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Credit: China.org

By James Liang
BEIJING, China, Feb 17 2020 (IPS)

As efforts to contain the Coronavirus epidemic enter a critical stage, it is important to remember that the costs cannot be measured purely in economic terms, as the measures taken will have implications for life expectancy across the entire nation.

Analysis of historical data from various countries gives insight into the relationship between life expectancy and GDP per capita.

In the first place, it is clear that countries with higher per capita incomes have longer life expectancies, owing to the ability and willingness of wealthier nations to invest in healthcare, infrastructure, and environmental governance, thereby increasing life expectancy and reducing fatality rates.

Research suggests that, in general, a 100% increase in per capita income under similar conditions equates to an increase in life expectancy of 1-3 years. Over the past few decades, with the continued increase in per capita income in China, life expectancy has steadily increased in tandem.

On the basis of this, we can make a conservative estimate that a 50% decrease in GDP would see a 1.5 year decrease in life expectancy. Thus, for each 1% reduction in in GDP, life expectancy will decrease by approximately 10 days.

This hypothesis can be tested against the economic theory of the “value of life”. In the realm of economics, “value of life” is a relatively mature concept which refers to the amount that a society is willing to spend in order to increase the average life expectancy.

Some will deem the notion of calculating a value for life to be cynical or even repulsive, as life is priceless. From an ethical point of view, this is entirely correct.

In reality, however, whether in terms of work, business, or social management, a balance must be struck between reducing the risk of fatality and the cost of doing so. In order to identify this balance, a value for life must be calculated in a scientific, if seemingly ruthless, manner.

For example, some jobs inherently entail a far higher risk of fatality than others, such as underground mining and construction of ultra-high buildings. From the perspective of purely reducing the risk of death, these jobs should be eliminated.

But in reality, doing so would both increase the unemployment rate and have adverse impacts on the natural progression of related work, and ultimately, society as a whole will bear the cost of underdevelopment.

In this case, a more rational approach would see the introduction of stronger labor protections for such jobs. Finally, with an income premium determined by the market, high-risk jobs would be rewarded with higher salaries, and an acceptable balance may be achieved.

Similarly, enterprise and government must strike a balance between risk and cost in the provision of transportation infrastructure. For example, in designing a new road, governments can reduce the number of fatalities through the implementation of safety provisions, like extra lanes, non-motorized lanes, and wider sidewalks.

Evidently, however, not all roads are built in this way. Does this mean that the designers of those roads had a disregard safety? Of course, this is not the case.

Even if the proposed road is designed to be impeccably safe, should the cost be RMB 10 billion (approx. USD $1.4 billion), it is likely that the road will not be built at all, leaving people with no transportation infrastructure.

Thus, for such construction projects, the government will issue minimum standards for safety, but it is up to the designer to determine the upper limit.

So, how much is a reduction in fatality worth?

In determining this, an implicit calculation is made to strike a balance with the value of life. In fact, economists have long calculated the value of life in economic terms based on data from various countries.

Generally speaking, the value of life in developed nations is between 10-100 times the GDP per capita. Assuming that the value of life is calculated at 30 times the GDP per capita, the average life expectancy would be around 80 years, or approximately 30,000 days.

This inference can be tested by comparing the GDP per capita and life expectancy of different countries.

In terms of preventing and controlling infectious diseases, with reference to influenza numbers from previous years, in the absence of large-scale compulsory quarantine measures, the infection rate will not exceed 10% of the overall population, and the fatality rate will be around 0.2%.

Thus, the total number of fatalities relative to the entire population will be 2 in 10,000 (0.02%). Assuming that the life expectancy of those who die of influenza is around 60 years, and the average life expectancy across society is 80 years, each person who has died of influenza will have died prematurely, on average, by 20 years.

Calculating on the basis of the fatality rate of 2 in 10,000 (0.02%), the per capita reduction in life expectancy will be 20 multiplied by 0.02, which is four-thousandths of a year, or about 1.5 days. Therefore, on average, the impact of a mass-scale influenza outbreak on human society is a reduction in life expectancy of 1.5 days.

On the basis of this analysis, it is possible to infer a reasonable social policy. If every person infected with influenza, that is, 10% of the population, is quarantined for 14 days, and family members who have been in close contact with them (assuming 20% of the population) are also be quarantined, the loss to GDP due to their inability to participate meaningfully in the creation of wealth for this period will be 30% * 14/365 = 1% of GDP.

As mentioned above, a 1% GDP regression will cause a retrogression across society in medical care, infrastructure and environmental governance, amounting to a reduction in the average life expectancy of about 10 days, a number far greater than the impact of influenza.

Based on this calculation alone, pure isolation is not an effective means of containing influenza, and thus no country or society will implement such measures.

Some may deem the above calculation to be alarmist, but in actuality, this does not even take into account the formidable operation costs of isolating so many people, or the costs of restriction population movement.

A less optimistic estimation of the losses incurred could be 10% of GDP, or even higher, leading to a reduction of the average life expectancy by 100 days or more, possibly amounting to a loss of life equivalent to dozens or hundreds of times the number of deaths attributable to influenza itself.

Of course, if quarantine measures are able to isolate the flu at an early, small-scale stage, for example, 1% of the population, or within one or two cities, then such measures can still be effective.

Once infections spread to over 10% of the population, however, the continued isolation of patients and people in close contact with them will amount to a greater overall toll on lives.

The present epidemic is distinct from previous influenza outbreaks, and therefore, factors such as mortality, the rate of infection, and the proportion of people who need to be quarantined are different, and a significant amount of data is yet to be observed.

The same logic, however, applies to the impact of the economy on life expectancy.

Society has established its determination to beat this epidemic, and such an attitude is undoubtedly correct and necessary, and ultimately, this victory will belong to the entire human race.

However, I also hope that as society strives to beat this epidemic “at all costs”, the above analysis can help society to keep various “costs” to a minimum.

We must adopt a scientific and rational attitude in determining the most appropriate means of controlling and eradicating the epidemic.

In responding to the novel coronavirus, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other diseases that threaten lives, we must also give comprehensive consideration to social and medical resources, and strike a balance that is conducive to protecting lives.

Regularity and security in everyday life and work is an important and fundamental part of life for every person, and we should strive to minimize the impact to this.

*The opinions expressed are entirely that of the author.

The post Coronavirus Epidemic Has Implications for Life Expectancy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

James Liang* is co-founder and Executive Chairman of Trip.com Group and professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management

The post Coronavirus Epidemic Has Implications for Life Expectancy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A child wades through water on her way to school in Kurigram district of northern Bangladesh during floods in August 2016. Credit: UNICEF/Akash

By Fairuz Ahmed
NEW YORK, Feb 17 2020 (IPS)

For any riverine country, the state of the water body around big cities and conditions of major rivers hold a leadership position in the overall climate effects and how the water body is protected and preserved impacts the entire economy and living standards of that country. Bangladesh is renowned for the geomorphic features that include massive rivers flowing throughout the country. Within the border of Bangladesh lie the bottom reaches of the Himalayan Range water sources that flow into the Bay of Bengal totaling the number of rivers by a count of 700. The length of river bodies is about 24,140 km. There are predominantly four major river systems: the Brahmaputra-Jamuna, the Ganges-Padma, the Surma-Meghna, and the Chittagong Region river system. The Brahmaputra is the 22nd longest (2,850 km) and the Ganges is the 30th longest (2,510 km) river in the world. (1) The river system works as a backbone for agriculture, communication, drinking water source, energy source, fishing and as the principal arteries of commercial transportation in Bangladesh. During the annual monsoon period between June and October, the rivers flow about 140,000 cubic meters per second and during the dry period, the numbers come down to 7000 cubic meters per second.

As water is vital to agriculture, more than 60 percent of the net arable land, some 9.1 million hectares, is cultivated during the monsoon. (2) Besides having the massive river bodies Bangladesh is also home to nearly 165 million people and is the 8th most populated country with a land area spanning 147,570 square kilometers (56,980 square miles), making it one of the most densely-populated countries in the world. (3)The country’s flat topography, dense population, and weak infrastructure make it uniquely vulnerable to the powerful and unpredictable forces that climate change compounds. The threat is felt from the flood and drought-prone lowlands in the country’s north, to its storm-ravaged coastline along the Bay of Bengal. Along with 6 million climate refugees, around 12 million of the 19.4 million children most affected by climate change, live in and around the powerful river systems which flow through Bangladesh and are regularly affected greatly by river erosion. (4) Coastal residents in Bangladesh are losing their homes and farmland at an astonishing rate due to riverbank erosion, which affects roughly 1 million people and displaces 50,000 to 200,000 every year. (5)

Over 14.8% of the population here live below the poverty line, 3.25% of the rural population lack access to water and almost 53.14% of rural population lack sanitation. (6) Lack of access to safe water and improved sanitation facilities in rural areas, overcrowded conditions, and a lack of healthy ways of disposing of waste in urban centers, all contribute to the water and sanitation crisis in Bangladesh. (7) Although 97% of the total population has access to water, the quality of water is questionable. Groundwater is also not as safe as the threat of arsenic contamination is very high all over the country. (8)

Land degradation, dwindling wetlands, ever-increasing pressure on forest areas, air pollution and climate change has become a major focus for the survival of Bangladesh. In spite of these challenges, Bangladesh has become one of the world’s five fastest-growing economies, averaging more than 6% annual growth over the last decade. (9) The country is moving on a development pathway to becoming a middle-income country and dreams to go beyond.

A man tries to fish in the Meghna while huge metal pipes pour silt on the river to fill it up at Gazaria of Munshiganj. A private petroleum purification plant is filling up the river, defying a High Court order. Such illegal acts have become rampant and the authorities concerned remain oblivious to those. Photo: Rashed Shumon/ The Daily Star

A Pentagon commissioned US military report on climate, points to Bangladesh being the most vulnerable country when it comes to the escalating effects of climate change. As one of the least developed countries in the world, Bangladesh is making one of the smallest contributions to global emissions. (10) Yet, being one of the most densely populated nations on the planet, the huge population os Bangladesh is paying some of the highest prices for intensifying weather patterns.

The Bangladesh government accepted climate change a decade back and has become one of the most proactive governments in the world in dealing with it. They are working on building resilience and adaptation strategies to better cope with the pressing situation. In 2009, the government of Bangladesh brought local experts together and the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan were created as a result. Over the last ten years, the minister of finance has been putting $100 million into promoting these actions and the research to tackle climate change. Dr. Saleemul Huq, a Bangladeshi scientist, director of International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) who has been named among the: World’s 100 Most Influential People in Climate Policy for 2019 has remarked that: “In our formulation of the narrative of Bangladesh, we used to be the most vulnerable country in the world. We still are. But, we are on our way to becoming the most resilient country. We are actively going up the learning curve on how to deal with the problem very fast.” (11)

On a visit to Bangladesh in July 2019, the former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon commented that: “Bangladesh is the best teacher in climate change adaptation. We are here to learn from Bangladesh’s experiences and vision when it comes to adaptation, our best teachers are opened doors who are on the front lines of climate change,” He also said that if the sea level rises just by one meter, almost 17% of the country would be underwater by 2050 and while the rest of the world debate climate change, for Bangladesh adapting to a warmer, more violent, less predictable climate is a matter of absolute survival. (12).

The Government has amped up the efforts of fighting climate change and environmental pollution and undertaken a number of initiatives such as Green Growth Strategy, Bangladesh Environment Conservation Act and the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan. Rigorous monitoring and enforcement activities are in place to curb environmental pollution by compelling industries to set up and maintain the Effluent Treatment Plant. Much emphasis is also given on the conservation of biological diversity through the implementation of a Coastal and Wetlands Biodiversity Management Project. (13)

Bangladesh is among the few countries that have a separate court on the environment. So if a river is polluted or encroached upon, those affected by it are able to go to court seeking remedial measures. The Government has also intensified drives in the capital city of Dhaka and elsewhere to evict river grabbers. (14) The High Court has declared rivers as a “legal entity” and this is aiding in freeing rivers from enrichment and in combatting pollution. According to an article published in The Daily Star, multiple laws are there in place for river conservation. If the High Court’s judgment per case by case is carried out along with police involvement and empowerment paired with the vigorous implementation of the laws by the custodians, the rivers can be conserved and be protected from grabbers.

Both the government and the people of Bangladesh are recognizing the climate change issue, and are actively trying to tackle it because the problem is large and complex. The government of Bangladesh is open to adaptation and are revising their plans to tackle the situation even better for the future. (15) With community efforts, general awareness of climate change and its effects, proper implementation of laws, along with Government monitoring, intervention and maintaining the acceptable water quality of rivers and the overall water body of Bangladesh can be hoped to be reversed gradually.

1. http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=River
2. http://countrystudies.us/bangladesh/25.htm
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh
4. https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/04/1036141
5. https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2018/03/cnre-bangladesh-river-basin.html
6.https://www.charitywater.org/our-projects/asia/bangladesh?utm_medium=ppc&utm_source=adwords&utm_campaign=geo&utm_content=bangladesh&gclid=CjwKCAiAp5nyBRABEiwApTwjXu4MhD1UJ4h0UG76ZjWNDNCEPni4gYg5q1eJDXegldNaDSiRfwoC2hoCfoMQAvD_BwE https://water.org/our-impact/bangladesh/
7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6684462/
8. UN: Climate disasters imperil Bangladesh kids’ lives, future By JULHAS ALAM. April 4, 2019
9. https://web.unep.org/environmentassembly/bangladesh
10. https://www.thedailystar.net/environment/climate-change-policy-2019-dr-saleemul-huq-among-world-100-most-influential-1718266
11.https://www.mondaq.com/australia/Environment/881378/Your-PM-is-an-arsonist-An-interview-with-climate-expert-Dr-Saleemul-Huq-of-Bangladesh
12. This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/bangladesh-best-teacher-climate-change-adaptation-un-ex-chief-ban-ki-moon/)
13. https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/news/new-plan-four-rivers-1698151
14. https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/river-grabbing-in-bangladesh-183727
15. https://www.dhakatribune.com/climate-change/2019/03/20/dr-saleemul-impact-of-global-warming-inevitable

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Mission 1.5 players will take on the role of climate policymakers trying to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Courtesy: UNDP

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

The United Nations Development Programme is leading a climate change effort that might finally address concerns many advocates have: bridging the gap between people and governments. 

The “Mission 1.5, a campaign” was launched in New York on Thursday, with the purpose of bringing the people closer to their governments with their suggested — and even ambitious — climate action plans.

The campaign is designed around an internet and mobile-based video game, available here, that UNDP is targeting will reach 20 million people around the globe, providing them with an opportunity to voice their solutions.  

“One of the things that has been really important to us about Mission 1.5 is to really ensure that we can reach as many people as possible,” Cassie Flynn, UNDP climate change advisor, told IPS. “What we know that this is a huge industry, and how do we use that industry to tackle one of the biggest problems in the world?”

Jude Ower, founder and CEO of Playmob, a gaming company that works on social advocacy through their games and designed Mission 1.5, told IPS that climate-oriented games are their most popular.

She noted that the gaming industry’s “massive scale” of the industry — with 2.7 billion players around the world — can play a role in moving forward with climate action.

“The number one thing people do on their phone apart from social media is gaming,” she told IPS at the launch. “It’s a great way to reach people in an uninterrupted way and gaming is great for telling stories, for engaging people, for inspiring action as well.”

In this game, the players are asked questions about solutions for climate change in different fields such as green economy, fossil fuels, corporate responsibility, and more. 

The questions have three options for answers — while one of the three is usually an answer that is obviously against a progress towards appropriate climate action, the other two are more nuanced. And based on the answer one picks, they’re awarded either 700 points or 1,000 points. 

At the launch on Thursday, attendees played the game and shared their notes — the collective results were projected on the screen for everyone to see. 

“Mission 1.5 is learning from the world of gaming and digital technology,” Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator said at the launch, “and together we tried to identify the different ways in which people throughout the world cannot just be spectators of climate change, not just sit in meetings and be lectured at, be told about the science, be told about the challenge, and often be told about the reasons about why we’re not acting.”

After the game, players are asked to vote on key climate actions they want to see adopted. This data will be analysed and delivered to governments, who often lack access to reliable information on public opinion on climate action. 

The game is not for just young kids — the organisers reiterated that this game can be played by anyone around the world, irrespective of their age and location. 

“This is a game for everybody. It’s a game that parents can play with their kids, and for friends to play,” Flynn told IPS. “We’re really excited for this being able to help everyone, no matter whether you know a lot about climate change or a little climate change, you can get something out of it, and you can learn.”

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By PRESS RELEASE
NEW YORK, Feb 17 2020 (IPS-Partners)

In just one week, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), with the Governments of Ethiopia and Chad and implementing partners, launched two new multi-year resilience programmes in Chad (7 February) and Ethiopia (14 February) with US$48 million in seed funding over three years to roll out crucial programme activities and catalyse additional resources.

The budgets for these multi-year programmes total US$216 million and thus call for urgent funding to fill the remaining gaps. When fully funded, the programmes will support quality education for approximately 1 million children and youth affected by conflict, forced displacement, protracted crises and impacts of climate change, including droughts and floods.

With the launch of the government-led programmes in Chad and Ethiopia, ECW and its partners have now realized a proven model for advancing humanitarian-development coherence in 10 crisis-affected countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, State of Palestine, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Uganda.

“In Chad, Ethiopia and other crisis-affected countries, children’s lives have been ripped apart by conflict, forced displacement, climate change impacts and protracted crises. Girls are the most affected and are therefore our top priority. Across these programmes, we must ensure that every child and young person can enjoy their right to inclusive and continued quality education in a protective learning environment – one that caters to all their educational needs and allows them to become who they were meant to be,” said Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait.

“We must not leave these children behind. They all have the right to develop and thrive. By working together with national governments, UN agencies, donors and other key partners, we are building a global movement to reach these children and to accelerate actions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals within the UN’s Decade of Action,” continued Sherif.

ECW operates with unprecedented speed and agility in mobilizing partnerships and resources to deliver results for children, helping to advance Sustainable Development Goal 4 – quality inclusive education – for children and youth affected by conflicts, disasters, forced displacement and protracted crises.

In just three years of operation, the Fund has already raised over half a billion dollars and reached over 2.3 million girls and boys, including refugees, internally displaced children, and other children and youth affected by emergencies and protracted crises.

Kickstarting resource mobilization
The programme launches in Chad and Ethiopia kickstart global efforts to fully fund each of the multi-year resilience programmes (MYRPs), and donors are encouraged to help make a transformational difference in the lives of crises-affected children and youth.

• In Chad, ECW plans to allocate a total US$21 million over three years in seed funding grants to catalyse the additional US$30 million required to fully fund the three-year programme and reach 230,000 crisis-affected girls and boys.
• In Ethiopia, ECW plans to allocate a total US$27 million in seed funding grants to catalyse the additional US$138 million required to fully fund the three-year US$165 million programme and reach approximately 746,000 crisis-affected girls and boys.

The ECW-facilitated MYRPs help bridge the gap between emergency response and long-term development and focus on reaching the most marginalized and vulnerable children and youth, such as girls and children with disabilities. MYRPs are developed on the ground in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders – national governments, UN agencies, donors, private sector and civil society.

Interventions are designed to provide whole-of-child solutions and to reintegrate out-of-school girls and boys into learning and training programmes, improve learning environments, train teachers, improve the governance of the education system in emergency situations, provide psychosocial and school feeding services, support early childhood education and to increase enrolment and retention.

Yasmine Sherif meets with girls and boys in Chad in advance of the multi-year resilience programme launch.

Key facts and figures on Chad
The protracted crisis in Chad has pushed 1.2 million children (aged 6 to 11) out of school. Only 19 per cent of girls and 40 per cent of boys access lower-secondary-school education, and only one out of every ten girls complete middle school. Developed under the auspices of Chad’s Ministry of National Education and Civic Promotion (MENPC) with the support of Education Cannot Wait and a range of UN agencies and international and national civil society partners, the new MYRP focuses on refugee, displaced and host community children and youth and those affected by food insecurity and malnutrition.

In advance of the Ethiopia launch, Yasmine Sherif visited with children in Ethiopia’s hard-hit Oromiya Region with the State Minister of Education H.E Tsion Teklu, and representatives from Save the Children and UNICEF

Key facts and figures on Ethiopia
Ethiopia has an estimated 1.4 million displaced, returnee, and refugee children, mostly resulting from conflicts and natural disasters. One million of these children are out of school, 527,000 of them girls. Latest data shows that 728 schools have been damaged by conflict or natural disasters. In Ethiopia, the Ministry of Education will lead the programme in partnership with Save the Children, UNICEF, Education Cannot Wait, and the Education Cluster.

# # #
Notes to Editors

• View online
• Multi-Year Resilience Programme Launch in Ethiopia (Read the full announcement here)
• Multi-Year Resilience Programme in Chad (Read the full announcement here: En, Fr)
• Share our social Chad video on facebook and twitter
• Share our social Ethiopia video on facebook and twitter

About Education Cannot Wait: ECW is the first global fund dedicated to education in emergencies. It was launched by international humanitarian and development aid actors, along with public and private donors, to address the urgent education needs of 75 million children and youth in conflict and crisis settings. ECW’s investment modalities are designed to usher in a more collaborative approach among actors on the ground, ensuring relief and development organizations join forces to achieve education outcomes. Education Cannot Wait is hosted by UNICEF. The Fund is administered under UNICEF’s financial, human resources and administrative rules and regulations, while operations are run by the Fund’s own independent governance structure.

Please follow on Twitter: @EduCannotWait @YasmineSherif1 @KentPage
Additional information at: www.educationcannotwait.org

For press inquiries: Kent Page, kpage@unicef.org, +1-917-302-1735
For press inquiries: Anouk Desgroseilliers, adesgroseilliers@un-ecw.org, +1-917-640-6820
For any other inquiries: info@un-ecw.org

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Excerpt:

TOGETHER WITH PARTNERS, THIS WEEK SAW THE LAUNCH OF TWO MULTI-YEAR RESILIENCE PROGRAMMES TO ACCELERATE SDG 4

 
10 multi-year programmes have been approved to date as ECW – the global fund for education in emergencies – and partners gain momentum to support UN Decade of Action

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Cargo containers at the Port of Mombasa. Kenya is experiencing a shift in the pattern of its exports and imports. Credit: Standard

By Ambassador Amina Mohamed
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 17 2020 (IPS)

The rise of the services economy around the world represents a profound transformation that offers significant opportunities for countries’ sustainable development strategies.

Globally, services now comprise the largest share of economic activity and employment, accounting for almost two-thirds of global GDP. In Africa, services have grown and now account for over 50 per cent of GDP, including for almost 60 per cent of GDP in East Africa. For African countries that are not resource-rich, in particular, services have contributed for the greater part of annual GDP growth since 2000, compared to manufacturing and agriculture.

The rise of services is also occurring in the sphere of international trade and investment. Services are increasingly tradable as a result of technological advances and now represent the fastest growing component of world trade, as well as account for the largest share of global foreign direct investment.

Services, Trade and Development

Services trade is important from a development perspective for various reasons. A range of services – from finance to telecommunications or logistics – are essential to facilitate all other economic activities, and are therefore critical to economies’ overall competitiveness and growth. Access to affordable and efficient services, through trade and investment, benefits all other economic sectors and improves export performance in manufacturing and agriculture.

Amb. Amina Mohamed

Services also offer increasing opportunities for exports and diversification. While Africa still only accounts for a small share of total world services trade, the region’s exports grew by 10 per cent in 2018. Services exports of least-developed countries (LDCs), the majority of which are African countries, increased by 15 per cent in 2018, though their share of world services trade remains minute. In the case of Kenya, several services sectors, such as tourism, aviation, finance and ICT, have flourished and boosted the country’s exports and economic growth. Other Industries including, the cut flowers industry have done extremely well as a result of efficient logistics services.

By its very nature, services trade can be instrumental in efforts to promote inclusiveness by providing increased opportunities to women and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Globally, the services sector employs more women than other sectors and hosts large numbers of MSMEs. A dynamic and expanding services sector, encouraged by growing trade and investment, contributes to the empowerment of women and enhances economic and social inclusion.

Finally, services are an essential part of regional integration efforts, as recognized by governments in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Strengthening economic relationships in Africa – including by facilitating the development of agriculture and industrialization – requires a strong services sector in the region. In Kenya, for example, suppliers and distributors of telecom, transport and financial services play a fundamental role in facilitating broader trade integration in East Africa. Services enable landlocked countries overcome geographical constraints and effectively access regional and global markets for their products.

International Cooperation Matters

At the regional level, trade agreements, in particular the AfCFTA, are indispensable in supporting the sector’s expansion and growth. They will ensure that all countries benefit from such expansion of economic activity by creating new trade opportunities and fostering transparency and predictability through clear and mutually advantageous rules. A key test for the AfCFTA would be whether it promotes inclusive growth and sustainable development of all African countries and not just a few.

At the multilateral level, engagement on services has the potential to complement regional efforts and help advance national objectives, while contributing to building a climate conducive for the advancement of African negotiating interests in agriculture and other areas. WTO Members took a notable step in promoting the further integration of LDCs in the trading system by adopting, in 2011, the services waiver, which allows these economies to receive preferential access for their services exports. But to increase the participation of developing countries, including African countries, the capacity constraints faced by them need to be taken into account.

Trade obligations on services are best complemented by the international community’s efforts, in the context of Aid for Trade, to help build domestic services capacity and support governments’ regulatory and trade facilitative efforts.

Paying due attention to both aspects will be key to ensuring that services trade helps fulfil development aspirations of many developing countries.

The post Why Trade in Services Matters for Development and Inclusiveness in Africa appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Ambassador Amina Mohamed, is the Cabinet Secretary for Sports, Culture and Heritage in the Government of Kenya.

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US fighter plane

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 17 2020 (IPS)

When President Saddam Hussein ran one of the world’s most authoritarian regimes in the militarily-volatile Middle East during 1979-2003, US newspapers routinely described him as “the strongman of Iraq” — as most journalists rightly view dictators worldwide.

But one of his political aides, described as “Saddam’s right-hand man” (what if Saddam was left-handed?), took issue with a visiting US journalist when he rather hilariously challenged the description.

“No, no, no”, said the aide, unfamiliar with the nuances of the English language, “Saddam is no strong man. He is the strongest man in Iraq”.

But that prodigious military strength was built on a massive arsenal of weapons, mostly from the then Soviet Union (under a 15-year Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation) and also from France and UK.

Pieter Wezeman, Senior Researcher, Arms and Military Expenditure Programme, at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told IPS that after 2003, Iraq received large amounts of weapons from the US, partly as aid, and partly paid for by Iraq.

The US has been the largest arms supplier to Iraq during 2003-2018. However, Iraq has looked for alternative suppliers too, he said.

“Already, in 2005 it ordered Russian transport helicopters, about 40 of these were delivered 2006-2011. To integrate these into the Iraqi armed forces was probably not such a big deal, as they were of a type Iraqi had already been operating since the 1980s, when the USSR supplied them,” Wezeman pointed out.

At a press conference at the presidential palace in Baghdad back in late 1981 – where I found myself a captive for over four long hours– the Iraqi president lambasted the Iranians, with whom he was at war (1980-1988), and blasted Israel for the June 1981 sneak air attack on the Osirak nuclear reactor, 128 miles south of the Iraqi capital.

Backed by its arsenal of weapons, Iraq invaded neighbouring Kuwait in August 1990 when its short-lived seven-month occupation ended as a US-led coalition ousted the Iraqis who had defied a Security Council resolution calling for troop withdrawal.

When a US-led coalition invaded Iraq and ousted Saddam Hussein from power in March 2003, the Bush administration transformed Iraq into one of the biggest US arms markets in the Middle East, ranking behind Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt.

The US arms included sophisticated jet fighters, combat helicopters, air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, warships, battle tanks, howitzers, and armoured personnel carriers, along with military assistance—largely under a bilateral Strategic Framework Agreement.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Iraq was considering purchasing a Russian air defense system– perhaps to spite the US following a demand by the Iraqi parliament that US troops, numbering over 5,200, leave Iraq.

Credit: Iraqi News

The Trump administration has refused to concede to the demand, prompting Iraq to accuse the US of violating sovereign territory and perhaps the UN charter—largely triggered by the drone-killing of Major General Qassim Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, inside Iraqi territory.

Conscious of American assistance to fight the insurgent group ISIS, one Iraqi official told the New York Times last month: “We don’t want Americans to leave. We want American troops to leave.”

Dr. Natalie J. Goldring, Senior Fellow and Adjunct Full Professor with the Security Studies Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, told IPS it’s logical for the Iraqi government to play off the United States against other Iraqi weapons suppliers.

She said the US and Russia are engaged in an arms race in the Middle East. In stoking violence in the region, the US government is also creating future markets for US arms manufacturers.

“Instead, the US government should be working to reduce conflict and weapons transfers to this volatile region.”

She said the United States continues to dominate the global arms trade, accounting for 36 percent of the global trade in major conventional weapons from 2014-2018, according to SIPRI

Since 2005, the US State Department has approved more than $22 billion worth of Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to Iraq, mostly government-to-government transfers of military systems and equipment using their own national funds.

The US weapons to Iraq included 46 M1A1 battle tanks, 36 F-16 fighter aircraft, 24 IA407 helicopters, 9 C-130 cargo aircraft, F-16 munitions package (including Paveway tail kits, AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles, and AGM-65 Maverick missiles) and Contractor Logistics Support (CLS) packages for various air and ground platforms, according to the State Department.

Wezeman told IPS a bigger change occurred beginning 2012, when Iraq started to supplement US weapons with advanced new Russian equipment.

The Iraqis acquired 19 Mi-28 combat helicopters (the first country to receive this model after Russia itself) instead of US AH-64s and further Mi-35 combat helicopters and Pantsyr-S1 SAM systems (air defence system).

Around 2015, he said, Iraq also ordered a reported 300 BMP-3 tracked armoured vehicles and 73 T-90S tanks, several batches of both types have been delivered since.

Recently, he said, there have been reports that Russia has been ‘offering’ its long-range S-400 SAM system. “It remains unclear if this is just Russia offering the system or if there is serious interest in Iraq to acquire it,” said Wezeman.

To operate Russian and US equipment side by side may not be the best solution from a logistical and training perspective, but despite that Iraq has opted to do so anyway.

The major reason for that choice is likely to be related decreasing reliance on the US, an objective that may increase after the killing of Iranian General Suleimani in Iraq, and possibly lower prices for the Russian equipment.

Operating both Russian and US equipment is not unique for Iraq either. India has been operating Russian (Soviet) and European weapons since the 1960s and over the past decade it has increasingly added US weapons to the mix too.

Jordan has operated US and Soviet SAM systems side by side since the 1980s. NATO member Greece bought Russian SAM systems around 2000 and NATO member Turkey bought Russian SAM systems last year.

“So, it has been done and can thus be considered possible. Which is one more reason for the US to worry about it,” he pointed out.

Dr Goldring told IPS that when the Iraqi parliament recently voted to remove all foreign troops from Iraqi soil, the Trump administration publicly dismissed the vote.

“President Trump continues to engage in a dangerous fallacy – that the United States gets to make the last move in international security issues. Although this resolution wasn’t binding, it suggests the extent of Iraqi anger with the US government’s decision to violate Iraqi sovereignty by assassinating Iranian General Suleimani on Iraqi soil.”

She said President Trump “acts like a bully, both internationally and domestically”. He ignores laws that he finds objectionable and acts as if the US government gets to do whatever it wants wherever it wants.

If the Iraqi government implements this resolution, in addition to removing ground forces, the US would be barred from using Iraqi airspace for overflights, among other restrictions,“ said Dr Goldring, who is Visiting Professor of the Practice in the Duke University Washington DC program and also represents the Acronym Institute at the United Nations on conventional weapons and arms trade issues.

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

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By Nayema Nusrat
NEW YORK, Feb 15 2020 (IPS)

In a recent report by World Economic Forum (WEF) shows women suffer a “triple whammy” in the workplace. Without drastic action, gender parity will take more than a lifetime to achieve. This is the challenge that Katja Iversen, President and CEO of Women Deliver is staring down.

“We know that achieving gender equality is not a women’s issue. It is a societal issue. To be successful … boys and men must be involved at all levels and all ages,” said Iversen.

Iversen’s involvement WEF 2020 annual meeting in Davos increased the spotlight on gender equality. She was involved in a myriad of discussions, conversations, panel debates, midnight huddles and a social media drive. As the woman who heads leading global advocate for gender equality, health and rights of girls and women her role at the annual forum was clear cut.

“We provoked discussions using our ‘gender lens’ – a small magnifying glass. We gave this to leaders and influencers to bring down the mountain and apply to their businesses, governments, and lives,” Iversen said in an exclusive interview with IPS.

“Along with our partners, Promundo and Unilever/Dove Men+Care, we released a series of recommendations on male engagement in gender equality, condensed in a catchy infographic.”

Iversen went on to emphasise how “everybody – including the men and women in Davos – must apply a gender lens to every aspect of life, from leadership, to health systems, to schools, the workplace, and at home. That is an important step to change systems, to change harmful norms, and drive progress.”

This may seem a momentous task. The WEF report, released in December 2019, highlighted the factors that fuel the economic gender gap. This included a noticeably low level of women in leadership positions, wage stagnation, labour force participation and income.

The report highlights what it terms a ‘Triple Whammy’ for women in the workplace. Women, the report said, are highly represented in many of the roles that have been hit hardest by automation.

Moreover, not enough women are entering technology-driven professions where wage growth is more profound. This puts women into the middle to low wage categories that have been stagnant since the financial crisis in 2009.

Thirdly, a lack of access to capital prevents them from pursuing entrepreneurial activities, another key driver for income.

WEF aims to close the gender gap by setting up coalitions between relevant ministries and the largest employers to increase female labour force participation, increase women in leadership positions, close wage gaps and prepare women for jobs of the future. Additionally, the global business commitment on Hardwiring Gender Parity in the Future of Work mobilises businesses to commit to hiring 50% women for their five highest growth roles between now and 2022.

Iversen said women must be involved in the development and growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ubiquitous digital technology for them to benefit.

“We know that innovation and technology hold a lot of power and can be used for good – but only if it works for girls and women and identifies the bias that holds them back,” she said.

While there was potential for digital technologies, like AI, to unlock better health access and information, new employment and leadership opportunities, and greater economic security for women – it could “just as likely leave big parts of the population behind and exacerbate existing inequalities”.

This was why the gender lens in the development and implementation of AI and other tech solutions is so critical, said Iversen. Having women involved in the growth of digital technology “can ensure technology is more representative and can eliminate unconscious bias in hiring, promotion, and recruitment”.

It is critical that women’s education, especially in the field of technology, is enhanced, enabling them to participate in future workforce equally.

“We also need to make sure we are investing in women’s lifelong education and training, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math. It is key to their professional and financial security in the workforce of tomorrow.”

Investment in women and their participation in the economy has a ripple effect.

“Evidence and common sense confirm that when leadership and the workforce represent the population and include women, it leads to better economic, social, and political cohesion and puts us on a better, more sustainable path.”

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, noted in his speech at WEF 2020 that while problems were global, the responses were fragmented.

“If I had to select one sentence to describe the state of the world, I would say we are in a world in which global challenges are more and more integrated, and the responses are more and more fragmented, and if this is not reversed, it’s a recipe for disaster,” he warned.

Iversen explains that by putting the gender lens at the centre of the solutions, it would enhance society’s ability to achieve its Sustainable Development Goals. It would also mitigate the ‘fragmented responses’ to global challenges.

“Gender is cross-cutting, it is essential to progress and to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Conservation of our planet; eradicating poverty and ensuring health; education; peace, and prosperity for all need to be integrated. This requires putting a gender lens to the entire development agenda,” Iversen said.

“One of the reasons the world is facing so many challenges right now, including trade wars, conflict, climate change, and growing inequality, is that girls, women, and marginalised groups are prevented from accessing power, both political and financial. Big egos, narrow interests, and profit over people and planet have been, mistakenly, prioritised, and we are paying the price for that.”

Women Deliver’s President was emphatic that “development actors from across the spectrum must abandon siloed approaches. It was essential to work together to drive progress for the people and planet, including girls and women, both through financial investment and multi-sector partnerships.”

Iversen is confident. WEF was “good start to the Decade of Action for the Global Goals and the 2020 Generation Equality push, demanding women’s equal participation in political life and decision-making in all areas of life.”

Involving the younger generation was also paramount to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

“What was also clear coming down the Davos mountain is that any efforts to push the development agenda over the finish line will fail if they don’t involve young people. Because youth not only have a stake in reaching our ambitious development goals by 2030, they are also well-suited to identify solutions right now.”

To address and improve gender equality, Iversen emphasised that it required a global effort. The private sector has a vested interest and a significant role to play in advancing gender equality. “We want governments and business leaders to use the gender lens in all they do. They should complete a concrete analysis of what progress they have made and what gender gaps remain,” Iversen said.

Both should ask themselves: What policies and procedures are inhibiting or promoting progress? What gender norms are prevalent and need to be addressed? What investments in gender equality could be made?

“And once that analysis is complete – get to work!”

Women Deliver has been relentless in that message and in bringing the evidence to bear with great partners. “And in recent years we have seen that the world – including at WEF – has started to catch on. Our challenge now is to move from talking to mobilising dedicated action.”

Women Deliver continues to be serious advocates, speaking up for girls and women in every setting.

“We’ll continue to advise committees for big corporations and international agencies. We’ll continue to elevate the voices of young advocates and local organisations around the world. We will continue to push back on the pushback to protect our gains and drive further progress,” Iversen said.

“We will continue to communicate from podiums, in boardrooms and hallways of major summits, on the pages of major newspapers, on (television) screens and social media – with the clear message: In a gender-equal world, everybody wins.”

IPS asked about the trend of women participating as policy-makers at WEF. Just how prominent is women’s role? Iversen replied that “24% of the 2,700 formal WEF participants were women. While that is an improvement from previous years, it’s still way too small. WEF has pledged to double female participation by 2030, and we are ready to help to speed it up.”

“We have a long way to go, but I saw progress at WEF,” said Iversen, adding, “More and new world leaders – in business and government – are picking up the gender lens. There is still so much to be done, and progress is slow for an impatient optimist like myself. But I came down the Davos mountain more hopeful than I went up, and more ready than ever to power progress for girls, women and gender equality in the Super Year ahead.”

Iversen remains optimistic. “Ultimately, we want to work ourselves out of a job. Then sit back and see a world where gender inequality is a thing of the past, where it is something people make fun of like the ‘old days’. Where people say, ‘I can’t believe we didn’t do this sooner’.”

The post Coming Down the Davos Mountain with a Gender Lens appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Diogo Vaz, a company in the idyllic island of Sao Tome and Principe in West Africa, is producing organic luxury chocolate from rare cocoa varieties. Courtesy: Diogo Vaz

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Feb 14 2020 (IPS)

A premium chocolate maker in São Tomé and Príncipe is on a drive to promote the taste for “made in Africa” chocolate, and tap into a $100 billion global indulgence associated with Valentine’s Day.

Diogo Vaz, a company in the idyllic island of São Tomé and Príncipe in West Africa, is producing organic luxury chocolate from rare cocoa varieties. The objective is to promote Africa’s palate for chocolate, a world-loved treat estimated to be enjoyed by one billion people every day.

“For centuries Africa has produced cocoa from wild beans but the consumption of chocolate is really low in Africa,” Willy Mboukem, Plantation Director at  Diogo Vaz, told IPS in a telephone interview.

“Modern consumer habits are a challenge and we know in Africa we are not big consumers of chocolate. People do not have this habit and often buy expensive products with a lot of sugar and missing out of the real taste of chocolate with a higher percentage of cocoa.”

Ivorian chocolate. The Ivory Coast is one of the world’s greatest producers of cocoa. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria produce 70 percent of global cocoa but enjoy just five percent of the global value from this market. Cocoa producers are unable to get more value from selling the raw material for chocolate to realise higher prices for farmers.

Worse still, many African cocoa producers have battled with adding value to their beans, — a process that would boost jobs and incomes — because they have little control on their value chains.

Emerging markets consultant Edward George says in an online paper that West Africa is the largest cocoa producer in the world but it exports 75 percent of it as raw beans – a key ingredient in chocolate — giving the lion’s share of value addition to confectioners and retailers at the end of the value chain.

George said that despite Africa’s agricultural sector having many inbuilt advantages of abundant agricultural land, a rapidly-growing population and lower labour costs, it lacked an efficient marketing infrastructure.

This prevented farmers and processors from getting full value from their crop, even in its raw form. In addition, Africa’s agriculture value chains were highly fragmented and face international competition.

George said a solution to poor value addition in Africa was to boost local demand for cash crops, within countries and regionally.

Last November, the African Development Bank (AfDB), Credit Suisse AG, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited and the Ghana Cocoa Board signed a $600-million loan to boost cocoa production in Ghana, the second-largest cocoa producer in the world.

The deal will be extended to other cocoa-producing countries in Africa, according to AfDB President Akinumwi Adesina. Adesina has long bemoaned the fact that Africa is not dominating the cocoa value chain, despite being the leading producer.

Ivorian cocoa framer Abou Ouattara in this file photo dated 2016. Credit: Busani Bafana/ IPS

“African farmers sweat, while others eat sweets. While the price of cocoa has hit an all-time low, profits of global manufacturers of chocolate have hit an all-time high…. It is time for Africa to move to the top of the global food value chain, through agro-industrialisation and adding value to all of what it produces,” Adesina said at the Bank’s Annual Meetings last year.

The AfDB is a strong supporter of agriculture value chains on the continent. The AfDB’s Feed Africa Strategy (2016-2025) marked a shift by the bank towards approaching agriculture on the continent as a business. Agriculture is currently one of the top priorities for AfDB.

“Agriculture is the most important profession and business in the world,” Adesina said last month when he was conferred with an honorary Doctorate of Science by the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta, Nigeria.

Chocolate visions

Diogo Vaz has bucked the trend and is adding value to cocoa beans at source, a risk Mboukem says is paying off thanks to growing demand for high end chocolate in Europe and the United States.

The company operates a 420 hectare farm bought in 2013 which has been replanted with 150,000 cocoa trees, which include the unique Amelonado and Trinitario varieties endemic to São Tomé and Príncipe. The Portuguese introduced cocoa from Brazil to the island nation over 160 years ago.

Mboukem said Diogo Vaz was riding on the rich cocoa-growing history in São Tomé and Príncipe and is establishing itself as a global brand for chocolate. It currently exports bulk and tablet chocolate to France, Portugal and the Gambia. The company, which employs 250 people, exports 12 tonnes of fine chocolate every two months.

“We have looked at what the European and U.S. market needs which is  low fat, low sugar organic chocolate with traceability,” said Mboukem.  “We have maintained producing chocolate from different varieties of cocoa from the farm to factory. This project is an important page in the history of Africa to master the cocoa value chain.”

It is, however, a luxury market item. “You sell units at high price and then you have a lot of different costs like the cost of packing is a big cost for us and then operational costs but chocolates, in general, is a profitable business and is huge all over the world especially in Europe, U.S., and Japan,” he said.

Diogo Vaz holds public tastings and open factory tours to educate the community in São Tomé and Príncipe about chocolate making but importantly to understand the company’s philosophy of making good chocolate through investing in the community.

“People say it is an African chocolate but the packaging and the way it’s presented and the story behind makes them feel proud because it is 100 percent African with international characteristics. They say
the chocolate is good and we have been making good chocolate, we’ve got a professional chocolatier.”

Climate change eating chocolate?

Weather extremes, a result of climate change, will lead to a fall in cocoa production by 2030, a 2011 study by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) predicted.

Climate change, and the resultant change in the rainy seasons, Mboukem said, has forced Diogo Vaz to change production methods in terms planting the beans and the fermentation and grading process to retain the best quality.

Rising incomes are driving the demand for cocoa beans, which is expected to reach 4.5 million tonnes by 2020, up from 3.5 million tonnes in 2016.

Cocoa farming by over five million small holder farmers around the world, a bulk of them in Africa, supports more than 50 million people globally, according to the World Cocoa Foundation.

The International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) says while the organic cocoa market is less than 0.5 percent of the total global production, there is growing demand for organic cocoa products as consumers worry about food safely and the environmental footprint of food production.

The global chocolate market is projected to grow to $161 billion by 2024 from $103.2 billion in 2017.

“The future is to expand value addition of cocoa beans in Africa and transform the livelihoods of many people who depend on cocoa and ensure Africa enjoys real chocolate,” Mboukem said.

 

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The post From Cocoa to Chocolate, Made With Love in Africa appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

It produces 70 percent of the world's cocoa and yet Africa has very little hand in making the final product - chocolate. But one producer in Sao Tome and Principe is on a drive to become a global brand for African chocolate.

The post From Cocoa to Chocolate, Made With Love in Africa appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 14 2020 (IPS)

Every year Valentines Day is celebrated with great relish & celebration. People show their affection for another person or people by sending cards, flowers or chocolates with messages of love.

But there is a tragic dark side which stays in the shadows, when considering violence against women, one is confronted with an apparent contradiction.

“If you don’t fight, silence will kill you,” says Kenyan musician Wendy Kemunto, explaining why – a month after suffering a sexual assault by two Kenyan rugby players early in 2018 – she finally went to the police. For several weeks Wendy had remained silent, blaming herself, paralysed by a toxic mixture of shame, fear and well-founded dread at the usual & insensitive treatment of sexual assault victims by law-enforcement agencies.

But in November 2019, the two rugby players were each handed 15-year jail terms for rape, and now Wendy is speaking out to encourage more women to report such crimes.

Currently less than a third of victims report their ordeal, but data shows more than one in three women globally have experienced physical or sexual violence. In the face of such figures we can no longer shrug our collective shoulders and ignore the misogyny that fosters and encourages sexual violence.

When you know that only a tiny proportion of reported rapes ever make it to court, it is easy to understand, perhaps, why so few rape victims come forward.

The conviction of Wendy’s attackers is an encouraging sign that the Kenyan justice system is shifting from a trend where such cases – particularly those that involve high-profile individuals – remain in limbo in the courts, leaving a swathe of victims of violent assault not only without sufficient legal protection, but with the additional trauma of facing societal stigma.

The commemoration of the International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM last week is another reminder that all forms of gender based violence are not merely vestiges of historical harmful cultures, but are practices that continue to impoverish women and their families, and lower the productivity of entire countries.

With ever more studies illustrating the developmental hazards of sexual and gender violence, it is to our collective shame that, in the words of UN Secretary-General Mr. Antonio Guterres, women’s rights are increasingly being “reduced, restricted and reversed”.

Around 120 million girls worldwide have experienced forced intercourse or other forced sexual acts, with current or former husbands, partners or boyfriends the most common perpetrators. Around 700 million women alive today were married as children. Of those women, more than one in three—or some 250 million—were married before the age of 15.

The UNDP Africa Human Development Report for 2016 says, “Gender inequality is costing sub-Saharan Africa on average $US95 billion a year”. The justice system, supported by the necessary legislation, must pursue individuals who commit such acts with the same vigour that we use to go after economic saboteurs.

Countries must begin by fast-tracking the implementation of progressive policy commitments and institutional frameworks on gender equality and women’s empowerment. For instance, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa has yet to secure universal ratification.

Beyond policies, there is an enormous task ahead in changing the mind-set of insidious male entitlement that finds expression through sexual and gender based violence.

The natural place to begin must be in the home, where husbands must not only set an example of respect for their wives but also raise their sons to value girls and to respect their rights and autonomy. Schools must teach respect and gender equality to both sexes.

Such early formation is invaluable in dealing with societies that see gender based violence and misogyny as expressions of “culture” and “tradition”. In my own country India, culture and concepts such as ‘family honour’ have continued as the distorting lenses through which gender based violence, patriarchy and misogyny are seen.

President Uhuru Kenyatta must be commended for his unequivocal message that such deeply-embedded practices as female genital mutilation and early marriages will not go unpunished.

As the United Nations in Kenya, we believe this leadership is crucial for programmes such as the Government of Kenya and UN Joint Program on the Prevention and Response to Gender-Based Violence, which is supporting the establishment of strong prevention interventions and protection mechanisms for survivors.

While the case of Wendy Kemunto is an encouraging win for assault victims, we must remember that most victims remain invisible, as male-controlled money and power keep their plight hidden. Many are poor and ill-educated. Countless are growing up in cultures where their life chances are severely diminished simply by virtue of their gender.

So on this Valentines Day, Kenya has an opportunity to lead the way in showing that institutions and structures are ready, willing and able to enforce equal and fair treatment of all women.

The post The Hammer of Justice for Sexual Assault Victims Must Be Swift, Loud and Consistent appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations resident coordinator to Kenya

The post The Hammer of Justice for Sexual Assault Victims Must Be Swift, Loud and Consistent appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: UNDP, Paraguay

By Achim Steiner, Inger Andersen and Qu Dongyu
ASUNCION, Paraguay, Feb 14 2020 (IPS)

Imagine a forest that covered half of your entire country. A biodiverse forest which supports thousands of species from giant anteaters to armadillos to jaguars. A forest that is home to one the world’s last uncontacted tribes.1

That forest is in fact a reality in Paraguay, a South American country of seven million people, landlocked between Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia. It is home to much of the Gran Chaco forest that is considered the second largest forested landscape in South America — second only to the Amazon rainforest.

And like other countries which are home to the great forests of South America, Paraguay too battled raging wildfires in 2019.

But Paraguay’s portion of the Chaco forest is battling an even more existential challenge. This unique ecosystem, characterised by scrub forests, grassy plains, lagoons, marshes and jungles, is under threat from agricultural expansion, driven by cattle and soy production.2

The region has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. As NASA satellites have highlighted between 1987 and 2012, the forests in Paraguay lost nearly 44,000 square kilometres through conversion to farmland or grazing land. That’s an area roughly the size of Honduras.3

The scale of that destruction is both frightening and untenable.

Paraguay needed to support to reduce deforestation. And partly as a consequence of that destruction, the country was not able to fully realise the massive potential of its forests to support climate change mitigation.

Thus, Paraguay engaged in REDD+, a voluntary process under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which encourages developing countries to contribute to climate change mitigation efforts by reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from deforestation and forest degradation. The process also helps to increase the removal of GHGs from the earth’s atmosphere through the conservation, management, and expansion of forests.

Credit: UNDP Paraguay

Since 2011, partners from across the UN System have collaborated closely to support Paraguay’s national REDD+ process through a range of tailor-made initiatives.

They include the UN-REDD Programme (2011-2016) where the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) provided support to Paraguay to submit its first Forest Reference Emission Level of deforestation (FREL).

This collaboration also resulted in a new a National Forest Monitoring System for the country which allows for the reporting of forest carbon — reliable data on forest area and changes to forest area.4

Following this, and thanks to support from the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility since 2016, Paraguay advanced the elements of the UNFCCC Warsaw Framework for REDD+ – institutional prerequisites that make a country’s emission reductions in the forest sector eligible to exchange for results-based payments.

UN agencies are now jointly collaborating to advise Paraguay on accessing and managing result-based payments from a range of public and private sources thus ensuring robust fiduciary management and compliance with UNFCCC social and environment safeguards.

The first example of this collaboration is Paraguay’s proposal to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) pilot programme for REDD+ result-based payments, which was approved at the GCF board meeting in November 2019.

UNEP will play the role of Accredited Entity for this US $72 million proposal and implementation will be undertaken by the three UN-REDD partner agencies: UNDP, FAO and UNEP. UNDP will build upon the support provided for the development of Paraguay’s National Strategy on Forest for Sustainable Growth and will assist in the implementation of the Strategy’s policies and measures, informed by UNDP’s experience on the ground.

FAO will support improvement of the national forest monitoring system. It will also assist in the application of rigorous methodologies to assess, quantify, monitor, report and verify emission reductions at the national-level.

UNEP will support the definition of incentives to reduce deforestation and forest degradation. It will also boost social and environmental safeguards; and engage in communications and awareness-raising efforts.

Working together for nearly a decade, UN agencies have demonstrated the power of working as one to open the door for Paraguay to access significant international resources to implement its National Strategy on Forest for Sustainable Growth and achieve the mitigation goals set out in the country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) – or its “promise” towards the Paris Agreement.

The results of these wide-ranging partnerships are producing dividends. In 2019, Paraguay reported 26.7 MtCO2 of emission reductions – or a reduction of nearly 50 per cent for the forest sector.

We hope that Paraguay can serve as a “beacon state” to thrust countries around the world into further positive action to when it comes to the management of its forests as a nature-based solution to climate change — while also helping them to propel forward a range of related Sustainable Development Goals.

1 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/10/isolated-brazil-peru-amazon-tribes-remote-protected/
2 https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Earth_from_Space_An_island_surrounded_by_land
3 https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/92078/deforestation-in-paraguay
https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Geography/Land-area/Sq.-km
4 https://redd.unfccc.int/fact-sheets/national-forest-monitoring-system.html

The post Why Paraguay Can Be a “Beacon State” for Forest Management appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Achim Steiner is Administrator, UN Development Programme (UNDP), Inger Andersen is Executive Director, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) & Qu Dongyu is Director-General, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

The post Why Paraguay Can Be a “Beacon State” for Forest Management appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Ranton Anjain, 17, from the Marshall Islands, speaks at a press conference announcing a collective action being taken on behalf of young people facing the impacts of the climate crisis. UNICEF/Radhika Chalasani

By Esther Ngumbi
ILLINOIS, United States, Feb 14 2020 (IPS)

Recently, the Associated Press cropped out Ugandan climate change activist Vanessa Nakate from a photo at the World Economic Forum. The remaining activists in the photo, including Greta Thunberg, were all white.

While the AP cited picture composition as the reason for the edit and later apologized for their actions, it still happened. The editing out of Nakate – who said it felt like her story had been erased — calls for a deeper reflection on the issue of diversity, inclusion, and the lack of representation of people of color and other marginalized groups in key global conversations.

In fact, people of color should be the ones we hear from the most when it comes to issues like climate change. According to climate research and many reports, including the recently released IPCC report, the outcomes of climate change disproportionally affects people living in developing countries.

Highlighting activists of color is good for everyone. Convincingly, a growing body of evidence shows that when minorities and underrepresented voices are included, and their voices and actions displayed, including in science, everyone benefits

For example, in March of 2019, flooding events in Malawi and Mozambique brought about by climate change affected and disrupted the lives of nearly 843,000 people. In addition, in the same year, drought, floods, and conflicts brought about by the changing climate, contributed to soaring levels of hunger in the horn of Africa.

According to Save the Children, nearly 13 million people were affected by hunger with children making half the number.

Instead, climate activists and voices from these communities must be centered in global conversations if we are to sustainably mitigate climate change. They bring in firsthand experience which can greatly inform climate change conversations, science, action, and policy.

As an African climate change activist who has greatly benefited from media visibility, I strongly feel we must highlight activists of color in the media – it matters who is featured there. Undoubtedly, Thunberg is a passionate, fearless and determined activist and she deserves to be celebrated.

But we should also hear about the actions of young people like Kaluki Paul Mutuku from Kenya, who has been engaged in conservation work and activism,  Leah Namugerwa, a climate activist from Uganda, also engaged with Friday climate strikes and Ridhima Pandey, a climate activist from India.

Failing to showcase and highlight the contributions, ideas, and actions of these activists from developing countries hurts us all. It actively crops these voices out and reduces the chances that their worthy ideas will help shape policies and the world.

Often those ideas are ingenious, born of necessity and creativity. This is something I saw firsthand while growing up in rural Kenya in a town with no electricity or Internet. People in these regions innovate every day, but their ideas and ways of addressing challenges are rarely featured – and not on a global scale. This should change.

Further, rendering these activists invisible potentially denies them the chance of catching the eye of and benefiting from funding agencies that can finance their ideas and amplify their contributions. It perpetuates the problem by allowing groups with more visibility and funding in the first place to continue to grow through support.

Highlighting activists of color is good for everyone. Convincingly, a growing body of evidence shows that when minorities and underrepresented voices are included, and their voices and actions displayed, including in science, everyone benefits.

It makes our world stronger. It also sends a message to other activists and aspiring young people that they, too, can be the voice on issues of our day.

In contrast, by failing to recognize all activists, we perpetuate the narrative that only certain people can achieve greatness. Only certain people can be activists. Yet, this is not true. Even with the lack of representation, we have examples of people of color who have broken glass ceilings.

The Late Nobel Prize winner, Wangaari Maathai, for example, was an environment activist whose work continues to inspire many people-young and old. Imagine how much more persons of color may be able to achieve if they have more recognition and support.

In the end, we all must make an effort to ensure that diversity and inclusion happens. Small actions like calling out these injustices as they happen would go a long way.  If you see something—say something.

We cannot stand by the perimeter and expect a just and equal world to happen. Evermore, we must continue to be creative and find other avenues to highlight activists of color and those from marginalized groups. We all have a stake in mitigating climate change.

 

Dr. Esther Ngumbi is an Assistant Professor at the Entomology Department, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She is a Senior Food security fellow with the Aspen Institute and has written opinion pieces for various outlets including NPR, CNN, Los Angeles Times, Aljazeera and New York Times.

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Credit: Harald Matern from Pixabay.

By Nelson Mandela Ogema
NAIROBI, Feb 14 2020 (IPS)

Widespread hatching and movement of destructive desert locusts will turn into a full-blown crisis in the coming weeks in East Africa and neighbouring countries, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization warns.

“Breeding continues in the Horn of Africa, which will cause locusts to increase further in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya with new swarms forming in March and April,” explains the FAO in a forecast.

The desert locusts have destroyed 70,000 hectares of farmland in Ethiopia and Somalia, threatening food security and livelihoods in both countries. According to the FAO, locust swarms of one square kilometer can eat the same amount of food in one day as about 35,000 people.

This is the worst desert locust invasion Kenya has had in 70 years, while Ethiopia and Somalia experienced an invasion of this magnitude 25 years ago, the FAO says.

The region experienced abnormally heavy rains between October and December, with flooding in regions that are normally semi-arid, creating conditions that are favourable for locust breeding.

 

A map dated February 10, 2020 showing Desert Locust spread from Kenya to Uganda and Tanzania. Source: FAO Locust Watch

 

“Locust swarms have started laying eggs and another generation of breeding will increase locust numbers,” says Keith Cressman, a senior locust forecasting officer at the FAO. “Urgent efforts must be made to stop them from increasing to protect the livelihoods of farmers and livestock holders.”

Stephen Njoka, the director-general of Desert Locust Control Organisation for Eastern Africa, tells SciDev.Net: “Climate change could be behind this invasion, for example the current rains in Kenya are very unusual, making vegetation available to the pests and creating suitable egg laying sites in the soil.”

The Horn of Africa, made up of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, has about 115 million people. Because locusts have been found to be nutritious by some communities and cultures in the region, eating them may be a mild measure of control given the overwhelming numbers of the insects, Njoka suggests.

Njoka says that aerial and ground spraying with safe pesticides are the best ways to control locust invasion. The FAO says US$70 million is needed to support rapid control operations, such as spraying with insecticides.

 

Desert Locust swarm in Kenya. Copyright: FAO/Sven Torfinn (This image has been Cropped).

 

But Daniel Otaye argues that the use of pesticides in the control of locusts is a source of concern, as pesticides might have devastating effects on other beneficial insects such as bees, green lacewings, and dragonflies, which contribute to ecosystem health.

Otaye, an associate professor and chairman in the Department of Biological Sciences, Egerton University in Kenya, says: “The invasion poses disastrous effects on the East African region that is still smarting from insecurity, droughts and aggressive floods.”

According to Otaye, the insects can devour fields of crops, such as maize and sorghum, and ravage pastures meant for livestock. He tells SciDev.Net that if the situation is left unchecked, the region might need additional food aid because of the anticipated crop and forage losses.

This story was originally published by SciDev.Net

 

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By Ebru Gokce Dessemond
GENEVA, Feb 13 2020 (IPS)

Digital platforms are at the centre of the global economy and daily lives of consumers.

A handful of these platforms have become dominant in specific markets without facing meaningful competition. They include Amazon as a marketplace, Facebook in social networking, Google in search engines and Apple and Google in application stores.

Digital platforms rely on big data and are characterized as multisided markets with economies of scale, network effects and winner-takes-all features.

These firms offer their products for “free” on one side of the market and earn revenues from online advertising and selling user data on the other side of the market.

The growing market power of these platforms raises concerns not only for consumers and smaller businesses but also for competition authorities.

Consumers not in control

Consumers can no longer control the use of their data. Smaller businesses face unfair market conditions, where they compete with big platforms that offer services by self-preferencing their own products. It is now widely recognized that these markets cannot self-correct.
What needs to be done?

One effective response is competition law and policy that promotes open and accessible markets with fair and reasonable terms for businesses. This goal is more pronounced in highly concentrated digital markets, where large platforms’ market power is enduring.

The most important competitive threats to monopolists are likely to come from new entrants, which are vulnerable to exclusionary conduct or anticompetitive acquisitions.

Governments should have in place relevant policies and legal frameworks to overcome different challenges of the platform economy. These include competition, consumer protection and data protection policies and legislation.

Adapt to new realities

There is a need for adapting competition law enforcement tools to new business realities by revising laws like in Germany and Austria or issuing regulations or guidelines as has been done in Kenya and Japan.

A 2017 law revision in Germany incorporated in the assessment of the market power of firms in the digital economy such criteria as direct and indirect network effects, parallel use of services from different providers and switching costs for users.

It also factored in economies of scale in connection with network effects, access by firms to data relevant for competition and innovation-driven competitive pressure.

This amendment allowed the Federal Cartel Office in Germany to consider these criteria in analyzing Facebook’s dominance in the social network market during its investigation into Facebook between March 2016 and February 2019.

Merger control regimes should enable competition authorities to scrutinize the acquisition of start-ups by major platforms.

Merger analysis needs to incorporate the role of data in acquiring and sustaining market power and establishing entry barriers to new firms, thereby affecting future competition and innovation.

Not only free but also fair competition

It is important to ensure not only free but also fair competition. This is more so in digital markets, where smaller firms face challenges in their contractual relationship with big platforms.

Competition law provisions on unfair trade practices and abuse of superior bargaining position, as found in competition laws of Japan and the Republic of Korea, would empower competition authorities in protecting the interests of smaller firms vis-à-vis big platforms.

Developing countries could consider this policy measure in revising their competition legislation or introduce a separate regulation concerning digital platforms’ dealings with their business users.

Such measures could facilitate entry of local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to platform markets, thereby allowing developing countries to reap the benefits of the digital economy.

This is important as SMEs are crucial to job creation and innovation. Both the implementation of fair competition legislation and review of acquisitions of startups by dominant platforms could play an important role in maintaining an inclusive, competitive and fair business environment in the digital economy. This might eventually enhance innovation.

Apt taxation policy needed

Another critical element needed to ensure fair competition is an appropriate taxation policy. A significant proportion of the value created in the digital economy results from users who provide data.

The current international corporate tax system is not adapted to the digital economy. There is not yet a common understanding of “value creation” for taxation purposes in the digital economy.

This leads to a disconnect between where value is generated and where taxes are paid. According to the UNCTAD Digital Economy Report 2019, taxes paid abroad by Facebook represented only 2.9% of the profits it generated outside the United States in 2017.

Ideally, an international taxation system, which is agreed upon by all countries, and recognizes the main aspects of digital businesses that have significant implications for taxation, should be put in place.

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Excerpt:

Ebru Gokce Dessemond is Legal Officer, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

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By Tsitsi Matekaire
LONDON, Feb 13 2020 (IPS)

Online sexual exploitation is a global epidemic that is increasing at an alarming rate.

At any one time, 750,000 individuals across the world are looking to connect with children and young people online for sexual exploitation. The expansion of the Internet, advances in information and communications technologies (ICTs), and the development of increasingly sophisticated digital tools that provide anonymity, mean that the number of potential victims is growing exponentially, and so too is the pool of those seeking to abuse them.

An investigation by The New York Times on how technology companies and the US government are being overwhelmed by this epidemic found that a record 45 million online photos and videos of child sexual exploitation were reported by US-based technology companies to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in 2018.

And the problem is getting worse. In 2019, record-breaking 70 million total images and videos were reported to NICMEC, an enormous increase on the 1.1 million it received in 2014.

Children and young people are especially connected online. One in three Internet users worldwide are under the age of 18 years, and with availability and accessibility continuing to improve, more and more children own or have access to Internet-enabled smart devices.

Technology is also making children contactable around the clock. Young people across the world are spending an increasing amount of time online, and in the US, teenagers are now engaging with screen media seven hours per day on average.

Accompanying this is the expansion of social media, which has created a plethora of new opportunities for would-be offenders to connect and interact with children anonymously and unsupervised.

Adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation. They are subjected to a double layer of discrimination because they are young and female, and are sexualized from a young age, both in the way society treats them and in how the media portrays them.

Sexualized images of girls and young women are ubiquitous in advertising, merchandising, and the entertainment industry. All this perpetuates gender stereotypes that can negatively impact the developing body image and self-esteem of girls.

Social media has amplified these long-standing pressures, pushing girls to conform to particular sexualized narratives, and leaving them especially vulnerable to sexual exploitation both off and online.

New data gathered by UK based internet watchdog the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) revealed that 30 percent of sexually explicit images of children found online are self-generated.

IWF took action over 124,605 images found online between January and November 2019. Over three-quarters of these images (78 per cent) featured children aged 11 to 13, most of whom were girls.

Adolescent girls are particularly at risk of being groomed, coerced, or blackmailed into providing explicit images and videos, often via webcams, which can then be posted online and shared via networks operating across the world.

In some instances, children are sending videos and images to their peers on smartphones and via social media platforms. For the most part, this content will remain with the person it was intended for, but sometimes material is passed onto others. Once online, it is almost impossible to control where it ends up or stop its spread.

Victims can be left feeling sexually violated, powerless, socially isolated, and stigmatized. A range of mental health problems are associated with this, including PTSD, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.

Exploited children are at a heightened risk of becoming exploited and vulnerable adults, and as victims reach the age of majority, they no longer have the legal protections afforded to minors in different legal and policy contexts.

Particularly disturbing can be the ongoing sense of re-victimization arising from images of abuse being shared repeatedly across the digital landscape and viewed multiple times by countless people.

Frequently, requests asking for content to be removed are ignored, or image taken off one online platform, soon reappear elsewhere. This can feel like ongoing sexual assault, casting a long shadow that can have a profoundly damaging impact continuing into adulthood.

Commendable efforts in progress, but more challenges to overcome

Governments, technology companies, research institutions, civil society organizations, donors, and many others are rising to the challenge and are providing various examples of successful interventions and innovations.

In 2009, Microsoft partnered with Dartmouth College to develop PhotoDNA, a technology that aids in locating and removing online child abuse content. Today, PhotoDNA is used around the world to detect and report millions of illegal images. It works by creating a unique digital signature of an image called a “hash”, which is similar to a fingerprint.

The hash can then be matched to copies of the same image so they can be located and removed by governments and tech companies.

Organizations such as NetClean and Thorn are harnessing the power of technology to create tools to assist law enforcement, tech platforms, and civil society organizations in identifying illegal material online, track exploiters, and bring them to justice.

The Global Threat Assessment by WePROTECT Global Alliance to End Child Sexual Exploitation Online has brought together governments, the tech industry, and NGOs to galvanize global action, increase understanding about the nature and scale of the problem, and develop and implement strategies.

These efforts are commendable and have begun to make inroads. However, the globalized nature of online sexual exploitation, combined with it continuously expanding and evolving landscape, means we still face enormous challenges and new obstacles.

Not everyone around the world is being afforded the same protections. International women’s rights organization Equality Now is undertaking a review of existing international and regional legal frameworks relevant to online sexual exploitation to understand in greater detail the practices, gaps, and opportunities.

Technological solutions need to work alongside legal and policy solutions, but existing legal frameworks are diverse and inadequate. In many countries, legislation and law enforcement have failed to keep up with cybercrime, and some governments have not yet prioritized the threat or have limited resources to invest in infrastructure and safeguards to protect vulnerable people.

Exploiters and the online platforms they use operate across national borders, and legislation has not been updated to adequately address issues regarding legal jurisdictions. For instance, any website – whether a large multinational company, one set up specifically to facilitate exploitation, or any other platform – may use servers located in various locations overseen by different legal authorities.

Other difficulties arise from balancing the rights to privacy and freedom of expression with the need for regulation that protects vulnerable people from exploitation.

Analysis of the problem, and identification and development of solutions, needs to include a gendered lens so that the specific vulnerabilities and needs of adolescent girls are considered and addressed.

Teenage girls often fall through gaps in the law, leaving them without the same basic protections that are in place for younger children, meaning they are less safe, less likely to be given support, and less likely to receive justice if their rights have been violated. They are also commonly blamed or even criminalized instead of being treated as victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation.

The global and complex nature of online sexual exploitation requires that all of us come together to find solutions. This involves applying a gendered lens to research and understanding how the Internet and technology are being misused to facilitate sexual exploitation.

We need to formulate and adopt common international regulations or a global convention the layout the responsibility and accountability of all actors involved in the online sexual exploitation of vulnerable people. This involves having mechanisms in place to address new legal challenges as they emerge.

Crucial to success is having survivors at the center of discussions so their voices are heard and their perspectives inform and strengthen solutions. Listening to those with first-hand experience and documenting systematically what they have been through can help us identify what needs to change and put better protections in place so the world can benefit from an Internet that is safer for all. For media enquiries and interview requests please contact Sr.

*Equality Now is an international human rights organization that works to protect and promote the rights of women and girls around the world by combining grassroots activism with international, regional and national legal advocacy. Equality Now’s international network of lawyers, activists, and supporters achieve legal and systemic change by holding governments responsible for enacting and enforcing laws and policies that end legal inequality, sex trafficking, sexual violence, and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage.

For details of our current campaigns, please visit www.equalitynow.org and find us on Facebook @equalitynoworg and Twitter @equalitynow.

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Excerpt:

Tsitsi Matekaire is Global Lead for Equality Now’s End Sex Trafficking programme.

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Women form the largest labour population, yet prior to the passing of the ‘Sindh Women Agricultural Workers Bill’, customary laws in Pakistan did not recognise women as legal inheritors. Copyright: Asian Development Bank, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. This image has been cropped.

By Quratulain Fatima
ISLAMABAD, Feb 13 2020 (IPS)

When Pakistan’s eastern Sindh province passed the ‘Sindh Women Agricultural Workers Bill’ on 20 December, giving women in agriculture, livestock, fisheries and other agro-based work the same rights and benefits enjoyed by workers in the industrial sector, it was a revolutionary step for the whole of South Asia. 

The new legislation is limited to Sindh province but speaks volumes about the state of women’s rights in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, countries where  agriculture is  the biggest sector and women form the largest labour population.

As a land revenue officer and administrator in Pakistan for the past nine years, I have come across women who have worked their whole lives on lands they are prevented from owning by male relatives.

Although they make up more than half the agricultural labour force in developing nations, women own only 10 to 20 per cent of the land

Although Pakistan’s land and inheritance laws make it mandatory to divide land fairly among heirs on the death of the owner, more often than not women avoid staking claims for fear of being ostracised by their male relatives.

In Pakistan, as late as the 1960s, land records were maintained according to customary laws as introduced by the British Raj in pre-partition India. The said customary laws did not recognise women as legal inheritors and the family trees required for keeping land records omitted women’s names to deny them legal existence.

In 1960, the enforcement of Islamic laws of inheritance saw inclusion of women in land ownership. But in practice, this right to property was twisted either by force or by manipulating it to ‘gift’ their share to male relatives. Few women with rustic backgrounds dare stand up against this injustice — but that is a larger struggle against extreme patriarchy.

The state of women’s land and agriculture rights in Pakistan is a microcosm of the historical barriers that prevent them from owning land or farming around the world. For example, until 1850, married American women had no legal right to own land, and in Brazil, women’s right to own land became official only in 1988.

In 2010, the Nicaraguan government finally adopted legal measures to improve rural women’s access to credit in order to facilitate their path toward land ownership. There is very little sex-disaggregated data on land ownership in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, but most studies suggest that women own far less land than men.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020 said that only a handful of countries are approaching economic equality, and estimated that it will take another 257 years for the world to achieve economic gender equality. While 78 per cent of men are in the labour market, only half of all adult women are employed.

To achieve gender parity, the rights of women employed in the agriculture sector are urgent and important. Although they make up more than half the agricultural labour force in developing nations, women own only 10 to 20 per cent of the land. That restricts a woman’s chances of making farming contracts that provide higher incomes and better returns on labour.

Gender norms in developing countries also prevent women from bringing their crops to market, and when they do, they usually face hostile environments in male-
dominated farm markets.

Governments can intervene on behalf of women farmers. They can reposition gender equality and protection as central to all development initiatives. The first step, as taken by Pakistan, can be to end discrimination against women farmers under the law, followed by rights to buy and sell land, demand equal wages for agricultural labour, take legal steps for income generation, and access credit, technology and technical assistance.

Enacting the laws is not enough, implementing them through good governance is as important.

Gender-focused policies towards women farmers and donor initiatives like ‘Feed the Future,’ aimed at empowering women farmers, can be helpful in private and public sector alike. Access to gender-specific trainings, agri-extension services, mobile technology for market information and laboursaving technology for enhanced productivity are other empowering measures.

Women in agriculture must be facilitated to avail of finance and loans, infrastructure and markets so that they can switch from wage-based labour to sustainable ownership farming. Women-only farm markets and women focused subsidies on crops and equipment may generate better results than generic policies.

FAO estimates that given equal access to agricultural resources, women’s farming yields can increase. By giving women the same access as men to agricultural resources such as credit, technology and equipment, increase in productivity on their farms in developing countries can rise by 20—30 percent which, in turn, can help feed an additional 100—150 million people in the world.

FAO asserts that earning extra income would enable women to spend more money on health care, nutrition and education for their children — investments that could produce long-term, positive results for farm families and their neighbours.

Sindh province seems serious in implementing the new law. However, Pakistan is a country where land reforms have been thwarted by big landlords who tend to be influential politicians.

Implementation can begin with documentation of all women labourers working in agri-sector. Defining punishments and fines for persons who indulge in discriminatory practices against women workers are another step. Above all, the law needs to be followed by policies and practices in a consistent manner.

Gender equality may still be a hundred years away but giving women agricultural rights will not only help close the gender gap but also boost the economy and reduce poverty.

 

Quratulain Fatima, is a co-founder of Women4PeaceTech and a policy practitioner working extensively in rural and conflict-ridden areas of Pakistan with a focus on gender-inclusive development and conflict prevention. She is a 2018 Aspen New Voices Fellow.

 

This story was originally published by SciDev.Net

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By External Source
Feb 12 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Pacific Community (SPC) is calling for contestants to join the Pacific Healthy Recipe Contest and showcase their cooking skills and creativity to promote healthy eating and prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Up to 75 per cent of deaths in Pacific countries are related to NCDs, such as diabetes and heart diseases, with unhealthy diets and lifestyles seen as important factors in their development.

From observation, the Pacific diet has changed over time and consumption of local foods has transitioned into consumption of more imported processed foods that are high in sugar, fat and salt. Approaches to improve eating habits includes trainings on healthy eating, development of resources to improve knowledge and health promoting campaigns to increase awareness.

Who can apply?
The contest will be open to all Pacific Island Countries and Territories.

How to apply
The contest will be launched through SPC social media.

Contestants will be invited to:
– Complete the registration online until 29 February 2020
– Follow the directions given to submit details of their recipe that they have created together with a photo of the prepared dish.

Prize
The winner and their entire family (up to 10 people) will enjoy a gourmet meal prepared in the comfort of their own home by a well-known chef!
All participants will get a copy of the ‘Pasifka Plates’ cook book.

How to assess the winner?
Assessment of the winner will be based on:

• Use of local ingredients
• Recipe with less sugar, salt and fat
• Creative and aesthetic presentation
• Showcasing of Pacific cooking traditions.

The recipes will be made available on the SPC website as well as shared through other means of communication.

Useful links:
Competition Terms and Conditions
Participation Form

For more information, it is possible to contact the organizers at the following address: health-enquiries@spc.int.

Media contacts:
Solène Bertrand-Protat, Non-Communicable Diseases Advisor, Public Health Division (PHD), Pacific Community (SPC) | soleneb@spc.int

General Inquiries:
Evlyn Mani, Communications Officer, Public Health Division (PHD), Pacific Community (SPC) | evlynm@spc.int

Alexandre Brecher, Senior Communications Officer, Corporate Communication Office, Pacific Community (SPC) | alexandreb@spc.int

About SPC:
The Pacific Community has been supporting sustainable development in the Pacific, through science, knowledge and innovation since 1947. It is the principal intergovernmental organization in the region, owned and governed by its 26 member countries and territories.

Division
Corporate
Public Health Division (PHD)

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A blue ice area, part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Professor Chris Turney, Author provided<

By Chris Fogwill, Chris Turney, and Zoë Thomas
Feb 12 2020 (IPS)

Rising global temperatures and warming ocean waters are causing one of the world’s coldest places to melt. While we know that human activity is causing climate change and driving rapid changes in Antarctica, the potential impacts that a warmer world would have on this region remain uncertain. Our new research might be able to provide some insight into what effect a warmer world would have in Antarctica, by looking at what happened more than 129,000 years ago.

We found that the mass melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was a major cause of high sea levels during a period known as the Last Interglacial (129,000-116,000 years ago). The extreme ice loss caused more than three metres of average global sea level rise – and worryingly, it took less than 2˚C of ocean warming for it to occur.

To conduct our research, we travelled to an area on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and drilled into so-called blue ice areas to reconstruct the glacial history of this ice sheet.

Blue ice areas are areas of ancient ice which have been brought to the surface by fierce, high-density winds, called katabatic winds. When these winds blow over mountains, they remove the top layer of snow and erode the exposed ice. As the ice is removed by the wind, ancient ice is brought to the surface, which offers insight into the ice sheet’s history.

While most Antarctic researchers drill deep into the ice to extract their samples, we were able to use a technique called horizontal ice core analysis. As you travel closer to the mountains of the ice sheet, the ice that been brought to the surface by these winds progressively gets older. We then were able to take surface samples on a straight, horizontal line across the blue ice area to reconstruct what happened to the ice sheet in the past.

Drilling into blue ice.
Professor Chris Turney, Author provided

Our team took many measurements. We first looked at the fine layers of volcanic ash in the ice to pinpoint when the mass melting took place. Alarmingly, the results showed that most ice loss happened at the start of Last Interglacial warming, some 129,000 years ago – showing how sensitive the Antarctic is to higher temperatures. We think it’s likely this melting started well before the ocean warmed by 2˚C. This is concerning to us today, as ocean temperatures continue to increase, and the West Antarctic is already melting.

We also measured temperature-sensitive water molecules across the blue ice area. These isotopes revealed a large shift in temperatures, highlighting a major gap in our record at the start of the Last Interglacial. This indicates a period of sustained ice loss over thousands of years.

This period of missing ice coincides with extreme sea level rise, suggesting rapid ice melt from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. DNA testing of ancient microbes preserved in the ice revealed an abundance of methane-consuming bacteria. Their presence suggests that the release of methane gases from sediments under the ice sheet may have also played a role in accelerating the warming process.

The West Antarctic ice sheet can tell us a lot about the effect of warming ocean temperatures because it rests on the seabed. It’s surrounded by large areas of floating ice, called ice shelves, that protect the central part of the sheet. As warmer ocean water travels into cavities beneath the ice shelves, ice melts from below, thinning the shelves and making the central sheet highly vulnerable to warming ocean temperatures. This process is currently being researched on the West Antarctic Thwaites Glacier, nicknamed the “Doomsday Glacier”.

Using data from our fieldwork, we ran model simulations to investigate how warming might affect the floating ice shelves. These ice shelves protect the ice sheets and help slow the flow of ice off the continent. Our results suggest a 3.8 metre sea level rise during the first thousand years of a 2˚C warmer ocean. Most of the modelled sea level rise occurred after the loss of the ice shelves, which collapsed within the first two hundred years of higher temperatures.

These findings are worrying – especially if persistent high sea surface temperatures could prompt the larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet to melt, driving global sea levels even higher. But our findings suggest the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may be close to a tipping point. Only a small temperature increase could trigger abrupt ice sheet melt and a multi-metre rise in global sea levels.

At the moment, research suggests that global sea levels could rise between 45-82cm over the next century. However, it’s thought that Antarctica will only contribute around 5cm of this – most of this sea level rise will be caused by warmer ocean waters and the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet. But based on our findings, Antarctica’s contribution could be much greater than anticipated.

Despite 197 countries committing under the Paris agreement to restricting global warming to 2˚C by the end of this century, our findings show that even minor increases in temperature could have far-reaching impacts.

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

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Excerpt:

Chris Fogwill, Professor of Glaciology and Palaeoclimatology, Keele University; Chris Turney, Professor of Earth Science and Climate Change, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, UNSW, and Zoë Thomas, ARC DECRA Fellow, UNSW

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A UN meeting on the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Credit: UN Photo/Kim Haughton

By Cora Weiss
NEW YORK, Feb 12 2020 (IPS)

75 years ago following the end of the Second World War and the first time any state has dropped an atomic bomb, not once, but twice, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 51 countries from all continents met to create the United Nations.

Its primary purpose, as stated in the Charter says: “We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…” Of course, it is also dedicated to human rights for all and equal rights for men and women and nations large and small and more…

But peace, prevention of war, is its ”most profound purpose,” Ambassador William vanden Heuvel said when he suggested we organize this conference on “War No More”.

It is to this purpose, to save humanity from war, that the Committee on Teaching About the UN with the co- sponsorship of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the UN, has dedicated its conference which will convene on February 28, 2020. https://teachun.org/conference/2020-un/.

We honor the UN on its 75th anniversary and call for the full implementation of this purpose.

Cora Weiss

It is often said that as long as there are people there will be war. But it hasn’t always been that way and certainly war is not inevitable.

Indeed, not only has the UN called for saving succeeding generations, but the Charter also calls for “…the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources…” (Art 26); the First Committee is dedicated to Disarmament.

It goes on, “… (Art 2.3) All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means…” and (2.4) states, “All Members shall refrain from the threat or use of force…”

Some say that as long as there is a right of self-defense (Art 51) there shall be war. We will see what the lawyers and experts including Liechtenstein’s Ambassador Christian Wenaweser and James Ranney, international law professor, say in their conversation.

Have you heard of Bertha von Suttner, the young poor Princess who answered an ad from Alfred Nobel for a housekeeper. In short, she left his employ having persuaded him to turn the profits from his invention of dynamite to support a Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1905 Bertha became a Nobel Peace Laureate for writing the best-selling, “Lay Down Your Arms”, (Die Waffen Neider) probably the only novel written about disarmament, and for organizing the world’s first International Peace Congress.

It resulted in banning hot air balloons, mustard gas and dumdum bullets. Did she anticipate climate change?

Getting rid of war has been a hope for generations. Eleanor Roosevelt said that that, “the idea of war is obsolete”. Abolishing war has been a serious multinational effort.

A Hibakusha, one of the survivors of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, speaks at a special event commemorating Disarmament Week in October 2011. Credit: UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

Following the first World War and the League of Nations, the Kellogg Briand Pact, 1928, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/kellogg was signed by all “major states” including the foreign ministers of the US and France, who agreed not to… “resort to war to resolve disputes or conflicts of whatever nature.’’

The Pact could not prevent or stop wars of “self-defense” and had no enforcement capacity.

Lord Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, who said that nuclear weapons threaten the “continued existence of mankind”, also called for the end of war. War, in the age of atomic bombs, “is the most serious problem that has ever confronted the human race,” said Lord Russell. Thus, the Russell Einstein Manifesto of 1955 was signed by the world’s leading scientists including Marie Joliot-Curie.

www.theguardian.com › world › jul › russell-einstein-peace-manifesto…

In 1999, on the centennial of the world’s first Peace Congress, the Hague Appeal for Peace convened 10,000 people from over 100 countries in The Hague and called for Peace is a Human Right and it is Time to Abolish War. Archbishop Desmond Tutu told us, “If the world could get rid of Apartheid, why not war?” www.haguepeace.org

UN Secretary–General Kofi Annan addressed the HAP conference, urging everyone, “Don’t despair, don’t deny and by all means don’t ever give up”.

The Hague Agenda for Peace and Justice for the 21st Century with 50 Articles going from a Culture of War to a Culture of Peace, became a UN document, A/54/98.

It created the Global Campaign for Peace Education which states, “A Culture of Peace will be achieved when citizens of the world understand global problems, have the skills to resolve conflicts, and struggle for justice non-violently.

“War No More” takes its name from the drawing, Nie Wieder Krieg, (War Never Again) 1924, by the German artist and peace activist, Kathe Kollwitz. Her son was killed in the first World War. https://archive.org/details/warnomorefinalitalics2

The apocalyptic twins, nuclear weapons and the climate crisis, are the existential threats destined, if not reversed, to cause the war no one survives. As long as there is armed violence between states, or groups, no amount of good governance, democracy, human rights or development can be sustained.

Positive Peace, says the Institute for Economics and Peace, not only looks at the risks of violence but at what builds peaceful and resilient societies.

We urge everyone to imagine what the Future they want looks like. What can you take away from this conference to work on to make your future happen? What can we ask of the Member States to make a World Without War?.

Footnote:

The “War No More” conference will be welcomed by the Chair of CTAUN Anne-Marie Carlson; the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea to the UN, Ambassador Cho Hyun; and Under-Secretary-General, Virginia Gamba, Representative of the Secretary-General for Children in Armed Conflict.

The conference is organized around 6 conversations: It starts with Nobel Peace laureate and Liberian activist and educator, Leymah Gbowee in conversation with author, activist Gloria Steinem facilitated by ERA Coalition CEO, Carol Jenkins. They will discuss the role of civil society and women in the prevention of war and in peace processes.

New technologies follow: Hypersonics, Artificial Intelligence, Drones, cyber warfare with Michael Klare, Senior Fellow, Arms Control Association, in conversation with Eleonore Pauwels, Senior Fellow, Global Center on Cooperative Security, Adaora Udoji, award winning journalist, expert in emerging technologies, and facilitator Mark Wood, graduate student Columbia University.

———

Tony Jenkins, Global Campaign for Peace Education, (GCPE.org) and Eunhee Jung, Founder and President. Intercultural Virtual Exchange of Classroom Activities, (IVECA)will be in conversation with Ramu Damodaran, UN Academic Impact (UNAI) serving as facilitator.

Women Peace and Security and Youth Peace and Security will be discussed by Mavic Cabrera Balleza, founder and chief of Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, Mallika Iyer and Dinah Lakehal and Heela Yoon with George Lopez, Notre Dame Univ professor, as facilitator.

UN Under-Secretary-General Izumi Nakamitso will discuss disarmament with Randy Rydell, former UN Senior Political Affairs Officer with George Lopez also facilitating. Camryn Bruno will perform a Spoken Word on small arms. World Peace through Force of law not Law of Force, will be discussed by Liechtenstein’s UN Ambassador Christian Wenaweser and James T Ranney. Their facilitator will be Jutta F. Bertram-Nothnagel.

*During the Vietnam War, Cora Weiss was co-chair of the Committee of Liaison which hand-carried mail to American pilots –POW’s– in North Vietnam and brought mail back to their families every month for 3 years. And she, with a few others, brought three former POW’s home as a peace gesture before the war ended.

The post War No More appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Cora Weiss* is an Honorary Patron of the Committee on Teaching About the UN (CTAUN), the UN Representative of the International Peace Bureau and President of the Hague Appeal for Peace. She was among the few women drafters of Security Council Resoluion 1325, Women, Peace and Security, and among the founders of the Global Campaign for Peace Education (GCPE).

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Women and girls put in 3.26 billion hours of unpaid care work every single day in India. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Diya Dutta
DELHI, India, Feb 12 2020 (IPS)

Women’s unpaid care work is the hidden engine that keeps the wheels of our economies, businesses, and societies moving, yet it is not accounted for.

Inequality is writ large in our economies. Not only are the top one percent capturing greater wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the population, there appears to be significant gender disparity within billionaire wealth as well. Globally, roughly one out of ten billionaires today are women—and the same was true in 2010.

The situation is particularly telling in India—currently there is only one female billionaire for every 20—down from one in 12 in 2018.

In its annual Global Gender Gap Report (2020), India continues to be ranked poorly in terms of improving the gender gap. At a composite rank of 112 out of 153 countries, it has moved down four places from its previous rank of 108, and the economic gap has gotten significantly wider since 2006.

Women and girls put in 3.26 billion hours of unpaid care work every single day in India—a contribution of at least 10 percent of GDP

The country fared poorly on three of the four measured segments: economic participation (149); health and survival (150); and educational attainment (112); while ranking fairly high for political empowerment (18). The composite rank puts India behind Bangladesh (50), Nepal (101), and Sri Lanka (102).

 

Women and work

The transfer of women’s work from household to commercial employment is among the most notable features of economic development. Yet, India is marked by abysmally low and falling female labour force participation.

The government of India’s Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) published by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) estimated female labour force participation at 23.3 percent in 2017-18. This means that three out of four women aged 15 years and above are not working nor seeking work.

This is worrisome, especially since unemployment rates are highest amongst women with advanced levels of education (24.6 percent) as compared to those with tertiary levels of education (16.2 percent) and basic level of education (2.9 percent).

A common explanation provided for this is that more numbers of girls are enrolled in education. However, PLFS data indicates a fall in workforce participation for older women—those between 30-50 years of age where two out of three women were reported as not working.

It is most pronounced in women aged between 35-39 years: 33.5 percent of them were reported as not working in 2017-18 as compared to nine percent in 2011-12. That is one in three women not working, versus the one in 11, six years prior.

There appears to be a mismatch between demand and supply—there is a lack of adequate decent jobs for the educated youth in this country especially women. Social norms also restrict the kind of jobs that women and young girls can take up, leaving them with few opportunities for paid employment.

Most women in the prime working age category (between 30-50 years) reported ‘attending to domestic duties only’, which refers to running of the household and taking care of children and/or elderly relatives.

Unpaid care work is the hidden engine that keeps the wheels of our economies, businesses, and societies moving.

Women and girls put in 3.26 billion hours of unpaid care work every single day in India—a contribution of at least 10 percent of GDP. When calculated in actual terms this means women’s unpaid care work contributes INR 19 lakh crore of the GDP, which is twenty times the entire education budget of India in 2019, three times the revenue of Reliance Industries, and four times that of ONGC as per 2018-19 data.

 

But paid care isn’t working in women’s favour either

Women consistently earn less than men—the estimated earned income for women in India is just 20 percent of male income; and they are concentrated in the lowest paid and least secure forms of work. For example, women make up two-thirds of the paid care workforce.

Jobs such as nursery workers, domestic workers, and care assistants are often very poorly paid, provide scant benefits, impose irregular hours, and can take a physical and emotional toll.

It is a vicious cycle where the high burden of unpaid care work inhibits women and girls from pursuing education and engaging in paid employment. With little or no education and low skills, women are left to collect the scraps of low paid, insecure, unskilled jobs. This explains why they account for only 30 percent of professional and technical workers, and 20 percent of leadership roles in the country.

Oxfam’s latest report, Time to Care, shows that the pressure on carers, both unpaid and paid, is set to grow in the coming decade as the global population grows and ages. Climate change could worsen the looming global care crisis—by 2025, up to 2.4 billion people will live in areas without enough water, and women and girls will have to walk even longer distances to fetch it. Eighty percent of indigenous people live in Asia and the Pacific, a region vulnerable to climate change.

 

Governments created the inequality crisis—they must act now to end it

Globally, governments are massively under-taxing the wealthiest individuals and corporations and failing to collect revenues that could help lift the responsibility of care from women and tackle poverty and inequality. At the same time, governments are underfunding vital public services and infrastructure that could help reduce women and girls’ workload.

For example, investments in water and sanitation, electricity, childcare, healthcare could free up women’s time and improve their quality of life.

The issue of unpaid care work is central to women’s economic empowerment, and not accounting for it in statistical systems and economic growth measurements is likely to impact policy interventions aimed at improving access to opportunities for women.

The four R’s of unpaid care work—recognise, reduce, redistribute, and represent—should be the framework guiding policies and programmes which seek to address the skewed distribution of unpaid activities among men and women.

The state plays an important role in reducing the skewed distribution of unpaid work between men and women, and the issue should be viewed as a shared responsibility between households and governments.

 

Know more

• To know more about the state of inequality in India read the India supplement of Time to Care.
• Read this IDR article that uncovers trends, identifies data gaps, and makes actionable recommendations for policy design through a meta-analysis of India’s female labour participation.
• Read this feminist comic which explains the mental load that women carry on a regular basis.

 

Do more

• Use the ‘Care Calculator’ to estimate the financial worth of the care work you do.

 

Diya Dutta is Research Manager at Oxfam India. She has been leading the inequality research work at Oxfam India for the past three years. She has contributed to Oxfam’s India Inequality Report 2019 and Oxfam India Inequality Report, On Women’s Backs. She has been working on the issue of unpaid care work for over a decade and has been a researcher for more than 15 years. Diya has a PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University and an MPhil from Oxford University.

 

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

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