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More Was Lost in Lisbon

Wed, 08/19/2020 - 18:24

Leo Messi. Credit: FCB.

By Joaquín Roy
MIAMI, Aug 19 2020 (IPS)

The Barcelona Football Club disaster in the quarterfinals of the Champions League, which was once more appropriately called the European Cup, is indeed a cataclysmic event, unprecedented, with predicted drastic and hurtful consequences.

Future Barça fans, when faced with the hardships of life, will argue that “more was lost in … not in Cuba … but in Lisbon.”

The end of Barcelona in the maximum European competition has all the characteristics to be not only the closing of a chapter of its sporting journey, but the end of an entire era of a team led by Messi.

The Barça of two long decades, trained by technicians who tried to follow the anthological schemes of Johan Cruiff and Pep Guardiola, transferred their style to the Spanish team that won two European Cups and a world trophy.

That strategy was embodied in the Cruiff doctrine composed of the three Ps: position, possession and pressure. Now the new European style is predicted to be based on physical power and speed, embraced by Bayern Munich, who have destroyed Barça.

What can also be blurred in the future Barça is a set of identity signs that had made it emblematic. Barça has been the refuge of foreigners who chose to nest in Catalonia at different times.

It was founded in the late 19th century by a handful of Germans and English, led by the Swiss Hans Gamper. It was presented with a name that did not fit with the academic rules: Football Club Barcelona, which only the Franco regime managed to hispanicize by force into Club de Fútbol Barcelona.

This external insert in the Barcelona of that time, which had already exceeded its medieval limits with the Cerdá Plan grid, sent a global message that received the “national” response from a sector that called itself the Club Deportivo Español, later spiced up as Real. Thus a rivalry generally resolved in favor of Barça would be born, which would not hide its foreign inclinations.

Joaquín Roy

As an example, its “culers”, in a friendly match in 1925 booed the Spanish Royal March, the national anthem, and applauded the God Save the King performed by an English Navy band that had landed in the port of Barcelona.

That whim would cost Barcelona five years of closure decreed by General Primo de Rivera, a strong man of Alfonso XIII. Dazed by financial debts, Gamper was forced into exile and upon his return his health deteriorated to the point that he committed suicide.

Politics continued intertwined with the life of the club, and at the beginning of the Civil War, with Catalonia allied on the Republican side, one of its presidents, Josep Sunyol, of the pro-independence party Esquerra Republicana, was shot by Franco’s troops.

At the end of the conflict, a group of its players, who had moved to Latin America in search of income that had evaporated during the war, opted for self-imposed exile and their return was prohibited by Franco.

Despite the fact that Barça managed to recover and win several national competitions, thanks in part to the leadership of the Hungarian Kubala, only under the direction of Cruiff’s “Dream Team” it did manage to capture the longed-for first European Cup until 1992 at Wembley with the goal by Koeman.

In line with the rebirth of democracy, Barça built a nationalist image, although not pro-independence, since the majority of its mass was socially conservative in its upper sectors, and moderately leftist in its bases.

Some presidents contributed to claim that Barça exceeded sporting limits. Narcís de Carreras forged an emblematic slogan: “Barça is more than a club.” The shirt incorporated the Catalan flag on its neck and back. The captain, a position to which Messi was elevated, wore, in addition to the regulation armband, another with the “senyera”.

The slow transformation of Catalan nationalism into independence-seeking, which increased the percentages of radical votes to almost half the electorate, coincided with the rise of Barça to the heights of European football, without dangerously contaminating the collective image of the club.

The international style was reinforced by the incorporation of young products from La Masía, the players’ school. Spanish-speaking immigrants used the support for Barça as a remedy for the always difficult integration. Even outside the Spanish borders, Barça was recognized as one more product of globalization.

But after Guardiola’s departure, various presidents, poorly advised by the stars, inserted a long dozen players with a difficult fit (such as Neymar, Coutinho and Giezmann) and others with financially unjustifiable contracts.

Simultaneously, the offspring of La Masía were unable to join the team. Only Sergi Roberto had reached the Spanish team, in contrast to the seven Barcelona starters who won the World Cup in South Africa.

The few national titles and the unaffordable Champions League did nothing more than make up the triumphant emptiness of yesteryear. The musketeers who had once forged Messi’s supremacy had grown old. You could smell the decline. Future failures will be relativized with a comforting sigh of “more was lost in Lisbon.”

Joaquín Roy is Jean Monnet Professor and Director of the European Union Center at the University of Miami

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Categories: Africa

Report Shows Sri Lanka has Escalation of Violence During COVID-19 Lockdown

Wed, 08/19/2020 - 11:10

Increased cases of violence against women and children have been reported in Sri Lanka during the COVID-19 lockdown. The loss of income because of the COVID-19 lockdown has made some more vulnerable to abuse. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS.

By Mantoe Phakathi
MBABANE, Aug 19 2020 (IPS)

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in the escalation of violence against women and children in Sri Lanka.

A recent survey by CARE Consortium, a collection of three organisations including Delivery and Solitary Trust (DAST), Young Out Here and National Transgender Network, found that 26 percent of respondents experienced violence during the COVID-19 curfew. The COVID-19 curfew was imposed in March and lifted in June in an effort by the government to curb its spread.

The survey titled COVID19 Impact on Key Populations PLHIV and SR Organisations shows that 76.8 percent of the respondents experienced verbal abuse, while 7.8 percent encountered physical and 5.6 percent sexual violence. The survey further reveals that the main perpetrators were neighbours at 49 percent followed by parents at 25 percent, intimate partners at 24 percent and the police at 10 percent.

Out of the 329 respondents, 56 percent were men, 16 percent transgender women, 16 percent sex workers, 32 percent people who use drugs and 3 percent beach boys.

According to Niluka Perera, a consultant from CARE Consortium, most of the respondents did not seek support after experiencing the violence because they did not know where to go.

“There is no safety net when key populations face violence because they cannot go to the police,” Perera told IPS. “The violence is based on their identity which is stigmatised and even the police tend not to care.”

For example, he said, a sex worker who gets beaten up by someone is not likely to report the incident to the police because, although sex work is not criminalised, it is not practised in the open.

“It gets worse with men because they’re expected to be strong such that men who have sex with men find it difficult to report abuse because they are supposed to be strong [as well as] the fact that they are supposed to operate in private,” said Perera.

He attributed the escalation of violence during COVID-19 lockdown to the fact that members of the key populations had to be confined to their homes with their abusers who maybe their family members. Some of them lost their sources of income which exposed them to further abuse.

“The abuse further contributed to mental health concerns,” said Perera. The survey found that out of 248 respondents, 174 expressed hopelessness, 159 said they were stressed, 95 suffered from anxiety and 34 experienced depression.

He told IPS it is acceptable that the focus is on women and children when talking about gender-based violence because they are the ones who experience it the most. However, Pereira said it is important to address violence against men as well because it is often overlooked.

“The issue is not who is perpetrating violence against men but it is how the status quo normalises that kind of violence. The same applies to violence against women,” said Pereira.

He said trillions, that could help to reduce poverty and hunger, are invested in activities that perpetuate violence such as buying guns for the army or supporting wars. Army budgets across the world are always increasing.

“The systems we have, not only in Sri Lanka but all over the world, are too happy to invest in things that perpetuate violence,” said Perera.

Shelani Palihawadana, the coordinator of the sexual and reproductive health access to youth with disabilities at the Youth Advocacy Network Sri Lanka, concurs, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened police violence. She argued that most of the violence meted by police is against men which is referred to as police brutality and not GBV.

“Police tend to be violent when arresting men compared to when they’re arresting women,” Palihawadana told IPS. “There needs to be awareness around GBV against men because men then take the violence they experience to their families.”

She said men who are members of the Lesbian Gays Bisexual Transgender Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ) are ignored even when they go to report GBV cases at the police because they are expected to be tough.

Like Perera, Palihawadana said some forms of GBV have been normalised in Sri Lankan society such that complaining about them does not attract any action. For example, she said, women are always exposed to sexual harassment when using public transport, something that is no longer considered an issue because it happens all the time.

According to Desaree Soysa, the chairperson of the youth technical advisory committee at Family Planning Association of Sri Lanka, the government is not making enough effort towards meeting the commitments made at the Nairobi Summit to end GBV and eliminate any discrimination against vulnerable groups including key populations.

She said, since the 25th International Conference on Population Development (ICPD) where the promise to accelerate progress towards meeting the target of SDG5 by 2030, nothing much has been done.

The Japan Parliamentary Federation for Population and its secretariat, the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), has committed to endorse the ICPD25 agenda. As part of its work in Asia, APDA has focused its work on the prevention of violence against women and girls.

“Attention is given to COVID-19 and during the curfew period we couldn’t even meet,” Soysa told IPS.

Besides, she said, ministers are not interested in GBV issues in the middle of a pandemic and hoped that more work will be done once COVID-19 has been put under control.

Soysa said Sri Lanka has made progress in reducing its maternal mortality rate to 1 percent, the lowest in Asia. But she said more needs to be done in giving women access to safe abortions.

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Categories: Africa

Future of Education Is Here

Wed, 08/19/2020 - 10:22

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

By Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Aug 19 2020 (IPS)

There are moments when the world has no choice but to come together. Those moments become historic turning points. This is one of them. We are now faced with the greatest education emergency of our time. Over one billion children are out of school. The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented crisis of such magnitude and depth that the next generation might neither have the capacity and tools, nor the will, to rebuild – let alone build back better.

Yasmine Sherif

The world has not planned well for the future. At its worst, education has for too long been underprioritized, and at its best, has been viewed as just one among many competing priorities. Before COVID-19, the funding gap for education in low-income and middle-low income countries – many already plagued with extreme poverty, weak infrastructure, armed conflicts, climate-induced disasters and forced displacement – amounted to $148 billion. This funding gap is now estimated to increase by up to one-third.

COVID-19 has laid bare our collective failure to prioritize education. “The pandemic has exacerbated inequalities and magnified the global learning crisis. The future of an entire generation is at risk,” warned United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres when launching his Policy Brief on Education earlier this month, “The COVID-19 pandemic has created the largest disruption of education systems in history.”

The number of out-of-school children who may never set foot in a school again is now rapidly escalating. An estimated 30 million children and youth are of immediate concern, according to UNESCO’s assessment. In a letter to the international community, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the Education Cannot Wait’s High Level Steering Group, the Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, together with 275 world leaders, politicians, academics and civil society, calls for urgent action to address the global education crisis triggered by COVID-19.

In support of the mission of Education Cannot Wait, they state: “We cannot stand by and allow these young people to be robbed of their education and a fair chance in life. Instead we should be redoubling our efforts to get all children into school – including the 260 million already out of school and the 75 million children affected by protracted conflicts and forced displacement, including 35 million children living as refugees or internally – with the comprehensive help they need – and to make it possible for young people to start or resume their studies in school further and higher education.”

Similarly, the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies, composed of UN agencies and non-governmental organizations, has issued an urgent call for firm political action to make financial investments in education for those left furthest behind in armed conflicts, forced displacement and climate-induced disasters, calling on the international community to “act fast and keep recovery and preparedness in sight.”

In the same spirit, the global education community has come together to Save Our Future, a coalition composed of the UN, the World Bank and civil society, raising the alarm of an entire generation at risk due to the rapidly escalating learning crisis, as a result of the massive funding gap, “The Covid-19 pandemic brought about the biggest cataclysm to education any of us have seen!”

On the ground, joint programming supported by pooled funding keeps delivering results. Education Cannot Wait’s 2019 Annual Results Report, Stronger Together in Crisis, launched on 11 August, illustrates that it is possible to deliver quality education to those left furthest behind – provided we come together, politically, strategically, programmatically and financially.

As the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, ECW’s joint investments are rolling out the New Way of Working and ensuring humanitarian-development coherence, bringing together all partners: host-governments, affected populations, UN agencies, civil society, private sector, the World Bank, the Global Partnership for Education, and the International Facility for Financing Education, among others. Stronger together, we share a sense of absolute urgency and uncompromising commitment to results, which is put into action thanks to sustained funding by our strategic donor partners.

As a result, Education Cannot Wait has already reached 3.5 million children and youth since its inception. Yet, the scale and the depth of the education emergency in crisis-affected countries needs to be matched by adequate and scaled up financial investments to end the learning crisis for those left furthest behind, and to swiftly shift the course towards the SDGs. With 20 times more funding, the estimated 75 million children and youth can be reached. Indeed, financing stands between what is possible and what is not for these vulnerable girls and boys.

This truly is the defining moment in our time. There can be no sustainable development goals without education. “Education is a fundamental human right, the bedrock of just, equal and inclusive societies and a main driver of sustainable development,” the UN Secretary-General stated at the launch of his Policy Brief on Education, “As the world faces unsustainable levels of inequality, we need education – the great equalizer – more than ever. We must take bold steps now, to create inclusive, resilient, quality education systems fit for the future.”

We now have a chance to learn from the past by acting in the present, and, as the Secretary-General concluded, recognize the fact that: “The future of education is here!”

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Excerpt:

Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait

The post Future of Education Is Here appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Sudan May Have Banned FGM, but the Harsh Practice Continues

Tue, 08/18/2020 - 20:36

A performance at a photo show in El Fasher, Sudan, 2018. The new transitional government of Sudan criminalized female genital mutilation this spring, but the practice has not ended. Credit: MOHAMAD ALMAHADY/UNAMID

By Rhona Scullion, PassBlue*
Aug 18 2020 (IPS)

Just four months ago, Sudan took the monumental step to ban female genital mutilation, a painful, unnecessary and dangerous procedure that leaves lasting scars. Generally carried out on girls before they reach puberty, genital mutilation is now punishable in Sudan by up to three years in prison and subject to a fine.

In a country where 88 percent of women between 15 and 49 years old have undergone some form of genital mutilation, according to the United Nations Population Fund, the new law is considered a huge progressive step toward democratic reforms a year after a revolution ousted the dictator, Omar al-Bashir.

But any law is only as good as its enforcement, and this one faces challenges that include not only cultural resistance but also the effects of a pandemic that enable abuse to happen behind closed doors.

The new law became enforceable upon final ratification, on July 10, 2020, almost three months after it passed. In the interim period, those caught performing FGM, as it is known, risked only confiscation of medical equipment and required educational training.

Then came the pandemic. As it began ravaging the globe, Sudanese schools closed early, and it appears that many families took this moment to have girls cut.

According to the World Health Organization, FGM is a procedure that intentionally alters or causes injury to female genital organs and has no medical basis. There are three main types, ranging from removing the clitoris (type one) to partly sewing up the vaginal opening by cutting and repositioning the labia (type three). The practice is not condoned by any religious texts but is carried out mostly in Muslim communities in parts of Africa, the Middle East and sections of Asia.

In many communities, it is regarded as a prerequisite for marriage. It is generally performed without anesthetics by traditional “cutters” with no medical training or equipment, and the girls are often forcibly restrained.

FGM’s effects are significant and enduring. Tamador Ahmed Abdalla, a child protection specialist with Unicef in Sudan, told PassBlue in a phone interview that cutting leaves both physical and mental scars. In the most severe cases, she said, “They lose their lives because of the bleeding or maybe they get tetanus from the things the midwife uses.” More often, they experience intense pain when they start their period, have sex and go through pregnancy and give birth.

The mental trauma is equally severe. “That moment of your life which has been physically violent on your body — two women physically holding you down, keeping you on the bed and trying to do something to you that you are not aware of . . . it lives with you,” Abdalla said.

Efforts to outlaw the practice in Sudan started in 1946, when legislation banned some forms of FGM but went largely unenforced. With the reintroduction of Sharia law under the regime of President Bashir, attempts to criminalize FGM in 2002, 2009 and 2015 failed. (Bashir is now in prison in Sudan for corruption charges and awaiting other trials.)

Women’s advocates say the new law could face the same fate, regardless of Bashir’s ouster and a new, more progressive “sovereignty council,” chaired by Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, leading the country.

Sufian Abdul-Mouty, a representative of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Sudan, told PassBlue via email that although there is “no precise data” on instances of FGM since the pandemic began in March, there are “anecdotal reports from UNFPA’s partners . . . that show an increase in received reports of cases in Khartoum and other states.” (Khartoum is Sudan’s capital.)

Abdalla echoed this view, telling PassBlue that Unicef’s information shows numbers rising in the Sudanese states of White Nile, Khartoum and Jazeera. The reported increase led many advocates who track the practice to think the surge was due to people taking advantage of children being out of school during the pandemic, as was widely reported to be the case in Somalia.

However, Jarai Sabally, a program officer from Donor Direct Action, which promotes women’s rights, suggested that the pandemic only jump-started an FGM season that takes place each summer in Somalia as well as Sudan. According to Hawa Aden Mohamed, the founder of the fund’s Somali partner, the Galkayo Education Center for Peace and Development, when schools are closed parents traditionally take their children to rural areas where FGM usually occurs.

“The only difference is, this time around schools closed early due to the Covid-19 outbreak,” Mohamed said. “Therefore, many parents living in the urban areas sent their children to rural areas earlier than usual, which resulted in the girls getting cut, and that is why we are seeing this sudden increase early in the summer.” The UNFPA and Unicef confirmed that it is normal for families to perform FGM on girls during school holidays.

If the new law had been enforceable earlier, it would likely have prevented many girls from being cut and the perpetrators remaining at large during this peak time for FGM.

For Sudan’s new law to be useful, it must be supported by robust educational and cultural reforms, experts say, a challenge made more difficult by the pandemic. (Sudan currently has 12,033 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 786 deaths in a population of 43 million.)

Abdul Mounty of the UNFPA highlighted the difficulties to PassBlue: “Advocacy and awareness on the enforcement of the law can cause an increase in the practice because of the fear of social exclusion or social stigma for not conforming to the norm, which may be stronger than the fear of fines and imprisonment. The government needs to be very careful, focusing first on intensive community awareness to increase the acceptance and demand for the law.”

There is still a large stigma attached to girls who have not undergone FGM. According to Abdalla of Unicef, if a husband finds that his new wife has not been cut, he will sometimes try to return her to her family and ask for her to undergo FGM. Conversely, anecdotal surveys conducted by Unicef with university students in Sudan suggest that a younger generation of men prefer to have a relationship with an uncut girl. While this may, as Abdalla suggested, affect the prevalence rate of FGM in ensuing years, it could also create a new stigma for those girls who have been cut.

Raising awareness of FGM’s lasting damage is particularly important for advocates who are trying to dispel myths about the practice. But with the news media now dominated by pandemic updates, it’s hard to get mention of the new law.

“Every single thing is about coronavirus, and that is shrinking the space for other programs and other advocacy messaging,” Abdalla said. “We need to work closely with the media, NGOs and even in the schools to orient teachers and parent councils in the community.

“We need to work with them to introduce them to the law and to help them understand what it means to have this law in place because there are some people who might misuse this opportunity and misinform communities that the law is coming to criminalize parents.”

Similarly, Nahid Jabralla, the founder and director of the SEEMA Center for the Training and Protection of Women and Children’s Rights, based in Sudan, pointed out that FGM is not part of the national education curriculum, which she thinks needs to change.

“Ending FGM is not only a matter of the law,” she said. “We need efficient mechanisms, we need resources, we need proper partnerships that include governmental bodies, civil society, community-based organizations, people on the ground . . . [and] international actors [UN agencies and other NGOs]. We need to go for it and push for it, taking the initiative — and this includes academic institutions. This has to be part of the curricula, in general and higher education.”

Another problem is the lack of official data and research that would enable risk-mapping and help campaigners target areas with the highest rates of the practice.

Abdalla pointed out that while the overall rate of FGM is high in Sudan, it varies among communities and states. This disparity often results in parents traveling to certain states to have their children cut. In one case, Abdalla said a woman in Khartoum wanted to have her five daughters cut. The midwife she went to refused, so the mother took the girls to a different state, White Nile, to find someone who would do the job. Fortunately, several officials challenged the mother with the new law and prevented it from taking place.

Such official intervention shows a sea-change in the government approach, giving activists hope that this new law is more than empty words. Jabralla of SEEMA thinks the new approach will succeed in Sudan because of a reframing of FGM as a human-rights violation rather than as a cultural practice. A technical adviser for the National Program for Abolition of FGM (a joint program with the Sudanese government and Unicef) from 2004 to 2010, she knows the issue well.

Previous governments in Sudan had used FGM as “a tool of suppression,” she told PassBlue, and even the UN was slow to recognize the practice as a human-rights violation. In 2008, however, she said, human-rights campaigners in Sudan pushed back against fundamental Islamist groups that had attempted to legalize certain forms of FGM, leading to the creation of the national anti-FGM agenda.
Since then, the momentum for change, extending to efforts to stamp out child marriage, has been growing.

Jabralla admitted to being “exhausted” from the battles but still positive. “We have the space, we do not need any permission from anyone, even the government,” she said. “Now the law is there because of our will as civil society, as actors, we have the law, and of course it standing alone will not solve anything, but taking it with a genuine campaign I think we can join the world at the UN Sustainable Development Goals summit in ending FGM in 2030.”

This story was originally published by PassBlue

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Categories: Africa

Pacific Tuna Tagging Expedition Overcomes COVID Challenge

Tue, 08/18/2020 - 19:20

By External Source
Aug 18 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Despite the significant challenges presented by COVID-19, the Pacific Community (SPC) 7-week research expedition to monitor the health of world’s largest tuna fishery will depart from Honolulu on Saturday 15 August 2020.

Half of the world’s tuna catch comes from the Western & Central Pacific, providing a critical source of protein and export revenue for Pacific Island Nations.

With most research and fisheries observer programmes currently suspended due to COVID-19, Graham Pilling, the SPC Deputy Director for the Oceanic Fisheries Programme, said the importance of this cruise cannot be overstated.

“These tuna fisheries are worth approximately USD6 billion annually and, along with tourism, are the main income for most Pacific Island Nations. With global tourism effectively shutdown due to COVID-19, the income derived from tuna is even more critical for Pacific economies,” he said.

To avoid any potential for COVID-19 transmission to the remote communities of the Pacific the cruise will not make any port calls to Pacific Island Nations. The crew members, including the scientific team, are in isolation for 14 days prior to departure and have undergone COVID-19 virus testing. The vessel will then return directly to Honolulu on October 5, 2020 – 50 days after departure.

The expedition will only sample from the tropical waters of the high seas and the vast Kiribati Exclusive Economic Zone. The cruise will also provide the first opportunity to collect data on tuna sustainability from the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, which was established in 2008.

From 2006 to 2019, SPC has tagged 452,489 tuna and 81,402 tags have been retrieved, generating the most comprehensive data set for tuna management in the world. In addition to monitoring the health of the tuna stocks, Dr Simon Nicol, SPC Principle Fisheries Scientist said the electronic tags inserted into the tuna are also being used to monitor the health of the Pacific Ocean.

Dr Stuart Minchin, the Director-General of the Pacific Community, said this continued research is critical to ensure that the region remains a global leader in sustainable use of its fisheries resources.

“Around 70% of the catch is taken by international fleets and the fees generated by these licenses provides major source of revenue for Pacific governments to support their development goals. The tagging of bigeye and yellowfin tuna in this region is critical for researchers to understand the impacts of the fisheries on these species,” he said.

According to SPC’s 2019 Tuna assessment report, four key tuna stocks of yellowfin, big eye, skipjack, albacore are in a healthy state in the Western Central Pacific Ocean region.

Source: The Pacific Community (SPC)

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Categories: Africa

Lack of Human Capital is Holding Back Latin America’s Growth

Tue, 08/18/2020 - 12:45

In Latin America, indigenous teenage girls, together with their rural counterparts, are the group most discriminated against in terms of opportunities and access to education. Credit: Rajesh Krishnan/UN Women

By External Source
WASHINGTON, Aug 18 2020 (IPS)

In 1990, Latin America’s average GDP per capita was a little over a quarter of the United States’ income level, while emerging and developing Asian countries’ GDP per capita was only 5 percent. In 2019, Asian countries had grown fourfold, but Latin America was still at the same level.

What explains this weak relative income growth? Since Asia has twice the investment level of Latin America, it is tempting to blame low growth on low investment. But Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe casts doubt on this narrative, having achieved faster growth than Latin America with lower investment than Asia.

In a new working paper, we compare the experiences of these three regions (before COVID-19) and conclude that Latin America is poorer because of lower levels of human capital and productivity, not investment.

Temporary boost

Take Mexico and Poland. In the last 25 years, Mexico has had more investment (as a percent of GDP), but its growth per capita has been much slower. What explains that?

Investment does raise income. A higher so-called capital stock per worker increases GDP per capita. But only up to a certain point, after which the return on investment starts to decrease. A pizza deliverer with a motorcycle will do more deliveries than one who has to walk. But giving the same deliverer two motorcycles, or a more expensive one, will not do much to increase his output.

Productivity growth, human capital, and institutions

In the long run, it is not more input (labor and capital) that generates growth, but productivity (how much more output can be produced with the same input) in the same amount of time.

Productivity growth depends only partially on technological progress. In Charles Dickens’ time, letters were written with goose-feather quills. A century ago, with typewriters. Today, with computers. No wonder current office workers are much more productive! But it also depends on human capital. The same computer will make a college graduate much more productive than someone who has only finished elementary school.

We studied the different components of GDP growth for Poland and Mexico since 1995 and the picture is very clear: the combination of human capital and productivity is a major contributor for the European country, while often a negative factor for the North American one.

Strong governance and good business climate matter for productivity growth. In countries where property rights are not secure and governance is poor, firms will remain small and productivity low. In well-run countries, successful firms can become large and more efficient.

Cross-country differences in income levels

Our paper shows that countries with higher human capital and better governance and business climate tend to be richer than those with low scores on these variables. High human capital alone is not sufficient: our analysis shows that countries become rich only when governance also improves.

Not surprisingly, Mexico has worse readings in both areas than Poland. In general, Latin America scores poorly on both dimensions, compared to advanced countries or emerging Europe, which helps explain why it is relatively poorer. Of course, there are exceptions: Chile’s governance ranks well against some advanced economies and is better than most of emerging Asia.

Our paper argues that countries won’t grow faster and close the income gap with richer parts of the world without improving human capital, governance, and business environment.

Eastern Europe’s success factor

In 1989, on the eve of the fall of the Berlin wall, countries behind the Iron Curtain were much poorer than Western Europe. Now, some of them have income levels similar to Spain and Italy.

They converged rapidly because their human capital was already similar to Western Europe’s, while income was much lower in the early 1990s. Strengthening of institutions helped the process, and here the European Union (EU) played an important role. The prospect of EU membership led to more reforms and higher growth. Countries that joined, or worked toward that objective, saw significant improvements.

Why has Latin America not converged?

Latin America fell behind in the convergence process mostly for two reasons. First, it did not have that same combination of high human capital and low income of former communist countries. In fact, in the mid-1990s, GDP per capita was somewhat above what could be expected for the level of human capital. Second, the strong institutional improvement seen in Europe also didn’t happen in Latin America. Governance indicators actually deteriorated in many countries.

The same factors that hold back growth also make investment less attractive. Our conclusion is that low investment in Latin America is not the cause, but the result of low growth. Governments solely focused on boosting investment might want to look at the problem from a different perspective.

By Bas B. Bakker, Manuk Ghazanchyan, Alex Ho, and Vibha Nanda IMF Western Hemisphere Department

This story was originally posted by IMF NEWS

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Categories: Africa

Call for Urgent Action by 275 World Leaders on Global Education Emergency In Face of Covid19

Tue, 08/18/2020 - 10:48

Credit: UNICEF Mali / Dicko

By External Source
NEW YORK, Aug 18 2020 (IPS)

We write to call for urgent action to address the global education emergency triggered by COVID-19. With over 1 billion children still out of school because of the lockdown, there is now a real and present danger that the public health crisis will create a COVID generation who lose out on schooling and whose opportunities are permanently damaged. While the more fortunate have had access to alternatives, the world’s poorest children have been locked out of learning, denied internet access, and with the loss of free school meals – once a lifeline for 300 million boys and girls – hunger has grown.

An immediate concern, as we bring the lockdown to an end, is the fate of an estimated 30 million children who according to UNESCO may never return to school. For these, the world’s least advantaged children, education is often the only escape from poverty – a route that is in danger of closing. Many of these children are adolescent girls for whom being in school is the best defence against forced marriage and the best hope for a life of expanded opportunity.

Many more are young children who risk being forced into exploitative and dangerous labour. And because education is linked to progress in virtually every area of human development – from child survival to maternal health, gender equality, job creation and inclusive economic growth – the education emergency will undermine the prospects for achieving all our 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and potentially set back progress on gender equity by years. According to the World Bank the long-term economic cost of lost schooling could be as much as $10 trillion in lost productive output.

We cannot stand by and allow these young people to be robbed of their education and a fair chance in life. Instead we should be redoubling our efforts to get all children into school – including the 260 million already out of school and the 75 million children affected by protracted conflicts and forced displacement, including 35 million children living as refugees or internally displaced – with the comprehensive help they need – and to make it possible for young people to start or resume their studies in school further and higher
education.

There is a longer-term challenge we must also meet. Even before COVID-19, the world faced a learning crisis. Over half of the children in developing countries suffering ‘learning poverty’ and even at age 11 had little or no basic literacy and numeracy skills. As a result, 800 million of today’s young people leave education with no qualifications whatsoever. If we are to avoid this, millions of children who are now preparing to return to school, who have lost over half a year of education, need their governments to invest in catch-up programmes and proper learning assessment. When schools reopened after Pakistan’s 2005 earthquake attendance recovered, but four years later children had lost the equivalent of 1.5 years of schooling.

Resources are now urgently needed to get young people back into education and enable them to catch-up. What is more, we should rebuild better: more support for online learning, personalised learning, teacher training, conditional cash transfers for poor families and safer schools that meet ‘distancing’ rules, building on the enormous community effort that has been displayed during the pandemic. And to spur global momentum in support of progress in education, a coalition of global organisations has now joined forces in the ‘Save our Future’ initiative launched on August 4.

Yet at the very time we need extra resources, education funding is in danger on three fronts:

The World Bank now estimates that, over the next year, overall education spending in low and middle-income countries could be $100-150 billion lower than previously planned.

This funding crisis will not resolve itself.

We call on the G20, the IMF, World Bank and regional development banks and all countries to recognise the scale of the crisis and support three initiatives to enable catch-up to happen, and progress towards SDG4 to be resumed:

And the World Bank should unlock more support for low income countries through a supplementary International Development Association budget, and, following the lead of the UK and Netherlands which have now pledged $650 million to the new International Finance Facility for Education (IFFEd) to help unlock billions in extra finance for education in lower middle income countries, invite guarantees and grants from donors. This is in addition to – and compliments – over the next 2 years the replenishment of GPE (Global Partnership for Education) and scaled up investment in ECW (Education Cannot Wait) and continued support for the UN agencies focused on education and children led by UNESCO and UNICEF. We call on private sector corporations and foundations to make support for global education a greater priority.

Sustainable human development can only be built upon a foundation of quality education. While the challenges are momentous, the impact of the crisis on children has made us even more determined to realise our ambition contained in Sustainable Development Goal 4, that ours can be the first generation in history in which every child is at school and has the chance to develop their potential to the full. Now is the time for national governments and the international community to come together to give children and young people the opportunities they deserve and to which they are entitled.

Signed,

María Elena Agüero – Secretary General of the WLA-Club de Madrid

Esko Aho – Prime Minister of Finland (1991-1995)¹

Dr Shamshad Akhtar – UN Under Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP & Assistant Secretary-General at UN DESA (2013-2018); Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (2006-2009)²

Dr Farida Allaghi – Ambassador of Libya to the European Union (2015-2016)³

HE Dr Abdulaziz Altwaijri – Director General of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (1991-2019)³

Mohamed Amersi – Founder & Chairman, The Amersi Foundation

Dr Roger Ames – Director of the Center for Chinese Studies, University of Hawaii

Dr Kwame Anthony Appiah – Professor of Philosophy and Law, NYU

Shaukat Aziz – Prime Minister of Pakistan (2004-2007)³⁴

Professor Julian Baggini – Academic Director of the Royal Institute of Philosophy

Gordon Bajnai – Prime Minister of Hungary (2009-2010)

Harriett Baldwin MP – Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom; Founding Co-Chair, International Parliamentary Network for Education

Jan Peter Balkenende – Prime Minister of the Netherlands (2002-2010)¹

HE Joyce Banda – President of Malawi (2012-2014)¹

Kaushik Basu – President of the International Economic Association; Chief Economist of the World Bank (2012-2016)

Carol Bellamy – Executive Director of UNICEF (1995-2005)²

Nicolas Berggruen – Chairman of the Berggruen Institute⁴

Suman Bery – Chief Economist at Royal Dutch Shell (2012-2016); Director-General of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi

Sir Tim Besley – President of the International Economic Association (2014-2017); Professor of Economics and Political Science, LSE

Valdis Birkavs – Prime Minister of Latvia (1993-1994)¹

Tony Blair – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1997-2007)

Dr Mario Blejer – Governor of the Central Bank of Argentina (2002); Director of the Centre for Central Banking Studies, Bank of England (2003-2008)

Irina Bokova – Director-General of UNESCO (2009-2017)²

Patrick Bolton – Professor of Finance and Economics, Imperial College London; Professor, Columbia University

Kjell Magne Bondevik – Prime Minister of Norway (1997-2000; 2001-2005)¹

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz – Vice Chancellor, University of Cambridge (2010-2017)

Ouided Bouchamaoui – President of UTICA (2011-2018); Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (2015)³

Dumitru Braghiș – Prime Minister of Moldova (1999-2001)³

María Eugenia Brizuela de Ávila – Minister of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador (1999-2004)²

Gordon Brown – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (2007-2010)

John Bruton – Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland (1994-1997)¹⁵

Robin Burgess – Professor of Economics, LSE

Kim Campbell – Prime Minister of Canada (1993)¹

Fernando Henrique Cardoso – President of Brazil (1995-2003)¹

Wendy Carlin – Professor of Economics, University College London

Dr Vinton G. Cerf – Co-Inventor of the Internet³

Hikmet Çetin – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey (1991-1994), Speaker of the Grand National Assembly (1997-1999)³⁵

Baroness Lynda Chalker – Minister of Overseas Development of the United Kingdom (1989-1997)⁵

Professor Bai Chong-En – Dean, Tsinghua School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University

Helen Clark – Prime Minister of New Zealand (1999-2008); UNDP Administrator (2009-2017)¹³⁵

Joe Clark – Prime Minister of Canada (1979-1980)⁵

Emil Constantinescu – President of Romania (1996-2000)³

Radhika Coomaraswamy – UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict (2006-2012); UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (1994-2003)²

Chester Crocker – Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, United States (1981-1989)⁵

Mirko Cvetković – Prime Minister of Serbia (2008-2012)³

Dr Antonio Damasio – David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology and Philosophy; Director, Brain and Creativity Institute, USC

Dr Hanna Damasio – Dana Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology; Director, Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center, USC

Marzuki Darusman – Attorney General of Indonesia (1999-2001)⁵

Frederik Willem de Klerk – State President of South Africa (1989-1994)⁵

Kemal Derviş – Minister of Economic Affairs of Turkey (2001-2002); Administrator of UNDP (2005-2009); Senior Fellow Global Economy and Development, Brookings Institute

Beatrice Weder di Mauro – President, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Professor of International Economics, Graduate Institute in Geneva

Dr Victor J. Dzau – President of the National Academy of Medicine

Gareth Evans – Foreign Minister of Australia (1988-1996); President and CEO of International Crisis Group (2000-2009)⁵

Professor Sir Jeremy Farrar – Director of the Wellcome Trust

Jan Fischer – Prime Minister of the Czech Republic (2009-2010); Finance Minister (2013-2014)³

Professor Tom Fletcher CMG – UK Ambassador to Lebanon (2011-2015); Principal-Elect of Hertford College, University of Oxford

Vicente Fox – President of Mexico (2000-2006)¹

Franco Frattini – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy (2002-2004; 2008-2011); European Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security (2004-2008)³

Dr Anton Friedrich Koch – Professor of Philosophy, Universität Heidelberg

Chiril Gaburici – Prime Minister of Moldova (2015); Minister of Economy and Infrastructure (2018-2019)³

Ahmed Galal – Finance Minister of Egypt (2013-2014)

Nathalie de Gaulle – Chairwoman & Co-founder of NB-INOV; Founder of Under 40³

Lord Anthony Giddens – Director of the London School of Economics (1996–2003); Professor, Department of Sociology, LSE

Dr Lawrence Gonzi – Prime Minister of Malta (2004-2013)⁵

Dr Alexander Görlach – Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Relations, University of Cambridge

Dalia Grybauskaitė – President of the Republic of Lithuania (2009-2019)¹

Rebeca Grynspan – Ibero-American Secretary-General; Second Vice President of Costa Rica (1994-1998); UN Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator of UNDP (2010-2014)²

Ameenah Gurib-Fakim – President of Mauritius (2015-2018)³

Sergei Guriev – Chief Economist of the EBRD (2016-2019); Professor of Economics, Sciences Po

Dr Han Seung-soo – Prime Minister of South Korea (2008-2009)¹

Senator Robert M. Hertzberg – Majority Leader of the California State Senate, United States

Dr Noeleen Heyzer – UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP (2007-2015)²³

Bengt Holmström – Nobel Laureate for Economics (2016); Professor of Economics, MIT

Wang Hui – Professor of Chinese Language, Literature, and History, Tsinghua University

Mo Ibrahim – Founder fo Celtel; Chairman of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation⁴

Enrique Iglesias – Foreign Minister of Uruguay (1985-1988); President of the Inter-American Development Bank (1988-2005)¹⁵

Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu – Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (2004-2014)³

Dalia Itzik – Interim President of Israel (2007); President of the Knesset (2006-2009)³

Mladen Ivanić – Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2014-2018)³

Pico Iyer – Distinguished Presidential Fellow, Chapman University; Writer & Essayist, TIME

Garry Jacobs – President & Chief Executive Officer of the World Academy of Art and Science³

HE Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – President of Liberia (2006-2018); Member of The Elders⁵

T. Anthony Jones – Vice-President and Executive Director of the Gorbachev Foundation of North America¹

Ivo Josipović – President of Croatia (2010-2015)¹³

Jean-Claude Juncker – Prime Minister of Luxembourg (1995-2013); President of the European Commission (2014-2019)¹

Mats Karlsson – Vice President, External Affairs at the World Bank (1999-2002)³

Caroline Kende-Robb – Executive Director of the Africa Progress Panel (2011-2017); Secretary General of CARE International (2018-2019)

Rima Khalaf – Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (2010-2017)²

Dr Moushira Khattab – Executive President, Kemet Boutros Boutros Ghali Foundation for Peace and Knowledge; Minister of Family and Population of Egypt (2009-2011)³

Ban Ki-moon – UN Secretary General (2007-2016); Deputy Chair of The Elders¹

Horst Köhler – President of the Federal Republic of Germany (2004-2010)¹

Jadranka Kosor – Prime Minister of Croatia (2009-2011)³

Professor Anne Krueger – First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF (2001-2006); Senior Research Professor of International Economics, School for Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

HE John Kufuor – President of Ghana (2001-2009)¹

Chandrika Kumaratunga – President of Sri Lanka (1994-2005)¹³

Aleksander Kwaśniewski – President of Poland (1995-2005)¹

Rachel Kyte – Dean of The Fletcher School, Tufts University; UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All (2016-2019); World Bank Group VP & Special Envoy (2012-2015)²

Ricardo Lagos – President of Chile (2000-2006); Member of the Elders¹⁴

Zlatko Lagumdzija – Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2001- 2002); Foreign Affairs Minister (2012-2015)¹³

Yves Leterme – Prime Minister of Belgium (2008; 2009-2011)¹³

Dr Margaret Levi – Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences & Professor of Political Science, Stanford University

Professor Justin Yifu Lin – Chief Economist & Senior Vice-President of the World Bank (2008-2012); Dean of Institute of New Structural Economics, Peking University³

Tzipi Livni – Vice Prime Minister & Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel (2006-2009); Minister of Justice (2013-2014)³

Petru Lucinschi – President of Moldova (1997-2001)³

Ricardo Luna – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru (2016-2018)⁵

Nora Lustig – President Emeritus of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association; Professor of Latin American Economics, Tulane University

Graça Machel – Education & Culture Minister of Mozambique (1975-1986); Deputy Chair of The Elders

Sir John Major – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1990-1997)

Susana Malcorra – UN Under-Secretary-General for Field Support (2008-2012); Chef de Cabinet to UN Secretary-General (2012-2015); Minister of Foreign Affairs of Argentina (2015-2017)²

Purnima Mane – UN Assistant-Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director UNFPA (2007-2012)²

Moussa Mara – Prime Minister of Mali (2014-2015)³

Paul Martin – Prime Minister of Canada (2003-2006)⁴

Colin Mayer CBE – Professor of Management Studies, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Péter Medgyessy – Prime Minister of Hungary (2002-2004)³

Rexhep Meidani – President of Albania (1997-2002)¹³

Mario Monti – Prime Minister of Italy (2011-2013)¹⁴

Rovshan Muradov – Secretary General of NGIC

Joseph Muscat – Prime Minister of Malta (2013-2020)³

Mustapha Kamel Nabli – Governor of the Central Bank of Tunisia (2011-2012)

Piroska Nagy-Mohácsi – Programme Director of the Institute of Global Affairs, LSE; Director of Policy, EBRD (2009-2015)

Dawn Nakagawa – Executive Vice President, Berggruen Institute

Dr Rebecca Newberger Goldstein – Philosopher

Bujar Nishani – President of Albania (2012-2017)³

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo – President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999-2007)¹

Josiah Ober – Professor of Political Science and Classics, Stanford University

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala – Board Chair of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation; Finance Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (2011-2015)

Djoomart Otorbaev – Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan (2014-2015)³

Ana Palacio – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain (2002-2004)²³⁵

Elsa Papademetriou – Vice President of the Hellenic Parliament (2007-2009)³

George Papandreou – Prime Minister of Greece (2009-2011)³

Andrés Pastrana – President of Colombia (1998-2002)¹

P. J. Patterson – Prime Minister of Jamaica (1992-2005)¹⁵

Dr Philip Pettit – L.S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values, Princeton University

Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering – United States Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (1997-2000); Ambassador to the UN (1989-1992)⁵

Sir Christopher Pissarides – Nobel Laureate for Economics (2010); Professor of Economics & Political Science, LSE

Rosen Plevneliev – President of Bulgaria (2012-2017)³

Richard Portes CBE – Professor of Economics, London Business School; Founder and Honorary President of the Centre for Economic Policy Research

Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca – President of Malta (2014-2019)³

Romano Prodi – Prime Minister of Italy (2006-2008); President of the European Commission (1999-2004)¹

Michael Puett – Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilization, Harvard University

Jorge Quiroga – President of Bolivia (2001-2002)¹

Iveta Radičová – Prime Minister of Slovakia (2010-2012)¹

José Ramos Horta – President of Timor Leste (2007-2012)¹⁵

Òscar Ribas Reig – Prime Minister of Andorra (1982-1984; 1990-1994)¹³

Lord George Robertson – Secretary General of NATO (1999-2003)⁵

Mary Robinson – President of Ireland (19990-1997); UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Chair of the Elders¹

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero – Prime Minister of Spain (2004-2011)¹

Dani Rodrik – President-Elect of the International Economic Association; Professor of International Political Economy, Harvard University

Gérard Roland – Professor of Economics & Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

Petre Roman – Prime Minister of Romania (1989-1991)¹³

Dr Michael Roth – President of Wesleyan University

Nouriel Roubini – Chairman & CEO, Roubini Macro Associates LLC

Ruslana – World Music Award and Eurovision Song Contest winning recording artist; Special Envoy of NGIC

Isabel Saint Malo – Vice President of Panama (2014-2019)²

Juan Manuel Santos – President of Colombia (2010-2018); Nobel Peace Prize Laureate (2016); Member of The Elders

Amartya Sen – Nobel Laureate for Economics (1998); Professor of Economics & Philosophy, Harvard University

Ismail Serageldin – Vice President of the World Bank (1992-2000); Co-Chair of NGIC

Fatiha Serour – Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Somalia (2013-2014)²

Rosalía Arteaga Serrano – President of Ecuador (1997)³

Dame Jenny Shipley – Prime Minister of New Zealand (1997-1999)¹

Javier Solana – Secretary General of the Council of the EU (1999-2009); Secretary General of NATO (1995-1999)¹⁵

Professor Sir Richard Sorabji – Honorary Fellow, Wolfson College, University of Oxford

Michael Spence – Nobel Laureate for Economics (2001); William R. Berkley Professor in Economics & Business, NYU⁴

Devi Sridhar – Professor of Global Public Health, University of Edinburgh

Dr Eduardo Stein – Vice President of Guatemala (2004-2008)⁵

Lord Nicholas Stern – Chief Economist & Senior Vice-President of the World Bank (2000-2003); Chief Economist of the EBRD (1994-1999) & Professor of Economics and Government, LSE

Joseph Stiglitz – Chief Economist of the World Bank (1997-2000); Nobel Laureate for Economics (2001); Professor, Columbia University⁴

Petar Stoyanov – President of Bulgaria (1997-2002)³

Laimdota Straujuma – Prime Minister of Latvia (2014-2016)³

Lawrence Summers – United States Secretary of the Treasury (1999-2001); Deputy Secretary of the Treasury (1995-1999); Chief Economist of the World Bank (1991-1993); Director of the National Economic Council (2009-2010)⁴

Boris Tadić – President of Serbia (2004-2012)¹³

Jigme Y. Thinley – Prime Minister of Bhutan (2008-2013)¹

Helle Thorning-Schmidt – Prime Minister of Denmark (2011-2015)⁴

Eka Tkeshelashvili – Deputy Prime Minister of Georgia (2010-2012)³

Danilo Türk – President of Slovenia (2007-2012); President of WLA-Club de Madrid

Professor Laura D’Andrea Tyson – Director of the United States National Economic Council (1995-1996); Faculty Director, Haas Institute for Business & Social Impact, University of California, Berkeley⁴

Cassam Uteem – President of Mauritius (1992-2002); Vice-President of WLA-Club de Madrid⁵

Juan Gabriel Valdés – Minister for Foreign Affairs of Chile (1999); Ambassador to the UN (2000-2003)⁵

Marianna Vardinoyannis – UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador; Board Member of NGIC

Emiliana Vegas – Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Center for Universal Education, Brookings Institution

Andrés Velasco – Finance Minister of Chile (2006-2010); Dean of the School of Public Policy, LSE

Vaira Vike-Freiberga – President of Latvia (1999-2007)¹; Co-Chair of NGIC

Ernst-Ludwig von Thadden – President, Mannheim University (2012-2019); Professor, Economics Department

Filip Vujanović – President of Montenegro (2003-2018)³

Leonard Wantchekon – Founder & President of the African School of Economics; Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University

Shang-Jin Wei – Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank (2014-2016); Professor of Chinese Business and Economy & Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School

Rebecca Winthrop – Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Center for Universal Education, Brookings Institution

R. Bin Wong – Distinguished Professor of History; Director of the Asia Institute, UCLA (2004-2016)

Kateryna Yushchenko – First Lady of Ukraine (2005-2010); Board Member of NGIC

Viktor Yushchenko – President of Ukraine (2005-2010)³

Fareed Zakaria – Host of Fareed Zakaria GPS, CNN⁴

Valdis Zatlers – President of Latvia (2007-2011)³

Ernesto Zedillo – President of Mexico (1994-2000); Member of The Elders¹⁴

Min Zhu – Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (2011-2016)⁴

ActionAid UK – Girish Menon, CEO

African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) – Dr K.Y. Amoako, President and Founder

BRAC International – Dr Muhammad Musa, Executive Director

CARE International UK – Laurie Lee, CEO

Catholic Agency for Oversees Development (CAFOD) – Christine Allen, Director

Save the Childr
en International – Inger Ashing, CEO

Save the Children UK – Kevin Watkins, CEO

The Education Commission – Dr Liesbet Steer, Director

Theirworld – Dr Justin van Fleet, President

WaterAid UK – Tim Wainwright, CEO
¹ Member of the World Leadership Alliance-Club de Madrid
² Member of Global Women Leaders: Voices for Change and Inclusion
³ Member of Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC)
⁴ Member of the Berggruen Institute 21st Century Council
⁵ Member of Global Leadership Foundation

Members of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank & IMF

Denis Kpwang Abbé – Senator of the Republic of Cameroon (2013-2018)

Francisco Ashley L. Acedillo – Member, House of Representatives of the Republic of the Philippines (2013-2016)

Mohammed Jawad Ahmed – Advisor to the Speaker, Parliament of the Republic of Iraq

Shakeel Shabbir Ahmed – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of the Republic of Kenya

Shamsul Iskandar Bin Mohd Akin – Member of Parliament of Malaysia

Iqbal Abdul Hussein Almadhy MP – Member of Parliament, Parliament of the Republic of Iraq; President of the PN Chapter in Iraq

Njume Peter Ambang – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Cameroon; Member of the Education and Youth Affairs Committee

Ecaterina Andronescu – Senator, Parliament of Romania; Minister of Education (2018-2019); Professor, University Politehnica of Bucharest

Ibtissame Azzaoui – Member of the Parliament of Morocco

Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin – Second Deputy Speaker, Parliament of Ghana

Alpha Bah – Vice President, National Assembly of Guinea

Hafida Benchahida – Senator of the Republic of Algeria; Founding Member of the Mediterranean Women Mediators Network

Hervé Berville – Member of the National Assembly of the French Republic

Nozha Beyaoui – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Tunisia

Sunjeev Kour Birdi – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of the Republic of Kenya

Gary Bodeau – President of the Chamber of Deputies, National Assembly of the Republic of Haiti (2018-2020)

Peter M. Boehm – Senator, Senate of Canada

Mārtiņš Bondars – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Latvia

Liam Byrne MP – Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom; Chair of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and IMF

Professor Alejandro Cacace – Representative, National Congress of Argentina

Yunus Carrim – Member of Parliament, National Council of Provinces of Parliament, Republic of South Africa; Chairperson of the Select Committee on Finance

Giulio Centemero MP – Member of the Chamber of Deputies of Italy; Member of the Finance Committee; Co-Chair, PAM Panel on Trade and Investments

Sarah Champion MP – Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom

Olfa Soukri Cherif – Member of Parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania

Sven Clement – Member of the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies

Gordana Comic – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia (2001-2020)

Shiddi Usman Danjuma – Member of the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

Colin Deacon – Senator, Senate of Canada

Issa Mardo Djabir MP – Member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Chad

Percy E. Downe – Senator, Senate of Canada

Worlea-Saywah Dunah – Founder and Chairman of the Board, Center for Africa Development and Democracy

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith – Member of Parliament of Canada

Marouan Felfel – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Tunisia

Cedric Thomas Frolick – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of Parliament of the Republic of South Africa

Mahmut Celadet Gaydalı – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Turkey

Hajia Alijata sulemana Gbentie – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Ghana (2013-2016)

Najeeb Ghanem – Member of the House of Representatives, Parliament of Yemen

Hawa Abdulrahman Ghasia – Member of Parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania (2005-2020)

Preet Kaur Gill MP – Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom; Shadow Secretary of State for International Development

Patrick Grady MP – Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom

Dr Lahcen Haddad – Member of the Parliament of Morocco; Minister of Tourism, Government of Morocco (2012-2016); Vice President of the SID International Governing Council

Laura Angélica Rojas Hernández – Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico

Anthony Kimani Ichung’Wah – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of the Republic of Kenya

Eunice Kabiru – Member of Parliament of Estonia

Rebecca Yei Kamara – Member of Parliament, Parliament of Sierra Leone

Abdul Kargbo – Member of Parliament, Parliament of Sierra Leone

Gideon Keter – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of the Republic of Kenya

Volkmar Klein – Member of the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany

John Muiruri Makuno – Director, Action for Children in Conflict UK

Doruntinë E. Maloku – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Kosovo; Chair of the Committee on Economic Development

Teodomiro Nzé Mangué – Senator, Senate of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea

Janet Zebedayo Mbene – Member of Parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania

Betty McCollum – Congresswoman, United States House of Representatives

Hayat Meziani – Member of Parliament of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria (2012-2017)

Dr Ammar Moussi – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Algeria

Ruzanna Muradyan – Founder, Education Without Boundaries

Irene Wairimu Mwangi – Public Policy Specialist, Kenya

Cornelius Mweetwa – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Zambia

Adamou Namata – Member of the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

Bekono Ebah epse Ndoumou – Member of Parliament of the Republic of Cameroon

Professor George Bureng V. Nyombe – Chairperson of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA), Republic of South Sudan

Hassan Omar Mohamed – Member of Parliament, National Assembly of the Republic of Djibouti; President of the Parliamentary Group of Population and Development

Margaret Mary Quirk MLA – Member of the Parliament of Western Australia

Niki Rattle – Speaker of Parliament of the Cook Islands

Mohamed-Iqbal Ravalia – Senator, Senate of Canada

Dharma Raj Regmi – Parliamentarian, Federal Parliament of Nepal

Dr Azmi Shuaibi – Anti-Corruption Advisor, TI Palestine, Transparency International

Amanda Simard MPP – Member of the Provincial Parliament, Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Andres Sutt – Member of Parliament of Estonia; Deputy Governor and Member of the Executive Board, Bank of Estonia (2001-2009)

Catherine Zainab Tarawally – Member of Parliament, Parliament of Sierra Leone; Deputy Whip, All People’s Congress Party

Dr Olanrewaju Adeyemi Tejuoso – Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (2015-2019)

Umayya Toukan – Senator, Parliament of Jordan

Nguyen Tuong Van – Secretary General of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly

The post Call for Urgent Action by 275 World Leaders on Global Education Emergency In Face of Covid19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

275 World Leaders Letter to G20, IMF, World Bank, Regional Development Banks and Governments

The post Call for Urgent Action by 275 World Leaders on Global Education Emergency In Face of Covid19 appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

ISDS Enables Making More Money from Losses

Tue, 08/18/2020 - 09:40

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug 18 2020 (IPS)

With the Covid-19 contagion from late 2019 spreading internationally this year, governments have responded, often in desperation. Meanwhile, predatory international law firms are encouraging multimillion-dollar investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) lawsuits citing Covid-19 containment, relief and recovery measures.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Sharing the pain
Most governments failed to introduce sufficient precautionary measures early enough to prevent Covid-19 contagions from spreading. And when they did act, they often believed they had little choice but to impose nationwide ‘stay in shelter’ lockdowns to enforce preventive physical distancing.

To enable businesses and households to survive the adverse effects of such lockdowns, governments have provided relief measures, for at least some of those believed to have been adversely affected, especially for businesses better able to lobby effectively.

Meanwhile, there are already thousands of mainly bilateral investment treaties as well as bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements worldwide, enabling foreign investors to sue governments before private arbitration tribunals to profit from their wide-ranging treaty rights.

Transnational corporations (TNCs) can claim staggering sums in damages for alleged investment losses, for either alleged expropriation, or more typically, indirect ‘damage’ caused by regulatory changes, in this case, Covid-19 government response measures.

As some such measures try to share the burden of the crisis, e.g., with asset owners and other contracting parties, the international law firm Shearman & Sterling advises financial firms, “While helping debtors, these measures would inevitably impact creditors by causing loss of income”, referring to debt relief and restructuring efforts among others.

Foreign registered real estate or property companies can also sue governments that protect lessees or tenants who cannot make their lease or rent payments as contractually scheduled after their operations are shut down or disrupted by emergency regulations imposed.

Pharmaceutical and medical supplies companies can also appeal to such arbitration tribunals to claim losses due to price controls and ‘violated’ intellectual property rights for Covid-19 tests, treatments, medical and protective equipment as well as vaccines.

Lucrative ISDS lawsuits
In recent months, international law firms have been encouraging ISDS lawsuits citing government measures to check contagion and mitigate their economic consequences, urging clients to invoke investment and trade agreements to claim for allegedly lost income or additional losses or costs due to new government policy measures.

Another firm Ropes & Gray advises: “Governments have responded to COVID-19 with a panoply of measures, including…limitations on business operations, and tax benefits. Notwithstanding their legitimacy, these measures can negatively impact businesses by reducing profitability, delaying operations or being excluded from government benefits…For companies with foreign investments, investment agreements could be a powerful tool to recover or prevent loss resulting from COVID-19 related government actions.” [my italics]

Shearman & Sterling advises, “Some interventions will be protectionist—they will seek to support or benefit domestic enterprises (strategic or otherwise) but not foreign investors”, without mentioning their generally far lower tax contributions and generous investment incentives enjoyed.

Profiting from the pandemic
After advising clients to look out for discriminatory measures which could become the bases for such claims, law firm Sidley warns governments that proceedings can be very costly as “it is not only the actually invested amounts that can be considered recoverable damages, but also lost future profits”.

Such law firms remind their clientele that many of the more than thousand ISDS lawsuits filed worldwide have arisen during political or economic crises. Covid-19 pandemic response measures are now being widely studied as possible pretexts for another round of lawsuits.

These corporate lawsuits can impose massive fiscal burdens on governments. As Pia Eberhardt shows, legal costs average well over US$6 million per party, but can be much higher. Hence, such suits can drain government fiscal resources.

Although it becomes much more expensive if governments lose, they still have to cover their own legal expenses even if they do not lose. As of 2018, governments had been ordered to pay US$88 billion for settlements made public.

There is considerable scope for such cases given the still growing, broad range of government Covid-19 measures, e.g., foreign-owned water supply companies can sue governments for insisting that more public water supply sources be provided, or household water supplies remain uninterrupted, even if water bills are not settled, to enable more regular hand washing.

ISDS undemocratic, illegitimate
International investment law is generally independent of national legislatures and biased toward TNC interests. Investment agreements prescribe foreign investor rights and privileges very broadly, but their duties and obligations, usually rather minimally.

Sovereign national societies, parliaments and governments have considerable scope for discretion in addressing complex political issues involving diverse social and economic interests. Also, national courts generally do not award damages for lost future profits as these are considered completely conjectural.

But ISDS provides much more favourable treatment to powerful TNCs. Also, international arbitration tribunals ignore and undermine the legitimate scope for national courts, law-making and democratic government decision-making.

The typically transnational arbitration tribunals that interpret such law generally ignore recent legal developments, which take more account of the rights and responsibilities of various other stakeholders in national societies. Thus, arbitration awards tend to be much more lucrative, for both TNCs and their lawyers, than ordinary national court decisions.

A South Centre Southview urges considering various measures in response to the threat such as terminating or suspending investment treaties, withdrawing consent to arbitration, statutorily prohibiting recourse to arbitration and appealing to TNCs’ corporate moral responsibility

Already, there are growing appeals for an immediate moratorium on ISDS lawsuits and to end ISDS proceedings involving Covid-19 emergency measures, while some countries, e.g., India, South Africa and Indonesia, had scrapped some of their bilateral investment treaties even before the crisis.

The Southview opinion also chides the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) for trifling with marginal reforms, instead of radically reconsidering the very illegitimacy of international investment arbitration itself.

As the world struggles to cope with an unprecedented ‘black swan’ public health threat, the prospect of a world recession taking the planet into depression is greater than ever in the last eight decades. The need to end ISDS provisions and lawsuits is more urgent than ever.

The post ISDS Enables Making More Money from Losses appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

We Must Prioritize Local Solutions to Global Problems

Tue, 08/18/2020 - 09:26

Credit: UN News

By Ritah Nansereko
KAMPALA, Uganda, Aug 18 2020 (IPS)

World Humanitarian Day is the perfect time to refresh our push to localize humanitarian aid for COVID-19 and all the challenges we face. Celebrating #RealLifeHeroes!

I’ll never forget the day when the Palabek refugee settlement officially became home to South Sudanese refugees in the Acholi Sub-region of Northern Uganda. The year before, I had visited the area in Lamwo District with my team from the African Women and Youth Action for Development (AWYAD).

We were shocked to find hundreds of refugees, mainly women and children, living under trees. They had no protection and told us that cross-border attacks by rebels were frequent. Still, they refused to move on to the closest designated Refugee settlement in West Nile.

I remember them telling us repeatedly, ‘we will not be safe there; our people are fighting there too’. One woman pointed to a watering hole and said, ‘we’d rather drink water here with the cattle than go there’.

After we left and I got back to the coordination office in Kampala, their words continued to dance in my mind. I had to do something.

Immediately my team and I joined hands with Lamwo District Local Government officials, the Wanainchi, together with the refugee representatives, and we began to lobby the central government asking for the establishment of the refugee settlement in Lamwo District.

In less than a year, the Ugandan government responded to our appeal and in April 2017, Palabek became the official home to over 20,000 of refugees at the time of its inception. My heart filled with pride that once again, we Ugandans had answered when our neighbors knocked on our door. Currently Palabek hosts more than 53,000 refugees.

I use this case as just one example of how, over the years, local leaders and organizations have increasingly become the first responders when disaster hits. Refugees in Uganda, always receive their first emergency support from the local actors.

Uganda is the largest refugee hosting country in Africa. The country hosts about 1.4 million refugees, the majority from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ritah Nansereko

Uganda’s progressive refugee policy has enabled its nationals to stand with refugees and share their limited resources with them. Northern Uganda is one of the country’s poorest region, but it hosts over 60% of the refugees. All are settled on citizens’ land.

The great contribution of the hosting communities, the local NGOs and the government has meant that many refugees have been given a second home after being forcibly being displaced from their country of origin. Unlike other hosting countries, Uganda’s refugees, especially the majority in the northern part of the country, are integrated within the hosting communities.

And yet, time and again, local actors and communities, who have shown that they are part of the solution, are sidelined when the international actors arrive. Suddenly, we ‘lack capacity’ and our indigenous knowledge and physical proximity are undervalued.

Debates on localization and the balance of power between the so-called Global North and Global South have been gaining traction in humanitarian discourse over the last decade. The first UN World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 in Istanbul was intended to fundamentally reform the humanitarian sector so that it could react more effectively to today’s many crises.

Among the major things emphasized was the need to adapt to new challenges through local, inclusive, and context specific responses.

This need to re-think global humanitarian response has to a large extent been driven by escalating humanitarian needs – over 168 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance worldwide today, coupled with protracted crises around the globe, which call for a more diverse thinking.

The current global COVID-19 pandemic has posed yet another threat to the already shrinking humanitarian basket. It has exposed once again the need for more country-based systems that are able to address emergencies and mitigate future risks, using locally available solutions.

But on the ground, the shift to valuing local actors as critical part of the solution is still not being felt enough. The rhetoric has not translated into action. And I have been forced to face up to the reality that the humanitarian system was built by and for international actors, multilateral organisations and international NGOs. Not for us to find local solutions to global problems.

What does this side-lining look like in practical terms to those of us who are local actors? It means not being asked to participate in key policy debates. It means not being part of the planning process for major interventions. It means that funding to local actors is still below 10% of total humanitarian funding.

In the case of Uganda, although it is one of the first countries to adopt the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), and has further integrated refugee response in the National Development Plan Three (NDPIII), local groups are still left in the periphery during the planning and implementation of refugee response programs.

There is a persistent misinterpretation of localization by many international agencies that limits localization to local-staff recruitment and one-off project-based community consultations.

This is not enough, especially as we are responding to a protracted refugee crisis. Response programmes need to speak to each other at every stage, if not there is a great risk that we end up with parallel response strategies which in the long term means that there is a gap between the emergency and the recovery phase.

Local groups must be included in order to manage smooth transitions from the emergency and recovery phases, where host communities play a fundamental role.

Closer to home, in Palabek, after mobilizing for the establishment of the settlement alongside fellow local groups, we received no support to continue our work. You cannot imagine my disappointment when after fighting so hard for its opening, only INGOs received funding.

The reason given was that none of us local organizations had “the capacity” to offer humanitarian services. It felt like once again, the commitment made in Istanbul, to “empower national and local humanitarian action by increasing the share of financing available to them” was mere lip service.

So today, we continue work at the service of implementing partners. The set structures within the settlement themselves are skewed towards giving INGOs more power. Everything we do, must be approved by them. More often than not, they do not support our innovative ideas, claiming that they are not up to standard!

This paternalistic attitude needs to change. INGOs need to be willing to have real partnerships with local actors. And yes, this also means giving up some of the jobs and some of the money so that we have the “capacity” to help find long lasting solutions to emergencies like the refugee crisis.

We’ve talked enough. We’ve shown that we can lead humanitarian interventions. Now we need more action from all those concerned. And I think that change needs to start from those who currently hold the power, INGOs. They must:

I firmly believe that localization will not be achieved until the application of the historical westernized humanitarian systems are regulated, to give room for local context-based solutions.

As we celebrate #RealLifeHeroes on World Humanitarian Day, we shouldn’t leave it as a one-off ceremony, but rather use it as an opportunity to strengthen our commitment to local actors so that they can in turn continue to support populations in need.

It is a chance to work in earnest to remove the bottlenecks that have hindered their ability to access humanitarian funding and operational space.

African Women and Youth Action for Development (AWYAD) is a local woman-centered humanitarian and development organisation in Uganda that works in refugee protection response; education in emergency and women’s rights advocacy.

The post We Must Prioritize Local Solutions to Global Problems appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ritah Nansereko, Executive Director – African Women and Youth Action for Development

The post We Must Prioritize Local Solutions to Global Problems appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Education Cannot Wait Interviews EU Commissioners Jutta Urpilainen & Janez Lenarčič

Tue, 08/18/2020 - 00:55

By External Source
Aug 17 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The European Commission (EC) is one of the founders of Education Cannot Wait, which was established at the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 and aims at increasing funding and efficiency in delivering quality education to some 75 million children and youth affected by conflicts, natural disasters and forced displacement. EC plays a major role since in advancing education in the humanitarian-development nexus during crisis. Please elaborate on the EC vision in driving education to achieve humanitarian-development coherence and deliver quality education in situations of crisis, for refugees, for girls, and other stakeholders who are left furthest behind.

The Commissioner Lenarčič: Education is an essential part of EU humanitarian assistance. It is a powerful tool to bring positive changes to individuals and to wider society and bring hope for a better and more sustainable future. Schools also protect children from violence and provide food, water, health care and hygiene supplies. They provide children with safe space and help them cope with traumatic experiences.

We need to remember that half of all out-of-school children live in conflict-affected countries. When a child’s education is disrupted by an emergency, there is a high possibility that they will never return to school. Just over half of refugees of primary school age attend school, and less than a quarter of the equivalent age group is in secondary school. We are deeply committed to bringing those girls and boys back into education and ensure their return to safe and quality learning within three months of their education disruption, so they have the rights and opportunities they deserve.

I am an advocate for greater investment in education, and we have set our own target at 10% of EU’s humanitarian aid budget. We support the education system reform to provide for greater quality and resilience, and capacity building of education actors. The protection of education against attacks is another important objective. Education needs to be addressed in a comprehensive manner, we take seriously our global responsibilities and contribute to coordinated multi-stakeholder education actions that create added value and enhance impact.

Commissioner Urpilainen: Beyond the initial emergency response, education is and will remain a top priority for EU development assistance, particularly for children living in fragile contexts.

Strengthening education systems is at the core of our development programmes. We work through long-term partnerships with national governments to expand education services, to re-build infrastructure destroyed by disasters, and to strengthen the resilience of education systems to withstand future shocks. We improve governance systems to ensure that education services are equitably distributed, staff are paid regularly, and finances are managed efficiently.

In 2018, the European Commission produced a Communication on Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises, which sets out our vision of shared responsibility. We use the term ‘nexus’ to describe the shared space of humanitarian, development and political instruments to achieve education for all. Within the European Commission, and among EU Member States, we have the different tools needed to address these different needs.

1- You jointly visited Burkina Faso earlier this year to assess the ongoing crisis. What were your main takeaways from the trip? What left you feeling hopeful about the work we are doing and the role of education in protracted crisis to achieve peace, stability and sustainable development?

Commissioner Urpilainen:

I was deeply impressed by the resilience of the families I met. Long-term poverty, poor infrastructure and weak social services have prevailed for many years. The current security and forced displacement crisis is worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. These crises risk undermining the education gains made in Burkina Faso in recent years, in terms of access to education and the quality of teaching and learning.

The national education system in Burkina Faso has significant development needs to improve the infrastructure, system management and quality of education. Girls are more likely to be out of school, and some 52% of girls are subject to early marriage.

During the visit I had an opportunity to talk with Burkinabe youth who emphasised the importance of accessibility in vocational education and training (VET). This point was raised also by President Kaboré in our meeting. Skills acquired through quality training help support smooth transition to labour market. In the long term, skilled labour force is a key element of sustainable economic growth and stability.

Commissioner Lenarčič: Unfortunately, hundreds of schools have been closed in Burkina even before COVID-19 pandemic. Many have been under attack, affecting thousands of children and teachers. Out-of-school and vulnerable girls and boys face violence and exploitation, including gender-based sexual violence, child labour and forced recruitment.

Scaling up and improving humanitarian assistance to Burkina Faso has become an imperative. More, better and faster humanitarian aid requires adequate coordination. Only an integrated approach can ensure communities’ security, the ability to meet their needs and aspirations, and to restore trust.

Education is crucial in this respect. To intensify our efforts, we recently decided to support two large multi-annual partnerships to address broad education and protection needs in the Sahel region with the EU’s humanitarian aid budget.

2- What motivates you to be part of the Education Cannot Wait, and as members of the ECW High-Level Steering Group? What do you hope to achieve through supporting this rapidly growing global fund?

Commissioner Urpilainen: I strongly believe in the power of collective action. Education Cannot Wait was formed to mobilise a collective response to urgent needs in education in emergencies, bringing together traditional and new actors. The European Union was part of ECW’s inception, bringing development funding to allow multi-year, predictable support.

From a development perspective, I place great importance in the Multi-Year Resilience Programming window of the fund, which incentivises humanitarian and development actors to come together in joint response.

Commissioner Lenarčič: Following the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016, ECW created an impressive dynamic around the importance of education in emergency contexts. It rallied in an unprecedented way donors from around the world to support initiatives to ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality education.

The sense of urgency, strong collective action, enhanced prioritisation and capacity to respond are our shared goals. From the humanitarian perspective, I would like to highlight the First Emergency Response Window. The EU has been strengthening in the past years the work of education clusters and working groups, as well as systematic inclusion of education in the rapid response mechanism. Together, we can continue to be a vocal advocate for the strengthening of clusters, improving coordination, needs assessments and localisation. We can also better identify and develop innovative approaches and build partnerships at the systemic level.

3- How do your different departments, the DG for Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid and the DG for International Cooperation and Development, work together strategically and practically to promote quality education in the humanitarian-development nexus for girls, boys and youth caught in protracted crises?

Commissioner Lenarčič: Working across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus is at the core of our efforts. The first step was to develop a joint policy framework, making sure we have clear, shared objectives and goals. This is provided by the 2018 Communication on Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises, in which we jointly commit to four common goals (access to education, quality education, protection of education, coordination and partnerships). The EU Member States also endorsed this policy framework through Council Conclusions in 2018.

At country level, we have joint planning and review processes. EU Delegation staff and ECHO staff sit together at important moments, such as the formulation of the Humanitarian Implementation Plans (HIP), or the annual reviews of Multiannual Indicative Plans (MIP). Processes are often shared, such as monitoring visits, reviews, planning workshops. There is a regular exchange of information.

Our presence in the field is mutually reinforcing, with humanitarian actors operating in contexts where development instruments are not present, e.g. active conflicts or hard to reach areas.

Commissioner Urpilainen: Our EU Delegations have strong credibility with education ministries, based on years of partnership through budget support, technical assistance and policy dialogue. When appropriate, information from our humanitarian teams can be channelled into policy dialogue with national authorities. This is an effective way of influencing policy dialogue and improving coordination among actors, who may be trying to tackle the same issue from different angles.

Within the ‘nexus’ space we operate in different ways according to our mandates, but we share the same goals. We promote equity and equality, especially gender equality. We focus on the poorest and most vulnerable, striving for inclusive education systems. Peace, tolerance, good governance and non-violence are essential values in all education support.

4-What are the EU’s main priorities for education in emergencies and protracted crises in your new strategy for 2021-2027?

Commissioner Lenarčič: The EU’s policy framework for education in emergencies of 2018 will continue to guide our actions and offering children affected by humanitarian crises access to safe, quality, and accredited education.

Yet, we know that COVID-19 has disrupted education for 1.2 billion learners globally and added a new layer of complexity for education in humanitarian settings, exacerbating existing vulnerabilities.

I am deeply concerned about the most vulnerable children, at risk of never returning to school. If even a small percentage do not return to education, this translates into millions of children. We will strive to forge even closer links between child protection and education and promote integrated and comprehensive approaches to children’s needs.

To build up better education systems, we should focus more on the equity and quality aspects. Innovative, digital-based solutions are key but they should be accompanied with adequate attention to connectivity, skills and knowledge of teachers and caregivers, accelerated education programmes to bridge the education gaps, and development of alternative remote learning channels, such as pre-registered offline content or TV/radio-based teaching.

The scale of needs is unprecedented and requires sustained, timely and coordinated financing. Our key commitment to dedicate 10% of EU’s humanitarian aid budget to education remains for the years to come and will guide our policy, advocacy and funding support.

I was struck by the findings of the recently released report “Education under Attack 2020” by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack. Much remains to be done to protect students, educators and personnel and schools from attack. Protection of education will also feature high on my agenda as Commissioner.

Commissioner Urpilainen: The current crisis risks reversing decades of progress towards education for all. We must re-focus attention towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 as education is part of the solution.

I have decided to boost the share of education expenditure in the upcoming EU Development Financing between 2021-2027. As a former teacher, I am convinced that investments in education will bring great returns in terms of human development, poverty eradication and reducing inequalities.

We know how important teachers are. For children caught up in cycles of violence and crisis, a reliable teacher can be the anchor that keeps them on track, helping them find their best future. We will support teachers’ professional development programmes and curriculum reform, so education teachers have the tools needed to provide 21st century skills to children.

Furthermore, qitting in school is not enough. Students need to graduate with strong skills. We are preparing students to live in a new world, to work in jobs that do not exist yet, with technology that has not been invented yet. Strengthening education systems to meet these needs is our main priority over the next seven years.

5- In 2019 and 2020 ECW increased its engagement in the Sahel and the Middle East as two regions in crisis. How do you see ECW making a difference for children’s education, particularly girls in these regions in trouble?

Commissioner Lenarčič: ECW plays a major role in advancing education in the humanitarian-development nexus during crises. ECW has been an important voice, highlighting the dire and worsening situation in the Sahel region and in the Middle East. ECW operates at an impressive speed – we saw this for the COVID-19 First Education Response funding, which reached 26 countries in March.

Furthermore, ECW has a clear targeting – focusing on vulnerable children affected by crises. This combination holds great potential for children in the Sahel and in the Middle East. In these regions, children are affected by multiple crises, often overlapping, and it is the most vulnerable, particularly girls and displaced children, who are left behind. The emphasis that ECW places on girls is much needed, considering for example the huge disparities in gross enrolment rates and literacy levels, e.g. in the Sahel region, girls are on average 17% behind boys.

The weight that ECW has as a donor allows it to push for more integrated actions, understanding that the educational needs of girls and boys cannot find their solutions only in education but require a more holistic view of the multifaceted barriers to education, which is particularly valid for regions like Sahel or the Middle East.

Commissioner Urpilainen: ECW’s plans to start Multi-Year Resilience Programmes throughout the Sahel in 2020 offers much hope. Countries like Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali require medium and long-term planning. The multi-year framework aims to improve coordination and incentivise joint planning and financing.

We are proud to be part of Education Cannot Wait’s drive to improve coordination and joint planning for children affected by crises.

6- The EU/EC plays an instrumental role at the global level and in its partnership with the United Nations, the World Bank and other regional and international and multilateral institutions. How do you see EU/EC’s role in supporting the achievement of all Sustainable Development Goals, not the least Sustainable Development Goal 4 on quality education, as we face COVID-19 and a continued uncertainty of the future. What can we all do to build back better?

Commissioner Urpilainen: In these extraordinary circumstances, the Sustainable Development Goals and the agenda of ‘leaving no one behind’ are more important than ever.

We need to draw a joint roadmap that considers COVID-19 and we need to harmonise the aid architecture for education. But above all, the education community must come together with a clear message: education is a top priority. Education for all will enable the achievement of the other SDGs, and it is especially in times of crisis that we realise its power.

People on the move take their education and skills with them, helping them to adapt to and thrive in new settings. Educated people are quicker to take up technology solutions to access information, such as health messages or remote learning programmes. Science and technology offer innovative solutions. We depend more than ever on highly skilled healthcare providers and data analysts. Educated agriculturalists can take up new opportunities in green farming.

Commissioner Lenarčič: Furthermore, we need to use our collective voice to speak to the wider global community, to ensure all decision-makers are convinced of the importance and power of education.

The agenda of building back better requires appropriate consideration to equity and quality, and lessons learnt from diversified strategies to address distance learning, especially in low-income countries and in humanitarian contexts. A people-centred approach that focuses on the most vulnerable groups and on people in vulnerable contexts should remain at the heart of our actions.

The post Education Cannot Wait Interviews EU Commissioners Jutta Urpilainen & Janez Lenarčič appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Beating Anger into Empathy: the Need of the Hour in Ethiopia

Mon, 08/17/2020 - 18:45

In Ethiopia, a nine-year-old child carries jerry cans filled with water to her home, four kilometers away from the borehole. Credit: UNICEF/Ayene

By Dr Joshua Castellino
LONDON, Aug 17 2020 (IPS)

The murder of Haacaaluu Hundeessaa, an icon of the Oromo people in Ethiopia was a tragic loss for all who struggle for rights in systems that fail to accommodate them.

Suspicions around motivations for this murder and the swiftness of his burial in his village, rather than with a state funeral in the capital Addis Ababa in keeping with his status, enraged a community already in shock.

What happened next is disputed, interpreted and misinterpreted. The discernible facts state that violence broke out, over 200 people were killed and the government responded with mass arrests and an internet shut down, both ostensibly to curb further spread of violence.

Accounts of the violence showed “disturbing hallmark signs of ethnic cleansing”, as my organisation, Minority Rights Group International (MRG), wrote in a statement. We were particularly concerned about the dissemination of hate and incitement to violence targeting local minority communities. Many now fear the current lull may be the proverbial calm before a storm.

The situation bears the features of a society that could spiral into even more widespread violence unless concerted actions are taken to restore confidence. A critical step will be to seek an inter-community dialogue involving all those voices of moderation who are present right across Ethiopia’s incredibly diverse communities.

I am convinced that those who seek a peaceful resolution to the current ongoing tensions represent the true majority of Ethiopians, regardless of their backgrounds.

Modern Ethiopia only recently emerged from a long period of authoritarianism that created a hostile human rights climate. Its popular young Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, elected in 2018, was awarded the Nobel Prize for peace ‘for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea’.

He promised a vision of an inclusive Ethiopia and had already been awarded the 2018 Gender Award plaque for his role in promoting gender equality. Of Oromo ethnicity, he has gained widespread national support and has been feted as bringing positive change to Ethiopia.

Modernising Ethiopia requires vision, skill, empathy, political capital, and a determination to place Ethiopia on a world stage to contribute and benefit from global trade. A significant change is needed to ensure that rights flowed to all, and that the traditional dominance of certain ethnic groups, indicative of the choice of national language of the State, could give way to a pluralistic democracy based on common heritage, not ethnic lineage.

The Oromo, constituting an estimated thirty four percent of Ethiopia’s population while the largest ethnic group, suffered decades of exclusion and forced assimilation. This decimated their pastoralist lifestyle, further threatened in recent years by proposals to extend the capital Addis Ababa into traditional Oromo pastoral land.

The history of oppression gave rise to the Oromo Liberation Front in the 1970s which operated as a militarized group, even aligning with the Eritrean struggle for independence. Despite this history, the Oromo backed the candidacy of the current Prime Minister hoping he could uplift and modernise Ethiopia creating a country with rights for all.

The ethno-linguistic make up of Ethiopia is worth reflecting on. According to Minority Rights Group’s World Directory on Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, the population (102.37 million, 2017 census) consists a federation of ethnic, linguistic, religious, and regional minorities.

The census listed over 90 distinct ethnic groups, speaking over 80 languages, with the greatest diversity in the south-west, with Amharic (a Semitic language), Oromo, Tigrinya and Somali spoken by two-thirds of the population.

About 43.5 per cent of the population is Orthodox Christian, 33.9 per cent are Muslim with the remainder Protestant, Roman Catholic or followers of traditional religions.

Negotiating this terrain and seeking an optimal future for Ethiopia is a delicate task. There are legitimate political questions ahead, including the potential impact of altering the federal state and how that could undermine ethnic groups that do not feel represented in national politics.

A history of violence and oppression may also need to be factored in, as well as seeking accountability for the years of authoritarianism. Ethiopian society is divided on these tough political questions, which only Ethiopians can answer and decide a way forward.

Arriving at a consensus and clear plan is key to the country’s future stability, but such a discussion can only take place if the ambience of hate is not stoked.

There has been a tendency globally in recent years for anger and discontent to dominate the political, leading to name-calling, fuelling of hate and perpetration of violence. Recent history shows how such an ambience privileges strident voices and extremists, silencing the calm, intelligent moderate voices who need to find a way of configuring a peaceful path to prosperity.

The only way to preserve Ethiopia’s heritage and global contributions lies in celebrating its diversity and fostering a unity that makes Ethiopia much greater than the sum of its parts.

In the days, weeks and months – if elections are cancelled due to coronavirus – the international community must support the voices of moderation, to create an ambience where the force of argument rather than the argument of force dominates.

It is vital to guard against signs that authoritarianism may be returning to the country’s governance, and to urge social media companies to act responsibly to safeguard against hate speech or other comments that inflame tensions.

Writing in the 1950s after a period of intense hatred, a scholar emphasized the importance of ‘beating swords into ploughshares’. Today words are wielded as swords, and when uttered passionately and disseminated to angry mobs, they create lasting damage. Beating anger into empathy is the urgent need of the hour.

The rewards are great: in the short-term prevention of violence, in the long term, the collective awakening of a country with incredible potential to take up its place on the world stage.

The post Beating Anger into Empathy: the Need of the Hour in Ethiopia appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr Joshua Castellino is Executive Director at Minority Rights Group International and Professor of Law at Middlesex University.

The post Beating Anger into Empathy: the Need of the Hour in Ethiopia appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

The Battle over Barriers for People with Disabilities

Mon, 08/17/2020 - 12:28

Credit: United Nations

By Shubha Nagesh
DEHRADUN, India, Aug 17 2020 (IPS)

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) at-least 15% of the population globally has some form or other of a disability- considered the world’s largest minority population and one that any of us can join at any point in our lives. It therefore makes so much sense for each one of us to invest towards inclusion, so everyone has the right to live their life to their full potential and contribute meaningfully to society. This article seeks to highlight the updates from the disability world in the past four months, particularly the last month, both globally and in India.

As we continue to learn to cope with a global emergency of unprecedented scale, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) celebrated its 30th anniversary, since it was signed into law on July 26 1990. Considered to be the most important civil rights act since 1960, the ADA is essentially the law that prohibits discrimination against disabled people. The act hoped to give people with disabilities equal opportunity, full participation, independent living and economic sufficiency.

The ADA generation comprises of young people who ‘came of age’ under the ADA- young people who are willing to relate with, acknowledge and not just accept the disability, but in fact take pride in it.

Their spark to make their own lives better is warming others to do the same, thereby creating a whole generation of people who now approach life with a rights-based perspective- a much needed magnification of the spectrum of disability justice.

Somehow this flicker has to warm up beyond America, particularly in middle and low income countries, which in fact is home to the majority of people with disabilities.

The right attitude also allows for the health care provider to view the person first and the disability later, enabling the person’s right to assessment, intervention, treatment, rehabilitation, or inclusion

The inequities faced by them has been made more than evident in the face of the pandemic, as they seem to be dying more than ever, are denied treatment rightfully theirs, and continue to be discriminated against by not just health systems, but others too, all of which influence their chances at life and death.

In India, two events took place in recent times that impacted people with disabilities- in July, the government of India proposed amendments to the Rights of Persons with Disability Act (RPDA) 2016, to decriminalise minor offences, in as many as 19 legislations.

This proposal to negate and water down the Act was met with huge resistance from disability advocates and activists across the country, who insisted that doing the same would adversely affect people with disabilities in India. The solidarity and the strength with which the community came together to resist these lame changes in the name of “easing business” by the Government, succeeded in cancellation of the amendments.

Also in July, the Supreme Court delivered a significant decision that people with disabilities are socially backward and therefore qualify for the same benefits and relaxations as candidates from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, both in education and employment.

The Delhi High Court has reiterated that as per Census 2011, illiteracy rate among people with disabilities was almost 51% in India and despite the quota for disabled rising from 3-5%, employment rates and retention rates continue to be abysmally low. Hopefully with this new decision when put to full effect could elevate people with disabilities, particularly their education and employment potential.

As someone who has worked with children with developmental disabilities for almost ten years now, based on what we have seen and what we hear from parents, families and the older children, while there are an array of barriers that prevent inclusion into society, perhaps the most difficult one to overcome is the attitudinal barrier or the mindset of the larger society that chooses discrimination over diversity and its acceptance.

This challenge is large, escalates other barriers, has multiple origins like hate, ignorance, fear, lack of understanding etc, needs to be addressed from multiple levels and dimensions, and will take years to come through.

As a medical doctor, the one aspect I would like to focus on is training for medical professionals on disability; for all cadres of health workers and early on in the curriculum, for its impact on the individual, their family and society at large is significant.

This education, if provided the right way, could be life changing in understanding disability and impairment, provide equitable and timely intervention and address people with disabilities with dignity and respect.

If young doctors, particularly those in rural and peri-urban contexts understood disability and referred children for early intervention as soon as they picked up red flags in development, it could improve quality of life for children significantly and save the families and the health systems considerable investments in rehabilitation.

It could support families to access healthcare more often and thereby have positive health outcomes, leading to overall improvement in the health of the population.

Further, the right attitudes could also facilitate reduction of other barriers, including physical barriers like infrastructure, health communication could become more accessible and inter sectoral coordination between different departments could facilitate more one stop solutions for people with disabilities.

The right attitude also allows for the health care provider to view the person first and the disability later, enabling the person’s right to assessment, intervention, treatment, rehabilitation, or inclusion. But above all this, people with disabilities could be treated with equal opportunities for access, treatment, medical benefits and therefore improve opportunities for education and/or employment, all of which would eventually contribute to the progress of society.

If this isn’t worth fighting for, what is?
It’s time to rethink disability, embrace it and handle it with love.
Love recognises no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope- Maya Angelou

The post The Battle over Barriers for People with Disabilities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr Shubha Nagesh is a medical doctor and works with the Latika Roy Foundation

The post The Battle over Barriers for People with Disabilities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

Brain Scientists Haven’t Been Able to Find Major Differences Between Women’s and Men’s Brains, Despite Over a Century of Searching

Mon, 08/17/2020 - 12:19

Photo by Natasha Connell on Unsplash

By External Source
Aug 17 2020 (IPS)

People have searched for sex differences in human brains since at least the 19th century, when scientist Samuel George Morton poured seeds and lead shot into human skulls to measure their volumes. Gustave Le Bon found men’s brains are usually larger than women’s, which prompted Alexander Bains and George Romanes to argue this size difference makes men smarter. But John Stuart Mill pointed out, by this criterion, elephants and whales should be smarter than people.

So focus shifted to the relative sizes of brain regions. Phrenologists suggested the part of the cerebrum above the eyes, called the frontal lobe, is most important for intelligence and is proportionally larger in men, while the parietal lobe, just behind the frontal lobe, is proportionally larger in women. Later, neuroanatomists argued instead the parietal lobe is more important for intelligence and men’s are actually larger.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, researchers looked for distinctively female or male characteristics in smaller brain subdivisions. As a behavioral neurobiologist and author, I think this search is misguided because human brains are so varied.

Anatomical brain differences

The largest and most consistent brain sex difference has been found in the hypothalamus, a small structure that regulates reproductive physiology and behavior. At least one hypothalamic subdivision is larger in male rodents and humans.

But the goal for many researchers was to identify brain causes of supposed sex differences in thinking – not just reproductive physiology – and so attention turned to the large human cerebrum, which is responsible for intelligence.

Within the cerebrum, no region has received more attention in both race and sex difference research than the corpus callosum, a thick band of nerve fibers that carries signals between the two cerebral hemispheres.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, some researchers found the whole corpus callosum is proportionally larger in women on average while others found only certain parts are bigger. This difference drew popular attention and was suggested to cause cognitive sex differences.

But smaller brains have a proportionally larger corpus callosum regardless of the owner’s sex, and studies of this structure’s size differences have been inconsistent. The story is similar for other cerebral measures, which is why trying to explain supposed cognitive sex differences through brain anatomy has not been very fruitful.

Female and male traits typically overlap

Even when a brain region shows a sex difference on average, there is typically considerable overlap between the male and female distributions. If a trait’s measurement is in the overlapping region, one cannot predict the person’s sex with confidence. For example, think about height. I am 5’7″. Does that tell you my sex? And brain regions typically show much smaller average sex differences than height does.

Neuroscientist Daphna Joel and her colleagues examined MRIs of over 1,400 brains, measuring the 10 human brain regions with the largest average sex differences. They assessed whether each measurement in each person was toward the female end of the spectrum, toward the male end or intermediate. They found that only 3% to 6% of people were consistently “female” or “male” for all structures. Everyone else was a mosaic.

Prenatal hormones

When brain sex differences do occur, what causes them?

A 1959 study first demonstrated that an injection of testosterone into a pregnant rodent causes her female offspring to display male sexual behaviors as adults. The authors inferred that prenatal testosterone (normally secreted by the fetal testes) permanently “organizes” the brain. Many later studies showed this to be essentially correct, though oversimplified for nonhumans.

Researchers cannot ethically alter human prenatal hormone levels, so they rely on “accidental experiments” in which prenatal hormone levels or responses to them were unusual, such as with intersex people. But hormonal and environmental effects are entangled in these studies, and findings of brain sex differences have been inconsistent, leaving scientists without clear conclusions for humans.

Genes cause some brain sex differences

While prenatal hormones probably cause most brain sex differences in nonhumans, there are some cases where the cause is directly genetic.

This was dramatically shown by a zebra finch with a strange anomaly – it was male on its right side and female on its left. A singing-related brain structure was enlarged (as in typical males) only on the right, though the two sides experienced the same hormonal environment. Thus, its brain asymmetry was not caused by hormones, but by genes directly. Since then, direct effects of genes on brain sex differences have also been found in mice.

Learning changes the brain

Many people assume human brain sex differences are innate, but this assumption is misguided.

Humans learn quickly in childhood and continue learning – alas, more slowly – as adults. From remembering facts or conversations to improving musical or athletic skills, learning alters connections between nerve cells called synapses. These changes are numerous and frequent but typically microscopic – less than one hundredth of the width of a human hair.

Studies of an unusual profession, however, show learning can change adult brains dramatically. London taxi drivers are required to memorize “the Knowledge” – the complex routes, roads and landmarks of their city. Researchers discovered this learning physically altered a driver’s hippocampus, a brain region critical for navigation. London taxi drivers’ posterior hippocampi were found to be larger than nondrivers by millimeters – more than 1,000 times the size of synapses.

So it’s not realistic to assume any human brain sex differences are innate. They may also result from learning. People live in a fundamentally gendered culture, in which parenting, education, expectations and opportunities differ based on sex, from birth through adulthood, which inevitably changes the brain.

Ultimately, any sex differences in brain structures are most likely due to a complex and interacting combination of genes, hormones and learning.

Ari Berkowitz, Presidential Professor of Biology; Director, Cellular & Behavioral Neurobiology Graduate Program, University of Oklahoma

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

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Categories: Africa

Sri Lankan Parliamentary Polls: The Return of the Rajapaksa Raj

Mon, 08/17/2020 - 11:13

By Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury
Aug 17 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Sri Lanka is a country endowed with abundant natural beauty. The serenity of its geographical bounties matched the peaceful nature of its polity in the aftermath of the passage of power to local political leaders with the withdrawal of the British from the island in 1948. Its Constitution was crafted by some of the brightest legal minds of the British Commonwealth. The nation seemed well on the path to prosperity and progress. So much so, that once Lee Kuan Yew looked upon that country as a model for Singapore, with its commonly shared experience, to emulate.

Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury

Then tragedy struck. The bane of South Asia in the post-colonial era has been the inability of diverse communities to co-exist. Alas, Sri Lanka was no exception. The majority Sinhalese Buddhists became locked in a bitter civil war with Hindu Tamil separatists. Mahinda Rajapaksa, President from 2005-2015, and now Prime minister, crushed the rebellion with an iron hand. He was aided by his younger brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, then Defence Secretary, now, President. During that process the brothers tended to turn a Nelson’s blind eye to human rights. The people, thereafter, experimented with change by bringing into office Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe. He amended the constitution rendering the Prime minister more powerful than the President. But his governance was perceived as a dismal failure. Last year the Easter Sunday attack by Islamist militants led to much death and destruction.

With a sense of wary exasperation, the Sri Lankans turned once again to the Rajapaksa brothers. In November 2019, this time, Gotabaya, the younger Rajapaksa won the Presidential polls. He had spoken at my think tank, ISAS in Singapore, on a couple of occasions, and I was fairly familiar with his ideas. During a visit to Sri Lana for a Sri Lankan Military Seminar, I was able to sense the rise of the popularity of the Rajapaksas. Gotabaya, upon winning the Presidency in the November polls, immediately appointed his elder brother, the former President, Mahinda, as the Prime Minister. It was, albeit in a minority government as the Parliamentary elections were yet to be held, and the Rajapaksa popularity wave was not yet reflected in the membership numbers in that House. With some delay due to COVID-19, which incidentally the Rajapasas handled well, with 2839 cases and only 11 deaths , giving them a further electoral boost. Parliamentary elections were held on the 5th of August. Predictably the Rajapaksa Party, Sri Lanka Pradujana Peramuna (SLPP), swept the polls, winning 145 of the 225 Parliamentary seats.

Now only 5 more members supporting would give the SLPP the “super majority” of two-third of the total numbers to carry out any amendments they have in mind. For starters, one would be the restoration of the old powers of the President, a stated aspiration of Gotabaya. Then, as per his promises, other measures would be implemented to make the country economically and militarily secure. Such majority would now be easy to come by. Several other political parties are said to be eager to offer their support to enjoy some privileges of participating in what will naturally be a very powerful government.

There is one lurking danger, however. The elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa has always enjoyed being the one calling the shots. Indeed, during his previous ten year rule the ideological basis of governance was a set of concepts entitled Mahihda Chinta, literally translatable as ‘Thoughts of Mahinda’, reminiscent of Mao’s ‘Red Book’ or the ‘Green Book’ of Libya’s Moammer Gaddafi. That could be seen as perilously close to an admiration for a personality cult of his own. So, are there any potentials of future differences between the two brothers, now that the planned reforms, to be passed by the “super majority” Parliament and Prime Minister would accord greater powers to the President? A possibility, but an unlikely one, given, at least as of now, the proximity of the siblings, not just Mahinda and Gotabaya, but others, who are also in the political power-core. It is more likely that the ideas of all the siblings will fuse into an over-arching “Rajapaksa Chinta’, the ‘Thoughts of the Rajapaksas’.

The massive return of the Rajapaksas will have significant implications for global and regional politics. South Asia and the Indian Ocean region is currently witnessing a highly sharpened Sino-Indian rivalry. This is also being played out in all the neighbouring countries of India, except for in Pakistan, where the Chinese sway is paramount. In the past, India, had been supportive of the Hindu Tamil minority in international fora which had caused the Rajapaksas to turn towards China. Mahinda actually blamed India for his electoral defeat in 2015. The predilections of the Bharatiya Janata Party government of Narendra Modi in India for Hindutva could exacerbate problems of relationship with Sri Lanka as well, as in the case with other countries in the region.

China, long India’s rival for Sri Lanka’s attentions, had funded the Humbantota port project in the Rajapaksa hometown, which did create a debt-issue, that might, however, be re-examined under the new circumstances. Thereafter China provided US $1,4 billion for the Colombo port-city project, which is expected to hugely help transform the Sri Lankan economy. Actually, now that the Rajapaksa will have untrammeled power to decide as they choose, they could be rationally look to China’s vast financial capabilities for the fruition of their aspiration to turn Colombo into a global financial hub.

On the other hand, the India -Japan collaborative East Container Terminal project, signed during the previous Sirisena government seems about to come a cropper, faced with massive problems and major strikes. The Rajapaksas have been left unimpressed with regards to its tardy progress. Nonetheless, Narendra Modi of India won the race to be the first of the two competing rivals to reach the Rajapaksas in offering congratulations on the electoral victory. But it is unsure what role such an optical triumph will play in determining the ultimate policies of the victorious Rajapakesa brothers which are likely to be shaped by deeper reflections on the perceived national self-interest of their country.

This story was originally published by Dhaka Courier.

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Categories: Africa

Q&A: Family Farming in Latin America & the Caribbean Hard Hit by COVID-19 Restrictions

Mon, 08/17/2020 - 07:37

Family farming is a “critical sector” for Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC), with approximately 16.5 million farm holdings across the region. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 17 2020 (IPS)

With limited transport options to carry their goods to the market, lack of protective gear, and limited financial resources, family farmers across Latin America are facing grave consequences as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a survey carried out by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) with 118 family farming specialists — defined as professionals with high levels of knowledge in the agricultural sector in general and family agriculture in particular — across 29 countries, many of the respondents said they were already facing the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Family farming is a “critical sector” for Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC), according to the IICA report, with approximately 16.5 million farm holdings across the region.

Mario Léon, manager of IICA’s Territorial Development and Family Agriculture Programme, at the headquarters in San José, Costa Rica, told IPS that 80 percent of LAC’s production units are family farming units, with 56 percent of them being in South America and 35 percent in Mexico and Central America. These holdings account for between 30 to 40 percent of the agricultural GDP of the region. Given the pervasive fear among customers of contracting the coronavirus, it’s farmers who are suffering: with difficulty in selling their products and being able to carry them to the market.

“However, it is possible that the most dangerous food shortages may occur in those regions and countries that are net food importers, particularly among the most vulnerable sectors of the population (the poor and indigent),” Léon told IPS.

Full excerpt of the interview below:

Inter Press Service (IPS): Throughout the survey, it consistently appears that “restrictions on travel and movement” is a key factor affecting the family farmers. What role does traveling and commuting play in business for them?

Mario Léon (ML): Many LAC regions with FF communities are far removed from urban centres and have an inadequate road network, which creates logistical costs and increases the prices at which goods are ultimately sold. When transportation is restricted, they cannot receive production inputs or even those food products that may not always be produced or available in rural communities, such as noodles, sugar, oils, cleaning or personal care items, medicine, etc. If production inputs do not reach communities, agricultural activities cannot continue. Similarly, during the harvest, if transportation is restricted, products cannot be distributed and since storage, silos and refrigeration facilities are not always available, the produce is wasted. This is partially due to a lack of organisation and the inability to access proper transportation for distribution.

IPS: How has the restriction of movement affected family farming?

ML: Measures taken to curtail the pandemic, such as restricted movement, has affected family farming in various ways. On the demand side, it has caused the temporary closure of outlets and services, including food stores, which has led to a contraction in the food demand, which in turn has forced prices downward and has made it difficult for some producers to place their products on the market. Consumers have also reduced their visits to traditional markets, out of fear of contracting the virus.

On the supply side, given that family farming production activities are not usually labour intensive and that most of its production processes have always been done without the need for close physical contact, the effect of the pandemic on this aspect is thought to have been minimal, for now. The limitations it faces, therefore, relate more to services to transport agricultural products to markets and the restrictions on vehicular movement in the countries.

IPS: Is the current crisis affecting any marginalised groups within family farming differently: such as women or indigenous communities?

Yes. Women play a leading role not only in the home but also in the production and selling of food. They are the ones normally involved in short circuit trade and in the selling of products, allowing the family to generate an income. They manage the household and complement the efforts of the production unit. In many countries, women are responsible for horticulture production, the growing of medicinal plants and the rearing of small animals.

Women are also involved in processing family farming production, via small scale agro-industry. When sales outlets are temporarily closed or restricted, this limits their options and affects them directly. The situation is more complex in indigenous communities. Distance, the lack of communication media or outlets to sell their craftwork is aggravated by social confinement and makes their situation worse.

IPS: In what ways do you believe these groups have been affected?

ML: Although the survey did not conduct an in-depth assessment of how these marginalised groups have been affected, one would expect that they have and perhaps more, given that the demand for food has been decreasing, creating increased competition among producers to access markets. Producers who are more equipped and have more linkages to trade channels have been able to access markets, causing marginalised groups to be displaced and their income to be reduced. Social distancing measures have also exacerbated the effects of the pandemic on marginalised groups that, even before the crisis, had limited access to production services and markets, which is a situation that has now been further aggravated by their limited digital education. This has affected their capacity to promote their business undertakings during the pandemic.

IPS: The survey report says, “There has also been a decline in available drivers and transport operators, arising from restrictions imposed as preventive measures or through fear of the risks associated with transmitting and contracting the virus.” Do family farmers often rely on outsourced drivers and transport operators to take their produce to markets?

ML: Local markets, including collection and supply centres as well as retail markets, are the primary destination for family farming products in Latin America. Most producer organisations are of an informal nature and lack any kind of legal status; therefore, they are unable to enter into commitments relating, among other things, to the purchase of vehicles to transport their products to markets. As a result, their market access is dependent on intermediaries, namely transporters who collect products and then transport them to sales centres, reducing profit margins for producers. Some family farmers do have their own transport services, either because they form part of an association or, in just a few cases, because they are able to generate enough income to purchase their own vehicles; however, the vast majority of farmers rely on intermediaries. Quarantine measures have reduced the availability of transport services. Additionally, due to a lack of sanitary protocols, entire crews of truckers at several companies have fallen ill with the virus, which has hindered the transportation of products.

IPS: The survey says, “this relationship between producers and intermediaries was most affected in zones in which associative enterprises had been weakened the most, thereby limiting the negotiating power of family farmers.” What factors lead to this reduced negotiating power for them?

ML: Because marketing processes via producer organisations have come to a standstill, farmers have undertaken individual efforts to sell their products at the prices offered by intermediaries. Collective marketing has been affected by reduced product volumes and the absence of contracts and/or agreements that foster social cohesion within producer organisations, which were already weak.

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Categories: Africa

Leading in Time of COVID: A True Test of Leadership

Sat, 08/15/2020 - 15:05

By Folake Olayinka
Aug 15 2020 (IPS)

In 1918, the Spanish Flu, a deadly influenza caused by the H1N1 virus, decimated the world. Over the course of four successive waves, it infected 500 million people, about a third of the world’s population at the time, resulting in 50 million deaths.

More recently between 2014 and mid-2016 , the Ebola virus epidemic was the most widespread outbreak of Ebola virus disease in history—causing devastating loss of life and socioeconomic disruption in the West Africa region, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. These outbreaks, as well as SARS and MERS, each have provided lessons on how to better handle future pandemics.

The biggest takeaway for COVID-19? We need effective leadership and an intersectional response.

For years, scientists and thought leaders have warned about the need for preparedness against a potential pandemic. Five years ago, Bill Gates in his TED talk ‘The next outbreak? We’re not ready’, drew attention to a potential epidemic from a corona-like virus. In an interview in 2019, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci shared similar sentiments.

In a sense, a pandemic like COVID-19 was anticipated and yet it still took the world largely by surprise. When it came, it changed everything, as we knew it would. It also exposed deep underlying disparities and inequities fueling poor health outcomes. In the absence of a vaccine, health professionals and public health leaders explored the range of interventions and tools they could deploy against the virus from simple infection control measures to hospital-based intensive care.

Although the focus continues to be minimizing the death toll while urgently working towards a vaccine, it is important to reflect and learn from the past months. What did leaders do well and what did they not do well, while not fully understanding the disease and how can we use these lessons right now and in the future?

Rapidly changing information led to a complex cycle of responses but at the center of this conversation is the recognition that the intersection between public health leadership and political leadership holds the key to getting ahead of the disease.

With the unprecedented spread of the pandemic, varying transmission rates at country levels, cross border spread, and a lack of a cure or vaccines, both political and public health leaders have had to chart new pathways in order to limit the catastrophic impact of the virus.

Another critical question is what type of leadership is needed to get through such an unprecedented crisis? New Zealand presents an effective leadership model not only through their rapid and aggressive response, but also a strong adaptive leadership in that complex intersection of politics, health and economics.

Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventy-fourth session, 24 September 2019. UN Photo/Cia Pak

Without a doubt, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern provided effective political leadership in eliminating COVID-19 as declared on June 8, 2020 about 11 weeks after the first case. It can be argued that by basing decisions on science and prioritizing health outcomes, the leadership of New Zealand set a high bar for other leaders to overcome COVID-19.

The early lockdown measures were stringent and fast and certainly affected the amount of income from tourism usually seen at this time of the year in the short term. This approach was necessary to achieve longer term objectives of restoring the health and economy.

Going into the lockdown, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement in March 14, 2020, “we must fight by going hard and going early.’’ This leadership strategy was certainly effective by any standards. Jacinda Ardern not only successfully eliminated COVID-19 within eleven weeks; she also balanced her leadership with empathy.

She demonstrated purposeful, empathic leadership based on science and public health. This aligns with the leadership approach put forward by Former President of Liberia, H.E Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, who led her country to recovery after fourteen years of civil war.

“To me, there is no contradiction between being an empathetic leader and being a strong leader.” A lot can be learned about effective leadership from these women leaders in times of crisis.

Here are five critical things that leaders need to do to get ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic:

Use the scientific evidence and data regularly to innovate, adapt tools and approaches to contain disease, reduce severity of illness and prevent deaths
Listen and respond to people’s concerns, needs with empathy; communicate consistently clearly and factually through trusted voices and ensure access to accurate information at all levels
Collaborate and coordinate actions across sectors at global, country and subnational levels, with communities and relevant stakeholders. This will create greater efficiency and avoid wasting resources
Adapt approaches based on emerging issues, draw lessons fast and apply relevant learning using talent and technology
Rapidly determine high-risk populations, those suffering the greatest burden and address systemic inequities that perpetuate spread of the disease.

To be sure, this pandemic has brought the political, health and economic leadership of countries into a complex intersection and leaders have had to grapple with taking the right decisions.

There are a number of considerations that inform the type of decision-making, resources, and interventions that must be prioritized to prevent deaths, stop the spread of the diseases, protect vulnerable populations, and keep the economies running. But COVID-19 anywhere is a threat everywhere and to overcome it, the world will need coordinated and effective leadership.

Only a healthy nation can grow an economy. Effective leadership, particularly in a time of crisis, is the key to restoring economic balance.

There is still a ways to go for many regions and countries in combating COVID-19, but I am sure that leadership modeled after Jacinda Ardern and the critical actions above will go a long way in halting the pandemic where they are applied. With the right leadership at all levels, we can have a better and more resilient post pandemic world.

Dr. Folake Olayinka is a global health leader and a senior advisor with JSI in Arlington Virginia. She has particular interest in immunization, maternal and child health, infectious diseases and leadership. She is an Aspen Fellow. Follow her on Twitter @joflakes

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Categories: Africa

Enough Is Not Enough – Call for Urgent Change in Mexican Economic Policy

Fri, 08/14/2020 - 19:23

By Saul Escobar Toledo
MEXICO CITY, Aug 14 2020 (IPS)

A group composed by women and men, called Nuevo Curso de Desarrollo (New Course for Development) based at the National University of Mexico recently published a document to propose a set of measures to change the current economic policy in Mexico. This proposal responds to a diagnosis of the current situation: at this point of the year, the serious social damage inflicted by the health and economic crisis can already be observed. As we know, in Mexico as in many other countries, there was a great economic disruption caused by COVID. Millions of people ceased to receive income from their work. However, the Mexican government has not carried out sufficient support measures to compensate for these losses. The result is easy to guess: many households have been rapidly impoverished. It is estimated that between 10 and 16 million people in April earned much less to the point of not being able to acquire the basic food basket , a situation that has continued for many of them during May, June and July. And while it is true that more and more workers are returning to their jobs, the losses caused have not been repaired.

Saul Escobar Toledo

The lack of support has led many people to abandon their confinement to seek an income for their sustenance. This, in turn, puts the population in greater danger. The Group considers that this dynamic can be corrected: contain the pandemic, protecting sources of employment and revive the economy are goals that can be achieved at the same time, they are not necessarily contradictory.

The paper recognizes the progress made before the health crisis: there was a significant increase in minimum and contractual wages; the right to a basic pension for the elderly was expanded; and support was extended to other vulnerable groups. But the situation changed dramatically, and yet the economic policy did not.

This situation – says this group – must be corrected. Therefore, an emergency strategy is urgently needed for the remainder of 2020 and for 2021. This new course could return some of what families have lost and, above all, make economic reactivation faster.

Since existing social programs are no longer sufficient, immediate action is required to protect formal workers who have become unemployed or underemployed, and informal workers who have not got no income at all.

The Group emphasizes that the reactivation of the economy cannot rest solely on the dynamics of the market. Both private consumption and investment will grow very slowly if there is no determined action from the state. That is, if there is no strong fiscal impulse. So, it is necessary, and it is now more urgent to launch a program to expand public spending. This means increasing the public deficit for 2020 and prepare a larger budget for 2021.

Financing of public expenditure can be covered by the flexible credit line of low cost available in the IMF and also by the Central Bank. Additionally, the banking system can cooperate with the recovery by granting more credit to companies and individuals and to support the government. Higher public spending should not necessarily become an unpayable debt and an unbearable burden for future generations.

In addition, it is required to carry out a set of legal reforms to implement unemployment insurance; a basic income for the poorest and most affected ; and the strengthening of development banks (strangely frozen today), as well as an industrial and regional policy that does not rely solely and passively on the supposed benefits of the trade agreement with the United States and Canada.

Additional borrowing should be seen as transitory and confined to overcome the emergency. Therefore, the document says, a tax reform cannot be postponed. A reform that lays the foundations for a new inclusive and sustainable economy. The undeniable political strength of the president of the republic, granted by elections that took place in 2018, must and can serve to achieve this agreement.

The government can presume that, despite the adversity, there is a balanced budget. But what good is that when inequality and poverty are exacerbated? The Mexican state and, first of all, the federal government have to recognize that there is a debt more important than the one recorded in public finances. And that is the income losses suffered by millions of Mexicans, losses that may last many months more.

If anything has been learned from the crises of capitalism in the last hundred years, it is that the laws of the market cannot be trusted. It is, then, time for politics, for decision-making, for a change of the economic course.

Note: The complete list of members of the Group and their publications are available at: http://www.nuevocursodedesarrollo.unam.mx

Saul Escobar Toledo, Economist, Professor at Department of Contemporary Studies in INAH (National Institute oh Anthropology and History, México) and President of the Board of the Institute of Workers Studies “Rafael Galvan”, a non-profit organization. His recent work : “Subcontracting: a study of change in labor relations” will be published soon by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Mexico City.

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Categories: Africa

Stronger Together: Education in Emergencies & Protracted Crises

Fri, 08/14/2020 - 18:39

By External Source
Aug 14 2020 (IPS-Partners)

‘Stronger collective efforts and collaboration are key to meeting the urgent education needs of children and youth affected by crises’: this is the unifying message from leaders and youth advocates brought together by Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and Devex in a high-level, Global Discussion held online on 12 August, on the occasion of International Youth Day.

Over 2,550 people from across the world tuned in to watch the ‘Stronger Together: Education in Emergencies & Protracted Crises’ event live, which was chaired by UN Special Envoy for Global Education, the Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, hosted by ECW Director Yasmine Sherif, and moderated by Devex Editor-in-Chief, Raj Kumar. The Global Discussion shone a spotlight on the challenges faced by girls and boys caught in humanitarian crises to access education.

The discussion was particularly relevant in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic that has further compounded barriers and plunged the world into the worst education crisis of our lifetime. Eminent expert speakers from around the world underscored potential solutions to meet these challenges and the progress made in recent years, as evidenced in the new ECW Annual Results Report. They stressed the importance of building on these achievements and ramping up efforts to avoid losing hard won gains to the pandemic.

UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the ECW High Level Steering Group, the Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, kicked off the discussion by emphasizing that the world’s most vulnerable crisis-affected children and youth are now doubly hit by COVID-19. While 13 million refugees, 40 million displaced and an overall 75 million girls and boys in conflict and emergency zones already had their education disrupted, with the impact of COVID-19, another 30 million – who were in school before the pandemic – may now never continue their education. ‘It is incumbent upon us to send out a message of hope that, by getting every child who is in a conflict or an emergency zone into school, we can be the first generation in which every child is getting the chance of schooling,’ he said.

UNHCR High Profile Supporter and Syrian Youth Advocate for Refugees Nujeen Mustafa underlined that education is an inherent right and that it is ‘unacceptable and inexcusable’ for millions of children and young people to be denied this right. Recounting her story and the difficulties she faced in accessing learning opportunities as a disabled girl growing up in Syria, she called on policymakers not to see children from conflict zones as ‘a burden or a problem to solve’ but rather as ‘treasures’ who should be valued and provided with the opportunities they deserve.

Norway’s Minister of International Development, Dag Ulstein, stressed that ‘we are in the midst of a crisis that we never thought would come, which makes it even more difficult for the most marginalized ones to access education, especially in areas affected by conflict and crises.’ Minister Ulstein reaffirmed Norway’s commitment to education in emergencies and protracted crises saying ‘no one should be left behind.’ He underlined how Nujeen’s personal story is a testament to why it is so crucial to invest in the most marginalized girls and boys to fulfil their right to education and unlock their full potential.

UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, Kelly T. Clements, stated that ‘education is a lifeline for refugee children and youth’ and it is ‘our duty to provide it to them’. She highlighted how COVID-19 is making it even more difficult for refugees to access education, especially for those who lack the necessary connectivity for remote learning solutions or for those who can no longer access the specialized support they need. Clements stressed the urgency of increasing support, in particular for refugee girls, who face heightened risks of child marriages, early pregnancies and sexual violence.

ECW Director, Yasmine Sherif, presented key highlights of the new ECW 2019 Annual Results Report showing how stronger collaboration and multilateral efforts are key to achieving inclusive, equitable quality education outcomes for children and youth in crises settings. She underscored ECW’s flexibility and lean structure as instrumental to increasing the speed of education emergency responses and the accountability to crisis-affected communities. Sherif also stressed encouraging funding trends with close to $800 million mobilized to date by ECW at both the global level and with ECW-supported country-based programmes, as well as the growing share of global humanitarian funding allocated to education that went from 2.6 per cent in 2015 to 5.1 per cent in 2019. Despite this progress, she said ‘much more remains to be done’ and appealed donors to urgently contribute an additional $310 million to ECW. ‘We are about to enter a new phase where education will be put at the forefront. If we all work together, we jointly can take this to the next level’, she stressed.

‘If my education had waited, I would not be the Minister of Education today in Afghanistan,’ said H.E. Rangina Hamidi. The first female Minister of Education since the post-Taliban era of Afghanistan related how her father’s determination for his girls to be educated led him to seek refuge with his family in the United States. Minister Hamidi stressed that 3.7 million children are out of school today in Afghanistan, 60 per cent of whom are girls. She said the COVID-19 pandemic must be seized as an opportunity to be creative and think beyond the traditional provision of education. ‘If girls cannot attend school and access traditional education, then, we need to take education to girls where they are: in their villages, in their homes,’ she said. Minister Hamidi stressed that Afghanistan has become a leader in community-based education: ‘We have successful results that show that when you take education to their communities, girls do get educated’.

UNHCR DAFI Scholar and Youth Advocate for Refugees, Deborah Kalumbi, recounted her story as a refugee girl forced to flee her home in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo for Zambia, and the challenges she faced in accessing education in a different language in a new country. Education helped me embrace and accept my new life,’ she stressed. She also highlighted how important education is to protect refugees, in particular refugee girls who face increased risks of child marriage and early pregnancies if they are out-of-school.

UNICEF Executive Director, Henrietta H. Fore, stressed that ‘education is the foundation of all humanitarian and development responses’ and must the addressed as a continuum from the first day of an emergency through to recovery and longer-term development. She underscored five areas that must be prioritized to ensure girls in emergencies and protracted crises can have a better access to education: affordability of education, access to distance learning, community mobilization and mentoring, protection and youth participation. ‘Education is the greatest asset we can give to a young people,’ she said. Fore called on all event participants to join forces to connect every child and young person to learning in the coming years – including through access to distance learning and digital skills – which has the potential to truly ‘change the world.’

Canada’s Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development, Kamal Khera, stressed that ‘Education Cannot Wait has been a leader in demonstrating how education programming can be quickly and efficiently rolled out within the humanitarian, development and peace nexus’. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, she stressed the importance of seizing the opportunity of the reopening of schools to create better and more resilient education systems that provide access to the most marginalized and vulnerable children and youth, including the inclusion of refugees in national education systems.

Theirworld President, Justin Van Fleet, called on world leaders and policymakers to deliver on their commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals. ‘We have the technology and the resources we need, we have all the partners and we know what needs to be done. There is no excuse to not achieve these education goals,’ he stressed. ‘We know that education is what unlocks the solution to the pandemic: economic growth, jobs for young people, better health, nutrition, and we know that investing in early years is what gives a child the best start in life,’ he said. Van Fleet underscored the importance for young people to hold leaders to account and to keep pushing this agenda. ‘There is no excuse to give up right now,’ he said.

Norwegian Refugee Council Secretary-General, Jan Egeland, wrapped up the discussion stressing the importance of recognizing achievements in the field of education in emergencies and protracted crises in recent years. ‘There has been progress, we need to build on that.’ However, Egeland stated that youth (15-24 years old) have been excluded from this progress and are largely ‘out of education, out of livelihoods and out of hope’ and must urgently be prioritized. He also underscored the massive setback of the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘The crisis is profound, therefore the investment in alternative education, remote education, new technology has to be much bigger,’ he said. Egeland concluded his remarks with a message from children: ‘we need education as much as we need food, it is a question of survival.’

Source: Education Cannot Wait (ECW)

The post Stronger Together: Education in Emergencies & Protracted Crises appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

If Trump Delivers His Last Hurrah to an Empty United Nations, Will it Still Make a Sound?

Fri, 08/14/2020 - 18:05

A General Assembly session in a locked down United Nations.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 2020 (IPS)

There is no love lost between the United Nations and US President Donald Trump.

When he addressed the high-level segment of the UN General Assembly in September 2018, Trump falsely told delegates that “in less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country”

The misleading statement triggered loud laughter from world leaders and delegates from 192 countries—perhaps with the sole exception of the US delegation which, not surprisingly, stayed mum.

But as he does with all negative reactions, Trump later gave it a spin. He said the delegates did not laugh at him, they really laughed “with him”.

That was another big lie – even as the Washington Post, which keeps track of his false statements in its fast-growing data base, says Trump has uttered over 20,055 “false or misleading claims” so far (and counting).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/

And as an avowed unilateralist, Trump abhors multilateral institutions.

Since he took office back in January 2017, he has either de-funded, withdrawn from, or denigrated several UN agencies and affiliated institutions, including the World Health Organization, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the UN Human Rights Council, among others.

Even though the UN Secretariat in New York, along with myriads of agencies worldwide, are working remotely, Trump is now planning to address the General Assembly in mid-September – in person.

Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., told a virtual event last month that Trump would be “the only world leader to be speaking in person,” pointing out “this is the 75th anniversary (of the U.N.), so it makes it even more special,” according to a report in Politico.

But the UN has maintained, irrespective of who addresses the next 75th General Assembly sessions in person, the building will still have to be “largely empty” because of the continued COVID-19 lockdown since end March.

As the old saying goes: If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?

In a vibrantly-sarcastic comment, Kul Gautam, a former UN assistant secretary-general, told IPS: “Let Trump’s address at the 2020 UN General Assembly be his last hurrah in an empty GA Hall with world leaders mocking him from afar, and bidding him adieu!”

Gautam pointed out that American leadership was decisive in creating and sustaining the post-World War II architecture of multilateral diplomacy with the United Nations as its centerpiece.

“Ever since Franklin Roosevelt coined the term “the United Nations” and Harry Truman signed its Charter, making the US the first country to ratify it, all American presidents, Republicans and Democrats alike, have made some positive contribution to strengthening the UN and the multilateralist world order,” he added.

President Donald Trump will go down in history as the sole American President who made zero contribution to strengthening the UN, declared Gautam, a former Deputy Executive Director of the UN children’s agency UNICEF and author of: ‘Global Citizen from Gulmi: My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of the United Nations’.

With US presidential election campaign virtually grounded due to the spreading coronavirus pandemic, Trump may be looking at the UN as a global political platform to advance his re-election bid, scheduled for November 3, as he has fallen far behind his Democratic rival Joe Biden.

That may be an irony of ironies because of Trump’s distaste towards UN institutions
and more importantly, his virulent attacks on people from UN member states, including Haitians and Africans,

At a 2017 White House meeting, Trump apparently said all Haitians “have AIDS’; that Nigerians should “go back to their huts in Africa’; and also questioned why US should welcome people from “shithole countries” in Africa, according a report in the New York Times June 20.

At the United Nations, the African Union (AU) alone represents 55 member states in the world body.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), told IPS: “As usual, I’m afraid that Trump will embarrass himself and the United States with his brash and often incoherent statements.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that he will boast about how he handled the coronavirus, and he may very well say that America handled it better than any other country, when in fact the precise opposite is true,” he said.

Given his low numbers in the polls, he will try to boast about America’s military strength, and probably the ‘wonderful’ trade deals that he made.

“I suspect that, just like (in September 2018), many of the assembled will laugh and dismiss much of what he will say,” declared Dr Ben-Meir, who is also Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute.

Trump, who predictably changes his mind ever so often, may still decide to abandon the idea of physically addressing the UN.

Gautam told IPS: “As the champion of “America First” unilateralism, Trump sought to disrupt and undermine many carefully crafted multilateral initiatives ranging from climate change, human rights, disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation, to the much-needed global solidarity to tackle the greatest pandemic to hit humanity in modern times.”

The damage caused to these initiatives and institutions by Trump, he argued, will take a long time to heal and remedy, “but I am confident that over the long haul, good sense will prevail over this historic aberration.”

Asked about Trump’s plans to address the General Assembly in person, UN Deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters July 30: “I don’t want to speculate on what the future will hold. As you know, the Secretariat will be in touch, basically through the Office of the President of the General Assembly, with the Member States on their representation. “

When it comes to it, he said,” we have made clear what the conditions in the building are, what the need is for a scaled back ceremony.”

But Member States, he pointed out, are aware that they have different options, including recorded messages or, in some cases, appearances.

“We trust and expect that all Member States will abide by the need to keep the numbers low, and we’ll see what they do in terms of their preparations,” Haq noted.

The post If Trump Delivers His Last Hurrah to an Empty United Nations, Will it Still Make a Sound? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

No More Lost Generations: Global Fund Provides Education for Children in Crisis

Fri, 08/14/2020 - 17:00

Refugee Rohingya children in Coz's Bazar aren't allowed to attend local school. For many, continuing their education was unattainable until Bangladesh announced in January that refugee children could also receive a formal education, and would be educated on the school curriculums used in both Bangladesh and Myanmar in preparation for their repatriation. Credit Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India , Aug 14 2020 (IPS)

15-year-old Humaira* sits on the mud floor of her hut in Ukhiya camp, Cox’s Bazar, listening as the rain beats down on the tarpaulin roof.

Three years ago, Humaira arrived in Bangladesh at the refugee camp in Cox Bazar, which is now the largest such camp in the world, housing nearly a million Rohingyas. Her family had fled their home in Rakhine state, Myanmar, after her father had been killed by the army.

As a refugee child, Humaira wasn’t allowed to enrol in a local school. Confined to home, Humaira, who dreams of becoming a school teacher someday, suffered silently.

But things changed in January when the government of Bangladesh announced that refugee children could also receive a formal education, and would be educated on the school curriculums used in both Bangladesh and Myanmar. In addition, they could also learn professional skills that could help them find jobs in the future.

The news excited Humaira, who had been depressed, says her mother Samuda Khatun. “For the first time since the death of her father, my daughter was smiling again,” Khatun tells IPS.

The shift in government policy came after Bangladesh announced its plan to repatriate the Rohingyas to Myanmar, the preparations for which have already begun.
A formal and accredited education would help the refugee children to return to schools in Myanmar after being repatriated.

Returning to Rakhine state, which is still in the middle of an armed conflict, is upsetting most Rohingyas. But Humaira doesn’t seem to care. “All I want is to study,” she says.

The schooling year was meant to start in April, but by then the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a national lockdown across Bangladesh. And Humaira’s dreams of schooling were postponed.

Funding children’s education in crisis

Humaira is one of 75 million children and youth across the world living in crisis today.

Many of them have never been to school or have lost two to three years of education due to war and displacement. Education Cannot Wait (ECW), a multilateral global fund, is now addressing the funding gap for education in crisis. In fact, ECW figures show that in 2015 some 39 million girls alone were out of school because of war and disasters.

Since 2016, ECW has reached nearly 3.5 million children and youth in 29 humanitarian crisis-hit countries, including Bangladesh. Of them, 48 percent are girls.

Working with 75 partner organisations, ECW has so far provided $662.3 million for supporting education in emergencies.

On Aug. 11 ECW launched its 2019 Annual Results Report tiled Stronger Together in Crisis.

According to the report, ECW has committed $12 million to support Rohingya refugee children’s education in Bangladesh, of which $6 million has already been provided. The funding has so far helped 63,000 students enrol at various learning centres run by ECW partners and local communities. The goal is to reach 88,500 children, 51 percent of whom are girls.

The challenges surrounding Rohingya children are many. About 65 percent of them can only read letters, not words or a sentence. Only seven percent of Rohingya refugee children can read a paragraph of text or do basic maths. To address this, ECW has taken a holistic approach to education, which includes adopting a series of ‘out of the box’ techniques.

In the Rohingya refugee camps, teachers in the learning centres are trained in inclusive education, child protection, emergency preparedness and giving psychosocial support to children dealing with trauma.

A special focus has been on non-formal learning opportunities like solar installation and maintenance, hand sewing, embroidery and tailoring. Alongside, separate toilets for boys and girls have been built to help the girls feel secure and at ease.

A holistic approach

Henritetta Fore, executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund, which hosts the ECW secretariat, described the holistic approach the fund has been taking to support education in crisis.

“We have created a focus on five areas. One, affordability: we need to make sure a girl can afford to go to school. Second is distance learning. We have got to try to get every girl reached by distance learning. Third, we have to mobilise communities, so there is lots of help out there. Fourth, protection. There is so much difficulty if you are an IDP or a refugee, so we need to help. And lastly, we really want young people to participate. So, education is a ladder out of poverty. Its the greatest asset we can give to young people,” Fore said. She was speaking at a high-level virtual seminar host by ECW on Aug. 12.

The webinar was also addressed by former United Kingdom prime minister Gordon Brown, Jan Egeland, Norwegian Refugee Council secretary-general, Afghanistan minister of education H.E. Rangina Hamidi, Theirworld president Justin Van Fleet, Norway minister of international development Dag-Inge Ulster and Canada’s parliamentary secretary Kamal Khera, among others.

Deborah Kalumbi, a 3rd-year student at Cavendish University, Lusaka, and the recipient of a U.N.High Commissioner for Refugees scholarship, was another attendee.

Kalumbi’s family fled to Zambia from their home in the conflict-torn Democratic Republic of Congo when she was just seven. Unlike many other fellow refugee children, Kalumbi was able to enrol in school, which she describes as challenging as well as enriching.

“It was difficult as everything was new and different. We were also treated as different. However, education made me understand the diversity that exists and value its importance,” said Kalumbi, who is now a vocal advocate for the rights and education of refugee youths.

A collective achievement

From the beginning, ECW has focused on building strong partnerships at global and local level, to deliver inclusive, equitable, quality education for children and youth caught in crisis. According to the new report, this approach has been successful as there is a distinct growth in political commitment for the emergency education sector. Similarly, education in humanitarian crisis is also becoming a priority.

For example, globally, the share of education in all humanitarian funding increased from 4.3 per cent in 2018 to 5.1 percent in 2019, representing a record amount of over $700 million.

At the webinar, ECW director Yasmin Sherif credited the progress to the partnership model the fund had adopted. “It’s all about being together. We were able to move fast because we acted together,” Sherif said, pointing to the fund’s continued investment during the COVID-19 crisis.

In the first four months of 2020, ECW has provided $60 million to 33 countries to educate refugee and displaced children and youths aged three to 18 who were hard-hit by COVID-19 .

Call for more support

However, despite the significant progress of the past tree years, ECW is still underfunded. So it is now calling upon other donors and partners to step up and provide further financing to fill the gap.

“ECW and its partners are working to urgently mobilise an additional $310 million to support the emergency education response to the COVID-19 pandemic and other ongoing crises. Together with in-country resource mobilisation, this will allow us to reach close to nine million children annually,” Sherif said.

Khera, Canada’s parliamentary secretary who also spoke at the webinar, said that when a crisis breaks out, the list of priorities usually excluded education. She said it was now time to change this in order to avoid the risk of a generation getting lost without education.“We must combine measures to ensure continuity of education during the COVID crisis,” Khera said.

Keeping hope alive

One of the most notable speakers on the webinar was Brown – former United Kingdom prime minister and chair of the ECW high-level steering group. Delivering a strong message to the global community, Brown said that there was an urgent need to support education of children and youths in a global crisis like the pandemic.

Half a world away, in Cox’s Bazar, Humaira also waits in hope of the day when she can start her schooling.

Since September, mobile internet services have been banned in her camp, so children here live on the other side of the digital divide, unable to attend any possible online classes that were set up during the lockdown. So Humaira just has to wait for the pandemic to be over.

“Once this disease is over, I can go to school. Once I become a teacher, my mother will get some relief. Our lives will change,” she says, hope flickering in her eyes.

*Surname withheld upon request.

The post No More Lost Generations: Global Fund Provides Education for Children in Crisis appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Categories: Africa

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