support for them such as better access to land, information, capital, and so on.
8. Seed production and preservation techniques

Lastly, another gap that needs to be addressed is the lack of available agro-climatically suitable seeds in Chhattisgarh. Awareness programmes that target seed preservation techniques among the tribals and promote the cultivation of local varieties of millets should be introduced. This will address issues of agricultural biodiversity, climate change, and nutritional concerns.

—

Footnotes:

1. National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB). Prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies. Technical report No.22, National Institute of Nutrition, ICMR; 2003.
2. Fair Price Shops are operated by the government under the public distribution system. They offer daily food and ration products—such as rice, oil, sugar, wheat, matchbox, soap, and so on—for a lower price than the market price.

 

Neeraja Kudrimoti worked as the state program officer for NITI Aayog’s Aspirational Districts Programme in Chhattisgarh. She was a Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellow in Bijapur district, Chhattisgarh. Neeraja advises public sector enterprises as a member of the National Corporate Social Responsibility Hub at Tata Institute Social Sciences. She has worked with state and district administrations on health, nutrition, agriculture, gender, and rural development in conflict-areas of Chhattisgarh. Neeraja holds a MSc in Public Policy from University College, London.

 

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

Venezuelan refugees make their way to the Colombian border town of La Guajira. Credit: PAHO/Karen González Abril

By Sandra Weiss
MEXICO CITY, Sep 17 2021 (IPS)

This is the third serious attempt to inject some momentum in the negotiations between the Venezuelan government and opposition. Negotiations have been taking place in Mexico since last Friday, with Norway acting as mediator.

The failure of the previous attempts at negotiation ended up strengthening Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, who tightened the screws on each occasion. Expectations are correspondingly low this time, especially among the Venezuelan population.

They also have other concerns: Covid-19 has led to hospitals that were already in a desperate state collapsing completely and the vaccination rate of eleven per cent (fully vaccinated) is one of the lowest on the continent, along with Haiti and Nicaragua.

The supply of medicines and food is precarious and inflation, power cuts, and petrol shortages add to the already existing problems. More than six million of the 28 million inhabitants have left their country, shrinking the opposition’s base. Those left behind struggle to survive and many have withdrawn from political life in disappointment.

Economic handcuffs

According to polls, Maduro’s support stands at 21 per cent — which is roughly the number of government employees and military officers directly dependant on the regime. The majority of Venezuelans are in favour of political change. Paradoxically, the opposition proves incapable of capitalising on the societal mood.

Little is left of the euphoria when Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself as president in January 2019, making life difficult for ‘the usurper Maduro’ with mass protests, a military mini-rebellion, and broad international recognition.

Back then, 80 per cent supported him; today, according to a poll by the Meganalisis Institute, only four per cent of the population still back him.This means that he is no longer a direct threat in Maduro’s eyes. Now the head of state wants to free himself from the straitjacket that Guaidó and the opposition have put together thanks to their international backing.

During the last general election in 2020, only 15 to 30 per cent went to the polls.

Venezuela is struggling economically. What still functions, apart from the (ailing) oil sector, is a flourishing underground economy consisting of racketeering, gold, arms, human and drug smuggling.

Criminal groups from all over the world are involved and control large parts of the country, protected by a network of corrupt military and parastate militias. The productive apparatus lies in ruins and cannot be kickstarted again without foreign investment.

But even Maduro’s allies like Russia and China are now keeping their wallets closed, despite their geostrategic interest. The Western embargo, which shrunk the country’s gross domestic product by 80 per cent, has made doing business with Venezuela more difficult and more expensive. And the rampant corruption makes investments seem like a financial bottomless pit.

All this has recently eroded Maduro’s legitimacy. During the last general election in 2020, only 15 to 30 per cent went to the polls. ‘This is a sign of weakness and makes Maduro more dependent on alliances with the military and other not necessarily trustworthy partners’, says political scientist Colette Capriles.

A change of tides

Maduro’s options are therefore limited: Either a flight forward, into ever more authoritarian measures, similar to the development in socialist brother countries such as Nicaragua and Cuba. Or a, at least partial, democratic opening and concessions to ease sanctions, stabilise the economy, and gain legitimacy.

Maduro has opted for the latter. In the face of internal resistance, he recently even made half-hearted concessions to the opposition. And two critics of the government now sit on the five-member electoral council. Opposition leader Freddy Guevara was released, and the opposition alliance MUD, which had handed the ruling party PSUV a bitter defeat in the 2016 parliamentary elections, was also admitted to the regional elections in autumn.

While two similarly strong opponents faced off in the last negotiations in 2019, this time, the opposition is in a weaker position. The 38-year-old Guaidó has lost support within the opposition alliance because of his own mistakes, but also thanks to a clever politics of division, propaganda, and targeted repression by the regime.

Moderate opposition leaders such as Henrique Capriles criticised Guaidó’s unfortunate entanglements in military adventures such as the failed mercenary invasion in May 2020. Guaidó also made unrealistic demands, such as Maduro’s resignation, a condition for negotiations. Capriles’ demand for a gradual strategy recently gained support in the business association as well as in the Foro Civico, the most important civil society movement.

Despite its perceived weakness, the opposition also holds some trumps. One is the support of the US and Europe for a return to a democratic rule. Recovering from Trump’s ultimately empty military threats, the transatlantic bridge seems to have been repaired.

The US has leverage in the form of sanctions. Without the consent of US diplomacy, Maduro will therefore not achieve his goal.

The second trump is timing. The elections in autumn, in which the opposition now wants to take part as one body, offer an unrivalled opportunity to gain power. The cadres of the ruling socialist party PSUV are unpopular. If the opposition succeeds in finding common candidates rooted in the people and in defeating voter apathy, this would be an important step in building a solid base.

Admittedly, Maduro controls the campaign machinery, the electoral council, and the entire logistics of the ballot. But if he wants to achieve an easing of sanctions, he will not be able to play these cards openly.

Enhanced experience

The mediators have also learned lessons from the failure of the previous negotiations, keeping the negotiations secret; none of the parties are allowed to leak content to the press. Both sides have agreed to also accept parts of the agreement, provided they have been sufficiently discussed and their implementation is urgent — even if the rest of the agenda is still open.

This opens the possibility of humanitarian aid deliveries, a release of all political prisoners or a gradual re-institutionalisation of the country and important key bodies such as the electoral council.

The Cubans have enormous influence on Maduro and will therefore sit indirectly at the negotiating table.

The talks are being led by the experienced Danish diplomat Dag Nylander, who has already brought the complicated peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas to a happy conclusion.

This experience inspired new ideas for negotiation points, such as the right of victims to compensation and the inclusion of civil society to place an agreement on a broader foundation of legitimacy.

Russia and the Netherlands are acting as observers. Phil Gunson of the International Crisis Group sees the fact that Russia could be brought on board as positive: ‘Up until now, Russia has tried to prevent strategic advantages for the US and its allies. But an agreement that preserves Russia’s economic interests in Venezuela would also benefit Moscow’.

The negotiations will neither be easy nor move along at speed. It is also not certain that the opposition can maintain its unity nor is it certain that Maduro will be strong enough to push through substantial concessions vis-à-vishis allies, especially in regards to those who are entangled in organised crime and have little interest in a solution.

Another player in the shadows is Cuba. The Caribbean Island is in the midst of its worst economic and legitimacy crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1990s. The deals with Venezuela are one of the last life boats. The Cubans have enormous influence on Maduro and will therefore sit indirectly at the negotiating table.

Nevertheless, there is justified hope. If the last negotiations in 2019 were about ‘all or nothing’, this time politics has returned to the negotiating table as the art of compromise and moderation. The possibility of a transitional government in which both camps share power is at least on the horizon, albeit still a very distant one.

Sandra Weiss is a political scientist and a former diplomat. Until 1999 she worked as editor for the news agency AFP. A freelance journalist, Sandra wrote articles about Latin America for several German newspapers, among others Die Zeit and Die Welt.

Source: International Politics and Society

 

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A new report, Fixing the Business of Food, advocates the aligning of business practices to the SDGs. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Alison Kentish
Sep 16 2021 (IPS)

In the backdrop of rising hunger, half of the world’s population living on unhealthy diets, a third of agricultural produce lost to postharvest events, and waste, poverty in farming communities, a pandemic that laid bare the vulnerability of food systems to external shocks and unsustainable food production, the Barilla Foundation for Food and Nutrition has published a report which introduces guidelines for the private sector to fulfil its role in transforming global food systems.

The Fixing Food Report was released September 16, 2021, one week before the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), the largest and most urgent forum to date, which brings together representatives in every sector of the food system to make food production, packaging and distribution more sustainable.

The report acknowledges that food companies are a part of a larger, complex system. However, while they cannot solve the food systems crisis alone, these businesses have an important role in food choices, reducing food loss and waste, sustainable food production and poverty elimination.

It adds that they can contribute to food systems transformation by integrating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) into their business practices through a 4-pillar framework. The framework includes beneficial products and strategies, sustainable business operations and internal processes, sustainable supply and value chains and good corporate citizenship.

“Integrating sustainability principles within business goals and activities is not easy. It requires a rethinking of corporate purpose, management systems, performance measurements, and reporting systems,” the report states.

As part of its release, BCFN officials hosted a webinar on fixing the business of food. It brought together some of the world’s leading research institutions and food experts, including the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) at Columbia University, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN) and the Santa Chiara Lab (SCL) of the University of Siena.

“To build back better, now is the time for a great reset, and in order to achieve that, we need to reset the agendas of the food industry and the finance sector to help the agri-food sector to become a game-changer for positive impact on the ecosystem and society as a whole,” said Guido Barilla, Chairman of the Barilla Group and the foundation the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN).

According to the report, while food businesses are now recognizing the magnitude of the global food crisis, many governments seem oblivious to this reality. It adds that the UNFSS aims to change this view “with all due urgency.”

“Companies should look inside and align themselves with sustainable practices, including the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Climate Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity, should report on such behaviours, in detail, should adjust internal management systems, promotion systems, compensation systems, evaluation systems, to ensure not just rhetorical alignment in an annual report, but operational alignment in business practices,” said Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.

In addition to the 4-pillar framework, the Fixing the Business of Food report also lists 21 standards for more sustainable food systems. Those guidelines include measures for sustainable business operations and accountability.

Managing Director for Food and Nature at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Diane Holdorf, has encouraged food companies to commit to ambitious action on food systems transformation.

The CEO-led Council, which consists of 200 businesses working towards sustainable food systems, has challenged members to sign a business declaration towards this goal.

“For example, business leaders have committed to helping meet food system transformation by implementing actions in their companies, value chains, and the different parts of the sectors that are so important across food and agriculture. To, for example, scale science-based solutions, to provide investments into research and innovation that support the transformation that we need to see.”

Holdorf elaborated that the transformation included every part of the process, “from seeds to fertilizers, farming, processing, selling and trading, transportation, consumption, nutrition and ensuring access for farmers and others across the chain that leads into actions around contributing to improving livelihoods.”

The report makes a case for technical, financial, and other support for small and medium-sized enterprises.

International and European Affairs of the Food, Beverages and Catering Union head Peter Schmidt says this support is essential for the private sector’s successful alignment to the SDGs.

“Most of these initiatives are driven by the multinationals, and that’s okay, that’s great, and we appreciate it very much that is practice. I fully support them, but at the same time, we have real problems explaining SMEs. What does it mean when we talk about the problem of sustainability?” he asked.

“I invited several people from the business sector and asked one CEO from a corporate team, producing organic cheese, ‘Do you know something about the SDGs? The UN Agenda 2030? Do you know about the Code of Conduct that was launched within the Frankfurt strategy from the European Commission?’ and the answer was: not really. I think that shows how important it is that we go deeper in this level. That is the backbone of the food industry, of the processing sector. If we do not take them on board, I’m not sure whether we can have success in the transformation process,” he said.

For over ten years, the Barilla Foundation for Food and Nutrition has engaged in state-of-the-art research, hosted high-level think tanks, and contributed to discussion – and action – on food systems transformation.

Foundation representatives say during that time, they have witnessed a shift in the concept of sustainability, including steps by industry leaders to align with SDGs, but a lot more work is needed to achieve food systems transformation.

“Food is more than a commodity. It is a public good at the heart of our societies, our cultures, and our lives. Food actors can and must play a role in delivering this change,” said Barilla.

 

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Credit: Global Policy Forum

By Jens Martens
BONN, Germany, Sep 16 2021 (IPS)

Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis have exacerbated rather than reduced global inequalities. On the one hand, the net wealth of billionaires has risen to record levels since the outbreak of the pandemic (increasing by more than US$ 5 trillion to US$ 13.1 trillion from 2020 to 2021), on the other hand, the number of people living in extreme poverty has also increased massively (by approx. 100 million to 732 million in 2020).

These contrasts alone show that something is fundamentally wrong in the world.

In response to the disastrous effects of the pandemic, there was much talk of solidarity with regard to health support, including access to vaccines. But the brutal national competition for vaccines shows that solidarity is embraced by many world leaders merely as a rhetorical flourish.

The World Health Organization (WHO) made an early appeal to countries to agree on a coordinated distribution of vaccines, with available doses distributed fairly according to the size of each country’s population. This has not happened.

By the end of August 2021, more than 60 percent of the people in high-income countries had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, but less than 2 percent have done so in low-income countries.

The European Commission, the USA, the UK, and numerous other countries have signed bilateral COVID-19 Vaccine Agreements with pharmaceutical producers to secure vaccine quotas. By the end of August 2021, more than 400 agreements were concluded, securing over 18 billion doses of vaccine.

The European Commission has so far negotiated supply agreements for 4.3 billion doses of vaccine, equivalent to 8 vaccine doses per capita of the EU population. The UK could vaccinate its population 9 times with the contracted doses, the USA 10 times and Canada as many as 16 times.

Exacerbating the problem for many countries in the global South is the enormous cost of vaccines. The producers do not charge standard prices, but vary their prices depending on the quantity purchased and the bargaining power of the purchaser.

Occasionally, they grant preferential terms to rich countries, while countries in the global South sometimes have to pay higher prices. For example, the European Commission received a batch of AstraZeneca vaccine for US$ 2.19, while Argentina had to pay US$ 4.00 and the Philippines US$ 5.00. Botswana had to pay US$ 14.44 million for 500,000 doses of Moderna vaccine, or US$ 28.88 per dose, while the USA got Moderna’s vaccine at almost half the price (US$ 15.00).

While the vaccine pharmaceutical oligopoly makes exorbitant profits, countries of the global South are confronted with falling government revenues and rising debt burdens. The situation will worsen as regular vaccine boosters become necessary in the coming years.

What is tantamount to a license to print money for the pharmaceutical companies is a massive burden on public budgets. In view of this dramatic disparity, the promise to “leave no one behind” of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development remains an empty slogan.

Insufficient responses to the global health crisis

As an immediate response to the global health crisis, the People’s Vaccine Alliance has formulated “5 steps to end vaccine apartheid“. These are in line with the demands derived from the analyses in the Spotlight Report 2021.

Increasing global vaccine production capacity, lowering market prices, and substantially increasing public financial support are vital, especially for the poor and disadvantaged people in the global South.

One way to overcome the vaccine shortage is to accelerate technology transfer. In May 2020, WHO established the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), designed to pool voluntary licenses, research and regulatory data. But most countries with large vaccine production capacity, such as the USA, Germany, China and India, do not support the initiative. Thus, it has so far remained without any noticeable impact.

Faced with scarce global production capacity, India, South Africa, Kenya and Eswatini applied for a waiver under the TRIPS Agreement of the WTO to temporarily remove patent protection for COVID-19-related vaccines, medicines and devices.

The TRIPS waiver is intended to enable manufacturers in the global South in particular to produce medicines and vaccines more quickly and at lower cost. More than 100 countries support this initiative, including the USA as of May 2021.

The EU, the UK, Switzerland and the pharmaceutical companies and lobby groups based in these countries are particularly opposed and have so far blocked an agreement.

In this context, the more fundamental question arises as to whether medicines vital to realize the human right to health should be patented at all. Should they not in principle be considered global public goods, especially when, as in the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, billions of dollars of public money have gone into research and development?

In another initiative, the WHO and several partners—including France, the EU and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation –launched the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator and its COVAX initiative.

This has shifted the centre of the global COVID-19 response from WHO to a multi-stakeholder initiative with its own governance and decision-making structure, thereby further weakening WHO’s role in the global health architecture.

But with the unilateral approach of the rich countries to vaccine procurement, COVAX has failed in its claim to serve a global coordination function. Its primary task is now to provide COVID-19 vaccines to 92 low- and middle-income countries with the objective to provide at least 2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses by the end of 2021.

By 14 September 2021, just 270 million doses have been delivered. To date, COVAX has received pledges of US$ 9.825 billion, nowhere near enough to provide sufficient vaccines for about 4 billion people in the 92 countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic has painfully demonstrated the absence of a functioning global health system. This reality has led to the proposal to create a Pandemic Treaty – a legally binding framework and improved global governance structures for pandemic preparedness and response.

Whether it can actually overcome structural weaknesses of the global health architecture, such as the underfunding of the WHO, is very unclear. Depending on its design, it could lead to an actual strengthening of the WHO, or to its further weakening by outsourcing pandemic preparedness and response to multi-stakeholder bodies with limited public accountability.

More transformational steps are needed

Beyond responding to the global health crisis, far more fundamental transformational steps are needed.

An essential aspect of an agenda for change is the shift toward a rights-based economy and a concept of human rights that forms the basis of our vision of economic justice.

To make this systemic shift happen, the trend towards privatization, outsourcing and systematic dismantling of public services must be reversed.

To combat rising inequality and build a socially just, inclusive post-COVID world, everyone must have equitable access to public services, which must be reclaimed as public goods and run in the common interest, not for profit.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has repeatedly emphasized that human rights must guide all COVID-19 response and recovery measures. This should also mean strengthening the rights of those on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis.

First and foremost, that means the millions of workers in the healthcare sector, 70 percent of them women. Most of them experience poor work conditions, low wages and job insecurity.

The situation is similar in the education sector. Research by Education International shows that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers’ workloads have steadily worsened, while salaries have remained the same or even decreased.

The situation has continued to deteriorate as a result of the pandemic. The global teacher shortage, which the UN estimated at 69 million even before the pandemic, will continue to grow so long as teaching remains to be “an overworked, undervalued, and underpaid profession”.

A basic precondition for the adequate provision of public goods and services is that States have sufficient resources. To prevent the COVID-19 pandemic being followed by a global debt and austerity pandemic, governments must be enabled to expand their fiscal space and to implement alternatives to neoliberal austerity policies.

This includes implementing a progressive tax reform, which prioritizes taxes on wealth and high earners.

Over the past year, many UN officials, human rights activists and civil society groups (like in the Spotlight Report 2020) have demanded that the resources of the COVID-19 recovery and economic stimulus packages should be used proactively to promote human rights and the implementation of the SDGs.

During that time, initial studies show that this is rarely the case. A report of the Financial Transparency Coalition that tracked fiscal and social protection recovery measures in nine countries of the global South found that in eight of them a total of 63 percent of announced COVID-19 funds went to large corporations, rather than small and medium enterprises or social protection measures.

Particularly poorer countries, some of which were already facing massive budget shortfalls before the pandemic, need substantial external support to finance additional healthcare and social spending and measures to overcome the economic recession.

In this regard, the general allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) equivalent to US$ 650 billion in August 2021 – the largest distribution ever made by the IMF – has been heralded as a major achievement. However, its distribution will not benefit the countries most in need without rechanneling measures and again illustrates existing imbalances in the global economic architecture.

Only if the world collectively embarks on the path toward transformational policies is there a chance to reduce global inequalities, protect our shared planet and make the proclaimed goal of solidarity a political and institutional reality.

Jens Martens is Director, Global Policy Forum, Bonn, Germany

The Spotlight Report is published by the Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND), the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Global Policy Forum (GPF), Public Services International (PSI), Social Watch, Society for International Development (SID), and Third World Network (TWN), supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

 

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Masked staffers at voting time at the General Assembly last year. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 16 2021 (IPS)

When hundreds of delegates and diplomats arrive in New York city next week for the new 76th session of the UN General Assembly, they will be pinned down with pandemic restrictions in a city where Delta variant infections have been skyrocketing.

Under strict mandatory restrictions that came into force September 13, no one, not even diplomats, will be able to enter restaurants, bars, Broadway shows, or participate in any other indoor activities in New York city — if they are not vaccinated and cannot produce their vaccination cards.

But the United Nations will be an exception: while the nearly 3,000 staffers in New York will have to produce their vaccination cards to enter the UN cafeteria and wear masks inside the building, diplomats and visiting delegates will have free access both to the café, delegate’s lounge and the delegate’s dining room.

Asked whether vaccination certificates will be mandatory for visiting delegates, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, said: “As you know, the Secretary General’s authority over delegates is one that is limited, at best.”

Under longstanding diplomatic protocol, the Secretary-General is subservient to the UN’s 193 member states who reign supreme inside the Secretariat building.

Asked if the same rules apply in Geneva, the second largest UN city, Prisca Chaoui, President of the 3,500-strong Geneva staff union, told IPS “in Geneva the same rules apply to everybody, be it staff or delegate.”

“We believe that this is the right way to do, as it would be useless to ask staff to wear masks if other visitors, including delegates, are being allowed to take them off,” she noted.

As for dining places, she said, it was only last week the Geneva authorities decided to impose a green pass which has been in force since Monday 13.

“Our management hasn’t taken a decision yet on this issue. We expect that they will be aligned to the host country rules, which has been the case since the beginning of the pandemic. This avoids any unnecessary misunderstanding and tension between staff and management,” she added.

A limited number of world leaders and delegates will be at the high-level meeting of the General Assembly, come September 21. Credit: United Nations

Dujarric told reporters on September 13: “We’re taking efforts to reduce the on site footprint from the Secretariat staff. Member States have agreed to limit their number of delegates that will enter the General Assembly Hall. All persons will be required to attest as a condition of entry that they have not had symptoms or been diagnosed with COVID or close contact with anyone”.

He said it was also important that visiting delegates will be subjected to the Host Country’s travelling and entry requirements, and everyone… “I mean, all delegates that are coming in have also been reminded that basically, to do anything in New York City, you need to be vaccinated, whether it’s to take public transportation, though I don’t want to prejudge anything; not sure they would take public transportation, but to enter restaurants, stores, any sort of activity … you need to show a vaccination”.

“In addition, as we’ve said, the staff that needs to be in the building during the General Assembly high level week, is mandated to be vaccinated. So, that’s where we are”.

And to sit in at the 4th Floor restaurant in the UN building you have to show proof of vaccination. “Yes, like in any other restaurant in New York City,” he noted.

As a gesture of goodwill, however, New York city Mayor Bill di Blasio said on September 15 the city will be opening “a pop-up testing and vaccination site at UN headquarters next week and provide free COVID-19 tests, as well as the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccines”.

“As we prepare for High-Level week, New York City stands ready to support our partners at the United Nations with testing and vaccine resources,” he said.

“We are proud to join in the ongoing efforts to keep all UNGA attendees and our fellow New Yorkers safe during the pandemic,” he added.

In a joint statement with International Affairs Commissioner Penny Abeywardena, he thanked the General Assembly President Abdulla Shahid of the Maldives for taking the critical step of requiring proof of vaccination for those entering the Assembly hall during next week’s High-Level meeting.

Ian Richards, the former President of the Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA), told IPS Switzerland leaves it to employers to decide their mask policy, and in the Palais des Nations in Geneva, masks are required in common spaces but not at the desk.

Regarding restaurants, he said, the Covid pass is not currently required in workplace cafeterias, although it is in normal restaurants.

“Of course, whatever rules are decided whether in Geneva or New York, they should be same for staff and delegates. Both can transmit Covid in the same way,” declared Richards.

Guy Candusso, a former First Vice President of the UN Staff Union in New York, told IPS the Secretary-General is responsible for the health and safety of all individuals, including diplomats, within the UN complex.

“Unless he is expressly overridden by the General Assembly, I believe he can institute protective measures if the situation requires it,” he said.

Meanwhile, in a letter to UN staffers last month, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said all staff at UNHQ, in consideration of the need to protect one another, will be required to report their vaccination status including through EarthMed with immediate effect.

In addition, any personnel who has been on site and has a positive COVID-19 or Antigen test result must report the results immediately to the Division of Healthcare Management and Occupational Safety and Health through the confidential self-reporting portal (medical.un.org) in order to ensure effective risk mitigation at the workplace.

“I continue to be very grateful to those staff who have been working on premises throughout the pandemic, either because their functions could not be performed remotely or when remote work would have impacted their effectiveness and efficiency,” Guterres said.

“I particularly commend those who did so when we did not have the protection of vaccination. As the presence of unvaccinated staff potentially increases the risk for other staff members, whether vaccinated or not, vaccinations will be mandated for staff performing certain tasks and/or certain occupational groups at UNHQ whose functions do not allow sufficient management of exposure.”

This mandate may be waived where a recognized medical condition prevents vaccination.

Those staff members who will be required to be vaccinated must receive the final dose of a vaccine no later than 19 September 2021.

Any COVID-19 vaccine that is recognized by the WHO, or under routine approved-use by a Member State’s national health authority, is accepted. Affected staff will be notified by their respective offices during the week of 16 August.

“As personnel serving in New York, we are privileged to have access to effective vaccines through local vaccination programmes. In addition to requiring certain staff to be vaccinated, I strongly encourage all personnel who have not already done so to take advantage of this opportunity to be vaccinated to promote your safety and health and all those around you.”

“The situation continues to be monitored and the possibility of additional measures announced will remain under consideration and will be reviewed and adapted as needed,” said Guterres.

 

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Protest against the 30X30 conservation plan at IUCN World Conservation Congress, Marseille, France. Credit: Survival International

By Manipadma Jena
MARSEILLE, France, Sep 15 2021 (IPS)

One of the most hotly debated issues at the recently concluded IUCN Congress in Marseilles was about designating 30 percent of the planet’s land and water surface as protected areas by 2030.

This so-called ‘30X30’ debate is expected to escalate at the UN biodiversity conference in China next April. Indigenous People groups say the conservation has to recognise their rights to land, territories, coastal seas, and natural resources. Some activists argue that ‘fortress conservation’ was nothing but colonialism in another guise.

The world’s failure to achieve any of the global goals to protect, conserve and restore nature by 2020 has been sobering. In Kunming, China, 190 governments will gather in April 2022 after a virtual format in October this year, to finalise the UN Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

Ensuring legal land ownership of indigenous people is key to successful conservation. An indigenous community woman in eastern India happily holds out her land title.
Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

The draft Framework released this July aims to establish a ‘world living in harmony with nature’ by 2050 by protecting at least 30 percent of the planet and placing at least 20 percent under restoration by 2030.

The Marseille Manifesto, the outcome statement from the World Conservation Congress in Marseille from September 4 -10, 2021, gives higher visibility to indigenous people by “committing to an ambitious, interconnected and effective, site-based conservation network that represents all areas of importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services is crucial. Such a network must recognise the roles and custodianship of indigenous people and local communities.”

“The Congress implores governments to set ambitious protected areas and other area-based conservation measure targets by calling at least 30% of the planet to be protected by 2030. The targets must be based on the latest science and include rights – including Free Prior Informed Consent – as set out in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. IUCN must boost the agency of indigenous people and local communities,” the manifesto further urges. 

IUCN’s membership currently stands at 1 500 and includes 91 States, 212 governmental agencies, 1 213 NGOs, 23 Indigenous Peoples’ organisations and 52 affiliate members.

The indigenous people (IP) demand foremost of all “the secure recognition and respect for collective indigenous rights and governance of lands, territories, waters, coastal seas and natural resources.”

Strong demand for this came from IUCN’s indigenous people’s organisation members spanning six continents who banded together, developed the ‘global indigenous agenda’ and presented at their own summit – the first-ever event of its kind at any IUCN World Conservation Congress.

They aimed to unite the voices of indigenous peoples from around the world to raise awareness that ‘enhanced measures’ are required to protect the rights of indigenous peoples and their roles as stewards of nature.

Other activists take a more hard-line stand.

“The 30×30 plan is nothing but a massive land grab,” Sophie Grig, senior research and advocacy officer Survival International told IPS over the phone from the non-profit’s London headquarters.

“It’s no more than a sound bite, green lies. History has shown that promises are made but gradually, living for forest dwellers is made impossible till they are finally evicted from their generational homes of centuries. They are evicted for what? For animals and tourists. We see no real signs that this is going to change.”

Survival International and other activist entities organised the “Our Land Our Nature” congress a day before the IUCN congress began. They called for conservation to be ‘decolonised’.

“Fortress conservation violates human rights and fails to protect nature. The devastating impacts of fortress conservation on Indigenous Peoples, local communities, peasants, rural women, and rural youth has generated limited gains for nature,” said David R Boyd, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, in an August policy brief just before the IUCN Congress.

Ending the current biodiversity crisis will require a “transformative approach” to what conservation entails, who qualifies as a conservationist, and how conservation efforts are designed and implemented,” Boyd further said.

Studies have shown that indigenous peoples, who comprise just 5% of the world’s population, contribute significantly to its environmental diversity as more than 80 % of the world’s remaining biodiversity is found within their lands.

The debate on the issue was going global. In an online forum coinciding but separate from the IUCN indigenous people’s summit, indigenous women, many from Southeast Asia, emphasised that it is “not enough for outsiders to merely observe indigenous practices and then attempt to reapply them in other contexts.”

Native voices need to be at the “centre of the conversation, not consigned to the margins.”

Traditional ecological knowledge is not just a theoretical concept. It is a “native science”, an applied knowledge amassed by indigenous people over thousands of years and most effective to address climate change and biodiversity challenges because it is based on the acceptance that “all living organisms are interdependent,” they said.

The indigenous people’s Agenda at Marseille also calls upon the global community – from states to the private sector, NGO conservation community, conservation finance and academia – to engage in specific joint efforts with them, such as “co-designing initiatives and collaborating on investment opportunities.”

“Our global goals to protect the earth and conserve biodiversity cannot succeed without the leadership, support and partnership of Indigenous Peoples,” said Bruno Oberle, IUCN Director General at the start of the Congress.

“So will the investment in this doubling of conservation areas, or at least some of the monies, go directly to indigenous people?” asked protestors at the ‘decolonise conservation’ Congress.

“Not likely,” Survival’s Grig said, “Fortress conservation is the racist and colonial model of conservation promoted by governments, corporations and big conservation NGOs.”

“The 30X30 plan sounds like a simple and painless process, but it is not so for indigenous communities. It’s simply a plan that enables you in the global north to continue burning fossil fuel and consuming unsustainably,” Grig added.

The indigenous people were clear in their demands. Their Agenda and Action Plan demands: “As Indigenous Peoples around the world, we call for an equitable environment for the recognition of Indigenous Peoples to thrive as leaders, innovators and key contributors to nature conservation.”

It remains to be seen to what extent words and promises of international policy and funding bodies translate into action on this contentious and critical issue in 2022.

 

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Why is racial inequality perceivably so resistant to transformation? Some say it is because of a failure to acknowledge and confront white privilege. . Credit: Gerry Lauzon / Flickr Creative Commons CC BY 2.0.

By External Source
Sep 15 2021 (IPS)

A prestigious, private school in Pretoria, South Africa, recently became a site of protest. Black learners and parents accused Cornwall Hill College of rejecting calls to make its whites-only board more representative of its diverse learner body.

In response, a right wing South African youth group called Bittereinders (the Bitter Enders), held an anti-transformation protest.“Unhappy? build your own schools,” was the response from one member.

Why is racial inequality perceivably so resistant to transformation? Some say it is because of a failure to acknowledge and confront white privilege.

The police killing of George Floyd in the US city of Minneapolis in 2020 ignited a wave of protests across the globe and intense discussions of anti-black racism.

Focusing the discussion on the individual is especially effective for the purposes of anti-racist teaching and advocacy. Unpacking how whiteness operates to bestow privilege may allow us to understand how ‘others’ are systematically denied those same rights

From France to Colombia and South Africa, demonstrators used the term ‘white privilege’ as a means of challenging people to confront the racial disparities evident in their own countries.

Amid the demonstrations, a group of international scholars brought together at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in 2020 began discussing whether the concept of ‘white privilege’ is useful for addressing systemic racial inequalities across national contexts.

Although it is clear that the term has become popular across diverse contexts, some have argued against it. They say that the term ‘white privilege’ reinforces stereotypes, reifies conceptualisations of race, antagonises potential allies and creates even greater resistance to change.

As movements for racial justice have become more global in scope, the term has circulated across national boundaries. However, it does not always translate well to these new contexts.

 

A history

The term white privilege originated in the US in the 1980s, referring to both the obvious and the hidden advantages afforded to white people by systemic forms of racial injustice. Unlike terms such as “racial injustice” and “systemic racial bias”, the idea of privilege centres the discussion around individuals.

Focusing the discussion on the individual is especially effective for the purposes of anti-racist teaching and advocacy. Unpacking how whiteness operates to bestow privilege may allow us to understand how ‘others’ are systematically denied those same rights.

By the mid-2000s, the term white privilege had been adopted by many educators and activists in the US. They were seeking to call attention to the myriad ways in which whites, regardless of their class, benefit from white supremacy and are, therefore, implicated in maintaining the system. For whites in the US, where many live in racially homogeneous communities, the concept of white privilege could spark individual self-reflection and motivate individual political action.

While scholars in some other countries have recently used the term to elucidate systemic patterns of inequality in their own societies, in other countries scholars have been more dubious about the concept.

In South Africa, white privilege is the legacy of apartheid, which subjugated and devalued anyone whose skin colour was not white. Despite the political dismantling of apartheid, white privilege persists. Calls to transform racialised organisations are viewed as threats by white people who, correctly, hear demands for racial justice as an end to white privilege.

In France, use of the term white privilege is relatively recent, introduced in the late 2000s by social scientists. The concept is particularly accurate to describe the legacies of slavery and colonial politics. And it captures the experience of structural racism many inhabitants of France’s social-housing neighbourhoods have shared.

Yet, with growing acceptance of the concept, there has also been resistance. Some decry “white privilege” as creeping Americanisation, ill-fit to France’s liberal tradition and universalism.

Others, echoing critics in the US, argue that a sole focus on racial inequity may entrench, rather than repair, racial divisions in the country. For example, the use of ‘white privilege’ can backfire when it fails to resonate with whites disadvantaged by class, gender or religion. Consequently, the term can, at times, elicit defensive reactions and increased denial of racial disparities.

 

Race as a political category

Constructions of whiteness and its associated privileges are shaped by different – sometimes contradictory – histories of racial discrimination and racial justice activism. This is because understandings of race and racial categories, as socially constructed categories, remain inconsistent and unequally salient across space and time.

For example, a person from North Africa, from the Indian sub-continent or from Oceania could be considered ‘white’ – in spite of a dark complexion – in many contexts.

Race as a political category is loaded with the histories of racial extermination and racist politics in some places and less so in others. In France ‘white privilege’ could be perceived as provocative because it challenges the French universalist narrative and the modern conception of citizenship and a common will.

Thus, discussions of the material consequences of ‘race’ as a category may occur more openly outside of Western Europe, in Africa and the Americas where native populations were exterminated, enslaved and subjected to various forms of social and political exclusion.

Still, the question of who counts as ‘white’, ‘coloured’, ‘black’, or indigenous remains deeply contested across the globe. As do the explanations for the disparate outcomes and treatment of people in these socially, and sometimes legally, constructed categories. Hence whiteness, and the privileges associated with membership in such a category, remains contextually defined.

For example, an individual of European descent may be treated differently based on where they are in the world. But, this does not negate the fact that someone of Black African origin will often be treated worse than a similarly situated person of European origin in many countries. White privilege persists, even in the absence of any universal definition of “white”.

 

Toward a goal of racial justice

There have been countless moves to maintain the status quo, such as the Cornwall Hill College anti-transformation protest, You Silence We Amplify, and the U.S. capital insurgency.

Privilege is directly contingent on disfranchisement, measured in terms of who does and does not have access and opportunity. In countries with histories of white supremacy, the meaning of white privilege may seem self-evident to many. But for others there and in other countries, the term may prompt new questions and challenges.

Although the concept of ‘white privilege’ has proved valuable to people advocating for social change in different national contexts, there is also resistance in many countries to the notion that white people are uniquely ‘privileged’ by their race. Some critics seem unwilling to dismantle white supremacy whereas others point to the limitations of ‘white privilege’ to capture the full range of inequalities that shape people’s lives.

A transnational movement for racial justice requires a shared commitment to ending racial inequality across national boundaries. It also requires a sensitivity to the specific, local conditions in which race and racism touch the everyday lives of people.

The concept of ‘white privilege’ remains useful when presented in ways that both resonate with individuals and shed light on structural causes of racial inequality. Then, it has the potential to motivate those with advantages to combat injustices. It can undermine movements for racial justice, however, when it fails to raise awareness of the historical, structural, and political forces that confer some groups advantages over others based on skin colour, phenotype, hair texture and other physical characteristics attributed to ‘race.’

What is clear is that, as a tool for advocacy, ‘white privilege’ cannot be an end but rather a beginning, one of many concepts that can lead individuals toward a critique of systemic racism and global anti-blackness.

Nuraan Davids, Professor of Philosophy of Education, Stellenbosch University; Karolyn Tyson, Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Kevin Driscoll, Assistant Professor of Media Studies, University of Virginia; Magali Della Sudda, Research scientist, Sciences Po Bordeaux; Veronica Terriquez, Associate professor, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and Vivian Zayas, Professor of Psychology, Cornell University

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

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Sep 15 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Kabul 1990. I land in the capital of Afghanistan for my very first mission with the United Nations. Controlled by the government, Kabul was surrounded by the Mujahedeen. As a young female professional, living and working across the country, I felt protected by the Afghans, whether walking in the bustling cities or meeting with the Mujahedeen in the rural countryside. Afghanistan had already been at war for over ten years and we all worked with the hope that the fighting would come to an end soon.

Yasmine Sherif

In 2000, nearly ten years later, I returned to Afghanistan. I learnt of the secret underground schools run for girls; schools where girls, their families and their teachers were willing to risk their lives for the right to an education. There was a suffocating “peace,” but no justice: the rights of Afghan girls were being violated or under constant threat.

Today, 2021. The Afghans have suffered a brutal armed conflict for over 40 years. They have experienced the horrors of war and the injustice of gender-discrimination. They have lived through earthquakes, extreme poverty, droughts and a high rate of children and youth with disabilities – Afghanistan is one of most landmine-contaminated countries on Earth. Generation after generation suffers.

This cannot continue in the name of any religion, belief, honorability or humanity. Afghanistan deserves nothing less than to recover and rebuild. It will need 50% of its population – the girls and women – to help do so. We approach this imperative with both cautious optimism and our determination to stand up for humanity and for girls’ equal rights to an inclusive quality education.

Leaders across the UN and civil society are also stepping up the call for continued education in Afghanistan, especially for girls. “Now more than ever, Afghan children, women and men need the support and solidarity of the international community,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

Numerous UN agencies, civil society organizations and strategic donor partners are responding with utmost urgency. UNICEF deployed its Director of Emergencies to Kabul within days and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has also arrived in the country. As the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, Education Cannot Wait is also responding with speed, and we will stay and deliver, working closely with our in-country partners in Afghanistan.

With our established policy of “the urgency of now”, a call first made by Martin Luther King Jr., Education Cannot Wait will shortly release an emergency education funding allocation, focusing on displaced girls and boys as our immediate priority. Some 400,000 school-aged Afghan children have already been forcibly displaced since January 2021 – a number that has increased since 15 August 2021. Thanks to our biggest private sector strategic donor – The LEGO Foundation and KIRKBI – ECW is able to swiftly release its emergency response.

ECW is also cooperating with the UN’s coordination mechanisms and with strategic donor partners on the ground to continue our work for our second Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) in Afghanistan. This MYRP continues to build on our achieved target of 60% girls and adolescent girls in ECW’s investments, to deliver on their right to education now, because their education simply cannot wait until Afghanistan has rebuilt. I appeal to all strategic donor partners, governments, private sector and foundations, to rally behind this ECW multi-year joint programme. We must scale up and move fast, and we need everyone on board to win this crucial race for girls’ education.

In addition to all the suffering they have endured, Afghan children and youth also live under the constant threat of COVID-19, as do so many millions of children and youth around the world. As the pandemic continues to disrupt our global economy – impacting both the safety and well-being of millions of girls and boys and our trajectory toward the Sustainable Development Goals – we must also continue to respond to this crisis.

The time has also come to bridge the digital divide, which is also a socio-economic divide. Anyone who has travelled by plane across Afghanistan at night knows when you have crossed the Afghan border: everything below goes pitch black. There is hardly any electricity across the entire nation, let alone Wifi or connectivity. The digital divide is growing not only in Afghanistan but around the world. This month we had the privilege of interviewing the CEO of Dubai Cares, H.E. Dr. Tariq Al Gurg, who calls for the world to think anew to close the divide.

Meanwhile, we are grappling with another disaster in Haiti, where 260,000 school-aged children and youth require urgent assistance. This week Education Cannot Wait is disbursing its investments to partners on the ground through another First Emergency Response, thanks again to the speedy support from The LEGO Foundation and KIRKBI. This will be followed by a sustainable, comprehensive Multi-Year Resilience Programme, which will also need generous support to turn the tide in Haiti.

Today, Education Cannot Wait has investments in 38 crisis affected countries around the world. We are no longer a start-up fund, but a proven model that delivers tangible results for crisis-affected girls and boys. While all ECW stakeholders have jointly managed to mobilize $1.7 billion in just a few years for both our Trust Fund and in-country First Emergency and Multi-Year investments, so much more need to be done. At times, the human suffering we see may seem endless. Yet, we must keep the light of hope shining for every one of these vulnerable children and young people.

Unless we invest in girls’ education now, unless we stay and deliver in Afghanistan, unless we place education at the heart of all the Sustainable Development Goals and across the full spectrum of human rights, it is difficult to see the logic of any other major investment, the Grand Bargain or local empowerment. Without an education, how will any of these worthy goals and crucial rights be materialized?

Through partnerships, speed, quality, generosity and moral courage, we can make it.

May the day come when education is recognized as the solid foundation, binding glue and guiding light for everything else we want to achieve. Or as I wrote in my diary in July 1990: “When the land far beyond the mountains, within the reach of the sky, is no longer pitch black.” That is the day when every girl is sitting in the light, studying for their exams.

Education Cannot Wait will – together with all its partners – stay and deliver until the light shines for every girl and boy in Afghanistan … until the light shines for every girl and boy whose education is denied in the darkest corners around the world.

 

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Excerpt:

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

One in six youth have had to stop working since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an ILO report released last year. Credit: Benjamin Suomela, International Organization for Migration (IOM)

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Sep 15 2021 (IPS)

A pre-pandemic report published by the International Labor Organization, ILO, the Global Employment Trends for Youth 2020, offered a sober analysis on the job market prospects for youth.

“The labour force participation rate of young people (aged 15–24) has continued to decline. Between 1999 and 2019, despite the global youth population increasing from 1 billion to 1.3 billion, the total number of young people engaged in the labour force decreased from 568 million to 497 million”.

In addition, while youth are those who can adjust and adapt the most to the new technologies, they are also the ones who are at the most risk of seeing job opportunities earlier available now disappearing.

With the pandemic and the multiple and overlapping crises brought by it, the chances for a youth to get employed are even dimmer especially in developing and low middle-income economies.

While in these nations, a youth belonging to the upper-and-middle class families are likely to navigate the post pandemic successfully thanks to their skills but also thanks to their status and connections, vulnerable youth instead remain stuck in cycle of exclusion and lack of opportunities.

This is even truer if you are living with a disability, be it physical or developmental or a psychosocial condition that deters you from easily finding an employment.

Considering that the vast majority of youth living with a disability in a developing nation are starting their quest for a job at stark disadvantage in relation to their peers without disabilities due to lack of quality education and other opportunities offered by the society, the Covid-19 pandemic really risks furthering lowering their odds at a dignified livelihood.

A joint publication by ILO and the Asian Development Bank, ADB, Tackling the COVID-19 youth employment crisis in Asia and the Pacific, clearly depicts a grim future for millions of youth aspiring to enter the job market.

“Young people’s employment prospects in Asia and the Pacific are severely challenged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Youth will be hit harder than adults in the immediate crisis and also will bear higher longer-term economic and social costs” shares the report.

A job for a youth with disabilities, not only in the Asia Pacific Region but elsewhere, is now even more distant possibility.

A reset that potentially could unleash a positive revolution in the global and national priorities, under the banner of “build forward better”, is what has been sought by experts from around the world.

Such drastic shifts to turbo-charge more sustainable economies can also help turn them into more inclusive ones, ensuring a quantum leap in job opportunities for those left behind before the pandemic.

For a youth living with disabilities, this implies stronger chances at finding a job together with better opportunities in the education system, a prerequisite for the former.

A change of prospective of this proportion would imply not only putting disabilities at the center of government’s actions but also a whole effort to reframe disabilities in the modern society.

Shifting mindsets on the role persons with disabilities can have is a sine qua non if we really want to create a level playing field.

Positively, in the last few years, there is no doubt that a lot of progress has been made towards more inclusive job markets but we are only at the beginning.

Despite positive signals, we need go deeper and wider and bolder.

The Return on Disability Group created by Canadian Rich Donovan, author of Unleash Different, has been a pioneer in pitching the business case of focusing on disabilities as an opportunity.

ILO is leading the efforts within the UN system by enabling the Global Business and Disability Network, a global consortium with major corporations willing to include accessibility and overall disability rights among their top priorities.

GSK, the mammoth pharma company has become a trailblazer in the field by setting up The Global Disability Confidence Council that is made up by its senior leaders.

“Disability Confidence describes the corporate best practice that ensures dignified and equitable access & inclusion for people with disabilities as valued colleagues, potential colleagues, customers, shareholders & fellow citizens” explains GSK.

Around the world there are other promising initiatives like The Valueable500, a global campaign whose members, all major corporations, commit to practical and game-changer initiatives to promote disability inclusion.

For example, Proctor and Gamble is conducting a global disability audit while Mahindra & Mahindra, the Indian car manufacturer, is working to enable a jobs portal to better target and include youth living with disabilities.

These are just few examples of what global conglomerates can do to change the status quo.

Yet, piecemeal approaches cannot work and that’s why we need a holistic, whole of the government impetus to drastically reframe how policy making works to fulfill the rights and needs of persons with disabilities.

Global business can play an essential role here as well.

First of all, it is an imperative that global corporate networks focused on disability talk and collaborate among each other.

Second, though what the most powerful multinationals are doing is relevant, is not nearly enough and our expectations in what multinationals can do, must be higher.

Surely, we need more of them to pledge new internal targets but one-off initiatives must become the springboard for much more holistic actions that include their global supply chains and global sales.

If Proctor and Gamble really wants to elevate disability to the next level, then resources need to be spent all across its massive operations, including the suppliers and contractors.

If Mahindra & Mahindra is serious about disability, then it should ensure that all its distributors around the world embrace the issue as well.

Together with this “total encompassing” approach, resources must be used for advocacy and lobbying. The latter word is often used with a negative connotation but we really need to lobby governments and policy makers to truly become serious on disability rights.

The job market, especially in developing and emerging countries, will become more inclusive only if the local business peoples and local politicians are forced to commit to disabilities.

This means not only accessible work places or even possible quotas in the job market but a rethinking of policy making starting from education and social security because without accessing to quality education, youth with disabilities will only continue to remain at the margins of our economies.

The global private sector can truly make a difference here because they have the prowess and capacities to be listened to and demand action.

The quest for a more inclusive job market does not entail just initiatives to make it more inclusive of persons with disabilities.

That’s why the 2nd edition of Global Disability Summit next year, must truly be focused on new partnerships with the private sector aimed at mainstreaming disabilities at the center of the economies and societies we want to re-imagine.

Working from the top and “retrofitting” the job market by making it more inclusive should lead to a whole society approach that leverages the skills and untapped potential of youth with disabilities.

Simone Galimberti is Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not-for-profit NGO in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives.

 

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Local stakeholders engaged in participatory livelihoods planning in Champasack, Laos. Credit: A Barlis

By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Sep 14 2021 (IPS)

As incidents of drought and extreme rainfall increase, farmers in Southeast Asia are partnering with experts to develop targeted weather forecasts to work around the threats and, when adaptation becomes too costly, buy specially designed insurance to protect their livelihoods.

Climate impacts are increasing. In 2016, for example, the impact of what is known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) resulted in severe drought and saline intrusion in 11 out of 13 provinces in the Mekong River Delta. This affected 400,000 hectares of cropland, resulting in 200 million dollars in economic losses and food insecurity among farmers. Household incomes dropped 75 percent, pushing vulnerable farmers who had little savings and no insurance deeper into poverty.

Integrated risk management and risk transfer approaches (e.g. innovative insurance solutions) will be critically required for smallholder growers to manage the physical and financial impacts of climate.

A key component of the project, DeRisk Southeast Asia, is to develop a number of adaptation strategies, says Professor Shahbaz Mushtaq, the project’s insurance segment lead at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) one of three project partners. The others are the World Meteorological Organisation and the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, part of the CGIAR.

ECOM facilitator leads the insurance literacy workshop with coffee farmers in Dak Lak. Credit: A Barlis

“So the project is working on improved climate forecasts, new irrigation systems and practices, and improving production systems,” says Mushtaq in an online interview. “The underlying premise is that the smallholder growers need to mitigate their risk as much as they can while developing and adopting suitable adaptation practices.”

“Then, the project also acknowledges that there’s a limit to adaptation,” he adds. “Not all risk is manageable. [It is] when it is no longer economically viable then you need to transfer the risk elsewhere, this is where insurance will play a major role”.

DeRisk, funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, operates in Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia. For example, in a pilot led by the Alliance in one of the provinces in the Mekong River delta, the department of crop production (across levels), extension officers and farmers now sit down with weather forecasters (or meet virtually because of COVID-19 restrictions) to mould a general weather forecast into seasonal and 10-day advisories that target rice producers.

“We really emphasize co-development by multiple stakeholders, integrating information from the hydro-meteorological (‘hydro-met’) experts and the crop experts with the local knowledge of farmers,” says Nguyen Duy Nhiem, DeRISK Country Coordinator in Vietnam.

For example, the representatives will take a seasonal forecast, broken down by month, and generate guidance for specific crops such as: “the best planting date, the best variety to plant and if drought happens, what drought-resistant variety to use,” Nguyen tells IPS in an online interview.

That advice is packaged as a bulletin and delivered using a variety of media, including stationary loudspeakers in villages, paper bulletins or posters and on a smartphone app called Zalo.

The 10-day advisories zero in on daily conditions. “For example, if it’s going to rain on a certain day, farmers are told not to apply fertilizers or pesticides because they would leach into the soil,” explains Nguyen.

He’s happy with the project’s progress. The stakeholders from the hydro-met sector and agriculture sector “understand better each other’s languages,” says Nguyen. “For example, prior to project’s engagement when talking about ‘rainy days’, the agriculture stakeholders and farmers think that rain should be an amount that can be measured in a gauge while for the hydro-met sector that can be any amount above 0.0 mm. The definition of rainy days has been explained during discussions and clearly noted in bulletins.”

Seasonal agroclimatic bullet poster installed at District Agriculture Service Center in Mekong Delta. Credit: Dang Thanh Tai

In addition, Nguyen says the 20,000-plus farmers who have received the advisories in the past two cropping seasons have been very pleased because the information helped them avoid the impact of damaging weather and make more informed decisions better. If plans hold, other districts and provinces in the region will start developing the tailored forecasts in 2022.

Challenges, according to Nguyen, include the lack of capacity of staff in provincial weather offices to develop the tailored forecasts. Another is reaching more farmers. Although many farmers have access to smartphones, not all of them know how to use them to access the advisories in the Zalo group. Possible solutions, he says, include developing an app or partnering with a telecom company to send messages to all customers in project areas.

In neighbouring Laos, agro-climactic advisories are available for the whole country, in monthly and weekly forecasts, says DeRisk Country Coordinator Leo Kris Palao. The implementation of DeRISK in Laos was linked with existing efforts by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to further improve this system with national partners.

The system is automated, he explains in an email interview. Called the Laos Climate Services for Agriculture (LaCSA), the system analyses meteorological and agricultural data from national databases and field-level data collection by local partners. Offices of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry review advisories before being disseminated.

LaCSA can be accessed online through an app (Android/iOS), but for those who don’t use IT tools, the information, as in Vietnam, is also shared via loudspeakers, radio and TV, and community and school posters.

More than 21 000 farmers in Laos have adapted their activities after receiving an advisory. “We are happy with the progress made by the De-RISK project in Laos,” says Palao. “Based on our baseline assessment, most of the responses from farmers receiving the agro-climatic advisories indicated that change in planting dates, use of suitable varieties tailored to the climate condition of the season, and water and fertilizer management were among their adaptation practices.”

Mushtaq says that to further mitigate the ‘residual risk’, which can’t be managed economically through adaptation strategies, his team developed various indexed-based insurance products that are now being tested through a pilot insurance scheme – Coffee Climate Protection Insurance.

“We went to the field and interviewed several hundreds of smallholder coffee growers and industry.” The assessment for the insurance scheme included asking about the biggest risks faced by farmers, whether it be drought, disease, or extreme rainfall, among other hazards. “We wanted to develop products for those risks that are most impactful,” Mushtaq says.

The researcher of USQ adds that if an extreme weather event occurs and a farmer can’t immediately recover from losses, “his production would suffer, it would impact the supply chain, it would impact the roaster, and it would impact coffee production regions. But if farmers could get back on their feet very quickly, it would help the industry, it would the whole supply chain. That’s the underpinning driver for the supply chain industry to co-contribute insurance premiums.”

Mushtaq says he was impressed when coffee growers told him that drought and extreme rainfall are major risks but didn’t want drought insurance because they are able to cope through access to irrigation. “But if there’s extreme rainfall, we don’t have an option to manage that risk, so we want products to cater to it,” the farmers said.

The initial assessment found that farmers have a range of attitudes about insurance — some were willing to pay more than the suggested premium, others would not even consider purchasing, and the majority were in the middle, unsure.

Finally, most agreed on the product. What swayed the doubters was the credibility that USQ and its partners had developed over the years working with the coffee industry represented by the private sector and associations, says Mushtaq. “To me, the most important success factor was the presence of the industry itself. You need to have really solid leadership to drive this agenda. And we were very lucky that we got some really good partners in the coffee industry.”

In stages 1 and 2 of the pilot, farmers and coffee traders will split the costs of the premiums, but in later years, other actors in the supply chain, such as roasters, will have to contribute a portion; the exact division of costs still needs to be negotiated.

Currently, the ‘extreme rainfall’ insurance product is in operation, explains Mushtaq, meaning that if total rainfall exceeds the threshold for the two-month season, payments would be triggered. As the insurance is indexed, the payouts would reflect the amount of protection that farmers chose to purchase.

To get to this point, “we had to run several workshops, and gather a lot of information on how index-based insurance products works,” he says, adding that more needs to be done to increase awareness. Moving forward, the team considers running a campaign to address this, “Awareness is still a problem, and we do need to run a massive campaign.”

DeRISK aims to develop its climate services and insurance products further and work with national partners on policies and strategies supporting smallholder farmers in the region in response to climate risks.

 

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United Nations military personnel are the Blue Helmets on the ground. Today, they consist of over 70,000 troops contributed by national armies from across the globe and help keep the peace in military conflicts worldwide. Credit: United Nations

By Norman Solomon
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Sep 14 2021 (IPS)

Last weekend, U.S. corporate media continued a 20-year repetition compulsion to evade the central role of the USA in causing vast carnage and misery due to the so-called War on Terror. But millions of Americans fervently oppose the military-industrial complex and its extremely immoral nonstop warfare.

CodePink and Massachusetts Peace Action hosted a national webinar to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11 — the day before Sunday’s launch of the Cut the Pentagon campaign — and the resulting video includes more than 20 speakers who directly challenged the lethal orthodoxy of the warfare state. As part of the mix, here’s the gist of what I had to say:

When we hear all the media coverage and retrospectives, we rarely hear — and certainly almost never in the mass media hear — that when people are killed, whether it’s intentional or predictable, those are atrocities that are being financed by U.S. taxpayers.

And so we hear about the evils of Al Qaeda and 9/11, and certainly those were evils, but we’re not hearing about the predictable as well as the intentional deaths: the tens of thousands of civilians killed by U.S. air strikes alone in the last two decades, and the injuries, and the terrorizing of people with drones and other U.S. weapons. We’re hearing very little about that.

Part of the role of activists is to make those realities heard, make them heard loud and clear, as forcefully and as emphatically and as powerfully as possible. Activist roles can sometimes get blurred in terms of becoming conflated with the roles of some of the best members of Congress.

When progressive legislators push for peace and social justice, they deserve our praise and our support. When they succumb to the foreign-policy “Blob” — when they start to be more a representative of the establishment to the movements rather than a representative of the movements to the establishment — we’ve got a problem.

It’s vital for progressive activists to be clear about what our goals are, and to be willing to challenge even our friends on Capitol Hill.

I’ll give you a very recent example. Two leaders of anti-war forces in the House of Representatives, a couple of weeks ago, circulated a “Dear Colleague” message encouraging members of the House to sign a letter urging the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith, to stand firm behind President Biden’s 1.6 percent increase in the Pentagon budget, over the budget that Trump had gotten the year before.

The point of the letter was: Chairman Smith, we want you to defend the Biden budget’s increase of 1.6 percent, against the budget that has just been approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee with a 3.3 percent increase.

That kind of a letter moves the goal posts further and further to the liking of the military-industrial complex, to the liking of war profiteers, to the liking of the warfare state. And so, when people we admire and support, in this case Rep. Mark Pocan and Rep. Barbara Lee, circulate such a Dear Colleague letter, there’s a tendency for organizations to say: “Yeah, we’re going to get behind you,” we will respond affirmatively to the call to urge our members to urge their representatives in Congress to sign this letter.

And what that creates is a jumping-off point that moves the frame of reference farther and farther into the militarism that we’re trying to push back against. For that reason, my colleagues and I at RootsAction decided to decline an invitation to sign in support.

I bring up that episode because it’s indicative of the pathways and the crossroads that we face to create momentum for a stronger and more effective peace and social justice movement. And it’s replicated in many respects.

When we’re told it’s not practical on Capitol Hill to urge a cutoff of military funding and assistance to all countries that violate human rights — and when we’re told that Israel is off the table — it’s not our job to internalize those limits that have been internalized by almost everyone in Congress, except for the Squad and a precious few others.

It’s our job to speak not only truth to power but also about power. And to be clear and candid even when that means challenging some of our usual allies. And to organize.

At RootsAction, we’ve launched a site called Progressive Hub, as an activism tool to combine the need to know with the imperative to act.

It’s not easy, to put it mildly, to go against the powerful flood of megamedia, of big money in politics, of the ways that issues are constantly framed by powerful elites. But in the long run, peace activism is essential for overcoming militarism. And organizing is what makes that possible.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the author of many books including War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate from California to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Solomon is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

 

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