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UN Must Live Up to Its Promises of Gender Equality —and Support Women

Tue, 09/19/2023 - 09:17

There will be no sustainable development without equality for all women and girls. It is no secret that the world is falling behind on the ambitions of the 2030 agenda and the promise of the SDGs. Geopolitical tensions are exacerbating the progress made on women's rights—Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed September 18.

By Shihana Mohamed
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 19 2023 (IPS)

In 2015, the UN’s 193 member states adopted 17 goals for the health of the world that together comprise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be reached worldwide by 2030.

The UN hosted a SDG Summit 2023 on September 18-19 to review progress toward those goals. Among the aims is to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.” On this, progress is not going well.

As UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned in July, “Halfway to the 2030 deadline, the Sustainable Development Goals are dangerously off track. Gender equality is almost 300 years away.”

Among the furthest behind is the Asia-Pacific. Although a dynamic region, at this point the Asia-Pacific should have made half the progress needed to achieve the goals but its progress has reached only 14.4%.

According to the UN Women report on Women’s Leadership in Asia-Pacific, women’s representation in parliament is at 20% in the Asia-Pacific, below the global average of 25%. Women are underrepresented among chairs of permanent committees in charge of finance and human rights.

Women’s participation in peace negotiations — as negotiators, mediators and signatories — is notably rare. Women hold managerial positions at only 20%. This lack of progress exists at the UN as well.

The Asia-Pacific is home to around 4.3 billion people — 54% of the world population — and more than half of the world’s women. Yet only 18% of women are from the region among women in professional and higher categories of staff in UN organizations.

Among the professional staff in UN organizations, there is a visible disproportionate parity between the West and the rest of the world. Out of five regional groups of the UN member states — Western European and Other States, African States, Asia-Pacific States, Eastern European States, Latin American and Caribbean States — women from Western European and Other States, including North America, constitute just more than half of the population of professional women (51%) in the UN system.

Women from the Asia-Pacific constitute only 6% of senior or decision-making posts in UN organizations. The majority of these posts (about 53%) are held by staff from Western European and Other States.

The recent review of racism in UN organizations by the Joint Inspection Unit, the UN’s external oversight body, confirmed that UN staff from countries of the Global South, where the population is predominantly people of color, tend to be in lower pay-grades and hold less authority than those from countries where the population is predominantly white or from the group of Western European and Other States. This racial discrimination in seniority and authority has emerged as a macro-structural issue to be addressed.

At the opening of the 61st session of the Commission on the Status of Women, the Secretary-General Guterres declared: “We need a cultural shift — in the world and our United Nations. Women everywhere should be recognized as equal and promoted on that basis. We need more than goals; we need action, targets and benchmarks to measure what we do. But for the United Nations, gender equality is not only a matter of staffing. It relates to everything we do.”

If the UN is serious about definitive advancement in the status of women, its organizations should focus exclusively on necessary measures to increase the representation of women from Asia-Pacific countries.

These measures should include, but not be limited to, establishing targets for balanced regional diversity in UN organizations, ensuring recruitment and selection assessments are free from biases, and conducting audits of Asia-Pacific women’s career progression to identify and eliminate barriers. It is equally essential to ensure that women from the region are placed in decision-making positions.

UN organizations must faithfully reflect the diversity and dynamism of staff from all countries and regions of the world, including at senior and decision-making levels. This aspect is critical if the organizations are to implement mandates to help deliver the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

At the event organized by the UN Asia Network for Diversity & Inclusion to commemorate the 77th UN Day, Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, former Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN and former UN Under Secretary-General, noted that the UN Charter “is the first international agreement to affirm the principle of equality between women and men, with explicit references in Article 8 asserting the unrestricted eligibility of both men and women to participate in various organs of the UN.”

“It would therefore be most essential for the UN to ensure equality, inclusion and diversity in its staffing pattern in a real and meaningful sense,” he said.

“Leave no one behind” is the central, transformative promise of the Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals adopted eight years ago. Fulfilling this promise for all women and girls requires addressing the rights, needs and concerns of marginalized groups.

Leaders of UN organizations need to ensure that they meet their goals at home and in their own organizations, while calling for their achievement worldwide.

Shihana Mohamed is one of the Coordinators of the United Nations Asia Network for Diversity and Inclusion (UN-ANDI) and a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project and Equality Now.

IPS UN Bureau

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Categories: Africa

Iran: One Year on, What’s Changed?

Tue, 09/19/2023 - 08:09

Credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Sep 19 2023 (IPS)

It’s a year since a photo of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini – bruised and in a coma she would never recover from after being arrested by the morality police for her supposedly improperly worn hijab – went viral, sending people onto the streets.

The protests became the fiercest challenge ever faced by Iran’s theocratic regime. The unprecedented scale of the protests was matched by the unparalleled brutality of the crackdown, which clearly revealed the regime’s fear for its own survival.

Led by women and young people, mobilisations under the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ banner articulated broader demands for social and political change. They spread like wildfire – to streets across Iran, to universities, even to cemeteries where growing numbers of the regime’s victims were being buried. They were echoed and amplified by the Iranian diaspora around the world. The Iranian people made it abundantly clear they wanted the Islamic Republic gone.

A year on, the theocratic regime still stands, but that doesn’t mean nothing has changed. By sheer force, the authorities have regained control – at least for now. But subtle changes in daily life reveal the presence of active undercurrents that could once again spark mass protests. The regime knows this, hence the fear with which it has awaited this date and its redoubled repression as it neared.

A glimpse of change

Last December, as protests raged and the authorities were busy trying to stop them, women could be seen on Iranian streets without their hijabs for the first time in decades. After the protests were quelled, many simply refused to resubmit to the old rules. A tactical shift followed, with mass street mobilisation turning into more elusive civil disobedience.

Women, particularly Gen Z women just like Mahsa, continue to protest on a daily basis, simply by not abiding by hijab rules. Young people express their defiance by dancing or showing affection in public. Cities wake up to acts of civil disobedience emblazoned on their walls. Anti-regime slogans are heard coming from seemingly nowhere. In parts of the country where many people from excluded ethnic minorities live, protest follows Friday prayers. It may take little for the embers of rebellion to reignite.

Preventative repression

Ahead of the anniversary, family members of those killed during the 2022 protests were pressured not to hold memorial services for their loved ones. The lawyer representing Mahsa Amini’s family was charged with ‘propaganda against the state’ due to interviews with foreign media. University professors suspected to be critical of the regime were dismissed, suspended, forced to retire, or didn’t have their contracts renewed. Students were subjected to disciplinary measures in retaliation for their activism.

Artists who expressed support for the protest movement faced reprisals, including arrests and prosecution under ridiculous charges such as ‘releasing an illegal song’. Some were kept in detention on more serious charges and subjected to physical and psychological torture, including solitary confinement and beatings.

Two months ago, the regime put the morality police back on the streets. Initial attempts to arrest women found in violation of hijab regulations, however, were met with resistance, leading to clashes between sympathetic bystanders and police. Women, including celebrities, have been prosecuted for appearing in public without their hijab. Car drivers carrying passengers not wearing hijab have been issued with traffic citations and private businesses have been closed for noncompliance with hijab laws.

The most conservative elements of the regime have doubled down, proposing a new ‘hijab and chastity’ law that seeks to impose harsher penalties, including lashes, heavy fines and prison sentences of up to 10 years for those appearing without the hijab. The bill is now being reviewed by Iran’s Guardian Council, a 12-member, all-male body led by a 97-year-old cleric.

If not now, then anytime

In the run-up to 16 September, security force street presence consistently increased, with snap checkpoints set up and internet access disrupted. The government clearly feared something big might happen.

As the anniversary passes, the hardline ruling elite remains united and the military and security forces are on its side, while the protest movement has no leadership and has taken a bad hit. Some argue that what made it spread so fast – the role of young people, and young women in particular – also limited its appeal among wider Iranian society, and particularly among low-income people concerned above all with economic strife, rising inflation and increasing poverty.

There are ideological differences among the Iranian diaspora, which formed through successive waves of exiles and includes left and right-wing groups, monarchists and ethnic separatists. While most share the goal of replacing the authoritarian theocracy with a secular democracy, they’re divided over strategy and tactics, and particularly on whether sanctions are the best way to deal with the regime.

Ever since the protests took off last year, thousands of people around the world have shown their support and called on their governments to act. And some have, starting with the USA, which early on imposed sanctions on the morality police and senior police and security officials. New sanctions affecting 29 additional people and entities, including 18 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and security forces, were imposed on the eve of the anniversary of the protests, 15 September, International Day of Democracy. That day, US President Joe Biden made a statement about Mahsa Amini’s inspiration of a ‘historic movement’ for democracy and human dignity.

The continuing outpouring of international solidarity shows that the world still cares and is watching. A new regime isn’t around the corner in Iran, but neither is it game over in the quest for democracy. For those living under a murderous regime, every day of the year is the anniversary of a death, an indignity or a violation of rights. Each day will therefore bring along a new opportunity to resurrect rebellion.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

Categories: Africa

UN, Still Living in the 1940s, Urgently in Need of Reforms

Tue, 09/19/2023 - 08:06

Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 19 2023 (IPS)

Politically, the United Nations has largely been described as a monumental failure —with little or no progress in resolving some of the world’s past and ongoing military conflicts and civil wars, including Palestine, Western Sahara, Kashmir, and more recently, Ukraine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan and Myanmar, among others.

Still, to give the devil its due, the UN has made some remarkable progress providing food, shelter and medical care to millions of people caught in military conflicts, including in Ukraine, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Somalia. Has the UN been gradually transformed into a humanitarian aid organization — diplomats without borders?

How fair are these characterizations?

Meanwhile, during the high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly beginning September 18, some of the world’s political leaders, representing four of the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council, were MIAs (missing in action): Prime Minister Rushi Sunak of UK, President Emmanuel Macron of France, President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Xi Jinping of China.

The only P5 member present was US President Joe Biden. Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, a country described as one of the world’s rising political and economic powers willing to lead the Global South, was also missing.

Is there a hidden message here for the UN? And is the UN beginning to outlive its usefulness–politically?

Asked about the absence of four P-5 members of the Security Council, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was blunt when he told reporters: “I don’t think it is because we have or we have not a leader of a country that the high-level week is more relevant or less relevant. What’s important is the commitments that Governments are ready to make in relation to the SDGs, in relation to many other aspects of this week. So, this is not a vanity fair… What matters is not the presence of this or that leader. What matters is the commitment of the respective government in relation to the objectives of the summit.

Meanwhile, the reform of the UN – including the revitalization of the General Assembly, the increase in the number of permanent members of the Security Council and the lack of gender empowerment at the highest echelons of the UN hierarchy, with nine all-male Secretaries-General and only 4 women out of 78 presidents of the General Assembly – has been discussed for decades. But still these issues have never got off the ground. Or will they ever?

In an interview with IPS, Natalie Samarasinghe, Global Director, Advocacy, Open Society Foundations, said change is challenging at the UN. The organization is predicated on balancing principle with politics — and the former prevails only when it can be aligned with the latter. It has been subversive, supporting the fight against colonialism and apartheid, and helping the marginalized to advance their cause through development and human rights.

At the same time, it has helped to maintain the power structures of 1945. That is reflected in the UN’s priorities, programming and personnel. And this formula seems weaker now, with the UN now seemingly peripheral in the peace and security realm, and struggling to coordinate global responses to the shocks of recent years.

This does not mean the organization cannot change. Today’s UN would be unrecognisable to its founders: with its strong focus on sustainable development, nearly four times the number of member states, and bodies devoted to almost every dimension of human endeavour.

The UN’s charter does not mention the iconic blue helmets or UNICEF — perhaps the organization’s best-known ‘brand’, nor does it allude to the role of the Secretary-General as the world’s top diplomat. The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change and GAVI, the multistakeholder vaccine alliance — inconceivable seven decades ago — are further examples of the UN’s ability to adapt to new realities.

Yet, other parts of the organization seem frozen in time, most obviously the Security Council. So, is change possible? It is depressing that the prospect of a female Secretary-General still feels remote, or that only four of the 78 presidents of the General Assembly have been women. This should not be our ceiling for reform but our floor.

We have regional rotation for positions. Why not gender rotation? This is surely as achievable a change as it is necessary.

The Security Council, meanwhile, is probably the least likely area of movement. But its gridlock — on substance and reform — has increased the appetite for the General Assembly to act as a counterweight to exclusive clubs.

The closest thing we have to a world parliament, the importance of the Assembly has grown as lower-income countries become increasingly frustrated at shouldering the brunt of global shocks without any real say in solutions.

This is part of a broader trend. At the UN, it encompasses improvements to the Secretary-General selection process in 2016, Liechtenstein’s success in ensuring that a Council veto automatically triggers a debate in the Assembly, and the Syria investigative mechanism.

But the real action is likely to be outside the New York. Leaders like Biden and Macron seem to have taken up the calls of Mottley, Akufo-Addo and others to reform the international financial architecture. The G20 in New Delhi echoed language in the Bridgetown Initiative and V20 Agenda on issues such as debt and access to capital.

All of this shows that we may have finally reached a point where smaller, more vulnerable countries can no longer tolerate the status quo, and where larger, richer countries realise that interdependence is not just a concept.

Q: At a press conference last month, Barbara Woodward, Britain’s ambassador to the UN, emphasized the “UK’s ambition to drive forward reform of the multilateral system,” saying, “We want to see expansion of the Council’s permanent seats to include India, Brazil, Germany, Japan and African representation.” But even if this proposal is adopted by the GA and the UNSC, it has to be followed up with an amendment to the UN charter. How arduous and long-drawn-out is the process of amending the charter?

A: Even in 1945, the composition of the Security Council was a compromise, with permanent membership and vetoes intended to encourage the five powers of the time to serve as guardians of the international order. That illusion was shattered before the ink had dried on the charter, as the Cold War cut short the organization’s honeymoon.

Today, our multipolar and polarised world is better described as a hot mess. Longstanding conflicts such as Palestine and Kashmir remain intractable, while crises pile up: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine.

Some commentators argue that Russia’s wanton aggression is not the first time one of the five permanent members (P5) has invaded a country. Others adopt a reductionist view of the Council’s role: preventing conflict between the P5 rather than maintaining peace and security. But after 18 months of genocidal acts, it’s hard not to see it as emblematic of the UN’s failures and constraints.

Even areas where the UN previously banked successes are flagging. Most people go back two decades to Liberia or Sierra Leone when asked to cite successful peace operations. Until its collapse, the Black Sea grain deal was a rare example of mediation gone right.

Invariably, debates on how to strengthen the UN’s peace and security capacity focus on the Security Council. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, states including the US have been more vocal on the need for change. Yet renewed interest has not made reform more likely.

Procedurally, reform requires amending the UN charter. This needs approval by two-thirds of the General Assembly’s members and ratification by their legislatures, including the all of the P5. It has happened only once in relation to the Council (in 1965, when the number of members was raised from 11 to 15, and the voting threshold increased accordingly). Politically, one of the biggest hurdles is the lack of agreement within regions on who should get a seat.

Council reform is a prize worth pursuing — and one that merits more creativity, on the role of regional organisations, for instance. But it may be better to channel this energy into how to leverage the collective power of the UN system as a whole.

From sanctions to investigations, there is much more the General Assembly could do on peace and security, including by building on Liechtenstein’s proposal. The Peacebuilding Commission, too, could become more central, for example by bringing in actors such as the international financial institutions. And it is worth looking at how mediation could be done differently, with more resources and a more diverse pool of negotiators.

Q: Civil society organizations (CSOs) have played a significant role in UN’s mandate to provide international peace and security, protect human rights and deliver humanitarian aid. Has the UN given CSOs, their rightful place?

A: Over 200 civil society organisations were at the birth of the UN. Their presence helped to secure references in the Charter to human rights, gender equality and social justice.

Seventy-eight years on, thousands will come to New York for the opening of the General Assembly. Even more work with the UN every day, as its development and humanitarian activities have mushroomed. These areas now account for over 70 percent of its funds and roughly two-thirds of its staff.

But many CSOs engage from the sidelines. Only a fraction will be allowed into UN Headquarters, while those on the ground often face steep barriers to cooperation. For all the talk about partnerships, a similar situation exists for other actors, from local governments to business.

This ignores that perhaps the most profound transformation of the ‘‘international community’ in recent decades has not been geopolitical realignment but the rise of non-state actors.

We live in a world where private sector profits eclipse GDP, where social movements can mobilise millions of people, and influencers can wipe out billions with a single post; and where a girl sitting outside her school with a sign can change the global conversation. And yet the international system remains stubbornly state-centric.

Instead, partnerships should be the norm. CSOs are critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and addressing climate change. They provide essential assistance in humanitarian crises and step into the breach in conflict zones. They stand up for those who are ignored and abused, serving both as the UN’s partners and its conscience.

Their contributions should be valued and harnessed, through a high-level champion for civil society, greater resourcing of grassroots groups; and an overarching strategy for engagement. As concerns around legitimacy and power grow, this strategy should include a gradual transfer of the UN’s development and humanitarian functions to local partners.

This would foster a greater sense of ownership, agency and accountability. It could also breathe new life into the SDGs. From the UN’s vantage point, it would help to alleviate the unsustainable growth in its workload, free up limited resources and mitigate the incompatibility on the ground of various functions it is expected to perform – political, humanitarian, development and human rights.

Such a move is likely to meet with considerable resistance, including from inside the UN. It is easier to cite the number schools built or refugees rescued as evidence of success, especially when geopolitical tensions make advances in areas such as norm-setting and mediation more challenging.

But it is precisely in those areas where the UN is most needed: functions that cannot easily be fulfilled by others — even with two regional organisations on board, the G20 is not the G193; and where it is uniquely placed to make a difference — from emergency coordination to global solidarity.

That should be the guiding spirit leading up to next year’s Summit of the Future: a realistic task list for the UN, greater responsibility for partners, and higher ambition for the world’s people.

Natalie Samarasinghe has also served as CEO of the United Nations Association – UK, becoming the first woman appointed to that role; she was speechwriter to the 73rd President of the General Assembly; and chief of strategy for the UN’s 75th-anniversary initiative.

A frequent commentator on UN issues, she has edited publications on sustainable development, climate change and conflict; written for Routledge and OUP on human rights; and co-edited the SAGE Major Work on the UN. She has also supported a number of civil society coalitions, including the 1 for 7 Billion campaign to improve the Secretary-General selection process, which she co-founded.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

The Case for Afghan Women and Girls: How an International Criminal Court Investigation Could Expand Human Rights

Mon, 09/18/2023 - 11:07

Flashback to a time when women and girls were able to attend school. UNICEF supported Zarghuna Girls School with educational supplies, teachers' training, and assists in repairing the infrastructure. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Abigail Van Neely
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 18 2023 (IPS)

Two years have passed since the Taliban re-assumed power in Afghanistan, and women and girls have yet to return to work or school. Can the international justice system now come to their defense? Experts say a case for Afghan women and girls has the potential to change the way the legal community thinks about human rights abuses. Will it?

Crimes Against Humanity

Gordon Brown, the United Nations special envoy for global education, says Taliban leaders should be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for denying Afghan women and girls education and employment.

“Afghan girls and Afghan women … have been fighting the most egregious, vicious, and indefensible violation of women’s rights and girl’s rights in the world today,” Brown told journalists in August.

Such acts constitute crimes against humanity if they meet the ICC’s definitions set forth in Article 7 of the Rome Statute. The acts must be part of a “widespread or systematic civilian attack directed against any civilian population.” The charges must also be brought against an individual or group of individuals, like Taliban authorities, who had knowledge of and perpetrated the crimes. The Taliban’s policies that specifically target all women and girls provide clear evidence of all these elements, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report has found.

According to HRW, Taliban authorities are specifically responsible for gender persecution. This persecution has been imposed through spoken and written decrees that have restricted women’s and girls’ movement, expression, employment, and education.

Persecution must also occur in connection with another recognized crime against humanity to be considered by the ICC. HRW’s report cites instances of women who protested discriminatory policies being detained for up to 40 days without communication as evidence of the crime of “imprisonment.”

David Cohen, Director of the Center for Human Rights at Stanford University, adds that the severe restriction of women’s movement might be seen as “imprisonment” itself.

“A creative argument would be that Taliban increasingly confining women to their homes and preventing their free movement… is a severe deprivation of physical liberty,” Cohen said.

Another type of crime is described as “inhumane acts” that cause “great suffering.”

HRW explains that cutting off women and girls from their livelihoods and opportunities for the future has had a “devastating impact on the mental health of many women and girls” would also qualify.

Expanding Notions of Human Rights Law

Under these grounds for investigation, an ICC case for Afghan women and girls could have broader implications.

For one, the case presents an opportunity for the court to move beyond looking at individualized actions and begin looking at broader policies, Tayyiba Bajwa, a clinical supervising attorney in the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, explains.

“A crime of persecution is a particularly important crime within the ICC’s mandate because it really speaks to systemic discrimination,” HRW’s International Justice Director Elizabeth Evenson said. “We’re talking about actions that are designed to deprive individuals of fundamental rights – in this case by virtue of their gender identity – and so, in a way, it really gets at the worst kinds of discrimination.”

It could also set more precedent for the future. Most ICC cases in the past have focused on crimes like torture, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings. A 2018 case involving forced marriage and sexual violence in Mali was the first in which an ICC prosecutor charged the crime of gender persecution.

However, prosecuting more cases of gender persecution is a priority for ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, Evenson notes. Khan’s office has released multiple publications on gender-based crimes in the past year, including a policy on the crime of gender persecution.

Kelli Muddell, the director of the gender justice program at the International Center for Transitional Justice, suggests that investigating incidents of gender persecution can help the international community consider new aspects of the law.

“I think the sort of innovative and maybe provocative thing about this case, if it were to go forward, is that it really centers around this expanding of crimes against humanity to look at social, political and economic and civil rights,” Muddell said.

Bajwa also recognized that ICC investigations can be leveraged to impose broader sanctions or restrictions. However, she expressed concern that focusing on the prosecution of Taliban leaders as a means of delivering justice may ignore the responsibility of other powerful actors, especially those in the Global North.

“One of the other real concerns I have about this is that prosecuting an individual from within the Taliban, in isolation, to me, ignores the long history and responsibility of Western countries for how and why the Taliban are in government in the first place,” Bajwa said. “If the ICC is truly to have legitimacy, it needs to stop being so myopic.”

Bajwa encouraged the public in influential countries to put pressure on their governments to take tangible actions, like working to make it impossible for Taliban officials to travel.

This is not the first time an ICC case involving Afghanistan has been considered. In 2021, Khan resumed an investigation of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by both the Taliban and United States armed forces. Bajwa said she thinks any potential case on behalf of Afghan women and girls would be an expansion of the preexisting investigation, which doesn’t have an end date.

Still, Cohen says the chances of a case going to trial are “slim.” Even if there was a successful investigation, Taliban authorities would have to respond to an arrest warrant and sit for trial. The ICC prohibits trials in absentia.

Regardless, the symbolic value of an investigation alone may be significant enough, especially for victims seeking justice. Many experts agree that even without a conviction, the discussion facilitated by the global spotlight of the ICC can be a useful advocacy tool.

Beyond the ICC

The education envoy also addressed other ways international institutions have tried to support Afghan women and girls beyond the ICC.

There are workarounds to the education bans, like online learning and underground schools. However, these alternatives are another burden on a budget already spread thin. According to Brown, women and girls in Afghanistan fight for their rights while also facing extreme poverty.

Only 23 percent of the required funds for Afghanistan’s humanitarian response plan have been received, with 50 million people failing to receive the aid they need. As more girls flee to neighboring countries like Pakistan, even more funding will be needed to support refugees.

At the same time, Brown has called on individual governments to sanction the Taliban. UN education aid has been suspended until schools are reopened for girls.

Brown said he believed there was a split in the Taliban regime, with some important voices, especially in the Ministry of Education, still in favor of education for all. He encouraged the leaders of Muslim-majority countries to use their position to persuade Taliban leaders to remove bans on girls’ education and women’s employment, which he said “has no basis in the Quran or the Islamic religion.”

International bodies continue to monitor human abuses under other UN treaties ratified by Afghanistan, like the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Women.

“We know that if we allow oppression to go unchallenged in Afghanistan, it could spread to other countries,” Brown warned.

Still, he spoke about the importance of seeing the resilience of Afghan women and girls as a sign of encouragement: “They can close down the schools girls go to, but they cannot close down their minds.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

IPS – UN Bureau, IPS UN Bureau Report, Afghanistan

Categories: Africa

We Must Act to Bridge the Gap Between Words and Deeds

Mon, 09/18/2023 - 08:19

The author is Commonwealth Secretary-General

By Patricia Scotland
LONDON, Sep 18 2023 (IPS)

In today’s increasingly interconnected world, marked by grave economic, environmental, and security crises that transcend global boundaries, it’s abundantly clear that our interdependence is an undeniable reality.

Rt Hon Patricia Scotland

These challenges loom large as countries from across the world gather at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Our world is under pressure, and people are looking to its leaders for action.

Since world leaders last gathered in New York, we have seen a litany of natural disasters continue to devastate our world. Flooding, wildfires, storms and droughts have hit countries across the Commonwealth and the world. From Rwanda to India, the USA to New Zealand the whole world is feeling the impact of climate change.

If you listen to individuals from all walks of life, you can hear the fear and the desperation in their conversations, the anxiety that though we all recognise the problem, leaders are not taking the action we all need to tackle the challenges we face.

Our history serves as a poignant reminder that our choices boil down to two paths: cooperation, where we harness our collective humanity or to suffer in isolation.

The capacity to unite behind the moral force of our principles enshrined in our Commonwealth Charter, and the power of our practical purpose, is the foundation and beauty of the modern Commonwealth.

Our independent member states, stretched across five continents and home to one-third of humanity embody a remarkable blend of ingenuity and determination. This fusion of qualities not only propelled India to land a spacecraft on the moon but also instilled in us the shared resolve to stand united in confronting the challenges of climate change, instability, and economic adversity.

On the margins of the General Assembly, the citizens of the Commonwealth can be assured that our Foreign Affairs Ministers, and our Environment Ministers, will meet to further deepen their commitment to action on the threats to resilience and sustainability in our member states, and the wider world. Moreover, in a recent milestone, youth ministers, education stakeholders, and young leaders from across the Commonwealth convened in London just last week. Together, they forged agreements on policies and initiatives designed to bolster and empower our youth. At the core of these discussions were our young leaders, whose energy, passion and innovation we will need to take us forward.

United in purpose, we remain steadfast in our commitment to advancing pioneering initiatives, exemplified by the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, an endeavour that has successfully mobilized over $250 million in crucial support for the countries most in need. Simultaneously, intensifying calls for reform in global development finance to equip the most vulnerable nations with the resources they need to tackle the long-term impacts of environmental breakdown.

When we gather this week in New York, we seek to bridge the gap between rhetoric and implementation, deepening the alliances which transcend borders and self-interest, and advance the vital work to build a resilient and sustainable future for all.

We will set the stage for the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) which is to be held in Samoa in October 2024.

The road to CHOGM 2024 starts in New York and winds its way through the great capitals of our Commonwealth Family before culminating in Apia. And while we can never underplay the scale of the challenges we face, the fact that the Commonwealth nations sit together as partners with an equal voice and an equal stake in a shared mission means that we approach them – like India’s space mission – with the mindset of what is possible.

Our ministers will gather to reaffirm our dedication to resilience, sustainability, and equitable development. We are never just observers; we are active participants, ready to tackle the urgent issues of our time. We will act to bridge the gap between words and deeds, working together to build a better future.

In October next year when our Heads of Government meet in Samoa, we know that our strength will be in our unity. Progress is always difficult, and the challenges we face sometimes seem insurmountable, but we know that through the Commonwealth, and our unwavering commitment to unity and collective action, we shall prevail.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

The author is Commonwealth Secretary-General

Categories: Africa

Deepening Democracy in an AI-enabled World

Mon, 09/18/2023 - 07:51

Credit: Unsplash/Steve Johnson

An ILO global analysis suggests that most jobs and industries are more likely to be complemented rather than substituted by the latest artificial intelligence wave. August 2023

By A.H. Monjurul Kabir
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 18 2023 (IPS)

In 2002, the Human Development Report (UNDP) focused on ‘Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World’. It was an important discourse then [and still is] that evoked lot of insightful cross-regional exchanges of ideas. It reiterates that politics matter for human development because people everywhere want to be free to determine their destinies, express their views and participate in the decisions that shape their lives.

The year 2022 brought AI into the mainstream through widespread familiarity with applications of Generative Pre-Training Transformer (a type of large language model and a prominent framework for generative artificial intelligence).

The most popular application is OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The widespread fascination with ChatGPT made it synonymous with AI in the minds of most consumers. However, it represents only a small portion of the ways that AI technology is being used today. The large language models may disrupt far more than just the economy. They also appear to challenge democracy including the traditional forms of democratic engagement.

Today in 2023, on #democracyday and beyond these newer innovation and capabilities are just as important for human development—for expanding people’s choices—as being able to read or enjoy good health.

Public debate may be overwhelmed by industrial quantities of autogenerated argument. Deepfakes and misinformation generated by AI could undermine elections and democracy. Let us also lose sight of empowering citizens, fighting corruption, reforming public administration an addressing climate change.

Increasing International Monitoring and Scrutiny

We all know that AI brings targeted benefits to both development and political agenda in the digital era. It is already the main driver of emerging technologies like big data, robotics and IoT — not to mention generative AI, with tools like ChatGPT and AI art generators garnering mainstream attention. It can, nevertheless, instill bias, and significantly compromise the safety and agency of users worldwide.

Increasingly, these inter-dependent and inter-connected AI elements are getting more international scrutiny. The UN Security Council for the first time held a session on 18th July 2023 on the threat that artificial intelligence poses to international peace and stability, and UN Secretary General called for a global watchdog to oversee a new technology that has raised at least as many fears as hopes.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities presented a report (March 2022) to the Human Rights Council on artificial intelligence (AI) and the rights of persons with disabilities. Enhanced multi-stakeholder efforts on global AI cooperation are needed to help build global capacity for the development and use of AI in a manner that is trustworthy, human rights-based, safe, and sustainable, and promotes peace.

In fact, the multi-stakeholder High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, initially proposed in 2020 as part of the Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation (A/74/821), is now being formed to undertake analysis and advance recommendations for the international governance of artificial intelligence (AI).

AI and Democracy: Improving democratic Process

The debate on AI’s impact on the public sphere is currently the one most prominent and familiar to a general audience. It is also directly connected to long-running debates on the structural transformation of the digital public sphere. AI is contributing to both sides of democratic aspirations: Majority rule and protection of minorities.

While the discourse on AI and the democratic public sphere focuses mostly on the societal requirements for a healthy democracy, an additional discourse looks at how we “practice” democracy, namely at elections and how they are conducted. Recent election cycles in different countries have made it clear that malicious actors are both willing and able to leverage digital applications to subvert democracy and democratic processes.

With the advent of powerful new language models, those actors now have a potent new weapon in their arsenal. Here is good reason to fear that A.I. systems like ChatGPT and GPT4 will harm democracy.

The call for the digitalization of politics often implies a surge in automating decision-making procedures in public administration. Examples reach from welfare administration to tax systems and border control. The hope is that in an ever more complex world a shift towards highly automated systems will result in a more efficient political system.

Automation should eradicate failures and frustration, allow for more fine-grained and faster adjudication, and free up resources for other problems. However, it is important to ensure that automation values contextual realities.

Improving Democratic Process: AI Potentials and Challenges

Any system that reduces personal involvement will require years of testing before it is implemented on a large scale. However, there are a few ways it could greatly improve our processes:

Needless, to say, all these potentials, if not fulfilled properly, might end of harming democratic process.

Quest for pluralism in democracy: Can Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) help?

AI can play a crucial role in progressing diversity and inclusion agenda by addressing biases, promoting fairness, and enabling equitable opportunities. By harnessing the capabilities of AI, organizations can identify and mitigate biases, improve hiring practices, enhance accessibility, promote inclusion, and cultivate an inclusive environment. A tall order that needs far more work and genuine commitments through contextual innovation.

While there is a growing awareness of the broad human rights challenges that these new technologies can pose, a more focused debate on the specific challenges of such technology to different groups including the rights of persons with disabilities is urgently needed.

Participation rights apply intersectionally, covering Indigenous people, migrants, minorities, women, children, and older persons with disabilities, among others. For example, the right of persons with disabilities and their representative organizations including organisations led by women with disabilities to participate in electoral process and public policy including artificial intelligence policymaking and in decisions on its development, deployment and use is key to achieving the best from artificial intelligence and avoiding the worst.

The question still remains – Can AI be the real window to the world for the disadvantaged groups and marginalized communities?

The future …

The discourse on AI and democracy is still in its infancy. Academic treatments and policy adaptation started around the same time and are by now still mostly driven by broader debates on digitalization and democracy and exemplary cases of misuse.

Governments need to build up expertise in artificial intelligence so they can make informed laws and regulations that respond to this new technology. They will need to deal with misinformation and deepfakes, security threats, changes to the job market, and the impact on education.

To cite just one example: The law needs to be clear about which uses of deepfakes are legal and about how deepfakes should be labeled so everyone understands when something they are seeing or hearing is not genuine.

Perhaps, we need a deeper analysis to see how political power and institutions – formal and informal, national, and international – shape human progress in an AI-enabled, still deeply fragmented world.

While focusing on enhance cooperation on critical challenges and address gaps in global governance, reaffirm existing commitments including to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the United Nations Charter, and move towards a reinvigorated multilateral system that is better positioned to positively impact people’s lives, the proposed UN Summit of the Future 2024 should look into these challenges.

We must assess what it will take for countries to establish democratic governance systems in an increasing AI and digital world that advance the human development of all people in a world where so many are left behind.

Dr. A.H. Monjurul Kabir, a senior adviser at UN Women HQ, is a political scientist, policy analyst, and legal and human rights scholar on global issues and cross-regional trends. For academic purposes, he can be followed on twitter at mkabir2011. The views expressed in this article are in his personal capacity.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Multilingual #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign to Return Millions Back to School

Mon, 09/18/2023 - 06:43

Education Cannot Wait's #AfghanGirlsVoices shines a light on young Afghan girls deprived of their basic right to education and learning. Credit: ECW

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Sep 18 2023 (IPS)

A Taliban edict is rolling back time in Afghanistan after access to education for all Afghan girls over the age of 12 was indefinitely suspended on September 18, 2021. Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are forbidden from attending school beyond the primary level, leaving more than 1.1 million girls and young women without access to formal education.

With an estimated 80 percent of school-aged Afghan girls and young women now out of school – in the blink of an eye – Afghanistan has gone back 20 years. As gains made over the last two decades go up in smoke, Afghan girls are bravely breaking through the frightening dark cloud of misogyny and gender persecution to tell the world about the injustice of being denied an education and their burning desire to return to school.

“It is hard to think of anyone further left behind than the girls in Afghanistan who are being denied their most basic human rights, including their right to education, based solely on their gender,” said Education Cannot Wait (ECW) Executive Director Yasmine Sherif.

“We will continue to steadfastly advocate for the full resumption of their right to education in Afghanistan and to work with our partners to deliver crucial learning opportunities to Afghan children through the community-based education programmes we support.”

To mark the tragic anniversary of the de facto authorities’ unacceptable ban on secondary school girls’ education in Afghanistan, ECW – the UN global fund for education in emergencies – has updated its compelling #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign with new multilingual content to include English, French, Spanish and Arabic.

To mark the anniversary of the Taliban authorities’ unacceptable ban on secondary school girls’ education in Afghanistan, ECW has updated its compelling #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign with new multilingual content. Credit: ECW

The multilingual #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign intends to break through language barriers so that more people in the global community can read inspiring, resilient, and heartbreaking testimonies conveyed through moving artwork by a young Afghan female artist.

The girls want the world to know that they are at risk of missing a lifetime of learning and earning opportunities – never acquiring the skills needed to prosper and contribute to building the stable and prosperous future that they, their families and the people of Afghanistan deserve.

An entire generation of girls and young women could be lost – as they are being pushed out of public life, not to be seen or heard. Prospects of a bleak future have compromised their mental health.

First launched on August 15, 2023 – two years after the de facto Taliban authorities took power in Afghanistan and subsequently banned girls’ access to secondary and tertiary education – the campaign was developed in collaboration with ECW Global Champion Somaya Faruqi, former Captain of the Afghan Girls’ Robotic Team.

The Taliban have implemented over 20 written and verbal decrees on girls’ education. With each new edict, restrictions on Afghan girls and young women’s right to education have gotten even more serious and severe. Today, girls over the age of 10 years are not allowed to go to school.

Prior to the indefinite suspension of university education for female students, they were not allowed to undertake certain majors in areas such as journalism, law, agriculture, veterinary science, and economics.

#AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign seeks to bring to the attention of the global community what is at stake and why urgent action is much needed to end a brutal clampdown on education. Between 2001 and 2018, the country saw a tenfold increase in enrolment at all education levels, from around 1 million students in 2001 to around 10 million in 2018.

#AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign seeks to bring to the attention of the global community what is at stake and why urgent action is needed to end a brutal clampdown on education. Credit: ECW

“The number of girls in primary school increased from almost zero in 2001 to 2.5 million in 2018. By August 2021, 4 out of 10 students in primary education were girls. Women’s presence in Afghan higher education increased almost 20 times, from 5,000 female students in 2001 to over 100,000 in 2021. Literacy rates for women doubled during the period, from 17 percent of women being able to read and write in 2001 to 30 percent for all age groups combined,” according to a recent UN report.

The girls’ powerful words are conveyed together with striking illustrations depicting both the profound despair experienced by these Afghan girls and young women, along with their incredible resilience and strength in the face of this unacceptable ban on their education.

The timing of the campaign will lift the voices of Afghan girls on the global stage as world leaders convene at the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit on 18-19 September at the UN General Assembly in New York. The Summit aims to mark the beginning of a new phase of accelerated progress towards the SDGs with high-level political guidance on transformative and accelerated actions leading up to 2030 – progress that cannot be achieved with Afghan girls left behind.

ECW has been supporting education in Afghanistan since 2017, first through a mix of formal and non-formal education and now exclusively through programming outside the formal education system. The ECW-supported extended Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) in Afghanistan aims to support more than 250,000 children and adolescents across some of the most remote and underserved areas of the country.

The programme delivers community-based education, organised at the local level with support from local communities, and is critical to keep education going. Girls account for well over half of all the children and adolescents reached by the MYRP. To access ECW’s social media kit to support the #AfghanGirlsVoices campaign, click here.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Treated Wastewater Is a Growing Source of Irrigation in Chile’s Arid North

Mon, 09/18/2023 - 02:26

Alfalfa farmer Dionisio Antiquera stands in front of one of the wastewater treatment ponds at the modernized plant in Cerrillos de Tamaya, a rural community in the Coquimbo region of northern Chile. The thousands of liters captured from the sewers are converted into clear liquid ready for reuse in local small-scale agriculture. CREDIT : Orlando Milesi / IPS

By Orlando Milesi
COQUIMBO, Chile , Sep 18 2023 (IPS)

The reuse of treated wastewater in vulnerable rural areas of Chile’s arid north is emerging as a new resource for the inhabitants of this long, narrow South American country.

The Coquimbo region, just south of the Atacama Desert, one of the driest in the world, is suffering from a severe drought that has lasted 15 years.

According to data from the Meteorological Directorate, a regional station located in the Andes Mountains measured 30.3 millimeters (mm) of rain per square meter this year as of Sept. 10, compared to 213 mm in all of 2022.“Rural localities today are already reusing wastewater or gray water. This is going to happen, with or without us, with or without a law. The need for water is so great that the communities are accepting the use of treated wastewater." -- Gerardo Díaz

At another station, in the coastal area, during the same period in 2023, rainfall stood at 10.5 mm compared to the usual level of 83.2 mm.

Faced with this persistent level of drought, vulnerable rural localities in Coquimbo, mostly dedicated to small-scale agriculture, are emerging as a new example of solutions that can be replicated in the country to alleviate water shortages.

The aim is to not waste the water that runs down the drains but to accumulate it in tanks, treat it and then use it to irrigate everything from alfalfa fields to native plants and trees in parks and streets in the localities involved. It is a response to drought and the expansion of the desert.

“We were able to implement five wastewater treatment projects and reuse 9.5 liters per second, which is, according to a comparative value, the consumption of 2,700 people for a year or the water used to irrigate 60 hectares of olive trees,” said Gerardo Díaz, sustainability manager of the non-governmental Fundación Chile.

These five projects, promoted by the Fundación Chile as part of its Water Scenarios 2030 initiative, are financed by the regional government of Coquimbo, which contributed the equivalent of 312,000 dollars. Of this total, 73 percent is dedicated to enabling reuse systems, for which plants in need of upgrading but not reconstruction have been selected.

The common objective of these projects, which together benefit some 6,500 people, is the reuse of wastewater for productive purposes, the replacement of drinking water or the recharge of aquifers.

Díaz told IPS that the amount of reuse obtained is significant because previously this water was discharged into a stream, canal or river where it was perhaps captured downstream.

The Huatulame treatment plant in the rural municipality of Monte Patria in northern Chile is being completely repaired with the support of the local municipality. Waterproof plastic sheeting and rocks have been installed, and in the final stage sawdust and earthworms will be incorporated before receiving wastewater from local households for reuse. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

A successful pilot experience

In Coquimbo, which has a regional population of some 780,000 people, there are 71 water treatment plants, most of which use activated sludge and almost all of which are linked to the Rural Drinking Water Program (APR) of the state Hydraulic Works Directorate.

Activated sludge systems are biological wastewater treatment processes using microorganisms, which are very sensitive in their operation and maintenance and rural sectors do not have the capacity to maintain them.

“Most of these treatment plants are not operating or are operating inefficiently,” Diaz acknowledged.

But one of the plants, once reconditioned, has served as a model for others since 2018. Its creation allowed Dionisio Antiquera, a 52-year-old agricultural technician, to save his alfalfa crop.

“We have had a water deficit for years. This recycled water really helps us grow our crops on our eight hectares of land,” he said in the middle of his alfalfa field in Cerrillos de Tamaya, one of the Coquimbo municipalities that IPS toured for several days to observe five wastewater reuse projects.

Raúl Ángel Flores stands in his nursery, where the plants and trees are irrigated with recycled water from the Punta Azul project in the town of Villa Puclaro, in Chile’s Coquimbo region. All profits from the town’s wastewater treatment are reinvested in its maintenance. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

He explained that using just reused water he was able to produce six normal alfalfa harvests per year with a yield per hectare of 100 25-kg bales.

“That’s 4500 to 4800 bales in the annual production season,” he said proudly.

These bales are easily sold in the region because they are cheaper than those of other farmers.

The water he uses comes from an APR plant that has 1065 users, 650 of whom provide water, including Antiquera.

On one side of his alfalfa field is a plant that accumulates the sludge that is dehydrated in pools and drying courts, and on the other side, the water is chlorinated and runs into another pond in its natural state.

“This water works well for alfalfa. It is hard water that has about 1400 parts per million of salt. Then it goes through a reverse osmosis process that removes the salt and the water is suitable for human consumption,” the farmer explained.

In Chile, treated wastewater is not considered fresh water or water that can be used directly by people, and its reuse is only indirect.

Antiquera sold half a hectare to the government to install the plant and in exchange uses the water obtained and contributes 20 percent to the local APR.

He recently extended his alfalfa field to another seven hectares, thanks to his success with treated water.

Deysy Cortés, president of a rural drinking water system in Huatulame, stands in front of the dry riverbed of the town of the same name. Today there is no water in the river, where local residents swam and summer vacationers camped on its banks 15 years ago. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Flowers and trees also benefit

In Villa Puclaro, in the Coquimbo municipality of Vicuña, Raúl Ángel Flores, 55, has an ornamental plant nursery.

“I’ve done really well. My nursery has grown with just reuse water….. I have more than 40,000 ornamental, fruit, native and cactus plants. I deliver to retailers in Vicuña and Coquimbo,” a port city in the region, he told IPS.

The nursery is 850 square meters in size, and has an accumulation pond and pumps to pump the water. He has now rented a 2,500-meter plot of land to expand it.

Flores explained to IPS that he manages the nursery together with his wife, Carolina Cáceres, and despite the fact that they have two daughters and a senior citizen in their care, “we make a living just selling the plants…I even hired an assistant,” he added.

In the southern hemisphere summer he uses between 4,000 and 5,000 liters of water a day for irrigation.

“I have water to spare. Here it could be reused for anything,” he said.

Joining the project made it possible for Flores to make efficient use of water with a business model that in this case incorporates a fee for the water to the plant management, which is equivalent to 62 cents per cubic meter used.

Arnoldo Olivares operates the water treatment and recycling plant in Plan de Hornos, northern Chile. The plant’s infrastructure and operation have been upgraded, and it can now deliver water to rural residents to irrigate trees and plants, instead of using potable water. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Eliminating odors, and creating new gardens

In the community of Huatulame, in the municipality of Monte Patria, Fundación Chile built an artificial surface wetland to put an end to the bad odors caused by effluents from a deficient waste-eater earthworm vermifilter treatment plant.

“This wetland has brought us peace because the odors have been eliminated. For the past year people have been able to walk along the banks of the old riverbed,” Deysy Cortés, 72, president of the APR, told IPS.

The municipality of Monte Patria is financing the repair of the plant with the equivalent of 100,000 dollars.

“The sprinklers will be changed, the filtering system will be replaced, and sawdust and worms will be added. It will be up and running in a couple of months,” explained agronomist Jorge Núñez, a consultant for Fundación Chile.

As in other renovated plants, safe infiltration of wastewater is ensured while the project simultaneously promotes the protection of nearby wells to provide water to the villagers.

The Huatulame treatment plant in the rural municipality of Monte Patria in northern Chile is being completely repaired with the support of the local municipality. Waterproof plastic sheeting and boulders have been installed, and in the final stage sawdust and earthworms will be incorporated before receiving wastewater from local households for reuse. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Cortés warned of serious difficulties if no more rain falls in the rest of 2023, despite the relief provided by the plant for irrigation.

“I foresee a very difficult future if it doesn’t rain. We will go back to what we experienced in 2019 when in every house there were bottles filled with water and a little jug to bathe once a week,” she said.

During a recent crisis, the local APR paid 2500 dollars to bring in water from four 20,000-liter tanker trucks.

In Plan de Hornos, a town in the municipality of Illapel, irrigation technology was installed using reused water instead of drinking water to create a green space for the community to enjoy.

The project included water taps in people’s homes for residents to water trees and flowers.

Arnoldo Olivares, 59, is in charge of the plant, which has 160 members.

“I run both systems,” he told IPS. “I pour drinking water into the pond. After passing through the houses, the water goes into the drainage system, where there is a procedure to reclaim and treat it.”

“This water was lost before, and now we reuse it to irrigate the saplings. We used to work manually, now it is automated. It’s a tremendous change, we’re really happy,” he said.

Antiquera the alfalfa farmer is happy with his success in Cerrillos de Tamaya, but warns that in his area 150 to 160 mm of rainfall per year is normal and so far only 25 mm have fallen in 2023.

“The water crisis forces us to find alternatives and to be 100 percent efficient. Not a drop of water can be wasted. They have forecast very high temperatures for the upcoming (southern hemisphere) summer, which means that plants will require more water in order to thrive,” he said.

Díaz, the sustainability manager of Fundación Chile, said the Coquimbo projects are fully replicable in other water-stressed areas of Chile if a collaborative model is used.

He noted that “in Chile there is no law for the reuse of treated wastewater. There is only a gray water law that was passed years ago, but there are no regulations to implement it.”

He explained, however, that due to the drought, “rural localities today are already reusing wastewater or gray water. This is going to happen, with or without us, with or without a law. The need for water is so great that the communities are accepting the use of treated wastewater.”

The governor of Coquimbo, Krist Naranjo, argued that “a broader vision is needed to value water resources that are essential for life, especially in the context of global climate change.”

“We’re working on different initiatives with different executors, but the essential thing is to value the reuse of graywater recycling,” she told IPS from La Serena, the regional capital.

Categories: Africa

Latin America Is Lagging in Its Homework to Meet the SDGs

Fri, 09/15/2023 - 22:38

A view of the Altos de Florida neighborhood in Bogotá, Colombia. Overcoming poverty is the first of the Sustainable Development Goals, and in the Latin American and Caribbean region there is not only slow progress but even setbacks in the path to reduce it. CREDIT: Freya Mortales / UNDP

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Sep 15 2023 (IPS)

The Latin American and Caribbean region is arriving at the Sustainable Development Goals Summit on the right track but far behind in terms of progress, at the halfway point to achieve the SDGs, which aim to overcome poverty and create a cleaner and healthier environment.

“We are exactly halfway through the period of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but we are not half the way there, as only a quarter of the goals have been met or are expected to be met that year,” warned ECLAC Executive Secretary José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs."We are exactly halfway through the period of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but we are not half the way there, as only a quarter of the goals have been met or are expected to be met that year." -- José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs

However, the head of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) stressed, in response to a questionnaire submitted to him by IPS, that “the percentage of targets on track to be met is higher than the global average,” partly due to the strengthening of the institutions that lead the governance of the SDGs.

The 17 SDGs include 169 targets, to be measured with 231 indicators, and in the region 75 percent are at risk of not being met, according to ECLAC, unless decisive actions are taken to forge ahead: 48 percent are moving in the right direction but too slowly to achieve the respective targets, and 27 percent are showing a tendency to backslide.

The summit was convened by UN Secretary-General António Guterres for Sept. 18-19 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, under the official name High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

The stated purpose is to “step on the gas” to reach the SDGs in all regions, in the context of a combination of crises, notably the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, new wars, and the climate and food crises.

The SDGs address ending poverty, achieving zero hunger, health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure, and reducing inequalities.

They also are aimed at sustainable cities and communities, responsible production and consumption, climate action, underwater life, life of terrestrial ecosystems, peace, justice and strong institutions, and partnerships to achieve the goals.

Drinking water is distributed from tanker trucks in the working-class Petare neighborhood in eastern Caracas. Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is another of the goals that are being addressed with a great variety of results within Latin American and Caribbean countries, and there is no certainty that this 2030 Agenda target will be reached in the region. CREDIT: Caracas city government

Progress is being made, but slowly

“In all the countries of the region progress is being made, but in many not at the necessary rate. The pace varies greatly and we are not where we would like to be,” Almudena Fernández, chief economist for the region at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), told IPS from New York.

Thus, said the Peruvian economist, “there is progress, for example, on some health or energy and land care issues, but we are lagging in achieving more sustainable cities, and we are not on the way to achieving, regionally, any of the poverty indicators.”

Salazar-Xirinachs, who is from Costa Rica, said from Santiago that “the countries that have historically been at the forefront in public policies are the ones that have made the greatest progress, such as Uruguay in South America, Costa Rica in Central America or Jamaica in the Caribbean. They have implemented a greater diversity of strategies to achieve the SDGs.”

A group of experts led by U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs prepared graphs for the UN on how countries in the various developing regions are on track to meet the goals or still face challenges – measured in three grades, from moderate to severe – and whether they are on the road to improvement, stagnation or regression.

According to this study, the best advances in poverty reduction have been seen in Brazil, El Salvador, Guyana, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay, while the greatest setbacks have been observed in Argentina, Belize, Ecuador and Venezuela.

In the fight for zero hunger, no one stands out; Brazil, after making progress, slid backwards in recent years, and the best results are shown by Caribbean countries.

In health and well-being, education and gender equality, there are positive trends, although stagnation has been seen, especially in the Caribbean and Central American countries.

In water and sanitation, energy, reduction of inequalities, economic growth, management of marine areas, terrestrial ecosystems, and justice and institutions, Sachs’ dashboard shows the persistence of numerous obstacles, addressed in very different ways in different countries.

Many countries in Central America and the Caribbean are on track to meet their climate action goals, and in general the region has made progress in forging alliances with other countries and organizations to pave the way to meeting the SDGs.

Young people in a Latin American country share a vegetable-rich meal outdoors. The notion of consuming products produced with environmentally sustainable techniques is gaining ground, and a private sector whose DNA is embedded in the search for positive environmental and social repercussions is flourishing. CREDIT: Pazos / Unicef

A question of funds

Even before the pandemic that broke out in 2020, Fernández said, the region was not moving fast enough towards the SDGs; its economic growth has been very low for a long time – and remains so, at no more than 1.9 percent this year – and growth with investment is needed in order to reduce poverty.

In this regard, Fernández highlighted the need to expand fiscal revenues, since tax collection is very low in the region (22 percent of gross domestic product, compared to 34 percent in the advanced economies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), “although progress will not be made through public spending alone,” she said.

Salazar-Xirinachs pointed out that “in addition to financial resources, it is very important to adapt actions to specific areas to achieve the 2030 Agenda. The measures implemented at the subnational level are of great importance. Specific problems in local areas cannot always be solved with one-size-fits-all policies.”

Fernández underlined that the 2030 Agenda “has always been conceived as a society-wide agenda, and the private sector plays an essential role, particularly the areas that are flourishing because it has a positive social and environmental impact on their DNA, and there are young consumers who use products made in a sustainable way.”

ECLAC’s Salazar-Xirinachs highlighted sensitized sectors as organized civil society and the private sector, for their participation in sustainable development forums, follow-up actions and public-private partnerships moving towards achievement of the SDGs.

Finally, with respect to expectations for the summit, the head of ECLAC aspires to a movement to accelerate the 2030 Agenda in at least four areas: decent employment for all, generating more sustainable cities, resilient infrastructure that offers more jobs, and improving governance and institutions involved in the process.

ECLAC identified necessary “transformative measures”: early energy transition; boosting the bioeconomy, particularly sustainable agriculture and bioindustrialization; digital transformation for greater connectivity among the population; and promoting exports of modern services.

It also focuses on the care society, in response to demographic trends, to achieve greater gender equality and boost the economy; sustainable tourism, which has great potential in the countries of the region; and integration to enable alliances to strengthen cooperation in the regional bloc.

In summary, ECLAC concludes, “it would be very important that during the Summit these types of measures are identified and translate into agreements in which the countries jointly propose a road map for implementing actions to strengthen them.”

Categories: Africa

Halfway to 2030: Our 5 Asks at the SDG Summit

Fri, 09/15/2023 - 17:15

A protest for women's rights in Puebla, Mexico. Credit: Melania Torres/Forus

By Bibbi Abruzzini and Marie L'Hostis
NEW YORK, Sep 15 2023 (IPS)

At the UN SDG Summit in New York, the Forus global civil society network is calling for decisive action on SDG implementation. Clearly, as we hit the midpoint towards the “finish line” of the Agenda 2030, progress is stagnating.

The 2023 Special Edition of the SDG Progress Report emphasized that we’re falling short in implementing the SDGs. In April this year, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres deplored that “Progress on more than 50 per cent of targets of the SDGs is weak and insufficient; on 30 per cent, it has stalled or gone into reverse,” disproportionately impacting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable.

As we approach the halfway mark of the 2030 Agenda, we urge world leaders at the UN General Assembly to address the precarious state of SDG implementation. Here’s our 5 asks.

Walk the talk with clear implementation plans and benchmarks for the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals.

“In Guatemala, there are two worlds, one for a small group that benefits from this macroeconomic stability, this weakness of democracy, this co-optation of state institutions, and a large majority of the population that faces poverty and inequality,” says Alejandro Aguirre Batres, Executive Director of CONGCOOP, the national platform of NGOs in Guatemala that recently published an alternative report on the implementation of the SDGs in the country.

Human rights activists in Cartagena, Colombia from the Coalition of Human Rights in Development at the Finance in Common Summit. Credit: Sebastian Barros/Forus

Governments must make specific national implementation plans to advance the Sustainable Development Goals, with clear benchmarks on when to achieve the targets set in 2015. Following the SDG Summit, we call on the United Nations and its partners to ensure that the “National Commitments to SDG Transformation” called for by the Secretary-General are adequately compiled and tracked, including by providing a transparent and inclusive platform for showcasing these commitments, helping to ensure adequate implementation, follow-up and accountability. All efforts and commitments must focus on breaching the increassing gap in inequalities, healing polarisation and restoring socio-environmental rights at the core of Agenda 2030 implementation as no form of development should come at the cost of environmental degradation and injustice.

Presenting a viewpoint from Asia, Jyotsna Mohan Singh, representing the Asia Development Alliance, emphasizes that while the SDGs look good on paper, their real-world implementation remains far from satisfactory. She explains, “Governments should develop a policy coherence for sustainable development roadmap with timebound targets,” adding that it’s all about creating spaces grounded in equity where civil society and other stakeholders can join discussions and connect with local communities.

In regions like the Sahel, stretching 5,000 kilometers below the Sahara Desert from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, challenges like conflict, political instability, extreme poverty, and food insecurity affect nearly 26 million people. Yet, this region is teeming with opportunities, boasting abundant resources and a young population, including 50% young women and girls. As civil society leader Mavalow Christelle Kalhoule, Forus Chair and President of SPONG, the Burkina Faso NGO network, puts it, “What unfolds in the Sahel and in so many other forgotten communities ripples across the globe, impacting us all even if we choose to look away. Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals is vital to unlock a different future. But for global change to truly happen, we need countries to come together, we need solidarity, horizontal spaces, and for world leaders to start listening and acting accordingly.”

Commit to the protection of civic space and human rights.

“Although the state of Pakistan has ratified many global instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the SDGs, the irony is that none of them have been transformed into local policies and regulatory frameworks. Unfortunately, civil rights advocates and organizations have either transformed themselves into humanitarian organizations or practiced self-censorship to avoid state atrocities. Pakistan is failing to achieve SDGs due to disengagement with civil society and other stakeholders. Ironically, the government is unable to provide reliable data on any of their own priority indicators to measure progress towards the implementation of SDGs, particularly on rights-based indicators,” says Zia ur Rehman, National Convener of the Pakistan Development Alliance. Their newly published Pakistan Civic Space Monitor reveals a generally restricted civic space, including restraints on freedom of speech, assembly, information, rule of law, governance, and public participation, with further deterioration. This rings true for 92% of Forus members – comprising national and regional civil society networks in over 124 countries – who consider the protection of civic space and human rights a top priority.

Fridays for Future activists during a Climate March in Brussels, Belgium. Credit: Both Nomads/Forus

Indeed, over the past decade, thousands of civil society organizations have faced increasing challenges due to restrictions on their formation and activities. Nine out of 10 people now live in countries where civil liberties are severely restricted, including freedoms of association, peaceful assembly, and expression, according to the CIVICUS Monitor. Forus reports confirm that civil society deals with increasing restrictions, involving extra-legal actions, misinformation and disinformation about their work both online and offline. Research also highlights the insufficiency of current institutional mechanisms to ensure an enabling environment for civil society, including addressing impunity for attacks on civil society and human right defenders, implementing supportive laws and regulations, and facilitating effective and inclusive policy dialogue. A recent ARTICLE 19 report highlights the inadequate integration of crucial elements like freedom of expression and access to information into SDGs, hampering progress. Journalist killings increased in 2022. Additionally, monitoring access to information mainly focuses on having a legal framework, ignoring its quality and adoption. Strengthening these rights is vital for advancing all SDGs. The growing number of human rights defenders being killed every year – at least 401 in 26 countries were murdered for their peaceful work in 2022 – is another worrying trend that needs to be reversed as the protection and promotion of human rights is the cornerstone of achieving sustainable development. Without human rights we will just move backwards.

Strengthen and Catalyze Robust Financing for the SDGs.

From the recent Summit for a new global financing pact to the Finance in Common initiative, it’s clear that the focus this year has been on increasing investment. But we need quality not just quantity, as expressed in a join civil society declaration aimed at public development banks signed by over 100 civil society organisations from 50+ countries. While we welcome UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s call for a SDG Stimulus, we remind Governments, International Financial Institutions, public development banks and donors that more efforts must be done to scale up investments for the realization of the SDGs at all levels, including through additional support for civil society and by involving communities in all “development talks”. The role of the private sector and financial institutions in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda must be talked about openly. It is important to include in all development projects being carried out specific budgets for actions linked to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Discussions about financial reforms that are being repeatedly undertaken by several countries cannot happen behind close doors and in non-inclusive forums such as the G7 and G20. Instead, they should be open, inclusive, and transparent, involving a broader spectrum of protagonists, including civil society, to ensure fairness and sustainability in shaping global financial policies.

“The SDGs are severely off track as we reach the critical half-way point of Agenda 2030. We need a renewed global ambition on financial commitments to make progress on the SDGs. Reforms of global financial architecture are a crucial part of this to ensure we have a fairer, more effective, inclusive and transparent system supporting lower-income countries that are at the forefront of the global climate, debt, poverty, food, and humanitarian crises. It’s not about a lack of finance, it is about political will and getting our priorities right,” says Sandra Martinsone, Policy Manager – Sustainable Economic Development at Bond UK.

Mobilize Transformative Commitments for SDG16+.

Recognizing the vital role of SDG16+ as a critical enabler for the entire 2030 Agenda, governments should come to the SDG Summit with targeted, integrated, focused and transformative commitments to accelerate action on SDG16+. As developed in the #SDG16Now collective campaign, this includes domestic policies and resources, legal reforms and initiatives to advance SDG16+ at the international, national and local levels, as well as ambitious global commitments to strengthen multilateralism and international resolve to promote peace, justice, the rule of law, inclusion and institution-building. Additionally, governments must use key moments – such as the 2024 High-Level Political Forum and the Summit of the Future – to advance implementation and delivery of the SDGs through similar commitments to action, and ensure adequate follow-up to these commitments going forward.

Ensure civil society participation and listen to communities, reinvigorate commitments to SDG17.

The 2030 Agenda overall cannot be achieved without building on the role of civil society and fostering a true global partnership. Every year at the fringes of the UN General Assembly, initiatives such as the Global People’s Assembly bring to the ears of world leaders the voices of communities historically marginalised. Governments need to reinvigorate engagement towards SDG17 to trengthen the means of implementing sustainable development goals and revitalising global partnerships for sustainable development. It’s high time we move away from conducting discussions about the future of development in closed-door settings. Tokenistic participation of civil society, where their involvement is merely symbolic or superficial, undermines the core principles of nclusivity, hurting genuine progress and meaningful collaboration. A more inclusive approach must be embraced that actively involves civil society and communities. Let’s #UNmute their voices and perspectives by bringing about reforms to current participation mechanisms, and giving them a real platform to be heard.

In 2015 every government in the world agreed as a global community on what we want for our comon future for people and planet. So many efforts and work went on to reach such an agreement. Now is the time for governments and world leaders to walk the walk and prioritize people and the planet, delivering the 2030 Agenda, essential to secure our shared future. It is time for world leaders to act decisively and uphold their commitments to the SDGs.

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Youth Rally for Peace Through Climate Justice at the UN

Fri, 09/15/2023 - 13:07

Youth rally at the UN for climate justice. Credit: Abigail Van Neely/IPS

By Abigail Van Neely
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 15 2023 (IPS)

“What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now!” youth chanted in an unusually lively conference at the United Nations Headquarters.

Earlier on Thursday morning (September 14), almost 500 young people had streamed into the room to a DJ’s upbeat soundtrack. Spirits were high despite the more somber rallying cry of this year’s International Day of Peace youth event: the planet is on fire. Many speakers focused on the idea that there cannot be peace without climate justice.

“We cannot begin to talk about peace without talking about the climate crisis,” environmental justice advocate Saad Amer said after leading the crowd in the kind of chants more likely heard at a protest. Fossil fuel disputes spark wars that disproportionately affect people of color, Amer explained. Youth must take charge to “re-write destiny.”

To 21-year-old Mexican climate justice activist Xiye Bastida, “Peace is the ability to drink clean air and clean water.” Bastida, a member of the Otomi-Toltec indigenous community, spoke of her community’s traditional commitment to living in harmony with the earth. Now, indigenous people are being displaced as regenerative practices are forgotten. Bastida called for a world free of extreme weather and exploitation. The climate crisis reflects a broken system, she said, but peace is the bravery to imagine a better world.

Young people are “creating a youth movement for climate action, seeking racial justice, and promoting gender equality,” the Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, Melissa Fleming, told the audience. In a recorded statement, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated that youth action has power. Still, only four governments have concrete plans to include young people in policymaking, Youth Envoy Jayathma Wickramanyake noted.

As she lived through brutal conflicts in her home country of Sri Lanka, Wickramanayake said she wondered why people around her continued to fight. Today, she told other young activists that the root causes of conflict always run deep – from inequality to poverty. She stressed that peace cannot be differentiated from development.

The event occurs days before the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Summit, a critical opportunity for world leaders to address failures to implement the goals so far.

“Next week there will be an important breakthrough in creating the conditions to rescue the sustainable development goals. I’m very hopeful that the SDG summit will indeed represent a quantum leap in the response to the dramatic failures that we have witnessed,” Guterres said during a news conference.

Meanwhile, youth are left with memories of their chants: “The oceans are rising, and so are we!” “We are unstoppable – another world is possible!”

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Carbon Colonialism Has No Place in Liberia’s Forests

Fri, 09/15/2023 - 13:00

Liberia is one of the last countries in West Africa to still have vast tracts of forest – but this valuable resource is disappearing at an alarming rate. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor
MONROVIA, Sep 15 2023 (IPS)

The fate of Liberia and its forests are entwined. Yet a new climate change deal, set to be announced at the UN climate change talks in Dubai this November, would drive a wedge between our communities and their woodlands.

Currently, forests make up more than two-thirds of Liberia’s land area, and are crucial for people’s livelihoods. They were illegally plundered by the former President Charles Taylor to fund a civil war that left an estimated 150,000 dead.

If this deal proceeds, it is likely to do so under dubious legality and without the prior consent of the communities living in the forests.

What’s more, it is part of a global trend called ‘carbon colonialism’, where instead of taking concrete steps to decarbonise, corporations offset their greenhouse gas emissions by paying to preserve forests or other ecosystems—often against the wishes of the local or Indigenous communities who live there

And since 2003, when the war ended, vast swathes of forested land have been signed over to foreign investors, as a corrupt minority have enriched themselves through illegal logging at the expense of the impoverished majority. We have lost nearly one quarter of our forests to economic development projects since then—with most of the loss occurring in the last ten years. This is a disaster for the communities that live on these lands and for efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change.

Now another chapter is unfolding in the tangled history of Liberia’s forests.

At the end of March, Liberia’s Ministry of Finance signed a memorandum of understanding with a United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based consultancy called Blue Carbon LLC, giving it the exclusive right to manage an area of rainforest covering one tenth of our national land. The deal, which has been negotiated in secrecy, is reportedly in the process of being finalized.

Under the agreement Blue Carbon will pay Liberia to manage and preserve one million hectares of forest for 30 years, and sell carbon credits from the emissions ‘saved’ by protecting these forests to major polluters, who will use them to offset their own emissions.

That is a significant chunk of our country, set to be pawned to the planet’s major polluters, enabling them to continue extracting and burning fossil fuels while claiming to protect the planet.

If this deal proceeds, it is likely to do so under dubious legality and without the prior consent of the communities living in the forests.

What’s more, it is part of a global trend called ‘carbon colonialism’, where instead of taking concrete steps to decarbonise, corporations offset their greenhouse gas emissions by paying to preserve forests or other ecosystems—often against the wishes of the local or Indigenous communities who live there. A similar deal with Zimbabwe’s government was announced in the middle of August.

‘Greenwashing’

Money is desperately needed to support local communities protecting their forests in Liberia as much as anywhere and there may well be ‘offset projects’ that are truly beneficial for local or Indigenous communities—but this is not one of them.

The chairman of Blue Carbon LLC is Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, a member of the UAE royal family, which has major interests in the country’s oil and gas infrastructure.

The UAE—a fossil fuel state—is planning a huge expansion of oil and gas even though, at the end of the year, it will host the UN’s COP28 climate summit.

To burnish its environmental credentials ahead of the COP, the UAE’s government and various state-run companies have hired some of the world’s biggest PR companies to mount a greenwashing campaign.

The Blue Carbon deal—which is set to be unveiled at the COP to show how the UAE is fulfilling its commitments under the Paris Climate deal—is part of this greenwashing.

Dubious legality

Study after study has shown that community land rights is the best tool to preventing deforestation, better than the government or private sector managed protected areas—like those that ostensibly would be implemented if the Blue Carbon deal is finalized. The UN’s most recent report on climate change emphasizes community land rights as critical in both climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.

The deal, which ignores this body of research, is also a primary threat to rural Liberians and their hard-won land rights. Around 70 per cent of land in Liberia is owned by communities. Roughly one third of our people live in forested areas, and the local people who live on the land targeted under the deal will only be consulted about it after it has been signed – that is, if they are consulted at all.

As such, it represents a ‘climate land grab’ that reverses some of the steady progress that Liberia has made on recognising community rights.

The deal’s legality is also dubious, and the agreement appears to violate our constitution and a number of Liberian laws, notably the National Forestry Reform Law (2006), the Community Rights Law (2009), the Public Procurement and Concessions Act (2010), and the Land Right Act (2018).

One can only sell carbon if you own it. Liberian law is clear that communities own their customary forest lands and the resources on them.

The conditions of our people are worsening by the day. Liberia is one of the last countries in West Africa to still have vast tracts of forest – but this valuable resource is disappearing at an alarming rate.

Liberians must remain open to working with anyone, including corporations, who can help us protect our forests and our peoples’ rights. But we must remain resolute in our opposition to false climate solutions such as this deal.

Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor has championed community forest and land rights in Liberia for two decades. His efforts were recognized with the Whitley Award for Environment and Human Rights in 2002 (UK), the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2006 (US), Award for Outstanding Environmental and Human Rights Activism from the Alexander Soros Foundation (US), and the Mundo Negro Fraternity Award in 2018 (Spain).

Categories: Africa

African Agro-Processors Call for Policies Conducive to Local Manufacturing

Fri, 09/15/2023 - 09:20

Experts are calling on countries to change their policies to protect locally produced products. For example, Nigeria is an exporter of rubber but imports tyres; Ghana exports cocoa, but Switzerland is known for chocolate. Here a worker in a factory in Abidjan holds a block of rubber meant for export for processing into finished products abroad.

By Isaiah Esipisu
DAR ES SALAAM, Sep 15 2023 (IPS)

Experts at the Africa Food Systems Forum (AGRF) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, have called on African governments to make and review existing policies to protect the processing and agro-industrialisation of locally produced agricultural products.

During the launch of the Deal Room, Mohammed Dewji, President of MeTL Group of Companies in Tanzania, observed that agriculture will remain meaningless without agri-processing. https://www.ipsnews.net/2021/05/kenyas-dryland-farmers-embrace-regenerative-farming-to-brave-tough-climate/

“Tanzania produces cotton, and it is perhaps the third largest producer. How come it has only three textile firms? We are farming the cotton, ginning it, and exporting the same to China, where the final product is produced, died, and printed, and then it is sent back to us. Because of taxes involved at the local manufacturing level, we cannot compete,” he said.

“Unless we put in place correct policies that will favour local manufacturing, we will continue talking about cocoa from Ghana and chocolate from Switzerland,” he told delegates at the Deal Room.

The Deal Room is a matchmaking platform hosted at the AGRF, aiming to drive new business deals and commitments, where companies in the agriculture and agribusiness sectors can access finance, mentorship, and market entry solutions to support their growth objectives.

According to Wanjohi Ndagu, the Partner and Investment Director at Pearl Capital Partners Ltd based in Uganda, many African governments have policies that favour importation even when farmers in those countries have bumper harvests of the same product.

“We need policies that are able to protect farmers and local production,” he said.

Other than cocoa in Ghana and chocolate from Switzerland, countries like Ivory Coast and Nigeria are net exporters of natural rubber, which is processed and brought back to them as car tyres, footwear, and rubber-based industrial goods.

Tanzania, Mozambique, and Ivory Coast are net exporters of cashew nuts but importers of roasted and processed cashew nuts, cashew butter, and other value-added cashew products.

Kenya is currently delving into the exportation of raw avocado, but the country has always imported particularly avocado cosmetic products.

However, all is not lost.

Rwanda was showcased as one of the success stories in Africa where, through favourable policies, the country has created a conducive environment attracting investment into the agro-processing sector.

“Our country’s Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation has enabled us to move the sector from subsistence to a knowledge-based, value-creating sector,” said Nelly Mukazayire, the Deputy CEO of the Rwanda Development Board (RDB).

To make work more accessible and attractive to investors, the country has created a one-stop-centre where investors in any given sector, including agro-processing, are given services right from the search for a business name, business registration, generation of unique identification of the registered business, the opening of the business bank account and issuance of relevant permits and licenses, and the entire process takes a maximum of eight hours for the business to become a legal entity.

In many other African countries, such processes can take more than four months and, in some cases, a year for a business to get proper registration, and this, according to the delegates at the AGRF, slows down the rate of investment.

“Investors in the agriculture sector in Rwanda also have an opportunity to get up to seven years of tax holiday and reduced corporate income taxes on exports,” said Mukazayire.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, the country launched what is today known as the Manufacture and Build to Recover Programme (MBRP), aiming to boost economic recovery efforts with specific incentives for the manufacturing, agro-processing, construction and real estate development sectors.

Through MBRP, manufacturers with a capital of USD1 million and above are given import duty exemption and Value Added Tax (VAT) exemption for imported construction materials unavailable in East Africa, VAT exemption for machinery and raw materials sourced domestically and VAT exemption for construction materials sourced domestically.

However, the capital for agro-processing was capped at USD 100,000 to support the sector’s growth.

During the AGRF Deal Room event, Brent Malahay, the Chief Strategy Officer at the Equity Group, called on investors to take advantage of the bank’s ‘Africa recovery and resilience plan,’ whose aim is to capacitate, finance and connect East African Community value chains to global supply chains.

“Through this plan, Equity Group will leverage off a region that gives access to critical raw materials, supports industrial capacity needs and an entrepreneurial and innovative local workforce, and the one that provides a sizeable market that is increasingly becoming more integrated,” said Malahay.

During the event, Isobel Coleman, Deputy Administrator at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), announced an investment of USD4 million into VALUE4HER, AGRA’s Deal Room product, which is a continental initiative aimed at strengthening women’s agribusiness enterprises and enhancing voice and advocacy across Africa.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

The Vast Potential of the Human Spirit

Fri, 09/15/2023 - 08:26

Girls read from their textbooks at the Dasht-e-Barchi Education Centre in Kabul, Afghanistan. Credit: UNICEF/Shehzad Noorani

By Gordon Brown
LONDON, Sep 15 2023 (IPS)

With hope and courage, we must rise to the challenges before us. We must rise to the challenge of a world set afire by climate change, forced displacement, armed conflicts and human rights abuses. We must rise to the challenge of girls being denied their right to an education in Afghanistan. We must rise to the challenge of a global refugee crisis that is disrupting development gains the world over. We must rise to the challenge of brutal and unconscionable wars in places like Sudan and Ukraine that are putting millions of children at risk every day.

By ensuring every single child has access to quality education and embracing the vast potential of the human spirit – especially the 224 million girls and boys caught in emergencies and protracted crises that so urgently need our support – we can rise to this challenge. It’s a chance for girls with disabilities like Sammy in Colombia to find a nurturing place to learn and grow, it’s a chance for girls that have been forced into child marriage like Ajak in South Sudan to resume control of their lives, it’s a chance for refugees like Jannat in Bangladesh to find hope and dignity once more.

As Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies, has successfully completed its first strategic plan period and now enters its second strategic period, we are seeing time and again the power of education in propelling global efforts to deliver on the promises outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and other crucial international frameworks. By ensuring quality holistic education for the world’s most marginalized and vulnerable children in crisis settings, we invest in human capital, transform economies, ensure human rights, and build a more peaceful and more sustainable future for all.

The achievements outlined in ECW’s 2022 Annual Results Report tell a story of a breakout global fund moving with strength, speed and agility, while achieving quality. Together with a growing range of strategic partners, ECW reached 4.2 million children in 2022 alone. It was also the first time girls represented more than half of the children reached by ECW’s investments, including 53% of girls at the secondary level, which is a significant milestone in achieving the aspirational target of 60% girls reached. Now in its sixth year of operation, ECW has reached a total of 8.8 million children and adolescents with the safety, power and opportunity of a quality, inclusive education. An additional 32.2 million children and adolescents were reached with targeted interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are also seeing a global advocacy movement reaching critical mass, together with stronger political commitment and increased financing for the sector. In 2022, funding for education in emergencies was higher than ever before. Total available funding has grown by more than 57% over just three years – from US$699 million in 2019 to more than US$1.1 billion in 2022.

However, the needs have also skyrocketed over this same period. Funding asks for education in emergencies within humanitarian appeals have nearly tripled from US$1.1 billion in 2019 to almost US$3 billion at the end of 2022. This means that while donors are stepping up, the funding gap has actually widened, and only 30% of education in emergencies requirements were funded in 2022.

With support from key donors – including Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, as the top-three contributors among 25 in total, such as visionary private sector partners like The LEGO Foundation – US$826 million was announced at the ECW High-Level Financing Conference in early 2023. Collective resource mobilization efforts from all partners and stakeholders at global, regional, and country levels also helped unlock an additional US$842 million of funding for education in-country, which was contributed in alignment with ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programmes in 22 countries, and thus illustrates strong coordination by strategic donor partners who work in affected emergencies and protracted crises-contexts.

We must rise to this challenge by finding new and innovative ways to finance education. To date, some of ECW’s largest and prospective bilateral and multilateral donors have not yet committed funding for the full 2023–2026 period, and there remains a gap in funding from the private sector, foundations and philanthropic donors. In the first half of 2023, ECW faces a funding gap of approximately $670 million to fully finance results under the Strategic Plan, 2023–2026, to reach more than 20 million children over the next three years.

The investments will address the diverse impacts of crisis on education through child-centred approaches that are tailored to the needs of specific groups affected by crisis, such as children with disabilities, girls, refugees, and vulnerable children in host communities. These investments entail academic learning, social and emotional learning, sports, arts, combined with mental health and psycho-social services, school feeding, water and sanitation, as well as a protection component.

Since ECW became operational, we have withstood the cataclysmic forces of a global pandemic, a rise in armed conflicts that have disrupted social and economic security the world over, the unconscionable denial of education for girls in Afghanistan, floods and droughts made ever-more devastating by climate change, and other crises that are derailing efforts to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Now is the time to come together as one people, one planet to address the challenges before us. Now is the time to embrace the vast potential of the human spirit. With education for all, we can make sure girls like Sammy, Ajak and Jannat are able to reach their full potential, we can build a better world for generations to come.

Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown is United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

How a UN General Assembly Meeting is Organized

Fri, 09/15/2023 - 07:54

Meticulous attention to planning detail ahead of the session. Credit: Pixabay

By Kenji Nakano
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 15 2023 (IPS)

The General Assembly and ECOSOC Affairs Division has around 40 staff members, with the combined role to facilitate the deliberations and decision-making of intergovernmental bodies such as the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council and their subsidiary organs.

This entails several aspects to assist the presiding officer, Member States and the other participants. For example, we put together the agenda of the intergovernmental body and a programme of work (i.e., calendar) of meetings of that body. We also prepare the presiding officer’s scripts and the list of speakers for the meeting, taking into account rules concerning who can speak and when.

We advise all those involved about applicable rules of procedure, as well as the practices and precedents of these bodies and how these rules are applied. The General Assembly, for example, has the president as well as 21 vice-presidents. Each of the six Main Committees has a chair, three vice-chairs and a rapporteur. We advise them on the proceedings, including how to address unexpected questions or procedural motions from the floor.

We deal with meeting room arrangements and documentation. The latter includes draft resolutions and decisions: we receive those from Member States and have them processed for issuance as an official document in six languages.

This can include draft amendments from other countries that did not agree with the content of the original draft resolutions. We conduct recorded votes if required as well as secret balloting for elections. We also put together a final report of the body.

How the preparations take place

The preparations for a regular session of the General Assembly which starts in September, begin months and months in advance. The document concerning the agenda of the session (normally containing around 170-180 items) is formed in February with what is called a “preliminary list of items to be included in the provisional agenda”.

The list of items for the agenda will continue to grow as new ones are mandated by the adoption of resolutions, so we will keep updating the list and send out what is called the “provisional agenda” in July. The preparation for the list of speakers for the general debate will begin in June, which is where Heads of State and Government and other high-level representatives will speak in the General Assembly Hall in September.

In the meantime, in June, the President of the new session is elected mostly by what is called “acclamation” or without a secret ballot. When there are competing candidates, the election is held by secret ballot cast by Member States. The elected candidate takes office when the new session begins in September, but there is a period between June and September where both the sitting President and President-elect collaborate on handover for the new session.

We put together an information note concerning the High-Level Week in September, as well as a publication called the “Delegates’ Handbook” with practical information on meeting rooms, facilities and services available to delegates. The High-Level Week in September includes, besides the general debate, other meetings on specific topics as mandated by the General Assembly resolutions.

In September 2023, there will be (1) the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development under the auspices of the General Assembly, (2) the High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development, (3) the Preparatory Ministerial Meeting for the Summit of the Future and high-level meetings on (4) universal health coverage, (5) pandemic prevention, preparedness and response and (6) fight against tuberculosis, and also (7) the High-Level Plenary Meeting to Commemorate and Promote the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

The Secretary-General will also convene the Climate Ambition Summit. Many of them will have an outcome document, on which Member States negotiate many months before the adoption in September.

A tale of two halves

Once the High-Level Week is over, we have the rest of the “main part” of the session from September through December. Besides the General Assembly Plenary, the six Main Committees, from the First Committee to the Six Committee, hold meetings during this period, each based on its own “programme of work”.

These Main Committees will have agenda items allocated to them, under which they adopt draft resolutions to recommend to the General Assembly Plenary. In December, the plenary will consider these recommendations from the Main Committees, while it continues to consider its own agenda items.

The subsequent period, from January to September, is called the “resumed part” of the session. That part has no fixed calendar, but consists rather of meetings that the President of the General Assembly holds on his/her own initiative or in response to a mandate given by a General Assembly resolution. Also seen during the resumed part of the session are informal consultations on topics mandated by resolutions adopted during the main part to, for example, negotiate the organizational arrangements and/or on an outcome document of a
future high-level meeting. These consultations are normally led by Permanent Representatives from different regions appointed by the President of the General Assembly as facilitators.

The list of speakers for the general debate

First and foremost, Member States are requested to inform the Secretariat of their three preferred timings. For the morning meeting and the afternoon meeting of each day, there are only a certain number of speaking slots so we can only accommodate speakers up to that number. Speakers for each meeting are listed based on the established protocol, beginning with the Heads of State, Vice-Presidents and Crown Princes or Princesses and Heads of Government.

Media and seating arrangements

Media accreditation is done by the Department of Global Communications, and there is a media booth where the journalists and camera crews can observe what is going on in the General Assembly Hall. There is a similar space established outside of the General Assembly Hall for journalists to hear from leaders entering/exiting the Hall. The Department of Global Communications also puts together a press kit for the session.

Every year in June, the Secretary-General draws a lot from a box containing all names of Member States. The selected country will occupy the first seat in the Hall once the new session begins in September, and from there, the seating arrangement will follow the English alphabetical order. The same seating applies to the Main Committees.

How we ensure inclusivity

This has been a very important issue for the General Assembly, the ECOSOC Affairs Division and Member States. Four years ago, the General Assembly adopted a resolution to introduce an accessible seating arrangement, whereby a wheelchair-accessible seating is made available upon request by a delegation. The General Assembly Hall has a certain number of such seats, so the requesting delegation is moved to such a seat, and other delegations’ seats are moved by one seat.

We currently have two Member States who request accessible seating on an ongoing basis. This summer, further improvement will be made in the General Assembly Hall by installing a lift for the rostrum so that a speaker on a wheelchair can speak from the rostrum.

Benefits of live broadcasting

The General Assembly involves universal participation of all Member States on all matters humanity faces, so it is very important to share information on the deliberation with the people that it will affect. Civil society, businesses, academics and media are getting more and more involved, so it is a natural progression to offer this feature and strengthen the global platform of the General Assembly.

Kenji Nakano is Chief of the General Assembly Affairs Branch

Source: UN TODAY, the official magazine of international civil servants, Geneva

The link to the website: https://untoday.org/

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

Mexico Turns to Military Entrepreneurs

Thu, 09/14/2023 - 23:33

Sara López (C) and other members of the Regional Indigenous and Popular Council of Xpujil are seen here in a photo from 2020, while campaigning against the environmental problems posed by the Mayan Train, which will run through part of southern and southeastern Mexico. The Secretariat (ministry) of National Defense has been put in charge since September of the construction and administration of the Mexican government's flagship project. CREDIT: Cripx

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Sep 14 2023 (IPS)

Courage, sadness and impotence are expressed by Mayan indigenous activist Sara López when she talks about the Mayan Train (TM), the Mexican government’s biggest infrastructure project, which will cross the town where she lives and many others in the Yucatan Peninsula.

“These are things that cause damage. In the communities, both the National Guard (a civilian security force, but made up mostly of military personnel) and the army are present. People tell us they have lost the peace they used to have. There are communities that have been invaded, there has been a very strong impact,” the member of the non-governmental Regional Indigenous and Popular Council of Xpujil told IPS.

“The entire Yucatan peninsula is militarized,” she said from Candelaria, in the southeastern state of Campeche. Agriculture and livestock are the main activities in the municipality of some 47,000 inhabitants, which will be the site of a TM station."The military are not trained for many functions. The government is concerned about economic growth and development, and to preserve that model it has put the military in charge. They think it will be achieved through infrastructure and extractive projects." -- Aleida Azamar

The megaproject consists of seven sections along some 1,500 kilometers and will also cross the states of Quintana Roo and Yucatan, which share the peninsula with Campeche together with the states of Chiapas and Tabasco.

The railway will run through 41 municipalities and 181 towns, with 20 stations and 14 stops.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who begins his sixth and final year in office on Dec. 1, has transferred the administration of ports, airports and rail transport to the Secretariat (ministry) of National Defense (Sedena).

This is despite the fact that there are no records of their performance in the management of these key areas in the recent history of the country, in which their experience has been limited to the production and sale of supplies.

Aleida Azamar, a researcher at the public Autonomous Metropolitan University, argued that uniformed personnel are not prepared for these tasks.

“The military are not trained for many functions. The government is concerned about economic growth and development, and to preserve that model it has put the military in charge. They think it will be achieved through infrastructure and extractive projects,” Azamar, who is coordinating a new book on the military and natural resources in Mexico, told IPS.

“In their view, the fastest way to finish them is with the army, because it is more difficult for the public to put up opposition when they see someone with a gun. It is not the most adequate solution.”

López Obrador announced on Sept. 4 the transfer of control of the Mayan Train from the state-owned National Tourism Development Fund (Fonatur) to Sedena, in an intensification of the trend of ceding more civilian responsibilities to the military, by handing over his flagship megaproject.

The president’s argument for this strategy is that he aims to reduce corruption in public works. But actually it may be due to other reasons, such as the culture of discipline in following orders so that the works advance as quickly as possible and thus meet the deadlines set.

Sedena will be responsible for the completion of sections five, six and seven of the railroad, whose works were started by Fonatur in July 2020 and which López Obrador promised would begin to operate by Dec. 1. Other sections are being built by private companies.

The resistance to deploying the military into the TM and other civilian areas is also due to its actions since 2006, when then President Felipe Calderón launched the so-called “war against drugs” using the military, which led to extrajudicial executions, disappearances, human rights violations and impunity, according to local and international organizations.

In fact, so far this century the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the highest regional court attached to the Organization of American States, has condemned Mexico on at least five occasions for military crimes such as forced disappearance, sexual violence and arbitrary detention.

The government promotes the TM as a major new engine of socioeconomic development in the southeast of the country and its trains will transport thousands of tourists, and cargo such as transgenic soybeans, palm oil and pork, the main products in the area.

The administration claims that it will create jobs, boost tourism beyond traditional attractions, and invigorate the regional economy, which has sparked highly polarized controversies between its supporters and critics.

The Mayan Train will run 1,500 kilometers, through 41 municipalities and 181 towns in the south and southeast of Mexico, with a cost overrun that already exceeds 28 billion dollars. CREDIT: Fonatur

From the barracks to business

Historically, the armed forces had been limited to producing supplies and building government facilities, such as hospitals and other infrastructure.

Sedena’s General Directorate of Military Industry operates at least 16 ammunition and armament factories.

However, thanks to the policies of the current government, Sedena has created the corporations Tren Maya, Aerolínea del Estado Mexicano, Grupo Aeroportuario, Ferroviario, de Servicios Auxiliares y Conexos Olmeca-Maya-Mexica (Gomm) and the Felipe Ángeles International Airport, located in the state of Mexico, adjacent to the Mexican capital.

Gomm is also involved in the operation of 12 airports, and will receive more in the future.

In addition, it will operate the revived Compañía Mexicana de Aviación, the country’s oldest airline and one of the first in the region, privatized in 2005 and closed since 2010. Under the new name Aerolínea del Estado Mexicano, the government resuscitated it in January, buying the brand. The armed forces will also manage hotels along the TM route.

At the same time, the Secretariat of the Navy (Semar) manages five shipyards in various areas of the country.

To run seven airports, including Mexico City’s, out of the 19 facilities under state control, Semar created the company Casiopea.

Mexico has 118 ports and terminals, of which 71 have been given in concession in 25 administrations of the National Port System. Since 2017, Semar has been administering the ports.

This scheme requires a lot of money, provided by the public budget. The clearest case is the TM, whose cost rose threefold, from the initial projected investment of 7.2 billion dollars to the current estimate of over 28 billion dollars.

For 2024, Sedena has already requested 6.7 billion dollars for the railroad, the second highest figure for the TM since 2020, when allocated funds totaled 349 million dollars.

Military requirements for all civilian sectors under their administration have grown, as Sedena requested 14.55 billion dollars, compared to 6.27 billion in 2023, and Semar asked for 4.02 billion, compared to 2.34 billion this year – in both cases more than double.

Behind this is the fact that state-owned companies under military management are not yet profitable, so they require subsidies. The non-governmental organization México ¿Cómo Vamos? calculates that it will take 17 years to recoup the investment in the TM and 22 years in the case of the Tulum International Airport, under construction in the state of Quintana Roo.

The Navy manages the Mexico City International Airport and six other airports, although it lacks experience in running this type of air transport infrastructure. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Potential threats

As in the case of military involvement in security and public safety, military business management poses risks of information concealment, corruption and economic losses.

The armed forces are the institutions that most violate human rights, including cases of murder, torture and sexual violence. Between 2007 and 2020, some 70,000 people suffered physical aggression after being apprehended by the army, according to the Citizen Security Program (PSC) of the private Ibero-American University.

The number of military personnel involved in public security already exceeds the total number of municipal and state police, in a proportion of 261,644 to 251,760, according to data reported by the PSC.

López the activist and Azamar the academic warned of the risks of military management.

“Only the government knows how much they have spent, how much is going to be spent,” said López. “There is no real report on what they are doing. Since the megaproject began, there has been no real information. They have never talked to us about environmental, cultural or economic impacts. It has caused us problems, it has been chaos for us. And once it is operating, the situation is going to get worse because of tourism.”

Azamar warned of increasing reliance on the military, the potential erosion of civil rights, a distorted perception of the approach to security and public safety and the undermining of trust in civilian institutions.

“There is a problem of lack of transparency and accountability: what is spent and how. It is risky, because there is no real, disaggregated data. This creates an environment of impunity that allows secrecy to continue and does not make it possible for other information to be made public. If there are no effective oversight mechanisms, abuses could be committed. We are in a gray area, because we do not know who controls them,” she argued.

In November 2021, López Obrador classified the TM as a “priority project” by means of a presidential decree, a strategy that facilitates the fast-tracking of environmental permits and thus hides information under the broad umbrella of national security.

This despite the fact that a month later, the Supreme Court reversed the national security agreements to annul the reservation of information, due to an appeal by the autonomous governmental National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data.

Mexico’s problems will not end in the short term, as pro-military policies will condition the next administration that will take office in December 2024, regardless of where it stands on the political spectrum, although the polls point to presidential hopeful Claudia Sheinbaum of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), López Obrador’s party, as the favorite.

Categories: Africa

UN Report Offers Solutions for Decarbonization of Buildings, Construction Sector

Thu, 09/14/2023 - 15:10

A new report provides guidance to builders, architects, and others to make the construction of infrastructure and buildings more environmentally friendly. Credit: Scott Blake/Unsplash

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 14 2023 (IPS)

The building sector may be overdue for a significant overhaul of the processes in which infrastructure is built to be more environmentally conscious and reduce carbon emissions, a new UN report reveals.

On September 12, 2023, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Yale Center for Ecosystems + Architecture (Yale CEA), under the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction, released a new report that proposes solutions to decarbonize buildings and construction and reduce the waste generated.

The report, titled Building Materials, and the Climate: Constructing a New Future, provides a plan to policymakers, manufacturers, engineers, architects, developers, builders, and other stakeholders in what the report’s lead writer, Anna Dyson, Hines, Professor of Architecture at Yale University and Director of Yale CEA, calls the “building life cycle”. This is used to describe the stages of the building life cycle, from extraction of building materials to processing, installation, use, and demolition, or end-of-use.

“This is the first UNEP report that’s been led by architects, engineers, and builders, with respect to the building sector and materials sector,” Dyson said in a press briefing at the report’s launch.

The report presents its solutions to reduce carbon emission and waste through a three-pronged approach: Avoid waste through a circular approach by repurposing existing buildings or using materials with a lower carbon footprint; shift to earth- and bio-based building materials such as timber, bamboo, or sustainably-sourced bricks; and improve decarbonization methods on conventional materials that cannot be replaced, and re-evaluating building codes and standards in regional markets and building cultures across different countries.

If these measures can be adopted and adapted, then reducing embodied carbon in buildings to net zero can be achievable by 2050, the report claims. This can be achieved through making steps to decarbonize across every step of the building life cycle.

The building sector accounts for 37 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, thanks in part to the embodied carbon in modern building materials such as concrete, steel, and aluminum, which is generated during the production and use processes. Yet, complete decarbonization has been a challenge for this sector. As Dyson noted, the interdependencies throughout the stages of this building lifecycle complicate the process, as builders and other stakeholders may be more inclined to use the materials currently available and rely on current practices and codes in construction.

Mae-Ling Lokko, an assistant professor at Yale CEA, stated that increased use of alternative or biobased building materials, such as timber, bamboo, and locally sourced earth, in construction would see a decrease in carbon emissions. Lokko also notes that the supply currently outweighs the demand, but through raising awareness within the sector and through policy measures, the use could “accelerate a shift in norms in the building sector”.

Switching to renewable energy across all processes of the building lifecycle is also encouraged, along with reducing material use and supporting the transition to sustainable materials. As the report notes, this will involve “complex information management and communication across stakeholders”, which can be supported through policies that support the development and access to analytical tools.

The report states that governments and policymakers should, in their adoption of the Avoid-Shift-Improve solution, be sensitive to local cultures and climates, including in their relation to modern materials like concrete and steel. In case studies from Canada, Finland, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Peru, and Senegal, the ways in which decarbonization manifests through this model are noteworthy in their differences. Developed economies could devote resources to renovating existing aging buildings, while emerging ones can leapfrog carbon-intensive building methods to alternative low-carbon building materials.

The significance of policy reform in this sector was underscored during the press briefing. In addition, incentivizing the shift to biobased building materials and renewable energy sources during the extraction stage of the lifecycle would also be needed to kickstart the changes needed. The implementation of good policies and financial incentives could “encourage the re-use marketplace”, according to Naomi Keena, an assistant professor at McGill University’s School of Architecture. The use of secondary materials, for instance, could be supported through policies to enhance wider social acceptance.

In order to energize the market and relevant stakeholders to support the decarbonization of building materials, the tools to support these moves must be developed rapidly, and they must be supported through access to quality data and transparency. This can be strengthened through government regulation and enforcement and by investing in the research and development of nascent technologies. The research and tools should also be made readily available across the formal and informal parties in the building. As the report notes, in the informal sectors, stakeholders do not have access to the data nor the means to conduct their own analyses, which puts builders and producers in developing economies at a greater disadvantage in decarbonizing their outputs.

The report concludes on the note that international cooperation is critical in setting the standards for fair certification and accountability and setting the global standards for decarbonization. Noting that the responsibility for total decarbonization must be spread across producers and consumers within the formal building sector, both public and private.

What the UNEP report and its writers reveal is the hope that net zero carbon emissions can be reached. That the tools, materials, and practices already exist; the sectors need only to adopt and adapt them as needed. Even as the cultures around the building industries may vary across regions, the stakeholders may be united in wanting to play their part in reducing carbon emissions by 2050.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Six Issues to Watch at the UN General Assembly 78

Thu, 09/14/2023 - 08:16

United Nations General Assembly Hall

By Richard Ponzio
WASHINGTON DC, Sep 14 2023 (IPS)

Another UNGA (UN General Assembly High-Level Week, September 18-23, 2023) is almost here. Leaders and other senior representatives of the world body’s 193 Member States will gather again for this truly one-of-a-kind annual congregation in New York for high-stakes diplomacy and plenty of domestic political posturing.

While who’s not coming this year has already garnered some headlines (including Presidents Xi, Macron, and Putin, as well as Prime Ministers Modi and Sunak), the international community has rarely faced so many concurrent challenges on a colossal scale requiring global leadership—from extreme poverty, climate change, and unconstrained artificial intelligence to Great Power tensions, destructive conflicts, and a bulging global youth population in urgent need of new skills, opportunities to take initiative, and, perhaps most of all, hope.

In particular, here are six key milestone gatherings and sets of issues to watch during the 78th High-Level Week – in these major civil society-led UNGA side-events:

SDG Summit | September 18-19

Marking the halfway point to the deadline set for achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, world leaders will adopt the SDG Summit’s centerpiece Political Declaration following, at times, tumultuous negotiations.

The declaration seeks to provide high-level guidance on “transformative and accelerated actions” for all countries delivering on the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals.

Regrettably, two anticipated topline messages from the summit are that only fifteen percent of the Sustainable Development Goals’ targets are on track to be reached this critical decade, with over 500 million people likely still to live in extreme poverty by 2030.

For the SDG Summit to succeed, the states people convening in New York must demonstrate renewed political will—combined with concrete actions and backed up by financial resources and other support infrastructure—in the fight to reverse these trends.

Representatives must also push-back against ill-founded, yet lingering concerns among influential developing countries that the Summit of the Future (SOTF) might divert scarce resources and attention away from their core development priorities. At the recent conclusion of India’s presidency (now passed to Brazil for 2024 and South Africa for 2025), the G20 just lent its “full support,” through the G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration, to both the SDG Summit and SOTF.

Summit of the Future Ministerial Meeting | September 21

The Summit of the Future, to be hosted next September 22-23, 2024 in New York, has a stated goal to reaffirm the Charter of the United Nations, reinvigorate multilateralism, boost implementation of existing commitments, agree on concrete solutions to challenges, and restore trust among Member States.

As elaborated in the Stimson Center and partners’ recent Global Governance Innovation Report 2023(section six) and Future of International Cooperation Report 2023(section four), the intertwined nature of the SDG Summit and Summit of the Future has the potential to yield multiple mutually reinforcing dividends, beginning with the SOTF preparatory Ministerial Meeting to immediately follow next week’s SDG Summit.

In a recent decision of the President of the General Assembly, the SOTF will feature a “Pact for the Future” with chapters on: (i) Sustainable Development & Financing for Development, (ii) International Peace and Security, (iii) Science, Technology and Innovation and Digital Cooperation, (iv) Youth and Future Generations, and (v) Transforming Global Governance.

In short, whereas the SDG Summit arrives at a relatively brief high-level political statement that acknowledges global governance systems gaps in need of urgent attention to accelerate progress on the 2030 Agenda, the preparatory process for next year’s Summit of the Future is designed to realize—through well-conceived, politically acceptable, and adequately resourced reform proposals—the actual systemic changes in global governance needed to fill these gaps.

Climate Action Summit | September 20

UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s Climate Ambition Summit aspires to garner new momentum for effective climate action among representatives of governments, business, finance, local authorities, and civil society, as well as “first movers and doers.”

According to leading climate scientists, we may have as few as six to seven years to catalyze the monumental set of actions required to shift course and to avert the worst impacts of unchecked climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change underscores the connections between climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals, and the UN has warned that climate impacts threaten to reverse many of the gains made over previous decades to improve lives.

With the looming potential to overwhelm progress achieved on the wider UN agenda, the climate crisis represents the present era’s quintessential global governance conundrum, making bold and urgent action all the more critical.

Last week’s Africa Climate Summit brought much-needed ingenuity and energy for positive change from many of the countries and communities already experiencing the wide-reaching effects of climate change.

Following just on the heels of this first-of-its-kind climate summit in Nairobi, the UN’s Climate Ambition Summit aims to catalyze action from the private sector, finance, and civil society, as well as local and national governments. To this end, Stimson is also proud to support the Mary Robinson, María Fernanda Espinosa, and Johan Rockström-led Climate Governance Commission, whose Governing our Planetary Emergency recommendations will be released around COP-28 (November 30-December 12, 2023) in Dubai.

Ukraine, Sudan, Afghanistan, and other Hotspots (UNGA General Debate and UNSC Ministerial)

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, attending his first General Assembly High-Level Week in-person since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has landed a coveted speaking slot on the first morning (Tuesday, 19 September) of the Assembly’s General Debate, shortly after the traditional lead-off statements by the new President of the General Assembly (Ambassador Dennis Francis of Trinidad and Tobago), Brazil (President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva), and the UN’s host nation, the United States (President Joe Biden).

Ukraine will also feature again next week on the Security Council’s agenda in a special high-level session, “Upholding the purposes and principles of the UN Charter through effective multilateralism: Maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine.”

General Debate statements by world leaders are also anticipated to speak to other hot conflicts and fragile states – including Sudan and Afghanistan – and the Secretary-General’s recently introduced New Agenda for Peace.

Mr. Guterres’s related Emergency Platform proposal may also garner some attention, building on this month’s Security Council open debate, “Advancing Public-Private Humanitarian Partnership” featuring World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

New UN Youth Office and Assistant Secretary-General for Youth

Further to last year’s adoption of General Assembly Resolution 76/306, the seventy-eighth session of the General Assembly will further be remembered for the establishment of a new United Nations Youth Office, led by a soon-to-be-appointed Assistant Secretary-General for Youth (while bidding farewell and appreciation to the outstanding UN Youth Envoy, Jayathma Wickramanayake, and her office).

Together, they will, inter alia, advance youth issues across the UN agenda, while working to promote “meaningful, inclusive and effective engagement of youth” across the UN system.

Well-timed to coincide with the one-year-to-go preparations for the September 2024 Summit of the Future, a successful UN Youth Office will need, according to my colleague Nudhara Yusuf and Search for Common Ground’s Saji Prelis, to understand the urgency and responsibility to act in upcoming UN policymaking and programming, to coordinate across existing youth engagement mechanisms, and to embrace new forms of leadership suited to a highly interconnected planet.

Financing for Development (September 20), the Bridgetown Initiative, and Global Financial Architecture Reform

On September 20, the General Assembly will convene its second High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development since the adoption of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. Against growing calls for Global Financial Architecture reform and greater climate financing (through Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s Bridgetown Initiative, which she is widely expected to showcase during the 78th High-Level Week), developing countries will likely continue to express concerns that rich nations are still not doing enough to finance the SDGs and other development priorities, while donors will emphasize the importance of Addis commitments on domestic resource mobilization and fighting corruption.

Two related policy ideas to keep a close eye on next week are the Secretary-General Guterres’ recent proposals: (i) for the G20 to agree on a $500 billion annual stimulus for sustainable development through a combination of concessional and non-concessional finance (as mentioned in the recent G20 Declaration); and (ii) for a Biennial Summit on the Global Economy bringing together the G20, World Bank, IMF, and UN for enhanced global economic governance.

Conclusion

As the United Nations enters its seventy-eighth year, questions continue to swirl about the world body’s vitality and its ability to keep pace with fast-changing trends in socioeconomic dynamics, the environment, peace and security, and technology.

If world leaders, together with diverse partners across civil society and the business community, step up next week with genuine pledges of support for concrete actions in the above areas—and on related subjects such as preventing future pandemics and other health crises, bolstering food security, and safeguarding human rights—they can go a long toward quieting critics who consider the UN to be merely a talk shop.

Importantly, doing so will dramatically improve conditions and expand the window of discourse, priming global leaders to seize the generational opportunity to renew and innovate our global governance system in the run-up to next September’s Summit of the Future.

Richard Ponzio is Director of the Global Governance, Justice & Security Program and a Senior Fellow at Stimson. Previously, he directed the Global Governance Program at The Hague Institute for Global Justice, where (in a partnership with Stimson) he served as Director for the Albright-Gambari Commission on Global Security, Justice & Governance.

Source: Stimson Center, Washington DC

IPS UN Bureau

Categories: Africa

A Global Survey of Democracy Finds Both Sobering and Alarming Results

Thu, 09/14/2023 - 07:44

Credit: UNICEF

More than half the world’s population is younger than 25. But the enormous quantity of young people does often not translate into qualitative influence about democratic decision-making processes, according to UNICEF. Meanwhile, a new poll commissioned by the Open Society Foundations finds that young people around the world hold the least faith in democracy of any age group, presenting a grave threat to its future. The Open Society Barometer is one of the largest ever studies of global public opinion on human rights and democracy across 30 countries—painting a picture of the attitudes, concerns, and hopes of over 5.5 billion people worldwide.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 14 2023 (IPS)

The recent epidemic of coups in Africa — including military take-overs in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon– have triggered the inevitable question: Is multi-party democracy on the retreat?

The Open Society Barometer, an annual global survey from Open Society Foundations, launched September 12, reflects the positive and negative aspects of the state democracy worldwide.

The survey finds that young people around the world (Generation Z and millennials) “hold the least faith in democracy of any age group, presenting a grave threat to its future”.

Over a third (35%) of respondents in the 18-35 age group were supportive of a strong leader who does away with parliament and elections.

A large minority of young people surveyed (42%) feel that military rule is a good way of running a country. A similar number (35%) feel that having a strong leader who does not bother with elections or consulting parliament/congress is a good way of running a country.

This compares to 20% that support military rule and 26% that are in favor of a strong leader in the 56 plus age bracket.

Still, the report, The Open Society Barometer: Can Democracy Deliver? finds that the concept of democracy remains widely popular across every region of the globe, with 86% saying that they would prefer to live in a democratic state.

There is also widespread disbelief that authoritarian states can deliver more effectively than democracies on priorities both nationally and in global forums.

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/focus/open-society-barometer

Commenting on the findings, Mark Malloch-Brown, president of the Open Society Foundations, said: “Our findings are both sobering and alarming. People around the world still want to believe in democracy. But generation-by-generation, that faith is fading as doubts grow about its ability to deliver concrete improvements to their lives. That has to change.”

Asked for his reaction, Andreas Bummel, Executive Director of Democracy Without Borders, told IPS: “It is good news that a huge majority of people say they consider it important to live in a democracy”.

At the same time, much less say they believe democracy is preferable to any other kind of government. This is a contradiction that requires more analysis, he pointed out.

“It is a warning that young people appear to be less convinced of democratic government. It must be understood better why this is the case.”

The state of civic education and better ways for political participation may be among the issues to be looked at. In general terms, it is clear that democratic governments need to perform better, Bummel declared.

The survey was described as one of the largest global opinion surveys on the status of democracy and human rights, reflecting the views of over 5.5 billion people.

Comprising public opinion data from 30 countries – including the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, China, Brazil, Japan, Turkey, Russia, South Africa, and India – the survey paints a surprising picture of the generational shift of young people lacking faith in democracy to deliver on their priorities.

The survey also finds that:

• Just 57% of young people (aged 18 to 36) believe democracy is preferable to any form of government, compared to 71% of older respondents; while 42% of young people are supportive of military rule, compared to 20% of older respondents (aged 56 plus).

• Overwhelming majorities support human rights, with an average of 72% of respondents identifying them as a “force for good in the world.” Yet, a significant minority (42%) believe that they are used by Western countries to punish developing countries.

• 70% of respondents around the world are anxious that climate change will have a negative impact on them and their livelihoods in the next year.

The findings also include:

• People support democracy.

• As people feel the weight of multiple crises, over half (53%) of respondents think their country is headed in the wrong direction. Young people aged 18 to 35 are the most skeptical of democracy, with just 57% deeming it preferable to other types of government.

• Majorities in 21 of the countries polled fear that political unrest could lead to violence in the next year. Fear was highest in South Africa and Kenya (79%), Colombia (77%), Nigeria (75%), Senegal (74%), and Argentina and Pakistan (both 73%). Large majorities in some high-income countries also share this worry, including two-thirds of respondents in the United States and France. Forty-two percent of respondents believe the laws of their country do not keep people like them safe. This was particularly felt in Latin America, with significant majorities in every country: Brazil (74%), Argentina (73%), Colombia (65%), and Mexico (60%).

• Half of respondents (49%) say they have struggled to feed themselves at least once in the last year—a number that holds in states as dissimilar as Bangladesh and the United States—both with 52% of respondents. Especially large majorities in Sri Lanka (85%), Turkey and Kenya (both 73%) experienced this.

• The climate crisis is a high priority for citizens across low-, middle-, and high-income countries. Climate change was considered the top global issue by 32% of people in India and in Italy, followed by Germany (28%), Egypt (27%), Mexico (27%), France (25%), and Bangladesh (25%). Anxiety that climate change will personally affect respondents and their livelihoods in the next year was felt by 70% of those surveyed, and was markedly high in Bangladesh (90%), Turkey (85%), Ethiopia (83%), Kenya (83%), and India (82%), and lowest in China (45%), Russia (48%), and the UK (54%).

• Across the globe, corruption is considered the chief concern for people at a national level, with an average of 23% saying it is the most important issue facing their country. Countries in Africa and Latin America, such as Ghana (45%), South Africa and Nigeria (both 44%), Colombia (37%), and Mexico (36%) stand in stark contrast with Western Europe. In France and the UK, corruption is viewed as the main concern by just 7% of people; in Germany, just 6%.

• Poverty and inequality rank the highest (21%) among the issues that most directly impact people personally. This holds true in Senegal (the smallest economy surveyed) as well as the United States (the largest). Moreover, a majority (69%) believe that economic inequality between countries is a bigger challenge this year than last. This is most keenly felt in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.

• Migration is highly visible but of low concern. Despite being front and center of political campaigns in many countries, just 7% of respondents said migration was their biggest concern at the global and national level. This suggests the salience of this issue is largely concentrated to political parties, and not among the public at large. The survey found that two-thirds (66%) of respondents want to see more safe and legal routes for migrants.

• A plurality of respondents believe China’s growing influence will be a force for good: nearly twice as many respondents believe this will have a positive impact (45%) on their country as a negative one (25%). However, there is a sharp contrast between the enthusiasm of lower income countries like Pakistan (76%), Ethiopia (72%), and Egypt (71%), and the overwhelming negativity of high-income democracies, where only small minorities register positivity about the rise of China, as is the case in Japan (3%), Germany (14%), Ukraine (15%), and the UK (16%). Somewhere in the middle, a quarter of Americans answered positively, while 48% felt it would be negative.

• People believe that a fairer international system would be more effective. 61% of those surveyed believe low-income countries should have a greater say in global decision-making—though, predictably, lower-income regions were more enthusiastic than Europe and the United States on this front. 75% believe that high-income countries increase their overseas aid, donate more money to the World Bank to support lower income countries (68%), and lead the way in reducing emissions (79%).

IPS UN Bureau Report

Categories: Africa

Gabon: The End of a Dictatorship… and the Beginning of Another?

Wed, 09/13/2023 - 19:17

Credit: AFP via Getty Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Sep 13 2023 (IPS)

On 26 August, Gabon went through the motions of an election. Official results were announced four days later, in the middle of the night, with the country under curfew. Predictably, incumbent President Ali Bongo, in power since the death of his father and predecessor in 2009, was handed a third term. Fraud allegations were rife, as in previous elections. But this time something unprecedented happened: less than an hour later the military had taken over, and the Bongo family’s 56-year reign had ended.

In Gabon, people welcomed the military with open arms, thanking them for liberating them from the authoritarian yoke they’d lived under, most for all their lives. But overturning an oppressive regime isn’t the same as achieving democratic freedom. Studies show that although democracies are occasionally established in the wake of coups, too often it’s new authoritarian regimes that emerge, bringing even higher levels of state-sanctioned violence and human rights abuses.

A predatory autocracy

Omar Bongo gained power in 1967 and kept it for more than 40 years. He only started allowing multi-party competition in 1991, after making sure his ironically named Gabonese Democratic Party would retain its grip through a combination of patronage and repression.

His son and successor retained the dynasty’s power with elections plagued by irregularities in 2009 and 2016. In both instances it was widely believed that Bongo wasn’t the real winner. The constitution was repeatedly amended to allow further terms and electoral rules and timetables were systematically manipulated.

In 2016, blatant fraud sparked violent protests that were even more violently repressed. In 2018, Bongo suffered a stroke that took him out of the public eye for almost a year, fuelling concerns that he might be unfit to rule. But a 2019 attempted military coup failed and was followed by a media crackdown, arrests of opposition politicians and a hardening of the Penal Code to criminalise dissent.

Under the Bongos’ dynastic reign, corruption, nepotism and predatory elite behaviour were rampant. A small country of 2.3 million, Gabon has vast oil reserves, accounting for around 60 per cent of its revenues. In terms of per capita GDP, it’s one of Africa’s richest countries – but a third of its population is poor, a stark contrast with the incalculable ill-gotten wealth of the Bongo family and their inner circle.

Why now and what next?

The coup was presented as a reaction to an undoubtedly fraudulent election. Upon seizing power, the self-appointed ‘Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions’ announced the annulment of the vote and the dissolution of executive, legislative, judicial and electoral institutions.

Bongo was placed under house arrest along with his eldest son and advisor before being released and allowed to leave the country on medical grounds. Several top officials have been arrested on charges of treason, corruption and various illicit activities, and large quantities of cash have been reportedly seized from their homes.

Coup leader General Brice Oligui Nguema is now the head of the supposedly transitional junta in power. He’s assured that the dissolution of institutions is only ‘temporary’ and that these will be made ‘more democratic’. There’ll be elections, he’s said, but not too soon. First a new constitution will have to be drafted, along with a new criminal code and electoral legislation.

But while celebrations broke out in the streets, the international condemnation was swift, starting with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. The African Union suspended Gabon until constitutional order is restored, as did the Economic Community of Central African States.

Condemnation came from the European Union and several of its member states, and the Commonwealth, which Gabon was allowed to join in June 2022 despite not complying with minimum democracy and human rights standards. The president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, expressed concern about the ‘autocratic contagion’ spreading across Africa. Tinubu is currently leading efforts by the Economic Community of West African States to reverse the recent coup in Niger.

Some observers argue that this coup is different from others in Central and West Africa since it wasn’t based on security concerns but rather the absence of democracy, focused on election fraud and the corruption and mismanagement that stopped institutions meeting people’s basic demands. This is the position many in Gabonese civil society are taking, placing them at odds with the international institutions they accuse of having tolerated the Bongos for so long.

But others disagree, even if they’re happy to see the Bongos go. The opposition candidate widely believed to have been the real election winner, Albert Ondo Ossa, expressed his disappointment at what he described as a ‘palace revolution’ and a ‘family affair’. He’d hoped for a recount, which could have placed him at the head of a new, democratic government. What he saw instead was a transitional government that could be seen as a continuation of the ousted regime, not least because of the family links between the Bongos and General Nguema, also the happy owner of a fortune of unknown origins. Some of the new government appointments appear to confirm Ossa’s suspicions.

Beyond its composition, there’s the key question of how long this government intends to last. The pomp of Nguema’s inauguration ceremony belies its avowedly temporary tenure.

This is the eighth successful military coup in West and Central Africa over the past four years. Nowhere have the military retreated to the barracks after implementing what were invariably described as ‘corrective’ and ‘temporary’ measures.

On taking over, the military has seized not only political power but also control of the economic wealth that sustained the Bongo kleptocracy. They’re unlikely to let go willingly, and the longer they stay, the harder it will be to unseat them.

The coup government has so far shown a moderate face, but there’s no guarantee this will last. If the people who took to the streets to celebrate the coup ultimately do so again to protest at the lack of real change, repression will surely follow.

The international community must continue to urge the military to commit to a plan for a rapid transition to fully democratic rule. Otherwise, the danger is that the Gabonese people will merely move from one dictatorship to another, and nothing will remain of that fleeting moment when freedom seemed within reach.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

Categories: Africa

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