Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

News and Views from the Global South

Updated: 1 hour 18 min ago

Mozambique Reels from Repeated Attacks on Press Freedom

Fri, 09/04/2020 - 10:37

There is currently a grave pattern of detention or unsubstantiated allegations against journalists in Mozambique. Last month unknown attackers set on fire the office of a weekly newspaper Canal de Moçambique that had recently published investigations exposing corruption in the government. Courtesy: CC by 2.0/The Commonwealth

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 4 2020 (IPS)

While Mozambique was recently rattled by an arson attack on a local media organisation, experts say that it’s only a part of a worrying pattern of continuous attacks on the media in the country.

On Aug. 23, unknown attackers set on fire the office of a weekly newspaper Canal de Moçambique that had recently published investigations exposing corruption in the government.
The attack not only destroyed equipment and furniture, but also the files at the office.

Angela Quintal, the Africa programme coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), told IPS that while they had never before witnessed an attack of this magnitude or nature, there is currently a grave pattern of detention or unsubstantiated allegations against journalists in the country. CPJ, a non-profit focused on press freedom, also monitors such attacks on the media around the world.

Quintal pointed some of the recent cases: arbitrary arrest and detention of radio journalist Amade Abubacar; the arrest of investigative journalist Estacio Valoi; the detention of Amnesty International researcher David Matsinhe, and driver, Girafe Saide Tufane, who were held for two days before being released without charge; and the repeated harassment of Canal’s executive editor Matias Guente.

Then there are the other cases, such as the enforced disappearance of Ibraimo Mbaruco, a community radio journalist and newscaster in Palma district in Cabo Delgado province.

On the same day as the arson attack, journalist Armando Nenane was arrested for not fully complying with regulations surrounding COVID-19, according to Quintal. Nenane published a story about how he managed to deposit funds in a former Defence Minister’s bank account in order to verify an exposé that Canal had published.

These arbitrary arrests are part of a pattern, says Matsinhe, the Mozambique researcher for Amnesty International. He told IPS that under the pandemic, there’s been an increase in harassment, intimidation, arbitrary arrests and detentions of journalists often under the guise of allegations that they were “violating COVID-19 regulations”.

“The police have used COVID-19 state of emergency to practice extortion on people,” he told IPS. “Some journalists have been exposing this practice and the police have taken a retaliatory approach against the journalists.”

The country’s increasingly deteriorating press freedom is also an attack on human rights, he said.

“People’s right to information depends on the journalists’ ability to do their work, which in turn depends on respect, protection, promotion and fulfilment of press freedom by the government,” Matsinhe said. But in taking that away, the government of Mozambique “relies on people’s ignorance, lack of information, to exercise its power and practice corruption unchecked.”

“Under the current economic, social and political conditions in Mozambique, access to information – which is only possible where press freedom is guaranteed – enables Mozambicans to participate in their country’s political life, to hold their government accountable, to exercise their civil and political rights,” he added.

While the lack of this right is worrisome, Quintal said the reaction by Canal’s staff members – by continuing to work and publish – shows they’re not bowing to this pressure. Staff had set up a makeshift office and published a front-page editorial vowing not to back down from their investigative journalism. “Obviously such an attack might have a chilling effect on the media and could well result in some self-censorship by journalists. However, it has been heartening to see how Canal de Moçambique and its online daily publication continued to publish,” she said.

“In terms of solidarity, the fact that a rival media group and its journalists rallied to assist and even offered their premises so that Canal journalists could produce that week’s edition of the newspaper, was also great to see,” Quintal added.

Still, a lot of work remains to be done.

“In my opinion [the government] has simply ignored the attempts to reach out and to engage,” Quintal said.

Matsinhe said the government can take some “concrete steps” to improve and ensure freedom of press in the country.

“The government must refrain from seeing the press as the state enemy and investigate the cases of injustices committed against various journalists and bring those found responsible to justice.”

Echoing similar demands, Quintal acknowledged the positive efforts by the Media Institute of South Africa-Mozambique, “to form a reference group with the government to review and consolidate the legal framework for cybersecurity and digital rights, and to ensure that it does not undermine access to information”.

The government must also conduct a review of legislation that is hostile towards press freedom, such as “overly broad” sections of the Penal Code that are often used to crack down on journalists.

The post Mozambique Reels from Repeated Attacks on Press Freedom appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Nobel Laureates and Global Leaders Call for Urgent Action to Prevent COVID-19 Child Rights Disaster

Fri, 09/04/2020 - 09:47

The Laureates and Leaders for Children, founded in 2016 by Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, state that if the world gave the most marginalised children and their families their fair share, which translates to 20 percent of the COVID-19 response for the poorest 20 percent of humanity, the results would be transformative. According to the international Labour Organisation and the United Nations Children’s Fund, one in five children in Africa are involved in child labour. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Sep 4 2020 (IPS)

Regina Njagi’s four children, aged between 11 and 17, have not benefitted from online learning since the COVID-19 led to the closure of all schools in Kenya, earlier in March. With the closure, Njagi lost her job as a teacher at a local private school.

“As a widow, these are desperate times for me. I exhausted my savings by paying school fees for my two children in high school, just three weeks before the closure. How many times can I borrow food from relatives and neighbours? Everyone I know is struggling so the children must work. Otherwise, they will starve,” Njagi tells IPS.

Nobel laureates galvanise action for world’s vulnerable children

Njagi is not alone in having to send her children to work for the families’ survival. The impact of the pandemic on children will be a focus of Nobel Peace Laureates and Leaders for Children at a Fair Share for Children Summit on Sept. 9 and 10. Several Nobel laureates and heads states and directors of United Nations agencies are listed as speakers, including Nobel laureates the Dalai Lama, Professor Muhammad Yunus, Dr. Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman, and Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, among others.

To globalise compassion and galvanise action for the world’s most vulnerable children, the Laureates and Leaders for Children founded in 2016 by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, state that if the world gave the most marginalised children and their families their fair share, which translates to 20 percent of the COVID-19 response for the poorest 20 percent of humanity, the results would be transformative.

The Nobel laureates fear that despite pledges of unprecedented sums of money to support world economies, this may not reach children.

“As a result, COVID-19 could turn the clock back a decade or more on progress made on child labour, education, and health for hundreds of millions of children,” the Laureates say in a joint statement.

Satyarthi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, has personally rescued tens of thousands of children from slavery and will be one of the speakers at the Fair Share for Children Summit.

As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on and concerns escalate that even more children have been placed in harm’s way, the Laureates and Leaders for Children is calling upon the world’s heads of government to demonstrate wise leadership and urgently care for the impoverished and the marginalised with a special focus on children.

“One trillion dollars would fund all outstanding United Nations and charity COVID-19 appeals, cancel two years of all debt repayments from low-income countries, and fund two years of the global gap to meet the SDGs on health, water and sanitation, and education,” Laureates and Leaders for Children says.

Education is a particularly vital step as quality education is the most powerful way to “end exclusion and change the future for marginalised children. There would still be enough left to fund social protection safety nets which are crucial in the fight against child labour. More than 10 million lives would be saved, a positive response by humanity to the tragedy of COVID-19,” Laureates and Leaders for Children says.

No school but work during the pandemic

But from May to July this year, all four of Njagi’s children were unable to attend school as they were employed on a daily wage to pick coffee at plantations in the Mbo-i-Kamiti area, Kiambu County, Central Kenya.

The children are currently engaged in this year’s second coffee picking season which has just begun and will last through October. Njagi says her children will then participate in the final and major coffee picking season from October through December.

Picking coffee is a difficult job, and her children must leave for the plantation, some two kilometres away from their home in Kagongo village, by six o’clock in the morning.

After harvesting the coffee, each worker, child or adult, is expected to load their harvest onto waiting trucks which transport the day’s pickings to the local coffee factory.

All workers must do everything possible to get onto the truck with their coffee or else they will walk to the factory, at least a kilometre away.

“At the factory, each person places their coffee on a weighing scale, and each worker is paid their daily wage based on the weight. I advised my children to combine their harvest because if the weight is too low, they might not get paid,” she adds.

Children across the world at risk

The World Bank estimates that globally the pandemic will push 40 to 60 million people into extreme poverty in 2020.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO), together with UNICEF, warns that a one percentage point rise in poverty leads to at least a 0.7 percent increase in child labour in certain countries.

Child rights experts, such as Nairobi-based Juliah Omondi, are increasingly concerned that Njagi’s household is far from the exception. For millions of households across Africa, child labour is now a lifeline, and vulnerable children must adapt or starve.

Omondi is a member of the G10 (groups of 10 civil society organisations) local movement that agitates for the rights of women and children. She tells IPS that in “many African countries, including Kenya, Uganda, Botswana, Eritrea and Nigeria, international labour standards on the minimum age protection are ignored in the informal sector”.

In Nigeria, for instance, the National Bureau of Statistics show that as of 2019, 50.8 percent of Nigeria’s children were working full time. Omondi adds that the situation is dire in Africa’s poorest countries, including Mali, Niger, Somalia and South Sudan.

COVID-19 likely to exacerbate the abuse and exploitation of children

Danson Mwangangi, a regional socio-economic expert and independent consultant based in Kigali, Rwanda, says that the pandemic has provoked economic severe and labour market shocks and that children are bearing the brunt.

While the number of working children has fallen by 94 million since the 2000s, the plight of Njagi’s children confirms fears by the ILO that the pandemic is likely to exacerbate the abuse and exploitation of children and roll back progress towards the eradication of child labour.

“Ongoing crisis will make it exceptionally difficult for the United Nations to realise its commitment to end child labour in the next five years. For the first time in 20 years, we are going to see a spike in the number of child labourers,” Mwangangi warns.

The impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable children clearly visible

ILO pre-pandemic statistics indicate that approximately 152 million children between the ages of five and 17, or one in 10 children, worldwide work. Of these, 73 million are in hazardous work. Nearly half of all children in labour are from the African continent and are aged between five and 11 years.

According to ILO, 85 percent of child labourers in Africa are in the agriculture sector; another 11 percent are in the services sector, with the remaining four percent in industry.

“We are beginning to see the fallout. More child marriages, more girls being employed as domestic workers and, unfortunately, domestic work for children in Africa has been normalised,” Omondi says.

Mwangangi agrees. He says that while statistics by child agencies, like the U.N. Children’s Fund, show that one in five children in Africa is in child labour, there is a general understanding that this does not include underage domestic workers such as house girls and farm boys.

Unfortunately, child labour is not the only problem facing marginalised and vulnerable children in Africa. When Save the Children released a report in July entitled “Little Invisible Slaves”, it became apparent that COVID-19 has created more children vulnerable to trafficking and revealed that the world lacks much-needed child protection infrastructure.

The report says that COVID-19 “changed the pattern of sexual exploitation, which is now operating less on the streets and more indoors or online”.

Omondi speaks of fears that millions of children are trapped in houses with their abusers and that it has becoming that much more difficult to reach them.

Save the Children estimates that of the 108,000 cases of human trafficking reported in 164 countries in 2019, at least 23 percent involved children.

Worse still, one in 20 child victims of sexual exploitation worldwide is under eight years old. Overall, Africa accounts for eight percent of child sex trafficking in the world.

According to the United States Department of State, 19 percent of world’s enslaved population is trafficked in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the same breath, nearly half of all countries in Africa including Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Lesotho, Tunisia, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi and Botswana have been flagged as notable sources, transit points and destination for people subjected to sex trafficking and forced labour.

In Kenya, for instance, one of six such victims are children, this is according to the Trafficking Data Collaborative, a data hub on human trafficking.

Meanwhile, Laureates and Leaders for Children caution that the inequalities the world’s children face, combined with the “impact of COVID-19 will reverberate for years to come”. But, they say, “none will feel it as painfully as the world’s most marginalised children”.

The post Nobel Laureates and Global Leaders Call for Urgent Action to Prevent COVID-19 Child Rights Disaster appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Not Guilty Verdict in Kuciak Killing – a Chilling Message for Journalists

Fri, 09/04/2020 - 08:49

Experts say that the not guilty verdict in the trial of the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak sends a chilling message to Slovak journalists that they cannot be protected or work in safety. In this dated photo, a protester in the Slovak capital, Bratislava holds up a picture of murdered journalist Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Sep 4 2020 (IPS)

A Slovak businessman with alleged links to organised crime has been found not guilty of ordering the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak in a ruling that has left press freedom campaigners and politicians shocked.

Marian Kocner had been accused of ordering the killing of Kuciak, an investigative reporter with the Slovak news website Aktuality.sk.

Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kusnirova, both 27, were shot dead at Kuciak’s home in Velka Maca, 40 miles east of the capital Bratislava in February 2018. Self-confessed hired killer Miroslav Marcek, 37, had earlier this year pleaded guilty to murdering the couple and was sentenced to 23 years in jail.

But a court in Pezinok, north of the capital, ruled yesterday, Sept. 3, that there was not enough evidence to prove Kocner had ordered the murder. A woman also on trial for helping Kocner facilitate the murder, Alena Zsuszova, was acquitted, but a third person, Tomas Szabo, was found guilty of taking part in the killings.

“We are surprised and disappointed that after a long investigation and legal process that it has ended in this verdict. This is a sad day for press freedom in Slovakia and internationally,” Tom Gibson, EU Representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), told IPS.

“This has sent out a potentially very chilling signal to other journalists that they cannot be protected and cannot do their work safely,” he told IPS.

The murders of Kuciak and Kusnirova shocked Slovakia and led to the largest mass protests in the country since the fall of communism.

Prime Minister Robert Fico and Interior Minister Robert Kalinak were forced to resign, and the head of the police service later stepped down.

Police said that the murders were related to Kuciak’s work as an investigative journalist – Kuciak’s last story had exposed alleged links between Italian mafia and Fico’s Smer party – and the subsequent investigation uncovered alleged links between politicians, prosecutors, judges, and police officers and the people allegedly involved in the killings.

At the heart of these was Kocner, a controversial figure frequently linked to alleged serious criminals and who in a separate case was earlier this year sentenced to 19 years in jail for forging promissory notes.

Prosecutors argued in court that Kocner had ordered the killing in revenge for articles he had written about the multimillionaire’s business dealings.

Although not accused of pulling the trigger himself, for many Kocner was the central figure in the trial and a symbol of deep-rooted corruption at the highest levels of state.

And ahead of the verdict, journalists had said the outcome of the trial would be a watershed in Slovak history, in terms of both restoring public trust in a judiciary which the Kuciak murder investigation has shown to apparently be riddled with corruption, and in showing that same judiciary can clearly punish crimes designed to silence journalists.

But soon after the ruling, many local journalists said they had been left shocked and disappointed, while others said they were angry and could not understand how the court had reached its verdict.

But many said they simply felt the justice system had failed the victims and their families, as the people who ordered the murder had still not been brought to justice.

Christophe Deloire, Secretary General of press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), describe the acquittals as “a huge failure of the investigation bodies and the judiciary”.

“We expected Slovakia to set a positive example regarding the prosecution and condemnation of crimes against journalists. Instead, we remain in a situation of impunity. Who ordered the killing of Jan Kuciak? Why was he killed? We should have a clear answer,” he said.

Regardless of what judicial failures may or may not have led to the decision, it is expected to have serious repercussions in Slovakia and other countries with some arguing it is a serious setback in battling impunity and ensuring justice.

Pavol Szalai, Head of European Union and Balkans Desk at Reporters Without Borders, told IPS: “This [verdict] is the biggest setback for freedom of the press in Europe since the murder itself. During this investigation and the court process Slovakia had been seen as an island of hope in Europe and today a strong signal of hope could have been sent out to other countries.

“But now, with the Slovak justice system unable to identify and bring to justice the person, or persons who ordered these murders despite massive public and political pressure to do so, how can other countries, like Serbia for example, be expected to do so?”

CPJ’s Gibson added: “This case was closely followed internationally and for European institutions especially this was an important case in terms of strengthening press freedom in Europe.

“One of the important things about Jan Kuciak’s murder was that he was a journalist working on investigative stories involving sensitive information and there are journalists in lots of other countries doing similar kind of work. This case was kind of symbol in terms of [highlighting] the need to protect journalists in other countries doing similar work.”

Prosecutors have appealed the court’s verdict and it will now go to the Supreme Court, which will either confirm the verdict or could send the case back to court to be heard again.

However, it is expected it will be months before the Supreme Court delivers any ruling and if the case is sent back to court, it could be years before another verdict is reached, which could again be appealed.

Some observers fear this could lead to a complete erosion of trust in the Slovak judiciary which has already been severely weakened by the court’s ruling.

Zuzana Petkova, a former journalist who worked on stories with Kuciak, told IPS: “This is not the end of the case, but if the people who ordered the murders are not put behind bars, Slovakia will drag this case around like a trauma, and there will be no trust left in the Slovak justice system. Already after today’s verdict there is far less trust in the system.”

Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International Slovakia, wrote in a Facebook post: “It must be a top priority for the Supreme Court and law enforcement bodies to prevent this case becoming the last nail in the coffin of the trust of the public in the judiciary and justice in Slovakia.”

Slovak politicians, many of whom openly admitted they had been shocked by the court’s ruling, urged people to believe that those behind the killings would eventually be brought to justice.

But some who have followed the trial are taking a more pessimistic view.

Drew Sullivan, Editor at the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, told IPS he had little hope that the people who ordered the killings would ever be convicted.

He told IPS: “The ruling was a huge disappointment although not completely unexpected. Experienced crime figures know how to isolate themselves from their crimes and there was no direct forensic evidence of [Kocner’s] involvement.

“However, there was testimony and clear circumstantial evidence of his involvement. If he had been a regular person, he’d have been found guilty based on witness testimony, but courts don’t accept the testimony of commoners against the ruling class. He is rich, powerful and murderous, and will cause problems for some time now in Slovakia.”

The post Not Guilty Verdict in Kuciak Killing – a Chilling Message for Journalists appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

The First “Virtual” Post-Pandemic UN General Assembly Meeting

Fri, 09/04/2020 - 07:54

Tijjani Muhammad-Bande. Adhering to physical-distancing guidelines, the General Assembly met fully in-person on 3 September, for the first time in nearly six months, with its president urging all Members to “galvanize multilateral action…to deliver for all”, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. Credit: United Nations

By Tijjani Muhammad-Bande
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 4 2020 (IPS)

Although we have not convened in this Hall since March, New York-based delegations have worked tirelessly to uphold the values and principles set out in the Charter of the United Nations, whilst contending with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The UN’s chief deliberative body continued the Organization’s work, all the while forging and deepening partnerships to build back better.

I commend the body for its foresight in adopting and extending Decision 74/544, which has allowed the Membership to adopt more than 70 decisions and resolutions and elect Main Committees chairs for the upcoming milestone 75th Assembly session.

This has ensured business continuity on issues of critical importance.

We employed virtual methods to gather stakeholders from around the world on Charter Day, and once again at the multi-stakeholder hearing on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women.

I thank the Secretariat for its continued commitment.

I applaud the work of the intergovernmental negotiations on the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the United Nations.

The Member States demonstrated leadership in responding to the global pandemic by adopting two resolutions with wide co-sponsorship calling for solidarity and global access to medicines and medical equipment.

The first in-person meeting since March is held in the General Assembly following the outbreak of the coronavirus. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

I congratulate the Fifth Committee Chair – responsible for administrative and budgetary matters – for adopting creative methods that allowed the resumed session to conclude with 21 draft recommendations, and a peacekeeping budget of $6.5 billion for the 2020-2021 fiscal year.

Your work has ensured that the United Nations can continue to operate on the ground and meet the needs of the people we serve.

I also applaud the World Health Organization (WHO) for leading the COVID-19 response from the outset.

The entire UN system has rallied to address the needs of the people we serve, and particularly our humanitarian workers in the field and our Peacekeepers, who continue to protect communities in the most complex environments globally.

We maintain the importance of these efforts as we begin the Decade of Action and Delivery to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), or as it is likely to become, the decade of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

I urge you to galvanize multilateral action now to fulfill our financing for development commitments. We remain in this together, as nations, united. Let us continue striving together to deliver for all.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

The post The First “Virtual” Post-Pandemic UN General Assembly Meeting appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Tijjani Muhammad-Bande is President of the outgoing 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly

The post The First “Virtual” Post-Pandemic UN General Assembly Meeting appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

COVID-19: Without Help, Low-Income Developing Countries Risk a Lost Decade

Thu, 09/03/2020 - 12:49

South Sudanese refugees practice social distancing as they wait to access a food distribution at Kakuma camp. © UNHCR/Samuel Odhiambo

By Daniel Gurara, Stefania Fabrizio, Daniel Gurara, and Johannes Wiegand
WASHINGTON, Sep 3 2020 (IPS)

While the COVID-19 crisis is sending shockwaves around the globe, low-income developing countries (LIDCs) are in a particularly difficult position to respond. LIDCs have both been hit hard by external shocks and are suffering severe domestic contractions from the spread of the virus and the lockdown measures to contain it. At the same time, limited resources and weak institutions constrain the capacity of many LIDC governments to support their economies.

Growth in LIDCs is likely to come to a standstill this year, compared to growth of 5 percent in 2019. Further, absent a sustained international effort to support them, permanent scars are likely to harm development prospects, exacerbate inequality, and threaten to wipe out a decade of progress reducing poverty.

Multiple shocks take a heavy toll

LIDCs entered the COVID-19 crisis in an already vulnerable position—for example, half of them suffered high public debt levels. Since March, LIDCs have been hit by an exceptional confluence of external shocks: a sharp contraction in real exports, lower export prices, especially for oil, less capital and remittances inflows, and reduced tourism receipts.

Take remittances, for example, that exceeded 5 percent of GDP in 30 (out of 59) LIDCs in 2019. Between April and May, they fell by 18 percent in Bangladesh, and by 39 percent in the Kyrgyz Republic, compared to the previous year. The repercussions are likely to be felt widely where remittances are the main source of income for many poor families.

As for the domestic impact, while the pandemic has evolved more slowly in LIDCs than in other parts of the world, it is now inflicting a sizeable toll on economic activity. Many LIDCs acted swiftly to contain the spread. From mid-March, when reported infections were still low, they put in place containment measures including international travel controls, school closures, the cancelation of public events and gathering restrictions.

Mobility—a proxy for domestic economic activity—also declined sharply, and continued to retreat as measures were broadened to include workplace closures, stay-at-home orders, and internal movement restrictions. From late April/early May, containment measures have gradually loosened and mobility has recovered, but has yet to return to pre-crisis levels.

Managing difficult trade-offs with scarce resources

Most LIDCs cannot sustain strict containment measures for long as large segments of the population live at near subsistence levels. Large informal sectors, weak institutional capacity, and incomplete registries of the poor make it difficult to reach the needy. Further, governments have only limited fiscal resources to support them.

Recent surveys conducted across 20 African countries reveal that more than 70 percent of respondents risk running out of food during a lockdown that lasts more than two weeks.

Faced with such constraints, the short but sharp front-loading of containment fulfilled a critical purpose: it flattened the infection curve, while granting time to build up capacity in the health sector.

Many LIDCs have followed this path: while they expended less fiscal support to their economies than advanced or emerging market economies, the share of additional spending dedicated to health has been higher.

As broad-based containment becomes difficult to sustain, LIDCs should transition to more targeted measures, including social distancing and contact tracing—Vietnam and Cambodia are good examples. Policy support should focus on supporting the most vulnerable, including the elderly, and on limiting the health crisis’s long-term fallout.

For example, protecting education is critical to ensure that the pandemic does not—as highlighted in a recent Letter to the International Community by a group of eminent persons—“create a COVID generation who loses out on schooling and whose opportunities are permanently damaged.”

Where the necessary infrastructure exists, technology can sometimes be leveraged in innovative ways. For example, to limit the spread of the virus, Rwanda is leveraging its digital finance infrastructure to discourage the use of cash. Togo employs the voter registration database to channel assistance to vulnerable groups.

A decade of progress under threat

Despite the best efforts of LIDC governments, lasting damage seems unavoidable in the absence of more international support. Long-term “scarring”—the permanent loss of productive capacity—is a particularly worrisome prospect.

Scarring has been the legacy of past pandemics: mortality; worse health and education outcomes that depress future earnings; the depletion of savings and assets that force firm closures—especially of small enterprises that lack access to credit—and cause irrecoverable production disruptions; and debt overhangs that depress lending to the private sector. For example, in the aftermath of the 2013 Ebola pandemic, Sierra Leone’s economy never recovered to its pre-crisis growth path.

Scarring would trigger severe setbacks to LIDCs’ development efforts, including undoing the gains in reducing poverty over the last 7 to 10 years, and exacerbating inequality, including gender inequality. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will thus be even more difficult to achieve.

LIDCs cannot make it alone

The support of the international community is key to enable LIDCs to tackle the pandemic and recover strongly. Priorities include: (1) guaranteeing essential health supplies, including cures and vaccines when they are discovered; (2) protecting critical supply chains, especially for food and medicines; (3) avoiding protectionist measures; (4) ensuring that developing economies can finance critical spending through grants and concessional financing; (5) ensuring that LIDCs’ international liquidity needs are met, which requires International Financial Institutions to be resourced adequately; (6) reprofiling and restructuring debt to restore sustainability where needed, which, in many cases, may require relief beyond the G20/Debt Service Suspension Initiative; and (7) keeping sight of the United Nations’ SDGs, including by reassessing needs when the crisis subsides.

The COVID-19 pandemic will be defeated only when it and its socioeconomic consequences are overcome everywhere. Urgent action by the international community can save lives and livelihoods in LIDCs. The International Monetary Fund is doing its share: among other things, the IMF has provided emergency financing to 42 LIDCs since April. It stands ready to provide more support and help design longer-term economic programs for a sustainable recovery.

Daniel Gurara is an Economist at the Strategy, Policy, and Review Department of the IMF.

Stefania Fabrizio is Deputy Unit Chief in the IMF’s Strategy, Policy, and Review Department.

Johannes Wiegand is Chief of the Development Issues Unit in the IMF’s Strategy, Policy and Review Department.

This story was originally posted on IMFBlog – Read the original here

The post COVID-19: Without Help, Low-Income Developing Countries Risk a Lost Decade appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Qatar Accuses UAE of Racial Discrimination in UN’s Highest Court

Thu, 09/03/2020 - 12:04

Qatar filed a case with the International Court of Justice under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination against the United Arab Emirates. The hearings were held by video link. Courtesy: International Court of Justice

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 3 2020 (IPS)

Qatar officials reiterated their claim on Wednesday that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) be held responsible for their “discrimination” against Qatari citizens, as the third day of public hearings proceeded at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nation’s highest court. But foreign policy experts caution that the case is not good for stability in the Persian Gulf region.

The case, filed under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), deals with, among other things, the expulsion of Qatari citizens from the UAE because of their nationality.

“In 2017, the UAE began ‘unprecedented discriminatory measures’ that target Qatar based on their national origin,” Mohammed Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi, legal advisor to Qatar’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Dean of the College of Law at Qatar University, said at the hearing.

Qatar claims the discrimination began following a 2017 boycott by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt. The countries had reportedly cut diplomatic ties with Qatar because of its alleged support of terrorist groups.

“The UAE has engaged in the violations of the human rights of Qatari people,” Al-Khulaifi added later.

Michael Stephens, a scholar with the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), told IPS: “Whilst it was understandable Qatar and the UAE had some very big differences over regional politics, the way in which this has been handled has been highly damaging and has really not produced any of the sort of results that the UAE initially hoped for.”

He said that the dispute might be posing a challenge in the Persian Gulf region overall.

“It’s not good because they’re playing out their rivalries in weaker countries, like Libya and Somalia, and polarising politics in those areas,” he said. “I don’t think this is good for the stability of the Gulf.”

He added that this might further undermine the negotiations over the nuclear deal, and “has emboldened actors to play the Gulf states against one another, who are smart and “can take money from both sides”.

In 2015, Iran signed a nuclear deal with world powers to limit operations on its nuclear industry, among other things. It was reported that since January Iran has begun reducing its commitments to the deal.

“In general, it has made the Gulf look divided and weak,” Stephens said.

Lubna Qassim Mohammed Yousuf Bastaki, one of the speakers for the UAE, said Qatar’s case, “masquerading” as discrimination, “concerns UAE measures that were addressed to Qatari nationals on the sole basis of their nationality, as nationality was both the focus and the effect of the UAE measures”.

At the start of proceedings this week the UAE argued that the ICJ had no jurisdiction in the matter as the dispute was based on nationality and not race and thereby did not relate to the CERD.

Bastaki argued that Qatar was invited “based on our commonalities as one people” to join the new union of the Arab emirates. “The fact that we have a common origin which traversed the new national boundaries was understood,” she said.

She also said under the UAE law, Qataris are among the few who have the ability to become UAE nationals easily.

“This well illustrates the artificiality of the supposed racial distinctions which Qatar is now seeking to conjure up,” she said.

Bastaki is not the only person to express her concern about the specific allegations of discrimination based on nationality.

“The Qataris have a much stronger argument, I think in that they sense that their nationals have been mistreated, but they’ve also made this slightly odd claim that this is about racism, when they are basically from the same background,” Stephens of FPRI told IPS. “Certainly the ruling families come from the same background.”

“So, claiming ‘racism’ is a difficult one that would only be possible if you had a Qatari from an Iranian origin, or a different background,” he added.

Stephens said that the UAE has certainly at times acted discriminatingly towards those who showed support for Qatar, citing the arrest of a British fan who was supporting Qatar during a football match. Last January, Ali Issa Ahmad was held by UAE police for two weeks after he supported Qatar in a football tournament held in the UAE.

“But the Qatari football team was allowed to play in the tournament and actually won,” Stephens said. “So it’s not a complete shutdown.”

Stephens said he can’t gauge the outcome of the rulings; he said Qatar’s position appears to be “strengthening” with more international arbitrators getting involved.

Stephens said the UAE’s claims that they were acting against people who supported terrorism, is a “very, very difficult claim to make: how would they prove that? How would they show just a normal Qatari walking around in Dubai or Abu Dhabi was supporting terrorism, by virtue of the fact that they’re Qatari?”

The hearings will continue till Friday.

The post Qatar Accuses UAE of Racial Discrimination in UN’s Highest Court appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

“Hidden” Costs of Our Food Systems

Thu, 09/03/2020 - 09:44

SOFI launch event. Credit: FAO

By Zoltán Kálmán
ROME, Sep 3 2020 (IPS)

Five years after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda we are far from achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to the recently launched SOFI Report (The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020), we are not on track to eradicate poverty, hunger and malnutrition. On the contrary, with the current trends, the global number of undernourished people in 2030 would exceed 840 million. Moreover, WHO has reported alarming rates of overweight and obesity, globally affecting 39% and 13% of the adult population, respectively.

What are the reasons?

The SOFI Report identifies conflicts and climate-related shocks as main causes, adding that even in peaceful settings, food security has worsened, due to increased inequalities and economic slowdowns affecting access to food for the poor. Unhealthy diets contribute to increasing rates of overweight and obesity, creating serious social, health problems, triggering heavy burden on public health expenditures. Our broken food systems have negative impacts on the environment as well, leading to biodiversity loss, soil degradation, increased GHG emissions, etc. Food losses and waste, as preventable consequences of unsustainable food systems, are also contributing to food insecurity. This year’s SOFI Report makes a clear reference to some of the externalities, the so-called “hidden” costs of our food systems. It quantifies the increased medical costs: Diet-related “health costs are projected to reach an average of USD 1.3 trillion in 2030” and the costs of climate damage: “The diet-related social cost of GHG emissions related to current food consumption patterns are estimated to be around USD 1.7 trillion for 2030 for an emissions-stabilization scenario”. In addition, the costs of inaction on biodiversity loss, described by a recent OECD report, should also be taken into consideration: “The world lost an estimated USD 4-20 trillion per year in ecosystem services from 1997 to 2011, owing to land-cover change and an estimated USD 6-11 trillion per year from land degradation.”

The shocking figures confirm the urgent need for an overall assessment of all positive and negative externalities of our food systems. Results of this assessment, based on neutral science, could be a solid foundation for policy decisions to elaborate and apply appropriate policy incentives aiming at more sustainable food systems. Scientists agree that transforming our food systems is among the most powerful ways to change course and realize the vision of the 2030 Agenda. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that in 2021, UN Secretary-General António Guterres will convene a Food Systems Summit as part of the Decade of Action to achieve the SDGs by 2030. As UNSG said: “Transforming food systems is crucial for delivering all the Sustainable Development Goals.”

According to the concept of the Summit “we are all part of the food systems, so we need to come together to bring about the transformation that the world needs”. Transformation of our food systems should be a bottom-up, inclusive process, where all stakeholder groups are involved: FAO and other UN organizations, governments, local communities, private sector, civil society, academia, famers’ associations. In this regard, the unique, inclusive and multistakeholder model of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) could apply. The reports of the High Level Panel of Experts are valuable, relevant instruments and the CFS policy recommendations and other CFS “products” (adopted by consensus) can also provide proper guidance for governments and all other stakeholders in their policy decisions.

To enhance the role of private sector in the process of transforming our food systems, it is much appreciated that the new management of FAO decided to prepare a revised strategy for the private sector engagement, following the recommendations of FAO governing bodies.

From FAO Members’ perspective, the basic values such as transparency, accountability, inclusivity, neutrality and independence and regular impact assessments could be guiding principles of the new FAO private sector engagement strategy. For the sake of transparency and accountability, it would be desirable to make available some basic information on existing private sector partnerships (main objectives, the financial and non-financial contributions, etc.). Naturally, it requires the (hopefully granted) consent of the private sector partners. What does it mean if they do not agree? It might mean there is something to hide and this lack of transparency would be a matter of serious concern.

FAO has an important role and responsibility to ensure, as honest broker, that private sector partnerships follow the principle of inclusivity, address the real needs of people and contribute to eliminating poverty and hunger. FAO should guarantee the participatory and needs-based approach and make sure that all private sector investment projects and initiatives are developed in consultation and close collaboration with national governments, local communities, civil society organisations and farmers’ associations. This would increase ownership of the rural communities. In addition, FAO could help countries with policy advice to create the enabling economic policy environment where private sector finds its profit interests while the investments are serving the needs of the local communities, contributing to their development.

Neutrality and independence of FAO has been a great value and it should be preserved, in particular when private sector engagement is extended to fields like policy dialogue, norms and standard setting. In this regard, appropriate process for selecting partners should be in place to reduce and manage any potential risks (conflicts of interests, reputational risks, interference in standard setting, etc.).

In addition, compliance with CFS policy recommendations and other CFS “products”, such as the RAI principles and the Voluntary Guidelines on Land Tenure (VGGT), could be a prerequisite for private sector partners wishing to engage in partnership with FAO. Why? Because CFS “products” are relevant instruments, they can guide governments and all other stakeholders in their policy decisions. CFS “products” are adopted by consensus, after inclusive, multistakeholder discussions, including by the Private Sector Mechanism at CFS. Compliance with the CFS VGGT is a rather serious issue, statistical figures clearly show that in many parts of the world land grabbing situation has been worsening also in the past decade.

In order to improve efficiency and effectiveness of private sector partnerships, it is essential to regularly assess their impacts, possibly involving external, independent experts. Appropriate benchmarks should be in place to understand the extent to which the private sector partnerships contribute to the achievement of SDGs, in particular SDG 1 and 2, eliminating poverty and achieve zero hunger. Based on these assessments, private sector partnerships performing well should be scaled up, and those with poor results should be improved or terminated.

All in all, private sector has an essential role to play (engaged with due respect to the above principles) to achieve the common goals. As Agnes Kalibata, UN Special Envoy for the 2021 Food Systems Summit has put it: “We believe in a world where healthy, sustainable and inclusive food systems allow people and planet to thrive. It is a world without poverty or hunger, a world of inclusive growth, environmental sustainability, and social justice. It is a resilient world where no one is left behind.”

The post “Hidden” Costs of Our Food Systems appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Zoltán Kálmán, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Hungary to the UN Food and Agriculture Agencies in Rome, Member of the Advisory Committee of the UN Food Systems Summit

The post “Hidden” Costs of Our Food Systems appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Music Collective ‘Megative’ Dubs Out the Negative

Wed, 09/02/2020 - 21:18

The members of Megative, with Gus van Go (far left). Credit: Daviston Jeffers

By SWAN
PARIS, Sep 2 2020 (IPS)

Even as their income dries up and their touring opportunities disappear because of the Covid-19 pandemic, some artists are using their work to call out injustice, criticize inept leaders and spark social change.

The members of Megative – a Brooklyn-based, reggae-dub-punk collective – are among those aiming to fight negative global currents, and they’re doing so through edgy, scorching music.

“I think activism is the most important thing we have right now in 2020. It’s do or die right now for humanity. The injustice absolutely must end, and it will not end with silence,” says music producer Gus van Go, leader and co-founder of the group.

In a year of uncertainty and division, Megative stands out for its multicultural composition as well as its fusion of styles and thought-provoking lyrics. This past July, watching the incompetence of certain heads of state in the face of the pandemic, the group released the song The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum, a cover of the Fun Boy Three hit from the early Eighties, combining dub and punk music.

The original was a critique of the Ronald Reagan-Margaret Thatcher era, and Megative thinks the track is just as pertinent in 2020, with the current presence of problematic leaders on both sides of the Atlantic.

“We still believe the message is important, and it’s almost more relevant now,” van Go told SWAN in a telephone interview from Montréal, Canada, where he grew up, and where he has a studio along with one in Brooklyn.

The group was due to take their songs on the road – scheduled to perform at “five or six festivals” in France, for instance – but the pandemic has caused all these events to be cancelled. The musicians now find themselves, like so many other artists, struggling to maintain an income and to keep their overall work going.

“I think Covid-19 is exposing something that I’ve always thought about in the music industry,” said van Go. “So much inequality. We’ve always had this one percent of artists who have been insanely rich … and the rest of us are working our asses off, in order to eke out a living.”

“The universe took away the one single piece of the pie that the artist still had. All of a sudden, nearly every single musician cannot make a cent. One day, the universe just said ‘no you cant have that’. There is no income for all these artists. You see how dangerous it is to have just one source of income? Do we not need music in this world?

He explained that with the massive decline in album sales over the past decade, musicians had turned to touring in order to “just barely make a living – travelling together in a shitty old van”. But now even that has dried up with the global health crisis.

“Covid has shone this giant light on it,” he added. “The universe took away the one single piece of the pie that the artist still had. All of a sudden, nearly every single musician cannot make a cent. One day, the universe just said ‘no you cant have that’. There is no income for all these artists. You see how dangerous it is to have just one source of income? Do we not need music in this world? What if Covid continues for two or three years, what if this goes on for multiple years?”

He said it’s time for artists to band together and demand change – in their industries, communities and countries. “Megative supports activism,” he declared.

Discussing the origins of the group, van Go said the idea for the collective grew out of an overnight drive from New Mexico to California that he took with fellow musician Tim Fletcher 10 years ago. There were only two CDS available in the car – Combat Rock by The Clash, and More Specials by the 2 Tone and ska revival band The Specials, both English. The sounds got van Go thinking about the “conscious lyrics” and the history of the musical styles and their influences.

“We have a love for Jamaican reggae and dub culture of the early Eighties with bands like Steel Pulse and The Clash. But reggae in North America, where we are from, is associated with vacation spots, coconut trees and irie vibes. We were lamenting the darker reggae of the early Eighties. Our Clash discussion morphed into how a reggae band would look in 2018,” he said.

Back in New York, they invited a producing-engineering duo called Likeminds and Jamaican MC Screechy Dan to join the conversation. The enthusiasm for the project was so strong that they recorded three songs which almost immediately led to a signing with Last Gang Records and the subsequent release of their debut album in summer 2018.

The collective now brings together disparate artists including the Grammy-nominated Likeminds (Chris Soper and Jesse Singer); Jamaican-born singer, MC and dancehall veteran Screechy Dan; singer-guitarist and punk rocker Alex Crow; percussionist-DJ-singer JonnyGo Figure; and the rising Brooklyn drummer Demetrius “Mech” Pass.

All the members have their own individual projects but contribute their respective skills to create the Megative sound – a fusion of UK-style punk, Jamaican dub and reggae, and American hip-hop. The music is a response to today’s world, to everything that’s happening including the “hyper-noise of incessant information”, according to the collective.

The overarching theme is existentialist angst amidst precarious conditions. Tracks such as Have Mercy, Bad Advice and More Time call upon listeners to take control and rely on their own sense of what’s right, with lyrics set against dub beats and a punk vibe, and skilful singing mixed with mindful rapping.

For van Go, born Gustavo Coriandoli in Argentina and raised in Canada, the historical alliance between punk and reggae was central to Megative’s formation. He recalls growing up in Montréal in the late 1980s and early 90s, when the “punk rock movement was taking hold” among the youth.

“The shows had trouble finding venues, so they always tried to rent space … and sometimes that would be at Jamaican community centres. All these punks would be at these shows, but also the Rastafarian community. So, dub music was playing. I was 16, had never heard dub, had never been been to a punk show, so it fused in my brain,” he told SWAN.

Similar congregations or collaborations in the UK had led singer Bob Marley to release Punky Reggae Party in 1977, a reflection of the bridging of cultural divides; and punk-dub pioneer Don Letts wrote about the movement in his 2006 autobiography Culture Clash: Dread Meets Punk Rockers.

“It’s all about social message – in punk and reggae, so they’re natural allies or they should be,” said van Go. “There’s a positivity but also a dark side. I love the energy that this creates, in punk and reggae and in early hiphop.”

When asked about Megative’s views on the current discussion around cultural appropriation in the arts, van Go answered: “This is an ongoing discussion with us, and we really encourage dialogue on the subject.” He added that the group takes a multicultural approach to creating music, as can be seen from their output so far.

Regarding the future of the collective, van Go said Megative planned to continue producing music with a cause, and to get back to touring when possible. They are currently “writing new material” but aren’t certain in which format(s) it will be released.

“Like nothing else can, I think music can definitely help heal,” van Go told SWAN. “We have to topple these terrible people who are in power right now. We have to find concrete ways to end systemic racism. Music has to play a part as it did in the Sixties. It needs to.”

The post Music Collective ‘Megative’ Dubs Out the Negative appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Navigating Safely Through The Pandemic

Wed, 09/02/2020 - 13:55

By Stephen Leahy
Sep 2 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Having reported on SARS, Ebola, Bird Flu (H5N1) outbreaks, as well as writing about efforts to combat HIV, I was horrified by what was going on in Wuhan, China last Jan mainly because of how fast this new SARS-CoV-2 virus spread. By early Feb it seemed likely there’d be a global pandemic and by the end of Feb I started to freak out as the pandemic took hold. I’ve never been to Wuhan or China nor seen anyone who had; and I hadn’t travelled any where recently. It was nearly impossible for me to have encountered the virus but that didn’t keep me from getting sick with fear and dread knowing that a goddamn microscopic parasite was going to turn our lives upside down when we already had multiple crisis of on our plate. (You know, climate, ecological collapse, rise of populism and authoritarianism.) I refused to write about the virus or the disease it causes — COVID-19 — until I had to face the little bastard personally.

Hockey arena as COVID-19 testing centre

“Moved up two places!!” I texted my partner one glorious summer morning while standing in a long line outside a COVID Assessment Centre. A few days before I’d been to a couple of outdoor patios with friends and woke up that morning with a sore throat and feeling very fatigued, two potential COVID-19 symptoms. I live part of the time with health-compromised relatives over 80 and a pregnant daughter.

So, as you do in a time of pandemic, I went to get a free COVID-19 test.

It didn’t occur to me that spending a couple of hours inside a converted but still chilly ice-hockey arena with 200 odd people who maybe infected might be a lot riskier than having a beer with a friend on outdoor patio. I wasn’t the only one thinking this given the way our bodies were repelling each other like the equal poles of magnets. It was nerve-wracking, while being super boring. Three hours after lining up outside the arena, I reached the once-feared-but-now-welcome climax: a small screened off area where a no-nonsense nurse jammed a cotton-ball lollypop up my left nostril to tickle my brain.

Three observations:

• Observation #1 Health care workers

• Observation #2 Little kids

• Observation #3 On being a pariah

Luckily it only took 27 hours to get the negative result and my sore throat had cleared up by then. My 27 hours as a pariah are nothing compared to those hundreds of thousands (millions now?) who have done the 14-day quarantine. Although my experience was relatively trivial, I’m pretty sure not many would say that their 14 days of self-isolation was the best vacation ever or great opportunity to get work done.

And for many the disease itself, COVID-19, is no picnic.

I’m now pretty motivated to find how to avoid having to go to a testing centre again while living some kind of life. I’m not a virus expert, or expert in anything really, except maybe explaining stuff. So this is my take on how to minimize the risks of catching the virus.

The chart below from the Texas Medical Association shows how doctors there ranked the relative risk of various activities. Relative is the key word here. Few things are risk-free and we largely ignore or unaware of the risks we take in our daily lives. Driving a car is probably the most dangerous thing we do on a regular basis. But since it’s familiar, and believe we’re in control of the risk we tend to discount or ignore the danger. However the odds of being in a fatal car accident are 1 in 106 in your lifetime. And the odds of that happening this year are 1 in 8,300. I’d be a lot happier if it was one in a million.

How to eliminate risk of COVID infection besides moving to New Zealand?

It’s simple enough to eliminate the risk of a fatal car accident: don’t ever get in a car. But what can we do to virtually eliminate/dramatically reduce our risk of contracting COVID-19? A move to New Zealand would do it since there’d been no community transmission for more than 100 days until recently. At end of August there were just over 100 active cases in a country of nearly 5 million people. Meanwhile the US reported between 50,000 to 60,000 new cases every day in July and August according to The COVID Tracking Project. New Zealand’s borders are effectively closed to non-residents so that’s probably not a viable COVID-risk reduction strategy for the rest of us.

The plain truth is that living in a place where a lot of people are already infected with this highly transmissible virus increases your risk of infection. Just as someone who drives 10 hours a day faces a higher risk of a traffic accident than a person driving five hours a week. And so the current number of active cases in your area is a major indicator of the level of risk.

In Ontario, Canada where I live, there were just over 1000 active infections at the end of August. These are people who have tested positive and able to infect others. However there are also untested, infected people with no symptoms or very minor symptoms who are also able to infect others. But how many?

Biostatistician Ryan Imgrund, who does the COVID-19 tracking for Ontario, has a sophisticated way to estimate how many people may be capable of passing on the infection currently in addition to the known active cases. It roughly works out to between 4 and 5 times the active case load in Ontario, so around 5,000 people with transmissible infections. Given population of Ontario, this works out to one transmissible infection floating around for every 2963 people at the end of August.

Given that the odds of a fatal car accident is 1 in 106 in your lifetime, one potentially infectious person in 2963 looks almost as good as New Zealand. But to be a 1 in 2963 chance, everyone would need to stay at home until a vaccine is delivered to their door.

What’s your dinner party risk?

Since that’s not going to happen Imgrund used this data to calculate the chances of encountering an infected person in various social situations. As the chart below shows if you attend a diner party in Ontario with ten people the chances of one person at the party with a transmissible COVID-19 infection is just 0.3 percent.

At a wedding with 250 in attendance the chances shoot up to 8.1 percent. That’s almost a one in ten chance someone there could transmit the virus. Attending a concert or sporting event with thousands of people and you’re pretty well guaranteed at least one person could transmit the virus.

Now even if there is an infected person at a party, or a couple of them in a busy bar, that doesn’t mean you’ll get infected. There’s a number of factors that can increase or decrease your risk — air circulation, humidity levels, distance, the viral load of the infected person and more.

Unfortunately Imgrund’s Risk Assessment Chart and method of estimating total transmissible infections only applies in Ontario. States count active cases differently than Ontario does. And these can be different from state to state. This summer Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Director Robert Redfield estimated the actual number of U.S. residents who have been infected with the coronavirus is likely to be 10 times as high as the number of confirmed cases.

Navigating safely through the pandemic

Despite the risks, we’re generally very comfortable behind the wheel of a vehicle. After all driving is much safer after 100 years of mass automobile use. A wide range of efforts have gone into making driving less risky: seatbelts, air bags, well-designed roads, signage, signal lights. There are dozens of laws and rules we have to follow. And we’ve invested a lot of time learning the rules in the Driver’s Manual, developing the skills needed to safely navigate a vehicle and passing drivers’ tests.

All of this — knowing and following the rules, developing the skills, having years of driving experience — greatly lowers our risk. Insurance companies have the data to prove this which is why the insurance cost for new drivers is so high.

By contrast we’re just six months into the pandemic. There are now some rules in some places, like wearing masks inside public spaces. Unfortunately it’s far too soon to have anything like a Safe Pandemic Manual to study or a set of safety rules to follow. We’re all trying to figure out the best ways to stay safe. One thing we need to know is that like driving, pandemic risk is situational. In other words the risk of catching the disease, as well as the consequences, depends on the circumstances you happen to be in.

A COVID-19 mantra: Time and Place, People and Space

Ryan Imgrund has an easy to remember catch phrase or “need-to-know mantra” that can help us evaluate the risks of various situations to help reduce the risk of catching the virus: Time And Place, People And Space.

Let me break it down:

• Time:

• Place:

• People:

• Space:

Website: https://leahy.substack.com

The post Navigating Safely Through The Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

My personal pandemic panic

The post Navigating Safely Through The Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Trinidad and Tobago – Protecting the iconic Three Sisters

Wed, 09/02/2020 - 12:38

Eric Lewis, hereditary prince of the First Peoples of Moruga, at La Retraite Beach in in Trinidad and Tobago, to the east of which lie Trinity Hills. Courtesy: Eric Lewis

By Jewel Fraser
PORT OF SPAIN, Sep 2 2020 (IPS)

Trinity Hills in Trinidad and Tobago’s southeast region, also affectionately known as the Three Sisters, is home to a wildlife sanctuary that serves as a sort of incubator for fauna to reproduce and replenish the surrounding forest reserves of the Victoria-Mayaro region that includes the communities of Guayaguayare and Moruga. But a draft management plan for the Trinity Hills environment project and reports from surrounding communities suggest that urgent action is needed to prevent losses to the sanctuary and forest reserve.

Slash and burn agriculture on the boundaries of the sanctuary are posing a threat to the sanctuary itself; alleged marijuana growing deep within the protected area adds another level of danger because of the possibility of armed conflicts; illegal hunting threatens the viability of wildlife within the sanctuary and forest reserve; and the legal but nonetheless debilitating impacts due to international oil and gas companies cutting swathes through the sanctuary to lay pipelines also threaten flora and fauna.

Managing these problems and conflicting claims on the area will require the cooperation of all stakeholders, said Dr David Persaud, environmental manager in the Environmental Policy and Planning Division of Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Planning and Development .

He told IPS that for the moment some of the threats to the area were “anecdotal not empirical”. As chair of the steering committee for the Improving Forest and Protected Area Management of Trinidad and Tobago (IFPAM-TT) project, which ran from 2015 to 2019 and was funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), he has received information on the threats to the Trinity Hills area.

But “the actual assessment of the extent of the problem in the Trinity Hills wildlife sanctuary and the surrounding areas has to be determined,” Persaud said. “All of those things would have to be evaluated as part of further work to be done.”

The IFPAM-TT project management plan for the Trinity Hills area is yet to be finalised and submitted, he said, but it covers the threats mentioned as well as potential solutions, ranging from MoUs for management of the site, to operational guidelines for oil and gas companies, to enforcement of mechanisms to remove solid waste, as well as a research agenda and communications strategy.

The Trinidad and Tobago government and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations recently concluded an Improving Forest and Protected Area Management project designed to protect the flora and fauna of this ecologically important area.

According to the GEF, some 60 percent of Trinidad and Tobago land is forest and woodland, and includes several distinct terrestrial ecosystems and a high species diversity to surface area ratio.
Trinidad and Tobago is home to some 420 species of birds, 600 different species of butterflies, and 95 different mammals, among others. There are also over 2,100 different flowering plants, which include over 190 species of orchids, GEF states.
The area has other historical significance as well. Nestled in the soil beneath the Three Sisters’ feet are remnants of artefacts that testify to the island’s First Peoples inhabitants who view the area as a sacred site with some religious significance.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Forest Programme website notes that approximately 22 percent of the land mass in the English-speaking Caribbean is designated as protected areas, like the Trinity Hills. It also states that the degradation and loss of forests threatens the survival of many species, and reduces the ability of forests to provide essential services.

Eric Lewis, who is recognised by the First Peoples of Moruga as a hereditary prince and spokesman, and Arvolon Wilson-Smith, a Guayaguayare environmental activist and president of the NGO Black Deer Foundation, told IPS the problems caused by both illegal and legal activities range from forest fragmentation that displaces animals and has the potential to disrupt their reproduction; the loss of vegetation including trees that are hundreds of years old along with threats to the area’s 11 endemic plant species; and air, water and land pollution that is caused both by slash and burn agricultural squatters and the oil companies.

Lewis said that his community has proffered solutions to the problem of agricultural squatting—where farmers plant small acreage to grow crops without taking up residence—to assist the government of Trinidad and Tobago for more than three decades.

“If people [in Moruga] were given the same opportunities as those in urban areas, members of the community would not have to go into the forest reserves to do illegal farming,” he said.

The area is known for its pawpaws, coconuts, water melon, pumpkin, citrus fruits, breadfruits, peppers, avocados, bananas and other crops. It also has a reputation for organically grown marijuana. There is also a thriving fishing industry where shark, carite (streaked Spanish mackerel), kingfish, red snapper, grouper, lobster and oysters are fished.

Lewis said the people of Moruga have lived without many amenities for decades. “There is a lack of opportunity for educational progress. There is no hospital, no fire station, the health centre opens 8 am to 4 pm; the closest hospital is 15 minutes from Moruga’s farthest point. Many people have died on the way to hospital. There are no sporting facilities for the youth and only two secondary schools” for an area whose population he estimates to be around 30,000.

Wilson-Smith told IPS that members of the Guayaguayare community rely heavily on the oil and gas companies operating in the Victoria-Mayaro area for jobs (Trinidad and Tobago is the largest oil and natural gas producer in the Caribbean), though fishing and agriculture also provide employment.

The draft management plan drawn up for the IFPAM-TT project, for which she served as a community representative on a subcommittee, includes a proposal for ecotourism as a possible alternative livelihood that could draw people away from illegal activities in the forest reserve and the sanctuary. She said it was suggested at a subcommittee meeting “as a means to effect change”.

The area has several attractions that would be of interest to tourists, she said, including a mud volcano and a three-tier waterfall, as well as good hiking terrain.

Though the proposal for ecotourism still needs to be fleshed out, she is hoping that the community and the various arms of government responsible for conservation can work together to reduce the impacts of both the illegal and legal activities affecting the area.

Persaud said while every effort would be made by law enforcement to curtail illegal activities, the oil and gas companies were operating within the law since they would have obtained relevant permissions from the environmental agencies. “In any kind of development you will have some impacts. It is how we mitigate those developmental impacts,” he said.

Lewis does not agree. “Not one of the oil companies has contributed to any sort of sustainable redevelopment of the areas they have affected,” he said. “Because they have a certificate of environmental clearance does not mean that it is good for the environment.”

The post Trinidad and Tobago – Protecting the iconic Three Sisters appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

A Pandemic Cannot Justify Child Labour

Wed, 09/02/2020 - 11:40

A child cleans the floor instead of going to school. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS.

By Puja Marwaha
MUMBAI, India, Sep 2 2020 (IPS)

For the past five months, our screens have been flooded with distressing imagery of one catastrophe after another: From the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable communities, to cyclones in West Bengal, Odisha, and Maharashtra.

From locust attacks in the central and northwestern plains, to the floods in Assam and Bihar. All of these have had disastrous effects on the Indian economy—millions in the country lost their jobs or were forced to take pay cuts, economic activity in rural India came to a halt, and migrants were forced to walk hundreds of kilometres back home.

Amidst these ‘visible’ problems, there are other issues that have remained ‘invisible’. One such issue is the effect of the pandemic on children, specifically, an increased risk of child labour.

COVID-19 has made children more vulnerable to child labour

The numbers related to child labour in India were bleak even before the pandemic. Census 2011 data suggests that the total number of child labourers in India between 5-14 years of age is 4.35 million (main workers) and 5.76 million (marginal workers)—a total of 10.11 million. Further, the total number of adolescent labourers in India is 22.87 million, bringing the total (in the age group of 5-18 years) to around 33 million.

The ongoing pandemic has augmented the existing causes of child labour, as well as added new ones.

First, children are forced to work because family incomes are not enough to survive on. With many people losing their jobs due to COVID-19, the financial crises being faced by families has increased manifold. These families will need extra pairs of hands to earn to provide two meals a day, leading to more children entering the economy or working on family-owned enterprises and farms.

The pressure on children staying at home, especially girls, will be to contribute to household chores and sibling care. More and more girls will be pulled further away from education and into managing the household

Second, children are considered cheap labour, and with businesses and enterprises facing massive financial losses, the demand for cheap labour is going to increase. Due to reverse migration from urban centres, there is also going to be a shortage of adult labour. Children, especially adolescents, will be increasingly in demand to fill this gap.

Third, the pressure on children staying at home, especially girls, will be to contribute to household chores and sibling care. More and more girls will be pulled further away from education and into managing the household.

Fourth, with every livelihood crisis, the risk of trafficking increases. In India, a large number of children are already trafficked for labour. Due to reverse migration caused by the pandemic, a large number of children have returned to their villages.

And given the livelihoods crisis already underway in rural areas, the children who are not tracked will become more vulnerable to trafficking. Children in overcrowded relief camps, quarantine centres, and those returning home with their parents are also at increased risk of being trafficked.

Fifth, the closure of schools will lead to a gradual detachment from education, especially for those children who cannot access online education. This detachment will eventually lead to dropouts among children, which in turn will lead to them entering the workforce.

To add to these, the recent changes in labour laws in the country will further weaken law enforcement when it comes to child labour. With a view to boost the economy, states such as Gujarat, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Assam have amended the Factories Act, 1948 through an ordinance, to allow companies to extend a factory worker’s daily shift from eight to 12 hours per day.

Most of these states also have a high burden of child and adolescent labourers. Though the recent changes do not affect child labour legislation per se, they may fuel an increase in demand for adolescent workers who are likely to be paid lower wages in hazardous and exploitative work conditions, due to their vulnerability and poorer bargaining power as compared to adults.

It is time for civil society to act

Now, more than ever, is the time to be proactive about making child labour a visible issue, to initiate dialogues around it, to bring plausible solutions to the table, and to start working towards them. While there are gaps that need to be plugged by the government, there is also a lot that civil society can do.

1. Strengthen government efforts

With presence on the ground and familiarity with communities, nonprofits are well-placed to support and strengthen government efforts, especially when it comes to identifying vulnerable children. They can conduct rescue operations in line with the Ministry of Labour and Employment’s protocols.

They can also help the government build awareness about the issue, the legal provisions available, and children’s entitlements; as well as act as channels to amplify children’s voices. Additionally, they can assist vulnerable families and their children access social protection measures.

2. Report cases of child labour

Compared to the actual number of child labour cases, the number of complaints made and FIRs filed remain quite low in India (only 464 cases were registered in 2018). Nonprofits and other civil society organisations can take up the mantle of making as many complaints about child labour as possible.

Complaints related to child labour can be made directly to authorities such as the district collector, via Childline by calling at 1098, on the government portal PENCIL, or through statutory bodies such as the National or State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights or Child Welfare Committees (CWC).

A larger number of complaints will also allow nonprofits to make stronger appeals to the administration to strengthen rescue processes and better implement compensation and rehabilitation schemes related to child labour.

3. Build evidence

Nonprofits also have an important role to play when it comes to building evidence around child labour. They can do this by conducting research and surveys in their intervention areas, as well as analysing available secondary data in an in-depth manner to examine issues related to child labour. This will strengthen and inform government policies and programmes and help address the issue holistically.

4. Engage children in education

A proven way to prevent child labour is to ensure that no children are left out in accessing education. There are many ways that civil society organisations can enable this. Recently, a headmaster in Jharkhand installed loudspeakers at various spots in the village so that children could attend classes from different locations.

As another example, we, at CRY, have partnered with Mobile Vaani and are using interactive voice response (IVR) technology to drive awareness campaigns about health and nutrition issues in remote areas of Odisha and Bihar. Nonprofits can track the academic progress of children in schools and ensure that they are not pushed out of education systems.

5. Provide rehabilitation post rescue

Nonprofits can play a critical role in the rehabilitation process for children rescued from child labour. They can provide psycho-social support to children during court proceedings or run compensation programmes for them. They can also take efforts to ‘mainstream’ children who are rescued from child labour, for example, by getting them enrolled in schools.

Child labour does not only lead to lost childhoods. Since most of these children work in difficult, often exploitative, environments, their overall health and nutrition also suffers, leaving them vulnerable to various illnesses.

Perhaps the first step in curbing the rise of child labour is to acknowledge that it is a problem. We need to accept that no pandemic, no economic crisis, and no extraordinary circumstances can ever justify children being exploited. Only then can sustainable change happen.

Puja Marwaha is CEO of CRY (Child Rights and You)

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

The post A Pandemic Cannot Justify Child Labour appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

It Is Time to End the Controversial World Bank’s Doing Business Report

Wed, 09/02/2020 - 07:02

By Isabel Ortiz and Leo Baunach
NEW YORK and WASHINGTON D.C. , Sep 2 2020 (IPS)

On 27 August the World Bank announced that it will suspend the Doing Business Report over data irregularities, until it conducts a review and audit. The halting of the report was welcomed by trade unions, academics and human rights groups.

The World Bank’s Doing Business Report ranks countries based on business regulations in 190 economies. The more regulations are slashed, the better a country does in the ranking. Most indicators are based on a standardized case study such as the conditions facing a small firm in the largest commercial city -this study characterizes the country.

Isabel Ortiz

Global reports that present comparable international statistics are highly valued. For example, the much acclaimed Human Development Report of the United Nations’ Development Program presents national progress on social development through a set of indications updated annually. The Human Development Report serves to create pressure on governments to perform better on education, health and other social development areas by comparing achievements in the basic dimensions of human development across countries.

In contrast, the World Bank’s Doing Business Report undermines social progress and promotes inequality. Since it was launched in 2003, the Doing Business Report has generated outrage for its anti-regulation bias. Inspired by the “Index of Economic Freedom” at the conservative Heritage Foundation, the report has encouraged countries to take part in the “deregulation experience” including reductions in employment protection, lower social security contributions (denominated as “labor tax”) and lesser corporate taxation.

In the report, a country ranks better when its social security contributions are low, that is, when employees have lesser social protection benefits for their families and retire with low pensions. Countries also get better rankings if corporate tax is low, no matter if this will generate further inequality and starve resources for national sustainable development. For example, India has improved in the reports’ international ranking as the government has eroded environmental and labor protections and reduced corporate taxation, resulting in detrimental social impacts.

After the global economic crisis, the Bank suspended the publication’s labor market flexibility indicator. However, the raw data was still published until attention from the US Congress stopped efforts to revive the indicator.

Leo Baunach

In 2013, an independent review panel established by the World Bank’s executive board and led by Trevor Manuel recommended that the use of rankings be discontinued. The panel also recommended the permanent deletion of the labor market flexibility and tax rate indicators, as the latter penalizes countries that require business to pay taxes or make contributions to pensions and other social protection schemes that support households.

The World Bank’s independent review panel also expressed concerns that the report, “tends to ignore the positive effects of regulation”, highlighting “black box” data gaps and “cherry picking” of background papers. A key source of information for the report are surveys completed by corporate consultants and law firms – not businesses engaged in productive activities whose needs are usually different from the ideological prerogatives of the report, such as benefitting from a social protection floor and tax-financed investment in infrastructure.

Not only did Bank management reject almost all the recommendations made by the 2013 independent panel, it continued to use the report to guide programs and loans in developing countries, a fact denounced by civil society think tanks. Meanwhile, questions began to circle about the integrity of report findings.

In January 2018, Paul Romer, the World Bank’s chief economist, said that “political motivation” of Bank staff may have contributed to a decline in Chile’s ranking under the social democratic President Michelle Bachelet. Romer resigned after Bank leadership disavowed his remarks. An audit commissioned by the Bank in 2018 found no evidence of interference, but detailed constant methodological changes that took the meaning out of ranking changes.

Next, it was discovered that a change in methodology (instead of reforms) explains most of India’s rise in the rankings. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi lobbied for favorable methodology, and when rebuffed sought to “game the system” with reforms chosen to artificially increase their rank.

Last week, the report brought the latest scandal. “A number of irregularities have been reported regarding changes to the data in the Doing Business 2018 and Doing Business 2020 reports,” said the World Bank on August 27. This means that interference is suspected in 2017 but not uncovered in the 2018 audit.

Academics, legal experts and trade unions have pointed how the report’s ideological and technical preferences work against economic and social development. The report is even at odds with the evolving approach of the World Bank, such as the “Balancing Regulations to Promote Jobs” manual.

Regardless of data manipulation, the Doing Business Report has always been an act of ideological interference in policymaking. If the Bank clings to this relic, it should at the very least remove the most regressive elements including those on social security contributions and corporate taxation, and follow the recommendations of the 2013 independent review panel.

These blunt indicators are against the Sustainable Development Goals, human rights and international conventions agreed by all countries. Continuing to use the profile and name of the World Bank to promote less worker protections, less social protection benefits and less corporate taxation will only increase inequality and worsen the effects of the COVID19 pandemic. It is time to end the Doing Business Report.

Isabel Ortiz is Director of the Global Social Justice Program at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue in New York, and former director of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF.

Leo Baunach is Director of the Washington Office of the International Trade Union Confederation and Global Unions group.

The post It Is Time to End the Controversial World Bank’s Doing Business Report appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Seeking Asylum? Not Here!

Tue, 09/01/2020 - 21:10

A young asylum-seeking girl from Afghanistan walks on a makeshift bridge inside what is known as the Olive Grove, an improvised camp adjacent to the Moria Reception and Identification centre on the Greek island of Lesvos. © UNHCR/Achilleas Zavallis

By Joseph Chamie
NEW YORK, Sep 1 2020 (IPS)

Although the right to seek asylum is recognized nearly universally, governments across the globe are increasingly declaring, “Not Here!”. Those governments view the large and growing numbers of men, women and children seeking asylum in their countries as serious threats to their native populations, ways of life and cultures.

They also believe that most asylum claims are not legitimate or are scams, largely being made by economic migrants, criminals, terrorists, invaders, infiltrators, rapists, free loaders and benefits seekers.

Despite the internationally recognized right for people to cross borders to seek asylum, in reality governments in virtually every region of the world are increasingly preventing, discouraging and complicating attempts of men, women and children to cross into their territories and claim asylum

Existing asylum policies and laws, in their view, encourage unauthorized border crossings and permit economic migrants and many others to misuse humanitarian protections to gain employment, assistance and other benefits while their cases are adjudicated, which can take many months.

In the aftermath of World War II with millions forcibly displaced, deported and/or resettled, the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution was established in 1948 by the United Nations in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today virtually all members of the international community of nations have signed on to this historic agreement.

The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees codified the right of asylum for anyone having “a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” The Convention also stipulated that those seeking asylum should not be penalized for their unauthorized entry or stay.

However, the Convention did not require governments to grant asylum to those who qualified. It only stated that countries should apply the provisions of the Convention without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin.

At the end of 2019 there were more than 4 million asylum seekers worldwide, a four-fold increase over the level a decade earlier. Increases in the numbers seeking asylum have been even greater in some individual countries. For example, between 2008 and 2018 the numbers of new asylum requests jumped six-fold in the United States, seven-fold in Germany and twelve-fold in Spain.

During the recent past many millions have sought asylum largely in Europe and North America (Figure 1). Among OECD countries 60 percent of the more than 12 million new asylum requests since the start of the 21st century have been in six countries, namely, Germany (19%), United States (15%), France (9%), United Kingdom (6%), Sweden (6%) and Italy (5%).

Source: OECD.

Globally, governments of rich and poor countries alike are closing their borders to those fleeing poverty, human rights abuse, violence, failing states and most recently climate change. Despite the internationally recognized right for people to cross borders to seek asylum, in reality governments in virtually every region of the world are increasingly preventing, discouraging and complicating attempts of men, women and children to cross into their territories and claim asylum.

In the United States, for example, the Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the Administration can deny asylum to anyone who has crossed a third country en route to the U.S. border without seeking protection there. In a more recent decision the Court said that asylum claims threatened to overwhelm the immigration system and ruled that asylum seekers have no right to appeal to U.S. courts if their claims were rejected at the border.

Another policy of the Trump Administration to deter those seeking asylum was family separation, i.e., separating children from their undocumented asylum-seeking parents who were imprisoned. The Administration has also been using health concerns from the coronavirus pandemic as a national security threat to turn away those seeking asylum with no access to due process, often without explanation.

The proportion of asylum court decisions that have been denied in the United States has increased markedly during the last several years (Figure 2). After hitting a low of 42 percent in 2012, the proportion of immigration court asylum decisions denied in the U.S increased to 69 percent in 2019, a record high for the 21st century.

Source: TRAC Immigration.

Various European countries, including Austria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Poland, Serbia and Spain, are also tightening borders and applying pushbacks to those seeking asylum and sending them back to Libya, Morocco, Turkey, Tunisia or neighboring countries.

The United Kingdom has also called upon its Royal Navy and Air Force to help police and monitor the increasing migrant crossings in the English Channel and end demand by returning boats back to France.

Similarly, many Asian countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have refused port – or “push back” – boats filled with asylum seekers and migrants. Those governments maintain that their pushback policies are intended to fight human smuggling.

Also, Australia has forcibly intercepted asylum seeker boats and push them back to where they had come from. Other countries, such as South Korea, Japan and China, choose to provide monies and humanitarian assistance to address the asylum and refugee crisis, but typically say “Not Here!” to accepting asylum seekers.

In many African countries, such as Cameroon, Mozambique, Niger and South Africa, those seeking asylum have encountered resistance, onerous restrictions and abuse, with many wishing to relocate to other countries. The coronavirus pandemic has made the plight asylum seekers even more difficult, as they are frequently seen as virus carriers.

Latin American asylum seekers are also encountering difficulties finding welcoming safe havens. Many, especially those from Central America, are reluctant to seek asylum in countries that can be just as dangerous with violence, robbery, extortion and sexual abuse as the places that they are fleeing.

The situation in the region has become more challenging as 4.5 million Venezuelans had left the country by the end of 2019, with the large majority not recognized as asylum seekers or refugees.

The world for asylum seekers has changed greatly since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights more than a lifetime ago. Mass displacement is vastly more widespread than in the past.

It is also no longer a short-term and temporary phenomenon with growing numbers of men, women and children forced from their homes for long periods of time.

At the end of 2019 a record breaking 80 million people globally, double the number a decade ago, were forcibly displaced from their homes due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order. No less than one-third of them were refugees and more than four million were asylum seekers.

In addition, the world is experiencing a great migration clash between the many millions who want out of their poor and violence ridden countries and the many millions who want others to keep out of their wealthy and stable countries.

Lacking legal authorization to emigrate, men and women and increasingly even children are willing to risk their safety and lives to reach their desired destinations, with many relying on human smugglers.

In response to the growing unauthorized migration flows, migrant-destination countries are resisting the entry of irregular migrants, combating migrant smuggling, repatriating those unlawfully resident, objecting to accepting refugees and increasingly denying asylum claims.

In 2019 the large majority of first instance decisions on asylum applications were rejected (Figure 3). Countries where the proportions of first instance asylum applications rejected exceeded 70 percent included Hungary (92%), Czechia (90%), Poland (89%), Italy (80%), France (75%) and Sweden (71%).

Source: Eurostat and TRAC Immigration.

Moreover, the world’s population is nearing 8 billion, approximately four times its size at the end of World War II. Over the next 30 years the planet is expected to gain an additional 2 billion people. Most of that projected population growth will take place in poor failing states, places where even now millions are facing hunger, poverty, corruption, violence and human rights abuse.

Also, a landmark ruling by the United Nations human rights committee found that it is unlawful for governments to return people to countries where their lives might be threatened by a climate crisis. Under such a judgment, tens of millions of people could be displaced and seek asylum due to life-threatening climate and environmental changes.

So, get ready; it should no longer be a surprise. Future numbers of men, women and their children desperately seeking asylum are likely to be substantially greater than today’s record-breaking levels. And government leaders simply declaring, “Not Here!”, is certainly not going to be the solution to one of the defining issues of the 21st century.

*Joseph Chamie is an international demographer and a former director of the United Nations Population Division.

The post Seeking Asylum? Not Here! appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Women’s access to stimulus packages and post Covid-19 gender equality

Tue, 09/01/2020 - 21:02

Women in the informal economy have been especially hard-hit by the pandemic. Photo: Sk Enamul Haq

By Fahmida Hasan
Sep 1 2020 (IPS-Partners)

All crises—natural disasters, wars, pandemics—affect different sections of people in different ways. Like any other crisis, Covid-19 has differing impacts on society. It has affected men and women, rich and poor, and adults and children differently. Since the ramifications of the coronavirus pandemic vary across people, measures towards the recovery from this crisis should also be focused towards each section of society distinctively.

Since the outbreak of coronavirus, several studies have revealed that the pandemic is not gender blind. They have indicated how the extent of women’s sufferings is more than that of men. Women have been the hardest hit both economically and socially. Women, being at the frontline of the crisis as healthcare workers, as caregivers at home, and as managers of the household, are having to bear the brunt of the coronavirus crisis more intensely than anyone else.

In Bangladesh, more than 85 percent of women are engaged in the informal sector to earn their livelihoods. Thus, a large number of women workers became unemployed overnight when the country went under lockdown. Most of them are yet to get back their jobs even though the economy has started to open up gradually. During the ongoing pandemic, domestic violence has also increased as economic stress and frustrations rose in the face of job losses. Girl children are being married off by poor parents as educational institutions are closed. Only a handful of urban schools can offer technology based online education to a privileged group of students. This could reduce the educational attainment of girls and reverse gender parity in primary education, which was achieved over the last few decades. Early marriage among girls will also increase their health risks, as they would become mothers at a very young age. Thus, the maternal mortality rate can rise too. While the wrath of the pandemic continued for the last six months, severe monsoon floods recently affected at least 50 million people’s lives and livelihoods in Bangladesh. Women and girls are again among the most vulnerable groups during such natural disasters.

In view of the negative impact of Covid-19, the government of Bangladesh has taken initiatives to support the affected sectors of the economy through various stimulus packages. It has announced a number of stimulus packages amounting to more than Taka one trillion, which is equivalent to about 3.7 percent of Bangladesh’s GDP. These packages, which are mainly credit facilities to businesses by banks, have been allocated for export-oriented sectors, the service sector, cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises (CMSMEs), large businesses, the agriculture sector and pre-shipment loan refinancing.

The government has allocated a share from the stimulus for the CMSMEs (Tk 20,000 crore) of women entrepreneurs. They will receive five percent of the total CMSME allocation, which is equivalent to Taka 100 crore. The recognition of women entrepreneurs’ needs in the CMSME category is well appreciated, especially since women entrepreneurs have been demanding dedicated support for the revival of their businesses. However, the overall disbursement of most stimulus packages is still not encouraging. This is no different in the case of women entrepreneurs also—the majority of them have not been able to receive the benefits of the credit support provided to them. The central bank has advised banks to disburse loans to affected businesses on the basis of bank-client relationships.

This is not working. There are a number of issues attached to loan disbursement to women. First, many micro and small entrepreneurs do not have records of bank loans, and thus there is no record of loan servicing or relationships with banks on this ground. Despite several dedicated loan schemes for them from many commercial banks, many women still find the procedures complex and do not feel encouraged to go to banks for loans. Second, many banks are not interested to give loans to women entrepreneurs. Banks do not find women’s business proposals bankable as their ticket size is small, which will increase banks’ operational costs. Third, banks are also not sure whether their loans will be repaid in time. Fourth, a large number of women entrepreneurs do not have collaterals to take loans. Fifth, access to information is limited to many women entrepreneurs outside big cities.

However, during the Covid-19 period, these small entrepreneurs will not be able to stay on course without government support. Except a handful of women entrepreneurs who have been fortunate to have their families support them, the others have been facing challenges throughout their journey. Barring a few in the urban areas, families take a skeptical view when a woman proposes to become an entrepreneur. Thus, many do not receive financial support from their families either. With limited financial and operational capacity, women entrepreneurs have fallen into a dire situation during the pandemic.

Banks are yet to appreciate the underlying challenges of small women-led enterprises. In this respect, the role of a number of organisations such as Microcredit Regulatory Authority (MRA), Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Foundation, and Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) is critical. These organisations can help identify women entrepreneurs across the country who are often outside the radar of financial institutions. Associations of women entrepreneurs can also facilitate the process and guide women entrepreneurs in accessing the stimulus package.

It is now well established that the recovery from the fallout of Covid-19 will be a long and arduous process. While the government has attempted to support the affected sectors through credit-based stimulus packages, its implementation will have to be monitored carefully so that stimulus packages do not create further inequality, not only between the rich and the poor, but also between men and women.

We must not forget that the high economic growth in Bangladesh during the past years has been on the back of its hardworking people. In this journey of economic prosperity, the contribution of Bangladeshi women cannot be undermined. Over the years, women’s participation in the labour force has increased and the nature of activities performed by women has also changed. They are not only working in traditional sectors, but many have stepped into non-conventional jobs and businesses. Supportive policy measures from the government of the day have also contributed to Bangladesh’s economic and social achievements. This has helped to lift a large number of people out of poverty and has also contributed towards gender empowerment.

In order to protect the progress made so far and to reverse the damaging impact of the pandemic on gender equality, government policies should be crafted through a gender lens. The private sector and women entrepreneurs themselves should also be part of the recovery planning. Economic prosperity cannot be sustained by ignoring women’s problems and by keeping women outside the economy. Since the objective of the post-pandemic recovery plan is to “build back better”, policymakers will have to create more opportunities for women to regain the momentum on gender empowerment and gender equality that was created before the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr Fahmida Khatun is the Executive Director at the Centre for Policy Dialogue

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Women’s access to stimulus packages and post Covid-19 gender equality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Technology Meets Creativity on Women’s Empowerment Platform

Tue, 09/01/2020 - 16:29

Artist Ayushi Chauhan’s painting on the Fuzia website. Credit: https://www.fuzia.com/

By Fairuz Ahmed
NEW YORK, Sep 1 2020 (IPS)

Eight years ago, and at the age of 11, Fuzia co-founder Riya Sinha decided to start the online platform for girls and women. Her story and Fuzia’s DNA are intrinsically wrapped around each other – and highlight how even in the age of feminism where women’s voices tend to be drowned out, a platform for them can become a global success.

Sinha in an exclusive interview with Inter Press Service explains that Fuzia, with 4-million majority-female followership, was started after she published a book.

“We wanted to give girls a voice. I had written my first book: Runaway Twins when I was 11 and sold it over Amazon and through the local Palo Alto bookstore, Books Inc. in the United States,” she said. “This got me into thinking that every girl, in each corner of the world, needs to be given a place to express and engage. Each has a story, and what better thing can there be other than providing them with a platform? This is why we launched Fuzia.”

The website, which started primarily as a writers’ club, has broken barriers in an age of so-called women empowerment but where men still outweigh women in their impact in the publishing world.

More than 80% of the 100 most popular novels were written by men, according to an interactive infographic by Wordery published in 2019. A year earlier, a study found that three leading literary publications devoted less than 40% of their coverage to women authors.

Other factors set boundaries for female writers. Women, in developing countries, but their hobbies and creative talents at the backseat focusing on building a family first, then a career, and lastly express her creative side. A piece, if published, is then scrutinized by society and family. The scene is a bit different in countries like the United States and Canada – but there, creativity is overshadowed by the prohibitive costs of publishing.

Like many institutions, the publishing industry stands accused of gender bias. Every year, Women in Literary Arts (VIDA) Count goes through literary journalism outlets and tallies the genders of the writers whose works are featured and reviewed in those outlets.

According to their most recent study, in 2015 books by women made up less than 20% of books reviewed in the New York Review of Books, 30% in Harper’s Magazine, 29% in the Atlantic, and 22% in the London Review of Books.

Fuzia, however, is breaking these barriers for women and has rapidly become one of the topmost ‘liked’ communities on Facebook.

Young artist Ayushi Chauhan is inspired and supported by the Fuzia community. This is a quote from her published there.
Credit: https://www.fuzia.com/

Sinha says she is proud to bring together hundreds of thousands of women from Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, the U.S., and other places. Fuzia followers across the globe drive women empowerment and creativity through their fusion of cultures and ideas.

Central to Fuzia’s philosophy is to give women a voice. Women play a crucial role as daughter, sister, mother, and wife, supporter of the community as a friend and caregiver – but often, her voice is numbed. If her voice is given a platform, and she is encouraged to make her point come across and delivered to a greater audience, then, this will help solve a lot of underlying issues. Critical topics like domestic violence, domestic abuse, when, why, and how, methods of coping, strategies for help, the root cause of bullying, gender differences, treatment of sexual orientation, and many other disparities will surface, and with accurate reporting could provide solutions and support.

During this critical time, when the world is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, Fuzia adapted its programs to support women.

“We prioritized by looking at what is most needed in the world today. For example, in the time of lockdown, we began developing Fuzia Wellness more rapidly, as people may need more access to mental health help when isolated at home,” Sinha said.

The platform, having just celebrated its 8th anniversary, has been recognized globally with the team awarded by the World Economic Forum “Young Leaders Creating a Better World for All” in 2018. Sinha has been invited to the TEDx stage, where she talks passionately about the role youth have in changing the world.

Sinha says Fuzia plans to continue to stay relevant.

“Our goals for the future are to be self-sustaining and generate revenue, expand the brand of Fuzia to become like another social media platform in its influence,” she says.

“We already link up talents, groom them, and offer career training. Many girls, from all over the world, have been using our platform, and they have become entrepreneurs, they have become small business owners, tech start-up founders, and more.”

The website and its underlying philosophy could also encourage female authors by supporting them and giving them the means to sustain this career choice. Fuzia supports its users with engagements of many, where anyone can publish, get noticed, and get constructive reviews. They also hold period writing contests and the winners are presented with acclamations, financial benefits, a pre-start to career, and mostly an audience of millions.

College student and Fuzia top user Ayushi Chauhan (22) said her experience on the platform had been positive.

“I believe that everyone has a unique talent, and Fuzia is a great platform to have your talent and skills showcased. It is free to express and share the platform, and I share my ideas on various topics here. I also get to meet many more talented women who inspire me and appreciate my artwork. I appreciate all the Fuziates for their love and support.”

With women empowerment platforms, like Fuzia, where technology meets creativity, it is hoped that more women can devote their time to writing and creating undampened by social boundaries. The supportive nature of the website means that barriers to creativity – where a woman may find herself scrutinized by family and society are broken down.

The Artists of Fuzia, Writers of Fuzia, Photographers of Fuzia identify talents and showcase them in front of a broad audience.

“I’m currently in my 2nd year of graduation in commerce. I began my craft four years back and still find myself sketching, painting, making some craft, or just doodling. I have kept my zeal to polish my skills intact, and I believe in taking inspiration from my flaws,” Chauhan said. “It is because of my passion that I challenge myself every day to learn new skills and Fuzia has been the best platform to help me do this. I showcase my artworks and creativity at Fuzia, and I grow better each day.”

With challenges like user visibility, retention, and coping with an ever-changing face of the digital media and publishing scene, any company wishing to make an impact needs grit.

Fuzia aims to hold on to their vision of empowering creative women through the fusion of cultures and ideas and have the open company culture of accepting and embracing change so that everyone can have a voice and make it heard without any barriers, said Sinha.

“Overall, what we give them is a playground where they can express, speak, and thrive. And that too, without any judgment. We give them a voice,” Sinha said.

The post Technology Meets Creativity on Women’s Empowerment Platform appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

South Sudan – COVID-19 and Ongoing Violence has Catastrophic Impact on Civilians

Tue, 09/01/2020 - 13:10

The post South Sudan – COVID-19 and Ongoing Violence has Catastrophic Impact on Civilians appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Trump Undermines WHO, UN System

Tue, 09/01/2020 - 09:57

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Sep 1 2020 (IPS)

After accusing the World Health Organization (WHO) of pro-China bias, President Donald Trump announced US withdrawal from the UN agency. Although the US created the UN system for the post-Second World War new international order, Washington has often had to struggle in recent decades to ensure that it continues to serve changing US interests.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Invisible virus trumps POTUS
In early July, Washington gave the required one-year notice officially advising the UN of its intention to withdraw from the WHO, created by the US as the global counterpart to the now century-old Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO).

However, the White House decision violates US law as it does not have express approval of the US Congress required by the 1948 joint resolution of both US legislative houses enabling US membership of the WHO.

Trump had already refused to meet US financial commitments. This too violates the 1948 resolution requiring the US to fully meet its financial obligations for the current fiscal year before leaving, probably presuming that earlier dues have been fully paid up.

The WHO needs more funding than ever to address the COVID-19 pandemic by increasing cooperation, coordination and awareness, establishing standards and protocols, and securing medical supplies for all, especially needy countries.

The world would have been much worse off without the WHO, e.g., as it tries to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines are affordably accessible to all. By contrast, Trump’s jingoistic policies and actions have even involved piracy.

After concluding a favourable trade deal early in the new year, Trump praised China on 24 January: “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency”.

As POTUS’s failure to better handle the COVID-19 pandemic has become apparent to most, he has created scapegoats to gloss over his gross mismanagement, demonizing China to also serve larger political purposes. Growing Western paranoia about China’s rise has contributed to collective amnesia.

POTUS has accused the WHO of deference to China and deliberate failure to provide accurate information about COVID-19. Despite disproven and unproven allegations, Trump’s allegations of WHO bias for China have dominated international public opinion.

WHO’s mixed record
WHO policy decisions are made by the World Health Assembly (WHA) with almost 200 Member States. As in other UN bodies, decisions adopted with developing countries in the majority have often not been to Washington’s liking.

Anis Chowdhury

Without the bullying US presence, WHO’s functioning may improve, but the WHO will be weakened by reduced resources and possibly, sabotage. It will increasingly depend on other sources of funding, many private, US-based, which is likely to compromise its policies and practices.

Already, the WHO Secretariat has been widely criticised for favouring US interests, e.g., by procuring from US companies. US and other transnational companies greatly influence WHO policy and management decisions in their own favour.

Halfdan Mahler, a three-term WHO Director-General, warned that the pharmaceutical industry’s “unhealthy influence” was “taking over WHO”. Thus, any balanced inquiry of WHO bias should include the influence of big pharmaceutical corporations, especially as the agency increasingly depends on private funding.

Despite an official inquiry finding “no wrong doing” after a Council of Europe committee alleged possible conflicts of interest in WHO’s declaration of an A/H1N1 swine flu pandemic, criticisms of conflicts of interest remain.

The British Medical Journal found that key WHO influenza pandemic planning scientific advisers had been paid by pharmaceutical firms that stood to gain from the guidance they were preparing, i.e., possibly involving conflicts of interest never publicly declared.

Financial blackmail
UN organizations depend on mandatory annual contributions by Member States, determined according to agreed scales of assessment relative to their wealth and population. When a Member State fails to pay dues for the preceding two years, it loses voting rights.

The US should pay 22% of WHO’s annual budget, and the European Union 30. Of the total of US$489 million for 2020, the assessed contribution for the US came to US$115 million.

However, the US has regularly defaulted, partially or wholly, on contributions due to the WHO and the UN secretariat among others. For instance, the US only paid a third of its assessed WHO contribution for 2019.

Thus, while low-income countries duly pay their statutory contributions, the world’s largest economy selectively withholds payments due in order to influence UN agencies’ policies, decisions and practices.

Nonetheless, a larger share of WHO expenditure than the assessed US budgetary contribution ends up in the US to procure medicines, equipment and services.

US threatens UN multilateralism
Washington’s refusal to pay its WHO and other UN dues reflects its attitude to the democratization of the multilateral organizations it once created. US efforts to financially squeeze UN agencies are nothing new, having long refused to pay dues to the UN secretariat on various dubious grounds.

With its veto, the US has been able to ensure that the UN’s most strategic organ, the Security Council, could never undermine its interests despite the nominal ‘one-country-one-vote’ governance of much of the UN system.

Undoubtedly, like much of the rest of UN system, the WHO needs reform, e.g., to improve accountability in decision-making, but progress has been blocked by various divides, with support for Trump’s accusations and vague reform demands driven primarily by political considerations.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has also come under US arm-twisting, with the US and Israel pulling out in December 2018 following its overwhelming General Conference decision to admit Palestine as a member.

When Ronald Reagan was president, the US had quit UNESCO in 1984 after claiming that then Senegalese Director-General Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow had been “politicizing” the organization. The US only rejoined in 2013 during Obama’s second term.

Meanwhile, the US remains outside many other global multilateral initiatives, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court and the Basel Convention, and has also withdrawn from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Paris Agreement and the UN Human Rights Council.

Even if he concedes the presidency in January, Trump’s jingoistic legacy has already irreversibly poisoned US public sentiment and international politics. Multilateralism and the UN system may well suffer irreversible collateral damage until an unlikely new ‘coalition of the willing’ rises to the challenge.

The post Trump Undermines WHO, UN System appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Energy Cooperatives Swim Against the Tide in Mexico

Mon, 08/31/2020 - 23:42

Onergia, one of the two energy cooperatives operating in Mexico today, installs photovoltaic systems, such as this one at the Tosepan Titataniske Union of Cooperatives in the municipality of Cuetzalan, in the southern state of Puebla. CREDIT: Courtesy of Onergia

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Aug 31 2020 (IPS)

A Mexican solar energy cooperative, Onergia, seeks to promote decent employment, apply technological knowledge and promote alternatives that are less polluting than fossil fuels, in one of the alternative initiatives with which Mexico is seeking to move towards an energy transition.

“We organised ourselves in a cooperative for an energy transition that will rethink the forms of production, distribution and consumption to build a healthier and fairer world,” Onergia founding partner and project director Antonio Castillo told IPS. “In this sector, it has been more difficult; we have to invest in training and go against the logic of the market.”

The eight-member cooperative, created in 2017, has so far installed some 50 photovoltaic systems, mainly in the south-central state of Puebla."A public policy is needed that would allow us to move towards the transition. Getting people to adopt alternatives depends on public policy. It is fundamental for people to have the freedom to choose how to consume. It is our job to organise as consumers." --
Antonio Castillo

Castillo explained by phone that the cooperative works with middle- and upper-class households that can finance the cost of the installation as well as with local communities keen on reducing their energy bill, offering more services and expanding access to energy.

In the case of local communities, the provision of solar energy is part of broader social projects in which the beneficiary organisations’ savings and loan cooperatives design the financial structure to carry out the work. A basic household system can cost more than 2,200 dollars and a larger one, over 22,000.

“The communities are motivated to adopt renewable energy as a strategy to defend the land against threats from mining or hydroelectric companies,” said Castillo. “They don’t need to be large-scale energy generators, because they already have the local supply covered. The objective is to provide the communities with alternatives.”

Onergia, a non-profit organisation, promotes distributed or decentralised generation.

In Mexico, energy cooperatives are a rarity. In fact, there are only two, due to legal, technical and financial barriers, even though the laws governing cooperatives recognise their potential role in energy among other diverse sectors. The other, Cooperativa LF del Centro, provides services in several states but is not a generator of electricity.

The Electricity Industry Law, in effect since 2014, allows the deployment of local projects smaller than one megawatt, but practically excludes them from the electricity auctions that the government had been organising since 2016 and that the administration of leftwing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador put a stop to after he took office in December 2018.

Since then, López Obrador has opted to fortify the state monopolies of the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and the Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) oil giant, which translates into favouring fossil fuels over renewable sources.

The National Electric System Development Programme 2018-2032 projects that fossil fuels will represent 67 percent of the energy mix in 2022; wind energy, 10 percent; hydroelectric, nine percent; solar, four percent; nuclear, three percent, and geothermal and bioenergy, four percent.

In 2032, the energy outlook will not vary much, as fossil fuels will account for 60 percent; wind, nuclear and geothermal energy will rise to 13, eight and three percent, respectively; hydroelectric power will drop to eight percent; while solar and bioenergy will remain the same.

In Mexico, rural communities are guaranteeing their electricity supply by using clean sources, thus furthering the energy transition to micro and mini-scale generation. The photo shows the “Laatzi-Duu” ecotourism site (the name means “standing plain” in the Zapotec indigenous language) which is self-sufficient thanks to a solar panel installed on its roof, in the municipality of San Juan Evangelista Analco in the southern state of Oaxaca. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

The government cancelled the call for long-term electric auctions that allowed private companies to build wind and solar plants and sell the energy to CFE. But these tenders privileged private Mexican and foreign capital and large-scale generation.

In a dialogue with IPS, independent researcher Carlos Tornel questioned the predominant energy design promoted by the 2013 reform that opened up the hydrocarbon and electricity markets to private capital, and the form of energy production based on passive consumers.

“We don’t have an effective legal framework to promote that kind of energy transition,” said the expert via WhatsApp from the northeast English city of Durham. “A free market model was pursued, which allowed the entry of megaprojects through auctions and allowed access to those who could offer a very low cost of generation, which could only be obtained on a large scale.”

With that strategy, he added, “small projects were left out. And the government did not put in place economic incentives to foment cooperative schemes.”

“We need a more active model focused on the collective good,” added Tornel, who is earning a PhD in Human Geography at Durham University in the UK.

Mexico, the second largest economy in Latin America with a population of 129 million, depends heavily on hydrocarbons and will continue to do so in the medium term if it does not accelerate the energy transition.

In the first quarter of 2019, gross generation totaled 80,225 gigawatt hours (Gwh), up from 78,167 in the same period last year. Gas-fired combined cycle plants (with two consecutive cycles, conventional turbine and steam) contributed 40,094, conventional thermoelectric 9,306, and coal-fired 6,265.

Hydroelectric power plants contributed 5,137 Gwh; wind fields 4,285; nuclear power plants 2,382; and solar stations 1,037.

The Energy Transition Law of 2015 stipulates that clean energy must meet 30 percent of demand by 2021 and 35 percent by 2024. By including hydropower and nuclear energy, the country will have no problem reaching these goals.

Residents of the small rural community of Amatlán, in the municipality of Zoquiapan in the state of Puebla, oversee the operation of photovoltaic panels installed by the Mexican cooperative Onergia. This type of cooperative can help rural communities in Mexico access clean energy, particularly solar power. CREDIT: Courtesy of Onergia

By early August, the government’s Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) had granted 310 permits for solar generation, small-scale production and self-supply, totaling almost 22,000 Mw.

The 2017 report Renewable Energy Auctions and Participatory Citizen Projects, produced by the international non-governmental Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21), cites, with respect to Mexico, the obligation for investors to form self-sufficient companies, which complicates attempts to develop local ventures.

Onergia’s Castillo stressed the need for a clear and stable regulatory framework.

“A public policy is needed that would allow us to move towards the transition,” he said. “Getting people to adopt alternatives depends on public policy. It is fundamental for people to have the freedom to choose how to consume. It is our job to organise as consumers.”

Affected by the coronavirus pandemic, Onergia is reviewing the way it works and its financial needs to generate its own power supply. It also works with the Renewable Energies Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in the design and installation of solar power systems.

In March, the government’s National Council for Science and Technology launched a strategic national programme on energy transition that will promote sustainable rural energy projects and community solar energy, to be implemented starting in 2021.

In addition, the energy ministry is set to announce the Special Energy Transition Programme 2019-2024.

But to protect the CFE, the CRE is blocking approval of the development of collective distributed generation schemes, which would allow citizens to sell surplus energy to other consumers, and the installation of storage systems in solar parks.

Tornel criticised the lack of real promotion of renewable sources.

“The Mexican government has been inconsistent in its handling of this issue,” he maintained. “They talk about guaranteeing energy security through hydrocarbons. There is no plan for an energy transition based on renewables or on supporting community projects. We have no indication that they support renewable, and that’s very worrying.”

The REN21 report recommends reserving a quota for participatory citizen projects and facilitating access to energy purchase agreements, which ensures the efficiency of tenders and the effectiveness of guaranteed tariffs for these undertakings.

In addition, it proposes the establishment of an authority for citizen projects, capacity building, promotion of community energy and specific national energy targets for these initiatives.

The post Energy Cooperatives Swim Against the Tide in Mexico appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Nepal Welcomes Qatar Labour Reform

Mon, 08/31/2020 - 22:16

Amnesty International showed evidence of workers hired to build FIFA World Cup stadiums in Qatar not being paid for up to seven months last year. Al Bayt Stadium, Al Khor, Qatar.

By Upasana Khadka
KATHMANDU, Aug 31 2020 (IPS)

Even as Nepali workers stranded overseas face confusion and uncertainty during the Covid-19 crisis, labour reforms in Qatar – including an increase in the minimum wage announced in Doha on Sunday — may have lasting implications for migrants there.

On 30 August, Qatar revised the minimum wage to QAR 1,000 (USD 275), while requiring employers to ensure that they provide decent allowances for food and accommodation worth QAR 300 and QAR 500, if not directly provided.

In addition, workers are now allowed to change jobs before the end of their contract without obtaining a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the employer. The reforms will also apply to domestic workers, who are currently excluded from the labour law.

“We have been raising this issue for a long time. The previous temporary minimum wage of QAR 750 was too low, so this is positive news for our workers and reflects the Government of Qatar’s commitment to bring reforms to the labour sector,” said Nepali Ambassador to Qatar Narad Nath Bharadwaj.

There had been much criticism of the NOC requirement that forced migrants to continue working even when there were contract violations, or they were not fit for the job or employer.

“This removes the culture of employers wielding a disproportionate bargaining power by not granting NOC to workers while making them work under unfavourable terms. If migrants have jobs of their choice, their morale will be higher,” Bharadwaj says.

Recruiting agencies often over-promise or lie about job offers abroad, forcing workers to be stuck in companies despite unfavourable employment terms. In other cases, employers release NOCs only if workers are willing to pay them, sometimes as high as QAR 5,000.

As international pressure started building up from migrants’ rights groups, in 2018 Qatar removed restrictions on workers to get exit permits from employers before leaving the country. According to the International Labour Organication (ILO), this ‘effectively dismantles the long-criticized Kafala system of employment’.

The minimum wage issue had been a sticking point for workers in Qatar, where there are over 350,000 Nepalis. Qatar is the first country with which Nepal signed a labour agreement in 2005, and has remained one of the most important destination countries for Nepali workers.

The Nepal government had unilaterally imposed a minimum referral wage for the ‘unskilled’ category of QAR 900 with QAR 300 for food allowance, ensuring that employers are unable to hire Nepali workers below this wage regardless of Qatar’s lower minimum wage.

Other skill categories have a higher minimum referral wage range including semi-skilled (QAR 1,100-1,400), skilled (QAR 1,500-3,000) and professional categories (QAR 4,200-11,000 QAR).

As per this minimum referral wage requirement, all demand letters below QAR 900 used to be screened out by the Nepal Embassy during the approval phase. However, while many employers complied, there were also cases of employers and recruiters finding ways around this requirement via contract substitution. Once workers reach Qatar, they are made to sign another contract with a rate lower than the minimum referral wage.

Now, Qatar’s decision to raise the minimum wage for all workers means implementation will be more reliable via its Wage Protection System that monitors timely salary payment as per the contract and prevailing laws.

The Qatar government’s labour practices have been under international scrutiny ever since it won the bid to hold FIFA World Cup 2022. The pressure has led to some reforms over the years, although problems still prevail.

On 24 August Human Rights Watch issued a damning report on Qatar’s failure to follow through on promises of worker protection, pointing out the high incidence of withheld and unpaid salaries to workers in 60 companies. It said the situation had worsened as many employers used Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to withhold or clear dues.

Ambassador Bhardwaj says, “Nepali workers affiliated with larger companies, including in many FIFA related projects are continuing work taking extra precautions. But there are Nepalis especially in the smaller companies impacted by the lockdown that have gone bankrupt, stopped paying wages, or cut staff size.”

Some 6,000 such workers have gone back to Kathmandu on repatriation flights, but there are 20,000 more who are waiting to return.

In June, Amnesty International also showed evidence of workers hired to build FIFA World Cup stadiums in Qatar not being paid for up to seven months last year.

There has also been international scrutiny in Malaysia, another country with large numbers of Nepali workers. Malaysia produces around two-thirds of the world’s latex gloves, and the US Custom Border Patrol issued detention order citing Malaysia’s labour violations in October last year.

Responding to the pressure, and amid soaring demand for personal protection equipment during the global pandemic, Malaysian companies have started reimbursing recruitment costs to workers, including Nepalis, while upgrading their living quarters, with stricter government oversight and social audits underway.

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

The post Nepal Welcomes Qatar Labour Reform appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Powerplay in Paradise: Sino-Indian Tussle in the Maldives

Mon, 08/31/2020 - 12:49

By Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
SINGAPORE, Aug 31 2020 (IPS)

The Maldives is a picturesque country of merely 515,000 people located just beyond the southern tip of the South Asian land mass, in an idyllic Indian ocean setting. The nation is spread across 26 pretty atolls, comprising about 1192 islets, not all still inhabited. These are lapped by crystal blue waters containing flora and fauna of remarkable magnificence. Its scenic bounties attract droves of tourists who frolic in the sands, sun and the sea in salubrious languor. It has a thriving fishing, garment and tourism industry which have recently helped it graduate out of the United Nations list of Least Developed Countries (LDCs).It is so tiny that used to be said that the catch of a single large fish any day could cause a remarkable jump in its Gross National Product (GDP) numbers. It is not without reason that the archipelago has often been compared to a paradise.

But now it appears that peace in paradise could be confronting some strains due to regional and international politics. On the global matrix China is racing to reach peer status with the United states. The Chinese see the Indians, because of the increasing chumminess between India and the US as an impediment to their aspirations. Hence they appear to be out to clip India’s wings. Obviously, the way to go about it is to try and reduce India’s regional and global influence. India obviously resists Chinese attempts to do so. The inevitable result is conflict, as of now confined to borders or Line of Actual Control (LAC), as it is called, in the Himalayan mountain heights. This is complemented by tussle for control of the seas south of the border as well. This strategic competition is not just confined to the military sphere. There is also an economic battleground. In this China’s great weapon is the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), linking scores of nations along land and sea- routes to China through mega infrastructural projects. The Maldives, located at a strategic point in the Indian ocean, therefore, could not be immune to this Sino -China rivalry at worst, and competition at best.

The Maldives, whose size precluded it, or did not require for it to play a major role in the international arena, was always close to India in the past. But that was before the transformations in the global power-paradigm with the rise of China and the onset of a major Sino-Indian rivalry. As was to be expected this became a factor in the domestic politics of the Maldives. Former President Abdullah Yameen leaned towards China. There was a course correction in 2018 when the current President Ibrahim Mohammed Solih seemed to return to the Indian fold. In the meantime, China had already scored a few points by committing US $ 200 million to build the China Maldives Friendship Bridge. This would link the capital Male with the airport island, Hulhule. At the same time there was a clutch of Chinese investments. These included plans for constructing an airport runway and housing projects.

India has now responded with a massive offer of its own. It comes under an umbrella called the Greater Male Connectivity project. The idea is to link Male with three other islands: Villingli, Thilafushi and Gulhifalhu. This will be done through a bridge, a causeway and an embankment. There will also be a port constructed in Gulhifalhu. For these purposes India would advance a loan and a line of credit worth approximately US $ 500 million. The most important component would be the 6.7 km long bridge, the construction of which is now scheduled to begin later this year. The main problem with Indian commitments, in the Maldives, as elsewhere in the region, is in the area of implementation. Disbursement of funds is often painfully slow, and the progress with infrastructural construction even more so. But for now, the government of the Maldives was happy, and President Solih described the deal as a “landmark moment in Maldives-India cooperation”. It is likely that like many other nations in the region, the Maldives will endeavour to navigate carefully between the two powerful protagonists, China and India, and try to reap some benefits from their mutual jostling for position.

It is probably in order to delve a little into the background of intra-mural South Asian politics in this context. When the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the product of a Bangladeshi initiative, was still active, it provided a structural fence around the subcontinental countries, grouping them together, stressing commonalities. But India-Pakistan rivalry has now stalled the activities of the forum. People-to-people contacts within the SAARC framework ceased, as also any public predilection for cooperation. India has encouraged formation of sub-regional bodies in its stead, but Indian preponderance in these has curbed the enthusiasm of others. The smaller South Asian States psychologically feel freer to invite outside actors like China into their midst. So, the state of comatose that afflicts SAARC has actually encouraged smaller South Asian countries to seek external linkages to enhance their capability to deal with India, which will, nevertheless, always remain a major factor in their policies.

Secondly, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)continue to turn more and more towards the fundamentalist values of Hindutva to cement their support among the Hindu power-base , in opposition to the other major community in India, the Muslims, it is likely to impact on their co-religionists of the subcontinent negatively. This includes Muslim-majority countries of South Asia. Here the Maldives assumes a special significance as the Maldivians take their faith seriously, and the government, can ill- afford to ignore this fact in the long run. This is emerging as a major structural problem in BJP-led India’s regional external policy.

So tiny Maldives may be entering a new phase in its policies where powerplay of large global actors will have a role that might grow bigger with time. Its future, as that of many other countries in comparable milieu will be shaped by how deftly it is able to handle this evolving situation.

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury is Principal Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asia Studies, National University of Singapore. He is a former Foreign Advisor (Foreign Minister) of Bangladesh and President of Cosmos Foundation Bangladesh. The views addressed in the article are his own. He can be reached at: isasiac @nus.edu.sg

This story was originally published by Dhaka Courier.

The post Powerplay in Paradise: Sino-Indian Tussle in the Maldives appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Pages

THIS IS THE NEW BETA VERSION OF EUROPA VARIETAS NEWS CENTER - under construction
the old site is here
Copy & Drop - Can`t find your favourite site? Send us the RSS or URL to the following address: info(@)europavarietas(dot)org.

You are here

Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Pages