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Women impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic wait to receive cash assistance from the World Food Programme in Kabul, Afghanistan. Credit: WFP/Massoud Hossaini

By Saber Azam
GENEVA, Mar 15 2021 (IPS)

There is much expectation about US President Joe Biden’s Afghanistan strategy to end the United States’ longest war effectively. So far, he continues to rely on Ambassador Zalmai Khalilzad, the Special Envoy for Afghanistan, appointed by Mr. Trump.

The initial statements issued by the White House, State Department, and Defense Department seemed promising. However, some highlighted that they ignored an essential element: the Afghan people’s wish about their future!

Following the latest visit of Ambassador Khalilzad to the region, various assumptions have emerged. It seems that he still pushes for a transitional government formula with the participation of Afghan chieftains and the Taliban, a new version of an old strategy that never proved efficient!

It may be futile to invoke details of what has transpired or speculate about President Biden’s intention on Afghanistan. However, an overview of the challenges will help define a sound solution, allowing foreign troops to regain their country in the most dignified manner and the Afghan people to dispose of its future.

As of the end of the 18th century, Afghanistan became the battleground for controlling central and south Asia between superpowers. Their “great game” and the ineptness of Afghan rulers who quickly succumbed to the “divide and rule” policy never permitted this country’s population to evolve as a nation.

Therefore, understanding the Afghan puzzle is laborious. So far, those who intervened in this eternally fragmented country, more recently the British Empire and the Soviet Union, never grasped fundamental hindrances. Both lost their glory as a result of their uncalculated decisions. The Biden administration must not rush and consider national challenges, regional impediments, and international hurdles to find a lasting, workable, and sustainable solution.

National Challenges

A significant source of eternal conflicts in Afghanistan is an unequal historical treatment of its diverse populations by their governments. Effective equal rights and opportunities and good-governance constitute the basis of a peaceful future. Some fundamental national challenges are as follows:

1 – Afghanistan has always been ruled based on kin, ethnic, religious, and relationship considerations. Meritocracy has hardly been a concern to those in power. This has been a significant reason for the failure of international support strategies so far. Nepotism, cronyism, and tribalism, unless addressed immediately, will be a devastating deterrent element for any positive action.

2 – Since the takeover of power by Communists in 1978, atrocious crimes against humanity have been committed by various regimes, warlords, Mujahidin chieftains, and more specifically, the Taliban and their Islamic State and Al-Qaeda associates. Without a truth and reconciliation process, it would be difficult for any peace effort to achieve its objectives.

3 – While Afghanistan is a country with defined borders and recognized status in major international and regional arenas, Afghans never constituted a nation. Without acknowledging this fact and undertaking a robust nation-building program, Afghanistan will remain a plaything in the hands of foreign adversaries.

4 – Afghanistan’s post-Taliban constitution was drafted without considering decades of profound political, social, and economic transformations in the country. It did not satisfy the aspirations of the population. A substantive reform of the current constitution can only improve the chances of durable peace in the country.

5 – Despite efforts undertaken by the international community, Afghanistan is affected by rampant corruption. It has gangrened all layers of central and provincial government institutions and even the private sector, hampering efforts to rebuild and reconstruct the country. A comprehensive good-governance and ethics framework, policy, and action plan for public and private sectors must be agreed upon and put in place instantly.

6 – Since Mr. Hamid Karzai was propelled to Afghanistan’s leadership and despite trillions of US dollars granted to various Afghan governments, the expected development path is unsatisfactory. Leaders have not been capable of defining where their country would be in a year, ten years, or thirty years from now. It is extremely urgent that Afghanistan’s leadership clearly describes short-, med-, and long-term political, social, and economic plans for the country and elaborate the appropriate action strategies so that the population comprehends the sacrifices that are still needed to attain peace and prosperity.

7 – For decades under King Zaher Shah, Afghanistan benefited from a recognized neutral status that helped the country position itself as an unbiased element of the “great games”! Subsequently, it received development aid, particularly from the United States, major European countries, the Soviet Union, India, and the People’s Republic of China. The forceful change of regime by Daoud Khan from kingdom to republic with the help of Soviet-trained military officers annihilated Afghanistan’s privileged neutral status. Therefore, it is in the interest of this country to regain its neutrality in the international arena and stay away from the “new great game” battles.

8 – Since 2009, elections have been marred with an unacceptable level of corruption and mismanagement. The population has lost trust in the democratic process and does not believe in the elections’ outcomes. This is a significant handicap for the country’s future political, social, and economic development and peace and serenity prospects. Without a solid and unbiased election law, rules and procedures, and honest people in charge, there will be no future for democracy in Afghanistan.

Regional Impediments

Afghanistan is situated in a very volatile region of the world. For centuries neighboring powers crashed with each other and caused unforgivable tragedies. Below are some of the significant regional impediments to the Afghan crisis:

a – Regional rivalries, particularly the Indo-Pakistan and Saudi Arabia-Iran tensions, affect Afghanistan and have prolonged the conflict and discord among the population, transforming the country into a battleground for proxy wars. There are historical, religious, political, and strategic rationales that have pushed Afghanistan into this situation. Among all the neighbors, Pakistan has heavily facilitated harboring, training, and supporting terrorist movements, mainly the Taliban. There must be a clear understanding among regional powers to immediately spare this country from bearing further the burden of defending diverse foreign interests. More specifically, Pakistan must agree on an honest commitment of non-interference in internal Afghan affairs and end their support to the Taliban or any other subversive organization.

b – Exploitation of resources, in particular minerals and water, constitute a major source of discord. Moreover, climate change has affected Afghanistan to the extent of destroying its agriculture. Any effort by Afghanistan to exploit its water faces powerful neighbors’ fury, deteriorating the atmosphere for an amicable understanding and peaceful coexistence. Regional power must recognize Afghanistan’s vulnerability and assist overcome the difficulties through exploitation of their own natural resources.

c – Internal challenges of regional powers, particularly claims of autonomy or independence by the peoples of Baluchistan, Kurdistan, Yemen, and Kashmir, affect Afghanistan. There are reports of Afghans dispatched to fight in Kashmir, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere. Often ethnic and religious motivations are the driving force for such insanity, resulting in the lack of unity within Afghanistan. Regional powers must restrain from using Afghans as foot soldiers for their interests.

International Hurdles

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has become multipolar. In the absence of sound morality, there is a bitter competition for global political and economic leadership. The four years of the Trump administration unmasked glimpses of some’s ambitions to dethrone the United States from their leading positions.

While Europe is a stand-alone power and the Russian Federation rises from the ashes of the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China and India are undeniably the future centers of political and economic gravity.

The Middle East and Central and South Asia are the battlegrounds for a “new great game”. Therefore, the leading international hurdles for Afghanistan are as follows:

(i) Western powers have been shaken by the repeated failure of their policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and many other countries, particularly in Africa. As a crushing tool, social media allows people to have numerous instantaneous information portals that reveal the difference between rhetoric and realities. This fact enables other powers, notably the People’s Republic of China, to ascertain and strengthen their stand in the international arena. Afghanistan seems to remain the playground for such competition that could last decades.

(ii) Afghanistan is no more a priority for the international community. Other emergencies such as the Covid-19 pandemic or an eventual conflict between important rivals in the world arena can make it even more irrelevant. It is, therefore, vital for the country to find lasting peace in a reasonably not distant future.

(iii) The horrendous terrorist attacks on the United States in Nairobi, Darussalam, Aden, and, more specifically, New York and Washington were perpetrated by Al Qaeda, whose leadership sought protection with the emerging Taliban movement in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Islam, a religion of peace and mercy, was used as a pretext for their inhuman actions. “Islamic terrorism” inflicts misery on people in Asia, Africa, Europe, and elsewhere. The image of Islam is tarnished durably. Islamic countries and Afghanistan, in particular, must undertake unsurmountable efforts to bridge a sustainable trust among all peoples of faiths.

The way forward

Afghanistan has been “an inspiration” for terrorist organizations for decades. However, it can be a significant source of regional and international stability too. It all depends on how the Biden administration shapes its strategy to bring lasting peace in this country with the firm assertion that they accomplished the objective of defeating terrorism in this country. Therefore, Afghans implore President Biden and his team to consider the following:

A – Learn from past mistakes of the US governments. The 5 December 2001 Bonn Agreement, an understanding among political traders, was a quick fix and did not bring peace and security. Another deal involving a selected number of chieftains with the Taliban’s inclusion may be an immediate “success,” but it would be a significant long-term disaster. A repeat of the mistake of 1992 that led to the sharp rise of international terrorism and direct attacks on the United States will cause devastations of much larger scales. The United States must not rush and earnestly seek the view of the Afghan people about their future. Effective durable peace in Afghanistan will strengthen the trust in American leadership.

B – Since 2002, the Afghan leaders proved inept, corrupt, and lawless. They cannot handle national challenges, regional impediments, and international hurdles surrounding their country. It is time to empower a new generation of young, competent, and incorruptible leaders within the country.

C – The United States and its allies must opt for a transitional government between five to seven years, formed by the new leaders who sound the population and address the national challenges and embark with regional and international powers to agree on a neutral and peaceful future for Afghanistan.

D – Initiate a new inclusive peace process, conducted by the transitional team with the support of regional and international powers, following which an honest and transparent election would be conducted under international monitoring. No transitional government member would be eligible to have substantial public office in the future. They can form an Ethics and Good-governance Council to scrutinize the future governments and private sector actions and take immediate corrective measures in cases of breach of ethics.

Peace in Afghanistan signifies the defeat of terrorism. Bringing terrorists and corrupt leaders to forge a future for this country will signify yet another immense failure.

* Saber Azam is also the author of SORAYA: The Other Princess, a historical fiction that overflies the latest seven decades of Afghan history, and Hell’s Mouth, also a historical fiction that recounts the excellent work of humanitarian and human rights actors in Côte d’Ivoire during the First Liberian Civil War. He also published articles mainly about Afghanistan and the need to reform the United Nations.

 

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The post How to Achieve Peace in Afghanistan appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The writer* is a former United Nations official who served with the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in key positions in Europe, Africa, and Asia

The post How to Achieve Peace in Afghanistan appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Displaced people living in Ardamata camp in El Geneina, capital of West Darfur, welcoming the start of proceedings in the case against “Janjaweed” militia leader Ali Kosheib at the International Criminal Court. Photos courtesy of Radio Dabanga www.dabangasudan.org.

By Elise Keppler
NEW YORK, Mar 12 2021 (IPS)

Sudanese authorities concluded a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in February in its investigation of Ali Kushayb. This much needed step is expected to allow ICC investigators access to Sudan ahead of ICC judges’ deliberations in May to assess whether there is sufficient evidence to send his case to trial.

Kushayb, a leader of the “Janjaweed” militia who also held commanding positions in Sudan’s auxiliary Popular Defense Forces and Central Reserve Police, faces ICC charges on more than 50 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur. He voluntarily surrendered to the court last June.

Sudan’s transitional government has promised to cooperate with the ICC, and welcomed the ICC prosecutor to Sudan for the first time in October. This is in marked contrast to the previous government of Omar al-Bashir – who is also sought by the ICC, for alleged genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur – which actively blocked the ICC’s efforts.

But the transitional government can and should take its cooperation further by surrendering the four remaining ICC fugitives, three of whom, including al-Bashir, are already in Sudanese custody.

The transitional government can and should take its cooperation further by surrendering the four remaining ICC fugitives, three of whom, including al-Bashir, are already in Sudanese custody

It is important to note that there is no legal basis for the Sudanese authorities to hold on to the ICC fugitives, and they are in fact under an international obligation to surrender them. The UN Security Council resolution that referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC in 2005 expressly requires Sudan to cooperate with the ICC. It was adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, meaning it carries with it the council’s enforcement authority.

Some may argue that Sudanese authorities can and should try the ICC suspects at home. But then the government would have to establish to the ICC’s judges that Sudan’s legal system is in the process of trying the same suspects for the same crimes that the ICC charges cover.

No such proceedings currently exist based on available information, and a year and a half after the transitional government took office, too much time has already passed. The authorities should transfer the ICC’s outstanding fugitives now and thereafter follow necessary procedures should it wish to try the suspects at home on the same crimes.

But the authorities also should consider all the challenges of trying to prosecute the ICC’s cases at home. Genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes – the charges the ICC suspects face – were not explicit crimes in Sudanese law until more than five years after government forces began to commit widespread atrocities in Darfur in 2003. It is possible that local courts could hold that the suspects cannot be tried on these crimes in Sudan since the law wasn’t changed until after the crimes occurred.

If domestic prosecutions were to take place only for other crimes, such as murder and conspiracy, this would deprive victims of accountability for the full scale of atrocities committed.

The legal principle of command responsibility, on which the criminal responsibility of leaders often rests, is still not incorporated into Sudanese law. Immunity for those in official positions and statutes of limitation limit cases domestically as well, and Sudan’s system lacks fair trial protections in law and practice, which are needed for credible proceedings, in actuality and in appearance.

The ICC focuses on a small number of cases involving the highest-level suspects for good reason – the cases can be extremely complex and costly to prosecute as they often involve numerous incidents over an extended period and showing links to suspects who may not have been physically present when crimes were committed. The cases tend to be highly sensitive given the profile of the suspects and present significant security and witness protection problems. Addressing these issues could be a major strain for Sudan’s authorities.

Meanwhile, there are more than enough opportunities for Sudanese authorities to bring justice for past crimes that go beyond the ICC’s five Darfur cases. There are no doubt dozens – maybe even hundreds –of other people who should be criminally investigated with a view to prosecution for mid to higher-level responsibility for atrocities in the conflicts in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile and Darfur, along with attacks on protesters. Some people implicated in these abuses remain in official positions.

While news reports suggest there has been progress in a few domestic criminal investigations of past crimes, impunity overwhelmingly prevails and far more robust efforts are needed. Sudan should establish, without delay, the special court for crimes in Darfur provided for in the 2020 Juba peace agreement.

And, if the Sudanese authorities are pursuing charges for any of the ICC suspects for crimes other than those brought by the ICC, they can negotiate an opportunity for the suspects to face those charges back in Sudan. ICC procedures also potentially allow suspects to serve sentences in their own countries, if desired.

Sudan should not hold onto ICC fugitives in defiance of international obligations because they aspire to one day try them on Darfur crimes. This serves neither the victims nor the government, which could gain a lot of support for the transition with a prompt handover and could benefit from having greater resources to devote to the many other cases involving serious crimes that should be prosecuted.

 

The post Sudan Took Important Step, But Now Should Send the ICC Suspects to The Hague appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Elise Keppler is associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch

The post Sudan Took Important Step, But Now Should Send the ICC Suspects to The Hague appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The upcoming Samoan election is a unique opportunity to encourage diversity in politics

By Simona Marinescu
APIA, Samoa, Mar 12 2021 (IPS)

This year it will be 128 years since the right of women to vote was first recognized, with New Zealand becoming the first nation to allow the participation of women in its general election in 1893.

From the suffragettes – to today’s feminists, both men and women have fought to increase women’s political participation and representation. It has been a slow, sometimes bitter and occasionally even dangerous struggle. Yet global progress remains slow and uneven – as it does in Samoa. As we approach the 2021 General Election on 9 April, it is important to remember that women’s full and effective participation in all areas of life drives progress for everyone.

Simona Marinescu

As in many countries around the world, Samoan women face higher levels of poverty than men, have limited access to finance, carry the burden of a greater share of care duties, and experience challenges in realizing their sexual and reproductive health and rights. Forty-six percent of Samoan women have experienced some form of violence in their lifetimes, with domestic violence cases tripling between 2012 and 2017. More than 39,000 Samoan women are in unpaid domestic care work, making them vulnerable to economic shocks.

COVID-19 has only exacerbated this inequality. Findings from a 2020 UN Women household survey on the socio-economic effects of COVID show that 90 percent of women compared to six percent of men in formal employment saw their work hours decline, and more than twice as many women (63 percent) as men (28 percent) in paid employment reported a decrease in income.

Not only do these factors limit women’s full participation in political life, but they highlight how important it is that women are given an equal role in decision making to tackle the challenges we all face – from climate change to poverty. Women’s participation in political life is urgent. It is a matter of life and death! And of course women must have the opportunity to play a full role in shaping the decisions being made right now as Samoa responds to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A person aspiring to become an MP in Samoa must hold a matai title and be a member of the village council. But due to cultural constraints, only 11 percent of women are registered matai, and only half of that number are active in their village councils. It is not surprising then that in the 2016 election women accounted for only 14.6 percent of all candidates. Due in part to the 2013 constitutional amendment, 10 percent of sitting MPs today are women (one woman candidate entered Parliament due to the temporary special measure, the remainder were elected through the normal process.) However, this figure is less than half of the global average of 25 percent.

There are 22 women standing in the upcoming election, only 11 percent of the total running.

On International Women’s Day – when we ought to remember how gender inequality continues to disadvantage millions of people around the world, and how it prevents countries from reaching their full potential. This year’s theme: ‘Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world,’ with the campaign hashtag of #ChooseToChallenge. As this country recovers from the pandemic, we at the United Nations choose to challenge Samoa to finally end the exclusion and marginalization of women and girls and create a just and equitable environment for all people to exercise their rights. More inclusive leadership leads to stronger democracies, better governance, more peaceful societies and environmentally sustainable economies. In line with the Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations has committed to ending gender inequality in Samoa, including through actively training women to be better and more prominent leaders, supporting women community leaders, and most importantly supporting women electoral candidates in the upcoming election.

Parliamentary democracy is very young in this country. The 9 April General Election will be only the seventh held since the 1990 referendum, which introduced universal suffrage. There have been multiple achievements in Samoa in that time that have reduced gender inequality. Samoa has made some progressive decisions. For example, it was the first Pacific country to ratify the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1992, the first Pacific country to set up a separate ministry for women, and it is one of 80 countries around the world to guarantee a quota of seats to women in parliament.

You can help to continue this progressive and proud march towards equality in Samoa. This International Women’s Day, I challenge you to be at the forefront of inclusive movements for social change – online and in real life. Challenge climate change, domestic violence and fight for women’s rights. Challenge bigots, hire women, push for women in positions of power and support women leaders. And on 9 April, vote for women candidates where you can – or candidates that believe in diversity in leadership. Disrupt the status quo, and work to amplify women’s voices in public institutions, parliaments, the judiciary, and the private sector.

Let’s shatter the glass ceiling that hinders the realization of women’s and girls’ aspirations, and strengthen a nationwide partnership across gender – for peace and prosperity in Samoa.

Originally published as an op-ed by Simona Marinescu, United Nations Resident Coordinator, Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa, and Tokelau – in the Samoa Observer – 8 March 2021.

 

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The post International Women’s Day, 2021
More Women Leaders Make Better Societies appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The upcoming Samoan election is a unique opportunity to encourage diversity in politics

The post International Women’s Day, 2021
More Women Leaders Make Better Societies appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Zwein during one of the 2019 protests in Beirut. Credit: Victoria El-Khoury Zwein

By Maria Aoun
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Mar 12 2021 (IPS)

The fight for equality around the globe has taken a few steps forward in some countries which provides a glimmer of hope for future generations for increased female participation and representation. However, that particular fight is taking new shapes and forms in multiple corners of the world, where women are still persecuted, silenced, threatened, killed, harassed, and stripped off their basic human rights on a daily basis. The question today is, when will the world become a safer place for women and girls?

While the degree of severity is uneven in countries, Lebanese women and girls struggle each day on multiple fronts. While many Civil Society organizations (CSOs) and United Nations agencies work on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 5) for Gender Equality, facts point towards a reality that will require years to achieve gender parity as per Agenda 2030. In fact, according to the World Economic Forum Gender Gap Index of 2020, Lebanon is ranked 145 out of 153 countries when it comes to gender equality and parity.

Lebanese women’s political participation has increased over the years. This was seen especially during the 2018 parliamentary elections, with 86 registered women candidates, according to a study by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), titled “2018 Lebanese Parliamentary Elections: Gender Key Results”. In contrast to the parliamentary elections of 2009, that saw only 12 women candidates.. In January 2020, and as a result of the 2019 Lebanese revolution, a new cabinet formed by Prime Minister Hassan Diab, included 6 female ministers, a first in Lebanese history.

Victoria El-Khoury Zwein; political activist & Trainer

This unequal political representation is due to gender stereotypes that Lebanese women still have to face on a daily basis. Political activist and trainer, Victoria El-Khoury Zwein, told IPS that women still face gender stereotyping when running for elections. As a woman in politics, Zwein explained that she faced multiple challenges, especially when in 2004, while pregnant, she ran for the municipal elections for the first time in her town of residence.. “According to them [the public], I was a foreign pregnant woman with children and needed to take care of them”, she said, adding “It seemed [to the residents] as if there were no more men to run for elections”.

The political activist went on to run for the 2016 municipal elections after more than a decade and she was met with a more welcoming attitude from the residents of Sin-el-fil where she won with a high number of votes.

Zwein believes that politics should be viewed and practiced differently in Lebanon; subsequently she was pushed to run for the Lebanese parliamentary elections of 2018.

Zwein highlighted to IPS the political violence that women are subjected to in this field. “Women [politicians] are faced with violence in all aspects. They are targeted with comments on social media and receive constant threats of rape and abuse especially when publicly stating controversial political opinions”. Zwein explained that when women discuss political topics, they are met with attacks on their personal lives which could potentially end their careers, while in parallel, men are not met with the same shameful attitude.“Any sexual scandal that befalls men in politics is not given much attention and a male politician could still become prime minister if he wishes to be, but never a woman”, stated Zwein.

Additionally, the activist pointed out that the media play a huge role in reinforcing gender stereotypes because of some inherently sexist and disparaging questions that are asked to women candidates during interviews, such as juggling their professional and personal lives, and whether or not they have their spouse’s approval and support. “Violence against women politicians only ocurrs, because they are women” Zwein emphasized.

Violence against women in Lebanon takes on multiple shapes and forms. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in domestic abuse, gender-based violence and femicides in Lebanon and across the globe. The United Nations refers to this phenomenon as the “Shadow Pandemic”. This escalation in cases of domestic violence was visible through an increase in the numbers of calls from 1375 in 2019 to 4127 in 2020 to the domestic violence helpline affiliated to ABAAD; a Lebanese resource center for gender equality. Additionally, the Lebanese internal security forces (ISF)’s domestic violence hotline (1745) registered 1468 calls from 2020 till 2021, in contrast to 747 calls between 2019 and 2020, showing that reports of domestic abuse have almost doubled in the past year. According to the ISF, 61 percent of those abuse reports are made against husbands.

Hayat Mirshad; Gender expert, journalist, and human rights activist*. Credit: UN Women

Multiple women’s rights experts have attributed the rise in gender-based violence to the unprecedented lockdowns and economic crisis Lebanon is currently facing. Gender expert, journalist, and human rights activist, Hayat Mirshad told IPS that: “Not a week goes by in Lebanon without hearing on the news of murder of a woman that was the result of domestic abuse. Ever since the beginning of 2021 until this day, more than 5 femicides occurred, which indicates an alarming aggravation of this phenomenon [gender-based violence]”.

Mirshad explained that the real issue when it comes to gender-based violence is the societal culture and conservative mentality that justifies abuse and violence against women and girls by holding victims accountable for the abuse. The justifications are often related to honour and disobeying their spouse, among others. “It is important to point out that a law [Law n. 293 ratified on 7/5/2014] to protect women and girls from domestic abuse exists in Lebanon and was amended recently [December 2020]. However, the real problem is the execution of this law” stated Mirshad.

The gender expert pointed out that the measures taken by authorities are not as strict as they should be and that there is still a lot of wasted time when it comes to taking real action and separating the victim from the abuser. “We are still witnessing patriarchal practices at courts, from different judges, from the internal security forces (ISF) and many other entities. This also contributes to increase in cases of gender-based violence” added Mirshad.

The activist stressed on the critical importance of the government to execute all aspects of the law that protects women and girls from domestic abuse such as providing victims with financial support which encourages more victims to leave abusive households. There is a need to handle such matters with the appropriate urgency, seriously by imposing stronger sanctions on abusers, accelerating prosecution processes.

According to “Sharika Wa Laken”, an online feminist platform, Lebanon saw 27 murders of women and girls in 2020 and 5 femicides in 2021. The latest victims were Zeina Kanjo a young newlywed who got married 6 months prior to the murder, and both middle-aged women Widad Hassoun and Ahkam Derbas who were brutally murdered in 2021 among many other women and girls who were severely injured at the hands of abusive spouses, relatives, or even strangers.

In June 2020, the Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA) in partnership with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) among other donors, launched the initiative, “Qudwa”. This initiative tackles violence against women and children, especially child marriage, child labor and gender-based violence, to be operative from 2020 until 2027 to promote equality and dignity. Additionally, the National Commission for Lebanese Women (NCLW) [an official institution established by the Lebanese presidency of council of ministers], Sexual and Gender-based Violence Taskforce (SGBV TF), alongside the United Nations system in Lebanon launched a campaign for the 16 Days of Activism (November 16 – December 10, 2020) to promote safety and prevent gender-based violence…

The launching of such projects and campaigns in collaboration with Lebanese ministries and official institutions grant hope to women and girls living in harsh conditions nowadays, although tangible changes are yet to be seen when it comes to the number of victims in Lebanon.

The reality of Lebanese women still requires drastic changes that can only be brought forth by improved laws and policies. These changes can only be attained once more women are granted a seat at the decision-making table and are given the opportunity to influence laws that take into consideration women’s struggle for equality, gender parity, and security. Lebanon is looking at potential parliamentary elections in the undetermined near future in hopes to change this unfortunate reality.

 

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Tents and makeshift shelters at an IDP camp in Yemen. Years of conflict has left millions at crisis levels of hunger, with some facing starvation due to COVID. “This fight…is far, far, far from over,” said WFP Executive Director David Beasley, briefing the Security Council during a virtual debate on conflict-induced hunger. Credit: UNICEF/Alessio Romenzi

By Gabriela Bucher *
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 12 2021 (IPS)

In 1941, the people of Greece were facing a horrific winter. The Axis powers had plundered local supplies and introduced an extortionate tax on Greek citizens. Allied forces imposed a cruel blockade, cutting off imports. Prices skyrocketed. Hundreds of thousands of civilians perished.

I have been invited to address you today as the Executive Director of Oxfam International, an expression of people power that was first launched to stand with the people of Greece to demand their most basic of rights – the right to food – in the midst of conflict.

I am horrified that we are forced to confront the same basic injustice that gave birth to our founding nearly 80 years ago. Indeed, as we witness blockades cutting off food and fuel to Yemen, millions going hungry in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan and Syria, we should all be horrified.

Three years ago, when this Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2417, we heard an unequivocal condemnation of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. We heard a recognition that peace and security in an armed conflict means the presence of food as much as the absence of gunfire.

But the promise of 2417 being kept?

Many of the countries that were at risk of famine from conflict in 2017 are still at risk. And now, more countries have joined them.

Overall, at least 88 million people are suffering through acute hunger in countries where conflict and insecurity stalks. Women and girls are disproportionally affected, too often eating last and eating least.

People in these areas are not starving; they are being starved. It makes little difference to the hungry whether they are being starved by deliberate action or the callous negligence of conflict parties or the international community. An international community whose most powerful states too often drive starvation with a plentiful supply of weapons.

In conflict-ridden South Sudan FAO has distributed fishing kits to local communities. Credit: FAO

A’eshah Yahya Dahish is from Yemen. When her village was bombed, she was forced to flee. A’eshah had dreamed of becoming a midwife, but in an economy under attack from all sides, it takes all the energy she has just to survive. n Her two-year-old brother Maydan depends on her, but all she can afford to feed him is a few crumbs in water. Maydan is so malnourished that A’eshah believes any exposure to Covid-19 will be fatal.

Tesfay Getachew, a farmer in Tigray regional state in Ethiopia, has faced blackouts, market and bank closures that have devastated millions, but felt he could rely on the food he grew to feed his family. Last November, his village was shelled and his crops were set on fire, leaving his family with nothing.

Housseina is from the Central African Republic. The country has seen a deadly spike in violence over recent months that has led to insecurity on roads, meaning that food isn’t getting to markets. Food prices have skyrocketed by 240% in some areas. Housseina’s home and fields were destroyed in the fighting.

With support from Oxfam, she replanted her crops – only to see them destroyed again in the recent fighting. “My pain was immense,” she said. “I don’t know how to feed my family. We ate almost exclusively the vegetables that I grow.”

Women like Housseina want you to live up to your basic promise to keep their families safe. She and her fellow farmers are more than capable of producing enough to feed their families, but they cannot do so in the face of violence.

Women in conflict face impossible choices – to travel to market and risk crossing checkpoints, or to watch their families go hungry? To harvest their crops and risk being attacked, or to stay and face starvation?

Sometimes they have no choice. Sahar, three, and her sister Hanan, eight, were displaced by the conflict in Yemen, and forced to marry because their parents said they could not feed them.

I am here to amplify their call to the Security Council to make good on its unanimous agreement to break the vicious cycle of conflict and food insecurity. How?

First, the Council should deepen its work on this topic with a clear commitment for action. It should agree on depoliticized criteria facilitating the regular, mandatory reporting on situations where there is a risk of conflict induced famine or food insecurity. It should undertake quarterly reviews of action on the white papers considered under the early warning system.

Second, the Council must take genuine action to support the Secretary-General’s call for a global ceasefire. Urgently. Ensuring humanitarian access. Ensuring the inclusion of women from the beginning of the process. It took 4 months for this Council to support the initial call for a ceasefire. People on the edge of starvation do not have the time to wait another year for action.

Third, the Council should apply the principles they have endorsed in the abstract to the particular situations on its agenda. It should impartially condemn the starvation of civilians as a weapon of war, the targeting of critical food infrastructure, and all restrictions on humanitarian access. It should also take any opportunity to create meaningful accountability for starvation crimes. Today, there is near-global impunity.

Fourth, it should endorse – and its Members should lead – the effort to fulfil the global appeal for $5.5 billion to meet additional needs to avert famine, most especially in light of Covid-19. To be most effective this aid must flow as directly and urgently as possible to local organizations, especially women-led and women’s rights organizations, which are on the front line in addressing hunger.

And fifth, it should endorse a People’s Vaccine for Covid-19 that is free and accessible to all. Ending this pandemic will not end hunger, but we won’t end hunger if we cannot end this pandemic. Rich nations must unlock global supply constraints and help get the vaccine to all who need it.

Our failure to address hunger before the Covid crisis, and the rampant inequality and climate change which has so often triggered conflict, has left us scrambling to avert famine across the globe.

Let us also be clear: Starvation is a symptom of a deeper problem. The growing crisis of starvation is taking place in a world where eight of the biggest food and drink companies paid out over $18 billion to shareholders last year.

Those dividends alone are more than 3 times what we are asking for in aid today to avert catastrophe. There is not a lack of food, there is a lack of equality.

There is an unnerving consistency in what people living through hunger and conflict around the world tell us they want. They want peace. But what does peace mean to them?

Peace is not just the absence of war but the ability to live in dignity and flourish. It means a job. A return home. Stable, affordable food prices. If the Security Council aims to foster peace in their name, it should be no less expansive in its perspective and its actions.

* An address before the USUN-hosted Security Council Open Debate on Conflict & Hunger, on March 11.

 

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Excerpt:

The author is Executive Director at Oxfam International

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María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés was only the fourth woman in the 76-year history of the United Nations to be elected President of the General Assembly, the UN’s main deliberative and policy-making body. She was the Foreign Minister of Ecuador. She is being congratulated by the outgoing President Miroslav Lajčák, (centre) and the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres. September 2018. Credit: UN / Loey Felipe

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

The United Nations says the highest levels of political power remain the furthest from achieving gender parity in an increasingly male-dominated power structure worldwide.

Women serve as Heads of State or Government in only 23 countries (10 women Heads of State and 13 women Heads of Government out of 193 UN member states), while 119 countries have never had a woman leader.

At the current rate, says a new report by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, parity at the pinnacle of power will not be reached for another 130 years. (based on calculations of UN-Women data, as of 1 November 2020).

But this triggers the question: Does this also apply to the United Nations, which has never had a woman as Secretary-General, while only four women have been elected to lead the General Assembly– over a period of 76 years.?

Available research demonstrates that women’s and men’s education, political experience and ages upon entering executive office are similar.

Gendered perceptions that executive offices should be filled by men, and not on the basis of credentials, account for women’s severe underrepresentation at this level., according to the report which will go before the annual sessions of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), March 15-26.
https://undocs.org/E/CN.6/2021/3

The CSW, described as the principal global intergovernmental body, exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women, is a functional Commission of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Speaking on International Women’s Day March 8, Guterres singled out the progress made on gender parity under his administration.

“Overall, we in the United Nations are on a positive trajectory towards gender parity. Two decades after the General Assembly’s first deadline, we are finally making progress across the entire United Nations system. We achieved the goal of 50-50 gender parity amongst my Senior leadership, two years ahead of my commitment,” he said.

In the Secretariat, the proportion of women in the professional categories and above has increased to over 41 per cent from 37 per cent in 2017 – a steady annual increase. “This shows that our strategy works”.

In the Secretariat’s field operations, the gender balance is 31 percent women and 69 percent men.

Guterres also said: “We are taking steps to identify qualified women candidates to replace many of the 3,000 international staff who are retiring in the next eight years, the majority of whom are men. This includes measures to develop staff and build internal talent pipelines.”

There have been only three previous women General Assembly Presidents or PGAs as they are known. In 1953, India’s Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, pictured at UN Headquarters alongside the then Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, was elected as the 8th and first woman President. Credit: UN / Albert Fox

Gender equality is a question of power. “We live in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture and male-dominated power structures. This has inevitably affected the institutional culture of the United Nations, and of diplomacy as a whole”, he declared.

But does that male-dominated power structure reach out to the office of the UN Secretary-General?

Ian Richards, a former president of the UN staff coordinating committee, told IPS there have been varied reactions from UN staff to the Secretary-General’s gender parity policy, particularly when it comes to downsizing in peacekeeping operations.

“However, this year many staff have been asking us if the Secretary-General plans to apply the gender parity policy to his own position, which up to now has only been filled by men. We don’t know how to answer them on this as it is outside our mandate,” said Richards.

“The Secretary-General may wish to address this question directly,” he added.

Barbara Adams, chair of the board of Global Policy Forum, told IPS: “It’s a relief to see that the Secretary-General is no longer equating gender parity with gender equality. As we know overcoming structural or institutional discrimination of any and all kinds extends to measures beyond individual appointments.”

The recognition of importance and impact of power dynamics is welcome, but “taking” power in the present setup is a bit of a contradiction in terms, she argued.

Perhaps the quote of Simone de Beauvoir would be of interest, said Adams, a former Associate Director of the Quaker United Nations Office in New York (1981–1988).

Considered one of the most pre-eminent French existentialist philosophers and writers, Simone de Beauvoir, once famously remarked: “The point is not for women simply to take power out of men’s hands, since that wouldn’t change anything about the world. It’s a question precisely of destroying that notion of power”.

  

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Photovoltaic panels on St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Of the trillions of dollars set aside for COVID-19 recovery, a small percentage has been used in green recovery initiatives according to a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report. Credit: Kenton X. Chance/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 11 2021 (IPS)

Last year, only $368 billion of a $14.6tn budget geared towards COVID-19 recovery measures across the world’s largest 50 countries took into account green recovery initiatives, according to a report launched yesterday, Mar. 10.

“Are we building back better?” by the Global Recovery Observatory, an initiative led by the Oxford University Economic Recovery Project (OUERP), and supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was launched during a panel talk where global leaders who discussed measures taken to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic that are favourable to the climate.

“With growing climate instability, rising inequality, and worsening global poverty (World Bank, 2021), it is crucial that governments build back better through a green and inclusive recovery,” read a part of the report.

UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen addressed the trillions in the budget for post-COVID-19 recovery.

“We are taking extraordinary amounts out of the pockets of the future — because these are borrowed monies — so let’s not do that with the engine of driving further environmental destruction,” she said.

Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which also supported the report, was on the panel and highlighted the crucial importance of including climate action in the budget for development after the pandemic. The role of climate action is “indispensable” in IMF’s work, she said.

“We cannot have microeconomic and financial stability without environmental and social sustainability and these are issues we need to learn fast how to integrate in economic policy,” Georgieva said.

She was echoing one of the key recommendations in the report that called for a higher investment in research and development (R&D) of understanding economic impacts and requirements of green initiatives.

In some cases, some of the impact may not even be seen in the immediate aftermath of the implementation, the report noted.

“The new technologies developed through such programmes will be necessary to meet climate commitments, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors such as heavy transport, industry, and agriculture,” the report claimed.

In the COVID-19 recovery packages, among other green initiatives, the R&D sector was allotted the lowest amount — $28.9 bn. This, the authors claimed, could potentially be because of the long time it takes to see results in these types of investments.

This likely means that “governments that are looking for tangible change on the scale of months may prioritise different policies in the short-term,” the report added.

But Andersen of UNEP said that countries could learn from what others were doing to help shape their own approach.

She said the partnership between the Observatory and UNEP, and their findings would allow countries “to check what neighbours are doing” and “see a menu of options”.

“Brazil is going to have different solutions to Guinea Bissau but it’s about doing elements that can lead us in the right directions,” Andersen said.

Moderator Nozipho Tshabalala said: “This is not about comparing between countries, but about galvanising momentum to look at what others are spending and the impact of that.” 

Economist and Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz also spoke at the panel and pointed out various tools that need to be taken into account: how the money is allocated, how the projects are designed to make sure that in the designs there are concerns about inequality and the environment.

“These are not contradictory objectives but complementary objectives,” he said.

Georgieva of IMF brought the focus to factors important for the IMF to take into account as they plan.

“In our function of looking at the health of national economies and the world economy, we must integrate climate change,” she said.

“We take into account bulk opportunities to reduce the risk of climate change in the future — such as, how to bring down emissions, how to integrate that in economic development, and also factoring in the opportunity for green growth,” she added. “How can we create more jobs and better opportunities by investing money the right way?”

She emphasised that it’s crucial for those in the finance industry to be aware of the climate risks to financial stability.

“There are transitional risks if the economy shifts away from carbon intensive industries and the financial system is slow to adapt to that — that could be a massive shock,” she said.

She added that financial institutions should further be aware of the exposure of the industry to the climate crisis.

“We have to integrate climate in our capacity development; central banks and finance ministries ought to be better equipped to factor sustainability in their decision making,” she said.

She also highlighted the importance of data collection.

“We are now working on bringing carbon intensity in quarter economic reports,” she said, adding that it’s crucial information for countries to look at during their growth to ensure it is not happening at the cost of climate sustainability.

Overall, the panelists shared enthusiastic notes and ideas about how to move forward with financial plans for a recovery with a strong focus on climate action.

Stiglitz summarised the issue in a few words: “A stronger recovery and a green recovery are not in conflict — these are complementary policies. It’s not a question about building back, it’s about going forward.”

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By Taslima Aktar
Mar 11 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Bokul (pseudonym) is a 23-year-old married woman from Teknaf, Cox’s Bazar. She shared her troubling story in an interview for a recent study by Brac Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD). She is the fifth wife of her husband and has two daughters: a four-year-old and an eight-month-old. Recently, her husband decided to marry again. He wants to leave Bokul and is not willing to provide her with alimony. His actions are not unusual, as polygamy is a common practice among the local, as well as the Rohingya community in Teknaf. Bokul said that her husband kidnapped their eight-month-old daughter to intimidate her and stop her from claiming her rights as his wife.

Bokul got married seven years ago, but the marriage was not registered. She and her husband went to Cox’s Bazar, where she put her signature on stamp paper from a computer shop. This is known as “Kagoj er Bia” (stamp marriage/ affidavit marriage). There was no witness. This kind of marriage is not legal but socially acceptable. Bokul was unaware at the time that her marriage had to be registered. In the absence of registration, she cannot seek alimony. Unregistered marriages are a common occurrence in the area where she lives, partly because people lack proper knowledge about marriage registration. At the discussion organised by Brac, which included government education officials and local headmasters, unregistered marriages were discussed as a significant socio-legal phenomenon that needs to be addressed to protect the rights of women and children in the host communities of Teknaf and Ukhiya.

Under Bangladesh’s civil law, every marriage must be registered, and the legally married couple must get a marriage certificate, which is the main document to prove the legal status of the marriage. A marriage that is not registered is not legal and therefore, a woman’s marital status is not acknowledged. This creates scope for violence against women, as there are no legal bindings. From the BIGD field work in Cox’s Bazar, researchers found polygamy and underage marriages to be the most common reasons for domestic violence. Without the bindings of marriage registration, men can marry as many times as they want, without bearing any responsibility for their wives and children. Prevalence and social acceptance of unregistered marriages also encourage child marriage.

The discussions at the field level identified illiteracy as one of the key reasons why many people do not bother to register marriages. The value of registration in protecting women and children is not understood by the poor and illiterate individuals of that community. Negligence, which can be deliberate on the part of the bridegroom, is also an issue. The bridegroom and his family have clear incentives for not registering the marriage; the absence of documentary evidence makes it easy to dispute the marriage and avoid responsibilities.

Another issue is the need for birth registration. The government has made it mandatory to produce birth registration and the national identification card for marriage registration. While the system is designed to curb child marriage, if the societal attitude does not change, it may, in effect, increase the vulnerabilities by encouraging unregistered child marriage. As the host community, the local community in Teknaf was in a bind because birth registration was suspended from August 25, 2017, as many Rohingyas were trying to get Bangladeshi citizenship certificates. In some cases, people were taking advantage of this situation and promoting child and unregistered marriages, causing the numbers of both to rise. Birth registration for the Bangladeshi population in Teknaf has since been reopened once a writ petition was filed in the High Court by Nashreen Siddiqua Lina, a Supreme Court lawyer and resident of Cox’s Bazar, after which the High Court issued a rule asking why the failure of the birth registration programme in certain areas in Cox’s Bazar should not be declared illegal.

One of the crucial reasons for registering marriages in Bangladesh is to protect the social and economic status of women. The Bangladesh government, as well as many other NGOs, donors, and international institutions are using a variety of platforms to raise awareness and promote compliance with long-standing national laws and policies relating to marriage and family. But awareness among the local community in Teknaf has been found to be low and incentives for not registering the marriages to be high. While increasing awareness of the need for marriage registration has been an important part of legal rights programmes all over the country, it is still not universal.

Bokul shared that her husband did not give her any financial support for the last couple of years and that when she asked for money to buy food for their children, he physically abused her. This incident traumatised her as she was not able to get any legal or social support because she was unable to prove her marriage was legal.

At one point, Bokul decided that she would take matters into her own hands. She went to the local government representative and community leaders to ask for help. This action led her husband to kidnap their 8-month-old daughter. Bokul went to see the community leaders again. However, the second time around, they told her that since she already had two girls to support, losing one daughter would be beneficial in the future. They expressed that girls are a burden and have no financial use. The local police were unable to help since she had no proof of marriage.

The socially acceptable practice of “Kagoj er bia“, causes women like Bokul and children to suffer. Bokul had to run from door to door, seeking justice. After being rejected repeatedly, she visited the Brac legal aid office. The relevant officer called the local police station, but the legal authorities informed him that this was a complicated situation in the community because of the Rohingya crisis, and since Bokul did not have any legal marriage documents they could not help her immediately. They advised her to go to the court. Bokul broke down, saying that she just wanted her daughter back and that she was worried for her safety. At that point, the legal aid officer called Bokul’s husband and told him that what he had done was illegal. At some point in the conversation, the husband seemed to understand the consequences.

The case of Bokul illustrates that even when all the necessary laws exist, they may not have much effect on the lives of women and children for a variety of reasons. Legal actions are almost always complex and expensive, and the loopholes are abundant, particularly in cases where incentives are strong. Till today, marriage and family issues are dealt predominantly as social, not legal, matters. Thus, building mass awareness and creating grassroots activism and social capital may be more effective against child and unregistered marriages and violence against women and children. The government must recognise that having laws in place is just a first step. To protect women’s rights, it must work with grassroots organisations to gradually change the social and cultural norms and values that make women vulnerable.

Taslima Aktar is Research Associate, BIGD.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency education programmes supported by Education Cannot Wait are providing hope and protection to girls and boys in over 30 emergencies and protracted crises world-wide

By PRESS RELEASE
NEW YORK, Mar 11 2021 (IPS-Partners)

As the world marks the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic on 11 March 2021, initial progress reports on Education Cannot Wait’s (ECW) COVID-19 emergency responses to date show that the Fund and its partners have already reached over 9 million vulnerable girls and boys in the midst of the worst education crisis of our lifetime.

Within days of the declaration of the pandemic one year ago, ECW rapidly allocated $23 million in COVID-19 emergency grants to support continuous access to learning opportunities and to protect the health and wellbeing of girls and boys living in emergencies and protracted crises. Shortly after, ECW continued to scale up its response with a second allocation of $22.4 million – specifically focusing on refugee, internally displaced and host community children and youth.

“During COVID-19, our investments have been life-sustaining for children and youth enduring crisis and conflict around the world. Despite the pandemic, our government partners, civil society and UN colleagues have been working hand in hand with communities to deliver remote learning and continued education in safe and protective learning environments,” said Yasmine Sherif, the Director of Education Cannot Wait. “Yet, so many children and youth have been left behind, as financial resources are required to reach them. We risk losing entire generations of young people who are already struggling in emergencies and protracted crisis.”

The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and the Chair of Education Cannot Wait’s High-Level Steering Group, reinforced the urgent need for more funding to deliver on Sustainable Development Goal 4 through Education Cannot Wait – during and after the pandemic: “I call on all education stakeholders to join Education Cannot Wait’s efforts in mobilizing an additional $400 million to immediately support the continued education of vulnerable children and youth caught in humanitarian crises, stressing the need to move with speed. We cannot afford to lose more time, nor to let millions of refugee and conflict-affected children, their families and teachers lose hope.”

In total, ECW’s COVID-19 emergency grants target 32 million vulnerable children and youth (over 50% of whom are girls) in over 30 countries affected by armed conflict, forced displacement, climate-related disasters and other crises. For these girls and boys, the pandemic has generated a ‘crisis within a crisis’, further entrenching pre-existing vulnerabilities and inequalities. Without access to the protection and hope of an education, they face multiple risks, including child labor, child marriage and early pregnancy, human trafficking, forced recruitment into armed groups, sexual exploitation and gender-based violence.

ECW’s COVID-19 emergency grants to over 80 United Nations agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations working on the ground in 33 crisis-affected countries and contexts support a wide range of interventions ranging from pre-primary (19%), primary (56%) and secondary (25%) education as well as non-formal education. These include:

• Remote learning: with the total disruption of the usual education systems in emergency-affected areas, ECW grants support alternative delivery models, including informal education materials at the household level, as well as scaling up distance education programmes, particularly via interactive radio.

• A focus on gender: gender-specific actions were integrated at the design stage of the response, supporting rapid gender assessment and targeted approaches for girls. Over half of the children and youth reached to date are girls and 61% of all teachers trained are women.

• A focus on forcibly displaced population: 2.7 million refugee and internally displaced children and youth are specifically targeted through ECW-supported interventions.

• Safe and protective learning environment: activities improve access to water, hygiene and sanitation to protect children and their communities against the risks of COVID-19. Messaging, tailored to local languages and contexts, provides practical advice about how to stay safe, including through handwashing and social distancing.

• Mental health and psychological support: this includes COVID-19-specific guidance and training for parents and teachers to promote the resilience and the psychosocial wellbeing of children and youth. ECW also supports all children and adolescents to receive instruction in social emotional learning.

In addition to its 12-month emergency grants portfolio, ECW also invests in multi-year resilience education programmes that provide longer-term holistic learning opportunities for children and youth caught in protracted crises to achieve quality education outcomes.

More information on ECW’s COVID-19 response is available here.

The post COVID-19 Education Response: Education Cannot Wait and Partners Reach over 9 Million Vulnerable Children and Youth appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency education programmes supported by Education Cannot Wait are providing hope and protection to girls and boys in over 30 emergencies and protracted crises world-wide

The post COVID-19 Education Response: Education Cannot Wait and Partners Reach over 9 Million Vulnerable Children and Youth appeared first on Inter Press Service.

People walk down a street of shops in Kathmandu, Nepal. Credit: World Bank/Peter Kapuscinski

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Mar 11 2021 (IPS)

There is hardly a better way to promote human rights in Nepal than celebrating Muskan Khatun for being one of the winners of the prestigious International Women of Courage (IWOC) Award, released on the International Women’s Day by the Government of the United States of America.

As an acid attack survivor, Khatun, despite her young age, turned herself into a courageous advocate. Her work, together with many of her peers, themselves victims, was instrumental, in pressing the Government of Nepal to enact tougher regulations against the perpetrators of acid and burn violence.

With Kathun being rightly celebrated as an icon, will now the government be able to match the same level of commitment shown by her and many others victims of human rights abuses?

It should be the case as Nepal has been recently re-elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council, UNHRC, a prestigious position that the country could leverage to become a global trendsetter in upholding and promoting human rights.

In occasion to the recently held 2nd cycle of the Universal Periodic Review, UPR the only human rights accountability mechanism at global level, the Government has projected a very confident self-image, depicting a fairly positive picture on status of human rights in the country.

While it is unsurprising for a Government to push forward such narrative, the reality is much more complex and less optimistic than depicted.

It is true that at legislative and policy levels, an array of actions have been taken, mostly centered on the introduction of the new National Penal Code of 2017 and the Criminal Procedure (Code) Act of 2017.

Through these changes, previous provisions in matter of persecution of human rights abusers, especially in relation to sexual abuses, have been toughened and brought closer to the international standards.

Yet while it is important to recognize such steps, more should be expected from a member of the Human Rights Council like Nepal, a country that highly upholds democracy and pluralism in its Constitution and is often seen as a success story in terms of post conflict national reconciliation.

The areas where the country needs to step up its commitment, bridging the gap between rhetoric and facts on the grounds, are certainly not lacking. It is not only the perennial issue of transitional justice, since years in a stalemate that reflects the fears and insecurity many top political leaders feel about being held accountable.

“It is a countrywide effort to advance truth and justice that the state must facilitate as a collective process involving communities, political and religious leaders, and citizens” shares Madhav Joshi. In absence of political leadership, the only option to move forward the peace process rests with survivors and victims’ families and other activists.

Removing the existing roadblocks in restorative justice, ensuring culprits are brought to book might help shifting gears in other human rights dimensions that warrant urgent attention.

Nepal, for example, did not ratify yet the Convention against Torture nor took any action in relation to its Optional Protocol, a consequence of the existing situation in dealing with its conflict. The new Criminal Code, approved in 2017, extended prison terms to a maximum of five years but as explained by Amnesty International in its recommendations to the UPI, this is not enough.

“Punishments are not proportionate to the gravity of a crime under international law. A separate anti-torture bill, pending in Parliament since 2014, fell short of international legal requirements”.

In addition, the new provisions are comparatively weak especially in relation to a six-month limitation period to file complaints as “under international law, acts of torture must not be subject to a statute of limitations” as explained by a consortium of leading international and national human rights organizations.

As consequences, tortures are still too common in detention, reports Advocacy Forum-Nepal, a leading human rights organization. Those paying the highest price are members of minority groups like Dalits that end up being disproportionally targeted despite an amendment to the Caste Based Discrimination and Untouchability (Offence and Punishment) (CBDU) Act that increased the minimum sentencing to three months.

The situation clearly reflects stigmas and perceptions that are so rooted and common against members of other minorities, including persons with disabilities, LGBTQ community that face discrimination on daily basis.

We can notice a trend: improvements in the law that, despite their deficiencies, should have an important impact on the ground, are not able yet to bring tangible results in the reduction of human rights abuses.

Exemplary is the case of sexual abuses and gender violence: there have been positive legislative developments in the areas of rape and sexual abuses but the statute of limitations, extended to one year, is still “too short and fosters impunity for the crime of rape” as explained Human Rights Watch in its submission for the recently concluded UPR cycle.

At community level, there are still too often accidents including rapes and grave abuses that often remain unresolved like in the case of the murder of Nirmala Pant. The gap between action at legislative and policy spheres and lack of progress on the ground can be explained by the levels of implementation of the previous recommendations provided to Nepal in the previous UPR cycle in 2015.

“The majority of those concerning enforced disappearance, extra-judicial killings, impunity and transitional justice, remain unimplemented” is explained by TRIAL International, Human Rights and Justice Center and the THRD Alliance.

This is certainly a record that should not belong to a country who is for a second consecutive term in the UNHRC. The fact that the National Human Rights Commission has been crippled by a serious lack of cooperation from the Government in fulfilling the vast majority of its recommendations is worrisome and dangerous.

It is evident that enforcement is the real issue and the partial steps in the right direction should not overlook a culture of impunity that remains hard to be eradicated where abuses continues, many going unpunished.

Amrit Bahadur Rai, Nepal’s permanent representative to the United Nations as reported by the Kathmandu Post shared that the re-election of Nepal to the Human Rights Council “is also a recognition of Nepal’s efforts in protection and promotion of human rights both at home and across the globe, including through our peacekeepers,” If Nepal wants really become a torchbearer of human rights in its own country and around the world, then it must do more. Victims turned into human rights defenders like Muskan Khatun are surely going to remind the government of is responsibilities.

As for the case of more stringent regulations to punish the perpetrators of acid and burn violence, where the citizens were the ones who played an indispensable role in propping up the Government, holding it accountable, human rights defenders and members of the civil society are the ones that must remain engaged and vigilant.

They must be helped and supported.

The international community should step up their approach to human rights, helping keeping the government of Nepal accountable to its obligations, supporting it towards becoming a beacon for human rights standards.

*Simone Galimberti writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives.

 

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The post More ‘Can & Must be Done’ to Eradicate Caste-Based Discrimination, Says UN Rights Chief appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The Author, is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not for profit in Nepal*.

 
Shocked over the killing of five men in Nepal, who had planned to escort home one of their girlfriends from a higher caste, the UN human rights chief stressed that ending caste-based discrimination is “fundamental” to the overall sustainable development vision of leaving no one behind. May 2020

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Parliamentarians from Africa and Asia met to discuss how to improve the conditions of women, girls, and youth during pandemics. Credit: APDA

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Mar 11 2021 (IPS)

COVID-19 restrictions exposed women and girls to heightened abuse – revealing the conditions in which gender-based violence became the shadow pandemic on the continent, a recent webinar attended by parliamentarians from Africa and Asia heard.

Gift Malunga, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) country representative for Zambia, told delegates that during the lockdown in Zambia, 90% of calls to traditional hotlines between March and May 2020 were related to intimate partner violence.

Malunga was talking at the webinar facilitated by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and supported by UNFPA-JTF. This was the second event to enable inter-continental sharing of information on implementing ICPD25 commitments during the COVID-19 pandemic. The webinar’s theme emphasised gender-based violence (GBV) during lockdowns.

Asahiko Mihara, a member of parliament and Deputy President of Japan-AU Parliamentarians Friendship League, opened the forum by noting that women, as frontline workers, played a crucial role in managing the pandemic. However, the reallocation of resources, including SRH services, could be detrimental to global and national efforts to improve women’s health, he said.

Malunga said while even before the pandemic sexual and gender-based violence was high, with one in three women on the continent having experienced physical or sexual intimate partner violence, the pandemic exacerbated this. Services for sexual reproductive health were disrupted, and as a result, the UNFPA expected long-term consequences, including, according to a study, 7 million unintended pregnancies every six months.

The study also estimated that an additional 18 million child marriage cases could occur due to disruptions of programs to prevent female genital mutilation and child marriage. Transactional sex increased as poverty increased.

When girls dropped out of school, “they become more vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence, even to teenage pregnancy, to sexually transmitted diseases including HIV and child marriage,” Malunga said.

“This perpetuates the cycle of poverty. COVID-19 affected women who worked in the informal sector as they had been pushed out of work. When more vulnerable to poverty, they also experienced more GBV in their homes.”

The eastern Southern Africa region recorded spikes in GBV, child marriage, and teenage pregnancies across all countries. In addition, child marriage was on the rise. Malawi recorded an 11% increase in teenage pregnancies and an additional 13 000 cases of child marriage from January to August 2020, compared to 2019.

In Zambia, during partial lockdowns, there was increased exposure to GBV, and a study conducted in December 2020 showed that 30% of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 experienced domestic violence.

There was also an increase in transactional sex, Malunga quoted a respondent:

“Child marriage is on the increase because parents have become poorer and can’t afford to provide adequately for their children. Lack of income and prolonged closure of schools are the major causes of the increase in child marriage. This is more common in large families where hunger is more pronounced.”

She called on parliamentarians to advocate for an enabling environment for women and girls. She said while many countries had great policies and strategies, problems arose with implementation.

Sam Ntelamo, Head of the Sub Office International Planned Parenthood Federation (AR) Sub-Office to the African Union & UNECA, called on the delegates to support the AU’s recently launched gender equality and women empowerment strategy.

He said that because of circumstances, even civil society found itself hampered because of restrictions imposed during the pandemic – this included not being able to reach those in need because of a loss of funding.

Ntelamo said CSOs implored governments to address women and girls’ needs, especially in rural and remote areas. These areas needed time-sensitive services such as voluntary termination of pregnancies. Governments should guarantee access to assistance and protection of women survivors of sexual violence, trafficking, and other exploitation.

Justine Coulson, Deputy Regional Director, UNFPA East and Southern Africa Regional Office, reiterated the call asking parliamentarians to consider what was needed to halt the trends.

She said it was also critical to look at the impact on the youth, which ranged from school and university closures, loss of employment, heightened food insecurity, and accessing health services. South Africa, Namibia and Botswana were already among some of the world’s most unequal countries despite being middle-income countries, and this inequality had increased during COVID-19.

The webinar attended by about 50 parliamentarians from Botswana, Cameroon, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Japan, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tanzania, Tchad, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Also present were delegates UN affiliates, the Southern African Development Community, and the AU.

 

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Credit: Guerchom Ndebo/Getty Images

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Mar 10 2021 (IPS)

On the morning of 22nd February a jeep from the World Food Programme (WFP), followed by another one with the Italian ambassador, Luca Anastasio, was driving along Route Nationale 2 passing by The Virunga National Park, an UNESCO Congolese World Heritage Site famous for its dwindling population of unique mountain gorillas.

A perilous voyage, not only due to tomb-deep potholes, but especially the presence of various, extremely dangerous, armed criminals. Since most people in the area are poor it is quite common that children and women are abducted in groups, to make a joint ransom worth while. However, a foreigner (humanitarian worker, or occasional tourist venturing to spot gorillas in the National Park), or a medical doctor, may provide a more substantial ransom. To release a physician Congolese kidnappers have been paid up to ten thousand USD. This might be a reason to why the WFP logo painted on the white jeep attracted the attention of attackers.

By the so called Three Antenna Crossing, armed men rushed out from the jungle, though they were immediately discovered by armed rangers protecting the National Park, who opened fire and drove the assailants away. However, the ambassador’s driver, Mutapha Baguma, was already dead, the ambassador expired just minutes after him, while his bodyguard, the carabiniere Vittorio Iacovaci died during transport back to Goma.

These shocking deaths, were in international media generally overshadowed by COVID-19 and turbulence in the U.S. and Myanmar. Just as more than 25 years of ongoing misery and mass slaughter in The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) seldom have come to the forefront of international reporting. After Algeria, DRC is the largest country in Africa and has a population of at least 110 million. In 2010, it was estimated that due to the ongoing conflicts in the DRC people died at a rate of 45,000 per month. The death toll during the First (1996-1997)- and Second (1998-2003) Congo Wars and subsequent internal conflicts has been estimated to 5,5 million, making the still ongoing crisis the most devastating conflict since World War II.

The NGO Human Rights Watch estimated that armed groups in eastern Kivu, where the Italian ambassador was killed, had between June 2017 to June 2019 killed more than1,900 individuals and kidnapped at least 3,300. According to UNHCR, the situation in the DRC has worsened after 2017 and remains a major moral and humanitarian challenge, comparable to the wars in Syria and Yemen. What is often ignored by international media is that the largest militias intend to benefit from the extraction of diamonds, oil, precious timber and minerals. All this to line the pockets of already rich sponsors, who may be found both locally and abroad, this while poverty continues to reign among most Congolese and it has been like that for at least one hundred and fifty years.

While I was working for the Swedish International Development Organization (Sida) I met during a visit to Senegal Professor Kandeh, who came from another West African nation. The nice and witty Kandeh told me:

It may not appear so, but for several African nations natural resources are an evil curse, a reason for greed and violence to wreck havoc all over. I have witnessed how the discovery and exploitation of natural wealth have plunged peaceful agricultural communities into an unfathomable inferno. No … I tell you, if desirable resources are found within a poor, rural society – just pour asphalt all over the site, seal it off and keep people out. I might be exaggerating, but you cannot imagine the misery I´ve seen.

The vast area of the Congo River Basin did for centuries support small agricultural communities, hunters and gatherers, as well as kingdoms like Azande, Luba and Luanda, until the monstrously greedy Belgian King Leopold at the 1885 Berlin Conference acquired “rights to the Congo territory”. How the king of a small European nation could be “granted” a territory big as the combined areas of Spain, France, Germany, and the Scandinavian peninsula, is undeniably absurd. Nevertheless, Leopold declared that all this was his private property and named it the Congo Free State. His army, Force Publique, forced the local population to produce rubber and collect ivory. From 1885 to 1908, millions of Congolese people died from disease and ruthless exploitation. In 1908, Leopold, reluctantly ceded “his” State to the Belgian State and it became known as Belgian Congo.

On 30th June 1960, Congo achieved independence. Patrice Lumumba was elected as the huge nation’s first Prime Minister. The outlook was bleak. By the end of the 1950s no Congolese within the Force Publique had been promoted beyond the rank of non-commissioned officer. Even if approximately 42 percent of youth of school-going age was literate, most education had been limited to vocational training. Within an estimated population of 17 million, only 1,400 students were in 1960 receiving academic education, in Congo or abroad, and during seventy-five years of Belgian rule an infinitesimal small part of the population had been allowed to enjoy such an opportunity.

At once, conflicts arose over the administration of the territory. With active support from Belgium the mineral rich province of Katanga attempted to secede under Moïse Tshombe. After the UN and Western governments refused his requests for aid, Lumumba approached the Soviet Union, was taken prisoner and less than half a year after his accession he was executed in the presence of Katangan and Belgian officers.

By late1965, the head of the Congolese Army, Mobutu Sese Seko, gained a dictatorship through a coup d’état and due to his anti-communist stance he received considerable support from the United States. Corruption became rampant. Mobutu headed a full-fledged kleptocracy which he himself termed le mal Zairois, the Zairian Sickness. Following the 1996 Rwandan civil war and genocide and the establishment of a Tutsi-lead Government, the infamous Interahawame, the murderous Huti militia, fled to eastern Congo, using it as a base for incessant incursions against the Rwandan Government, while they allied with Mobutu’s forces to attack Banyamugele, Congolese Tutsis who supported the armed Congolese opposition led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila.

In 1997, Kabila ousted Mobutu, but his refusal to give concessions to the Banyamugele people, and the governments of Rwanda and Uganda, led to the Second Congo War, which ultimately engaged nine African nations, and at least twenty armed militias, causing immense bloodshed and suffering. “Peace” was brokered in 2003, but due to this conflict DRC has still five million internally displaced persons and one million refugees abroad.

Epicentre was the eastern provinces of South and North Kivu (where the Virunga National Park is situated). Ruthless armed units like Fdlr and Adf, still operate in the area, terrorizing the civil population. Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (Fdlr) consists of ethnic Hutu, several of them former Interahawame, mainly fighting the Banyamugele and Rwandan government troops. Forces démocratique alliées (Adf) are Muslim Ugandans fighting their Central Government from bases in the Congolese Northern Kivu province. Adf cooperates with various international Jihad groups, which goal it is to establish a Wilaya, a sharia-governed province in the centre of Africa. Both Fdlr and Adf terrorize and extort the local population and so do common bandits, militias from Burundi and occasionally even units from the national Congolese army.

By the beginning of 2001, President Kabila was assassinated and his son Joseph took over the presidency, though DRC remained poor and corrupt, while abuses of human rights, forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment, endemic rape and restrictions on civil liberties continued.

After civil unrest, due to Joseph Kabila’s initial refusal to accept an election defeat, Félix Tshisekedi was sworn in as President in January 2019. He has then tried to convince the presidents of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, none of of them are on good terms with one another, to cooperate in efforts to pacify the Kivu area and participate in programmes to integrate militia members in civil society, or maybe even in regular armies. Uganda’s and Rwanda’s presidents have reluctantly agreed to discuss pacification plans with Tshisekedi, while Burundi’s Ndayishimiye has so far refused to participate in any discussions. Uganda’s Museveni has been president for 35 years and Kagame of Rwanda has governed his nation since 2000. International observers are pessimistic about the outcome of deliberations about stabilising the situation in Kivu, pointing out that “it is difficult to discuss viable solutions and cooperation without taking into consideration problems with functional democracy within the region and a wealth of hidden agendas. Furthermore, Tshisekedi is by several leaders considered to be inexperienced and weak.”

The UN has 18,000 peacekeepers in DRC, though they have been far from achieving their goal to support any peaceful coexistence. Furthermore, the Trump administration withdraw much of its support to the Congolese UN mission, forcing it to shut down five bases, to cut costs.

In spite of this quagmire of death and suffering many stakeholders are still interested in Congo, though far too many of them are not motivated by any humanitarian concerns, but rather a desire to lay their hands on the nation’s natural wealth. Few believe in a radical change for the better. The death of a well intentioned person like Ambassador Luca Anastasio is not helpful. Anche Mukwege, Nobel prize winning director of a hospital just south of Kivu stated:

I am very saddened since Luca wanted the best for my people. He paid for his concern for others with his life.

Sources: Braeckman, Collette (Le Soir) “Le mille guerre del Congo,” Internazionale, 26 February. Dei Re, Pietro “Qui comando i predoni,” La Repubblica, 26 February. Tilouine, Joan (Le Monde) “Interessi, alleanze e tradimenti al centro di conflitti ventennali,” Internazionale, 26 February. Van Reybrouck, David (2014) Congo: The Epic History of a People. HarperCollins.

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

 

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Credit: UNHCR

By External Source
Mar 10 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Nujeen Mustafa is a Syrian refugee, youth advocate and champion for children with disabilities for the UN Refugee Agency.

At just sixteen years old, Nujeen Mustafa made the 3,500-mile journey from Syria to Germany in a steel wheelchair. Nujeen was born with cerebral palsy and spent the majority of her life confined to her apartment in Aleppo, Syria, where she taught herself English watching shows on TV.

As war broke out, she and her family were forced to flee – first to her native Kobane, then to Turkey. Her family didn’t have enough money for them all to make it to safety in Germany, where her brother lived, so her parents stayed in Turkey while she set out with her sister across the Mediterranean, braving inconceivable odds for the chance to have a normal life and an education.

Nujeen’s optimism and defiance when confronting all of her challenges have propelled this young refugee from Syria into the spotlight as the human face of an increasingly dehumanized crisis. Since moving to Germany, Nujeen has continued to tell her remarkable story and to capture the hearts of all who hear her speak.

(YouTube video: “UK/Germany: Nujeen, No Ordinary Teenager”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3rQ3SNCn6U&feature=emb_logo

ECW: Your story of triumph over struggle has inspired people around the world. Can you tell us a little bit about what it was like growing up as a girl not able to go to school in Aleppo, Syria, and how you worked to ensure you got an education?

Nujeen Mustafa: Growing up and not being able to go to school, I realized pretty early on that my life was unusual – but I kind of wanted to do the best with what I had. I mostly noticed it when the kids in the building would go and I wouldn’t, but I was surrounded by a very supportive environment that just made it so easy to live with the fact that there was something missing in the routine of my life.

When I turned about 6 or 7, my older sister taught me how to read and write in Arabic and then it was left up to me to practice. This was when I kind of used television as a way of educating myself and learning how to read and write. Then these mechanisms evolved and the things I wanted to learn also evolved, so I moved on to other things with English – a bit of general knowledge, and a bit of background in every subject and topic that I could find. Of course, my sisters also brought me the schoolbooks for each year when I was growing up. I would finish them in one day because I turned out to be such a bookworm! From then on, when I was old enough to start being self-taught, I just did it.

Of course, I still recognize it was not fair that I was not able to go to school but, as I said, I tried to do the best with what I had. I think this was my way of defying the circumstances that I was in, and it kind of gave birth to this desire to prove myself and prove that I can overcome all these obstacles, even if they are hard. To this day, I think one of my most fundamental traits is the desire to prove that I can do things and that I can accomplish a lot of things that are not expected of me.

Credit: UNHCR/Gordon Welters

ECW: Today, 75 million children and youth caught in emergencies and protracted crises are not able to go to school. Education Cannot Wait and its partners are working to get them back to learning. Why do you think this is so important, particularly for perhaps the most vulnerable: refugee girls with disabilities?

Nujeen Mustafa: I found this question quite strange because it shouldn’t even be a question as to “why” we should educate our children. It just has to be a fact of life, because everyone should know “why.” Children are always emphasized as the future of their countries and communities. But when you do not invest in a portion of the population, which is the population that has a disability, this is just not right. This is a violation of your rights as a human being, your right to education. It is discriminating against you on the basis of your disability, if you don’t get an education. It’s very unfair treatment of young people – of people who should be planning and thinking out the future.

There have been a lot of pledges and resolutions about the importance of education, especially for young people and people with disabilities. To live in this kind of cognitive dissonance, where there is this acknowledgment that this is important and yet there is nothing being done to carry it out, is very concerning. We can all agree that it has very dire consequences on our society and even the living standards of any country.

Education of the public and of youth are factors in all of these things. A prosperous and educated youth means a prosperous and thriving country. There is no logical reason as to why any country would want to ignore its children, its youth, and people with disabilities. It’s really disturbing that I even have to say that. They are not a burden on anybody. They can contribute and they are this kind of untapped treasure, untapped resource, that is not being used sufficiently.

From a human rights point of view, no one has the right to discriminate against you on the basis of something that you have no control over. You don’t make a choice to be born with a disability just as you don’t make a choice to be of a certain ethnicity. So even from that point of view, there is no logical reason as to why this should be happening.

Credit: UNHCR/Gordon Welters

ECW: What key message(s) do you have for world leaders about the urgent, important need to address and fund education for refugees and for children with disabilities in emergency and protracted crises settings?

Nujeen Mustafa: I think the most important thing for decision makers to know is that education needs to always be a priority, even in emergency situations and crisis response. It is not enough to ensure basic living conditions for survivors of conflict or people who are now living through a pandemic. There needs to be an awareness that the future of the entire generation is on the line and their need for an education needs to be prioritized. I know that it can be overwhelming at times, but I think that education needs to be viewed and seen as something as essential and crucial to the well-being of everyone – especially people with disabilities – as providing shelter, food, or water. It needs to be prioritized in emergency situations, whatever they may be. There needs to be an acknowledgement of the vitality of education to their futures and to their lives.

Of course, the situation with COVID-19 is unprecedented in this century, but we should have been better equipped to deal with such an unexpected change in our daily routines and such disruptions in our lives. That just goes back to the point of making sure that education is accessible to all and that everyone, wherever they may be and whatever their circumstances may be, has access to it and is able to smoothly transition from one mode of education to the other. It should have been essential everywhere around the world. We see that countries with a colder climate (where some children are unable to attend school during the winter months) are much better equipped, already having this kind of digital form of attending lessons and school. So, I think that countries all around the world should strive to be on that same level, ready and prepared for any kind of unprecedented situation.

When it comes to people who have fled conflict regions, refugees, and refugees with disabilities, it is not enough to make sure that they survive, but that they live and thrive as individuals. Receiving an education is a building block of that. You can’t say that you are doing them right if you don’t provide them with access to education as soon as possible. Prioritize education as a part of the essential means of survival – prioritize it in every plan of action.

ECW: You wrote an inspiring, best-selling book about your amazing journey: Nujeen: One Girl’s Incredible Journey from War-Torn Syria in a Wheelchair. Could you tell us the three books that have influenced you the most personally and/or in your current studies, and why you’d recommend them for other people to read?

Nujeen Mustafa: One of them is The Time Keeper by one of my favorite authors, Mitch Albom. It tells a story of the first person to measure time. It comments on humanity’s obsession with time, being late, and having clocks all over your environment. People have forgotten to enjoy their lives and actually live them because they’ve become obsessed with time; everyone wants to get everything on time and not be late, to the point where we have forgotten how to enjoy living in the moment. There is a quote that is very inspiring and memorable for me, which is, “when you are measuring time, you are not living it.” It’s a very inspiring and soulful book about enjoying the moment, truly experiencing it, and not being worried about whether you are late or too early. As we see in nature, only humans measure time. Nature and animals are not plagued by worries about being late to the meeting, or being too early, or what the social standard is.

The second one would have to be 1984 by George Orwell… We see it in the way that our phones watch us and how essential they have become to our lives. Even I am guilty of it. I spend my day on an iPad. But there is this voice nagging in the back of my head for my life not to turn into 1984 – using technology in that sense and giving everyone access to my thoughts. Every time we Google Search, there is some kind of record of the question that we thought about at that moment, so I think it’s very unsettling but it is necessary in this day and age.

The third one, a fairly recent read, is Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. That book is just a must-read for everyone about perseverance and resilience… even in the most dire and horrifying circumstances. That you could still maintain your humanity, even in a concentration camp. It tells of a lot of horrible, horrifying things and the lengths that we humans can go to. But it was also a message of hope that we could thrive and rise above all that and become better people because of it. So, I think it appeals to me because it essentially says that we are stronger than we thought – even in the most unimaginable, horrifying, terrible circumstances, we can be better and we don’t have to succumb to the desperation and the helplessness. It also talks a good deal about grief and how you can emerge as a stronger person from it; how suffering is also a part of life and that it initiates a part of you and builds you as a person. Your response to it is so crucial. Its essential message, I think, is that there is still hope for humanity. You’re a human being, even in situations of genocide. There are still heroes out there who have lived through it and survived. Not only physically – but emotionally and morally and every other sense of the word. And I just thought that that was inspiring. I think everyone should read it because it gives a message of silver lining, of hope, and just that you can be that person that overcomes these challenges.

Credit: UNHCR/Ivor Prickett

ECW: What were the common misconceptions about children with disabilities that you faced as you were growing up?

Nujeen Mustafa: The fifth question is just my favorite. I love to talk about this aspect of having a disability because, where I grew up, disability meant that you were expected to just live on the sidelines and not grow at all as a person – be it academically or personally. I absolutely despised meeting people for the first time because there would be a recount of how I was born and how it was discovered that I had a disability. And then I would see the looks of just people feeling sorry because they thought that I would have no future and no life. That I would just be there, not being an active member of society or contributing anything to my family or to anyone. Just be someone that wouldn’t be of use to anybody. So, I think the misconception that people may have is that we are expected to play into these expectations and act as though we were doomed – but that, of course, is not the case.

I recognize and realize that it depends on the mentality that your first caregivers and family has, and my family was absolutely adamant about me receiving and having what they had. And being as equal to them as possible. I would be hammered on to do homework and learn how to read and write and advance my education and learn English… Of course, I did it on my own, later on, in my teenage years. But there was always pressure to learn a lot about math and to enrich myself intellectually. Even if I couldn’t do it physically. Of course, many of these children didn’t have this kind of supportive and encouraging environment. How society perceived them might have damaged their sense of self and made them very insecure and have a low self-esteem. I consider myself lucky that I grew up in a family that pushed me to be better – that didn’t view me as a kind of a nuisance or as a girl who didn’t have any potential.

Credit: UNHCR/Gordon Welters

So, I think the biggest misconception that society has of these people is that it expects us not to have any ambitions or dreams. That the mere fact of us having a disability should eradicate any glimmer of hope inside of us that these dreams might come true. I encountered that even on my journey here. I would meet people who would be surprised that I spoke English or that I was socially active – and, you know, not at all awkward or hiding from anyone. Even when I was younger, I limited my exposure to that kind of negativity. I just surrounded myself with mostly adults and people who loved me and appreciated me for who I am. And I think that helped. I kind of eliminated any possible person that I thought, okay, this person doesn’t really like me, he is just pitying me or looking at me in a very condescending way. The secret to that was that we, as a collective family and everyone around, were able to kind of stay away from that type of negativity and that kind of mentality that “okay, this person has a disability, so he is useless—he or she is useless.”

Credit: UNHCR/Herwig

ECW: From your own experience, what does inclusive education mean to you and what makes a school accessible for all boys and girls with disabilities?

Nujeen Mustafa: Inclusive education, for me, has a lot of meanings. I only experienced it when I arrived here in Germany and realized how smooth and easy it can be to make education inclusive. Of course, inclusive education means not just enrolling someone with a disability in a school, it’s about accommodating their needs without making them feel isolated or separated or something different than the other students who may not have a disability. It’s not just about making the restroom or making the building accessible, it’s about capacity building.

For example – I always laugh and find it very encouraging and impressive about what I experience here – there is nothing that I do, or that I go through, that people my age do differently. I’m also applying for apprenticeships, filling out applications, filling out paperwork, and working in accountancy. I study business, that’s what we do. And I don’t think that the experience of a person who doesn’t have a disability differs so much from mine. There’s no discrepancy—there’s no, “this level is for you and this level is for that person.” It’s more about accommodating your needs and making sure that you have full access to whatever you may encounter in your professional life and you are well-versed in whatever it is that you are trying to specialize in. I would say that I have the same amount of experience in business as anyone in the same grade, or level, as I am now. So, having a disability, they wouldn’t level it down for someone who is disabled. They would accommodate your needs in such a way that you get the full content and that you grasp everything that is needed of you and that you learn about.

That, for me, is what inclusiveness means. It’s about finding methods that would make your working environment better—and equal to your non-disabled peers. It’s about making sure that you receive the same kind of treatment and that you understand the same curriculum. That your needs are accommodated. For example, if somebody’s disability is in speech, there would be all kinds of assistance to him or her, using iPads or specific programs on their PCs, and it’s very encouraging because we know – I personally know – that nobody is dumbing stuff down for me to grasp and nobody’s going a level down just to teach me about it. I know that I would be as equally qualified to a co-worker that is not disabled. So, this, for me, is what inclusive education means. It’s about accommodating the needs of a person with a disability so that it’s integrated into a non-disabled structure or a curriculum that might not originally be for people with disabilities.

For me, the key point is not isolation—I don’t want to be taught separately—it’s about the merging of education, ideas, and concepts, so that everyone can benefit and absorb information equally and effectively. And that would be the main goal – the optimal option – for everyone, just to merge these ideas and methods so that every school in the world can and would receive a person with disability.

In 2019, at the first ever Global Refugee Forum, Nujeen spoke about the importance of keeping children’s dreams alive with Grover form the children’s educational TV series Sesame Street. Credit: UNHCR/Vlolaine Martin

I also think that integrating people with disabilities into schools with people who have no disability is essential in changing any misconceptions that non-disabled people might have about people with disabilities. Because exposure lets you know how that person lives. You’ll know that he’s not pathetic, he doesn’t want you pity. You learn that he’s just like you—he or she is ambitious, is working on his plans, has career plans, has dreams he wants to achieve, and that he can be independent. He or she can have fun and dance and do stuff. And they will go far in life.

The post ECW Interviews Youth Refugee Advocate Nujeen Mustafa appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Youths like Feston Zale from Chileka area in Blantyre district of Malawi’s Southern Region are finding employment and a source of income in agribusiness. Credit: Esmie Komwa Eneya/IPS

By Esmie Komwa Eneya
BLANTYRE, Malawi , Mar 10 2021 (IPS)

After getting tired of searching for employment for seven years, Feston Zale from Chileka area in Malawi’s Southern Region decided to venture into agribusiness.

He started thinking of how to change the wetland he inherited from his parents into a horticultural farm. So he joined the Chileka Horticultural Cooperative to learn the basics.

“I started cultivating the piece of land tirelessly hoping that one day the proceeds from it would wipe away my tears of unemployment.

“The money I got from the first harvest was so satisfying and it gave me the courage to  expand my farming business,” Zale, who grows cabbage, onions and tomatoes, told IPS.

Zale has been able to make more than $4,000 per year. With the profit from his agribusiness he has managed to open a shop and buy a car. In comparison, most small family farms in generate a gross annual income of about $1,840, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

“I have received several awards for producing very quality horticultural crops such as cabbage, onions and tomatoes,” he said.

Master Kapalamula is an agri-entrepreneur from Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe. He told IPS that venturing into agribusiness has provided him with a way to support himself since he completed his studies two years ago.

“Mainly, I’m into tomato production and my last crop has fetched me around $550.

“I have used some of the money to buy a sewing machine for fashion and design business,” he told IPS.

Though Kapalamula is still searching for employment, he says he will not give up his agribusiness once he finds a job and instead wants to balance both. He also has plans to expand his agribusiness.

Zale and Kapalamula were fortunate to find a means of income through agribuisness. This southern African nation’s youth unemployment is currently at 23 percent, according to the ministry of labour. Malawi, has a population of 16.8 million.

Though Zale and Kapalamula point out that the industry has its share of challenges.

One major problem, they say, is the low prices they get for their produce due to the smuggling of similar commodities from neighbouring countries and a lack of market regulations.

Because there are no policies that help safeguard the prices and sale of agricultural commodities in the country, people practice free trade and the market is flooded. This means that farmers are forced to reduce their prices in order to make some sales.

“If we force ourselves to lower our prices further, we end up making losses hence we do not benefit a lot from the business as we were supposed to,” said Kapalamula.

“To remain in the business, one needs to be courageous enough otherwise I have seen other youths quitting the business,” said Kapalamula.

Feston Zale from Chileka area in Blantyre district of Malawi’s Southern Region has changed the wetland he inherited from his parents into a horticultural farm. He is pictured here withsome of his prize-winning cabbages. Credit: Esmie Komwa Eneya/IPS

According to experts at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), policy making processes must be supported by research.

It is one of the reasons why the Enhancing Capacity to Apply Research Evidence (CARE) in Policy for Youth Engagement in Agribusiness and Rural Economic Activities in Africa project was established. The CARE project seeks to enhance the understanding of the poverty reduction and employment impact, and the factors influencing youth engagement in agribusiness and rural farm and non-farm economy. The project is sponsored by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and managed by IITA.

According to findings of a CARE study in Malawi conducted by CARE awardee Dingase Kanchu Mkandawire, finding reliable markets for agricultural commodities is one of the deterrents of youth employment in agribusiness. 

“Youth agri-entrepreneurs face lack of access to the market and poor road networks worsen the situation,” Mkandawire told IPS.

Indeed, during the launch of the 2019/2020 annual review and planning meeting conducted by the Department of Agriculture Research Services (DARS) at Bvumbwe Research Station in Thyolo District, Malawi’s Minister of Agriculture Lobin Lowe pointed that research in agriculture has a gap if it only focuses on production.

“The habit of focusing research on how to increase productivity only has left farmers stranded since after producing, marketing [their products] becomes a bigger challenge for them,” said Lowe.

Aubrey Jolex is another CARE awardee who conducted research on the use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in agribusiness. He found that intensifying the use of ICT helped youth in agribusiness find reliable markets, among other benefits.

“Since the youth are heavy users of the ICT tools, they use those tools they use for communication to market their produce which in turn helps them to identify reliable markets,” he told IPS.

 

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Credit: Simone D. McCourtie, World Bank

By Catherine Highet, Nisha Singh and Arisha Salman
WASHINGTON DC, Mar 10 2021 (IPS)

The gender gap in mobile phone ownership is well-documented. For years now, the financial inclusion community has been trying to get phones into the hands of more women at the last mile — spurred on by mounting evidence that mobile money can increase women’s financial resilience, expand their economic opportunities and improve their intra-household bargaining power.

While these efforts have undeniably increased women’s access to phones, it’s less clear to what extent the beneficiaries of these programs are using phones to improve their lives.

A common approach to improving women’s access to mobile phones has been to give phones away. When we asked the FinEquity women’s financial inclusion community about the initiatives they were seeing around the world, we learned of several examples.

For instance, the state of Chhattisgarh in India has been building cell phone towers in rural areas and distributing Reliance Jio and Micromax smartphones for free. Its goal is to have “a smartphone for one woman in every household.”

The program and government’s endorsement of the phones has contributed to greater acceptability of young women using mobile phones.

The financial services provider Opportunity International Savings & Loans Limited (OISL) is taking a similar approach in Ghana. The company offers savings and loan products to hundreds of thousands of low-income clients, including women farmers.

Convinced that phones will help these women to boost their productivity and income, OISL trained women and their spouses in digital financial literacy and gender awareness and then gave them free smartphones.

OISL also provided training-of-trainers support for select women in the community (including mobile agents) to ensure ongoing support for phone users. This is a short-term solution for the company, which is looking into another longer-term approach to increasing women’s phone ownership: helping clients to finance smartphones.

Though smartphone financing is less common than simply giving phones away, GSMA has documented similar initiatives in countries like India, Kenya and Rwanda.

In India, Reliance Jio has offered 4G-enabled phones for a $25 deposit, which comes down to less than $10 with subsidies or when purchased with large, low-cost data plans.

In another case, SIA worked with the Foundation for a Smoke Free World, to distribute $11 phones on a three-month payment plan with two agricultural organizations and a mobile network operator in Malawi.

Regardless of whether they’re given away, financed or bundled with other life-enhancing services such as agricultural or health information, phones only matter if women actually use them to meet their goals.

This doesn’t always happen. In Chhattisgarh, for example, the limited evidence to date suggests that although women are making calls and using WhatsApp, overall usage of the phones is limited.

Phone recipients complained of poor battery life, apps that crashed, insufficient monthly data provision (of 3GB) under the lowest available monthly bundle of Rs 75 (less than $1).

As these complaints illustrate (and as a soon-to-be-released GSMA and Busara study in Kenya details), there are many reasons why women may not use their free phones. Some have to do with the quality of the handsets.

Low-quality imported models often purchased for $30 or less, such as those given away in Chhattisgarh, are not necessarily user-intuitive or suited for harsh rural conditions.

And although the phone itself may be free, there are costs of phone ownership that women may not be willing or able to cover, such as data and electricity. In some instances, the use cases for the phones aren’t compelling or encouraging enough for women to learn how to use them.

Additionally, digital literacy is a barrier for many women. In both India and Ghana, GSMA tells us it found low digital skills and lack of confidence — the fear that they would do something wrong — discouraged many women from using phones.

Underlying issues like digital literacy are gendered social norms that affect how women interact with technology. In some cases, norms may convince women that technology isn’t for them.

As we wrote in our last blog post about social norms, “While there is often an assumption that the gender divide will disappear on its own as digital technologies become more widely available in the market, the reality is that men and women engage differently with digital services – including digital financial services (DFS) – because of, among other factors, gendered social norms that don’t change nearly as fast as technology.”

Despite the many barriers to women’s use of free mobile phones, there are encouraging developments when it comes to use cases. Government-to-person (G2P) payments are creating more compelling use cases for women in certain contexts to own and use mobile phones.

For example, the GEWEL Program in Zambia, funded by the World Bank with the Ministry of Community Development, distributed phones as part of its efforts to digitize G2P payments. A recent evaluation produced positive results, showing that most users withdrew their funds with mobile money.

As part of the evaluation, researchers called random participants to see who would answer the phone. Many of the women participants picked up, suggesting that the phones had not been taken by family members or sold.

COVID-19 may also be encouraging women to discover the benefits of mobile phone ownership. We have seen a shift in mobile and digital usage patterns during the pandemic, with phones facilitating interactions that can no longer be done face to face.

Additionally, research has shown that gendered social norms can relax during moments of transition and upheaval and could make it easier for women to purchase a mobile phone.

For example, in their Women and Money research, Ideo.org found that women were sometimes able to gain more economic independence (for example, by entering the workforce) when a significant shock took place, such as when a male family member and income-earner died.

But the bottom line is that handset affordability — the focus of most programs to distribute free phones to women — is far from the only barrier to women’s use of mobile phones as a tool to improve their lives.

While efforts to increase women’s access to mobile phones are important, they should be carried out together with norm-aware interventions that increase the value proposition of mobile phone ownership, address ongoing costs, tackle digital financial literacy and use behavioral nudges to help women see the phones as tools to improve their lives.

As a Harvard Evidence for Policy Design study notes, efforts to give mobile phones to women without considering the prevailing norms may have negative consequences at the household level or be quickly rendered obsolete if other household members take the phones.

Going forward, it will be important for interventions to address not only affordability constraints, but more importantly, the deep-rooted social norms that reinforce and deepen the digital divide.

*The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor is an independent think tank that works to empower poor people to capture opportunities and build resilience through financial services. Housed at the World Bank, CGAP is supported by over 30 leading development organizations committed to making financial services meet the needs of poor people.

 

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The three writers are Financial Sector Analysts at the Washington-based Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP)*

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Minor resting after exiting the mine, Ghana. Credit: Lisa Kristine

By Lisa Kristine
SAN FRANCISCO, Mar 9 2021 (IPS)

I am about 200 feet down a rickety old mine shaft, in the Ashanti gold mining region of Ghana. It is stiflingly hot and darker than a moonless night. I can only feel the touch of sweaty bodies passing in the darkness and hear the reverberating sound of miners coughing and breaking rocks. The lack of oxygen and dust make it hard to breathe. I have no idea how deep this shaft goes – hundreds of feet? More? If there is a Hell this must be what it feels like.

The abolitionists who have brought me to this illegal operation refuse to go down the dilapidated shaft – an abandoned mine that has been taken over by small-scale outlaw operators after the legitimate owners have moved on. Instead, some of the miners in this “gang” of eight men agree to let me accompany them underground. Each miner carries three things with him – a battered old flashlight tethered to his head with a tatty elastic band, a couple of primitive tools and an empty sack that he hopes to fill with rock containing gold. They spend two to three straight days below ground, hacking at the stone walls to free rocks that they haul to the surface in sacks slung over their shoulders. When they emerge, these men are soaking wet, with bloodshot eyes and a look of exhaustion beyond description.

Slippery tree limbs are all that brace the walls of the narrow mine shaft. At one point I almost lose my grip, my legs swinging wildly in the air with no footing. I instantly think of Manuru, the man I met the other day who had lost his grip and fallen down the shaft. His leg was so severely injured the doctor insisted it should be amputated. But he continues to work; he has no choice. He has no money and is in debt to the trafficker who “hired” him for this illegal operation.

Group of miners sitting under shelter blocking the sun after working 48 hours in the mine, Ghana. Credit: Lisa Kristine

Gold mining is big business in Ghana, which in 2019 took over from South Africa to become the leading gold producer in Africa. While the major multinational mining names – Newmont Goldcorp, Kinross Gold, AngloGold – are active in the country’s biggest mines, informal small-scale operations also proliferate.

These small-scale mines operate in the shadows; lacking the proper certifications to operate legally, they turn a blind eye to regulations and worker safety or sanitation. Ghanaian law states that workers should be at least 18 years old, but boys as young as 12 commonly work the mines. In a 2020 study on small-scale gold mining, the International Labor Organization (ILO) notes that the small-scale sector is primarily poverty-driven, and despite being one of the most hazardous forms of child labor, remains an attractive option for children in poverty.

When I met Manuru, he had been working in the mines for 14 years. His uncle brought him here after Manuru’s father had died, hoping to earn money to support himself and his family, Manuru was instead trafficked into bonded labor. Ghanaians from around the country scrounge money to make their way to this region, hoping to find riches in the gold mines. They arrive with no money, to discover they lack the certifications to work in the legal mines. Instead, they are forced to take loans from “recruiters” who then traffic them into slave “gangs” of eight or ten to work as bonded labor in the illegal mines. They are often harassed by the police and private security forces for trespassing in the abandoned mines. They are not paid for their work, instead forced to sell their gold back to the recruiter in a never-ending cycle of labor-debt bondage. When his uncle died, Manuru inherited his debt as well. This is what modern-day slavery looks like.

Miner climbing down the mine shaft to work, Ghana. Credit: Lisa Kristine

Mining in the best of circumstances is a high-risk occupation. The lack of proper monitoring and regulation mechanisms for these small-scale operations have translated directly to indecent working conditions. In this ‘wild west’ of shadowy operators, workers lack any protective equipment or knowledge of safety procedures and are exposed to harmful dusts and chemicals like mercury. The abandoned mines that these illegal operators take over have not been maintained, and accidents and structural collapses are common. The ILO estimates that injuries are six to seven times more common in the small-scale operations than the big companies.

Group of minors climbing out of the shaft, sweaty from the hot belly of the shaft beneath the ground. Credit: Lisa Kristine

According to the ILO there are more than 40 million people trapped in slavery and forced labor worldwide in everything from mining to brickmaking to prostitution. That is more than the population of Canada. Given the difficulty documenting these illegal practices, this figure is considered conservative. In Ghana the estimate that figure is in the hundreds of thousands. A 2012 research project from abolitionist organization Free the Slaves found that boys as young as 12 are working at these illegal mines. Girls as young as ten are being trafficked as prostitutes for miners. Their research found widespread ignorance of legal protections for children under international and Ghanaian law, and community leaders expressed frustration in the limited government and legal intervention.

Modern slavery thrives in the dark. It is only when we shine a light on these injustices and illuminate the dignity and shared humanity of those trapped, can we begin to work towards solutions.

The author is an International humanitarian photographer, activist, and keynote speaker. She has published six books and has been the subject of four documentaries. She is a founding member of the Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ), pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7.

 

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala took over as new WTO Director-General, 1 March 2021. Credit: Africa Renewal, United Nations

By Lansana Gberie
GENEVA, Mar 9 2021 (IPS)

When on 15 February the chair of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) General Council, Ambassador David Walker of New Zealand, announced that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala would be the new Director-General, the mood among delegates was of relief.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala commanded overwhelming support from the start of the selection process in July 2020, but her historic elevation—as the first African and the first woman to become Director-General of the 26-year-old trade organisation—was by no means certain only a few weeks prior.

“Without the recent swift action by the Biden-Harris administration to join the consensus of the membership on my candidacy,” the new Director-General said in her acceptance statement, delivered via video link, “we would not be here today.”

This plain statement of fact underlines the challenges she will likely face. It is also indicative of the paralyzing difficulties experienced by the world’s main trade arbiter in recent years, where key decisions are made by consensus among over 160 members.

So, what can Africa gain from an African Director-General of the world’s premier trade organization?

This question was never openly asked during the selection process, in part because as well as being an African and a woman, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala’s qualifications—Harvard-educated economist, top World Bank official, longest-serving Finance Minister of Nigeria (Africa’s largest economy), and Foreign Minister—towered above her rivals.

But the question will likely become a point of conversation during her tenure.

Lansana Gberie

Some will try to use it as a benchmark for evaluating her performance in office. That will make no sense. For the past 20 years, no round of trade negotiations at the WTO has been successful.

The WTO’s dispute resolution mechanism—the Appellate Body—has been stymied, including through the blocking of all its new appointees by the previous US administration, a decision that should be rescinded.

But there are important areas where the Director-General, with her political clout and proven leadership skills as a reformer, can lead “from behind… to achieve results,” as Dr. Okonjo-Iweala herself noted in her acceptance statement.

In that statement, she highlighted as a top priority an inclusive and effective approach to COVID-19 vaccine distribution, which surely must include an agreement to suspend intellectual-property protection for vaccines and other vital drugs to enable their mass production and distribution in poor countries.

This is known as the TRIPS Waiver proposal, an initiative of India and South Africa that now has more than 50 co-sponsors.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, as chair of the vaccine alliance Gavi and one of the African Union special envoys for the continent’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been consistently passionate about this issue and has called for the rejection of “vaccine nationalism and protectionism.”

In post-pandemic recovery, Africa will focus on operationalizing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which is expected to connect some 1.2 billion people across 55 countries with a combined GDP of $3.4 trillion.

The trade pact will unify and amplify Africa’s voice in urging the WTO to create a vision that reflects the continent’s economic aspirations.

The AfCFTA itself signals a preference for a rules-based multilateralism, which aligns with the WTO’s ideals. Therefore, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala should actively cheerlead for the AfCFTA and canvass for necessary technical support for its successful implementation.

Perhaps more difficult but vital to African and other developing economies is improving market access for their agricultural products. This access is severely limited in part because of the huge distorting subsidies that wealthy nations provide their farmers.

There have been encouraging overtures from European countries and Australia to African diplomats to help mitigate this problem, but it will need the leadership of the WTO to give the initiative the momentum it needs.

Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, who has stressed that trade must be centred around people and focused on economic development and reducing global inequities, is singularly positioned to lead this effort.

Negotiations around fisheries, which have persisted for years at the WTO, are an equally urgent concern for Africa. To date, some members even refuse to agree on what constitutes ‘fish.’

Wealthier nations lavish subsidies on their fisheries sectors, leading to over-enhanced capacity, which enables their fishing boats to infringe upon the sovereign rights of poorer countries in Africa. African-caught fish, already limited as a result of such encroachment, stand little chance of gaining market access in wealthy countries.

During her rounds of meetings in Geneva before her selection, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala advanced an important concept that was widely praised by African diplomats – trade finance.

As someone who followed her during those weeks of intense consultations, I was struck by the fact that no other candidate spoke about this issue. Providing financial and technical support particularly to least developed economies to export agricultural and fisheries products to richer countries can advance both trade and development.

Negotiations on such support for the cotton sector within WTO have, like those relating to fisheries, generated positive statements of support but no real action yet. African members have recently raised the issue of a WTO Joint Action Plan to provide support for the development of cotton by-products in poor countries.

This should be uncontroversial; it is certainly less contentious than intellectual property rights, for example. It merits urgent support.

Its realization, in addition to actions on agriculture and fisheries, will be the kind of incremental progress that will help reduce poverty and boost global trade.

For many African countries, it will constitute the kind of reform that would make multilateral cooperation – and the great honour to the continent represented by the elevation of a highly distinguished African trailblazer – truly meaningful.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

 

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The author is, Sierra Leone’s Ambassador Extraordinary to Switzerland and Permanent Representative to the UN and other International Organizations in Geneva.

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 9 2021 (IPS)

Developing country governments are being wrongly advised to use their modest fiscal resources to pay down accumulated debt instead of strengthening pandemic relief and recovery. Thus, debt phobia risks deepening and extending COVID-19 recessions by prioritising buybacks.

Anis Chowdhury

Pandemic debt mounting
Nearly half (44%) of low-income countries were already debt-distressed or at high risk even before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March 2020. Limited fiscal space has constrained developing countries’ relief and recovery measures, making them far more modest than those of developed countries.

Nevertheless, their government debt ratios rose faster in 2020. Many developing countries have taken on more debt, typically on non-concessional terms—from private lenders and non-Paris Club members. Public debt in emerging markets has thus surged to levels not seen in over half a century.

In January-October 2020, the average debt burden of developing countries increased by 26% as tax revenues declined sharply. The IMF projects their average debt ratios will rise by 7-10% of GDP in 2021, with some terming this a “debt pandemic”.

Debt burdens limit fiscal resources and the policy space needed to better address the pandemic health and economic crises in developing countries. Debt is particularly debilitating in the least developed countries, where healthcare services were modest even before the pandemic.

Last October, the United Nations warned G20 senior officials of “protracted fiscal paralysis” and the “worst global crisis since WWII” if developing countries did not get significant debt relief. For the World Bank President, the “disappointing” G20 Debt Services Suspension Initiative (DSSI) only “defers debt payments” as interest mounts, without reducing debt.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Debt buybacks?
Ostensibly to avert the “looming debt crisis”, some are calling for debt buybacks while private creditors refuse to offer any debt relief. They claim “bond buy-backs present a highly attractive solution, offering substantial debt relief at a relatively low cost”.

Hence, they urge using the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) New Arrangements to Borrow plus funds from donors and multilateral institutions to buy debt at a discount. Such calls have grown with the prospect of new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) of at least US$500 bn, as the Biden administration has dropped US opposition.

Proponents do not explain why debt buybacks should now take precedence over urgently deploying fiscal resources for relief and recovery. As more countries compete for funds, driving up interest rates, buybacks should ease the credit market for others.

Successful debt buybacks?
Buyback advocates misleadingly imply that the 1989 Brady bond plan and the 2012 Greek bond buybacks were both “successful”. The plan wrote down some sovereign debt to commercial banks for several mainly Latin American countries, following the early 1980s’ spike in US interest rates.

The US debt buyback initiative was launched by George HW Bush’s Treasury Secretary, Nicholas Brady and backed with US Treasury bills after his predecessor failed to resolve the debt crises of several heavily indebted US allies.

In return for IMF support, these countries were subjected to IMF-World Bank programme conditions. These supposedly “growth promoting” policies actually resulted in many “lost years” of stagnation.

Benefits for most debtors were unclear as buybacks failed to improve market confidence in debtor countries, or their development performance. The Brady scheme was portrayed as “voluntary”, although in fact, “officials used various techniques to pressure banks into Brady deals”.

Even with fewer debt-distressed countries and more similar creditors then, “country negotiations with bank creditors often dragged on for months”, even a year. In fact, only the banks gained from the Brady deals which enabled them to close the chapter with minimal losses and move on.

The 2012 Greek debt buyback programme is said to be a “success” in “the sense of being orderly, reasonably quick”. However, it only affected private debt as governments and central banks held over two-thirds of Greece’s sovereign debt.

While treating “holdout creditors” generously, the programme did not restore Greek debt sustainability. Unsurprisingly, the “bigger winners were hedge funds, which pocketed higher profits than many had expected”.

Dubious models for emulation
Debt buyback advocates seem to ignore how debtor-creditor relations have changed since the 1980s. There are now many more types of private creditors, debtors and credit or borrowing arrangements compared to the 1980s, when government debt from US and UK commercial banks was far more significant.

The US government then had much more leverage on US commercial banks as it was seen as trying to avoid bank failures and to ensure financial sector stability. With powerful lobbyists, such as the Institute of International Finance (IIF), private finance has much more bargaining power now.

Today, no single government or multilateral institution has considerable influence on the far more varied private creditors. Such lenders have already rejected the G20 DSSI and ignored IMF and World Bank calls for debt relief. Meanwhile, rating agencies threaten to downgrade the credit ratings of countries considering participation.

Many more countries face debt problems, each with its own history and mix of debt contracts. Hence, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ buyback programme will simply not work. Each country programme will require protracted negotiations, with no guarantee of reaching a settlement.

Who really benefits?
According to World Bank Chief Economist Carmen Reinhart and her co-authors, in most cases, debt buybacks have benefited recalcitrant private creditors without providing much relief to debtors “willing to exchange higher future debt for lower payments now”.

“Private creditors are increasingly claiming outsize shares of repayment in debt restructurings even when the official sector is senior creditor to the private sector…Official creditors may be left holding the bag for the bulk of the losses, even when they start with little of the outstanding debt, as in Greece”.

Hence, they caution: “make sure new funding ends up benefiting the citizens of debtor countries affected by the pandemic rather than lining the pockets of creditors…The more official aid and soft loans can go toward helping needy citizens around the globe—and the less such assistance ends up as debt repayments to uncompromising creditors—the better”.

Get priorities right
With ‘collective action’ complications affecting negotiations, and the greater number and variety of heavily indebted countries and creditors, equitable debt buybacks are impossible to negotiate. Worse, prioritising buybacks means rejecting former debt hawk Reinhart’s current pragmatic advice to “First fight the war, then figure out how to pay for it”.

The urgent priority is for fiscal resources to strengthen relief, recovery and reform measures. Prioritising debt buybacks, instead of urgently augmenting fiscal resources, may thus contribute to another “lost decade” or worse.

 

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FAO advocates for transparent, inclusive, socially beneficial and responsible artificial intelligence. Credit: FAO

By Mario Lubetkin
ROME, Mar 8 2021 (IPS)

One year after the call for a group of international and religious organizations and important multinational companies to incorporate ethics into the design of artificial intelligence (AI), Pope Francis said in a tweet: “I hope that more and more people of good will cooperate in the promotion of the common good, the protection of those lagging behind and the development of a shared algor-ethics”.

The message of the Catholic pontiff, on 28 February, was related to the Call of Rome, which seeks to actively incorporate ethics in artificial intelligence based on a transparent, inclusive, socially advantageous and responsible process.

The document, “Rome Call for Artificial Intelligence Ethics”, was launched on 28 February 2020 by the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Microsoft and IBM, with the endorsement of the Italian government.

By 2050 the world will have to feed 10 billion people and this will be possible only with transformed agri-food systems that are inclusive, resilient and sustainable; therefore, artificial intelligence in food and agriculture plays a key role in this transformation and in achieving the food objectives for all

QU Dongyu
Director General, FAO
For Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, progress can create a better world “if it is linked to the common good.” “The depth and acceleration of the transformations of the digital age create new and constantly evolving problems” and “the complexity of the technological world demands an ethical and articulated collaboration to achieve better influence.”

According to Paglia, it is necessary to build a new alliance between research, science and ethics “to build a world in which technology is in favor of the people” because “without equitable and just development” there can be no justice or peace.

The Rome Call invites governments, institutions and the private sector to adopt a common responsibility in order to ensure that digital innovation and technological progress are at the service of human creativity.

The strong increase in digitization and the renewed efforts for greater innovation improved substantially in 2020. This acceleration was a result of COVID-19 and the consequent new digital and online forms of interaction on a global level.

The Director General of FAO, QU Dongyu, recalled that by 2050 the world will have to feed 10 billion people and that this will be possible “only with transformed agri-food systems that are inclusive, resilient and sustainable”; therefore, artificial intelligence in food and agriculture “plays a key role in this transformation and in achieving the food objectives for all.”

QU recalled that FAO seeks the promotion of ethics in artificial intelligence “for better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life.”

The expanding support for the Rome Call is being sought through various means. These means include; opening channels of dialogue with the different monotheistic religions to identity a convergence in which technology can be used at the service of humanity; active action from parliamentarians and local administrators in different parts of the world; as well as by the growing support from private companies, especially technological ones.

For Microsoft’s President Brad Smith, this common effort aims to ensure that technology continues to serve humanity. He stated that “[a]s we recover from COVID-19, the Rome Call is an important instrument to reflect broadly and ethically on the future of technology” within the framework “of a balanced, respectful and inclusive dialogue on the interaction between the artificial intelligence technology and society”.

Similarly, the Vice President of IBM, Dario Gil, called for strengthening the capacity of artificial intelligence to “transform our lives and societies in many ways,” but for this, artificial intelligence must be developed, expanded and used “in a more responsible way to prevent negative results.”

Gil recalled that in his company this is applied through specific protocols, risk assessment, reliable methodologies for the development of artificial intelligence, training initiatives, innovation analysis, as well as through mechanisms designed to help other companies to strengthen their artificial intelligence.

To summarize the spirit that allowed the creation and promotion of this original global alliance on the issue of the development of digitization and innovation, Monsignor Paglia recalled that “we are not an island, we are not pulverized or divided, we are a single body, a unique family, in good and evil” and for that, common action is essential.

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Excerpt:

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

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A woman in Aden, Yemen prepares food at a settlement for people who have fled their homes due to insecurity. Credit: UNOCHA/Giles Clarke

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 8 2021 (IPS)

The United Nations has rightly described the deaths and devastation in war-ravaged Yemen as the “world’s worst humanitarian disaster”— caused mostly by widespread air attacks on civilians by a coalition led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

But rarely, if ever, has the world denounced the primary arms merchants, including the US and UK, for the more than 100,000 killings since 2015– despite accusations of “war crimes” by human rights organizations.

The killings are due mostly to air strikes on weddings, funerals, private homes, villages and schools. Additionally, over 130,000 have died resulting largely from war-related shortages of food and medical care.

Saudi Arabia, which had the dubious distinction of being the world’s largest arms importer during 2015–19, increased its imports by 130 percent, compared with the previous five-year period, and accounting for 12 percent of all global arms imports, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

And despite concerns in the U.S. and U.K. about Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen, both weapons suppliers continued to export arms to Saudi Arabia—with 73 percent of Saudi Arabia’s arms imports originating in the U.S. and 13 percent from the U.K.

But the newly-inaugurated Biden administration has threatened to halt some of the US arms sales proposed by the former Trump administration which sustained a politically and militarily cozy relationship with the Saudis.

The sales on-hold include $478 million in precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia and $23 billion in arms sales to UAE, including 50 F-35 fighter planes and 18 Reaper drones.

The Saudi military arsenal includes F-15 fighter planes, Apache helicopters, Stinger and Hellfire surface to air (SAM) missiles, and multiple rocket launch systems (from the US), Tornado fighter bombers, Bae Hawk advanced jet trainers and Westland combat helicopters (from UK) and Aerospatiale helicopters and air defense systems (from France).

The US weapons systems with the UAE forces include F-16 fighter planes, F-35 Stealth jet fighters, Blackhawk helicopters and Sidewinder and Maverick missiles while UK’s arms supplies include Typhoon and Tornado fighter bombers and cluster munitions. The UAE is also equipped with French-made Mirage-2000 jet fighters, perhaps upgraded to the Mirage 2000-9 version.

All of these weapons – and more –have been used to bomb civilians in Yemen in the six-year-old conflict there.

Dr. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, and founding director of the program in Middle Eastern Studies, told IPS Biden’s decision to cut off direct support for Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen was long-overdue.

The US Congress, he said, had attempted to cut off such assistance last year by passing a ban by a big bipartisan majority. Trump, however, declared a state of emergency overruling the legislative branch.

“Unfortunately, Biden has pledged to (continue) providing arms in order to support what he refers to as Saudi Arabia’s defense needs against alleged Iranian aggression, despite the fact that Saudi Arabia’s military budget is five times that of Iran and is therefore perfectly capable of defending itself,” he pointed out.

Biden also has pledged aid to protect the kingdom from attacks by Houthi rebels, who have occasionally lobbed rockets into Saudi Arabia, but only in retaliation of the massive Saudi attacks on Yemen.

In addition, “Biden has called for continued support for Saudi counter-terrorism operations, which is concerning given the monarchy’s tendency to depict even nonviolent opponents as terrorists”, said Dr Zunes, who is recognized as one of the country’s leading scholars of U.S. Middle East policy and is a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy Studies.

Along with Biden’s refusal to place sanctions on Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (known as MBS) “despite acknowledging his key role in the murder of a prominent U.S.-backed journalist as well as his conciliatory phone conversation with King Salman last month, raises serious questions as to whether Biden is really interested in standing up to the Saudi regime,” he argued.

Credit: YPN, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch and 41 other organizations are calling on President Joe Biden to impose sanctions available under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act on officials at the highest levels of Saudi leadership, including MBS.

The coalition says laws-of war violations committed by the Saudi-led coalition amount to “war crimes”.

Dr Simon Adams, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, a human rights organization that works on preventing war crimes and other atrocities in the world, told IPS the massive humanitarian crisis in Yemen is not the result of an earthquake or some other natural disaster; it is entirely man-made.

“Starvation is the result of airstrikes and a merciless war that has completely destroyed people’s lives,” he added. The bottom line is that the United States should not be selling weapons to any state that has been responsible for atrocities in Yemen, he declared.
Time and again, he said, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been responsible for war crimes.

“The US is an accessory to these crimes if it continues to supply the bombs, drones and fighter planes used to bomb Yemeni civilians,” said Dr Adams whose Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect has conducted advocacy with the UN Security Council since the war in Yemen began, arguing that impunity for war crimes by all sides has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

In an oped piece last month, Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, wrote “Countless Yemeni children are dying from starvation and disease while the world shamelessly watches in silence, as if this was just a horror story from a different time and a distant place, where a country is ravaged by a senseless, unwinnable war while a whole generation perishes in front our eyes”.

Those at the top who are fighting the war are destroying the very people they want to govern; they are the evil that flourishes on apathy and cannot endure without it, he added.

“What’s there left for them to rule? Twenty million Yemenis are famished, one million children are infected with cholera, and hundreds of thousands of little boys and girls are ravenous—dying, leaving no trace and no mark behind to tell the world they were ever here. And the poorest country on this planet earth lies yet in ruin and utter despair, said Dr Ben-Meir.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council* (NRC): 4 million people have been displaced by the war since 2015; 66% of Yemen’s population – over 20 million people – need some form of aid; Half the population – 16 million – will go hungry this year.

Over 5 million people are estimated to be one step away from famine; Only half of health facilities and two-thirds of schools are currently functioning; Water infrastructure is operating at less than 5 per cent efficiency.

The war has directly killed more than 100,000 people; Another 130,000 have died from “indirect causes” such as food shortages and health crises; An average of one child dies every 10 minutes from preventable causes.

Funding cuts mean that 9 million people have had their food assistance halved, and 15 major cities are on reduced water supplies. And NRC alone has had to cut food rations to 360,000 people.

At a March 1 UN High-Level Pledging Event for Yemen, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his appeal: “We need $3.85 billion this year to support 16 million Yemenis on the brink of catastrophe”.

Pointing out that more than 20 million Yemenis need humanitarian assistance and protection, with women and children among the hardest hit, he said over 16 million people were expected to go hungry this year and nearly 50,000 Yemenis are already starving to death in famine-like conditions.

But following the conference, Guterres described the outcome as “disappointing” because the pledges, which amounted to $1.7 billion, were less than what was received for the humanitarian response plan last year, and a billion [dollars] less than what was pledged in 2019.

*Figure sources include: UNOCHA, UNICEF, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), the World Food Program

Thalif Deen is former Director, Foreign Military Markets at Defense Marketing Services; Senior Defense Analyst at Forecast International; and military editor Middle East/Africa at Jane’s Information Group.

  

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