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By UNESCO
Aug 6 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Leading personalities from all over the world have joined UNESCO in denouncing mounting racial discrimination in an advocacy video, United Against Racism, released today.

The 2’41” black and white film features messages by the following prominent women and men from the worlds of cinema, the media, music, sport and science alongside UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay:

Charlotte Gainsbourg, Freida Pinto, Naomi Campbell, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Jean-Michel Jarre, UNESCO Artist for Peace Marcus Miller, Jorge Ramos, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Yalitza Aparicio, Rossy de Palma, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Sumaya bint Al Hassan, Bobi Wine, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Herbie Hancock, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Forest Whitaker, UNESCO Champion for Girls’ and Women’s Education Nadia Nadim, Amadou Gallo Fall, Ada Hegerberg and UNESCO Artist for Peace Gilberto Gil.

UNESCO has been on the forefront of the fight against racism since its creation in 1945. In 1978, it adopted the Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice which reaffirms that “All human beings belong to a single species and are descended from a common stock. They are born equal in dignity and rights and all an integral part of humanity.”

 

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By External Source
Beirut, Lebanon, Aug 6 2020 (IPS-Partners)

Following the massive explosion in Beirut on 4 August, 2020, IPS correspondent Eliane Eid reports that the residents of the city are still shell shocked. Beirut looks like a battlefield, with destruction all around. The main port was on fire before the explosion. Described by some quarters as a “chemical bomb”, the explosion ripped through the heart of Beirut While the investigations have begun, the Lebanese community is uncertain as to what might have been the cause of this exposition that tore apart peoples lives with the blink of an eye.

 

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Children need diverse microbiomes in their environment to develop healthy immune systems. Credit: Josh Calabrese on Unsplash.

By External Source
Aug 5 2020 (IPS)

By 2050, 70% of the world’s population is expected to live in towns and cities. Urban living brings many benefits, but city dwellers worldwide are seeing a rapid increase in noncommunicable health problems, such as asthma and inflammatory bowel disease.

Some scientists now think this is linked to biodiversity loss – the ongoing depletion of the varied forms of life on Earth. The rate at which different species go extinct is currently a thousand times higher than the historical background rate.

Microbial diversity is a large part of the biodiversity that is being lost. And these microbes – bacteria, viruses and fungi, among others – are essential for maintaining healthy ecosystems. Because humans are a part of these ecosystems, our health also suffers when they vanish, or when barriers reduce our exposure to them.

 

The inner ecosystem

Promoting connections with nature – including the microbes many of us currently shun – should be a key part of any post-pandemic recovery strategy. We must protect and promote the invisible biodiversity that is vital to our personal and planetary health

Our gut, skin and airways harbour distinct microbiomes – vast networks of microbes that exist in different environments. The human gut alone harbours up to 100 trillion microbes, which outnumbers our own human cells. Our microbes provide services that are integral to our survival, such as processing food and providing chemicals that support brain function.

Contact with a diverse range of microbes in our environment is also essential for bolstering our immune system. Microbes found in environments closer to the ones we evolved in, such as woodlands and grasslands, are called “old friend” microbes by some microbiologists. That’s because they play a major role in “educating” our immune systems.

Part of our immune system is fast-acting and non-specific, which means it attacks all substances in the absence of proper regulation. Old friend microbes from our environment help provide this regulatory role. They can also stimulate chemicals that help to control inflammation and prevent our bodies from attacking our own cells, or innocuous substances like pollen and dust.

Exposure to a diverse range of microbes allows our bodies to mount an effective defensive response against pathogens. Another part of our immune system produces tiny armies of “memory cells” that maintain a record of all the pathogens our bodies encounter. This enables a rapid and effective immune response to similar pathogens in the future.

To help fight infectious diseases like COVID-19, we need healthy immune systems. But this is impossible without support from diverse microbiomes. Just as microbes have important roles in ecosystems, by helping plants grow and recycling soil nutrients, they also provide our bodies with nutrients and health-sustaining chemicals that promote good physical and mental health. This strengthens our resilience when facing diseases and other stressful times in our lives.

But our cities are often lacking in biodiversity. Most of us have swapped green and blue spaces for grey spaces – the concrete jungle. As a result, urban dwellers are far less exposed to a diversity of health-promoting microbes. Pollution can affect the urban microbiome too. Air pollutants can alter pollen so that it’s more likely to cause an allergic reaction.

“Germaphobia”, the perception that all microbes are bad, compounds these effects by encouraging many of us to sterilise all of the surfaces in our homes, and often prevents children from going outside and playing in dirt. The soil is one of the most biodiverse habitats on Earth, so urban lifestyles can really disadvantage young people by severing this vital connection.

People living in more deprived urban areas have poorer health, shorter life expectancies and higher rates of infections. It’s no coincidence that these communities often lack accessible, high quality green and blue spaces. They’re also less likely to be able to afford, or have the time and energy to enjoy affordable fruit and vegetables.

 

What can we do?

We need to get serious about the urban microbiome.

Restoring natural habitats can help increase biodiversity and the health of city residents. Growing more diverse native plants, creating safe, inclusive and accessible green spaces and rewilding inner city and suburban parks can restore microbial diversity in urban life.

Our research is helping urban designers restore habitats in cities that can promote healthy interactions between residents and environmental microbes.

But access to these green and blue spaces, and affordable nutrition, must be improved. Support for allotments and community gardens could provide free, nutritious food and exposure to helpful microbes in one fell swoop, while sessions that teach people how to grow their own food could be prescribed by health professionals.

Promoting connections with nature – including the microbes many of us currently shun – should be a key part of any post-pandemic recovery strategy. We must protect and promote the invisible biodiversity that is vital to our personal and planetary health.

Jake M. Robinson, PhD Researcher, Department of Landscape, University of Sheffield

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

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The COVID-19 response must address mental health alongside containment of the pandemic itself. Credit: Unsplash /Melanie Wasser.

By Madhumitha Balaji and Vikram Patel
Aug 5 2020 (IPS)

To fully realise the mental health crisis that India faces in relation to COVID-19, one has to begin with recognising the very serious situation that existed even before the pandemic.

The government’s National Mental Health Survey reported that about 10 percent of adults meet diagnostic criteria for a mental health condition (ranging from mood and anxiety disorders to severe mental illness). The Global Burden of Disease study estimated that nearly 200 million people in India have experienced a mental disorder, nearly half of whom suffer from depressive or anxiety disorders.

India accounts for more than a third of the female suicides globally, nearly a fourth of all male suicides, and suicide has been the leading cause of death in young Indians.

Nearly 200 million people in India have experienced a mental disorder, nearly half of whom suffer from depressive or anxiety disorders.

India accounts for more than a third of the female suicides globally, nearly a fourth of all male suicides, and suicide has been the leading cause of death in young Indians

Yet, the government has spent very little on mental healthcare (estimated at less than one percent of the health budget), and this expenditure has been almost entirely on doctors, drugs, and hospitals in urban areas.

There is little community-oriented mental healthcare anywhere in the country. Unsurprisingly, between 70 to 92 percent of affected individuals have received no care from any source, of any kind, for their mental health conditions.

 

COVID-19 will impact mental health in two phases

One can consider the impact of the pandemic on mental health in two phases: The first is the acute phase, which coincided with the lockdown—the period when the pandemic surged through the country. The second phase will unfold in the months ahead, as the virus starts to get contained, but the economic fallout of the pandemic begins to bite deeper.

Right now, in the midst of the acute phase, people are terrified of the virus, of dying, or of loved ones contracting this disease. They are also scared of being quarantined, maintaining physical distancing, being isolated, and breaking the constantly changing rules.

For millions, these fears only add to the already daunting apprehensions about their livelihoods. These are not abstract anxieties; these are real, everyday worries.

If one considers all these factors, and adds to them the increase in domestic violence, the disruption of public transportation, the lack of access to routine health services, and the shortage of medical supplies, it seems almost normative that people are going to be very distressed during this period.

Indeed, there is already evidence in support of this distress. Internet-based surveys conducted between March-May 2020 show high rates of depression and anxiety in the general population.

For example, the ‘FEEL-COVID’ survey conducted in February-March 2020 with 1,106 people across 64 cities reported that a third of respondents faced significant ‘psychological impact’ because of COVID-19.

A number of other surveys indicate that such impact may be related to preoccupations with, or anxieties about contracting the virus, depression, sleeping difficulties, irritability, and loneliness.

 

The pandemic is affecting different groups in specific ways

• Women: In general, studies report many women suffering from anxiety and depression; this may be due to them facing the brunt of increased household responsibilities and domestic violence during the lockdown.
• Children: After speaking with 1,102 parents and primary caregivers, it was found that more than 50 percent of children had experienced agitation and anxiety during the lockdown. Media reports indicate that they may be experiencing fears about the virus, worries over access to online classes, and stress and irritability from being unable to go out. Many have faced violence in their homes or have been victims of cyber bullying.
• Young people: One survey reported that 65 percent of nearly 6,000 youth aged 18-32 years felt lonely during the lockdown, and 37 percent felt that their mental health had been ‘strongly impacted’. This is not surprising given that twenty-seven million young people lost their jobs in April 2020 alone, and 320 million students have been affected by the closing of educational institutions, and the postponement of exams.
• Migrant workers and daily wage labourers: Although there are no studies specifically with migrant workers, panic reactions have been observed in the millions who lost their livelihood and made desperate attempts to return to their rural homes. Daily wage laborers have also been heavily affected; a study of 1,200 auto drivers found that 75 percent were anxious about their work and finances.
• Doctors and frontline workers: A survey with 152 doctors found that more than a third of them are experiencing depression and anxiety due to the pandemic. Frontline workers are reportedly burdened by over-work, and anxious about contracting the virus.
• Sexual minority groups: A study of 282 people reported higher anxiety among sexual minority groups, and called for the attention of policymakers to take sensitive and inclusive health decisions for marginalised communities.
• People with pre-existing mental health conditions: The anxieties described earlier have been overwhelming for people with pre-existing mental health conditions. Problems may also have worsened for individuals because of the disruption of mental health services and the difficulty of travel, which led to people reducing doses of prescribed medication.
• People with substance use disorders: The sudden closure of all liquor shops in the country and the cutting off drug supplies has resulted in withdrawal symptoms in many people with alcohol and substance use dependence, for example, delirium and seizures. Many alcohol ‘addicts’ distressed by their craving have also consumed poisonous substances such as hand sanitisers as substitutes and died, or died by suicide.

It is important to note that the surveys conducted were not entirely representative, as they focused primarily on English-speaking, urban adults with access to the internet. Nevertheless, the prevalence of anxiety and depression reported are uniformly high—up to 20 percent higher than previously reported data.

 

Responding to the crisis

There has been a flourishing of initiatives to address this rising tide of mental health problems. Some of these include:

• Telemedicine platforms such as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and Mpower helpline, for example, received about 750 calls a day, and a total of 45,000 calls in just two months. E-platforms such as Lybate and Practo, have reported over a 180 percent increase in tele-psychiatry consultations.
• Central government initiatives include a telemedicine system whereby persons with mental illness can be provided with electronic medical prescriptions. However, this has not been very effective for poor persons in rural areas, or for obtaining medicines that cannot be sold over the counter without a hard copy prescription. The government has also issued a resource package that details guidelines for management of mental health problems, for use in primary and specialised health settings.
• At the state level, noteworthy responses include the ‘psychological support team’ constituted by the Kerala government, the reviving of the ‘Happiness Department’ in hospitals set up by the Madhya Pradesh government, and the initiatives at the Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment (OOAT)and de-addiction centres by the Punjab government.
• Several nonprofits, private hospitals, and universities have set up helplines and e-counselling—for example, the Neptune Foundation, Trijog, Mastermind Foundation, Samaritans, Jamia Millia Islamia, and others. Additionally, nonprofits such as CRY, The Banyan, Sangath, and others have hosted webinars on mental health, and/or are providing free tele-counselling services.

 

Looking ahead: Threats and opportunities

As we look ahead, beyond the acute phase of the pandemic, the world will need to address an economic recession far greater than anything we have encountered before.

A rise in mental health problems is expected as an impact of this economic recession, the widening of inequalities in countries, the isolating physical distancing policies, and continuing uncertainties about future waves of the pandemic.

This is not surprising, given the strong association between poverty, inequality, and poor mental health. Mental healthcare systems will be ill-equipped to deal with this surge, not only because of the paucity of skilled providers, but also because of the narrow biomedical models of illness which dominate mental healthcare.

However, there is a body of evidence generated by community-oriented practitioners in India that involve a range of innovative strategies to address the structural barriers to scaling up psychosocial therapies.

Notably, it was demonstrated that pared down ‘elements’ of complex psychological treatment packages can be just as effective as standardised treatment protocols, and that these can then be effectively delivered by non-specialist ‘therapists’ such as community health workers.

More recent innovations demonstrate the acceptability and effectiveness of digital training in the delivery of psychological treatments and of peer supervision for quality assurance.

These delivery models when combined and scaled up, can transform access to one of the most effective interventions in medicine. By working towards scaling up evidence-based psychological therapies, Empower, an initiative of Sangath, is trying to do just this.

But beyond specific programmes, there is an urgent need for a national, government response across relevant sectors.

For example, when looking at education, we need to consider how to address the mental health needs of children and young people (and their parents) while ensuring that their learning continues in the absence of schools being open.

We need strategies to proactively respond to risk factors that are associated with mental health that we know are on the rise; for example, domestic violence. We need to support community action, to build social cohesion and solidarity.

Lastly, given the impact of the media on people (for example, in one survey 44.7 percent of respondents reported that they ‘freak out’ because of social media posts), it’s important for us to remember that we need to be intentional and sensitive in how we communicate about the pandemic.

This is a timely moment for all who are concerned with mental health—from mental health professionals to civil society advocates—to unite behind with one message: The COVID-19 response must address mental health alongside containment of the pandemic itself.

This is also a historic opportunity for us to completely reimagine what mental healthcare means. To acknowledge and embrace the plural ways in which mental health problems are experienced, we must go beyond the narrow, disease-based models of mental healthcare and embrace the diversity and the pluralism of mental health in our communities.

 

Madhumitha Balaji is a Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance Early Career Fellow at Sangath, India. 

Vikram Patel is The Pershing Square Professor of Global Health and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at the Harvard Medical School.

 

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

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Manju Begum, 85, stands in front of her flooded house in Medeni Mandal in Munshiganj District, central Bangladesh. She says she has not received any assistance from local officials since her home was flooded more than a week ago. With nearly 5.5 million people people across Bangladesh affected by severe flooding, humanitarian experts are concerned that millions of people, already badly impacted by COVID-19, will be pushed further into poverty. Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

By Farid Ahmed
DHAKA, Aug 5 2020 (IPS)

With nearly 5.5 million people people across Bangladesh affected by severe flooding — the worst in two decades — humanitarian experts are concerned that millions of people, already badly impacted by COVID-19, will be pushed further into poverty.

With a third of the country under water, the National Disaster Response Coordination Centre in Bangladesh has reported that some 5.5 million people or nearly a million families were affected by the flooding as of Tuesday, Aug. 4.

The Health Emergency Control Room has recorded at least 145 deaths, mostly from drowning or snakebites, in 33 of the 64 districts affected by flooding.

In the past three days alone, two more districts were freshly inundated by heavy rains, affecting nearly half a million more people.

• The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) said in a Aug. 4 report that heavy monsoon rains in upstream regions continued to cause flooding in Bangladesh’s districts in the north, north-east and south-east, affecting some 5.4 million people.
• June to August is typically the monsoon season here, but since the start of June heavy rains have resulted in many of the country’s rivers reaching levels classified as “dangerous”.
• UN OCHA said the flooding had damaged houses, dykes, embankments, safe water sources and hygiene facilities and also adversely affected livelihoods, especially in the agricultural sector. It had also disrupted access to basic services such as health care and education.

“I have lost everything in the river Jamuna – my home, my croplands… it went under water so swiftly that I couldn’t save my belongings either,” Abdur Rahman from Sirajganj region, north-central Bangladesh said.

A number of low-lying areas in Sirajganj were affected by flooding when the Jamuna river levels rose in July, leaving hundreds homeless. The Jamuna and Padma rivers are two of the country’s main rivers. The Padma, the main distributary of the Ganges, also burst it banks last month. In several districts, school buildings, roads and other structures were destroyed.

It is not just Bangladesh that is affected. Flooding has wreaked havoc across a large part of South Asia. In Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Bhutan several million people have been affected and scores killed. Assam, Bihar and part of West Bengal were the worst-affected states in India.

“People in Bangladesh, India and Nepal are sandwiched in a triple disaster of flooding, coronavirus and an associated socioeconomic crisis of loss of livelihoods and jobs,” Jagan Chapagain, the secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said.

“Millions of people across Bangladesh, India and Nepal have been marooned, their homes damaged and crops destroyed by floods that are the worst in recent years,” Chaplain added.

He said the flooding of farm lands and destruction of crops could push millions of people, already badly impacted by COVID-19, further into poverty.

In Bangladesh, the worst affected are those who have become paupers overnight as they lost their homes, belongings and croplands.

In some districts, entire villages are under water, forcing people to leave their homes in search of safety while many were seen crouching on rooftops waiting for rescue. In the flooded northern districts in Bangladesh, it was a common sight of villagers marooned on the roofs of their houses along with their livestock or poultry while many others sought shelter on embankments or roads.

Arif Hossain from Munshiganj District, central Bangladesh, was a tailor by profession before the coronavirus pandemic. Now he spends his days ferrying people in the submerged locality on his small boat.

In central Bangladesh, major rivers continue to overflow, causing heavy flooding to ravage low-lying parts of the capital, Dhaka. In adjoining districts and northern parts of the country much of the population, who have already been affected by the coronavirus lockdowns, are in dire straits. Poorly-prepared relief operations have aggravated the plight of victims, triggering public anger and widespread criticism of the government.

“I haven’t received any kind of aid,” Hossain told IPS.

“Many people in the areas left the villages… those who have no place to go, like me, are staying here in homes that are already [flooded],” Hossain told IPS adding, “We’re staying in a room submerged in knee-deep water… my two children are always scared of snakes.”

• The flooding is the second natural disaster that the country has had to deal with in as many months. In May, Cyclone Amphan made landfall in the midst of the country’s coronavirus lockdown. More than 2.4 million people and over half a million livestock had to be evactued from the in the coastal districts of Khulna, Satkheera, Jessore, Rajbadi and Sirajganj.

Manju Begum, 85, who lives alone in Medeni Mandal in Munshiganj District, central Bangladesh, 55 kilometres from capital, decried the non-action of local public representatives. She told IPS that nobody from her local government had offered her assistance after her home had been flooded.

“Floodwater entered my bedroom eight days ago… I got a little amount of food only from my neighbours,” she said.

However, last week Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina asked all government officials to remain prepared to extend support to those affected by the floods. She assured the country that extensive assistance would be given to the flood victims.

Bangladesh state minister for disaster management and relief Md. Enamur Rahman said they had formed six committees to monitor the activities of government relief assistance programmes.

The government has distributed cash, rice and other materials to those affected by the flooding and allocations would be increased if needed, Rahman said at a press conference in Dhaka last week.

Mostak Hussain, humanitarian director for Save the Children in Bangladesh, said nearly two million children here were affected by the longest-lasting floods in over 20 years.

“This has been a devastating monsoon so far and we’re only half way through the season,” he said.

The flooding has also left a large number of women affected as their livelihoods such as livestock, poultry farming, vegetable cultivation or tailoring have come to a halt. Initially, they faced setbacks to income generation as the coronavirus pandemic resulted in the country being shutdown.

“I took a loan from an NGO and started a poultry farm a couple of years ago, but I was forced to sell the chickens at a cheaper price as water inundated my house… now I’m not sure how would I repay the loan or maintain the family expenditure as I don’t have any work,” Shahana Begum, a widow, told IPS.

Related Articles

• Cyclone Amphan – ‘We Didn’t Expect Devastation of Such a Scale’

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H.E. Mr. Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, President of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, visits a school in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 10 February 2020. Credit: Geremew Tigabu/UN OPGA

By Tijjani Muhammad-Bande
NEW YORK, Aug 4 2020 (IPS)

The United Nations came into existence at a time of great despair, when the penholders of its founding document dared to imagine a better world, one that would be defined by peace and equality. Visionary world leaders chose hope over cynicism, empathy over indifference and partnership over distrust when they came together in San Francisco on 26 June 1945 to sign the Charter of the United Nations. They embarked upon a new, rules-based world order, with an Organization of unrivalled legitimacy at its core.

Over the past 75 years, the United Nations General Assembly has served as a “parliament of humanity”. As the primary deliberative, policy-making and representative body of the United Nations, the Assembly provides a forum to share perspectives, forge partnerships and build consensus. It is rooted in equality of both voice and vote. When there is disagreement, the Assembly provides space for respectful debate, where Members can generate understanding and reach compromise.

Within its remit as a principal organ of the United Nations, the General Assembly has assisted in guiding the transformation of our world over the past three quarters of a century. It adopts resolutions across a wide breadth of issues that reflect the aspirations of humanity across the three pillars of the work of the United Nations: human rights, peace and security, and development.

General Assembly resolutions have helped create the building blocks for the normative development of international law. In 1959, Assembly resolution 1472 (XIV) created the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. This initiated work that facilitated the use of modern technology and telecommunications. In 1957, the Assembly, by resolution 1105 (XI), decided to convene the first United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, paving the way for the adoption in 1982 of humanity’s first “constitution for the seas”—the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The Charter of the United Nations set out the objective to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. Accordingly, the General Assembly has worked hard towards the goal of eliminating atomic weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction. This was the genesis of the normative development of the international regime of disarmament and non-proliferation.

In 1948, the Assembly, by resolution 217 (III), adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This set of inalienable rights set out standards for equal treatment of all people and re-affirmed the preamble of the Charter:

“We the peoples of the United Nations determined … to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women…”

Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations, which was signed at San Francisco on 26 June 1945. Credit: UN Photo

The world has changed significantly since 1945, with more than 80 former colonies joining the Organization. In response to the peoples of the United Nations yearning for independence, the Assembly, in its fifteenth year, adopted resolution 1514, which provided the most authoritative and comprehensive formulation of the principle of self-determination. In 1966, resolution 2202 A (XXI) declared apartheid a crime against humanity. The Assembly continues to promote equality and dignity for all, including through the mandated 2015-2024 the International Decade for People of African Descent with the theme “People of African descent: recognition, justice and development”, and the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, observed on 21 March.

Indeed, the General Assembly has sought to end discrimination in all its forms. It adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons in 1975; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1979; the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief in 1981; the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989; and, more recently, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007.

In 2015, all Member States adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development via resolution 70/1. The Paris Climate Agreement began in embryonic form as a General Assembly resolution. These twenty-first century milestones of multilateralism demonstrate the recognition of Member States that collective action is required to combat an existential threat and safeguard the world’s citizens and the planet we inhabit for generations to come. When faced with global challenges, solidarity remains our first and best line of defense.

The United Nations, however, is not a panacea. Despite its best efforts, conflict and strife persists, and in some cases irreparable damage has been done to society. We could not prevent the genocide in Rwanda, and the question of Palestine remains unresolved. These are regarded by many as cases in which the international community has fallen short. Therefore, we must reflect and continue to work together in the names of the communities that need us most, and in honour of United Nations peacekeepers and personnel who have paid the ultimate price in the line of duty.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has led the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic since the onset of the crisis. The United Nations system has been most effective in galvanizing support for the most vulnerable. In the General Assembly, Member States rallied to adopt resolutions calling for solidarity and global access to medicines and medical equipment. They have also taken historic steps to enable the General Assembly to operate and uphold the vital work of the United Nations during this period by adopting decisions under new rules and procedures.

The 75th anniversary of the United Nations takes place at a moment of reckoning for our shared planet and shared future. This is a time for action, ambition and partnership. By 1 July 2020, over 10 million cases had been reported to WHO and more than 500,000 people had succumbed to the effects of COVID-19.1 This pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities, and the socio-economic impact is unprecedented in the history of our Organization. The Executive Director of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, warns of a famine “of biblical proportions”; the United Nations Economic and Social Council reports that 1.6 billion children are unable to attend school in person; and the pandemic continues to disproportionately affect women and vulnerable groups, such as refugees and internally displaced persons.

Our continued response will require a recommitment to multilateralism as we build back better in this Decade of Action (2020–2030) to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2015, the membership of the General Assembly pledged to leave no one behind and shift the world onto a path of sustainable development and prosperity for all. We are in an unprecedented situation, and we must redouble our efforts to achieve the SDGs on time. This is a call to action for the United Nations as we reflect upon the future we want and the United Nations we need.

Three quarters of a century ago, the founders of our Organization demonstrated fortitude at a time of crisis. They chose to trust one another and unite in pursuit of a better world. In the inaugural address of the first President of the General Assembly, His Excellency Paul-Henri Spaak stated, “It is possible that one day, in the future, the pessimists may be right; I do not know. But I do know that today they are wrong. In San Francisco, they announced that the Charter could never be established; in London, that the Organization would never come into existence; in the past few weeks, that we should never meet again, and now, no doubt, that we are going to tear each other to pieces.”2

On the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, let it be clear that we will not let the founders of our Organization or ourselves down. “We the peoples” must remain steadfast in our resolve to advance the goals and principles of our Charter.

1Available from the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic page of the World Health Organization website (https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019) (accessed on 1 July 2020).

2United Nations, General Assembly Official Records, Thirty-fourth plenary meeting, U.N. Doc A-PV-34-EN (23 October 1946), para. 82. Available at https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/482476?ln=en.

This article was first published by the UN Chronicle on 6 July 2020.

 

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Excerpt:

Tijjani Muhammad-Bande is President of the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly and Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations.

The post The UN General Assembly: A 75-Year Journey Towards the Future We Want appeared first on Inter Press Service.

King Felipe VI of Spain and his father king emeritus Juan Carlos. Credit: Palacio de la Zarzuela.

By Joaquín Roy
MIAMI, Aug 4 2020 (IPS)

Long ago, I was reviewing the offer of readings on the Internet, as a break from the search for academic sources for one of those articles with which to comply with professional rules, impress colleagues and students, and continue climbing steps in the university.

I first came across an interview and then a quick review of a book, the ideas of which I found extremely helpful in solving intellectual dilemmas. The interview was a quick conversation between a new journalist and a veteran movie star: Jane Fonda.

I have not confessed to being a fan of the American actress nor have I recognized her father more than as a bare-bones actor. But some time ago I was struck by the marriage (third or fourth) of Jane with whom would be the founder of a pioneering television network, a model never well imitated: CNN, the work of Ted Turner.

Over the years, I have become a trapped consumer of this news invention, to the point that now, in the midst of the double pandemic (the virus and the one caused by Trump), I cannot do without the chain, even if it is to avoid the trump FOX.

In that interview (expanded on in her book, Prime Time) Jane Fonda proposed life as a series of theatrical acts. The first phase is training, which can be extended to professional and family life consolidation, the second stage. Her proposal is that the third stage is like a third act of theater.

Joaquín Roy

The evolution of life is, rather than a curve that goes up and then down, it is more like an ascending ladder. It is the third stage or act when you can be more productive, from the age of sixty or even after retirement. It is precisely in this phase when one can no longer afford to make the mistakes of the two preceding ones. In the third act you can do everything, except ridicule.

Ridicule is what King Emeritus Juan Carlos I is committing, after a long career, two previous acts in which history will recognize him full of personal achievements and political contributions.

In the first act, coinciding with his youth and personal settlement, he concentrated on complying with a script dictated by the harsh history of the first half of the 20th century in Spain.

The end of the monarchy of his grandfather Alfonso XIII, the Civil War and the Franco dictatorship imposed the rules of the game that he had to fulfill if he wanted his family to return to the throne, even if it was with the commendable sacrifice of his father Don Juan. The silence of Juan Carlos fulfilling all the steps is recognized as the basis of the achievements of the second act started.

Thanks to the collusion of the “Juancarlistas”, who were not monarchists, democracy was consolidated, culminating in the 23rd performance, of which their supposed double role as accomplice and hero has not yet been demonstrated.

The truth is that history weighed heavily on the family’s decision-making: Constantine, Queen Sofia’s brother, had lost the throne of Greece for his support of the military. Alfonso XIII had signed his delayed defenestration when he left command to General Primo de Rivera. Letting himself be carried away by General Armada, while Tejero pointed at the deputies was equivalent to a harakiri.

The truth is that this apparently impeccable second act began to show signs of malfunctioning as the already established democratic regime suffered the consequences of the faltering alternation between the two main parties.

The Socialist Party (significantly the mainstay of the Juancarlista monarchy) seemed exhausted after the repetition of Felipe González’s mandate. The coming to power of José María Aznar would be followed by a troubled foreign policy inclined towards the United States, affected by the Iraq adventure.

The moderating power of Juan Carlos suffered from lack of influence at the turn of the century due to the economic crisis. In that context, already in the third act of the monarch, it was seen how the behavior of the monarch was reeling.

Her daughter and son-in-law were accused of corruption, and the entire monarchy suffered an unprecedented trial. Her son’s wedding and the accession to the throne as Felipe VI failed to cover the damage of the father’s deteriorated behavior. The elephant Bostwana’s hunt, accompanied by his sentimental partner, led to abdication.

The discovery of the collection and laundering of commissions for the construction of the AVE to Mecca has been the drop that has filled the glass and that has culminated with the escape towards an innovative variant of exile.

In his third act, Juan Carlos I can even lose the privilege of being king emeritus. Jane Fonda will remind you that in the third act you cannot have free liberties that lead to ridicule. As an urgent remedy, with his son they have adopted the “social distance” (not six feet, but kilometers). Juan Carlos will also have to put on the mask to, in addition to protecting himself from the pandemic and avoid infecting the Spanish people, hide his now-disappeared smile.

 

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

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Credit: Unsplash / Lynda Hinton

By Kaveh Zahedi and Van Nguyen
BANGKOK, Thailand, Aug 4 2020 (IPS)

After decades of impressive growth, for the first time, Southeast Asia is experiencing a drop in measured human development. The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic will likely take months to reveal itself and years to put right. Yet, a legacy of mobilizing under constraints is leading Southeast Asia’s pandemic response.

During the first two months of COVID-19 lockdown, the once bustling streets of Bangkok were unusually quiet. In the alley nested between two high-end shopping malls in downtown Bangkok, an elderly couple were not at their usual rice cart. Their regulars, motorbike taxi drivers and shop assistants, were absent. The couple have not returned now that things have eased. A Thai blind massage team shared, in our recent dialogue, that for them, no tourism equals no clients and no income.

Similar tales of woe can be heard in many other poor communities across Southeast Asia. Garbage pickers in the slums outside Manila; temporary workers living outside industrial zones in Ho Chi Minh city; undocumented migrants and refugees living along the borders of Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand. They are among the 177 million people (below the $5.5 poverty line) that the World Bank now estimates will slip into poverty.

Southeast Asian communities are no strangers to calamities. In those times, they could probably turn to a relative, a friend or a neighbor for help. Or work extra to make up for the lost income. But the usual informal safety net only works if some are spared from the disaster. The COVID-19 pandemic does the exact opposite, striking everyone down at the same time. Closed restaurants need no kitchen hands; street hawkers and motorbike taxis are idle when all stay at home; empty hotels need no cleaning. The new brief by the Secretary General shows that Southeast Asia’s GDP is estimated to contract on average by 0.1 per cent in 2020 with 218 million informal workers having their livelihoods at risk.

The informality of work means that they are not protected by any formal social safety nets. Even before the crisis, our analysis shows that 60 per cent of the population in Asia and the Pacific had no protection when they become sick, disabled or unemployed. Many are so invisible that they would not even figure in the statistics. The prolonged drought in much of Southeast Asia and the looming monsoons in the coming months may risk sweeping away the few assets they have left. Their hopes for the future, investment in their children’s education, look grim. Poor children without internet access, computers and smart phones cannot readily jump into remote learning during school closures. Without safety nets, either formal or informal, to fall back on, many will inevitably slide into poverty with no clear respite in sight.

Yet good news has come from Southeast Asia. The region was among the first to be hit by the pandemic and contains some of the countries with the greatest success in curbing it, including Viet Nam and Thailand. Governments have been quick to roll out fiscal packages to help affected businesses and households. Our review of COVID-19 responses reveals a diverse mix of relief packages including support for health responders, subsidies for small and medium-sized enterprises, wage subsidies and direct cash transfers for vulnerable populations.

A myriad of local initiatives are another source of great hope. In Thailand, local voluntary groups have quickly come together to locate and provide essential packages to the most in-need communities, including those unregistered. New ways of providing health support have emerged such as teleconsultation for rehabilitation in Singapore and targeted telehealth services for children with disabilities in Malaysia. These good practices were shared in our recent dialogue for protecting and empowering persons with disabilities. Permeating these practices is a strong sense of coming together from both the public and private sector.

The crisis has also shown that limited fiscal space and resources have not stopped countries from supporting their people. Measures that once were thought to be expensive such as establishing universal health care and broadening social protection coverage are now rightly seen as essential investments in people. Measures that were seen as luxuries such as securing internet for all are now recognized as a lifeline especially for poor and vulnerable communities including refugees and migrants. Measures that would help us respond faster to crises such as providing people with basic legal identity are now a must.

Southeast Asia’s long road to recovery has started. Time will tell if the emergency measures can be “locked in” to help address the region’s deep inequalities and put it on a green recovery path as advocated by the United Nations Secretary General in his recent brief on COVID-19 in Southeast Asia. Only then will the people of Southeast Asia be more resilient in any future crisis.

Kaveh Zahedi, Deputy Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

Van Nguyen, Sustainable Development Officer, Environment and Development Division, ESCAP

 

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Credit: Fiona Lambe / SEI.

By Eco Matser
AMSTERDAM, Aug 4 2020 (IPS)

The Sustainable Development goals on energy speak clear: universal access energy and clean cooking by 2030 (SDG7). But the current efforts are still lagging several steps behind the specific needs of the communities and are not enough to achieve energy access for all, especially clean cooking solutions.

Numerous studies have been done and plans have been developed how to do this, but most of them have overlooked people and their needs. The energy transition affects daily lives and we cannot ignore those who are potentially on the receiving end of these interventions.

We know that people can provide better guidance on how to move forward. This can be achieved by asking people themselves how they see this transition to clean cooking, how this would affect their habits and traditions, who can drive this change, and how they can actively promote it

We see a big gap between the sustainable objectives and the reality on the ground, and we know that people can provide better guidance on how to move forward. This can be achieved by asking people themselves how they see this transition to clean cooking, how this would affect their habits and traditions, who can drive this change, and how they can actively promote it. And this inclusive process should start now. 

Indeed, despite the progress and the essential role of clean energy services to spur socio-economic development, approximately 2.8 billion people lack access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking.

Access to clean cooking solutions remains particularly challenging in Sub-Saharan Africa, where progress has barely kept pace with population increase. Almost four million of people die every year for causes attributable to indoor air pollution, as reported by the World Health Organization (WHO), and most of them use traditional cooking fuels like firewood, charcoal and kerosene.

The COVID19 pandemic has stressed the fragility of the current socio-economic system, revealing the profound existing inequalities and questioning the pace of the efforts in achieving universal clean cooking access. 

 

Empower small communities 

Electric cooking has proven to be a cost-effective and feasible alternative, but a long-term successful energy transition must also address social impacts, behavioral and cultural factors.

These factors may be a barrier to the cooking transition, which should be dynamic and supported by other collateral needs, such as wider electrification in the communities. Scaling up these technologies requires a strong political will, targeted investments and policies, but also a better understanding of the socio-cultural aspects of cooking, such as taste, cooking practices, cultural norms, and gender roles. 

In Kenya, a group of people who currently do not have access to clean cooking technologies has been asked to plan a transition to clean and 100% electric cooking. The group explored ways to reach this.

During work sessions, the villagers use “backcasting” as methodology to explore possible pathways. In their view, the transition to electric cooking would not change food habits but would improve family safety and health.

It is also seen to leverage changes in the gender roles by relieving women of some of the household burdens, reducing the amount of time required for collecting fuels and doing chores, and allowing them to pursue income-generating opportunities, such as selling cakes and cookies.

The community envisions this change to be linked with access to a broader range of electrical appliances associated with modern living, and most of all they consider the community itself as a driver of change. 

The backcasting research with the Kenyan community showed once again that the clean cooking transition should start by empowering villagers, by supporting early saving and working with early adapters, and by building the know-how and confidence to engage with  government entities to access key services.

NGOs can play a crucial role in introducing new cooking transition technologies, demonstrating mini grids and training communities, but the community and specifically the early adopters of these technologies are those who can make this change real.

Governments and development partners, in turn, are called upon to spur progress on multiple levels, from public services and large-scale infrastructure to full electrification, to improved education and health facilities. All these sectors are profoundly interlinked and require cross-sectoral cooperation. 

 

Next steps 

Our study in Kenya with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) shows that people can imagine, envision and plan for a clean cooking future beyond fire. Once set goals, and given the technologies, fuels and finance availability, we have to make sure that investments are channeled into well-targeted measures that enable people in driving this change and make it happen. 

Our study is an initial step towards stressing the need of building a knowledge on the behavioral and cultural aspects of transitions to cooking with electricity.

Governments and donors must consider the household and community perspective, how the transition to electric cooking is perceived locally, and take actions based on the role and responsibilities of various actors engaged in the system, from the household to civil society. 

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Excerpt:

Eco Matser is Program Manager at Hivos

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Religions for Peace Interreligious Council of Albania distributing Covid relief supplies from the Multi-religious Humanitarian Fund. Credit: Erzen Carja

By Prof. Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Aug 4 2020 (IPS)

— I have never been interested in religion or spirituality before, but I found myself tuning in to all sorts of on-line religion and spirituality related forums “in search of something.”

These are the words of a 30-something single young, middle class man (born into a Protestant-Catholic family background) in a European country.

The latter is known more for turning several churches into museums or shopping centers, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. When people are afraid, lonely and alone – they tend to seek “something” beyond science.

A quarter of Americans say their faith has become stronger because of the pandemic, according to a Pew survey conducted during April 20-26, 2020, of 10,139 U.S. adults.

But this is to be contrasted with the experiences of those from an older generation (60+) in the southern hemisphere, like my own 85-year old Muslim father, who lives to pray. For him, the mosque has, over the last decade since my mother’s death, become both his spiritual hub and social club.

His cohort is differing ages of retirees, who, in spite of very different political perspectives in a Middle Eastern country reflecting the now normal of intense polarization, treasure their prayerful community spaces. This middle class (an endangered species to be sure) of retirees, share a sense of deep faith informing their social and political convictions.

For many of them, the lockdown was experienced primarily s an inability to go to the mosque, and thus as almost physically painful. None of them countenanced the idea of on-line prayers, that doesn’t make any sense, they maintained. Their sense of depression was almost palpable throughout the lockdown period, as was their joy at the reopening of some mosques.

The coronavirus presents barriers to caring for the sick and to performing certain death and burial rites which are core religious practices, and especially needed in a pandemic that has already claimed nearly hundreds of thousands of lives.

In Sri Lanka for example, public health measures for safe burial practices have already challenged traditional rites, wherein authorities mandated cremations for Covid-19-linked deaths, despite the fact that cremation is supposed to be forbidden in Islam.

Covid-19 also complicates Jewish and Muslim burial practices of washing and cloaking bodies before burial, given concerns about transmission. Innovative religious responses seeking to reconcile public health policies with traditional burial practices have been taking place.

In Israel, for example, bodies are wrapped in plastic before burial, and before that, ritual washing is completed while wearing full protective gear. Some Islamic scholars are providing exegesis and guidance on how the ritual of washing the body prior to burials, could be conducted safely whilst following Islamic principles.

Religions for Peace Interreligious Council of Albania distributing Covid relief supplies from the Multi-religious Humanitarian Fund. Credit: Erzen Carja

This echoes what occurred during the Ebola crisis in West Africa. In fact, while COVID-19 differs from HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, and Ebola, there are nevertheless some important similarities.

In cases of dealing with diseases where transmission affects large numbers of people, and vaccines and medication remain relatively hard to find and/or provide to all affected, beyond the health inequities which are underscored during such times, there are critical lapses by national and international authorities in acknowledging and supporting the role of religious leaders.

In fact, during previous outbreaks of HIV/AIDS (around the world), and of Ebola in Central and West Africa, the strengths of religious communities were rarely incorporated into public policy – until national and international secular authorities lose the plot.

In Religions for Peace (the only multi religious organization representing all religious institutions and communities around the world with 90 national and 6 regional Inter-Religious Councils/IRCs), a founding mantra is that caring for the most vulnerable is deeply embedded in all faith traditions.

As a result, religious institutions, communities, and faith-inspired/based NGOs (or FBOs as they are often referred to), have historically served as the original providers of essential social services. In fact, FBOs are the first responders in most humanitarian emergencies. Their work includes providing spiritual sustenance for sure, but also hunger relief, heath care, and shelter.

This is not only a feature of the developing world. Samaritan’s Purse set up a health center at the height of the pandemic in Central Park – an icon of New York city. Caritas, at one point, was feeding 5,000 people a day, in Geneva, Switzerland.

For 50 years, Religions for Peace worked to equip its IRCs (through the respective religious institutions and services) to seek peace through advocating for human rights (including the rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as women, religious minorities, the disabled, elderly, and youth), mediating conflicts, providing emergency humanitarian relief, and contributing to sustainable development efforts (including health, nutrition, sanitation, education and environmental sustainability).

The defining feature of Religions for Peace IRCs is multi-religious collaboration. The main principles of this collaboration are representativity and subsidiarity. In the case of the former, each IRC earns Religions for Peace affiliation by ensuring its governance represents each and all of the nations religious institutions, and communities. In return, each IRC is guaranteed its independence to determine its national/regional priorities, and its modus operandi.

Half a century of collaboration with several United Nations entities at different moments in time, provides a comparative context to enable an assessment of how the UN works with some religious actors.

At the very least, this historical time-line of partnership efforts on peace and security, sustainable development and human rights, provides a learning context. It is with that in mind that we can say that UN efforts in seeking partnerships with faith-based NGOs in facing the Covid-19 implications, are noticeably on the increase relative to pre-Covid dynamics.

Entities like UNHCR, UNICEF, UNAIDS, WHO, and even non-operational entities like the Secretary-General’s own office, as well as UN Office of Genocide Prevention and Responsibility to Protect, have, respectively, issued statements specifically calling on religious leaders and actors to uphold their unique influences (noted above), sought religious input on and in Covid Guidance documents, and (are) hosting multiple consultations to strengthen myriad joint responses.

Working with multiple stakeholders, Religions for Peace research is revealing that while some religious charities are struggling to find resources to continue their services for communities, other FBOs are able to raise more resources for pandemic relief, than anticipated.

This is particularly the case for Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist organisations in countries in Asia, but also Muslim and Christian charities in Africa and the Middle East.

Almost 90% of Religions for Peace IRCs reported a 100% increase in engagement (asks) of their advocacy and messaging efforts from/by national governments, particularly as of May and June 2020 – as compared to this time last year.

This is evidenced through national campaigns during religious occasions and holidays, as well as local awareness raising efforts by religious leaders in particular, as opposed to faith-based NGOs.

Out of the Covid response efforts tracked by 25 Religions for Peace IRCs in 4 regions, thanks to the Multi-Religious Humanitarian Fund administered by RfP, multi-religious efforts are, on average, much harder to encourage than efforts administered by Ecumenical or single religion organisations.

A rough estimate shows that out of the nearly 100 humanitarian assistance projects being tracked by RfP in 40 countries in parts of Africa and Asia, only 1 percent involve multi-religious efforts. Several IRCs have also reported finding it harder to even advocate for multi religious collaboration to provide pandemic assistance (food and medicine packages) in conflict impacted countries (i.e. more than it normally is to seek to mediate some of the conflicts and/or work with governments in mediation efforts).

While it is now almost a cliche to call for more partnerships with religious, or faith-based actors, this is simply not good enough. FBOs, like many NGOs fully immersed in relief efforts, are finding several (good) excuses not to work together.

Faced with a global pandemic, even the FBOs – ostensibly inspired by religious calls for serving all, including the most vulnerable – are less keen on collaborating across their multiple differences (institutional, theological, structural, financial and political), as they continue to serve millions.

Is it enough to serve all who need regardless of religious affiliation (the current bar against which religious NGOs are often measured by the UN and other international entities), or should a pandemic inspire more, and better collaboration among multi-religious partners?

One can but wonder what the relative lack of religious NGO collaboration may foretell for social coexistence after the pandemic, not to mention what this lack of collaboration spells for the legitimacy of the so-called prophetic voice many of them speak of.

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug 4 2020 (IPS)

The 2020 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization and its United Nations partners in mid-July, reports that chronic hunger continued to increase to 690 million worldwide in 2019, 60 million more than in 2014.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Some two billion people worldwide were already experiencing some food insecurity during 2019, a number likely to spike upward due to Covid-19. Although headline hunger numbers have been significantly revised down retrospectively with better official data, the uptrend remains alarming.

The 2020 UN report continues to expand its coverage of malnutrition, going beyond the old narrow focus on dietary energy or caloric undernourishment. With its cost estimates for healthy diets much higher than for energy-based diets, as many as three billion people in the world cannot afford nutritious diets.

Another false start in Africa
Even progress in addressing dietary energy undernourishment in the world has been uneven, with Africa projected to overtake South Asia in a decade as the region with the most hungry people, rising to 433 million in 2030 from a quarter billion.

The report False Promises argues that despite improved understanding of malnutrition, a narrow focus on increasing caloric supply, at the expense of both crop and dietary diversity, is being promoted by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).

AGRA promised to double productivity and incomes for 30 million small-scale farming households while halving food insecurity by 2020 in the 11 remaining focus countries using high-yielding commercial seeds, fertilizers and pesticides.

Launched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006, AGRA has spent almost US$1 billion promoting such practices. The report shows problematic outcomes, with AGRA “failing on its own terms”.

Who gains from subsidies?
As most farmers cannot afford AGRA’s expensive recommended commercial seeds and fertilizers, African governments subsidise them at the cost of about US$1 billion annually.

Subsidies for commercial seeds and fertilizers have mainly promoted ‘starchy’ crops, such as maize and rice, resulting in much more land planted with such subsidized crops, often replacing more climate-resilient, nutritious crops such as sweet potato and millet.

However, the promised productivity surge has not happened, only rising modestly, with net incomes barely increasing, if at all, despite the subsidies. Meanwhile, the number of hungry people in AGRA focus countries has increased by 30% since 2006!

Maize production rose 87%, mainly due to more land being planted with it, while millet fell 24%, with yields falling 21% in AGRA countries. Staple root crops, including sweet potato and cassava, saw a 7% yield decline under AGRA.

As it reaches its own 2020 deadline, neither AGRA nor the Gates Foundation has published any overall evaluation of its impacts on the yields, incomes, food security and nutritional status of the smallholder households reached.

Food systems for healthy diets
Most African farmers are believed to be poor, growing crops for both subsistence and sale. But diverse, healthy diets for them are now less affordable as nutritious, climate-resilient, ‘traditional’ crops have been displaced by AGRA-promoted crops such as maize and rice.

Such Green Revolution programmes have thus undermined sustainable crop diversity supportive of dietary diversity. These generally include more plant-based diets, considered better for both human health and the environment.

Sustainable farming should instead promote nutritious, affordable diets for all, especially the world’s half billion small-scale farmers who, along with their families, comprise many of the world’s hungry.

By contrast, nearly 300 large ‘ecological agriculture’ projects in more than fifty poor countries apparently averaged a 79% productivity increase, with declining costs and increasing incomes, more impressive than AGRA, and with superior nutrition outcomes.

Rwanda’s AGRA record
Rwanda’s purported success as an AGRA focus country elevated Rwandan Agriculture Minister Agnes Kalibata to AGRA’s leadership in September 2014. In late 2019, she was named to lead preparations for the UN Secretary-General’s World Food Systems Summit in 2021.

Rwanda’s maize production grew four-fold, with a 66% yield rise due to fertilizers and high-yielding seeds, with the rest presumably due to 146% more land under the crop. Rice output nearly doubled under AGRA, as planted rice land rose 147% as yields fell 19%.

But this boom has come at the expense of more nutritious and diverse small-scale agriculture, with the AGRA package imposed with a heavy hand, and the government reportedly banning cultivation of some other staple crops in some areas.

Sorghum, cassava, sweet potato, and other roots and tubers were more important food crops than maize before AGRA, providing dietary diversity and benefits to the soil. Land under cassava fell 16%, while that under sorghum declined 17%.

One step forward, two steps back
Dr Kalibata claims to have raised per capita calorie production from 1,700 to 2,700 daily. But Tim Wise’s Staple Yield Index suggests a more modest overall net yield increase of 24% after 12 years of AGRA-influenced policy.

Although maize output rose four-fold as rice harvested doubled, chronic hunger increased by over 40% between 2006 and 2019 as the number of undernourished rose by 1.3 million to 4.4 million according to the UN report.

Meanwhile, Rwandan poverty, which had fallen by half a million in the dozen years before AGRA, rose by half a million under AGRA.

The Rwandan government campaign was resisted by many farmers, eventually forcing it to relax some crop restrictions, to allow more diversity, as President Paul Kagame sought re-election in 2017. Nonetheless, maize and other favoured crops remain heavily subsidized and supported.

The AGRA model imposed on previously relatively diverse Rwanda farming almost certainly undermined its more nutritious and sustainable traditional agricultural cropping patterns, which are not easily measured using money-metric indices.

Replacing hunger with malnutrition
A popular and persistent misconception is that it is necessary to first overcome dietary energy undernourishment before addressing malnutrition. Dr Kalibata has argued that “poor, hungry countries can’t think about diet diversity, it’s a luxury”.

While traditional and subsistence food production and consumption undoubtedly had problems, food access and dietary diversity were generally better. ‘Hidden hunger’ is best addressed by dietary diversity, supported by crop diversity in farming, rather than the Green Revolution’s exclusive focus on raising caloric intake.

Thus, seemingly paradoxically, ‘dirt-poor’ subsistence farmers’ children may have better diets than those of richer mono-cropping farmers. Monoculture’s damaging impacts on biodiversity, natural resources and ecosystems are also well-known.

With growing recognition of the many problems of health, human development and wellbeing due to malnutrition, including maternal, infant and child malnutrition, it would be a major step back to singularly focus on dietary energy intake.

Food systems against malnutrition
At the mid-point of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition since 2016, it is crucial that the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit ensures that food systems do not leave anyone behind in the ongoing struggle against malnutrition.

This could happen if micronutrient deficiencies and other health problems are ignored in singular pursuit of increasing caloric output, which may not even reduce hunger, as in Rwanda.

Clearly, progress will not be achieved by either a nostalgic return to tradition or subsistence in very changed circumstances, or blind faith in corporate profit-driven technological change, insensitive to the needs of resource and ecological sustainability, social justice, farmer welfare, food safety, human nutrition and health.

Progressively transform food systems
The July UN report, subtitled Transforming Food Systems for Affordable Healthy Diets, suggests how food systems need to be changed to enable affordable, nutritious diets for the billions who cannot afford them, thus building on the 2014 second International Conference on Nutrition.

The report recognises the fundamental importance of both the ‘hidden hunger’ of micronutrient deficiencies and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Most fruits, vegetables and other nutrient dense foods are now beyond the reach of low-income households.

The challenge is compounded by poor food consumption habits and bad dietary behaviour due to other influences such as advertising, markets, convenience and changing lifestyles. Policies to reduce costs and improve access to healthy diets for all clearly need urgent attention.

As developing countries reconsider food supply chains after recent disruptions due to unexpected Covid-19 contagion, containment and relief measures, the vulnerable must be prioritized, with up to 130 million more projected to go hungry due to lost incomes.

 

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Riverbed mining in Arin, which flows into the Jhelum river via Wular Lake in Kashmir. Courtesy: ThirdPole.net/Athar Parvaiz

By Athar Parvaiz
Aug 3 2020 (IPS)

Going against its own orders, the government in the Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has ordered the fast-tracking of environmental clearances despite manifest evidence of illegal sand mining.

A few months after the Jammu and Kashmir government auctioned hundreds of stretches of riverbeds for mineral extraction, companies that won the bids are mining the riverbeds despite the lack of environmental clearance. This makes the mining illegal. But instead of stopping that, on July 30 the government ordered “fast-tracking of environmental clearance”.

What is happening in Jammu and Kashmir is part of widespread illegal riverbed mining all over South Asia, which flourishes despite reports by officials, independent experts and the media. Three journalists reporting illegal riverbed mining have been killed over the past five years in India; many others have been injured and threatened.

The mining is mostly for sand and rocks used to build houses, roads and so on.

In June, the government’s own Jammu and Kashmir Expert Appraisal Committee (JKEAC) pointed out that illegal riverbed mining was going on. Taking note of it, the Jammu and Kashmir Environment Impact Assessment Authority (JKEIAA) – again the government’s own – sought immediate steps to stop illegal mining.

Instead, within a week, the government ordered that environmental clearances be sped up.

JKEAC is an eight-member group of experts set up by the central government in consultation with the regional government. It assists the three-member JKEIAA set up directly by the central government. Both were set up in August last year.

Plans rejected, data absent

Since the auctions, JKEAC has either rejected environmental clearance for 80 riverbed mining plans (and 40 brick kilns) or asked for more information. “This, despite a lot of pressure from top government officials to grant environmental clearances to such projects. They are telling us these approvals are needed promptly as there is dearth of construction material such as sand and gravel for infrastructure,” a member of JKEAC told this correspondent, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“But we are trying our best not to clear mining projects in haste. There can be a huge environmental catastrophe if we fail to do our duty,” he said. “In a recent meeting, we informed the government that it should either let us work as we are supposed to work by taking the required time for reviewing these proposals or not ask us to review them at all.”

In a meeting held over video on July 23, JKEIAA said, “JKEAC has also expressed concern on the non-availability of any authentic replenishment data, sketchy district survey reports as well as various other issues. Accordingly, JKEIAA accepts following recommendations of JKEAC: 1. Issuance of strict advisories to the Director, Geology & Mining, J&K to check illegal mining without valid EC [environmental clearance] at appropriate level. 2. The Director, Geology & Mining, J&K to conduct replenishment studies of all basins across UT [union territory] proposed for extraction of minor minerals. 3. The Director, Geology & Mining, J&K should complete comprehensive EIA [environmental impact assessment] studies on catchment basis at the earliest.”

Government goes against its own

Instead, on July 30, the Jammu and Kashmir government issued an order for “fast-tracking of environmental clearance process” for mining operations. It cited “Acute and unprecedented shortage of key material for development works and challenging COVID-19 pandemic” as the reasons for its order.

Local residents had expressed concern before the July 30 order was issued. “This is an environmental catastrophe in the making,” said Ashiq, who lives close to the Farozpora river, in the Tangmarg area of Baramulla district in north Kashmir. “In our area, they are operating without any environmental clearances just because they have emerged successful during the bidding process.”

The rule says if a company wants to mine more than five hectares in a riverbed, the authorities are supposed to hold public hearings before clearing the plan. Over 70% of the blocks auctioned are over five hectares, but hardly any public hearings have taken place. Delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, JKEAC is still processing the applications. But the mining is going on; in fact it has accelerated in the lockdown caused by the pandemic, because few officials are on the ground to check.

Permits to mine sand, boulders and gravel from the beds of the Jhelum river and its tributaries have been auctioned for five years by Jammu and Kashmir’s geology and mining department. This year, bids were invited from outside Jammu and Kashmir as well, following New Delhi’s decision to scrap the semi-autonomous status of the region on August 5, 2019. Among other things, it means people from outside Jammu and Kashmir are now eligible to buy land and property and do business based on the region’s resources. Most of the mineral blocks auctioned this year have been bought by companies based outside Jammu and Kashmir.

“We had advised the government during a meeting in December last year that no mining should be allowed in Jhelum and other rivers till there is a basin-wise scientific mining plan as to which areas should be declared feasible for mining and which areas should be declared as river sanctuaries. It should not be done in a hotchpotch manner,” the JKEAC member said. “Any mining has to be done in a way that it doesn’t cause problems in flood management or functionality of water bodies.”

In recent years, Kashmir has faced many floods, notably the devastating floods in 2014 which killed hundreds of people.

Illegal mining in South Asia

In South Asia, especially in India, there are reports galore about illegal mining in riverbeds and some reports about killing of law enforcement officers, journalists and environmental activists.

A petition filed in India’s National Green Tribunal (NGT) said that due to the lockdown forced by Covid-19, illegal sand mining was going on even in officially protected areas in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. On June 30, the NGT set up a panel to prepare a report on it.

Kiran Pereira, founder of the London-based website Sand Stories, has been working on sand mining since 2010. She said illegal sand mining in South Asia is particularly serious because of the nexus between builders, politicians and the “sand mafia”.

Adding that there are lots of claims from governments that enough is being done in terms of legislation, Pereira added, “Legislation is of no use unless it is implemented. Monitoring and enforcement need to be strengthened.”

The United Nations Environment Programme, Pereira said, has called this problem “one of the major sustainability challenges of the 21st century”. Sand is a non-renewable resource and fundamental to create concrete and glass, both of which are used in great quantities wherever construction is high on the agenda.

Activists have been trying to stop the practice. GD Agarwal, the doyen of India’s river experts, died in 2019 after a 111-day hunger strike – one of his demands was to put a stop to illegal riverbed mining.

In 2017, the Uttarakhand High Court declared Ganga and Yamuna “juristic/legal persons/living entities having the status of a legal person” and banned mining in their beds. The government went to the Supreme Court against the order. The Supreme Court set aside the High Court’s order, deeming it unimplementable.

A UN report in 2019 said, “Sand extraction operations in emerging and developing economies are not in line with extractives and environmental management regulations. Resulting social and environmental impacts have been reported in India, China, and other locations across Asia, Africa and South America.”

The impact

Sand mining is linked to many changes in ecological structure, processes and biodiversity of freshwater systems, including habitat loss and degradation, reduction and changes to the diversity and abundance of macro invertebrate and fish populations, increased viability of invasive species, changes to food web dynamics, reductions in water quality and groundwater levels, and alterations to riparian processes.

According to research published by the Centre of Mining Environment, at the Indian Institute of Technology in Dhanbad, the large-scale extraction of streambed materials, mining and dredging below the existing streambed, and the alteration of channel-bed form and shape lead to several impacts such as the erosion of channel bed and banks, increase in channel slope, and change in channel morphology.

The solution

The 2019 UN report said, “Large-scale multipronged actions are urgently needed to implement technical and institutional innovations designed at the scale of regional infrastructure projects, large river basins and their downstream connections to deltas and coasts and global construction materials markets.” This, it said, “will need to involve a wide range of players – public, private and civil society organisations – from local to global levels.”

The report emphasised identifying sand sources that may be harvested at a sustainable level and according to guidelines, and with the support of agreed standards, best practices and decision-support tools, that are developed with inputs from all stakeholders.

This story was originally published on thirdpole.net and can be found here.

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Kenyan youth at the Kasarani stadium in Kenya's capital Nairobi. PHOTO-Nation media

By Ruth Kagia and Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 3 2020 (IPS)

Africa’s demographic boom has been hailed as its biggest promise for transforming the continent’s economic and social outcomes, but only if the right investments are made to prepare its youthful population for tomorrow’s world.

Consider this. Every 24 hours, nearly 33,000 youth across Africa join the search for employment. About 60% will be joining the army of the unemployed. Africa’s youth population is growing rapidly and is expected to reach over 830 million by 2050. Whether this spells promise or peril depends on how the continent manages its “youth bulge”.

President Kenyatta once said that “The crisis of mass youth unemployment is a threat to the stability and prosperity of Africa, and it can amount to a fundamental and existential threat”.

Investing in young people especially so that they are prepared for the world of work is the main mission of Generation Unlimited (GenU), a global multi-sector partnership established to meet the urgent need for expanded education, training and employment opportunities for young people aged 10 to 24.

On 05 August 2020, Kenya will launch the Generation Unlimited initiative. This initiative will bring together key actors from the public and private sector as well as development partners to help put into a higher gear this defining agenda of our time to ensure that we have prepared our children for a prosperous future by giving them the education, training and job opportunities that fully harnesses their potential. With a median age of 18, Kenya’s youthful population represents a real potential to reap a demographic dividend and accelerate its economic progress.

Kenya has one of the youngest populations in the world. With the right investment in their talents, skills, and entrepreneurial spirit, young people present an extraordinary opportunity for transformation, growth, and change.

Three quarters Kenya’s population is under the age of 35. Across Africa there are 200 million people between the ages of 15 and 24, a demographic that is expected to double by 2045.

One of the greatest challenges facing governments and policymakers in Africa is how to provide opportunities for the continent’s youth, in order to provide them with decent lives and allow them to contribute to the economic development of their countries. As things stand, around 70% of Africa’s young people live below the poverty line.

In Kenya, the pillars for achieving GenU objectives are in place, with various initiatives for instance to strengthen education system through the recently-launched competency based curriculum and government promotion of programmes to enhance technical and digital skills.

The fruits of such initiatives can be seen through numerous youthful innovations from Kenya that continue to receive international attention. For instance, inspired by his great urge to communicate with his 6-year-old niece who was born deaf, Roy Allela, a 25-year-old Kenyan invented Sign-10, a pair of smart gloves with flex sensors to aid his cousin’s communication with the other members of the family.

The flex sensors stitched to each finger aid in quantifying the letters formed from the curve of each finger of the glove’s wearer. The gloves are then connected through Bluetooth to a mobile phone application that vocalizes the hand movements. This innovation won him the Trailblazer Award by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Gen U’s solution is to forge innovative collaborations with young people themselves. Since launching in 2018, the movement has brought onboard leaders from governments, foundations, and the private sector around the world. Its launch in Kenya underscores its government’s commitment to engage young people in pursuit of the Big 4 Development Agenda as well as Vision 2030.

President Uhuru Kenyatta is a global leader for the Generation Unlimited initiative. In Kenya, Gen U’s activities are coordinated by the Office of the President and the United Nations.

President Uhuru Kenyatta and the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres were unanimously endorsed by world leaders to champion a new UN intervention on youth education, training, and employment at the UN General Assembly in 2018. Photo/PSCU

Shifts in today’s global economy demand that young people acquire skills aligned with dynamic labour needs, but local education systems have been slow to adapt. In many countries in Africa, school enrolment is up, but learning outcomes for young people remain poor. Most leave school without the skills the contemporary job market needs, and are ill-prepared for a world in which low-skilled jobs are increasingly automated.

A million young people join the workforce every year in Kenya, applying for jobs in a formal sector that can only absorb one in five of them. Some, however, find work at least intermittently in Kenya’s vibrant informal sector, which accounts for more than 80% of the country’s economy according to the World Bank.

Rather than focusing on opportunities in the formal sector, partners in the Gen U movement will look at strategies for supporting the informal sector with better infrastructure and an improved business environment. In doing so, it is hoped that it will be transformed into a recognised and legitimate sector.

Such initiatives have the full support of the recently launched Kenya Youth Development Policy, which seeks to underscore issues affecting young people. Technology will play a central role, and sector-based strategies will be central to the government’s approach.

The Kenya Youth Agribusiness Strategy, for example, will enable Kenya’s youth to access information technology for various value-addition ventures in Africa’s agribusiness sector set to be worth $1 trillion by 2030.

The Coronavirus pandemic has seen countries face changes in entire social and economic systems. Key industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, public services, retail, transportation, food supply, tourism, media and entertainment have been hard hit by the pandemic. The pandemic is an inflection point that is giving the old system a nudge. The post-COVID-19 world will be founded on a tech-savvy workforce that will inevitably comprise young people.

Calling on urgent action for young people, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called on governments to “do far more to tap their talents as we tackle the pandemic and chart a recovery that leads to a more peaceful, sustainable and equitable future for all”.

In the run-up to the end of the SDGs era, we must ramp up the current level of investment in young people’s economic and social potential. As the vision of Generation Unlimited states, if the largest generation of young people in history is prepared for the transition to work, the potential for global progress is unlimited.

As President Kenyatta has noted, “the current generation of young people has the potential of expanding Africa’s productive workforce, promoting entrepreneurship and becoming genuine instruments of change to reverse the devastation caused by climate change.”

Ruth Kagia is the Deputy Chief of Staff to President Kenyatta. Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya. Mrs Kagia and Mr Chatterjee co-chair the Generation Unlimited Steering Committee in Kenya.

This article was first published in Forbes Africa

 

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Unless we make bold changes in the way we produce our food and manage our land, we will not be able to cut emissions sufficiently and keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Credit: UNDP Afghanistan

By Haoliang Xu
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 3 2020 (IPS)

The theme of this year’s High-Level Political Forum, where governments reviewed progress on the Sustainable Development Goals was “Accelerated action and transformative pathways: realizing the decade of action and delivery for sustainable development.”

Throughout this forum, which took place 7-16 July, one major theme emerged: how to use Covid-19 as an opportunity to reset national and global ambition.

Perhaps no goal lends itself to accelerating global ambition more than Goals 14 and 15. These two nature-related goals, covering ‘life below water,’ and ‘life above land,’ are foundations for many other Sustainable Development Goals and their targets, especially those related to the issues of food and water security, disaster risk reduction, sustainable livelihoods and climate mitigation. In fact, implementing nature-based solutions is a fast-track path for accelerated action across more than half of the SDG targets.

We know from recent reports, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystems (IPBES), that biodiversity is in rapid decline; we have wiped out 83% of all wild mammals, and a million species may go extinct by mid-Century. Our window to bend the curve on nature loss is closing, and Covid-19 provides a rare window of opportunity to act now.

The cost-benefit calculus for implementing nature-based solutions is compelling. Protecting 30 percent of the planet would cost 16 percent of global GDP, and is less than three percent of the cost of fossil fuel subsidies. Yet the benefits of protecting the planet are enormous – more than 5 to 1, with benefits primarily flowing to the more than 2.5 billion people who depend directly on forestry, farming of fisheries for their survival.

The cost of inaction is equally compelling – nearly half of all Gross Domestic Product globally is at risk from nature’s loss. Furthermore, as biodiversity and ecosystems unravel, we will face new global pandemics, new water crises, famine, new ecosystem collapses and forest fires and more.

And the cost of inaction has already become untenable. Clearly the time for accelerating progress on the SDGs through nature-based solutions is now. At UNDP we see three major pathways for taking action.

Credit: UNDP Peru

Three pathways for accelerated action and transformative pathways

First, we must invest in national nature-based safety nets. Although countries have committed to protecting 17% terrestrial area and 10% marine areas through the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, and have committed to restoring 100 million hectares of land by 2020 through the Bonn Challenge, these targets are likely insufficient to tackle our planetary emergency.

By setting and implementing bold measures for protecting and restoring biodiversity, countries can realize multiple benefits. One of the more important of these is climate mitigation – protecting and restoring nature can provide up to a third of our climate mitigation needs.

Second, we can use the opportunity afforded by Covid-19 to implement fiscal stimulus and financial aid packages for nature-positive and climate-aligned recovery plans that accelerate the transition to a fair and green economy.

For example, UNDP’s Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) provides support for developing national biodiversity finance plans. One result is that 14 countries are looking at debt-for-nature swaps to accelerate the protection of nature. Similarly, we can see how to use public works programs to create green jobs, while also achieving multiple societal benefits.

For example, Pakistan is hiring unemployed workers to plant trees and South Africa has shown that ‘Working for Water’ and other programs can achieve multiple benefits while providing jobs.

Third, we can accelerate the pioneering and innovative use of technologies that can accelerate a green recovery. For example, the GCash Forest Platform, a mobile wallet is a UNDP-supported app in the Philippines, enables people to sign up and gather points for sustainable activities such as walking, forfeiting paper bills or buying organic produce while creating a virtual tree in the app.

Once this tree has fully grown, a real tree is planted somewhere in the Philippines. More than 2 million people already signed up for the app since it was launched one year ago, and over US$ 500,000 was invested in tree planting.

The outlook from the High-Level Political Forum is sobering; we are not on track to meet the goals of the 2030 Agenda. Moreover, Covid-19 is likely to further dampen our progress across many of the SDG goals and targets.

However, we can and must take bold action now. Nature-based solutions are one of our brightest hopes to build back better, and to accelerate action through transformation.

 

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Excerpt:

Haoliang Xu is UN Assistant Secretary General and Director of UNDP’s Bureau for Policy and Programme Support

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The COVID-19 crisis has unleashed a plastic pandemic, reversing the achievement of a decade of activism against single-use plastic worldwide, including Nepal. Credit: BIKRAM RAI

By Sonia Awale and Ramesh Kumar
KATHMANDU, Aug 3 2020 (IPS)

The coronavirus pandemic was a respite for nature everywhere. The air was cleaner, trekking trails were pristine, the summit of Mt Everest was deserted, and worldwide carbon emission dipped by -26%.

However, there are dark clouds in that silver lining. The COVID-19 crisis has unleashed a plastic pandemic, reversing the achievement of a decade of activism against single-use plastic worldwide, including Nepal.

Personal protective gear (PPE) like disposable gowns are made from polyester or polyethalene. Surgical masks and N95 respirators are made from non-woven polypropylene fibre. Face shields and visors use polycarbonate or polyvinyl choloride. Coveralls are made with high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Most of these are single-use plastic.

The United States is projected to generate an entire year’s worth of medical waste in just two months dealing with COVID-19

During the peak of the outbreak, hospitals in Wuhan produced more than 240 tons of waste per day against 40 tons normally – with most of the waste being plastic PPEs. The United States is projected to generate an entire year’s worth of medical waste in just two months dealing with COVID-19, according to Frost & Sullivan.  The Thai government has reported an increase in plastic and styrofoam waste from 1,500 tons a day to 6,300 tons daily due to soaring home deliveries of food.

In Nepal, there are no exact figures but evidence suggests there has been a big increase in plastic waste from provision stores, relief distribution to the destitute during the lockdown, and quarantine centres. For lack of better alternatives, aid workers use plastic plates and utensils for meal distribution and well as polythene bags and thin single-use plastic for relief packaging.

“From a humanitarian angle the use of plastic for medical purposes and in relief is important, but it has long term environmental impact. Which is why we need a replacement for cheap and easily accessible single-use plastic,” says Shilshila Acharya of the Himalayan Climate Initiative.

She adds, “Another emerging problem is the improper disposal of face masks. These are made of polypropylene and are even worse than plastic because they are even more difficult to recycle and reuse.”

Across South Asia, cities are experiencing worse floods because of waterways choked by plastic waste. Plastic pollution in Nepal has been known to worsen the impact of floods during the monsoon by clogging up drains and rivers, as happened in Bhaktapur and Thimi in 2018 after a sudden squall.

Bhaktapur Mayor Sunil Prajapati says Hanumante River in his municipality invariably bursts its banks even through it is not a big river because of blocked drainage.  He told Nepali Times: “The river is like a gutter. It gets flooded every year because waste materials block the outlets and drainage.”

A three-year regional study by ICIMOD (International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development)’s  SANDEE (South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics) shows that 12.7% Bharatpur and 22.3% of Sylhet in Bangladesh cities are at the risk of flooding in lack of proper solid waste management system. Unblocking drains would limit flooding to 5.5% in Bharatpur, the report says.

Mani Nepal, who worked on the study says: “Solid waste, including plastic, must be properly managed to reduce the risk of long-term flooding in cities. Just building sewers will not solve the problem. Plastic pollution is already a major cause of floods, it can be disastrous in future.”

More than a million plastic bags are used once and thrown away in Kathmandu Valley every day, and it now forms more than 16% of the city’s garbage. Of the 204 tons of plastic waste generated in Nepal every day, 131 tons end up in the streets, drains, rivers and some of it makes it to landfill sites.

Plastics, being petroleum based, take at least 500 years to biodegrade, killing aquatic and land animals, and microplastics have found their way into the human food chain. Harmful chemicals can alter hormones and chromosomes in the human body, leading to cancer and damage to the reproductive system.

The Nepal government has repeatedly tried to enforce a ban on single-use plastics, but industrialists enjoying political protection have sabotaged all previous attempts.

Former Environment Minister Ganesh Shah tried but failed to implement a plastic ban he introduced in 2008. Plastic Bag Regulation and Control Guideline introduced in 2011 was not effective either in discouraging plastic use. A Gazette notice on 14 April 2015 announced a ban on bags thinner than 30 microns, but it was overshadowed by the earthquake only 10 days later.

The ICIMOD study also revealed that the state of garbage disposal significantly affects real estate prices which are on an average 25% higher and up to 57% higher in areas with proper solid waste management system. Similarly, the price of a house with a blocked sewer is at least 11% lower.

An estimated 70% of the daily domestic waste in Nepal’s cities are biodegradable, but it is not customary to segregate garbage. Often, organic and non-perishable waste are disposed together in plastic bags. Garbage collectors also do not sort the waste, which is why they end up directly at the landfill in Sisdole which is fast becoming a plastic mountain.

Sorting garbage at home has been shown to significantly reduce the volume of waste, allowing households to make their own compost, recycle and reduce as well as reduce the cost of garbage collection. Pre-determining time and day and placing for communal garbage collection and placing trash cans for pedestrians are other ways to prevent haphazard disposal of solid waste.

Bharatpur residents pay Rs30-100 a month for garbage collection and say they are willing to pay up to 30% more for proper waste management. This is an additional Rs5 million more than what the municipality has been charging for waste management. “This means local governments could better manage the problem of solid waste without too much effort, this requires only the will to implement,” says Mani Nepal.

Ward 10 of Bharatpur has been trying to reduce waste at source by buying plastic waste from households at Rs9 per kg, which it then sells to plastic recycling industries. The municipality also provides subsidy to those who want to turn their organic waste into biogas.

Bharatpur has shown that if there is political will, plastic waste can be reduced. And by not dumping plastic in drains and rivers, it is also protecting wildlife along the Narayani River in Chitwan National Park directly downstream.

The good news is that the global movement against the use of plastic is also having an effect in parts of Kathmandu. Polythene are being replaced by re-usable bags in shopping malls, restaurants and hotels discourage straws and plastic wrappings, and paper plates have replaced Styrofoam at some party venues.

While plastic-based PPEs have been vital in preventing the spread of the COVID-19 and are life savers for frontline health workers, if the SARS-CoV-2 persists longer there may have to be a move towards paper packaging and materials.

Says Shilshila Acharya: “The prolonged lockdown has meant that people are purchasing less, and are using fewer plastic items. We can build on this momentum to reduce plastic pollution in future.”

 

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

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A bigger free trade area will not only boost intra-regional trade, it will also hasten the development of regional supply chains. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS.

By External Source
Aug 2 2020 (IPS)

Most economists see structural transformation as one of the main routes to Africa’s sustainable development. What it means is changing the share of agriculture, manufacturing and services in an economy. It is a central aim of the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

With this aim in mind, economists and policymakers need to know what determines structural transformation. They have flagged factors like demand for goods and services, trade policies, financial development, institutional quality and economic integration.

But researchers haven’t closely examined the way economic integration through trade and finance influences structural transformation.

Balancing the potential benefits and dangers of integration is a pressing policy issue now that African countries have signed the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement, which aims to foster integration

I therefore set out to study African countries’ integration with the rest of the world and the effect of that integration on their structural transformation. This study provides fresh evidence about whether integration is good for Africa. It also unearths the right levels of integration necessary to increase structural transformation.

Trade and financial integration are both about countries exporting to and importing from each other. The two are often referred to as economic integration. Opening national borders to trade has a number of potential benefits which can promote development.

For example it creates comparative advantage, access to external finance and opportunities for risk sharing. It also enables technology transfer. Local firms serving larger foreign and domestic corporations can acquire knowledge and skills and transfer them to the rest of the economy.

All these benefits are essential for structural transformation. But excessive openness and integration may also come at a cost, largely from distortions around trade policy.

For instance, if certain local industries have been protected, local firms may not be fit enough to compete with foreign counterparts. Opening these industries to competition may harm them.

Balancing the potential benefits and dangers of integration is a pressing policy issue now that African countries have signed the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement, which aims to foster integration.

Policy makers need to know whether there is an ideal level of trade and financial integration that will
change economies in the desired ways.

 

The study: findings and implications

With this background, I examined the effects of economic integration on structural transformation in 32 African countries from 1985 to 2015. The time period and choice of countries were based on data availability.

I created an index of structural transformation that incorporates changes in sectoral value addition and demographic characteristics. The index ranges between 0 (low transformation) and 1 (high transformation). I found that structural transformation on the continent was low, with an average value of 0.419, but varied across countries.

The majority of the countries’ indices were lower, suggesting that structural transformation is only just beginning.

I also found that African countries were less integrated in terms of trade and finance than other developing economies.

I measured trade integration as the ratio of countries’ imports and exports to GDP. This shows the degree of openness. I found that the optimal level for trade integration was 73.29% of GDP. By this I mean the level of trade integration that produces an improved effect on structural transformation.

The data suggested that trade integration encourages the reallocation of resources to more productive sectors.

To measure financial integration, I used the ratio of countries’ total foreign liabilities and assets to GDP. This shows the degree of restriction of capital flows. The optimal level for financial integration was 137.5% of GDP. Ten African countries were above these levels and 22 were below.

The 10 countries that are above this financial integration threshold are Botswana, Congo Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mauritania, Mauritius, Seychelles, Sudan and Togo. Similarly, the 10 countries above the trade integration threshold are Botswana, Congo Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Mauritania, Mauritius, Seychelles, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Togo and Tunisia.

I observed that structural transformation increases more in countries that are below these levels of integration compared to countries that are above the thresholds. Integration increases structural transformation, but too much integration slows that process, producing undesired effects.

The positive effect of integration on transformation occurs through enhanced efficiency, comparative advantage, external finance and risk diversification. Countries can have these features despite being less integrated and operating below the thresholds. The benefits of integration come from efficiency of integration rather than unbridled integration.

A key implication is that efficiency in both trade and financial integration is critical to driving structural transformation in Africa. This explains the urgent need for African countries to simultaneously deepen trade and financial integration. Economies that embark on economic integration along both lines can expect to have improved transformation for sustainable development.

 

The role of the free trade area

The study shows that Africa has opportunities to integrate further. The African free trade area has the potential to defragment the continent and bring its economies into the global economy.

The free trade area aims to progressively eliminate tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade in goods and to liberalise trade in services. It will establish a single continental market for goods and services: a bigger and more competitive market.

A bigger free trade area will not only boost intra-regional trade, it will also hasten the development of regional supply chains. These have driven structural transformation in other regions, for example Asia. It is also necessary for policy to address the non-tariff barriers to trade. Among these are poor logistics and infrastructure (such as roads, rail, ports, power and digital connectivity).

Countries should be focusing on removing such bottlenecks. The African Union, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank should get the free trade area working as soon as possible.

It has the potential to make a big difference to structural transformation and could be the game-changer for Africa.

 

Muazu Ibrahim, Lecturer, Department of Banking and Finance, University for Development Studies

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

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By Joaquín Roy
MIAMI, Jul 31 2020 (IPS)

In the cinematic context of the death of the Italian and universal composer, Ennio Morricone, author of the background music of more than four hundred films, as an indirect tribute, Europe took a solid step.

The European Union’s (EU) forceful ban on accepting travelers from the rest of the world has been decided simultaneously with a collective option: an internal opening that covers the entire territory of the Schengen Agreement, an enlarged EU that includes some special non-members (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and the microstates).

Furthermore, the EU seems to favor some countries that belong to its protection ring of its immediate neighborhood: Algeria, Georgia, Tunisia and Morocco. It also gives a vote of confidence to the candidates for the immediate enlargement: Serbia and Montenegro.

In Asia and Africa, Europe recognizes the goodness of Rwanda and Thailand. The EU is pleased, once again, to show a solid portrait.

Joaquín Roy

The novelty of the ban is that the EU, replicating the title of a Sergio Leone film, among the most famous works with Morriconi’s musical dressing, sent an unwelcome message to the “ugly”, some heavyweights (Russia, Brazil ).

But the EU flatly pointed out to the “ugly” classic, the United States, that has earned that aesthetic distinction thanks to the showcase appearance of Donald Trump. As a further ignominy, Brussels admits important mutual allies and peers of the United States: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan and South Korea.

In the Latin American subcontinent, Europe reserved to award an impressive individual medal, as if it were a Nobel Prize, to the new “good”: the small Uruguay.

Even protected in the hope of his hasty visit to Trump, Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) could not escape being labeled “bad.” Noticeable is the everlasting contrast with Canada: Mexico is still “so far from God and so close to the United States”, just as Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz cursed more than a century ago. Ottawa is just as close to Washington, but it’s not affected by the neighborhood.

On this occasion, the EU leadership did not miss a golden opportunity to show a solid collective face, very often absent, becoming the object of internal criticism and external disdain

Observers from the Latin American scene have been quick to give some explanation to this seemingly shocking global decision. The key for the contrastive assessment, on the one hand, recognition and reaction, on the other, is very simple and, at the same time, complex.

On the one hand, the internal framework of the EU itself must be considered. On this occasion, the EU leadership did not miss a golden opportunity to show a solid collective face, very often absent, becoming the object of internal criticism and external disdain. It is always very difficult to find where the “phone” for Europe resides, as Henry Kissinger once claimed.

Therefore, Europe closes its doors to the most prominent competitors. But, hypocritically, gives a conditioned welcome to none other than China. There is no question of making the Asian giant uncomfortable, leaving the door ajar. Europe notes that Wuhan is the source of the virus (but not as blatantly as Trump repeats), but Brussels acknowledges Beijing’s dictatorial power in controlling the effects.

The result of Washington’s treatment will be that Brussels will become a new renewed object of irritation by Trump, if that tantrum is already something new. Meanwhile, the US Democrats led by Biden will certainly be happy to remind the President of his failed strategy against Covid 19. At the same time, the selection of little Uruguay, champion of the “good”, can boast of the successful control of the pandemic.

In contrast, the awarding of diplomas will highlight the ridicule of ominous giant Brazil under Jair Bolsonaro, the tropical Trump. Even Chile, the country that, led by Sebastián Piñera, initially seemed to show a positive strategy, has remained in the “bad” group.

Without needing to say it explicitly, two “bad guys” are equally qualified by Europe and the United States: Cuba and Venezuela. They have no hope. President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela is already controlled by Colombia. Cuba excludes itself for its insularity, geographical and political.

Despite all this panorama, the European Union, always so stingy and sinuous, has reserved a special “right of admission”.

Fulfilling its privilege of being fundamentally intergovernmental in its external relations, while border control is a taboo subject, it will review every 14 days (as if it were a quarantine) the composition of the distribution of prizes and sticks. It would not be surprising if some “bad” ones reappear as “good”. But the “ugly” par excellence should put on the mask.

It remains open, finally, to ask about the scenario of winners and losers due to the application of this measure, especially shocking in the American continent.

Firstly, Europe may be harmed by the closure to North American travelers, so much in need of tourism. Export businesses and airlines will take the hit, if the ban is upheld.

In Latin America the losers will be “the underdogs”, to continue remembering the novel by Mariano Azuela. They will see their traditional escapes in emigration diminished and the consequent benefit of remittances.

Argentina, Brazil and Mexico will recall their weak position in a global network that only recognizes them as giants with feet of clay.

But the EU has self-imposed an expansion of the “bad” ones: the United Kingdom, France and Germany have restricted travel to Spain, causing the collapse of tourism.

Joaquín Roy is Professor Jean Monnet and Director of the European Union Center at the University of Miami jroy@miami.edu

 

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Nicolas de Rivière, Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations, addresses the Security Council meeting on the situation in the Great Lakes region. New York, 3 October 2019. Credit: UN Photo/Laura Jarriel

By Nicolas de Rivière
NEW YORK, Jul 31 2020 (IPS)

“Reconciling the requirements of the ideal with the possibilities of the real”: this is how Georges Bidault, Minister for Foreign Affairs and head of the French delegation to the San Francisco Conference, summed up the objective pursued by the drafters of the Charter of the United Nations. On the still living ashes of the Second World War, the fathers of an Organization charged with developing friendly relations between nations, promoting human rights and economic and social progress were less utopian than visionary. They understood that the community of States should have a common constitution. It has been tested by conflict, crisis and upheaval, but its resilience and strength have shaped the very structure of contemporary international relations.

The Charter brings us together. It defines the United Nations as “a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations”, where each member is treated as an equal across social, economic or political differences. With the quadrupling of the number of contracting parties since its inception, the Charter, which has become universal, truly expresses the values and aspirations of humanity. That is why France attaches so much importance to ensuring that diversity—cultural, legal and linguistic—is duly reflected within the Organization, in its staff and in the way it operates: the United Nations has the heavy but noble task of ensuring the participation of all peoples in international discussion. As revealed by the major consultation under way in the context of the commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary, 95 per cent of our contemporaries believe that only international cooperation will make it possible to respond to the challenges of today and tomorrow. But it must also reflect their voice.

The Charter is the summit of an international order based on law: Article 103 gives it primacy over other international legal instruments. In the most difficult negotiations, it remains the frame of reference, and the precious Blue Booklet is never far away. It binds States as well as the principal organs of the United Nations. The Security Council thus exercises its responsibility as guarantor of the maintenance of international peace and security within the strict framework of the Charter, when deciding on measures to combat arms proliferation, establishing peacekeeping operations, authorizing the delivery of cross-border humanitarian aid to Syria or referring situations to the International Criminal Court. These decisions must be respected by all Member States in accordance with Article 25 of the Charter.

The Charter protects us. The COVID-19 pandemic is a wake-up call for multilateralism, because the virus knows no borders, and no one is spared. The global and cross-cutting nature of the health crisis logically points to the United Nations as the only truly universal and multisector forum for responding to it.

It is France’s profound conviction that whenever we accept that the resolution of international crises takes place outside the multilateral framework, chaos threatens to prevail. That is particularly true today in the Middle East, where the risk of conflagration has never been greater. At a time when civilian populations have already suffered too much from the scourge of war and terrorism, we need more than ever to prevent a military spiral and to put an end to the serious human rights violations and humanitarian disasters that continue to take place, in this region as in other parts of the world.

Joseph Paul-Boncour, former Prime Minister and member of the delegation from France, signing the UN Charter at the Veterans’ War Memorial Building, San Francisco, United States, 26 June 1945. Credit: UN Photo/McCreary

As President Macron said in his address to the General Assembly on 24 September 2019, in a world that has become multipolar, we must reinvent “strong multilateralism”, as opposed to the temptation of national withdrawal. It was on the basis of that conviction that last year France, together with Germany, launched an Alliance for Multilateralism, a flexible framework bringing together countries of good will that wish to promote both the multilateral method and concrete initiatives in various areas that illustrate its importance.

To be strong, the multilateralism that we embody here in New York must be effective. It must address without delay the greatest challenges of our time, all of which are global: climate change, health and food security, the protection of biodiversity, terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, inequalities, migration, massive violations of international humanitarian law and human rights, and the new challenges posed by technology. The Charter, in its profound modernity, set the goal, 75 years ago, of achieving international cooperation in solving international problems in all these areas. France has taken the initiative to mobilize the international community on these issues, whether by launching the One Planet Summit with the United Nations and the World Bank, or by co-organizing the Generation Equality Forum in the near future, 25 years after the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995. In the face of global challenges, international cooperation is the only possible way forward; if we do not move forward, we will retreat.

The Charter is the foundation of our collective action. It offers a method, rules and tools. It enshrines negotiation as the main way forward. The principles it lays down, and in particular the universality of human rights, are non-negotiable. It provides several means of action, including peacekeeping operations and international sanctions. The specific prerogatives that it confers on certain members should not be received as licenses but as responsibilities. That is why France, together with Mexico, has, since 2013, called for the suspension of the veto in the event of mass atrocities in the form of a political, voluntary and collective commitment by the five permanent members of the Security Council. To date, 105 Member States have joined this initiative.

The Charter in no way prevents the necessary modernization of the Organization, which, on the contrary, has been constantly reinventing itself. The decompartmentalization of the various pillars and components of the United Nations galaxy, as reflected in the vision of “Delivering as One”, is necessary for the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda. The efforts undertaken in that regard, in particular the triple reform undertaken by the Secretary-General (reform of the peace and security architecture, development reform and management reform), must be supported. Each of the principal organs must play its part by optimizing its work.

Like a robust building that has stood the test of time, the Charter can be amended to better reflect the realities of the contemporary world. In that regard, France would like the Security Council to be expanded, as it was for the first time in 1963, to take into account the emergence of new Powers and to allow for a stronger presence on the African continent.

For 75 years, the Charter has been our highest common denominator. Its relevance remains unaltered. Sometimes a home, sometimes a bulwark, it allows the pursuit of an ideal of peace and prosperity towards which we must strive, with modesty but also with courage. It is incumbent upon us to pass on its values and promises to future generations.

This article was first published by the UN Chronicle on 26 June 2020.

 

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• FEATURED TRANSLATION – FRENCH

The post The Charter of the United Nations: Ideals for Shaping Our Reality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Nicolas de Rivière is President of the Security Council for the month of June 2020 and Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations.

The post The Charter of the United Nations: Ideals for Shaping Our Reality appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Credit: V.V. Krishnan, the Hindu

By Prasad Kariyawasam
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Jul 31 2020 (IPS)

The unique India-Sri Lanka relationship, de jure, is between equals as sovereign nations. But it’s asymmetric in terms of geographic size, population, military and economic power, on the one hand, and social indicators and geographical location, on the other. It is steeped in myth and legend, and influenced by religious, cultural and social affinities.

This is an opportune time for Sri Lanka and India to nourish the roots of the relationship using modern toolkits, but leveraging age-old wisdom and experience.

Historical ties

History reveals that the advent of Buddhism to Sri Lanka during the time of Emperor Ashoka was the result of cross-border discourse. For many centuries in the first millennia, the ancient capital city of Anuradhapura housed an international community which included traders from India, China, Rome, Arabia and Persia.

Later, Buddhist monks from Sri Lanka travelled to India, China, Cambodia and Java leaving behind inscriptions. Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka, to this day, contain shrines for Hindu deities. The colonial expansion of European maritime nations reshaped the Sri Lankan economy. Labour from south India was brought to Sri Lanka to work in plantations.

The Indian freedom struggle had its influence on Sri Lanka as well. There was cross-border support for the revival of culture, tradition, local languages, spiritual practices and philosophies, and education. Both countries transformed into modern nations with constitutional and institutionalised governance under colonial rule.

Most aspects of today’s globalisation existed in a different form in the pre-colonial era with free exchange of ideas, trade and intellectual discourse. However, process engineering by colonial powers for identification and categorisation of people was a factor in the emergence of separatist ideologies based on ethnicity, language and religion.

This mindset is now ingrained and accentuated in politics. Episodic instances of communal hostility are referenced often to suit tactical political gain. Around the world today, and not just in South Asia, policies and thinking are becoming communally exclusive, localised and inward-looking.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world against this backdrop, allowing some leaders an opportunity to double down on insular thinking, ostensibly for providing local communities with better economic and social prospects, and security.

Meanwhile, governance models favoured by nations keep vacillating between fundamental freedoms-based democratic systems and quasi democratic, socialist authoritarian systems.

In this regard, the people of Sri Lanka and India have been served well by long years of uninterrupted democratic governance. This has provided long-term stability for both countries and must not be vitiated.

Sri Lanka’s strategic location makes it apparent that not only economic fortunes but the security of both countries are inextricably linked. Therefore, it is heartening that India and Sri Lanka constantly strive for excellence in neighbourly relations, recognising that a calamity in one country can adversely impact the other.

Though robust partnerships with other countries must be sought in line with the non-alliance foreign policies of both countries, such efforts must be bounded by an atmosphere needed for peace, prosperity and stability.

Among others, freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific together with a rules-based international order and peaceful settlement of disputes are of common interest. While avoiding advocacy of zero-sum solutions on crucial issues, both countries must seek to harmonise strategic and other interests in line with common values and socioeconomic compulsions.

Addressing issues and imbalances

The socioeconomic development of Sri Lanka has remained linked to India. But there are many options available to address issues of imbalance and asymmetries. For instance, Sri Lanka can encourage Indian entrepreneurs to make Colombo another business hub for them, as logistical capacities and facilities for rest and recreation keep improving in Sri Lanka.

Integrating the two economies but with special and differential treatment for Sri Lanka due to economic asymmetries can be fast-tracked for this purpose. There is immense potential to accentuate or create complementariness, using locational and human resource potential, for harnessing benefits in the modern value chains.

Robust partnerships across the economic and social spectrum can promote people-to-people bonhomie. And engagement of legislatures is essential for promoting multiparty support.

With many countries receding into cocoons due to the pandemic, this is an opportunity for both countries to focus on the renewal and revitalisation of partnerships.

This article was originally published in the Hindu, the English-language daily owned by The Hindu Group and headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/modern-tools-age-old-wisdom/article32206425.ece

 

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The post Modern Tools, Age-old Wisdom: on India-Sri Lanka Relations appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Prasad Kariyawasam was Sri Lanka's one-time Foreign Secretary and High Commissioner to India

The post Modern Tools, Age-old Wisdom: on India-Sri Lanka Relations appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A boat on Pasig River in the Philippines. The Philippines has the highest mortality rate from the coronavirus in Southeast Asia. Credit:Kara Santos/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2020 (IPS)

Southeast Asia’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been efficient, but some areas such as data privacy, measures to go back to normalcy after lockdown is lifted, and resources for migrant or transient populations will need addressing. 

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said while the pandemic has introduced new challenges in the region, including threats to peace and security, “containment measures have spared Southeast Asia the degree of suffering and upheaval seen elsewhere”. 

Speaking at the launch of a U.N. policy brief exploring the impact of COVID-19 in Southeast Asia on Thursday, Jul. 30, Guterres lauded the efficient methods adapted by leaders in the region, while highlighting the ways in which the region has fallen short in its response to the pandemic. 

“Already, hate speech has increased and political processes have stalled, leaving several long-running conflicts to stagnate and fester,” Guterres said during a video call marking the launch. He noted that while governments in Southeast Asia had supported his appeal for a global ceasefire, the region had much work to do, “but has formidable capacities at its disposal”.

• According to the think-tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Philippines has the highest mortality rate from the coronavirus in the region, followed closely by Indonesia.   
• The U.N. policy brief noted that Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Timor Leste and Vietnam had recorded zero fatalities at the time of its publication.

COVID-19 worsening weak systems

As in most regions, COVID-19 has affected the most vulnerable communities and worsened pre-existing concerns. In Southeast Asia, the report identified some of the most pressing issues: weak healthcare systems, conflict in areas such as Myanmar, as well as the plight of migrant workers. 

The Asia and Pacific region hosts about 20 percent of the world’s 163.8 million migrant workers globally, according to a 2017 report by the International Labour Organisation. 

The U.N. policy brief raises alarms that migrant and transient workers in some Southeast Asian countries have been left out of the host country’s pandemic response. For many migrant workers, living in close quarters leaves them little option to maintain social distancing or other protective measures. With concerns over the spread of the virus, some governments have also capitalised on this fear to deny entry to asylum seekers, according to the U.N. brief. 

“Non-nationals are at particular risk of exclusion from public health responses due to legal or practical barriers. This creates a systemic vulnerability for disease control in the subregion,” the brief notes.

The pandemic, as in all other regions, is disproportionately affecting women, in part because of limited access to sexual and reproductive health services as well as due to increased hours of domestic labour — the burden of which falls on women in the region. This is especially prevalent in the Philippines and Thailand, says the policy brief, claiming that women in these countries “are more likely to face increased unpaid domestic and unpaid care work because of COVID-19, exacerbating mental and emotional health concerns”. 

Meanwhile, illegal drug smuggling has not decreased in the region despite the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, while human smuggling has actually increased at the Bay of Bengal, the policy brief claims. 

The pandemic response, while prompt, was further exacerbated by an already weak healthcare system in the region. 

“More than half of the subregion’s countries are vulnerable because of weak health systems, including Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, the Philippines and Timor Leste,” says the brief. This, added with other social issues; such as temporarily stopping measles vaccination campaigns in the Philippines, as well as other limited humanitarian assistance due to the lockdown, has only added to the layers of the crisis. 

Challenges brought upon by measures

There are also concerns raised by the measures introduced by governments in the region to contain the virus. 

“Vaguely worded provisions without necessary safeguards and limitations have the potential to restrict the rights to information, privacy, and freedom of movement, expression, association, peaceful assembly and asylum,” the policy brief claims. 

At the core of these concerns is the issue of personal freedom, and experts are already raising alarms that some of the responses have the hallmarks of authoritarianism.

A June analysis by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) claims there are concerns of Southeast Asian countries inching towards authoritarianism as governments use the pandemic as an excuse to enforce strict measures and to attack opponents.

The analysis also points out some might be associating the success of containing the virus with authoritarian ruling. 

“There is a perception that authoritarian regimes in Southeast Asia have better managed the pandemic than the region’s democracies, a narrative buoyed by China’s diplomatic efforts to propagate its own accomplishments despite even greater success stories in South Korea and Taiwan,” says the analysis. 

Regional cooperation

Despite some of the challenges, the countries within the region have supported each other. According to CSIS, many of the Southeast Asian countries have exchanged, provided and accepted donations from and to each other. China has faced criticism from countries outside the region for attempts to start a “mask diplomacy” which caused countries in Europe to be cynical of her donation offers, but her neighbours accepted them. 

The Chinese government, as well as private entities such as Alibaba and Jack Ma foundations, has provided neighbouring countries between 75,000 to two million masks, among other services such as test kits, according to CSIS. 

The Secretary-General applauded the regional cooperation during this time of crisis. 

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