Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

The renowned journalist and humanitarian will join the UN’s global fund for education in emergencies in raising awareness and advocating for education for the world’s most vulnerable children.

By External Source
NEW YORK, Apr 26 2023 (IPS-Partners)

The acclaimed international journalist Folly Bah Thibault today accepted her appointment as a Global Champion for Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

“Folly Bah Thibault is a visionary journalist and humanitarian. As one of the world’s leading advocates for education, we are delighted to announce her as our new Education Cannot Wait Global Champion. With champions like Folly, we continue to build a global movement to ensure children affected by armed conflict, climate change, forced displacement can access the safety, hope and opportunity that only a quality education can provide,” said Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait.

Through her work for Al Jazeera, France24, Radio France International and Voice of America, Thibault has become one of the most recognized and respected journalists in the world. Her coverage of some of the world’s most pressing events as a journalist for Al Jazeera is shedding light on forgotten crises across the globe. The New African Magazine has named Thibault as one of the ‘Most Influential Africans’ working today.

With more than 20 years of experience as a journalist, Thibault has covered some of the world’s most important news stories, including the Arab Spring and marquee specials for Al Jazeera on the United Nations. She has interviewed heads of state, Nobel Prize winners, artists and influencers the world over.

“It is truly an honour for me to have been selected as an Education Cannot Wait Global Champion. I’ve spent many years advocating and fighting for the welfare and education of children around the world – especially in Africa. I truly believe education is the only way we can build a sustainable and rewarding future for millions of children who would otherwise be left behind. I strongly believe my new role as Education Cannot Wait Global Champion will allow me to continue that work and reach even more children who need and deserve to have access to quality education,” said Thibault.

Thibault was the Master of Ceremonies at the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Financing Conference this February in Geneva, Switzerland, where world leaders came together to announce a ground-breaking US$826 million in support of ECW. Together with its strategic partners, ECW is looking to mobilize more than $1.5 billion for the 2023-2026 strategic period. As an ECW Global Champion, Thibault will advocate for increased funding and support for the 222 million crisis-impacted children and adolescents worldwide who urgently need quality education in our global push to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG4, inclusive, equitable quality education for all.

Born in Conakry, Guinea, Thibault received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Howard University and American University in the United States. After graduating, Thibault hosted a show for Voice of America that sought to reunite families separated by conflict in Sierra Leone and Liberia. It wasn’t long before her passion for telling stories and reporting took her to Paris and Radio France Internationale, where she presented the morning show on the English Channel. She later joined France24 television as an Anchor, before joining Al Jazeera English as a Principal Presenter in 2010 and relocating to Qatar.

When she’s not at Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Thibault is a sought-after moderator and public speaker. In 2019, she launched her foundation – Elle Ira à l’Ecole – which helps young girls in Guinea get an education.

 

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Cocoa farmers in Padre Abad in Ucayali, Peru, benefitted from UNDP support to produce sustainable cocoa. Credit: UNDP

By Alison Kentish
NEW YORK, Apr 26 2023 (IPS)

In 2015, just over 30 cocoa farmers from Padre Abad in Ucayali, a province in the lush and ecologically diverse Peruvian Amazon, formed an alliance to tackle long-standing concerns such as soil quality, access to markets, fair prices for their produce and a growing number of illegal plantations. The result was the Colpa de Loros Cooperative, and from the start, the goal was to produce the finest quality, export-ready cocoa.

Membership would grow to over 500 partners covering 200 hectares of land today.

For almost four years, the cooperative’s small producers worked tirelessly on the transition of the area from traditional but environmentally taxing cocoa harvesting to growing premium cocoa that could meet export demand in the chocolate industry. This was no easy feat, as fine-flavor cocoa production demanded significant investment in technical training for members, initiatives to monitor deforestation, and data systems to ensure cocoa traceability, production, and sales. On the education side, it demanded a change from centuries-long cocoa farming practices to the principles of agroecology.

Then in April 2023, as the farmers worked to meet demanding international certifications, the European Parliament passed a new law introducing rigorous, wide-ranging requirements on commodities such as palm oil, soy, beef, and cocoa. Now the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is researching how it should step up its assistance to producers to meet the new criteria.

New EU Requirements

Colpa de Loros sells 100 percent of its cocoa to a European buyer, the French company Kaoka. When word of the new European regulations hit, the cooperative had already achieved organic production and fair-trade certification. It had also attained ‘fair for life’ certification, a Kaoka-led initiative.

Attaining these credentials meant that members had been working on a blueprint for environmentally friendly agriculture systems. However, for Peru, the world’s third largest cocoa supplier to Europe, the new regulations triggered frenetic action to maintain contracts with buyers and protect the almost 100,000 small producers who depend on cocoa exports to sustain their households.

“The law affects not only Colpa de Loros, but all producers,’ said Ernesto Parra, Manager of Colpa de Loros Cooperative.

“We already have laws which require analysis of pesticides, which makes costs higher. To ensure compliance with this rule, they implement measures like regular audits. Every grain must be free of contamination. There are organizations bigger than Colpa that are experiencing difficulties to respond, and no actions have been taken by the government to support them,” he said.

The European Commission has now also introduced new forest conservation and restoration rules. The Commission said the deforestation regulation would promote EU consumption of deforestation-free supply chain products, encourage international cooperation to tackle forest degradation, reroute finance to aid sustainable land-use practices, and support the collection and availability of quality data on forests and commodity supply chains.

Parra says this commitment to the environment complements the cooperative’s core values.

“The cooperative aligns with this green pact signed by all actors in Europe to not buy chocolate from deforested areas or involving child or forced work. They not only promote the protection of the environment, but reforestation, land protection, recycling programmes, and biogas from cacao liquid. We agree that cocoa can’t come from deforested areas or make new plantations in protected areas.”

While the cooperative is firm in its environmental consciousness, Parra says the investment is needed in educational activities and technical support for rural farmers who are struggling to accept the realities of land degradation and climate change.

“Some of them are still burning forests. Organizations need to convince the base of producers and farmers to change. Not only their partners but all people in the communities. Incentives can help. For example, I can be carbon neutral, but I’m going to have a higher cost, and if the market does not recognize it, if I don’t have an incentive, the standard will be difficult to maintain. Our cooperative gives its own incentives: those who commit to the organic certification receive fertilizer produced by Colpa de Loros to increase production.

“It is a start, but this is not enough. The state or the market needs to offer incentives as well.”

UNDP Support – and Good Growth Partnership Scoping

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been working with the world’s commodity-producing countries to put sustainability at the center of supply chains.

For the past five years, its Good Growth Partnership (GGP), based on the tenets of the Sustainable Development Goals and funded by the Global Environment Facility, has struck a balance between livelihoods and environmental protection—prioritizing people and the planet.

From Brazil to Indonesia, the GGP has embraced an Integrated Approach, working with producers, traders, policymakers, financial institutions, and multinational corporations to build sustainability in soy, beef, and palm oil supply chains.

Peru has so far not been covered by GGP but is being scoped for possible assistance under a next phase of the programme.

In the meantime, the UN agency has been supporting Peru to achieve sustainable commodity production- a target that remains crucial in the face of the new EU regulation.

“The control and monitoring of all production processes had to be doubled, and UNDP is vital here. With its finance, the technical department was strengthened, agricultural technology was incorporated, and members received capacity building in sustainability and food security,” said Parra.

Each member of Colpa de Loros is responsible for 3-4 hectares of land. The GEF-financed Sustainable Productive Landscapes (SPL) in the Peruvian Amazon project, led by the Ministry of Environment with technical assistance from UNDP, has been supporting projects that enhance food production while protecting water and land resources.

“The organization’s cocoa is not conventional cocoa. It is a fine aroma cocoa. So, producers needed equipment for special analysis. Then all information needed to be organized in a digital platform. UNDP helped in these areas,’ he added.

“The GEF-financed SPL project provided US$150,000 to complement the work of the organization with maps, digital platforms, and traceability. As there is no global system of traceability, Colpa is using its own, which is expensive.”

Action Plans

The UN organization, working closely with the Ministry of Agriculture, has also been assisting the Government and industry partners to develop and implement national action plans for the cocoa and coffee sectors. The Peruvian National Plan for Cocoa and Chocolate was unveiled in November 2022. It breaks down divisions between production, demand, and finance issues in agriculture. It also contains clear strategies to increase sustainability based on science, technology, and tradition.

The plan complements the values of UNDP and represents a win for both farmers and the environment.

“It is important to recognize that many Peruvian farmers’ cooperatives and companies, regardless of the EU regulation, are concerned about the potential impacts of their production systems on the environment, and they are increasingly conscious of the impacts that climate change is having on their production systems,” said James Leslie, Technical Advisor Ecosystems and Climate Change at UNDP Peru.

“Now, the concern is the feasibility of complying with the EU regulation and in the timeframe required. This concern is directly related to the fact that the EU markets are important for Peruvian agricultural products, particularly coffee, and cocoa. There is a concern that with the new EU regulation, there can be restricted or more challenging access to the market.”

The UNDP official says meeting stringent sustainable production requirements comes at a hefty cost to owners of small and medium-sized farms.

“There is not necessarily a price premium for their products due to certification,” he said. Incentives are a key factor in GGP’s work in encouraging farmers to adopt sustainable practices.

“It’s important also to recognize that there is a difference within the farmer population. Some farmers are organized and are part of cooperatives. For example, roughly 20 percent of cocoa and coffee farmers are organized in some way, which means that 80 per cent are not. Those unorganized farmers are less likely to be certified, and they are less likely to be accessing stable markets that provide some price guarantee.”

According to the UNDP, Peru ranks 9 in the world’s top ten cocoa producers and tops the world in organic cocoa production. The majority of farmers are small-scale and medium scale. Leslie says many of these farmers are either living in poverty or vulnerable to falling below the poverty line.

“Add to that additional restrictions and costs in order to access markets, and it poses a risk for these farmers—for their wellbeing and livelihoods,” he said.

The Future of Sustainable Agriculture

Looking ahead, Leslie says access to traceability systems is important. The farmers will need to prove that their production has met the EU requirements.

He says the Government will also need to expand technical assistance, increase investment in science and technology, including the purchase of climate change-resistant crop varieties, and ensure that farmers can receive finance aligned with the EU regulation’s sustainability criteria.

Clear land use policies will also be needed to delineate land that is appropriate for agriculture and particular types of crops. Areas that must be regenerated should be clearly marked, along with those that should be conserved, such as watersheds and zones of high biodiversity value.

For Colpa de Loros, Parra says the goal must be to strike a balance between sustainable land use and livelihoods.

“For deforestation, there is a big relation to poverty. The majority of the time a producer cuts down a tree, it’s because of need.”

He says the challenge is to create a supply chain that is sustainable, competitive, and inclusive – a goal that is attainable with adequate support and buy-in from every link in the value chain.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

For the last five years, the United Nations Development Programme has worked with some of the world’s biggest producers of commodities like beef, soy, palm oil, and cocoa to protect livelihoods and the planet.

The World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry delegates at Minamata COP-4, on 23 March, 2022, Bali, Indonesia. Credit: Kiara Worth, IISD/ENB (Earth Negotiation Bulletin)

By Charlie Brown
LOME, Togo, Apr 26 2023 (IPS)

The Minamata Convention on Mercury, a stellar success story to date, has been favorably compared to the prototype success story for a treaty on toxins: the Montreal Protocol. Both had a single focused mission; both gained universal support across the globe; both matched technological innovation with environmental science to discard old polluting methods.

But emerging after hidden negotiations with the mercury lobby is a GEF project with UNEP endorsement which ignores, if not outright defies, the will of the Parties. As COP5 approaches, here is the test case on whether Minamata continues to move our small planet toward an end to anthropogenic mercury—or become mired in corporate capture.

For the past decade, the Parties repeatedly rejected the agenda of the dental mercury lobby—the dentists who still cling to the 19th century tooth-unfriendly pollutant amalgam, despite it being 50% mercury and a health risk to their own dental nurses; and the waste industry, whose obvious self-interest is to keep amalgam going into perpetuity to sell their equipment.

Charlie Brown

The mercury lobby wanted a treaty focused on amalgam waste; the Parties said NO, this treaty is about use, not about waste. The mercury lobby wanted access to implant mercury fillings in all children, especially those in Africa, Asia, and Latin America; the Parties said NO, and adopted the Children’s Amendment at COP 4—which enters into legal force on 28 September 2023.

So, the dental mercury lobby met repeatedly with GEF and UNEP staff in sessions closed to the Parties . . . closed to the Minamata Secretariat . . . closed to the Minamata Bureau . . . closed to the dozens of CSOs who have actively pushed for a treaty to phase out anthropogenic mercury.

Violating their own standards, GEF and UNEP constructed (or allowed without objection) a project that bypasses the Children’s Amendment entirely in favor of trying to redirect the mission of the treaty from use to waste—the very position repeatedly rejected by the Parties since 2013.

Separators do not sell well because they do not and cannot eliminate mercury waste; they only catch the mercury in the dentist office—not the mercury implanted in people—and they require a massive infrastructure to ensure that even that partial waste, from dental offices, is properly disposed of. Only one solution ends mercury waste from amalgam: the switch to mercury-free dentistry.

The #1 beneficiary of this Greenwashing is the world’s only major publicly traded dental products maker expanding sales of amalgam: Southern Dental Industries (SDI) of Melbourne. While its competitors exited or scaled back amalgam—or never made it in the first place—SDI seized their exits as its opportunity to corner the amalgam market.

Just six weeks ago, in a call to its shareholders, SDI’s CEO boasted about its huge increases in amalgam sales, detailed its entry into new markets to sell amalgam, and affirmed her personal goal of ‘maximizing’ amalgam sales! Wriggling into a GEF-UNEP amalgam “reduction” project while increasing amalgam sales, SDI is the sole dental products company in a project partnership role—hence given market access denied to their mercury-free competitors in nations on three continents. Here is a classic case of Corporate Capture!

GEF’s requirement of stakeholder participation at the earliest stage was papered over via a legerdemain: a false claim that the NGOs are participating. Falsely listed as participants are the World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry, Bangladesh-based Environment and Social Development Organization, Germany-based European Network for Environmental Medicine, Philippines-based BAN Toxics, Nepal-based Center for Public Health and Environmental Development, Cameroun-based Centre de Recherche et d’Education pour le Développement, and U.S.-based Consumers for Dental Choice.

Equally troubling, RAP-AL Uruguay, who leads the campaign for mercury-free dentistry for Latin America, is preliminarily assigned to promote separator sales—a goal anathema to its very mission.

UNEP top brass in Nairobi and GEF top brass in Washington need to act:

• First, to determine who on their staffs submitted the plethora of false claims of CSO participation;
• Second, to kill this project, so that the Minamata Convention on Mercury does not become the treaty about corporate capture and greenwashing;
• Third, to use GEF funding to enact the will of the Parties as stated unequivocally in its 2022 Amendment: stop placing mercury fillings, for all time and all regions, in children and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is President, World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry

By External Source
Apr 25 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 

 
New European Union regulations mean only “deforestation-free” products can be sold there. Forests cover 31% of the globe’s land surface, with most of the Earth’s biodiversity, and play an essential role in mitigating climate change.

By External Source
Apr 25 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 
 
The UNDP has assisted cocoa farmers from the Peruvian Amazon to ensure the commodities meet European Parliament regulations. The regulation prohibits the placing of products on the market if their production has led to deforestation.

Rhine River, Cologne,,Germany,10.08.2022. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Apr 25 2023 (IPS)

Apologies to those Western politicians and media who continue to say that Ukraine’s brutal proxy war stands behind whatever catastrophes, disasters or crises occur in the Planet.

Is this accurate?

Scientific evidence confirms that, much earlier than that war, Europe, like many other regions, was already walking closer to the edge of extreme weather consequences.

 

Europe’s worst drought in 500 years?

“The drought episode that affected Europe in 2022 could well be the worst in 500 years,” reports Copernicus, the Earth observation component of the European Union’s Space programme which “looks at our planet and its environment to benefit all European citizens and offers information services.”

The most expensive hazards during the period 1980-2021 include the 2021 flooding in Germany and Belgium (almost EUR 50 billion), the 2002 flood in central Europe (over EUR 22 billion), the 2003 drought and heatwave across the EU (around EUR 16 billion), the 1999 storm Lothar in Western Europe and the 2000 flood in France and Italy (both over EUR 13 billion), all at 2021 values

This European service further explains that the 2022 drought episode “is attributable to a severe and persistent lack of precipitation, combined with a sequence of repeated heat waves that have affected Europe from May to October.”

Put simply, the reported climate extremes in Europe are not the consequence of the Ukraine war, and they were already there many years earlier to when it started in February 2022.

Anyway, European citizens now hear the devastating impacts of climate extremes in their own rich continent, which is one of the major global contributors to the ongoing climate emergency.

 

Are climate emergencies just an impoverished regions’ problem?

So far, the severe impacts of climate extremes in Africa and other impoverished regions, would jump to the news every now and then, by showing short videos of errant human beings and deserts… before analysing in-depth the latest soccer games or reporting on the new friend of a reality-show star. And highway accidents or a fight between young gangs.

Western citizens are also used to hearing that the horrifying numbers of hungry people (more than one billion human beings), in particular in East Africa due to long years of record droughts, is either caused by the war in Ukraine or that their situation was exacerbated by it.

Now European citizens wake up to the upsetting fact that they also fall under the heavy impact of the steadily rising human, economic, and environmental toll of climate change.

 

How come those impacts are now becoming news?

A swift answer is that such climate extremes, heat waves, severe droughts, water and food production shortages have been causing increasing damage to private businesses, as well as to medium-to-small-size agriculture activities. In short, damaging their pockets.

See what the very same European Union officially says at the macro level:

– Weather- and climate-related hazards, such as temperature extremes, heavy precipitation and droughts, pose risks to human health and the environment and can lead to substantial economic losses.

— Between 1980 and 2021, weather- and climate-related extremes amounted to an estimated EUR 560 billion (2021 values).

– Hydrological events (floods) account for over 45% and meteorological events (storms including lightning and hail, together with mass movements) for almost one-third of the total.

– When it comes to climatological events, heat waves are responsible for over 13% of the total losses while the remaining +/-8% are caused by droughts, forest fires and cold waves.

– The most expensive hazards during the period 1980-2021 include the 2021 flooding in Germany and Belgium (almost EUR 50 billion), the 2002 flood in central Europe (over EUR 22 billion), the 2003 drought and heatwave across the EU (around EUR 16 billion), the 1999 storm Lothar in Western Europe and the 2000 flood in France and Italy (both over EUR 13 billion), all at 2021 values.

– A relatively small number of events is responsible for a large proportion of the economic losses: 5% of the weather- and climate-related events with the biggest losses is responsible for 57% of losses and 1% of the events cause 26% of losses (EEA’s own calculations based on the original dataset).

– This results in high variability from year to year and makes it difficult to identify trends. Nevertheless, the average annual (constant prices, 2021 euros) losses were around EUR 9.7 billion in 1981-1990, 11.2 billion in 1991-2000, 13.5 billion in 2001-2010 and 15.3 billion in 2011-2020.

– The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that climate-related extreme events will become more frequent and severe worldwide. This could affect multiple sectors and cause systemic failures across Europe, leading to greater economic losses.

– Only 30% of the total losses were insured, although this varied considerably among countries, from less than 2% in Hungary, Lithuania and Romania to over 75% in Slovenia and the Netherlands.

 

Also at the medium-to-micro level

Most medium-to-small agricultural cooperatives, unions and associations in those European countries more stricken by droughts, have been rising their public protests, demanding their governments to compensate them for the big losses of their harvests.

In the specific case of Spain, farmers’ unions and agri-food cooperatives report crop losses of up to two-thirds of the expected harvest.

 

Back to Copernicus

The “historical drought” affected Europe as evidenced by the Combined Drought Indicator of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service European Drought Observatory for the first ten-day period of September 2022.

On this, Copernicus reports the following findings:

– Heatwaves: 2022 was also characterised by intense, and in some areas prolonged, heatwaves which affected Europe and the rest of the world, breaking several surface air temperature records.

– As reported in the July 2022 Climate Bulletin published by the Copernicus Climate Change Service July 2022 was the sixth warmest July in Europe.

– Temperature anomalies reached peaks of +4ºC in Italy, France, and Spain.

 

According to the European Union’s Copernicus:

– The prolonged drought that has affected various parts of the globe together with the record temperatures were contributing forces that have certainly caused an increased wildfire risk, which peaked during the summer season both in Europe, in the Mediterranean region, and in the north-west of the United States.

– The Combined Drought Indicator (which is published by the European Drought Observatory as part of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service) reported that more than one-fourth of the EU territory was in “Alert” conditions in early September.

– Another extreme phenomenon of 2022 was the marine heatwave that affected the Mediterranean Sea in the summer of 2022.

European countries are highly dependent on the Mediterranean Sea for shipping goods, including oil tankers; tourism (one country – Spain receives more than 80 million tourists a year, double its total population); industrial fishing; refineries; harbours, and a long etcetera.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (L) on the set of Ms Marvel, directing actor Mehwish Hayat (R). Credit: Disney/Lucasfilm

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Apr 25 2023 (IPS)

The announcement by Lucas film’s president, Kathleen Kennedy, about the upcoming three new live-action Star Wars films was enough for lawyer Maliha Zia to get euphoric.

But there is another reason for the excitement for many Pakistani Star Wars movie buffs like her. Among the three top-notch directors that Kennedy said her company would be helming the three films is Pakistan’s Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.

“This is beyond phenomenal,” said an excited Zia, associate director at the Karachi-based Legal Aid Society, who, by her own unabashed admission, is a life-long Star Wars fan, watching the films since she was four.

Now a mother of three, she religiously watches the original three every year, coercing her 8-year-old to watch with her. “I never imagined that someone from Pakistan would ever get the chance to direct a film from this iconic series,” she added.

What is even more exciting for the lawyer is that she had not even in her wildest of dreams imagined she would actually know someone who would be directing them. “Something so iconic [as Star Wars films] seemed so far away, untouchable and amazing; it’s unbelievable that it seems so much closer now!” She and Chinoy have collaborated for a long time on an animated series on women’s right to property.

The Disney-owned studio may have selected “the best and most passionate filmmakers” in the three directors, including Dave Filoni and James Mangold, but with Chinoy overseeing the final new movie, there will be many firsts.

“She is the only Pakistani, the only South Asian, the only woman, and also the only woman of colour to be helming a Star Wars movie,” said Omair Alavi, a showbiz critic, and a huge Star Wars fan, excited by the news of the three films. Although for him, “the fabulous episodes of The Mandalorian” on the TV screen kept him well appeased during this interim period.

This year’s USC Annenberg (it examines specific demographics  — gender, race/ethnicity of directors across the 100 top domestic fictional films in North America) study, titled Inclusion in the Director’s Chair, looked at the gender, race and ethnicity of directors across 1600 top films from 2007 to 2022, found a mere 5.6 percent were women, and the ratio of men to women directors across 16 years 11 to 1. In 2022, it was 9 percent — down from 12.7 percent in 2021.

“Hollywood’s image of a woman director is white,” said the study and pointed out that the “think director, think male” phenomenon disregarding the “competence and experience of women and people of color” should be done away with. In addition, instituting checks in the evaluation process of potential directors was also critical.

In a way hiring Chinoy may open the doors for the unrepresented.

She is also the only among the trio to have won two Oscars (for her documentaries denouncing violence against women). In addition, Chinoy has seven Emmys under her belt, aside from being honoured Hilal-i-Imtiaz, Pakistan’s second-highest civilian award.

“So so proud of you, my friend. May the force be with you!” global actor Priyanka Chopra congratulated Chinoy on her Instagram Stories.

Although she is a seasoned documentary filmmaker, having directed and produced the first ever Pakistani 3D computer-animated adventure film Teen Bahadur in 2015 and directing two episodes of the 2022 TV series Ms Marvel, this will be Chinoy’s first stint in Hollywood. Will she be able to handle the big project?

“Sharmeen has a knack of doing things that other people only dream of,” said her former employee, Hussain Qaizar Yunus, a film editor, who, although awestruck, was “unsurprised” to learn of Chinoy’s being selected to direct the Hollywood movie.

And with the last few films not very well received, he said, “A fresh perspective from someone like Sharmeen is exactly what the franchise needs right now.”

Nevertheless, she was an “unusual choice” to be directing a Star Wars film. But her documentary background could work to her advantage, he said. “Her experience of telling real stories of real people would perhaps ground the story with a sense of realism to what is otherwise an epic space opera,” he added and hoped Chinoy would bring South Asian representation to Star Wars, both in front of and behind the camera, “the same way that she did with Ms Marvel”.

English actress Daisy Ridley (L), Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy (middle), and filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (R) at Star Wars Celebration in London on April 7, 2023. Credit: Disney/Lucasfilm

Chatting with IPS over WhatsApp, Chinoy said: “As a filmmaker who has championed heroes throughout her career, I think that Star Wars fits in with that mission of a hero’s journey of overcoming against all odds.”

“The story I will be bringing into the world is about the rebuilding of the new Jedi Order, the new Jedi academy,” said the newly appointed director, who seems to be a Star Wars fan, having named her dog Chewbacca (after the fictional character in the Star Wars). Set 15 years after the end of the last movie (2019), British actor Daisy Ridley will return to her role of Rey, the heroine of the last trilogy, as she fights to revive the Jedi order.

“She’ll be able to pull it off; she knows her job!” said Alvi confidently.

Kennedy also revealed that these films will take place across vast timelines from the very early days of the Jedi to a future beyond Rise of Skywalker. “Hopefully, this new series will attract both the older and the newer generation; my generation, who watched it as kids, can watch it with their kids or grandparents can take their grandchildren; it will be worth the wait,” anticipated journalist Muna Khan, who watched the first film as a kid back in the late 70s and the memory of which is “seared in my mind”. These films are not just for folks who watched it then; they’re “timeless, and each new instalment adds to the timelessness” she pointed out. The first of the three films are slated for release in 2025.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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In Cuba, UNDP has supported the government in integrating ecosystem-based adaptation in coastal planning. Credit: UNDP Cuba

By Srilata Kammila
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 25 2023 (IPS)

Several years ago, on a visit to a village in rural Zimbabwe, I met a small group of women with a story to share.

Having participated in a UNDP-supported adaptation project – including drought-resistant seeds and education in climate-smart agricultural practices – the women had significantly increased the productiveness of their home gardens.

However, what really caught my attention was how the women, seeing an opportunity to help one another and scale up their returns, had set up a peer group to pool their savings and invest on a revolving basis in each other’s other livelihood ventures (some agricultural, some not).

In this way, they had essentially created an enterprising model to build on and sustain the investments of the project. Local innovations such as this are key to meeting the challenges of the climate crisis.

The innovations we need span technologies, practices, business models and behavioural changes. These innovations are to be found at all levels, from national research institutions in the world’s biggest cities to small villages, like the one I visited in Zimbabwe.

At UNDP, we are focused on scaling up and accelerating innovative adaptation approaches that have been proven to be effective. Many of the 220 projects we have implemented around the world since 2008 have broken, and are breaking, ground in numerous ways.

In Thailand, for instance, UNDP is supporting the government in transforming agricultural practices by harnessing the power of the Internet of Things. In Mongolia, we are collaborating with herders to track livestock products from source to end to ensure sustainability. In Cuba, we have supported the government in integrating ecosystem-based adaptation with inter-sector coastal planning.

Supported by the Adaptation Fund and European Union, and in partnership with the UN Environment Programme and the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN), the Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator (AFCIA) aims to foster more innovation at the local level.

The AFCIA funding window, managed by UNDP, was launched in 2021 and supports communities that are already responding to climate stresses in innovative ways.

Through the learnings from AFCIA, we aim to share lessons learned and best practices through an open platform called the Adaptation Innovation Marketplace, in which the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), Global Resilience Partnership, Climate-KIC, UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), and Least Developed Countries Universities Consortium on Climate Change (LUCCC) are also founding members and key partners.

At UNDP, we are focused on scaling up and accelerating innovative adaptation approaches that have been proven to be effective.

With the first round of US$2.2 million grant funding, the programme is supporting 22 organizations in 19 countries to foster and accelerate their adaptation ideas.

The programme aims to develop more than 10 scalable innovative adaptation solutions, benefiting more than 175,000 people (at least 30 percent women), and supporting 2,200 hectares of land with restoration or regenerative agriculture.

Based on the progress reports from local partners, we are already seeing some impressive and scalable adaptation innovations.

For example, in Brazil, we are supporting a local partner to improve food security and protect the local ecosystem for indigenous people by introducing and expanding the production of acai berries. 115 hectares of land are now certified under sustainable agroforestry management, with 27 tonnes of acai berries processed and sold.

In Cambodia, 40 women are growing and selling crickets as an alternative food source, earning $2,600 for the first tonne of cricket farmed, a more adaptive product due to existing and future climate trends and one with year-round availability.

In Uganda, we are supporting a local partner that is teaching communities aquaponics technology through an innovative lease-to-own model to promote aquaponics and horticulture-related production. 2,600 aquaponic kits have been leased, and this local partner is now targeting an expansion plan of reaching $21 million of the local vegetable and fish market.

A second cohort of grantees is about to be announced, and we hope to provide another $2.5 million to local organizations across the globe, including approximately 10 micro grants of $60,000 and 13 small grants of $125,000.

Working with partners such as ICCCAD and the Global Resilience Partnership has allowed us to showcase the work of these AFCIA grantees and replicate their innovations in a broader network of networks.

For instance, at last month’s Global Gobeshona Conference, we had the opportunity to learn from four local organizations – from the first cohort of grantees from the Innovation Small Grant Aggregator Platform (ISGAP) Programme – that are implementing solutions to build the resilience of women, youth, refugees and Indigenous communities in India, the Philippines, Uganda and in the Sahel (West Africa).

These examples are instructive. By identifying successful innovation solutions, and then scaling up and replicating them in other parts of a country or region, governments can save valuable time and money.

By establishing or accelerating pilot projects and carefully monitoring their results, insights and best practices can be fed into policy processes, helping to scale up successful approaches.

Working together with partners, I am confident we will empower local communities and stakeholders to innovate and adapt, finding more solutions for resilience building.

We look forward to working with our current partners, and new ones, to scale the impact.

Srilata Kammila is Head of Climate Change Adaptation, UNDP

Source: UN Development Programme (UNDP)

IPS UN Bureau

 

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By External Source
Apr 24 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 

 
Colombia’s government is expanding its educational response to the Venezuelan regional crisis, and its efforts are supported by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), which announced USD 12 million grant. However, the need is great, and ECW estimates financial support of USD 46.4 million is needed for the multi-year resilience response.

ECW High-Level Mission to Colombia ECW Executive Director Yasmine Sherif meets a young female student at the ECW-supported learning facility ‘Eustorgio Colmenares Baptista’, in Cúcuta, Colombia. Disability and inclusion are at the forefront of ECW-supported learning activities. Credit: ECW

By Joyce Chimbi
NEW YORK & NAIROBI, Apr 24 2023 (IPS)

The largest external displacement crisis in Latin America’s recent history is unfolding as countries open their borders to an influx of refugees from Venezuela following unprecedented political turmoil, socio-economic instability, and a humanitarian crisis.

“Venezuela’s ongoing regional crisis is such that more than 6.1 million refugees and migrants have fled the country, triggering the second largest refugee crisis today. Colombia alone is host to 2.5 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants in need of international protection,” Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), tells IPS.

Sherif applauds Colombia for opening its borders despite ongoing challenges within its borders. For, 2.5 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela are in addition to Colombia’s own 5.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs).

“The Government of Colombia has taken remarkable measures in providing refugees and migrants from Venezuela with access to life-saving essential services like education. By supporting these efforts across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, we are creating the foundation to build a more peaceful and more prosperous future not only for the people of Colombia but also for the refugees and migrants from Venezuela above all,” she emphasizes.

An influx of refugees and IDPs has heightened the risk of children and adolescents falling out of the education system. As life as they knew it crumbles and uncertainty looms, access to safe, quality, and inclusive education is their only hope.

Girls, children with disability, and those from indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples are highly vulnerable as they are often left behind, forgotten as a life of missed learning and earning opportunities beckons.

ECW High-Level Mission Delegation, led by Executive Director Yasmine Sherif, and in-country partners, Fundación Plan, Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children, UNICEF, World Vision at the ECW-supported learning facility ‘Eustorgio Colmenares Baptista’ in Cúcuta, Colombia.
Credit: ECW

To avert an education disaster, as many children risk falling off the already fragile education system, ECW intends to continue expanding its investments in Colombia. To deliver the promise of holistic education and give vulnerable children a fighting chance.

ECW has invested close to USD 16.4 million in Colombia since 2019. The fund intends to extend its support with an additional USD 12 million for the next three-year phase of its Multi-Year Resilience Programme, which, once approved, will bring the overall investment in Colombia to over USD 28 million.

The new Multi-Year Resilience Programme will be developed during 2023 – in close consultation with partners and under the leadership of the Government of Colombia – and submitted to ECW’s Executive Committee for final approval in due course.

Sherif, who announced the renewed support during her recent one-week visit to Colombia, stresses that ECW works closely with the Ministry of Education and other line ministries in Colombia to support the government’s efforts to respond to the interconnected crises of conflict, forced displacement, and climate change and still provide quality education.

This collaboration is critical. Despite the government’s commendable efforts to extend temporary protection status to Venezuelans in Colombia, children continue to miss out on their human right to quality education.

In 2021 alone, the dropout rate for Colombian children was already 3.62 percent (3.2 percent for girls and 4.2 percent for boys). The figure nearly doubles for Venezuelans to 6.4 percent, and reaches 17 percent for internally displaced children.

“But even when children are able to attend school, the majority are falling behind. Recent analysis shows that close to 70 percent of ten-year-olds cannot read or understand a simple text, up from 50 percent before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools across Colombia,” Sherif observes.

Against this backdrop, she speaks of the urgent need to provide the girls and boys impacted by the interconnected crises of conflict, displacement, climate change, poverty, and instability with the safety, hope, and opportunity of quality education.

ECW’s extended programme will advance Colombia’s support for children and adolescents from Venezuela, internally displaced children, and host-communities, as well as indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities impacted by these ongoing crises.

“ECW’s investment closely aligns with the Government of Colombia’s strategy on inclusion and will strengthen the education system at the national level and in regions most affected by forced displacement. The programme will also have a strong focus on girls’ education so that no one is left behind,” she says.

A young girl does arts and crafts at the ECW-supported Yukpa indigenous school of the Manüracha community in Cúcuta, Colombia. Credit: ECW

As of November 2022, over half a million Venezuelan children and adolescents have been enrolled in Colombia’s formal education system. ECW investments have reached 107,000 children in the country to date.

“Financing is critical to ensure that no child is left behind. But funds are currently not enough to match the challenges on the ground and the growing needs. An estimated USD 46.4 million is required to fully fund the current multi-year resilience response in Colombia,” Sherif explains.

 ECW’s Multi-year Resilience Programme in Colombia is delivered by UNICEF and a Save the Children-led NGO consortium, including the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), World Vision, and Plan International.

ECW investments in Colombia provide access to safe and protective formal and non-formal learning environments, mental health and psychosocial support services, and specialized services to support the transition into the national education system for children at risk of being left behind. A variety of actions to strengthen local and national education authorities’ capacities to support education from early childhood education through secondary school.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Young girls chat while sitting under a mosquito net in Bienythiang, South Sudan. Credit: UNICEF/Mark Naftalin
 
World Malaria Day, April 25, is an occasion to highlight the need for continued investment and sustained political commitment for malaria prevention and control. It was instituted by WHO Member States during the World Health Assembly of 2007.

By Arthur Ng'etich Kipkemoi Saitabau
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 24 2023 (IPS)

For centuries, malaria has remained one of the deadliest diseases, inflicting great suffering on families and perpetuating the cycle of poverty in many communities and nations. The African region currently accounts for 95% of malaria cases and 96% of malaria deaths globally, with women and girls disproportionately affected by the disease.

Women are at higher risk of malaria due to biological, social, economic, and gender factors. They have limited access to healthcare, less decision-making power and control over household resources, which increases their susceptibility.

Gender-based economic disparities further worsen the situation by limiting women’s access to malaria prevention and treatment.

While significant progress has been made in the past decades in combatting malaria through the development of life-saving treatment regimens and the implementation of cutting-edge technologies to accelerate the discovery and development of new malaria vaccines, deaths due to malaria remain high.

In 2021 alone, an estimated 619,000 deaths were caused by malaria, highlighting the need for continued efforts to combat this disease.

In addition, COVID-related disruptions in the delivery of malaria curative and preventive services during the two peak years of the pandemic (2020-2021), led to approximately 13 million more cases of malaria and an additional 63,000 deaths caused by the disease compared to the pre-COVID-19 year of 2019.

To date, malaria cases and deaths have primarily been reduced through disease-focused approaches that tend to be reactive rather than proactive often initiated in response to malaria outbreaks.

This narrow focus on treating individual cases of malaria overlooks broader social, economic, environmental risk factors including gender-based inequalities.

As Member States work towards ambitious goals set during the 2015 World Health Assembly of reducing the global malaria burden by 90% by 2030, efforts need to prioritise the underlying factors that drive transmission through a multifaceted approach, particularly recognising the social determinants like gender inequalities.

The concept of people-centred health care is based on fundamental principles that prioritize human rights, dignity, participation, equity, and partnerships.

This approach aims to create a health care system where individuals, families, and communities receive humane and holistic care, while also having the opportunity to actively engage with the health care system.

As we work towards leaving no one behind and achieving the last mile, developing and adopting more people-centred approaches, that address gender and intersectionality concerns through an analysis of power dynamics, will be critical to make significant strides towards eradicating malaria for good.

This can involve engaging with communities and stakeholders to identify their needs and develop evidence-based malaria control strategies that promote equity and inclusion.

Additionally, promoting participation of marginalized groups in decision-making and ensuring malaria interventions respect human rights and promote social justice.

Not only will this help advance Sustainable Development Goals towards gender equality but importantly will also contribute to decolonising global health and empowering communities that remain most impacted by the disease.

Unpacking the Gendered Dimensions

A people-centred approach to malaria prevention aims to prioritize the well-being of individuals and communities by establishing reliable health systems. However, power dynamics must be taken into account to prevent the perpetuation of power imbalances, hierarchies, and inequalities.

This means engaging with communities and other stakeholders to identify their needs and priorities and working together to develop evidence-based malaria control strategies.

The Community Directed Intervention (CDI) approach exemplifies the importance of extensive community engagement to identify local needs and priorities for malaria control. This includes community meetings, involving leaders and women groups, and conducting surveys on malaria burden and risk factors.

Developing evidence-based strategies through community engagement results in increased community ownership and participation, leading to higher uptake of interventions and reducing malaria transmission.

Addressing the power dynamics associated with malaria prevention requires acknowledging and tackling gendered dimensions linked with malaria prevention.

Women in some communities may lack access to education, employment, and decision-making power, which can limit their ability to protect themselves from malaria.

Additionally, cultural beliefs and practices may contribute to the unequal distribution of resources for malaria prevention and control, with men accessing more resources than women.

This underscores the importance of addressing gender roles in malaria control initiatives and empowering women to take an active role in protecting themselves and their families.

Intersectionality also has important implications for malaria control as gender intersects with other social categories to create specific vulnerabilities and challenges. For instance, women from lowest income groups are least likely to get access to healthcare.

To address these challenges, it is important for more malaria control programs to conduct systematic social and gender analysis, hearing from those affected, to better understand the subtle nuances of gendered and intersectional dimensions of power both within households and communities.

This approach can then help to identify the specific barriers and opportunities for women’s participation in malaria control initiatives. By unpacking the gendered dimensions in communities, public health officials can design targeted interventions that promote women’s empowerment, address gender inequalities, and increase women’s involvement in malaria control programs.

Confronting not Reinforcing Power Dynamics

A people-centred approach to malaria control can empower individuals by providing education and training on malaria prevention and control. It can emphasize inclusivity and centre the experiences and knowledge of those who have been historically excluded or marginalized due to factors such as racism, sexism, classism, and other systems of power.

To avoid reinforcing power dynamics in malaria control, it is crucial to involve and empower marginalized groups in decision-making. This involves consulting communities to identify their needs and priorities, promoting participation of women and marginalized groups, and designing interventions that promote equity and inclusion.

The foundation for improving community dialogue and community-led actions towards malaria elimination has been established over the years.

A case in point is the successful elimination of malaria in Cambodia’s last mile, which relied on communities in high-risk areas agreeing to increased testing, regular fever screening, and in some cases, taking preventive antimalarial medication.

A people-centred approach recognizes the significance of communities in designing and implementing malaria control programs, considering their unique social, cultural, and environmental contexts that can impact malaria transmission and control.

One illustration is the use of local languages and cultural practices to build trust and improve communication on malaria prevention and control measures through empowerment of community health workers who understand and can tailor interventions to their specific contexts.

On the other hand, a people-centred approach, which does not consider power dynamics, can unintentionally reinforce social hierarchies and exclude vulnerable populations from accessing preventative and curative treatment for malaria.

For instance, a malaria control program that only involves male community leaders and village chiefs in decision-making when distributing bed nets reinforces patriarchal power and favour wealthier households, while excluding marginalized groups such as women and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

In conclusion, achieving malaria elimination through people-centred approaches requires a holistic approach that actively considers issues of gender, intersectionality, and balance of power. It is crucial to ensure that these approaches do not perpetuate existing inequalities, but instead centre the experiences and knowledge of marginalized groups.

By acknowledging and addressing the ways in which different forms of oppression intersect and compound to create experiences of marginalization and exclusion, we can make meaningful strides towards malaria elimination.

To achieve this, sustaining a commitment to inclusivity, equity, and social justice is imperative in all efforts aimed at eradicating malaria and improving the health and well-being of communities affected by this disease.

This includes actively involving marginalized groups in decision-making processes, addressing social determinants of health, tailoring interventions to specific cultural and contextual factors, and promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.

By taking a proactive and inclusive approach, we can ensure that malaria control efforts are effective, equitable, and sustainable, leading to more just and healthier communities.

Arthur Ng’etich Kipkemoi Saitabau is Post-Doctoral Fellow of the United Nations University – International Institute for Global Health.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Credit: Shutterstock

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 24 2023 (IPS)

The United Nations has warned that the February 2022 Rusian invasion of Ukraine has threatened to force up to 1.7 billion people — over one-fifth of humanity — into poverty, destitution and hunger.

Long before the war, Ukraine and Russia provided about 30 per cent of the world’s wheat and barley, one-fifth of its maize, and over half of its sunflower oil. But the ongoing 14th-month-old war has undermined– and cut-off– most of these supplies.

Together, the UN pointed out, their grain was an essential food source for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people, providing more than one-third of the wheat imported by 45 African and least-developed countries (LDCs), described as “the poorest of the world’s poor”.

At the same time, Russia was the world’s top natural gas exporter, and second-largest oil exporter.

The negative fall-out from the war, and the rise in arms spending, are a blessing in disguise for US and Western arms suppliers. The US administration alone has provided an estimated 113 billion dollars in weapons, economic and humanitarian aid and security assistance to Ukraine—and with no end in sight.

As a result of the war, world military expenditures reached a new record high, according to a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The study, released April 24, says total global military expenditure grew for the eighth consecutive year in 2022. And an increase of 3.7 per cent in real terms last year resulted in a new high of $2.24 trillion.

By far the sharpest rise in spending (+13 per cent) was seen in Europe and was largely accounted for by Russian and Ukrainian spending. However, military aid to Ukraine and concerns about a heightened threat from Russia strongly influenced many other states’ spending decisions, as did tensions in East Asia.

Military expenditure in Europe, a new battleground since World War II, is the steepest year-on-year increase in at least 30 years.

The three largest spenders in 2022—the United States, China and Russia—accounted for 56 per cent of the world total.

All three, along with Britain and France, are veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council who are expected to abide by one of the core principles in the UN charter: maintaining international peace and security.

The United States remains by far the world’s biggest military spender. US military spending reached $877 billion in 2022, which was 39 per cent of total global military spending and three times more than the amount spent by China, the world’s second largest spender.

The 0.7 per cent real-term increase in US spending in 2022 would have been even greater had it not been for the highest levels of inflation since 1981, according to the SIPRI study.

Dr Nan Tian, Senior Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme, said “the continuous rise in global military expenditure in recent years is a sign that we are living in an increasingly insecure world.’

She said States are bolstering military strength in response to a deteriorating security environment, which they do not foresee improving in the near future.

Ukraine’s military spending reached $44.0 billion in 2022. At 640 per cent, this was the highest single-year increase in a country’s military expenditure ever recorded in SIPRI data.

As a result of the increase and the war-related damage to Ukraine’s economy, the military burden (military spending as a share of GDP) shot up to 34 per cent of GDP in 2022, from 3.2 per cent in 2021, according to the SIPRI study.

“The invasion of Ukraine had an immediate impact on military spending decisions in Central and Western Europe. This included multi-year plans to boost spending from several governments,” said Dr Diego Lopes da Silva, Senior Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.

“As a result, we can reasonably expect military expenditure in Central and Western Europe to keep rising in the years ahead,” he said.

Some of the sharpest increases were seen in Finland (+36 per cent), Lithuania (+27 per cent), Sweden (+12 per cent) and Poland (+11 per cent).

‘While the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 certainly affected military spending decisions in 2022, concerns about Russian aggression have been building for much longer,’ said Lorenzo Scarazzato, Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.

‘Many former Eastern bloc states have more than doubled their military spending since 2014, the year when Russia annexed Crimea,’ while Russia and Ukraine have raised military spending as war rages on.

Russian military spending grew by an estimated 9.2 per cent in 2022, to around $86.4 billion. This was equivalent to 4.1 per cent of Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022, up from 3.7 per cent of GDP in 2021.

Figures released by Russia in late 2022 show that spending on national defence, the largest component of Russian military expenditure, was already 34 per cent higher, in nominal terms, than in budgetary plans drawn up in 2021.

‘The difference between Russia’s budgetary plans and its actual military spending in 2022 suggests the invasion of Ukraine has cost Russia far more than it anticipated,’ said Lucie Béraud-Sudreau, Director of SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.

Ukraine’s military spending reached $44.0 billion in 2022. At 640 per cent, this was the highest single-year increase in a country’s military expenditure ever recorded in SIPRI data.

As a result of the increase and the war-related damage to Ukraine’s economy, the military burden (military spending as a share of GDP) shot up to 34 per cent of GDP in 2022, from 3.2 per cent in 2021.

Other notable developments, according to SIPRI included:

** The real-terms increase in world military spending in 2022 was slowed by the effects of inflation, which in many countries soared to levels not seen for decades. In nominal terms (i.e. in current prices without adjusting for inflation), the global total increased by 6.5 per cent.

** India’s military spending of $81.4 billion was the fourth highest in the world. It was 6.0 per cent more than in 2021.

** In 2022, military spending by Saudi Arabia, the fifth biggest military spender, rose by 16 per cent to reach an estimated $75.0 billion, its first increase since 2018.

** Nigeria’s military spending fell by 38 per cent to $3.1 billion, after a 56 per cent increase in spending in 2021.

** Military spending by NATO members totalled $1232 billion in 2022, which was 0.9 per cent higher than in 2021.

** The United Kingdom had the highest military spending in Central and Western Europe at $68.5 billion, of which an estimated $2.5 billion (3.6 per cent) was financial military aid to Ukraine.

** In 2022, Türkiye’s military spending fell for the third year in a row, reaching $10.6 billion—a decrease of 26 per cent from 2021.

** Ethiopia’s military spending rose by 88 per cent in 2022, to reach $1.0 billion. The increase coincided with a renewed government offensive against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in the north of the country.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Apr 21 2023 (IPS)

The current fighting in Sudan marks the failure of supposed processes for transition to democratic rule. The international community needs to learn the lessons of this catastrophe and work with civil society.

Democracy betrayed

On one side is the army, headed by Sudan’s current leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. On the other are the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti. Both sides blame the other and say they will refuse to negotiate.

The two worked together in the October 2021 coup that overthrew a transitional government, put in place in August 2019 after long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir was ousted following a popular uprising. They were never committed to democracy. Military forces initially tried to suppress democracy protests with lethal violence. The grimmest day came on 3 June 2019, when the RSF ended a sit-in with indiscriminate gunfire, killing over 100 people. There has been no accountability for the violence.

The October 2021 military coup, which brought mass protests and civil disobedience, was followed by a short-lived and palpably insincere attempt at a civilian-military power-sharing deal that only lasted from November 2021 to January 2022. Protests, and military violence against them, continued. December 2022 saw the signing of a deal between the military and some civilian groups.

This deal was supposed to kickstart a two-year transition to democracy. Some pro-democracy groups and political parties rejected the plan, but the international community urged all sides to get behind it.

The army was already seeking to backtrack on its commitments before the fighting began. Now those who doubted the sincerity of the two forces’ intentions and willingness to hand over power have been proved right.

Civilians in the firing line

Relations between the two military leaders had become increasingly strained, and fighting finally broke out on 15 April. Attempts at a humanitarian ceasefire have so far come to nothing.

Civilians are in the firing line. There’s much confusion on the ground, making it hard to get accurate numbers of casualties, but currently over 300 civilians are reported killed, with thousands injured.

Khartoum’s major sites of contestation, such as the airport and military bases, nestle side by side with civilian housing, leaving people vulnerable to airstrikes. People are stuck in their homes and at workplaces with limited supplies of food, and water and electricity have been cut. Some have had their homes seized by RSF soldiers. Thousands have fled.

Many hospitals have been forced to evacuate or are running out of vital supplies, and there are reports of attacks on health facilities. There are also reports that UN staff and other aid workers are being targeted and offices of humanitarian organisations have been looted.

A battle for power

The origins of the current crisis lie in al-Bashir’s deployment of paramilitary forces, the Janjaweed, to brutally crush a rebellion in Darfur in 2003. The violence was such that al-Bashir remains subject to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

In recognition of its brutal effectiveness, al-Bashir formally reorganised the Janjaweed into the RSF. It suited him to have two forces he could play off against each other, although ultimately they worked together to oust him. The tensions that have built since partly reflect a clash of cultures between the two leaders and Hemedti’s evident ambition for the top job.

But mostly it’s a competition for political and economic supremacy. The army has always been the power behind the presidency, and it’s said to control major companies, having taken over many businesses once owned by al-Bashir and his inner circle.

Hemedti has his own sources of wealth, including illegal gold mining – something that connects him with Russia, with mercenary forces from the shadowy Wagner Group reportedly guarding goldmines in return for gold exports to Russia. Now Wagner is allegedly supplying the RSF with missiles.

Hemedti had positioned himself as supportive of transitional processes, a ruse that enabled him to dispute the army’s power. Al-Burhan was always a compromised figure, supposedly leading Sudan through transition while also defending the army’s extensive interests. Proposals to integrate the two forces appear to have been the final straw, threatening to erode Hemedti’s power base, making this an existential struggle.

International failure

Democratic states that backed the transition plan wanted to believe in it and basically hoped for the best.

Self-interest has never been far away from the calculations of outside forces either. In recent years, EU funding indirectly found its way to the RSF for its border control role, helping prevent people making their way to Europe; the EU’s preoccupation with controlling migration trumped democracy and human rights concerns.

The Egyptian government, an influential player in Sudan, is meanwhile squarely behind al-Burhan: it wants its domestic model of repressive government by a military strongman applied in its southern neighbour. Russia strongly backs Hemedti, while Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates might have no strong preference between the two as long as the outcome isn’t democracy.

What all the approaches taken have in common is that they’re largely top-down, investing faith in leaders while failing to address the tensions that led to violence. Now the limitations of that approach should be evident.

Sudan’s democracy movement has been consistently ignored. But people don’t want their futures to come down to a dismal choice of two warlords. This conflict must put an end to any notion that either military head can be expected to lead a transition to democracy.

Democratic states need to hold a stronger line on demanding not only that the conflict ends but that a genuine, civilian-led transition follows. With this must come accountability for violence.

From now on, the outside world must listen to and be guided by Sudanese civil society voices – in restoring peace, and in bringing about democracy.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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Activists from Freedom and Roam Uganda launch LGBTQI+ campaigns, My Body is Not a Battlefield and Break the Chains, Stop Violence campaigns. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, Apr 21 2023 (IPS)

The mothers of LGBTQ+ individuals in Uganda have taken a stand against Bill passed by the Ugandan Parliament proposing the death penalty for aggravated homosexuality, life imprisonment for the “offense of homosexuality,” and up to 20 years in jail for promoting homosexuality.

This stance is considered rare for Uganda and Africa, where Human Rights Watch says 33 countries still criminalize homosexuality. And there is concern that because of the success of the Ugandan Bill, other African countries could be encouraged to intensify targeting the anti-LGBTQ+ community.

Mawethu Nkosana Nkolomba, the Crisis Response Fund Lead/LGBTI Advocacy Lead at CIVICUS, told IPS that the passing of the Bill in Uganda was not an isolated incident. “There is a threat of LGBTI civil society groups being targeted soon in Kenya, and because of what just happened in Uganda, there are fears of the LGBTI bill coming back in full force. Niger – has a similar bill being tabled.” 

“So is Tanzania – the targeting of LGBTI and feminist groups are under target (anal testing), Ghana – has a similar bill as Uganda, Burundi – (is experiencing) a new wave of arrests of LGBTI groups, the situation of LGBTI groups in Tunisia and Algeria is worsening, in Egypt, police are using queer apps to target the LGBTI community – so definitely there is a trend,” Nkolomba says in an interview with IPS.

Activist Eric Ndaula says the issue is that homophobia is a pervasive mindset – with politicians, religious leaders, and even family taking a stance against it. “They tell us that homosexuality is wrong; it’s an abomination.”

When the Ugandan Parliament passed the Bill on March 21, 2023, without asking for anonymity, Jane Nasimbwa, Sylvia Nassuna, Janet Ndagire, Patricia Naava, Jackie Nabbosa Mpungu, Florence Matovu Kansanze, Josephine Amonyatta, and Shamim Nakamate openly identified themselves as mothers of LGBTQ+ individuals.

Their “Open Letter to President Museveni from Mothers of LGBTQ+ Individuals,” – republished by the Monitor, surprised many.

“As parents of LGBTQ+ individuals, we are not ‘promoters’ of any agenda; we are Ugandan mothers, who have had to overcome many of our own biases to fully understand, accept, and love our children,” reads the letter.

The women expressed fear that their children were likely to be targets of mob violence, which they noted was a direct consequence of living in a country whose legislators are “recklessly” legalizing homophobia and transphobia with the Anti-Homosexuality law.

“We, too, did not choose to be parents of LGBTQ+ children, but we have chosen to love our children for who they are. As parents, we all desire and work to ensure that our children are healthy, well-educated, successful, and fulfilled in both their professional and personal lives.”

The letter was shared on Twitter by Dr Catherine Kyobutungi, a feminist and The Executive Director of the African Population and Health Research Center, sparking an online debate.

They requested President Yoweri Museveni not to assent to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, saying they could no longer stand on the sidelines and watch as their children continued to be bashed and threatened in such a dangerous and deliberate manner.

Will President Museveni Listen?

There are doubts about whether Museveni, who previously signed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law in 2014, will heed the mothers’ call – even though he has sent the Bill back to parliament for amendment.

In a press statement released on April 20, 2023, which quoted him as saying: “Be ready to sacrifice to fight homosexuals,” he also noted: “It is good that you rejected the pressure from the imperialists. Those imperialists have been messing up the world for 600 years, causing so much damage.”

The Bill is to be returned not because of a change in sentiment but because Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka said the Bill in its current form criminalizes even those who voluntarily come out to having “practiced homosexuality” and need to be helped.

He proposed a provision for amnesty for this group.

Museveni has been quoted several times that those behind the criticism of the Bill were associated with Europeans – and he has expressed anti-homosexuality sentiments in several other addresses since then.

“There is some issue with these Europeans. They don’t listen; we have been telling them that this problem of homosexuality is not something that we should normalize and celebrate,” Museveni said. “I told them that there were some few homosexuals before Europeans came here … But now the Europeans want to turn the abnormal into normal and force it on others.”

After the Bill was enacted, Museveni addressed a meeting of members of Parliament from 22 African countries and the UK. He repeated that homosexuality was a deviation, adding that it was more dangerous than drugs.

In February 2014, President Museveni appointed a committee of scientists to determine whether there was a scientific or genetic basis for homosexuality and whether it could be learned and unlearned.

While the committee recommended a further study, it observed that homosexuality existed throughout history.

‘Blatant Violation of Rights’

Dr Zahara Nampewo, a lecturer at the Makerere University’s School of Law and Director of the Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC), speaking at a debate a day after the Bill was passed, said there were far-reaching implications of the law.

“We have raised our voices of concern over issues such as the blatant violation of rights such as the presumption of innocence, the right to a non-derogable right to a fair trial,” Nampewo says. “We have been calling for laws to protect children against child abuse; we have been calling for the marriage bill. Why now, in a period of a month, has (this) law been passed?”

The mover of the Bill, Asuman Basalirwa, told IPS that they had planned to table the Bill since August 2022, but it was only in late February that the Speaker granted them space on the order paper.

“The issue of recruitment, promotion, and financing of homosexuality. You don’t provoke a community like that. If those people were doing their things quietly, nobody would be bothered, but you see, you are going into our schools, you are attacking our children. And you want us to look on?”

Asked why a particular stance to criminalize LGBTQ+ persons, Basalirwa told IPS that the criminalization of homosexuality is not a new phenomenon. “It is the colonialists who first brought here a law on homosexuality section 145 of the penal code. This is intended to be a penal law. So you want a penal law that doesn’t criminalize it,” he asked.

Timing of Passing the Bill

Some critics have argued that the Bill was rushed by Speaker of Parliament Anita Among and her deputy Thomas Tayebwa because those behind it wanted it to be passed before an Inter-Parliamentary Conference on family values under the theme “Protecting African Culture and Family Values.”

The two-day conference was held on the shores of Lake Victoria from March 31 to April 1, 2023. It was attended by leaders of Family Watch International (FWI) officials. FWI is a US Christian organization described by civil rights activists as a “hate group, which opposes comprehensive sexuality education.” Delegates from FWI included Sharon Slater, who told the conference that: “We are on fire, and we must stop this culture of imperialism that is destroying our children.” Slater and her team, which included Henk Jan van Schothorst, the Executive Director at Christian Council International, and Gregg Scot, a US attorney, met Museveni and his wife, Janet Museveni, at State House Entebbe.

‘Victimless Offense’ 

But Dr Adrian Jjuuko, Executive Director at Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum – Uganda (HRAPF), disagrees with Basalirwa about the timing of the enactment of the Bill.

“This is a campaign that has been going on for years. And it is not just a Ugandan campaign. This is an international campaign,” said Jjuuko, whose organization provides legal aid to LGBTQI+ persons.

Jjuuko, whose organization has allegedly been listed by Uganda’s NGO Bureau among Civil Society groups likely to be closed, told IPS that the offenses suggested in the laws are victimless because the relationships were consensual. “If you have a victimless offense, why do you have to criminalize a victimless offense? Nobody is complaining; there’s no harm. Harm to who? To Hon Basalirwa?”

The Bill limits the offense of homosexuality to sexual acts between persons of the same sex. The offense is punishable by life imprisonment, up to ten years. It also provides for the offense of aggravated homosexuality.

“If you look at the provision on the promotion of homosexuality. It essentially bans what we do as lawyers. So as a lawyer, you cannot represent an LGBTQ+ person because that will be seen as a promotion of homosexuality,” Jjuuko says.

The law suggests several punishments, including the death penalty for being a repeat offender and life imprisonment.

“Repeat offender means if you are convicted of being gay twice, you die for that. Having consensual sex when you are HIV-positive, you die for that; if you have sex with a person of the advanced age of 75 years, you die for that regardless of whether it is consensual.”

Jjuuko observes, “If you wanted to fight pedophilia, sexual orientation is not what you go for. What you go for is the crime that you are interested in fighting.”

NGOs suspected of promoting homosexuality risk a fine of one billion shillings (over $264,000) or face twenty years in prison.

Restrictions, threats, and the vilification of sexual minorities in Uganda preceded the passing of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. In August 2022, the civil society organization Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) was banned by the Ugandan National Bureau (the NGO Bureau for Non-Governmental Organizations) because it was not registered. In 2012 the NGO Bureau rejected an application by SMUG to have it registered because the organization was “undesirable and un-registrable.”

Asuman Basalirwa, the mover of the Bill, and fellow Parliamentarians argued that the country needs the law to protect children from promoters of homosexuality. But Jjuuko, in an interview with IPS, said that it was a misplaced sentiment.

“If you talk about children, the biggest threat to our children is not homosexuality. The biggest threat to children is heterosexuality. Because if you look at the annual police crimes report, over ten thousand cases of defilement of girls by men. And there were only 83 cases of unnatural carnal knowledge (as the offense is described in the bill) against the order of nature.”

The Bill is Retrogressive

Many have observed that the Bill is retrogressive and will worsen the HIV situation in Uganda as it would deny LGBTIQ+ persons, who are key populations, access to HIV services.

The Bill came after PEPFER Uganda, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health in Uganda, the Uganda AIDS Commission, conducted a legal and environmental assessment of HIV/AIDS and key populations. The evaluation had recommendations to ensure an enabling environment to move the course toward epidemic control.

PEPFAR Uganda Country Coordinator, Mary Borgman, told IPS, “We need to ensure that the human rights of all key populations are respected regardless of who we are. And this is our primary objective to ensure that we provide services to all people. That is stigma and discrimination-free.”

While South Africa’s Constitution is hailed for being the first in the world to prohibit unfair discrimination based on sexual orientation, LGBTQ+ people still experience violence. Human Rights Watch noted that in 2021 at least 24 people were murdered due to their sexual orientation.

More concerning is the decision of an independent expert body within the African Union (AU), the African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights, to reject the three NGOs’ observer status to three NGOs.

Frans Viljoen, Director and Professor of International Human Rights Law, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, argues in the Conversation that the rejection of Alternative Côte d’Ivoire, Human Rights First Rwanda and Synergía “casts a shadow over the commission’s commitment to advancing the rights of all Africans. It also seriously erodes its independence from AU states … The denial of observer status means the NGOs will not have a voice before the African Commission. They will not be able to draw its attention to the human rights violations of LGBTQ+ people in Africa.”

 

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Credit: UNDP Bangladesh

By Nuzhat Fatima
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Apr 21 2023 (IPS)

The world is becoming increasingly coexistent with crises. A pandemic, the Ukraine-Russia war, and cost-of-living crisis are only a few of the ordeals we’ve seen in just the last two years.

As is characteristic of such crisis settings, those already marginalized are further pushed back, augmenting existing barriers to accessing services, resources and opportunities.

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals centered around leaving no-one behind become all the more difficult to achieve.

Crisis settings are now leading to a worrying trend where those not categorically marginalized are becoming increasingly vulnerable. The World Bank estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic pushed 71-100 million people into extreme poverty, giving rise to the “new poor”, those above the poverty line pre-pandemic who fell below the marker during it.

Against this backdrop, identifying vulnerabilities for development assistance becomes an exponentially more difficult – yet necessary process.

In Bangladesh, around 20 percent of the population was below the poverty line before 2020. This figure has increased substantially since, and is becoming a phenomenon less temporary than expected. In accurately identifying the vulnerabilities of such groups, conventional, income-centred measures of poverty may fall short.

Policy measures must therefore be dispensed using tools that can effectively deal with a range of vulnerabilities, beyond income.

One is the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which captures deprivations in non-monetary dimensions of wellbeing, utilizing a range of indicators in calculating poverty levels for a particular population. Poverty levels are then represented by an MPI score. The higher the figure, the greater the level of poverty.

To see whether multidimensional approaches to addressing vulnerability could potentially be more helpful during crises the Research Facility at the UNDP Bangladesh country office analyzed data from its “Livelihoods Improvement of Urban Poor Communities” (LIUPC) project.

This is a poverty reduction programme covering four million urban poor in 19 Bangladeshi cities, and employs the MPI metric to identify deprivation levels of potential beneficiaries. Conditional cash grants are provided to help eligible MPI-poor households start a business or expand an existing one.

These households also received COVID-19 relief in the form of cash, food, or preventive materials as unconditional support, separate from grants intrinsically part of the project.

A study presented in a recent UNDP Development Futures Series brief compared the before-and-during COVID MPI figures of the beneficiary group with two other household categories – MPI-poor non-grantee households, and vulnerable MPI non-poor households. The detailed methodology and results of the study can be seen here.

Some of the findings from the study were intuitive, business grants disbursed by the project generally helped poor households reduce their multidimensional poverty levels, despite the pandemic.

Far more interesting however were the rather less intuitive policy insights from the analysis:

Consider vulnerable non-poor groups in development programming.

The study’s findings corroborated the emergence of the “new poor”. Households with MPI scores not high enough to be eligible for grants (but still vulnerable, just below the MPI poverty threshold) experienced on average an increase in their multidimensional poverty levels during the pandemic.

People in these categories usually remain outside the purview of emergency policy measures, having not met eligibility requirements of being “poor” under normal circumstances. As such, their vulnerabilities remain unaddressed and are exacerbated during crises.

Cash support helps vulnerable groups during crises.

Findings suggest that the improvement in MPI levels was concentrated amongst the poor groups, including non-grant receivers, while the vulnerable group, who did not receive grants, saw poverty levels deteriorating.

The latter group barely received cash support even in the form of COVID-19 relief, unlike the poor groups. This suggests that in crisis situations, households that receive unconditional cash support may be able to use it to improve living conditions in the immediate term, including households that are not the neediest judging solely by MPI score, but are still vulnerable and at-risk during crises.

Context-specific MPI can complement income-based poverty measures.

Increases or decreases in a household’s MPI score may obscure changes in households with specific vulnerabilities, such as members with disabilities, members belonging to a particular age group, or geographical and regional characteristics.

Despite an overall decline in MPI scores amongst poor households who received grants, the improvement in multidimensional poverty was not reflected for grantee households with disabled members.

Thus, the use of a uniform MPI metric in programming, irrespective of variations in local contexts, also risks overlooking specific needs of vulnerable communities.

Understanding multidimensional poverty would greatly benefit from dynamic data.

The study used static data which cannot account for real-time changes occurring after collection. In this case, if the data had been dynamic and could be updated during the pandemic, the project may have been able to identify beneficiaries and discern the nature of relief needed more appropriately.

Nuzhat Fatima is a Research assistant at UNDP Bangladesh.

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Fruit stalls at a local market in Hanoi, Vietnam. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Tuyen Huynh
HANOI, Apr 20 2023 (IPS)

This month Nature spotlighted three insightful new studies chronicling food-related challenges from a global perspective. One presented worrisome new data on the global rise in the prevalence of diabetes, high blood pressure and liver disease, all linked to obesity. Another presented a new assessment revealing that half of the greenhouse emissions generated by food systems globally are caused by food waste. Finally, the third study found that food consumption could add “nearly 1 degree Celsius to warming by 2100,” with most of that attributed to global methane emissions from meat, dairy and rice production.

Studies like these are valuable for focusing attention on the need for a fundamental reset from farm to fork in the way food is produced and consumed around the world. But we also must recognize their limits.

Chiefly, that solutions to the problems they skillfully document will fail unless adapted to specific social, political and economic contexts on the ground.

As a fast-growing, rapidly urbanizing middle-income country that still has a large rural population, Vietnam is an ideal living laboratory for studying the essential role of local food environments in shaping solutions to global food challenges

We recently spent two years studying food systems across Northern Vietnam. Our work reveals how much food-related challenges can change even over relatively narrow distances—and how solutions must be tailored accordingly.

The contrasts we documented can be instructive for other countries as well. As a fast-growing, rapidly urbanizing middle-income country that still has a large rural population, Vietnam is an ideal living laboratory for studying the essential role of local food environments in shaping solutions to global food challenges.

In our work, we roamed the colorful, richly stocked open-air markets and modern retail outlets of urban Hanoi. We traveled just outside the city to study the food landscape in the populous peri-urban area of Dong Anh.

We visited the rural highlands of the Moc Chau district in Son La Province, where people rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. Along the way, we surveyed thousands of people to learn about where they purchased food and what they ate. Here are a few key lessons that emerged.

• Food-related issues are linked to both what you eat and where you eat it. With their bounty of choices and relatively high incomes, people in urban Hanoi tend to eat very diverse diets, including more meat, dairy and fish, than people in other areas in Northern Vietnam. It’s the opposite in rural Moc Chau: a dearth of food outlets and a reliance on subsistence farming leads to a narrower menu of options—and diets that are heavy in starchy staples. This difference produces a sharp contrast in food-related health problems. In rural areas, the issue is stunting and wasting in poorly fed children, which is three to four times higher than in urban or peri-urban areas. In urban areas, an abundance of food choices contributes to childhood obesity rates that are 6 to 10 times higher than in the other regions we studied.

• Problems are clear; solutions are complex—especially in local contexts: We know that addressing malnutrition requires improving food choices, but that also requires considering trade-offs that can be highly political. For example, there is evidence that consistent access to nutrient-dense meat, fish and dairy products can reduce malnutrition in low-income communities like those we studied in rural Vietnam. But a lack of these products in local diets is a key reason rural food systems in Vietnam produce much lower emissions than those in urban areas. The solution is two-fold. First, we must acknowledge the different realities of people in high-income regions globally who have an abundance of nutritious food choices and those in low-income regions who have few. Second, supporting efforts in low-income communities to adopt environmentally sustainable, climate-positive approaches to livestock production—while encouraging more modest consumption in wealthy regions–can capture their benefits in fighting malnutrition while mitigating risks.

• Promoting healthy diets requires probing local factors behind consumer behavior. Compared to other regions in Vietnam, a significantly higher percentage of rural consumers are relying on cheap and highly processed instant noodles to meet their dietary needs. But encouraging a shift to healthier diets requires engaging the broader constellation of local issues driving this choice. For example, economic policies that drive inflation can negatively affect household food budgets. Also, we found the neglect local road systems in rural areas we studied was a factor in limiting access to food stores and food selection relative to urban and peri-urban areas.

 

Two years ago, 51,000 people from 193 countries participated in the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit—with many likely to return for this summer’s eagerly anticipated follow-up.

They are committed to a transformation of a global food system many view as fundamentally broken. The latest scientific studies chronicling food-related impacts to human and planetary health—alongside the recent shocks to the global food system caused by Covid pandemic—certainly support this view.

Our work reveals that food system challenges vary considerably depending on where you live—and that developing effective solutions requires a focused effort to detect these differences. It means if we want to achieve a more sustainable food system transformation, we must think globally but act locally.

Tuyen Huynh is a leading food systems expert and senior researcher at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT

The removal of Mughal history from textbooks is seen as a political move which downplays the rich diversity of the Indian subcontinent. This artwork stems from this period. Credit: Govardhan. Jahangir Visiting the Ascetic Jadrup. ca. 1616-20, Musee Guimet, Paris

By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Apr 20 2023 (IPS)

The removal from school textbooks of chapters covering the Mughal period of Indian history spanning three centuries has raised a storm of protests from academics.

The Mughals, who ruled much of the Indian sub-continent between the 16th and 19th centuries, left behind an indelible stamp on science, art, culture, and overall development. Their legacy is visible today mainly in a number of monuments recognised as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the Agra Fort, Fatehpur Sikri, Red Fort, Humayun’s Tomb, Lahore Fort, Shalamar Gardens, and the Taj Mahal.

UNESCO’s India representative, Hezekiel Damani, said the organisation advises that the curriculum represents a conscious and systematic selection of knowledge, skills and values that shape the way teaching, learning and assessment processes are organised by addressing questions such as what, why, when and how students should learn.

“Therefore, a quality curriculum must pave the way to the effective implementation of inclusive and equitable quality education,” Damani says. “Subject-specific curriculum development, reform and revision are entirely the decision of member states; they must be conscious of today’s curriculum, and future needs while making any intervention.”

“The issue here is that Mughal rule does not align well with present-day politics — it is no surprise that chapters that refer to that period are being deleted by the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT),” says Ruchika Sharma, who teaches history at the Delhi University.

Sharma says that from an academic point of view, the Mughal period presents a well-researched part of Indian history because of the rich documentation they left behind. “Removing an entire chapter dealing with such an important period of history from class XII textbooks would certainly affect students’ career choices — they will see a mismatch between visible legacy and the curriculum.”

Sharma referred in particular to the chapter titled ‘Kings and Chronicles, the Mughal Courts,’ from the NCERT history book Themes of Indian History-Part II, which describes how the Mughals encouraged peasants to cultivate cash crops such as cotton grown over a “great swathe of territory that spread over central India and the Deccan plateau.”

The Mughal period saw India becoming the world’s biggest exporter of cotton as well as cotton manufactures such as calico and fine muslins that were shipped to the European markets by the Dutch and English East India Companies that were allowed to set up ‘factories’ or fortified trading posts along the Indian coasts.

Other revenue-generating crops included sugarcane and oilseeds such as mustard and lentil that were grown alongside staples like rice, wheat and millets, the deleted chapter said. The section on ‘Irrigation and Technology’ noted that under the Mughals, cultivation rapidly expanded with the help of artificial irrigation systems and the introduction of crops from the new world, such as tomatoes, potatoes and chilli.

Swapna Liddle, historian and author, says that much of India’s built heritage, language, arts, agriculture and land tenure systems are a legacy of the Mughal period. “It is important to study how India was also progressing in the scientific fields during that period,” says Liddle.

The Mughal period saw a flowering of the sciences, especially astronomy, mathematics, medicine, architecture and engineering, that had an impact long after the dynasty ended in 1857. Akbar’s reign (1556—1605), for example, saw the establishment of medical schools and dispensaries, while his successor, Jehangir, patronised the study of mathematics and astronomy.

On April 7, a group of ‘Concerned Historians’ issued a statement saying: “We are appalled by the decision of the NCERT to remove chapters and statements from history textbooks and demand that the deletions from the textbooks be immediately withdrawn.”

“The decision of the NCERT is guided by divisive motives. It is a decision that goes against the constitutional ethos and composite culture of the Indian subcontinent. As such, it must be rescinded at the earliest,” said the statement, which has been endorsed by hundreds of academics.

According to the statement, the textbooks were designed to be inclusive and provide a sense of the rich diversity of the human past both within the subcontinent as well as the wider world. “As such, removing chapters/sections of chapters is highly problematic not only in terms of depriving learners of valuable content but also in terms of the pedagogical values required to equip them to meet present and future challenges.”

The director of the NCERT, Dinesh Kumar Saklani, has stated that the chapters were removed as part of “rationalisation aimed at reducing the burden on schoolchildren following the COVID-19 pandemic.” He claimed that the rationalisation was vetted by experts and denied that there was any political agenda behind the move.

Says Ajay K. Mehra, a political scientist currently attached to the independent think tank, the Observer Research Foundation: “It would have been far better to modify the chapters on the Mughal and Islamic periods than delete them altogether — this way a very large and important period of mediaeval Indian history is going to be lost to impressionable young students and to future generations.”

The changes to the textbooks, says Mehra, are deliberate and part of a larger, declared political agenda to restore the past glory of Hindu dynasties that existed before the arrival of Islam in India. This can be seen in the renaming of roads and cities, he said, citing the renaming of Allahabad city in 2018 to Prayagraj to reflect its importance as a Hindu pilgrimage site at the confluence of the sacred Yamuna and Ganges rivers.

“What is lost here is the fact that Mughal rule saw enormous economic advancement that lasted three centuries because of a compact with Hindu Rajput (princely) feudatories. “Rajput princes not only led Mughal armies but also entered into marital alliances — two of the important Mughal emperors, Jehangir and Shah Jahan, were born of Rajput princesses, for example,” Mehra said.

Makkhan Lal, distinguished fellow at the Vivekananda International Foundation, a think tank considered close to the government, says that there is a case for the Mughal period getting “disproportionate description and allotment of space” in history textbooks and this needed to be rectified.

Lal, who has taught history at the Banaras Hindu University and worked with the NCERT, said the “correction being made now is a step in the right direction and should have been taken earlier.”

Apart from academics, leaders of opposition parties have also denounced the changes to the textbooks. Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the Communist Party of India, said the changes made to class textbooks were regrettable because of India’s diversity.

“The lands of India have always been the churning crucible of civilisational advances through cultural confluences,” Yechury says.

Pinarayi Vijayan, who leads a communist party government in the southern Kerala state, Tweeted: “They resort to rewriting history and masking it with lies. So, we must strongly protest the decision of the BJP government to delete certain sections from NCERT textbooks. Let the truth prevail.”

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By Martin Labbé
GENEVA, Switzerland, Apr 20 2023 (IPS)

As 2022 came to a close, ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, became the fastest-growing app in history, reaching an estimated 123 million users less than three months after its launch.

It is the most prominent specimen of AI-tools that generate content such as text, pictures, and software code. The International Trade Centre (ITC) reflects on what this could mean for the international trade development sphere.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is not new for those using Siri, Cortana and other (virtual) personal assistants. Algorithms powered through massive data have also been determining how we get from A to B when we use a ride-hailing app, whether in a car in Manila or on a “boda boda” in Kampala.

Likewise, AI can screen job applicants in asynchronous video interviews. Cancer diagnosis research, automatic dental prosthetic design and medical image analysis are other examples of how AI is being used in the healthcare sector.

However, the natural language processing functionality of ChatGPT allows us to have a human-like conversation with AI.

This next generation chatbot has the potential to become an alternative to traditional search engines, hence the urge of other big tech companies like Google to launch their own chatbots in 2023 to keep up with the times – and profit.

In the meantime, for many of us, ChatGPT has become a tool we use daily – for research and support in content development. According to Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, which is said to have recently invested more than $10 billion in OpenAI (the scaleup behind ChatGPT), this marks the emergence of a “symbiotic relationship between humans and machines”.

Whether this will be a choice rather than a necessity remains to be seen.

AI is capital intensive both because of the massive amounts of data and the computer power required, which means it will be difficult to see global challengers emerge outside of the OECD.

Software companies in Africa venturing in this field, for instance Baamtu in Senegal, are struggling to access the required data despite their expertise. Data has become the new oil.

Back in 2019, our colleagues at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) spotted the exponential growth of AI in related patent applications since 2012, mainly originating in the United States and China. Now, the rest of the world is trying to catch up.

You can count on impact at scale across the board: from government, business, civil society to education, healthcare and financial services.

Smart digital technologies are already widely used in agriculture in high-income countries. For instance, AI is being used in robotic milking systems in places such as Braz, Austria, to decide which cow should be milked when, with little supervision from the farmer.

In low-income countries, on the other hand, AI is mainly limited to small-scale smart farming and satellite imagery processing at the level of smallholder farming. But looking around, we can anticipate future uses, if an appropriate business model can be found.

The concept of “dark factories”, where industrial robots produce under remote human supervision, is not yet widespread. What will happen to the three million workers in the Bangladeshi ready-made garment industry assembling $5 t-shirts, with a monthly $70 salary, when the current equipment is ready for renewal?

Moreover, service jobs automation is around the corner – even in tech. AI is already sourcing code in code libraries at the request of software developers who use it to increase their productivity. Is this happening at the expense of junior software developers?

Other service sectors will be affected: in Senegal, chatbots are being used instead of customer care operators as clients and investors alike want to reduce costs.

In the Philippines, some of its 1.2 million business-process-management jobs – to a large extent customer care for global clients – could be replaced through robotic process automation.

This technology automates repetitive and routine tasks, allowing businesses to streamline their operations, reduce errors, and increase efficiency.

Beyond the business process management industry, generative AI is also likely to take entry-level gigs from game artists, people who create content for video games, or graphic designers, who often operate on a freelance basis.

If we look at the above under Schumpeter’s Creative Destruction theory, new jobs that don’t exist yet will replace the ones that will be made obsolete. In this context, continuous learning, re- and upskilling will be essential for blue- and white-collar workers.

AI will impact our trade-related technical assistance. AI will accelerate how we analyse trade data analysis. AI will also help us improve the learner experience in ITC’s SME Trade Academy, which is already experimenting with tools such as Synthesia to produce videos with human-like avatars in multiple languages and accents.

We need to help our beneficiaries leverage this technology as well, for instance the tailor in Burundi who is using ChatGPT to draft marketing materials like brochures and website content.

How we deliver our technical assistance and in which languages will also change to the benefit of our clients: text-to-speech in multiple languages can make our trade information accessible to farmers who speak a different language from the one the information was published in and who prefer to dial in rather than to read online.

All the above will not happen overnight, but nevertheless, we need to start preparing for it.

Martin Labbé is Tech Sector Development Coordinator and NTF V programme manager @ International Trade Centre.

Founded in 1964, the International Trade Centre is a multilateral agency which has a joint mandate with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations through the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

IPS UN Bureau

 

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José Luis Márquez, Yaisema Fabelo and their son Yadir stand around a table holding fruits harvested from their Los Tres Hermanos agroecological farm, in Martí, a municipality in northwestern Cuba. The family of farmers values ​​the final products of biogas technology, rich in nutrients suitable for fertilizing and restoring the soil. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Luis Brizuela
MARTÍ, Cuba , Apr 20 2023 (IPS)

The first five biomethane-fuelled buses in the Cuban municipality of Martí will not only be a milestone in the country but will also represent a solution to the serious problem of transportation, while reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and bolstering local development.

Yaisema Fabelo, a librarian at the local prep school, told IPS that “the buses will boost the quality of life of the residents” of the municipality located in the north of the western province of Matanzas, about 200 kilometers east of Havana.

Fabelo, who is also a farmer from the Los Tres Hermanos agroecological farm, stressed that using biogas on an industrial scale and on individual farms “to produce electricity, cook food and obtain biofertilizers for organic crops” will benefit the 22,000 inhabitants of the municipality and surrounding areas.

The Martí I and nearby Martí II covered lagoon biodigesters will produce around 1,800 and 3,600 cubic meters of biogas per day, respectively, when they come into operation. They will connect through two separate gas pipelines with a biomethane plant where the fuel will be obtained for a group of buses. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

 

The project

Turning pig manure and crop waste into biomethane and biogas is the focus of the project “Global Action for Climate Change in Cuba: Municipality of Martí, towards a carbon-neutral sustainable development model.”

The project, carried out by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Ministry of Economy and Planning with 5.5 million dollars in financing disbursed by the European Union, began to be implemented in 2020 and is to be completed in 2024.“[We want] to demonstrate that the biodigesters are economically feasible for Cuba, that connected with large pig farms they can be used to generate electricity and contribute to the economy." -- Anober Aguilar

“The main problem that Martí has ​​in the case of greenhouse gases is waste, responsible for 57 percent of our emissions,” explained Sobeida Reyes, director of territorial development for the town.

In an interview with IPS, the official pointed out that with the project and as part of the local development strategy, the aim is to gradually contribute to decarbonization with the use of renewable energy sources and incorporate biogas to biomethane conversion technology.

Biogas is composed mainly of methane and carbon dioxide, obtained in biodigesters from the decomposition of organic residues such as agricultural or livestock waste by bacteria, through anaerobic digestion, without oxygen.

Biomethane, also known as a renewable gas, is derived from a treatment process that removes carbon dioxide, moisture, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, among other impurities from biogas, which brings its composition closer to that of fossil natural gas and favors its use to generate electricity and heat and to fuel vehicles.

The plan is to strengthen the public transport system through “16 buses powered by biomethane, the first five of which are to be tested in February 2024, after a bidding process outlined in the project that will facilitate their importation,” Reyes said.

“There is a commitment that these buses will be driven by women,” she added.

The future biomethane plant, which has already been awarded in tender, will provide, according to the plan, about 150 cubic meters per hour of gas suitable for bottling.

It will depend on the Martí I and Martí II covered lagoon biodigesters, which will be the largest in the country and will produce around 1,800 and 3,600 cubic meters of biogas per day, respectively, when they come into operation.

These, in turn, will each be fed by a pig breeding center belonging to the Matanzas Pork Company.

A third of the 14 kilometers of gas pipelines that will connect both biodigesters to the biomethane plant have already been put in place.

The generator is also being installed, while the lagoon is being filled with water to check its operation. The last thing needed is to put in place the membrane that will cover it.

This part is expected to be operational in February of next year, as well as the biomethane plant, so that the first five buses can then be tested, according to the established timeframe.

With the help of an electricity generator, the Martí I biodigester is to provide 100 kilowatts per hour, equivalent to the approximate consumption of 80 to 100 homes. The Martí II will provide even more.

 

A poster shows what the Martí I covered lagoon biodigester will look like. For Anober Aguilar, a specialist at the Indio Hatuey Pastures and Forages Experimental Station, responsible for the technological assembly, the construction of this type of biodigesters is economically feasible in Cuba. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

 

Greater commitment to biogas

A potent greenhouse gas, methane has 80 times the climate-warming power of carbon dioxide, studies show.

Scientists argue that proper management of methane resulting from the decomposition of agricultural waste and livestock manure helps to mitigate water and soil pollution and to combat climate change.

Its extraction and energy use, especially in rural and semi-urban settings, can be a cost-effective solution to reduce the consumption of electricity based on fossil sources. In Cuba there are an estimated 5,000 small-scale (up to 24 cubic meters per day) biodigesters.

In this country of 11.1 million inhabitants, a significant percentage of the 3.9 million households use electricity as the main source of energy for cooking and heating water for bathing.

Renewable energy sources account for only five percent of the national energy mix.

In the case of biogas, “the main obstacle to its expansion is the availability of manure, as there is a low number of pigs and cattle, due to problems with feed and animal nutrition,” Anober Aguilar, an expert with the Indio Hatuey Pasture and Forage Experimental Station, located in Perico, another municipality of Matanzas, told IPS.

This scientific research center for technological management and innovation in the field of livestock production is in charge of the technological assembly of the biodigesters of the covered lagoon in Martí.

In the context of an economic crisis that has lasted for three decades, exacerbated by the tightening of the U.S, embargo, the COVID pandemic, and failed or delayed economic reforms, Cuba has limited imports of animal feed due to the shortage of foreign currency.

Furthermore, insufficient harvests do not guarantee abundant raw material to produce feed, while the scarcity of construction materials and their high cost make it impossible for many farmers to undertake the construction of a biodigester.

Conservative estimates by experts suggest that there is potential to expand the network of biodigesters on the island to up to 20,000 units, at least small-scale ones.

“If we look at the cost of the investment in the short term, it is more feasible to focus on wind or solar energy, because setting up a biodigester requires more financing, more time and specialized personnel,” explained Aguilar.

But seen at a distance of 10 to 15 years, “the investment evens out, because the potential of photovoltaic cells declines, repairs are made difficult by the rapid changes in technology, or the blades of the windmills deteriorate, in addition to the fact that both are more vulnerable to tropical cyclones,” the expert said.

“As long as they have raw material, biodigesters produce 24 hours a day,” he added.

He specified that one of the objectives of the project is “to demonstrate that the biodigesters are economically feasible for Cuba, that connected with large pig farms they can be used to generate electricity and contribute to the economy.”

Ministerial Order 395 of April 2021, of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, stipulated that each of the 168 Cuban municipalities must have a development program and strategy regarding biogas, and coordinate their management and implementation with those of their respective province.

 

Electrical technician Reinaldo Álvarez shows the electric generator located in the Martí I covered lagoon biodigester, in northwestern Cuba, which will provide about 100 kilowatt hours, equivalent to the electricity consumption of 80 to 100 homes. The nearby Martí II biodigester will produce even more. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

 

Promoting agroecology

Martí’s development strategy includes projects to prepare preserves, spices and dehydrated foods with the help of the sun, a biomass gasifier for drying rice and generating electricity, the production of cooking oil, thermal baths, exploiting natural asphalt deposits, and social works, among others.

Reyes reported that 28 farms in the municipality have biodigesters, and that in 12 of them, as part of the project, “a module was delivered that includes a refrigerator, a stove, a rice cooker and a lamp, which use biogas.”

Another urgent objective is to foment agroecology and move towards local self-sufficiency in food, including animal feed.

“In the current harvest we had a yield per hectare of 19 tons of organic potatoes. As with the other crops, we only used biological products, of which more than 80 percent were produced by us,” farmer José Luis Márquez explained to IPS.

The 13-hectare Los Tres Hermanos agroecological teaching farm, dedicated to growing a variety of crops and small livestock using sustainable techniques, was granted in usufruct by the government, forms part of the Ciro Redondo credit and services cooperative, and has been managed by Márquez since 2018, together with his wife Yaisema Fabelo and their son Yadir.

A nationally manufactured PVC (polyvinyl chloride) tubular biodigester is also installed on the farm, with a volume of forty cubic meters.

“Due to the pandemic and the shortage of manure, it is not producing. We want to once again encourage pig and rabbit farming, recycle solid waste and convert it into organic fertilizer for crops and household chores,” said Márquez.

Biogas technology provides biol and biosol, liquid effluent and sludge, respectively, rich in nutrients to fertilize and restore the soil.

The farm is visited by students from different levels of education, up to prep school, who through workshops given by Márquez and Fabelo, learn about good agroecological practices “and the positive impact on the economy, people’s health and the environment,” Fabelo said.

Related Articles

• Biogas Production Awaits Greater Incentives in Cuba
• International Cooperation Gives Biogas a Boost in Rural Cuba
• Cuba Steps Up Pace on Renewable Energy Expansion

Matiullah Wesa worked with community and tribal leaders in remote areas in Afghanistan to advocate for education and bring learning closer to communities.

By David Kode
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 19 2023 (IPS)

Matiullah Wesa’s crime was to try to ensure young people got an education in Afghanistan. His recent forceful abduction by the Taliban offers the latest stark reminder that global solidarity and coherent action from the international community are needed to prevent the complete loss of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.

Matiullah has been at the forefront of advocating for access to education as a co-founder and leader of Pen Path. For more than a decade, Pen Path has worked with community and tribal leaders in remote areas in Afghanistan to advocate for education and bring learning closer to communities. It works to enlighten communities about the importance of education, particularly girl’s and women’s education, organises book donations, runs mobile libraries in remote areas and reopens schools closed by years of conflict and insecurity. Pen Path has reopened over 100 schools, distributed more than 1.5 million items of stationery and provided education facilities for 110,000 children – 66,000 of them girls. This is what Matiullah is being punished for.

The abduction of Matiullah and many others advocating for the rights of education point to a concerted effort by the Taliban to try to restrict women’s and girls’ access to education and silence those advocating for education and an inclusive society.

There are sadly many other instances. In November 2022 around 60 Taliban members stormed a press conference organised to announce the formation of Afghan Women Movement for Equality. They arrested conference participants and deleted all images from their phones.

Immediately after taking power in August 2021, the Taliban instructed women to stay at home and avoid travelling. In December 2022, the Ministry of Higher Education announced it had suspended university education for women until further notice. Taliban officials argued that female students did not wear proper clothing on campus and announced it was enforcing gender segregation in schools. These decisions have been accompanied by others that force thousands of female workers to stay at home and prevent women and girls entering public spaces such as parks.

In December 2022 the Taliban banned women from working for international and national civil society organisations. This was a move that could only be counter-productive, since women play a vital role in providing essential services that people need. Banning women from working for civil society organisations affects millions in dire need of humanitarian assistance and services to women and children, as well as further increasing unemployment. The Taliban urged organisations to suspend female staff under the pretence that workers did not adhere to the regime’s strict dress code.

Most recently, women have been banned from working for United Nations agencies that are operating in Afghanistan. The United Nations may have to pull out.

It has taken just months for the Taliban to reverse the gains made over the years before their return that saw Afghan women claim visibility in public life and work such roles as broadcasters, doctors and judges.

Women in Afghanistan are fighting but can’t succeed alone

These restrictions on women’s rights should be seen in the context of the closing of civic space and attacks on other fundamental rights. As a result, Afghanistan’s civic space rating was recently downgraded to closed, the worst category, by the CIVICUS Monitor, a research partnership that tracks civic space conditions in 197 countries.

Despite the ongoing restrictions against women, the brave women of Afghanistan refuse to back down. They continue to organise what protests they can against restrictions and women human rights defenders continue to advocate for the rights of all women and girls to access education and participate in decision-making processes.

When women protest against restrictions, they risk harassment, physical and psychological torture and detentions. Some have been forcefully abducted from their homes. In January 2022, Taliban gunmen raided the homes of women human rights defenders Parwana Ibrahimkhel and Tamana Zaryab and abducted them.

No society can reach its real potential without the participation of women. The international community must double its efforts to support women and girls in Afghanistan. States should respond proactively to the United Nations 2023 appeal for Afghanistan. Aid should however be made conditional on guarantees to uphold the fundamental rights of women and girls. The international community should accompany aid with a strategy to build a more inclusive and open society.

Not to do so would be to abandon the likes of Matiullah Wesa, the many others like him penalised for standing up for education and rights, and the women of girls of Afghanistan being forced into silence.

David Kode is the Advocacy and Campaigns Lead at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance.

 

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