Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Farmers attending a solar irrigation pump demonstration by Pumptech during a fieldtrip to Bawku, Ghana. Data-driven tools are helping solar irrigation companies target their products and services to the right people, in the right way. Credit: Thai Thi Minh / IWMI

By Thai Thi Minh and Cecily Layzell
ACCRA, Ghana, Aug 13 2021 (IPS)

‘Know your customers’ is arguably the first rule of marketing. By identifying and segmenting customer groups, companies can target their products and services to the right people, in the right way. This can open-up opportunities for growth, inform product development and improve customer retention.

But market segmentation is also easy to get wrong, often because of a lack of research and data. In Ghana, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) is working with solar pump manufacturers and suppliers, farmers and other stakeholders in irrigated agriculture to boost the adoption of solar technologies that meet target users’ needs.

In many off-grid areas, petrol and diesel pumps are commonly used for irrigation. However, they are expensive to run and contribute to environmental pollution.

With the abundance of sunshine in Ghana, solar pumps offer small farmers a promising alternative – if they can afford the initial investment. To begin addressing this issue, IWMI joined forces with Pumptech, a distributor of solar pumps manufactured by the German company LORENTZ.

The pumps are designed for off-grid water pumping and several models are specifically aimed at smallholders.

Focusing on Ghana’s Upper East Region, which experiences high rainfall variability, IWMI then conducted a survey to determine the market potential for the pumps.

Four market segments were identified among smallholders: resource-rich farmers, mobile farmers (who rent land each season), resource-limited individual farmers (who have permanent access to cultivated land) and groups of farmers (who are interested in investing in solar-powered irrigation but need time and self-organization).

Each segment is slightly different in terms of the amount of water needed, land access, pump preferences and capacity to pay for the technology.

Pumptech shared these insights during a meeting on market segmentation and the suitability of solar pumps for small-scale irrigation. The meeting is part of an ongoing series of multi-stakeholder dialogues in Ghana and Ethiopia.

Initiated in 2019 by IWMI under the USAID-funded Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small-Scale Irrigation (ILSSI), the dialogues bring together relevant actors to facilitate and accelerate farmer-led irrigation development both nationally and globally.

Customized solar suitability maps

Another insight that emerged was the benefits of customized solar suitability maps for business growth. In 2018, IWMI began mapping solar irrigation suitability in Ethiopia. These maps pinpointed areas for smallholder farmers to introduce solar irrigation without depleting water resources.

IWMI then refined the mapping framework to produce an online interactive tool for sub-Saharan Africa. Geospatial information on high-potential locations for solar irrigation pumps is now available for the entire region.

Most recently, IWMI has been working with solar manufacturing and distribution companies to demonstrate how the maps and tools can be customized and incorporated into companies’ sales zoning and marketing strategies.

One of these companies is PEG Africa, which operates in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali and Senegal. Using the maps, PEG Africa identified the areas of biggest opportunity for its pumps, based on water resource type and depth, and adapted its marketing strategy to focus on these areas.

The maps are also being used in Ethiopia by companies such as Rensys. But during a similar multi-stakeholder meeting organized with the World Bank’s 2030 Water Resources Group, stakeholders noted that the limited supply of solar pumps in Ethiopia is holding back market expansion.

Price is an issue, too. This is despite the government making agricultural water technologies tax exempt in 2019. It is hoped that the country’s soon-to-be-published National Water Policy and Strategy, which incorporates several IWMI recommendations, will remove many of these bottlenecks.

Making solar technologies inclusive

An area that participants at both events agreed needs extra attention is ensuring solar irrigation technologies are inclusive. Women in particular, are more likely to face difficulties accessing resources such as land, credit and information that would enable them to invest in irrigation.

As a first step to making solar pumps more accessible, IWMI has partnered with farmers and private companies to test innovation bundles that combine pumps with financing models like pay-as-you-own.

This model allows farmers to use the irrigation equipment while making regular payments until the total cost of the pump is paid off. Payments may be weekly, monthly, quarterly or scheduled around harvest times when cash flow is highest.

IWMI is currently working with several companies in West and East Africa to refine this payment plan, so that it can be tailored to each client, including women and resource-poor farmers.

Other companies interested in helping to expand small-scale irrigation in Africa and beyond are encouraged to get in touch.

Thai Thi Minh is Senior Researcher – Upscaling Innovations, International Water Management Institute (IWMI), and Cecily Layzell, IWMI Consultant

 

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Argentina will receive a 347 million dollar loan from the World Bank to upgrade one of the most important suburban railway lines in the city of Buenos Aires. The operation is part of the multilateral lender’s new policy, which deepens its commitment to the fight against climate change. “The premise is that development and climate […]

The absence of world leaders may be visible in a near-empty General Assembly Hall, come September. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 2021 (IPS)

The annual high-level debate during the upcoming 76th General Assembly sessions beginning September 21 —which traditionally attracted over 150 world leaders in a pre-pandemic era– is now clouded in uncertainty.

Will it be in-person or via video conferencing? Or will it most likely be a hybrid session with a mix of the two options, as it was last year.

The uncertainty has been prompted by a fresh wave of the deadly Delta coronavirus variant which is threatening to either lock- down New York city—or undermine all plans to return to normalcy or near-normalcy.

Asked whether there is a list of world leaders who have decided to be at the session in-person, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on August 11: “The short answer is, I don’t have the list. … which is not to say the list doesn’t exist”

Pointing out the second wave of infections in the city, he said: “I think what we have to keep in mind is that the situation is extremely fluid with the Delta variant, and what plans and what people may announce now may very well change before 21 September”.

The plans may depend on what Member States decide to do at the last minute– given the situation in their own country, given the status of international travel and given what’s going on here, he said. “So, I think we just need to plan for the unexpected.”

Right now, he said, the format of the GA remains unchanged; “it’s what we had announced a few weeks ago, which is Member States will have the choice of either having an in person delivery of a speech or a video delivery of the speech”.

“I assume that a lot of plans will be made at the last minute because of the changing situation of the Delta variant in the four corners of the world… It is not for me to confirm the travel plans of a Head of State or Head of Government, especially this far out from the GA in a time where things are so volatile, in a sense, of what will happen”.

Health workers tend to patients in a temporary COVID-19 emergency ward, in New Delhi, India. Credit: UNICEF/Amarjeet Singh
Cases and deaths resulting from COVID-19 continue to climb worldwide, mostly fuelled by the highly transmissible Delta variant, which has spread to 132 countries, said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) in July.

With specific exceptions, several US Presidential proclamations currently suspend and limit entry into the United States, including immigrants, nonimmigrants, or noncitizens who were physically present within specific countries during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), these restrictions apply to individuals and nationals from China, Iran, UK, Ireland, Brazil, South Africa, India and the European Schengen area which includes Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/map-and-travel-notices.html

But several lingering questions remain: will world leaders, billed as speakers at the General Assembly sessions, be exempted from these restrictions?

And are these leaders willing to take risks visiting a country with more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases per day, reaching that mark for the first time since February?

The New York Times reported on August 10 that America’s borders remain closed to most European travelers during the pandemic, even those fully vaccinated. With fears of the Delta variant raging, there appears to be no end in sight.

But nearly two months later, even as Europe has overtaken the United States in vaccinations, America’s borders remain closed to most European travelers, even ones with vaccinations. And with fears of the Delta variant of the virus raging, there appears to be no end in sight.

According to the Times, the US decision to remain largely closed has dismayed Europeans
and frustrated their leaders, who are demanding that Europe’s decision to open its borders be reciprocated.

When asked for an update on the format for the high-level week, the General Assembly Spokesperson Amy Quantrill told reporters on July 27 that the letter of 23 June was the latest formal correspondence on this matter.

The Spokesperson confirmed the honor system related to vaccination status will continue for the high-level week. By swiping their UN passes, staff and others are confirming they have not tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 10 days and have not had symptoms consistent with COVID-19 in the last 10 days.

For unvaccinated people, she said, swiping their pass means that they have not had close contact with a person with COVID-19 in the last 10 days.

Meanwhile, the staff at the UN secretariat, which provides services, directly or indirectly, to the GA sessions is not in full force. Since early July, UN staffers, numbering over 3,000, have been given the option of either working from home or in-person.

Guy Candusso, a former First Vice President of the UN Staff Union, told IPS that while staffers should return to work in-person, but that will depend on various factors—including what mitigation measures the UN has taken, and will take, if the situation gets worse.

If the outbreak makes the UN a hazardous work environment, he asked, will staff be able to stay home?

In any case, he pointed out, the Organization should have a policy to allow exemptions and accommodations for staff (including for medical reasons and domestic situations where children are still home from school)

In Geneva, which is the second largest UN city, things are virtually back to normal. The UN meetings were mostly online and also in a hybrid mode – both in-person and online.

Prisca Chaoui, president of the 3,500-strong Staff Union at the UN Office in Geneva (UNOG), told IPS there is a gradual return to the office, and currently about 50% of staff are back in their offices. This is also due to Swiss protective measures like physical distancing still being in place.

As for guidelines on wearing masks, UNOG is abiding by the recommendations of the Swiss authorities, and is in close contact with the World Health Organization (WHO) and following their advice. Staff have no concerns whatsoever as all the protection measures have been put in place and being implemented in full, she added.

While staff have never stopped working and delivering on the mandate of the Organization, many staff look forward to getting back to the office, Chaoui declared.

As the current 75th GA sessions comes to a close in early September, the outgoing President Volkan Bozkir said he advocated the value of in-person meetings throughout the 75th session and, following the application of appropriate measures, convened in-person meetings of the General Assembly throughout the year.

As the situation on New York improved, the President implemented an increase in the number of delegates in the General Assembly Hall from 1 to 1+1 and for the High-Level Week to 1+3.

To ensure that all Member States have an equal opportunity to participate in high-level week, the option for Member States to send a pre-recorded video statement was included, if delegations are unable to travel due to on-going COVID-related concerns.

This option, he said, was not intended to replace in-person attendance but rather provide delegations with an alternative means to attend that is mindful of the disparity in the implications of the pandemic on delegations, including due to the matter of vaccine equity.

 

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Sania Farooqui is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi.

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Aug 12 2021 (IPS)

Earlier in January, Indian journalist Nidhi Razdan found out she was a victim of one of the most sophisticated and elaborate cyber attacks. Razdan wrote in a piece that it was all an attempt to access her bank account details, personal data, emails, medical records, passport and access to all her devices, including computer and phone.

Nidhi Razdan

It all started in November 2019, when she was invited to speak at an event organized by the Harvard Kennedy School. Razdan was later contacted by an apparent organiser of the event, who asked if she would be interested in applying for a teaching position.

“I was interviewed online for 90 minutes, it all seemed legitimate, the questions were thorough and professional. I did a basic google search and found a journalism degree programme being offered by the Harvard Extension School, which lists 500 faculty of whom 17 are categorised as journalism faculty. A number of these people are working journalists. I believed I fit this profile,” Razdan wrote.

In an interview given to me here, Nidhi Razdan says, “I have been a victim of a horrible cyber crime and I am not going to be embarrassed about it, I am proud of being able to stand up, speak the truth and help other people who have been through cyber attacks to have the courage to raise their voice against it.

“I wasn’t the only target, there are other people, I have made my experience public, but most of the other victims are hesitant because of the reaction they would receive,” said Razdan.

Nidhi Razdan, a journalist based out of New Delhi, India has worked with one of the country’s leading broadcasters, NDTV 24×7 for 21 years, where she rose to the position of Executive Editor. Razdan has extensively covered Indian politics and foreign policy, reporting from Pakistan, Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, Afghanistan, China, Tibet and more.

“Journalism is not just a job, it’s your life”, Razdan says. At a time when the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) press freedom index in India has dropped two places and ranked 142 on the 180-country list, Razdan flags her concern on the state of journalism, “I feel as an institution the judiciary has failed us in upholding our rights.”

“Press freedom is difficult in India because of the constant need to control the narrative. The way reporters are being hounded with FIR’s in small towns and false cases for stories that they are working on, that kind of harassment is unjustified and uncalled for,” Razdan says.

In June 2020, a few months into the lockdown, 55 Indian journalists were arrested, booked, and threatened for reporting on COVID-19. According to this report, barely just 40 days into 2021 five journalists were arrested in India, highest in any year since 1992, including FIRs and sedition charges.

RSF in its report has described India as one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists trying to do their job properly. “They are exposed to every kind of attack, including police violence against reporters, ambushes by political activists, and reprisals instigated by criminal groups or corrupt local officials.

“In 2020, the government took advantage of the coronavirus crisis to step up its control of news coverage by prosecuting journalists providing information at variance with the official position,” the report stated.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in its report, Getting Away with Murder, ranked India 12th on the index that fares the worst when it comes to prosecuting killers of journalists.

During the 2019 Indian general elections, journalists fighting fake news faced multiple threats and abuse. Several English-language journalists who report on politics and social issues, mostly all female, told CPJ that “online harassment was endemic to their work, while some said they felt the election had driven an increase in social media messages seeking to threaten, abuse, or discredit them.”

According to this report, hostility against women journalists by online trolls is ending up in physical attacks. “The death of Lankesh, which was associated with online violence propelled by Hindutva extremism, also drew international attention to the risks faced by another Indian journalist who is openly critical of her government: Rana Ayyub. She has faced mass circulation of rape and death threats online alongside false information designed to counter her critical reporting, discredit her, and place her at greater physical risk.”

Human Rights Watch in this report said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government has increasingly harassed, arrested, and prosecuted rights defenders, activists, journalists, students, academics, and others critical of the government or its policies.

“India continued to lead with the largest number of internet shutdowns globally as authorities resorted to blanket shutdowns either to prevent social unrest or to respond to an ongoing law and order problem,” the report states.

“In the last few years, and post 2014 in particular, we have definitely seen greater attempts to put pressure on the media in ways that I have not experienced before.

“For them (government), democracy means only praise of the leadership, praise of government schemes, in nation building they would like to define what nationalism is for all of us, so the media must fall in line, and communication must be one way. I think it comes from a deep sense of insecurity and the need to control the narrative all the time.

“There is also this certain ecosystem that doesn’t like independent, outspoken women at all, unfortunately that includes women trolls as well,” says Razdan.

In an interview given to me earlier, Geeta Seshu, a journalist who specialises in freedom of expression, working conditions of journalists, gender and civil liberties said, “The internet has always held out the promise of democratic communication.

Organised groups use the internet to incite hatred and abuse. When no action is taken against these vigilante groups by either the state or by private companies, they jeopardise and end up destroying all democratic space,” Seshu said.

As for Razdan, the cyber attack is still being investigated, she says, “it was a very unpleasant experience, I am used to being trolled, but I have been a victim of a very horrible crime. I hope it serves as a lesson and if it can help even one person out there, who has been through a bad experience, then it’s worth speaking up.”

 

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Excerpt:

Sania Farooqui is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi.

Flood damage in Hagen, Germany. Credit: Bärwinkel,Klaus, Creative Commons.

By External Source
Aug 11 2021 (IPS)

The world watched in July 2021 as extreme rainfall became floods that washed away centuries-old homes in Europe, triggered landslides in Asia and inundated subways in China. More than 900 people died in the destruction. In North America, the West was battling fires amid an intense drought that is affecting water and power supplies.

Water-related hazards can be exceptionally destructive, and the impact of climate change on extreme water-related events like these is increasingly evident.

In a new international climate assessment published Aug. 9, 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that the water cycle has been intensifying and will continue to intensify as the planet warms.

The report, which I worked on as a lead author, documents an increase in both wet extremes, including more intense rainfall over most regions, and dry extremes, including drying in the Mediterranean, southwestern Australia, southwestern South America, South Africa and western North America. It also shows that both wet and dry extremes will continue to increase with future warming.

 

Why is the water cycle intensifying?

Water cycles through the environment, moving between the atmosphere, ocean, land and reservoirs of frozen water. It might fall as rain or snow, seep into the ground, run into a waterway, join the ocean, freeze or evaporate back into the atmosphere. Plants also take up water from the ground and release it through transpiration from their leaves. In recent decades, there has been an overall increase in the rates of precipitation and evaporation.

 

Some key points in the water cycle. NASA

 

A number of factors are intensifying the water cycle, but one of the most important is that warming temperatures raise the upper limit on the amount of moisture in the air. That increases the potential for more rain.

This aspect of climate change is confirmed across all of our lines of evidence: It is expected from basic physics, projected by computer models, and it already shows up in the observational data as a general increase of rainfall intensity with warming temperatures.

Understanding this and other changes in the water cycle is important for more than preparing for disasters. Water is an essential resource for all ecosystems and human societies, and particularly agriculture.

 

What does this mean for the future?

An intensifying water cycle means that both wet and dry extremes and the general variability of the water cycle will increase, although not uniformly around the globe.

Rainfall intensity is expected to increase for most land areas, but the largest increases in dryness are expected in the Mediterranean, southwestern South America and western North America.

 

Annual average precipitation is projected to increase in many areas as the planet warms, particularly in the higher latitudes. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report

 

Globally, daily extreme precipitation events will likely intensify by about 7% for every 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) that global temperatures rise.

Many other important aspects of the water cycle will also change in addition to extremes as global temperatures increase, the report shows, including reductions in mountain glaciers, decreasing duration of seasonal snow cover, earlier snowmelt and contrasting changes in monsoon rains across different regions, which will impact the water resources of billions of people.

 

What can be done?

One common theme across these aspects of the water cycle is that higher greenhouse gas emissions lead to bigger impacts.

The IPCC does not make policy recommendations. Instead, it provides the scientific information needed to carefully evaluate policy choices. The results show what the implications of different choices are likely to be.

One thing the scientific evidence in the report clearly tells world leaders is that limiting global warming to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 C (2.7 F) will require immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Regardless of any specific target, it is clear that the severity of climate change impacts are closely linked to greenhouse gas emissions: Reducing emissions will reduce impacts. Every fraction of a degree matters.

Mathew Barlow, Professor of Climate Science, University of Massachusetts Lowell

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

Zimbabwean cities like Bulawayo are facing urban sprawl as regional African governments commit to decent and affordable houses. Credit: Ignatius Banda

By Ignatius Banda
Bulawayo, ZIMBABWE , Aug 11 2021 (IPS)

Ndaba Dube, a Bulawayo resident, says he built himself a home on a small piece of land after the authorities kept him on the housing waiting list for more than two decades. The land he chose is in an old township established before Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.
“People are building their homes all over the place, and when you ask them, they will tell you council approved it, but I know from my own experience I couldn’t wait any longer,” Dube told IPS.

In the capital city Harare, authorities have recently responded to the practice of residents illegally occupying and building on council land by demolishing the buildings, even in some cases, imposing residential homes. This triggered a national outcry and fear that other municipalities across the country might follow suit.

With the demand for decent and affordable housing increasing in Zimbabwe’s second city, the municipality previously turned to what it called ‘in-fill’ stands, pieces of land that existed as gaps left in old townships, as a solution.

While the city says it has not issued building permits for the past five years, construction of such in-fill stands continues.

The proliferation of building of illegal housing comes at a time UN-Habitat says African governments need to make tough calls to realise the housing-for-all dream.

African finance and housing ministers met in Yaoundé, Cameroon, from June 21 to 24, 2021, where they noted that most African countries are currently facing housing crises driven by high population growth.

Added to that were increased urbanisation, poor urban planning, dysfunctional land markets, rising construction costs, the proliferation of informal settlements, and underdeveloped financial systems, the ministers said

Bulawayo’s urban sprawl has only exposed the extent of the city’s housing crisis, with city officials turning to private landowners and surrounding districts for more land.

While the municipality says it has made efforts to avert congesting urban areas by not issuing permits for in-fill stands, this has not stopped residents such as Dube from constructing their homes in a country where owning a house remains a pipe dream.

“Council recognises that land is inelastic and by all means, urban sprawl needs to be avoided,” said Nesisa Mpofu, Bulawayo municipality spokesperson, in an interview with IPS.

“We do not process individual in-fill stands. It should be noted that no in-fill stands have been processed in the past five years.”

Yet buildings on in-fill stands are sprouting across the city, with some homes being built on wetlands and rocky ground – a practice condemned by city planners.

“If local authorities claim that they are not aware of housing constructions, it may mean they are parallel structures within their system,” said Abigail Siziba. She represents the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA), which lobbies the municipality on residents’ issues.

“A thorough land audit where red flags are attended to is necessary to ensure those involved in illicit land deals face the law so that residents regain trust in the housing system,” she told IPS.

Zimbabwe is one of several countries that signed the Yaoundé Declaration in June, which seeks affordable housing for all. The leaders recognised that to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union’s Agenda 2063, there was a need to accelerate the building of decent, affordable housing.

Zimbabwe’s long-running economic crisis characterised by mass retrenchments and eroded incomes have seen banks suspending housing loans as lenders routinely faced foreclosure and lost their homes.

But the illegal housing constructions have also come at a cost for residents.

Burst sewers have become the order of the day as existing infrastructure has not been upgraded to accommodate the additional houses.

“To be honest, we do not know who approves these homes because ever since these houses were added to our neighbourhood, we are experiencing clogged toilets. Even you report to the municipality nothing happens,” said Mariam Bhebhe, a resident in one of the city’s old townships.

“What we were previously told was that council was not issuing stands, and people were buying the stands from private developers, but it is clear now … this is not a private developer building these houses,” Bhebhe told IPS.

Mpofu insists that the local municipality does not approve of the new buildings.

“Some of these areas would have been left undeveloped when the various suburbs were initially developed, as they were considered difficult areas to develop,” Mpofu told IPS. She added this included rocky terrain, areas that required additional stormwater drains, and that needed deep or special foundations.

Effie Ncube, a community organiser in the city, said the municipality needs to make land allocations transparent if ordinary residents are to benefit from any housing projects.

“There has been a lot of corruption surrounding housing in the city where we have seen multiple allocations of land to individuals simply because they have financial clout,” Ncube told IPS.

“This has led to the exclusion of poor people who cannot raise capital to build their homes. That’s why there are a lot of suspicious housing developments across the city, but no one is being held accountable.”

Early July, the municipality announced its plans to take over part of the land belonging to the country’s largest psychiatric hospital located in the city, citing demand for residential housing, again highlighting the extent of shortage of land in the country’s second-largest metropolis.

The UN-Habitat’s New Urban Agenda for Africa, working with the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and United Cities and Local Government of Africa (UCLGA), says it seeks to support local authorities and government to generate not only the best policy but also to generate data to inform the implementation of SDG 11.

SDG 11 seeks to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe and sustainable.”

According to Oumar Sylla, Africa Regional Director for UN-Habitat, between 800 and 900 million people in Africa currently live in the cities.

UN-Habitat estimates that by 2050, more than half of sub-Sahara Africa’s population will reside in the cities.

The UN agency seeks to reduce what it calls “spatial inequalities” and is “working with cities and municipalities to develop strategies on national urban policy, on housing policy and also, how to embed urbanisation into national development plans.”

Under President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe has established a National Development Strategy for housing that will explore other options for mass housing such as high-rise buildings on the realisation that land is “inelastic,” Mpofu says.

But the country’s economic performance could derail those ambitions.

 

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COVID pandemic allowed artists to find expression. Credit: Fuzia.com

By Fairuz Ahmed
New York, Aug 11 2021 (IPS)

Screens, devices, and smartphones replaced the human touch and day-to-day interactions as COVID-19 protocols forced millions of people into harsh lockdowns and prolonged isolation.

Screens, devices, and smartphones replaced the human touch and day-to-day interactions as COVID-19 protocols forced millions of people into harsh lockdowns and prolonged isolation.

According to a report published by UNICEF, even with more than 90 percent of the countries adopting digital and broadcast remote learning policies, more than 1 billion children were at risk of falling behind due to school closures.

With school closures, remote learning and work from home, the world also faced issues with mental health, depression, coping with the loss of loved ones and heightened stress.

Irene Zaman, who has been working with teens and adolescents in New York schools for more than 15 years, told IPS in an interview that the mental health of children, teen and their parents was a significant issue.

Artist Muthulakshmi Anu Narasimhan says art helped with mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: Muthulakshmi Anu Narasimhan

“We have got many requests from parents to offer mechanisms to assist the mental and emotional well-being of the children. This was something we never experienced, and the adaptation had to be quick,” Zaman said.

“Children, teens and even parents were facing challenges, severe or prolonged feelings of depression or sadness. As a new routine, the schools started to call homes, offering therapy and support. Among these, of the most engaging of them was art therapy for dealing with stress.”

A pilot study published in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health and completed during the pandemic showed that “emotion-based directed drawing intervention and a mandala drawing intervention may be beneficial to improve mental health in elementary school children.” These interventions could take place both online and via video conferencing.

Artist and entrepreneur Muthulakshmi Anu Narasimhan agrees with the findings. “One thing that is vital about art, especially during COVID, has been how therapeutic it is. Throughout my life, I have leaned on art to get me through difficult times. It helps me stop thinking about everything else and focus on creating something from nothing,” she said in an exclusive interview with IPS.

“When I bring to the world a physical representation of an idea I had, it gives me not just joy but a sense of triumph and accomplishment. Going through a lockdown and caring for two children as a single mom was difficult, but my art helped me rebalance and give a creative outlet to my fears and exhaustion. This not only resulted in a wider clientele and happier mental state but also better art! My art grew leaps and bounds because of how much I relied on it.”

Ironically while artists, performing artists, and musicians suffered financially during the pandemic, it was these things that kept people engaged. The World Economic Forum estimated that a six-month shutdown cost the music industry alone more than $10bn in sponsorships. It noted that innovative platforms were beginning to change this downward trajectory.

Riya Sinha, a co-founder of online platform Fuzia, told IPS that her platform had quickly adapted and had increased its focus on arts and learning.

“Earlier this year, with a focus on skill development and microlearning, we launched a series of webinars, quizzes, e-books and courses. We also provided a free platform and international audience base for upcoming artists to share their work,” Sinha said. “Word of mouth and international engagement has been unprecedented in helping create what we are today.”

Fuzia is an online hub that aims to drive women empowerment and gender equality by providing inspiration, empathy, and creativity, Sinha says. Any user with internet access can share this safe space and express themselves to an audience of about five million users.

Fuzia’s co-founder, Shraddha Varma, agrees: “Freedom of expressing creative personas and learning are the steps towards self-discovery and empowerment. Through us, learning and engagement opportunities are accessible and affordable to every individual worldwide with internet access”.

Fuzia harnessed the need to be creative and to share experiences. It created a safe place where women and others, could meet, and share their art – and at times also build a career.

Humaira Ferdous Shifa, who is currently a full-time student and working as an illustrator at Fuzia, says she started her journey as a user and ended up with a position as a graphic artist.
“I was interested in making friends and having an audience to share my work, and this was the best medium to explore. I found incredible growth in my professional and personal life.”

The platform celebrates its 9th anniversary in August with a Fuzia Creative Summit. The summit will offer a three-day virtual gathering bringing together experts, artists, and industry leaders, all under one remote roof. Here upcoming artists will have an opportunity to showcase their talents and immerse themselves in creative expression.
This article is a sponsored feature

 

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This year has given us the most vivid insights into what the new world will look like, whether it is droughts and fires in California or the latest tragic wildfires in Greece, as temperatures get so hot that even a small spark sets them off. Credit: Miriet Abrego/IPS.

By Felix Dodds and Chris Spence
NEW YORK, Aug 11 2021 (IPS)

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is absolutely right to call the latest UN climate report a “Code Red for Humanity.” Without immediate and serious action, we are condemning future generations to a dismal future.

Already, we have wasted too much time. Next year, it will be half a century since first UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm warned us of the risks to our environment from human activities. More than 30 years have passed since the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its first report (the latest report is its sixth). Even that first report in 1990 warned of humanity’s impact on greenhouse gas concentrations and planetary warming. Again, our actions over subsequent decades have been woefully inadequate.

If we were to permit a 2 °C increase in temperature, then the record temperatures recorded recently in the United States and unexpectedly in Canada would become 14 times more likely to happen again in future, both there and elsewhere

This year has given us the most vivid insights into what the new world will look like, whether it is droughts and fires in California or the latest tragic wildfires in Greece, as temperatures get so hot that even a small spark sets them off.

The IPCC report also looks at heat waves. If we were to permit a 2 °C increase in temperature, then the record temperatures recorded recently in the United States and unexpectedly in Canada would become 14 times more likely to happen again in future, both there and elsewhere.

There has already been an increase in the number and the strength of. Flooding is happening more often and again in places not expected as rain falls in a different way to how it did before These heavy downpours, most recently in Germany, show that the flood defenses were built for a different type of downpour and will required huge infrastructural overhauls if this is to be the new normal.

Then there is the cascading effect if the forests and vegetation have burnt down. When the rain comes again there is now nothing to hold the water back, meaning floods will have a greater impact on already devastated communities.

The key here is water. The UN’s climate negotiations only added water as a key issue to the negotiations in 2010 due to campaigning by the multi stakeholder efforts of the Water and Climate Coalition. The approach to greenhouse targets missed a huge opportunity to address the key sectors that were either contributing to the problem or would be impacted by it.

 

No Minor Injuries

Why are so many political leaders either in denial about the need for urgent action, or simply paying it lip service? The current sense of denial is unsettlingly reminiscent of the comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In one painfully funny scene, a mysterious dark knight bars the path of our hero, King Arthur. The two fight and King Arthur expects the knight to stand aside when he cuts off the knight’s arm. But the knight refuses, claiming at first that it is merely a “scratch”. The fight resumes and the knight loses his other arm. Again, he refuses to submit or step aside, claiming it is “just a flesh wound.”

This is where we stand with climate change. Already, we have inflicted great injuries on our planet and we need to respond accordingly. We cannot pretend the globe has just suffered a few minor cuts and scrapes. If our world was the dark knight, you could argue that we have, through our actions, already severed a limb. We must cease our attacks and treat this as a global emergency for our global health. No band aid solution or plastering over the damage will do. Inaction will not cut it.

In a health emergency, time is of the essence. You cannot wait to call an ambulance or try to carry on as normal. If you do, the patient may not survive. The IPCC’s latest report shows we must act immediately and take the strongest action possible.

 

A Call to Action

So, what can be done with the UN IPCC’s new warning?

First, those countries that have not yet submitted new Nationally Determined Contribution targets under the UN’s Paris agreement should do so immediately.

Secondly, developed countries should increase their contribution promised in 2015 for funding from $100 billion a year for climate work to at least $200 billion by the Climate Summit in Egypt in 2022.

Thirdly, and even more importantly, governments need to aggressively focus on the corporate sector and its responsibilities. This should include making it a requirement for all companies listed on any Stock Exchange to have to produce their sustainability strategy and their Environmental, Social and Governance Report (ESG) every year. This should be a requirement for remaining on the stock exchange. This should also require them to produce science-based targets to achieve net zero greenhouse gases by 2050. Companies’ voluntary, self-created goals are no longer sufficient.

Perhaps it is even worth considering having Stock Exchanges publish the total carbon of their members and to start considering them putting a cap on what the Exchange would allow and what their contribution to net zero will be.

Fourthly, the role of local and sub-national governments needs to be supported and enhanced. Actors at the local and regional levels are critical to delivering what we need. They need to be supported to set their own 2030 targets and 2050 net zero strategies. To enable them to achieve this, central governments will need to support them and provide the extra funding. All planning decisions should be based on the new projections of climate change and building in flood plains should stop.

Fifthly, governments should review the impacts on climate change of all existing policies and not proceed unless they are within the strategy to deliver the NDC and the 2030 and 2050 Net Zero strategies. In short, governments need to start incorporating climate change into all of their thinking across all sectors. The problem is too vast, and too urgent, to do otherwise.

Sixthly, all governments need to urgently review their disaster risk reduction strategies ahead of a major UN conference on this subject scheduled for next May in Bali.

At all levels of government we need to review the interlinkages between water, agriculture, energy and climate change to ensure that planning is climate proofed. Without accounting for each of these sectors, the solutions will not be big enough to meet the challenge.

Finally, as voters, taxpayers and citizens, we need to press our political leaders to put climate change at the top of their list of priorities. They need to be reminded that it is not just future generations that will judge them and their policies—we can do so, too.

 

A Code Red Emergency

We have a decade to turn this around. Already, we have seen global temperatures rise by 1.09 °C. The IPCC suggests we may pass the all-important threshold of 1.5 °C by 2034 to 2040.

In fact, things may be even more pressing. The report that came out on Monday was the “summary for policymakers”, which means it was a negotiated document with both progressive nations and more climate sceptic and cautious countries negotiating the exact wording. While the findings were certainly scientifically sound, it is quite likely the language could have been—and probably should have been—even more urgent. We would do well to remember what some politicians have said over the last few years; if they have denied the science in the past then now is surely the time for them make way for others who are willing to give this issue the weight it so clearly deserves.

 

Felix Dodds is an Adjunct Professor at the Water Institute at the University of North Carolina where he is a Principal Investigator for the Belmont funded Re-Energize project. He co-coordinated the Water and Climate Change Coalition at the Climate Negotiations (2007-2012). His new book is Tomorrow’s People and New Technology: Changing How We Live Our Lives (October 2021).

Chris Spence is an environmental consultant, writer and author of the book, Global Warming: Personal Solutions for a Healthy Planet. He is a veteran of many climate summits and other United Nations negotiations over the past three decades.

 

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha (on screen) of Thailand addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventy-fifth session last September. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Jan Servaes
BRUSSELS, Aug 11 2021 (IPS)

Could the rise of the youth-led ‘Ratsadon’ movement lead to changes in Thai politics?

Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha now faces an ongoing threat as the movement continues to mobilize many, especially young people, against the government. They have broken traditional taboos by opening new conversations about the monarchy and shaping public discourse to question many conservative views in Thai society.

Their main demands are: First, they want the former coup leader and now elected prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, to resign. Second, they want to change the constitution, which was written by a commission appointed by the military during Prayuth’s military rule. Third, they want to reform the monarchy, and Article 112 of the Criminal Code, known as the lese majeste act.

According to Tamara Loos, professor of history and Thai studies at Cornell University, the Ratsadon movement is not just about the monarchy, but rather “a massive cultural shift” away from total submission to the established powers.

Young people question those in positions of power, from state authorities to parents and teachers. Outsiders see parallels with the ‘roaring sixties’ in the US and Western Europe.

Supporters of the Ratsadon group believe that Thailand can change for the better. They want to shake up the social fabric to decentralize power, reduce inequality and create more opportunities for ordinary Thais.

Ratsadon, which means ‘common people’ in the Thai language, is run by young Thais – in their twenties and thirties or even younger. Their logo is the raised three fingers from the Hunger Games. The same symbol used by the opposition in Hong Kong and Myanmar.

Months of street protests and calls for reform were seen as an act of defiance against the old establishment in Thailand. They followed an important political development when the progressive Future Forward Party was disbanded in February 2020.

Founded in 2018, Future Forward became popular among young voters. It took a critical stance against the military, monopolies and the current 2017 constitution, which was written during Prayuth’s military rule.

The Future Forward party came third in the 2019 general election with around 6.3 million votes before being dissolved by the Constitutional Court on February 21, 2020 for violating “election laws” that are still up for debate. Even the US embassy in Bangkok condemned the ban.

Thus, the establishment seems largely intact, thanks to the thick layer of nepotism and corruption ingrained in the Thai system. Prime Minister Prayuth is still in power as opposition calls for the former junta leader to resign went unanswered.

Meanwhile, attempts to amend the constitution as a result of the 2014 coup have also floundered, stalling in a parliament packed with Prayuth’s allies.

The ongoing protests resulted in lawsuits. Nearly 700 protesters have been charged with crimes ranging from causing unrest to sedition. Among them, a record 103 have been accused of the infamous Lese Majesty Law.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) call for the Thai authorities to end legal prosecution against individuals exercising their right to freedom of expression and to amend article 112 to bring it into line with Thailand’s human rights obligations under the 1966 International Treaty on Civil and Political Rights.

But public pressure on the government is mounting. The recent spate of COVID-19 outbreaks has sparked a new wave of anti-government protests that have seen older political groups return, including some of Prayuth’s former allies.

Only 6% of Thailand’s population of more than 70 million has been fully vaccinated and most of the country including Bangkok is under lockdown with a night-time curfew. Gatherings of more than five people are currently banned.

The Nikkei COVID-19 Recovery Index ranks more than 120 countries and regions on infection management, vaccine rollouts and social mobility at the end of each month. Thailand is listed last in the current listing.

The Prayuth government is feeling the hot breath of popular anger and is trying to find a way out. If we are to believe a leaked government document, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul want to be exempted from any future prosecution for the fiasco of the COVID-19 campaigns.

On the other hand, others are called in, such as “Captain” Thamanat, the rapidly rising heroin-convicted Secretary-General of the ruling military Palang Pracharath Party who seems to be protected by powerful interests.

What does this mean for the anti-government movement? How will all the groups reconcile their differences and how much of a threat do they pose to the government now?

Political commentator Voranai Vanijaka recounts the differences: Royalists are afraid to support the Move Forward Party and the Progressive Movement to remove General Prayuth, because then the monarchy will also come under attack.

People also don’t want to support Pheu Thai because of the shadow of Thaksin Shinawatra and the history of the red shirts. The Re-solution Movement is trying to put constitutional reform and the junta-appointed 250 senators back at the center of attention.

But, Voranai says, at the moment we seem to be content to release our frustrations on social media. “We post really mean things about General Prayuth with really mean hashtags. Then we post really mean things about each other. We then go to bed convinced that we have done our bit for democracy, especially if we get a lot of ‘like’ clicks and shares.”

“Continue to criticize and condemn the Prayuth regime, it is not only our democratic right, but it is also a democratic duty of the conscientious citizen. But understand that as long as we, the common people, cannot overcome our hatred of each other and cross the barrier, as long as we cannot find a unifying actor/factor, General Prayuth will continue to giggle for at least four, if not more years.”

However, initially peaceful and playful demonstrations have become increasingly grim and violent.

“Thais are tired of seeing the same general (and his cronies) in power amidst continuing economic malaise,” observes Paul Chambers, a political analyst and lecturer at Thailand’s Naresuan University.

“With the voice of the people increasingly silenced in parliament, more people will take to the streets to make their voices heard,” Chambers said. “Repressing them can only be temporary,” he added. “Thai elites will eventually have to make concessions to reformers. The only question is when.”

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

 

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The UNFSS hopes to transform how food is produced, packaged, and distributed to tackle food insecurity and wastage. Credit: Alison Kentish

By Alison Kentish
Roseau, Dominica, Aug 10 2021 (IPS)

The world has been put on notice that there is no time to waste in achieving the goal of food systems transformation.

Through Pre-Summit and national dialogues, scientists, policymakers, farmers, NGOs, private sector representatives and youth groups have been building momentum ahead of the United Nations Food Systems Summit in September. The goal is to ensure that the world produces food with greater attention to climate change, poverty, equity, sustainability and waste reduction.

The Global Alliance for the Future of Food is one of the partners addressing the urgency of food systems transformation for food security, equity, the global economy and COVID-19 recovery. Since 2012, the alliance of philanthropic foundations has engaged in global discussions, supported and led global food transformation research and advanced initiatives in climate, health and agroecology.

The Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) collaborates with the Alliance to share ideas and knowledge to design projects capable of guaranteeing a more sustainable food system for future generations.

IPS spoke to the Alliance’s Senior Director of Programmes, Lauren Baker, about the urgent need to overhaul food systems, the impact of COVID-19 on those systems and why true cost accounting is essential to the international effort to revamp the production, sale and distribution of food.

Dr Lauren Baker

Inter Press Service (IPS): The Global Alliance for the Future of Food has been on a mission to make food systems more sustainable and equitable. The UN Food Systems Summit has the same goal. What do you want to see the Summit achieve?

Lauren Baker (LB): Through the summit process, we have been committed to engaging a network of champions in food systems. We are championing systems thinking, transparency and accountability. We uphold the need for diverse evidence and inclusive representation throughout the process.

Our goal has been to bring the focus of research on one issue, which we think is a significant lever for food systems transformation, and this is being echoed by many in the summit process. This is the issue of true cost accounting.

Over and over across the action tracks, we have heard people emphasize the need for measurable and transparent approaches like true cost accounting to move us forward. What true cost accounting is: we look at the negative externalities of food systems that are not fit for purpose. The industrial food system has several significant impacts on human health and the environment. We need to take these into account, use that information to think differently and make different decisions that advance and uphold the true value of food and bring the alternatives to light.

There are many food systems initiatives proliferating around the world that are healthy, equitable, diverse, inclusive, renewable and resilient. How do we shine a light on those integrated benefits of food systems when they’re managed properly, and they’re not extractive?

(IPS): What are some of the food systems lessons you think we’ve learned from the COVID-19 pandemic?

(LB): I think the Summit comes at this time when everyone’s awareness of food systems issues is heightened, and this makes the work of the Summit even more critical.

One of the key lessons has been just how vulnerable equity-deserving groups are in the context of this kind of global emergency. If you extend that into future emergencies that will come our way because of climate change, then we need to address those issues of equity and the social systems that lift people instead of making them more vulnerable in the context of something like a pandemic.

We have seen essential workers continue to be stressed. We have seen the impact of COVID on migrant workers, farmers and supply chain resilience. We have seen that the global supply chain through COVID, on the one hand, has been very vulnerable. On the other hand, it’s been durable, but there has been increasing interest because of COVID on resilient local and regional supply chains. Throughout the Pre-summit, I heard government officials and other actors emphasizing the importance of building and strengthening local and regional supply chains.

I think it’s just highlighted resilience overall – the idea of resilience and how food systems are connected to our other crises, like our crisis of inequality globally, our climate crisis and our biodiversity crisis. We now see that those things are intimately connected, and the solutions will have to be interrelated as well.

(IPS): How important is indigenous knowledge to this mission of food systems transformation?

(LB): In our work on true cost accounting, I think indigenous knowledge is very undervalued if you consider the true value of food systems.

Indigenous people historically have managed and stewarded their food systems and have knowledge that they can offer to the world. Their knowledge is very place-based, and I heard throughout the summit process about how important place-based science knowledge innovation is. That type of knowledge provides a grounded perspective, a different worldview that connects us to the places we live in different ways than we are connected presently.

(IPS): Food systems experts also continue to push for agroecology to be at the centre of these discussions. What is your take on this?

(LB): For me, when you look across the food system, agroecology is a systemic solution that brings forward all of these values that I was talking about in a really clear way.

Agroecology can improve livelihoods in terms of shifting from a system that has negative impacts to positive benefits. It is creative and knowledge-intensive. It is also placed based and ecological. It is diverse, so we need to uphold the importance of agricultural biodiversity and agriculture as connected to, wild landscapes too. Agroecology connects in a nice way to our wild spaces, to agroforestry, where biodiversity and habitat can be preserved and enhanced.

We’re doing some great work right now to assess using a true cost accounting framework, all of these agro-ecological initiatives around the world to look at their positive impacts on the environment, socio-cultural impacts on human health and their economic impacts.

We are excited to be launching that work at that the food system summit in September. We think it’s an important way to hold up agroecology, indigenous knowledge and the creativity in urban communities that we see around food systems.

(IPS): What do you think is the key message ahead of the Food Systems Summit?

(LB): One key message for me is just the importance of transparency in all of this.

How do we ensure that our global leaders act boldly right now and embrace measurable transparent approaches, systemic approaches, that actually can facilitate inclusive transformation as quickly as possible? We just can’t afford to wait!

 

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By External Source
Aug 10 2021 (IPS-Partners)

In the latest edition of The Interview, Indian-American astronaut Sirisha Bandla speaks to Hindustan Times and talks about the gender bias that she thinks exists in the aeronautical field. She talks about stars, describes how she gradually fell for the space environment and how space exploration became a passion for her. On July 12, the 34-year-old aeronautical engineer became the third Indian-American woman to fly into space when she joined British billionaire Richard Branson on Virgin Galactic’s first fully-crewed successful suborbital test flight from the US state of New Mexico. Watch the full video for more.

Source: Hindustan Times

With most of its land only a few feet above sea level, Kiribati is seeing growing damage from storms and flooding. But even under a zero carbon emissions scenario, sea level rises would continue for centuries, causing massive human displacement and loss of livelihoods for billions of people. Credit: UNICEF/Vlad Sokhin

By Adam Day
NEW YORK, Aug 10 2021 (IPS)

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its starkest report yet, expressing a clear consensus on the rapid changes to global temperatures.

While this has been called a “code red” moment and a “wake-up call” for action, the report builds on what the scientific community has been saying for decades: climate change is irrefutably being caused by human activity and it is having system-wide impacts on every aspect of our lives today.

As Greta Thunberg points out, the IPCC report only summarizes the science, it does not tell us what to do. Unless we take a transformational approach to climate change, we will continue to collectively hit the snooze button long after the last alarm bell has rung.

A transformational approach recognizes that we are already beyond any of the best-case scenarios, views climate change as central to our collective security, and demands a new understanding of growth.

We are already beyond the 1.5 degree threshold

For the first time, the IPCC report lays out what would happen if we ceased all carbon emissions today. Global temperatures would stabilize in a few decades, reversing some of most pernicious effects of climate change.

But even under a zero carbon emissions scenario, sea level rises would continue for centuries, causing massive human displacement and loss of livelihoods for billions of people. And that is under a highly improbable scenario of a total end of carbon emissions right now – the reality is going to be much worse.

While the 1.5 degree goal is a useful tool to encourage emissions reductions and greater funding, realistically we need to start planning for some of the worst scenarios laid out by the IPCC and others. We need the kind of global disaster preparedness that was clearly lacking when the pandemic broke out.

The twenty-sixth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 26) to the UNFCCC will take place in November 2021 in Glasgow. Credit: United Nations

Climate is fundamental to our security

As our recent research has shown, climate change is acting as a risk multiplier for conflict and insecurity across the world, often causing risks indirectly through displacement, economic shocks, natural disasters, and rapid changes in livelihoods.

From climate wars to farmer herder conflicts, rising global temperatures are contributing to instability. This points to the need to move climate change from a marginal issue to a central one across all major areas of government: security, health, infrastructure, education, and development.

The Biden Administration’s decision to make climate change part of the US national security strategy is the right step. We will need to tackle climate holistically across all government functions rather than treating it as an isolated, standalone issue.

A transformational approach to growth

Estimates of what is required to cope with climate change runs into the trillions per year, already far outstripping the pledges made under the Paris Agreement. As global populations and urbanization increase together, the cost of climate change is not only rising dramatically, it constitutes an existential risk to our model of human development.

Mobilizing resources is part of the story, but if we pour those resources back into the same kind of energy consumption – or worse, if the pandemic response bypasses the safeguards put in place to protect the environment in a rush to build back better – it will be like putting a band-aid on an amputated limb.

What is needed is a more fundamental shift in how we view development and prosperity: rather than being measured solely in terms of Gross Domestic Product, we need to value and measure our collective wellbeing, the sustainability of our actions, the ability of our production to contribute to a cycle rather than an endless output of carbon.

While continuing to mobilize funds, the COP26 agenda needs to also push this more transformational agenda, to think of development as a symbiosis with our environment rather than a parasitic or predatory relationship between humans and the Earth.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is Director of Programmes at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research

By Mary Suma Cardosa, Chan Chee Khoon, Chee Heng Leng and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
PENANG and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 10 2021 (IPS)

To achieve universal health coverage, a country needs a healthcare system that provides equitable access to high quality health care requiring sustainable financing over the long term. Publicly provided healthcare should be on the basis of need, a citizen’s entitlement for all regardless of means.

Mary Suma Cardosa

Health inequalities growing
But recent decades have seen health care trending towards a two-tier system – a perceived higher quality private sector, and lower quality public services. One typical consequence is medical doctors, especially specialists, leaving public service for much more lucrative private practice.

This ‘brain drain’ has led to longer waiting times and complaints of deteriorating public service quality, as more people with means turn to private facilities. As costs in private hospitals are high and increasing, this causes those who can afford private health insurance to turn to it to hedge their bets.

If these trends are not checked, the gap between private and public health sectors in terms of charges and quality will grow, increasing polarisation in access to quality health care between haves and have-nots.

Health care financing
Financing arrangements are key to developing an equitable healthcare system that is financially sustainable in the long run. For universal coverage and equitable access, health financing should be based on social solidarity through cross-subsidisation, with the healthy financing the ill, and the rich subsidising the poor.

Experience the world over shows health markets functioning poorly, both in financing and providing healthcare. Furthermore, heavy reliance on market solutions has contributed to spiralling costs and constrained healthcare access.

Private health insurance
A voluntary private health insurance (PHI) scheme cannot be financially viable in the long term as individuals with lower health risks are less likely to buy insurance from a scheme which they see as primarily benefiting others less healthy.

Chan Chee Khoon

Since voluntary schemes are usually based on PHI, government support for such schemes would strengthen these companies. There are good reasons to be wary of the growing influence of PHI interests in healthcare financing discussions.

Premiums for PHI are risk-rated, meaning that individuals with pre-existing conditions and higher risks – such as the elderly, or those with family histories of illness – will face un-affordably high premiums or be denied coverage.

‘Moral hazard’ and ‘supplier-induced demand’ in a ‘fee-for-service’ reimbursement system encourage unnecessary investigations and over-treatment, or costly monitoring to limit such abuse. Hence, PHI companies use ‘managed healthcare’ services to contain costs by limiting investigations and treatments.

Voluntary PHI schemes charge high premiums while fee-for-service payments escalate costs which inevitably raise premiums. Thus, the US spends the most on health in the world, but with surprisingly modest health outcomes to show for it.

Much public expenditure is needed to insure the poor, especially those with prior health conditions. Achieving UHC would require costly public subsidisation of such profitable arrangements. This would not be cost-effective, let alone equitable.

Government support for PHI companies would strengthen their growing presence and influence, typically involving transnational insurance conglomerates. PHI companies are likely to try to undermine others threatening their interests.

Social health insurance
Unlike VHI, social health insurance (SHI) is usually mandatory to cover the entire population. Although often proposed and promoted with the best of intentions, the limitations and problems of SHI are also important to consider.

Chee Heng Leng

SHI would effectively require collecting an additional ‘payroll tax’ from the public. This could be designed with various distributional consequences, e.g., if flat, it would be regressive. As an additional tax would reduce take-home incomes, SHI schemes have been difficult to introduce.

Like PHI, SHI also has inherent tendencies for over-treatment and cost escalation due to ‘moral hazard’ and ‘supply-induced demand’. These require costly, strong and typically bureaucratic administrative controls.

Surviving SHI schemes owe their ‘success’ to specific reasons, e.g., Germany’s evolved from its long history of union-provided health insurance. But most working people in developing countries are not in formal employment, let alone unionised. Hence, SHI would have difficulty gaining broad acceptance.

In any case, Germany and other countries with successful SHI in the past have been moving to greater revenue funding of healthcare as formal employment and unionisation decline with changing labour arrangements.

With SHI, government revenue would still have to cover the indigent and poor. It is difficult to collect premiums from the self-employed, or the casual and informal workers not on regular payrolls. But universal coverage would not be achieved without including them.

Revenue financed healthcare
Inherited revenue-based healthcare financing is basically sound and should not be replaced due to other healthcare system problems. In most societies, revenue-sourced healthcare financing can be retained, reinforced and improved by:

o increasing government health care allocations.
o reducing ‘leakages’ by eliminating waste, corruption, ‘cronyism’, etc.
o promoting ‘developmental governance’, competitive bidding, etc.
o raising government revenue, especially from more progressive taxation, e.g., wealth, ‘windfall’ and ‘sin’ taxes, especially on activities worsening health risks such as tobacco and sugar consumption.

Revenue financing better
Revenue-financing avoids many administrative costs incurred by PHI and SHI. It has no need for an elaborate parallel system, costly mechanisms and more staff to register, track and pay SHI contributors and beneficiaries, and to deter selfish opportunistic behaviour.

Compared to PHI, SHI seems like a step forward for countries with weak or non-existent public healthcare systems. But moving from revenue-financing to SHI would be a step backwards in terms of both equity and cost-effectiveness.

SHI requires additional layers of health care system administration – to enrol, collect, ascertain coverage, determine benefits and make payments – which incurs unnecessary costs compared to revenue-financing.

Hence, such insurance systems involve much more per capita health spending, raising it by 3-4%. Despite being much more costly than revenue financed systems, they do not have better health outcomes.

As SHI effectively imposes a payroll tax, it discourages employers from hiring employees with ‘proper’ labour contracts. Hence, SHI was estimated to reduce formal contracts by 8-10% and total employment by 5-6% in rich countries.

International evidence clearly shows progressive tax-funded public health systems are more equitable, cost-effective and beneficial than SHI. Public health programmes needing popular participation, e.g., breast or cervical cancer screening, have worse outcomes with SHI compared to revenue-financing.

This can be best achieved by improving or developing a revenue-funded healthcare system, with additional resources deployed to expand and enhance primary health care, and better service conditions for medical personnel.

Strengthening public healthcare services can do much, not only to improve staff work conditions, but also morale and pride in their work.

Mary Suma CARDOSA is a medical doctor specializing in pain management and past President of the Malaysian Medical Association. CHAN Chee Khoon, ScD, is a health systems and health policy analyst with postgraduate training in epidemiology. CHEE Heng Leng, PhD, is an academic researcher working in the area of health and health care policy. All are members of the Citizens Health Initiative.

 

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Following bereavement, children experience grief, distress, and other emotional and behavioral difficulties which must be addressed. | Picture courtesy: Vicky Roy/Save the Children-India

By External Source
Aug 9 2021 (IPS)

The second wave of COVID-19 brought with it unimaginable grief, agony, and frustration. India saw a sharp increase in the number of deaths, especially among younger people, which meant that many children lost one or both parents. Reports of people seeking help for orphaned children as well as requests to ‘adopt’ these children emerged on social media.

Data collected and presented by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights in the Supreme Court as of June 8th, 2021 revealed that COVID-19 left 3,621 children orphaned. Additionally, more than 26,000 children lost one of their parents and 274 children were abandoned. These numbers, which are likely to be higher, indicate grave protection-related issues for children.

In the absence of proper documentation—such as a death certificate indicating death due to COVID-19 or as a result of other COVID-19 related issues such as mucormycosis—many eligible children may not be able to access the benefits of these schemes

To address this emerging child rights issue, the central government and various state governments announced social protection packages for children orphaned due to COVID-19. These packages mainly include cash transfers (different governments have designed various modalities) and concessions with a preference for the education of children who have been orphaned.

Some packages also include health insurance and employment assurance upon completion of education. Though timely, there is a conscious need to design, allocate, and implement these schemes using a child-sensitive lens that responds to gender and age-appropriate needs.

 

Design better schemes

In most state government packages, an orphaned child will receive monthly cash transfers ranging from INR 2,000 to 5,000. Like various other programmes, the basis for allocating these amounts isn’t clear and lacks consistency across states. The targeting and eligibility criteria also vary from state to state. For example, the Andhra Pradesh government will provide benefits to orphans from families living below the poverty line.

However, we know that measuring income in India is a complex process and many poor people are unable to access the benefits of welfare programmes that are designed on the basis of income criteria. The monthly cash transfers for children who have been orphaned are primarily provided to promote foster or kinship care (where a family that is already known to the child becomes responsible for their care).

And so it is not clear whether the government will assess the economic situation of the family in which a child lost their parent, or that of the foster care or kinship family, or both. Evidence shows there are higher chances of exclusion errors due to this type of condition.

On May 29th, 2021, the central government announced a package for children who have lost their parents due to COVID-19. It provides financial support for education, health insurance, and a fixed deposit or corpus of INR 10 lakh in the name of the child. Once a child turns 18, they will be given monthly support for five years for their higher education and when they turn 23, they will have access to the corpus amount.

While the central government package focuses more on educational needs, the state governments’ announcements focus on immediate financial needs. Holistically, they complement each other. However, it is not clear whether orphaned children are eligible to avail benefits of both the state and central government schemes. Further, children may find it difficult to access these cash transfers in times of need, as they will be controlled by their caregivers until they are 18 years old.

Another challenge is that the schemes that have been announced do not make any mention of monitoring systems. It has been found that in the absence of some mechanism to monitor such schemes, they do not perform well.

 

Simplify access to schemes

The second wave also highlighted that COVID-19 related deaths were under-reported. This too will pose a challenge in the implementation of government schemes that target orphaned children. In the absence of proper documentation—such as a death certificate indicating death due to COVID-19 or as a result of other COVID-19 related issues such as mucormycosis—many eligible children may not be able to access the benefits of these schemes.

Save the Children has found that most vulnerable children and their families lack identity proof and bank accounts, which will make it impossible for them to access these packages. Further, children who have been abandoned or lost one parent due to COVID-19 have been totally excluded from these schemes. These children are equally vulnerable as those who have lost both parents and are also at risk of child labour and trafficking.

Keeping these issues in mind, we recommend simplifying the conditions to include children who have been abandoned or lost one parent due to COVID-19 as well. Governments must also notify a date for the implementation of these schemes which will help simplify the process of identifying beneficiaries as well as reduce the chances of exclusion by error.

 

What about psychosocial needs?

While the schemes that have been announced appear to fulfill education and financial needs, they have neglected the immediate and long-term psychosocial and emotional care required by children. They have missed acknowledging the importance of building an emotional connection between children and kinship caregivers. Moreover, these schemes have missed highlighting the specific early childcare requirements of children in the age group of 0-6 years.

Following bereavement, children experience grief, distress, and other emotional and behavioural difficulties which must be addressed too. Evidence shows that in the absence of responsive care and parenting as an integral part of these schemes, cash transfers may not be able to achieve the desired result of promoting foster and kinship care.

We also know that children who have been orphaned and their caregivers both need sustained support to adjust and adapt to the new situation. In absence of social workers or frontline workers who can deal with child protection issues under the Integrated Child Protection Scheme, providing this much-needed support poses another challenge—the announced packages have not recognised the need for it.

It is critical to translate these well-appreciated announcements into child-sensitive schemes to ensure every child who is vulnerable and at-risk as a result of the pandemic is protected. Child-sensitive social protection schemes are designed in a specific manner.

They need to provide equal opportunity, address age-specific needs, prioritise children’s needs of care, protection and psychosocial well-being, and be integrated with other government programmes. More importantly, the targeting criteria and conditionalities need to be simple and inclusive, rather than designed to promote exclusion.

Think tanks such as NITI Aayog must come forward to provide policy directives or frameworks that governments can use to design an integrated child-sensitive social protection scheme. State governments can also reach out to civil society and child rights organisations to seek support in designing and implementing these schemes. The pandemic and its growing impact on children is a timely reminder to invest adequately in children in an integrated manner.

 

Anisha Ghosh is a development sector professional with more than 10 years of experience, specialising in child rights. She currently works with Save the Children-India as Assistant Manager, Policy and Advocacy (poverty & inclusion) focusing on child poverty, gender, resilience & climate change, and urban issues. She is a postgraduate in journalism and a graduate in sociology. She is a passionate advocate for social justice and human rights.

Pranab Kumar Chanda works with Save the Children-India as Head of Child Poverty. Pranab’s work integrates child sensitivity in governments’ social protection, livelihoods, and skill building programmes. An alumna of International School of Social Sciences, The Hague and XISS, Ranchi, Pranab has more than 17 years of experience in livelihoods, social protection, skill-building, and resilience building. His key interest areas include dynamics of (child) poverty, social protection, youth employment, and their linkages with child rights and well-being.

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

 

Secretary-General António Guterres (left) discusses the State of the Planet with Professor Maureen Raymo at Columbia University in New York City. December 2020. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 9 2021 (IPS)

A landmark report on the hazards of climate change predicts a devastating future for the world at large.

Authored by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and released August 9, the study is being described by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as “code red for humanity”— a rallying cry before an impending global disaster.

“The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk. Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible,” warns Guterres.

He says the internationally agreed threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius is perilously close. “We are at imminent risk of hitting 1.5 degrees in the near term. The only way to prevent exceeding this threshold is by urgently stepping up our efforts, and pursuing the most ambitious path. We must act decisively now to keep 1.5 alive.”

The recent changing weather patterns worldwide– including the devastation caused by wild fires in 13 states in the US, plus Siberia, Turkey and Greece, heavy rains and severe flooding in central China and Germany, droughts in Iran, Madagascar and southern Angola– warn of a dire future unless there are dramatic changes in our life styles.

The impending hazards also threaten animal and plant species, coral reefs, ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica, and projects a sea-level rise that threatens the very existence of the world’s small island developing states (SIDS) which can be wiped off the face of the earth.

The 10 biggest emitters of greenhouse gases include China, the US, the 27-member European Union (EU), India, Russia, Japan, Brazil, Indonesia, Iran and Canada.

The study predicts that average global temperatures are likely to rise 1.5 degree Celsius or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit and will continue to warm for another 10 years. At that point, nearly one billion people worldwide could face life-threatening heat waves at least once every five years.

Rescuers pull villagers from flood waters in Xingyang city in China’s Henan Province. Credit: WMO

Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing global climate, water-related hazards top the list of natural disasters with the highest human losses in the past 50 years, according to a new report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released July 20.

According to a report in Cable News Network (CNN), scientists say the only way to keep from reaching this point of no return and to prevent even more catastrophic damage is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero.

As many as 260 million people in the US are expected “to experience high temperatures at least 90 degrees by the end of the week as a new heat wave settles over parts of the country.”

Nafkote Dabi, Climate Policy Lead at Oxfam, warms of the climate change repercussions amid “a world in parts burning, in parts drowning and in parts starving”.

The report is “the most compelling wake-up call yet for global industry to switch from oil, gas and coal to renewables. Governments must use law to compel this urgent change. Citizens must use their own political power and behaviors to push big polluting corporations and governments in the right direction. There is no Plan B’.

Asked whether the UN was on the right track in its fight against the hazards of climate change, Dr Shilpi Srivastava, Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) , told IPS: “The UN needs to strongly urge the rich countries to contribute substantively towards climate finance, in particular towards adaptation and addressing loss and damage.”

She said the world body should encourage its member countries to ensure that policies for adaptation and mitigation, including achieving net zero emissions, are just and inclusive, and do not bring undue harm to those on the frontline of climate change.

She also pointed out that the report comes amidst another year of severe heatwaves, droughts, flooding, forest fires and extreme events which are impacting communities across the globe.

“The findings should serve as a reminder that we need to urgently prioritise support for those who are most disadvantaged and already experiencing the worst impacts of climate change”.

“We need transformative climate justice for people across the globe who’ve been marginalised and excluded from decision-making on impacts and interventions. We need to talk about loss and damage for vulnerable communities and must hold governments accountable to deliver programmes that bring meaningful and positive change in the lives of those most affected by climate change.”

She said leaders meeting at COP26 (in Glasgow in November) need to listen to science and take decisive actions to keep fossil fuels in the grounds. In parallel, they must ensure that policies for mitigation and adaptation are just and inclusive.

“Technical fixes will not take us very far, and can perpetuate the systems of inequity and injustice in the form of displacement and land grabs, something we are already witnessing in the name of ‘green’ solutions,” she warned .

“Policymakers need to recognise the place-based realities of people living in the planet’s most vulnerable places and ensure that their lived-in experiences, voice and knowledge (s) count in decision making. Our global biodiversity and climate crisis requires action, but action that addresses the root drivers of the crises – poverty, inequity and marginalization,” she declared.

Refugees in Minawao, in northeastern Cameroon, plant trees in a region which has been deforested due to climate change and human activity. Credit: UNHCR/Xavier Bourgois

Meanwhile, Guterres said 2021, “must be the year for action”, as he called for a number of “concrete advances”, before countries gather for COP26 – the 26th session of Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“Countries need to submit ambitious new nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that were designed by the Paris Agreement. Their climate plans for the next 10 years must be much more efficient.”

“We are already at 1.2 degrees and rising. Warming has accelerated in recent decades. Every fraction of a degree counts. Greenhouse gas concentrations are at record levels. Extreme weather and climate disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity. That is why this year’s United Nations climate conference in Glasgow is so important,” he noted.

Guterres also pointed out that “the viability of our societies depends on leaders from government, business and civil society uniting behind policies, actions and investments that will limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We owe this to the entire human family, especially the poorest and most vulnerable communities and nations that are the hardest hit despite being least responsible for today’s climate emergency”.

The solutions are clear, he argued, “Inclusive and green economies, prosperity, cleaner air and better health are possible for all if we respond to this crisis with solidarity and courage.”

All nations, especially the G20 and other major emitters, need to join the net zero emissions coalition and reinforce their commitments with credible, concrete and enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions and policies before COP26 in Glasgow.

The G20 comprises Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States, plus the 27-member European Union (EU) .

Oxfam’s Dabi said in recent years, with 1°C of global heating, there have been deadly cyclones in Asia and Central America, floods in Europe and the UK, huge locust swarms across Africa, and unprecedented heatwaves and wildfires across the US and Australia ―all turbo-charged by climate change.

Over the past 10 years, more people have been forced from their homes by extreme weather-related disasters than for any other single reason ―20 million a year, or one person every two seconds.

She pointed out the number of climate-related disasters has tripled in 30 years. Since 2000, the UN estimates that 1.23 million people have died and 4.2 billion have been affected by droughts, floods and wildfires.

“The richest one percent of people in the world, approximately 63 million people, are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the 3.1 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity,” said Dabi.

The people with money and power will be able to buy some protection against the effects of global warming for longer than people without those privileges and resources ―but not forever. No one is safe. “This report is clear that we are at the stage now when self-preservation is either a collective process or a failed one,” she added.

She said very few nations ―and none of the world’s wealthy nations― have submitted climate plans consistent with keeping warming below 2°C, let alone 1.5°C. If global emissions continue to increase, the 1.5°C threshold could be breached as early as the next decade.

The IPCC report must spur governments to act together and build a fairer and greener global economy to ensure the world stays within 1.5°C of warming. They must cement this in Glasgow.

Rich country governments must meet their $100 billion-a-year promise to help the poorest countries grapple with the climate crisis ―according to Oxfam, not only have they failed to deliver on their promise, but over-inflated reports of their contributions by as much as three times, she declared.

The IPCC comprises experts and scientists from around the world and its report was compiled by more than 200 scientists from 195 countries.

 

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Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Aug 9 2021 (IPS)

The first time I visited South Sudan in 2004 – prior to its independence – I travelled across the entire the country which was then a region devastated by man’s inhumanity to man. Although South Sudan is slightly larger than France, I could find only one concrete school building in Rumbek.

Yasmine Sherif

Millions were impacted by the twenty-year civil war and decades of marginalization, and far too many children and their families were internally displaced or had fled the country as refugees to Kenya. Conflict, extreme poverty and a near total absence of infrastructure had left virtually every girl, boy and the youth furthest behind. I will never forget this sight of unspeakable injustice.

Reading and reflecting on ECW’s interview in this month’s Newsletter with the Honourable Awut Deng Acuil, Minister of General Education and Instruction for South Sudan, both deepened my indignation against any injustice – especially against girls and the forcibly displaced – and also gave me immense hope in learning more about such a resilient, experienced and educated female leader – a veteran in education, gender and human rights.

The Honourable Awut Deng Acuil reminds us all of the importance of local ownership, leadership and knowledge, as well as our absolute moral obligation to focus on girls’ and refugees’ education. Her strength, perseverance and dedication – exemplified by her many accomplishments in life – are astonishing and inspiring.

She describes the national context, her own struggles and Education Cannot Wait’s investments in the children of South Sudan in an authentic, genuine way, fully understanding the challenges faced by girls, refugees and children and youth enduring conflict, forced displacement, climate change induced disasters, not to mention COVID-19.

Under her guidance, ECW has worked closely with the government of South Sudan to deliver a $189 million multi-year humanitarian-development-peace nexus education investment. During our first year alone, we reached 116,240 crisis-affected girls and boys in 181 schools with $20 million in seed funds. But these results do not do justice to either their needs, nor to her leadership.

We now call on all our strategic donor partners, governments, private sector and foundations to urgently help close the $169 million funding gap. Under the leadership of an inspiring female leader – the Honorable Awut Den Acuil is South Sudan’s first-ever female Minister of Education – the children and youth of South Sudan now have a chance to have a better future. We cannot afford to look the other way. Our concerted commitment to girls’ education could not be in better hands.

When learning more about the Honorable Awut Den Acuil, and after reading her profound reflection on one of her favorite books, Alice in Wonderland, my thoughts turn to Jeanne d’Arc, who once said: “I am not afraid. I was born to do this.”

Let us not be afraid. Let us learn from those we serve. Or, as the Persian poet, Omar Khayyam, once said: “Who are you to teach, and who am I to learn?” This is what localization and real empowerment is all about. This is the Grand Bargain in its essence. Let us invest now in South Sudan – the girls, children with disabilities, forcibly displaced children and all the other children and youth left furthest behind for decades.

With an overall investment of at least $400 million in Education Cannot Wait towards equitable, inclusive, quality education for crisis-affected children and youth around the world, we can help overcome the challenges already being tackled by such extraordinary female leadership in the education sector.

Together, we can drive global commitment for girls’ education and for all those left furthest behind, making a real difference in all their lives. Join us … we were born to do this!

 

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Excerpt:

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

A 76-year-old man shows his vaccination card after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine in Kasoa, Ghana. Credit: UNICEF/Francis Kokoroko

By Jeremy Allouche
BRIGHTON, UK, Aug 9 2021 (IPS)

An article published in April 2020 by the World Economic Forum warning that Africa was facing a Covid-19 time bomb was widely shared among the humanitarian sector, with increasing alarm.

Some anticipated a perfect storm in terms of violence against children while others talked about the potential for a hunger pandemic in the Sahel. But none of these catastrophic scenarios have been borne out in either the first or second waves of the pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa.

There are current concerns regarding an increase of third wave cases, but so far the continent has recorded a far lower fatality rate than Europe.

Yet, despite the many innovations developed by Africans during the pandemic, there has been no acknowledgment that African agency played a part in keeping the numbers of dead and dying from Covid-19 in check.

Instead, this lower fatality rate was attributed to fate, the natural setting or demographics. It is another example of the humanitarian sector acting as a willing accomplice to racial stereotyping.

Instead of challenging an over simplified or “single story” narrative (to use Chimamanda Adichie’s words), it opted to share on a disempowering, attention grabbing headline to describe how Covid-19 had impacted Sub Saharan Africa.

It points to the glaring gap in stories relating to African ingenuity and innovation – despite the number of examples that exist. These were highlighted in the range of responses to Covid-19 seen across the continent.

For example, an ongoing project on African resilience found that , villagers in Côte d’Ivoire dealt with the heavy impact of the pandemic on crop production and trading by borrowing money from micro-finance institutions, leveraged by trading on their personal connection and reputation.

By mobilising their social capital, villagers were able to foreground trust and hope as bankable commodities in rural agriculture.

This innovation challenges the traditional relationship between micro-finance institutions and villagers, and continues to redefine lending procedures even after lockdown. But this type of social innovation and community resilience is barely reported by the media and the humanitarian world.

For too long the humanitarian sector were part of reinforcing a vision of Africa as a rural continent plagued by civil war, state corruption, and suffering from the effects of climate change.

This narrative does not allow for any recognition of how the continent is changing driven by trends including, high population growth and urbanisation, digitisation and economic advancement.

The emergence of a middle class in countries including Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania illustrate the continent’s potential for growth and economic innovation. The failure of the humanitarian sector in general to acknowledge such trends has significant ramifications to the type and nature of work undertaken.

The importance of recognising and dealing with African agency and diversity are fundamental questions for the humanitarian sector, especially at a time where localisation and the humanitarian-development nexus are put forward as the main paradigm and policies to address the sectors’ effectiveness and legitimacy.

The dominance of localization in humanitarian work relies on a simplified understanding of what ‘the local’ is and who ‘the locals’ are, which can result in problematic backlash.

Other research on humanitarian protection in DRC showed that many organisations working in Eastern DRC would categorise Lingala-speaking people from Kinshasa (2400km away) as locals and hire them as local experts, even when they do not speak Swahili and have little understanding of the local context.

Those that are hired have to ‘to speak in the northern way’, that is, to use the jargon and standards developed by international organisations (Sphere, Core Humanitarian Standards), or guidelines and processes (cluster mechanisms, response cycles and Humanitarian Response Plans, Humanitarian Needs Overviews).

As a result, participation of ‘affected communities’ are superficially sought as an ‘add on’ rather than essential to better understanding of local contexts.

The challenges for the sector are to go beyond creating single story narratives and prioritise instead space for African agency and diversity. Of course, funding and political barriers complicate things.

Justifying aid expenditure to domestic audiences means that donors have a low tolerance for financial and reputational risk. As such, aid continues to be provided on the basis of what agencies and donors want to give rather than on what people say they need and want.

In such a supply-driven relationship, paternalistic attitudes that donors know best, make a mockery out of any attempts to enable localisation.

We need a better way forward, focusing on transdisciplinary, decoloniality and reinforce the partnerships between humanitarians and researchers on the one hand, and the collaboration amongst Global North and practitioners and researchers on the other.

To move away from a narrow, single-story narrative of Africa, humanitarian and research relations must at their most fundamental level change from functional and ad hoc collaborations to more equitable partnerships.

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and co-director of the Humanitarian Learning Centre, Brighton, UK.

UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka addresses the Secretary-General's Townhall. Calling the townhall-style meeting an opportunity to build the relationship between the Organization’s leadership and civil society, she said it is “part and parcel of our movement to work with you in different parts of the world.” Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 9 2021 (IPS)

The United Nations has long preached the wisdom of transparency and accountability to the outside world, but has failed to practice the same principles in its own backyard – or even on the 39th floor of the Secretary-General’s office in the UN Secretariat.

The opaqueness, ironically, is visible in most of the high-ranking appointments in the UN system, two of which—the posts of executive directors at UN Women and UNICEF—fall vacant soon.

Antonia Kirkland, the Global Lead on Equality Now’s programmes for Legal Equality and Access to Justice, told IPS: “We are concerned that the process for the selection of the third head of UN Women has been quite non-transparent”

She said the current Executive Director of UN Women has worked well with both civil society and governments “to advance our joint agenda for gender equality, culminating in over $40 billion of commitments at the Generation Equality Forum”.

“We know that to successfully achieve equality for women and girls, UN Women must be led by someone who has impeccable credentials in the field of women’s rights and significant experience in driving inter-governmental processes with excellent bridge-building and negotiating skills”.

So far, she lamented, “we have not had any transparency around the criteria used in interviews and the process being used to make the decision, which has caused apprehension and calls for accountability.”

Purnima Mane, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS appointments of senior leadership in UN organizations have always been an issue of interest and concern for civil society.

“The UN is seen by civil society as a key body which influences the issues it cares about deeply and in which it wants to have a larger say. Women’s rights are one such issue, making the appointment of the UN Women executive director of deep interest,” she argued.

She pointed out that the UN has always handled appointments of senior positions in a highly confidential manner and as a matter determined by Member States to a large extent.

Most partners of the UN are cognizant of the negotiations that happen behind the scenes between countries in the case of high-level UN appointments to ensure that their desired candidate is appointed.

“But civil society is now increasingly acknowledged as having a key role to play in implementing the UN’s agenda and monitoring how Member states perform on their commitments made in the UN,” she noted.

“It is not surprising, therefore that civil society is asking for more openness in senior appointments to ensure that its voice is heard. It also wants to ensure that a public vision statement makes the agenda of a potential candidate, transparent and to which he/she/they can be held accountable,” she said.

The major intention, Mane argued, is to see that the candidate with the best record and abilities is appointed and that the incoming executive director espouses a strong, rights- and evidence-based agenda of action, and respects the voice of civil society.

Last week, a coalition of some 380 civil society organizations (CSOs), along with 746 individuals, public figures and feminists, have expressed their “concerns with the process to recruit a new UN Women Executive Director.”

The joint letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reads: “Because of the importance of UN Women to our work for women’s rights globally, many of us have signed two prior letters to you emphasizing the importance of a transparent process informed by civil society.”

“As this process unfolds, we have not seen those principles upheld,” says the letter.

When he introduced the report of the High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity back in February 2021, Guterres said the panel provided a vision of a better system that works for all — as well as “recommendations for building more robust systems for accountability, transparency and integrity”.

Speaking of corruption as the ultimate betrayal of public trust, Guterres said back in 2017: “Together, we must create more robust systems for accountability, transparency and integrity without delay. “

But regrettably, all three elements are missing in most of the high-ranking and senior appointments at the UN.

Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders, told IPS the legitimacy of the next Executive Director of UN Women relies on an open, transparent and competitive selection process.

He said it is necessary to see vision statements of the candidates and for civil society to participate in public hearings and interviews.

“This should be in the best interest of the UN itself as it impacts the future effectiveness of UN Women. By now this should really be a standard procedure for all top leadership positions at the UN,” Bummel declared.

Mane, who is also a former President and Chief Executive Officer of Pathfinder International, a global leader in sexual and reproductive health, said it is likely that many of the demands in the coalition letter will not be well-received by UN Member States.

The proposed process for the UN Women appointment, which is different from the UN selection process, is likely to be seen as setting a precedent for all senior appointments in future, leading to reluctance to bring in other players in the selection process.

“This is especially true in the case of civil society which some Member States regretfully see as their adversary and not ally,” she noted.

Moreover, deeper involvement of civil society and more transparency overall in appointments would in fact be the right step to take if the UN has to be respected by all its partners and stakeholders.

It would also send out a message from the UN that it acknowledges the key role which civil society plays, along with national governments, in translating the UN’s agenda into action, she added.

Mane also argued that NGO involvement in the interview panel is perhaps the most radical request included in the letter. Member States are unlikely to alter the process to include civil society more formally in the selection committee, as proposed.

“But asking for the ideal, is the right thing to do, even if it may seem difficult. A town hall, where candidates can engage in a dialogue with civil society is definitely doable and merits serious consideration”.

Such exchanges with potential candidates have in fact, been organized informally by civil society in the past and help to root for the best candidate as seen by civil society, even if it is not formally represented in the selection process, she noted.

“The UN needs to evolve in order to be relevant to the times, and inclusion and transparency are key to this evolution,” Mane declared.

According to PassBlue, a job advertisement has been released, and the deadline of June 28 has been extended, which suggests more applications are wanted.

Although the list of applicants is not public, so far, the current UN Women deputy heads, Asa Regner of Sweden and Anita Bhatia of India, are believed to have applied for the job.

Other candidates who are rumored to have submitted their names, PassBlue reported, are former UN Under-Secretary-General Radhika Coomaraswamy of Sri Lanka, Kang Kyung-wha of South Korea and Mereseini Rakuita Vuniwaqa of Fiji.

And candidates from the Arab region include Zineb Touimi-Benjelloun of Morocco and Sima Sami Bahous of Jordan, according to PassBlue, an independent, women-led digital publication covering the United Nations.

The UN is strongly encouraging young people to apply. Of the known list, Vuniwaqa, 47, is the only one under 50 years old. All the applicants have impressive leadership experience in the UN, their governments or both.

Meanwhile, in its letter, the coalition emphasizes the importance of the following:

● The list of candidates to the UN Women Executive Director position should be made public. This selection process should follow the precedent of the selection process for other United Nations leadership roles such as the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Secretary General by releasing the names. While confidentiality is vital in ordinary recruitment, the names of candidates in this and all UN agency searches should be made public.
● Candidates should have a public motivation or vision statement. It is important that all candidates provide a motivation or vision statement so that civil society can understand what they hope to achieve as the head of UN Women.
● A virtual candidates town hall should be held for civil society. Because the Executive Director must be able to interact effectively with civil society, all stakeholders should have a vested interest in seeing the candidates in a live virtual format. The town hall should happen prior to the interview panel so that the event can feed into the information collected for the interview process.
● Civil society should be properly represented on the interview panel. Ideally, half of the members of the selection panel should consist of representatives of civil society organizations. At a minimum we must have one representative from the Global North and one representative from the Global South.

The next Executive Director of UN Women is of vital importance to feminist civil society and other stakeholders globally. It is critical that this is a transparent and inclusive process.

“As feminist civil society organizations that routinely engage with UN Women, we look forward to seeing our requests adequately reflected in the process, and we are ready and willing to work directly with the search committee or appointed representatives to meet this aim”, the letter adds.

Thalif Deen, Senior Editor and Director at the UN Bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, is the author of a newly-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment -– and Don’t Quote Me on That.” Peppered with scores of anecdotes-– from the serious to the hilarious-– the book is available on Amazon worldwide. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

 

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Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

By Elena L. Pasquini
ROME, Aug 6 2021 (IPS)

“We have buried twenty-eight people. I have seen them with my own eyes. We also found three bodies in the fields and buried them too. I can show them to you. It’s not far from here. We buried them there.” The man points to the hills. He doesn’t want to show his face or say his name, but he agrees that his voice can be recorded, so that his words don’t get lost. The camera can’t shoot him; it can only look at the tall grass or at the forest towards the countryside where it is no longer possible to cultivate food. The man talks while music from Lengabo’s catholic church marks the time of truce and hope.

Voices in the villages of Ituri, a northeastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the heart of Africa’s Great Lake region, often remain unnamed, like the victims. A pair of blue plastic flip-flops on the floor of an earthen house is the only possible portrait of another man who leads a group of villages between the Ugandan border and the North Kivu. He is the chief of a once-large community—over 120,000 people—that is now a land of empty houses. He still lives where men who do not wear uniforms lead ordinary lives during the day, but burn houses and slaughter other men like animals during the night.

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

Towards Uganda is the territory of Djugu. To the South, one finds Irumu, ravaged by local militias and the ferocity of the Forces démocratiques alliée, an Islamist armed group active in Beni. Since 1998, the region has been a theater of conflict that flares up in waves, the last one in 2017. More than by mountains, rivers, and lakes, the geography of Ituri is formed by armed groups that strike terror and target civilians through their areas of influence, their fleeting alliances or fights. Their acronyms—Codeco, FPIC, Zaire, ADF, and others— give the face of reason to blind violence. It is a map of horror, of charred bodies, gutted men and women, their internal organs exposed; of mothers killed with children in their wombs, opened so that their babies can be mutilated. This is what refugees describe, what images document, and what the United Nations reports. The attacks reach up to a few kilometers from Bunia, the provincial capital, where those whom the war has displaced look for shelter.

Sometimes and in some places, the conflict holds its breath. Then, some among those who fled their homes try to return to the villages. Approximately 800,000 people went back in 2020, although 1.7 million remain internally displaced and many have left the country. Those who return know that war can break out again suddenly, in a few days, weeks or months. Yet today is Sunday and Mass is being celebrated. The music plays and the corn dries in the sun at Dele and Lengabo. And at Tchunga, not far from Bunia, the village it is not a place of horror, but a place of welcoming.

To leave Bunia in the direction of Irumu, along the road leading to North Kivu, is to leave behind a safe place—as safe as a city in the middle of a war can be. Early in the morning, the sun is pale pink and the trees are not yet green, but black. The earth is not yet red. It’s a pale pink that reflects itself in the puddles of dirt roads where one can easily get bogged down, stuck between two walls of forest.

In the small town of Dele, in front of the village chief’s house, the children work: a hoe in their hands, two chickens in their arms. A group of men chat. It is Sunday and the hypnotic rhythm of the Congolese music comes from the church square across the street. “We ask for help because life has recently become too difficult. We do some rural activities to survive,” Yoshua Businiliri explains. He looks at the red, fleshy flowers that dominate the fields, whose green hue is so intense that not even the fragile sun of dawn can soften it. Land abounds in Ituri, but it does not produce enough: It can be cultivated only near the houses; no one risks going to the hills where the road thatcrosses Dele leads.

Those hills hide Lake Albert, the seventh-largest African lake, whose name recalls the time when Europe got its hands on Africa: Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. It was the British Samuel Baker who made the lake known to the continent that would decide the future of Congo. However, until 1997, the lake—“Nyanza” in the local language—bore the name of Mobutu Sese Seko, the man who, by forming a dictatorship, destroyed the dream of democracy born from independence from Belgium. Before that, the lake was known as Mwitanzige: There is a legend that says that locusts – ezige – die when they cross the lake. Today, perhaps, oil could change its fate and maybe its name—the oil discovered beneath the lake’s surface and credited with being among the causes of the new wave of violence.

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

People arrive slowly from the village center and the countryside as the sun rises and makes the tin roofs on the damp hills iridescent. The church is small for everyone; worshippers sit outdoors on wooden benches or low, three-legged stools in front of the stone-decorated facade. The children wait silently, leaning on three poles: a football goal on a huge field of wild grass crossed by a small path. The women wear colored dresses and fabrics, almost starched, and their hair is wrapped in scarfs or skillfully styled. It is a feast day, like a summer Sunday in any small town of rural Italy, and perhaps more.

The priests wear the bright green that is worn at this time of the year. The little dancers are dressed in white. A cross is carried in the procession; hands move and hips swing. Today, the Gospel tells of the miracle of the healing of a leper. Here, where the Covid pandemic finds almost nothing to contain it and where Ebola, with its deaths and the stigma that weighs on survivors, is not yet a memory, people know that it is not only war that kills: “Children suffer from diseases but lack medicines. Especially malaria affects them the most. For this reason, we ask for help: a mosquito net because mosquitoes are too many in the villages of the territory of Dele. We need money for medical treatments,” Yoshua explains.

There is calm in Dele. The war seems far away. Here, too, those fleeing home take refuge. “The displaced need help because they sleep in the bush due to lack of security and shelter. Others stay in the schools, in the church, and elsewhere. They have lost almost everything,” he adds.

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

It is a moment for the sun to rise, as well as a moment for it to set: The equator passes less than two hundred kilometers from here. In Lengabo, along the road that leads from Bunia to Irumu and then to Beni, the Mass is ceelbrated by the White Fathers, the Missionaries of Africa, a religious order established in Algeria at the end of the nineteenth century and that moved to the heart of the continent. Today, they have a center for vulnerable children, the School of Peace, in Bunia. Every Sunday, the fathers join the devotees in the villages.

The altar with its simple white cloth, the light of an incandescent bulb hanging from a wire above it, high wooden vaults: The church is packed here, too. People dance while the choirmaster, wearing a long green cassock edged in white, guides voices and drums. Outside, the empty and dilapidated houses offer a reminder that a fierce conflict is going on and that Lengabo has counted its deaths.

“Most of them were innocent people,” the man who hides his name and face says. “They were among the displaced. We had welcomed them here. We didn’t know they were militiamen. They had hidden their intentions. They were the ones who started fighting the loyalist army.”

He adds: “Some bodies were armed and others were tied up … We could not distinguish who they were. Even the militiamen were in civilian clothes. Most of them were civilians. There were also soldiers among the deaths, and they were buried somewhere here. Because when there is war, there are deaths on both sides.”

Even in the village led by the man in blue sandals, there is a respite, yet there are areas where he no longer dares to go or where he stops for only a few hours. “The militia has changed strategy, it is not in the bush. It is scattered among the population. Here is where it operates: It operates and then returns among the people. This is the danger,” he explains.

The same is likely to have happened in Lengabo when the village was “sealed off” by a police cordon at the beginning of the year to hunt down militiamen. The arrests were followed by violence and deaths. Esperance Mujaganyi, a thirty-eight-year-old farmer, fled. She produces corn, which becomes flour or mandro, a fermented drink.

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

A child walks to the church alone. He is five or six years old: long, brown pants and a T-shirt resembling those of English schools, with blue, white, and red bands, and a small crest. Not far away, Esperance sits in front of her house and of what is still just the reed skeleton of a building. Her long brown skirt blends into the ground and into the walls made of earth. Her ears bear two points of gold. “We are slowly resuming the life we had before the war,” she says. But she doesn’t want to talk about that day. She jumps up when asked about the fights.

Every time there is an attack, people leave the villages “because when there is war, the bullets fall and the metal sheets get punctured,” the man explains. They know that everything will be destroyed and stolen, and they will have to start over, every time, once they return. Death can knock on the door any day and militiamen do not even need an AK-47: A match is enough to set a house of dry grass on fire. “You leave your home and all your belongings, and life gets harder and harder on the move to save yourself from war. If you have money with you, you spend that money with no other input and it’s very complicated,”Esperance says.

At least one thousand sixty-seven summary executions and arbitrary killings were committed in Ituri in 2021, as well as all kinds of human rights violations from rape to torture, according to the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office. And this is just one corner of Congo, where the most underreported crisis across the world takes place. Data probably underestimate the scale of the tragedy because the victims often remain silent for fear of being stigmatized. Verifying the facts and documenting what happens in the villages is difficult even for international organizations that often do not reach the most remote areas of the province. Congolese soldiers have been deployed in Dele and Lengabo but people don’t trust them. The soldiers ask for money at checkpoints, like bandits, they say. They are responsible for abuses and violence too, according to the United Nations.

However, villages are more than just places to flee; they can also be safe places to live. Tchunga is not far from Bunia. A rough but busy road leads there. Things are going well now, explains the village chief, Jean-Paul Risisa. Wearing a gray suit and immaculate shirt while standing with his deputy and secretary, he says that welcoming those who have been displaced is not always easy: “There are almost three thousand people just in our locality, and they are many. We welcome the displaced very well, but we do not have the means to build (enough houses) for them.” Behind him, Tchunga is an open-air construction site. “There are many people here and many are starting to build: Tchunga has become like a city,” he adds.

Life centers on a well. Yellow, pink, and blue plastic cans wait in an orderly row to be filled amid the laughter and splashes of children. The well was built by humanitarian organizations—the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and AIDES—because water, in this country that seems to float on it, is as precious as the gold in which the subsoil is rich. However, it breaks backs, especially those of women and children. Until the well was dug, the people of Tchunga had to walk at least five kilometers to get water, and they washed their clothes in the river. Today, water is essential for a community that is growing under the pressure of a humanitarian emergency. Protecting the well is key, as it, too, can become a target of violence. The community takes care of it, just as it takes care of the displaced.

“When your neighbor has a problem, you can’t deny him (help). We help them by giving space in our homes to some people,” Daniel Bakanoba, secretary of Tchunga, explains. “Others live for free in our courtyards and there is a minority who rent a house. But we are not able to respond to every need because when you leave your home, your field, your possessions or when you have children, your needs are enormous.” The houses, he says, are not all “beautiful.” “We’re doing our best.” As is Didi, a local driver. Two women live in his house; each has seven children. They arrived on foot from Bokela a few days ago, their clothes torn and their lives needing to be rebuilt. A pagne—the fabric that women wear around their waists—is always around their hips. Their beds are covered by mosquito nets attached to the walls. The semi-darkness keeps the rooms cool; a little light filters through an antique pink metal window. They were farmers and are now on the brink of starving.

Credit: Elena L. Pasquini

It is a dejavù that seems destined to be lived a thousand times in the villages of Ituri. Rumors, still without evidence, say that it all started in Djugu in 2017 with the mysterious death of a priest—a murder, according to some voices, never proved. It would have rekindled ancient hatred between the Lendu and Hema tribes. But the truth is much more complex: It is hidden in the folds of Ituri’s recent history and in the heart of a land that seems to be too rich to live in peace.

This feature was first published by Degrees of Latitude
Akilimali Saleh Chomachoma as producer and Sahwili interpreter

 

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By External Source
Aug 6 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Indigenous peoples live in all regions of the world.

They are distinct social and cultural groups and share collective ancestral ties to the land they live on.

They own, occupy or use some 22% of global land area.

But they safeguard 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity.

There are at least 370-500 million indigenous peoples in the world.

They represent the greater part of the world’s cultural diversity.

And they have created and speak the major share of the world’s almost 7000 languages.

Although they make up just 5 percent of the global population, they account for about 15 percent of the extreme poor.

Indigenous Peoples’ life expectancy is up to 20 years lower than that of non-indigenous people.

Much of the land occupied by Indigenous Peoples is under customary ownership.

Yet many governments recognize only a fraction of this land as belonging to Indigenous peoples.

The right to participate in decision-making is a key component in achieving reconciliation between Indigenous Peoples and States.

A new social contract must combat the legacy of marginalization affecting indigenous peoples.

One organization working towards this is NEFAS: the North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society.

NESFAS and its indigenous communities aim to defend, revive, and promote Indigenous Food Systems.

It values traditional and local knowledge holders for their ingenuity.

And it empowers indigenous youth to become beacons of hope.

International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples 2021: “Leaving no one behind: Indigenous peoples and the call for a new social contract.”

 

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