Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Khetsiwe Tofile a small-scale vegetable farmer in her garden in Malkerns, Eswatini. Even during the COVID-19 lockdown she has been able to get her produce to market and continues to earn an income. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
MALKERNS, Eswatini, Apr 28 2020 (IPS)

Nobukhosi Cebekhulu (68) and Khetsiwe Tofile (64) are small-scale vegetable farmers who are producing from their permaculture home gardens in Malkerns, Eswatini.

Proud that they are able to make a small contribution towards a healthy nation during the COVID19 pandemic, both women say they are happy that they can still continue to produce and sell vegetables without leaving their homes.

IPS found them waiting for transport outside Tofile’s home with basins of lettuce to be collected by the Guba Permaculture Training Centre.

“We don’t go to the shop to buy inputs but we use seedlings that we produce and share among ourselves,” Cebekhulu told IPS adding: “Our produce is collected from our homes and taken to the market.”

According to Cebekhulu, they are part of the Guba programme which introduced them to skills of producing food in a way that is rebuilding and strengthening the physical ecology around them. Guba is based in Malkerns – a small bustling town of farmland nestled at the heart of Eswatini’s middleveld – and promotes a regenerative lifestyle.

Run on a 100-percent solar system, Guba harvests rainwater for sanitation and irrigation, produces its own compost and seedlings. Guba runs a 12-month permaculture training programme building practical skills and knowledge for improving homestead food security and crop resilience.

Cebekhulu and Tofile were part of the 2014 class of 25 farmers who learnt to build a fence using scrap material and alien evasive plants. They were also taught to produce their own seeds, make compost and pesticides (they make the latter by mixing wild garlic, chillies, onion, soap and warm water) that are not harmful to the environment.  

“This doesn’t kill the pests but it chases them away,” Cebekhulu said. “Pesticides aren’t good for our health and the environment. They’re also expensive.”

While Guba initially supported the farmers to produce enough for their families, Tofile told IPS the centre later trained them on business management so that they could sell and generate an income. The farmers come from 10 chiefdoms within a radius of 20 kilometres from the centre.

“Guba collects the produce and sells it on our behalf,” Tofile said. “That’s why we don’t have to worry about leaving home during this period (COVID19 partial lockdown).”

Guba director, Sam Hodgson, said the year-long permaculture adult training programme is a response to the nutrition and poverty challenges in Eswatini. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS

Eswatini’s nutritional challenges

According to Guba director, Sam Hodgson, the year-long permaculture adult training programme is a response to the nutrition and poverty challenges in Eswatini.

Although 20 percent of Eswatini’s rural population experienced severe and acute food insecurity according to the 2019 Vulnerability Assessment Committee Report,  the country is making progress in meeting its nutritional needs. According to Musa Dlamini, the monitoring and evaluation officer at Eswatini Nutrition Council, children under five years old with stunting stands at 25.5 percent.

“This is still high because we have to be less than 20 percent in terms of the WHO [World Health Organisation] standards,” Dlamini told IPS. “We’ve made progress though because the figure dropped from around 30 percent in previous years.”

In the same age group, children with wasting are at about 2 percent and underweights are at 5 percent, which is acceptable in terms of WHO standards.

“We use children under 5 to measure nutrition in the country,” said Dlamini.

He said COVID19 might reverse progress though following the fact that people might lose their source of income during the partial lockdown period. Already, 63 percent of the total population of 1.3 million are poor, according to the United Nations World Food Programme.

Guba participants spend two to three days a month at the centre after which they apply what they have learnt at their homes. They acquire skills to harvest water, make compost, mulching, plant perennial species of trees and design their production cycle according to the four seasons. 

“We encourage the farmers to use material that they already have at home,” Hodgson told IPS. “That’s why we don’t expect them to buy new fencing material or tools. We’re adding value to the agriculture they’re already practising.”

Adapting to climate change

Hodgson said this programme is helping farmers acquire skills to cope with erratic rainfall as an adaptation strategy to climate change.

According to Dr. Deepa Pullanikkatil, a consultant based at the Coordinating Assembly of NGOs (CANGO) and co-director at Sustainable Futures in Africa, permaculture helps farmers to adapt to changing climate using sustainable farming practises which mimic nature.

“The practise produces healthy organic crops which can improve their incomes thereby enhancing their adaptive capacity,” Pullanikkatil told IPS.

She said, in permaculture, farmers harvest and conserve water, which is an adaptation strategy particularly because the country is experiencing erratic rainfall patterns due to climate change. Farmers also use low or no tillage methods and composting which are all great for soil fertility. Low tillage frees up time and it is less costly than hiring labour or tractors.

“This also has co-benefits to climate mitigation because of permanent crops, trees grown in the farm and low tillage practices contribute to carbon sequestration,” she said.

Garden farming equates healthy nutrition

Guba also supports the farmers with eating habits that promote a healthy lifestyle such as cooking that retains nutrients and adjusting the composition of the plate according to the right amount of starch, protein and vegetables.

The Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) also promotes healthy and sustainable dietary patterns and sustainable ways of producing food. According to the Food Sustainability Index, created by the BCFN and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), sub-Saharan Africa is home to the world’s hungriest populations. It also states that when it comes to countries addressing nutritional challenges “best practices might be found in smart regulation, whether that means educating consumers on healthy eating, discouraging unhealthy consumption patterns or requiring foods to contain certain vitamins and minerals”.

“What we’ve learnt about our farmers is that after participating in our programme, they visit the clinic less often because of the health benefits from the food they eat and how they eat it,” said Hodgson.

From garden to market

Guba also realised that one of the farmers’ challenges was money to pay school fees for their children and cater for other needs. Therefore, the centre decided to train some of the interested farmers to produce for the market. Hodgson described Guba as “an ethical middle-man” that supports the farmers to produce high-quality organic vegetables and sells it on their behalf to surrounding restaurants.

“We collect, repack and deliver,” said Hodgson. “This area (Malkerns) has a large middle-class population and many restaurants who buy the fresh produce that is delivered on the same day of harvest.”

This project earned about $1,100 from the sale of vegetables. Each farmer makes about $200 per month.

During the COVID-19 partial lockdown, which the Government introduced in March, all Guba restaurant customers had to close overnight. In response to this sudden loss of market, Guba opened a farm stall at the centre.

“After four weeks of operating the farm stall, three days a week. We’re doing well. Sales are increasing and customer feedback is very positive,” said Hodgson. 

This means Guba continues to buy produce from the farmers even during the COVID19 period thus keeping their income stream open and, at the same time, supplying fresh produce to the local community. 

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Excerpt:

During the COVID-19 partial lockdown in Eswatini, garden farmers say they are proud that they are able to make a small contribution towards a healthy nation during the pandemic.

The post COVID-19 – How Eswatini’s Garden Farmers are Keeping the Vegetable Supply Flowing appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By N Chandra Mohan
NEW DELHI, Apr 28 2020 (IPS)

The defining images of South Asia’s battle against Covid-19 are hundreds of thousands of migrants, many with children on their shoulders, trudging from New Delhi, Kathmandu or Dhaka to their far-flung villages. They are daily wage earners engaged in construction, small enterprises, plying rickshaws or street selling in the informal sector. With lockdowns and economic activity shut down to combat the virus, these migrants lost their low-paying jobs and were forced to flee to their rural homes. Those who remained in these cities face food insecurity, rising joblessness and risk falling deeper into poverty.

South Asia faces a major livelihoods crisis as the bulk of migrant employment in India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh is informal. India has roughly 80% of its people or 200-odd million workers in the informal sector engaged in non-agricultural activities. This is the third disruptive shock faced by the informal sector after currency notes were suddenly withdrawn from circulation in November 2016 and a Goods and Services Tax introduced in July 2017. The share of the informal sector is higher at 91% in Bangladesh, followed by 78% in Nepal and 71% in Pakistan according to the International Labour Organisation.

“Covid-19 is likely to reverse many years, if not decades, of gains in poverty reduction and will widen inequalities further,” Dr Nagesh Kumar, Director and Head of South Asia, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific told IPS. South Asia thus cannot afford to have the worst of both worlds: a viral pandemic with rising joblessness and poverty that heighten risks of social unrest. Migrants must be brought back to work in the cities, especially in the informal sector, as the rate of unemployment has hit 26% in India. Pakistan expects 12.3 to 18.5 million people will be jobless with a “moderate to severe” Covid-19 outbreak.

As South Asian economies do not have the fiscal space to move towards a universal social protection to cover migrants, governments must save livelihoods by restarting the economy. India, for its part, has begun to gradually ease up agriculture and industry in non-Covid-19 affected zones. Others in the region too face similar compulsions. Garment exports of Bangladesh and Pakistan have been impacted by closed borders. Tourism has dried up, hitting smaller economies like Nepal. As people are advised to stay at home, retail outlets and restaurants experience fewer footfalls, affecting the region’s services sector.

The bad news is also that South Asian migrants abroad, especially in West Asia, are facing serious challenges of supporting themselves and want to return home. The South Asia- Gulf corridor has been one of the world’s fastest growing migration corridors. But times are a-changing. Oil futures collapsed below zero for the first time on April 20!
Oil-producing countries are employing more local labour than migrants. Travel restrictions are also being imposed, with prospects of returning conditional on medical certificates. Post Covid-19, the nightmarish prospect is for return migration that can only deepen the gloom in the region.

“These factors portend a far bigger and long-lasting crisis in the South Asia-Gulf corridor, even more than during the Gulf war and global economic crisis” stated Dr S Irudaya Rajan, Chair Professor, Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs Research Unit on International Migration at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram to IPS.

Remittances have been an important source of foreign exchange, equivalent to 25% of Nepal’s gross domestic product. In the Indian state of Kerala, the share of remittances is higher at 30% of GDP! Lower remittances will devastate their economies. The ranks of the jobless would swell when these migrants return.

With declining remittances, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh would also register higher imbalances in goods and services trade with the rest of the world than otherwise. Financing this gap will be a serious policy concern as foreign direct investment inflows are declining in these Covid-19 times. So, too, are portfolio investments that rise in
good times and fall in bad times. Research has established that remittances augment savings and investments of recipient households and help in poverty reduction. If such inflows reduce as expected over the near-term, they would worsen distributional outcomes in South Asia.

In the war against Covid-19, South Asia is persisting with national lockdowns — with the most severe one in India to a less restrictive one in Pakistan — to buy time by checking the virus’s transmission. This strategy will be efficacious if it is utilised wisely to beef up public health infrastructure. This is the best time to close the gaps in healthcare provision so that there is greater resilience to disasters. However, the fear is that “if Covid-19’s spread is not contained, due to herd immunity or high temperatures, a HUGE human security catastrophe may engulf the region” warned Commodore Uday Bhaskar, Director, Society for Policy Studies in Delhi.

 

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By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 28 2020 (IPS)

The Covid-19 pandemic is now widely considered more threatening than any other recent viral epidemic. Most believe that many more have been infected or even died than officially confirmed.

Despite available information, some national leaders believed that the epidemic would not affect them. Others believed that promoting ‘herd immunity’ would protect populations by exposing them to the virus, triggering human immune systems to produce antibodies.

Flattening the curve?
The principal strategy adopted by most governments is to ‘flatten the curve’, so that countries’ health systems can cope with new infections by tracing, testing, isolating and treating those infected until such time that an approved vaccine or ‘cure’ is available to all.

But this is easier said than done. Vulnerability to infection and capacity to respond depend on many factors including healthcare system preparedness, experience and ability in managing viral outbreaks besides the specific challenges raised by Covid-19.

Government capacity to respond depends crucially on system capacity and capabilities — e.g., authorities’ ability to speedily trace, isolate and treat the infected — and available fiscal resources — e.g., to quickly enhance testing capacity and secure personal protective equipment.

But funding cuts, privatization and other types of rent-seeking in recent decades — in the face of rising costs, not least for medicines — have constrained and undermined most public health systems, albeit on various different pretexts.

Early action without lockdowns
Physical distancing, mask use and other precautionary measures as well as mass testing, tracing, isolation and treatment have checked the epidemic without lockdowns. Such measures have been quite successful so far in much of East Asia, Vietnam and the Indian state of Kerala.

Physical distancing and other precautionary measures, such as wearing masks in public areas, will be critically necessary until a vaccine is affordably available to all. Even the availability of a cure will not obviate the need for prevention offered by a vaccine.

Precautionary measures must be appropriate and affordable. To minimize the risk of infection, authorities can encourage and enable, if not require, changes in social interactions, including work and other public space arrangements, including offices, factories, shops, public transportation and classrooms.

Lockdowns: enforced, extended physical distancing
Since Wuhan, many governments have resorted to various types of ‘stay-in-shelter’ ‘lockdowns’ to enforce physical distancing for protracted periods to try to ‘circuit-break’ transmission. They buy precious time, for complementary interventions, allowing health authorities to check and reverse the spread of infections.

Anis Chowdhury

Besides enforcing extended physical distancing through lockdowns, appropriate complementary measures are needed for lockdowns to work. Testing, treating and quarantining the infected need to be complemented by tracing to identify those more likely to be infected.

But it has to be acknowledged that lockdowns are only part of an array of measures available to authorities to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. Lockdowns are blunt measures of last resort, often due to the failure, inadequacy or delay of precautionary ‘early actions’. And ‘if you only have a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail’.

A lockdown was deemed necessary to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, and the surrounding three provinces, after other measures to deal with the novel epidemic seemed ‘too little, too late’. But in most other situations, adequate appropriate early precautionary measures may well have proved enough.

Lockdowns should not be economic knockouts
Depending on context, lockdowns have many other effects as well. Good planning, implementation and enforcement of movement restrictions and provisioning for all adversely affected are crucial, not only for efficacy, but also for transitions before, during and after.

Nonetheless, lockdowns typically incur huge economic costs, distributed unevenly in economies and societies. Governments must therefore be mindful of the costs, including of disruptions, and also of how policies affect various people differently.

The effectiveness of a lockdown has to be judged primarily by its ability to quickly ‘flatten the curve’ and ensure no resurgence of infections. Success should not be measured by duration, enforcement stringency or even by unsustainable declines in new cases.

Most ‘casual’ labourers, petty businesses reliant on daily cash turnover and others in the ‘informal’ economy will find it especially difficult to survive extended lockdowns. Although they need more relief support than most, they are often difficult for governments to reach.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Those living in cramped conditions, e.g., urban slums, cannot realistically be expected to practice consistent physical distancing, but will nonetheless need to be enabled to sustainably practice other precautionary measures within their modest means, e.g., using washable masks.

Governance, mobilization, leadership
To enhance efficacy and minimize disruptions, an ‘all of government’ approach at all levels needs to be developed, involving much more than public health and police enforcement authorities.

Human resource, social protection, transport, education, media, industry, fiscal and other relevant authorities need to be appropriately engaged to develop the various required transitions and to plan for the post-lockdown ‘new normal’.

Another condition for success is ‘whole of society’ mobilization and support. Government transparency and explanations for various measures undertaken are important for public understanding, cooperation, support and legitimacy.

The authorities must also realize how measures will be seen. Singapore’s apparent early success, for example, was not what it seemed as it had overlooked official disincentives for possibly infected migrant workers to cooperate.

Appropriate enhanced public health and other relevant communications and education will often need to be quickly developed to succeed. The efficacy and consequences of a ‘lockdown’ and related measures are contingent on public appreciation of the challenges and the ability of societies to respond appropriately with socio-economic, cultural and behavioural changes.

While the Covid-19 crisis is undoubtedly exceptional and full social mobilization is needed, such special ‘wartime’ measures must not be abused, e.g., by the temptation to bias implementation of measures for political advantage. Success can thus be greatly enabled by legitimate, credible and exemplary leadership, government and otherwise.

Related Articles

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Credit: CPJ

By Yegi Rezaian
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 28 2020 (IPS)

In 2014 my husband and I were arrested in my native country, Iran, for the crime of working as journalists. I spent 72 days in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, all of them in solitary confinement.

What I lived through during that time, years ago, compels me to speak out now in support of journalists who are behind bars at a moment when their communities need them most, during a public health pandemic where access to information is essential to combating the deadly virus.

Journalists will not provide the cure for coronavirus, but explaining the destructive rampage it’s on and ways to reduce the disease’s ability to spread, is an essential service that would be in the national security interests of every country that instead has journalists languishing in jail.

After our home was raided by security agents and we were taken, blindfolded and handcuffed, I was immediately placed in a tiny cell that was infested with cockroaches. I was given a set of prison clothes that had not been washed after the previous owner finished with them; I could smell her, whoever she was, the moment I put them on.

My cell had no toilet or sink, and I only had access to them when my guards felt like giving it to me. I was not allowed to shower for the first twelve days of my captivity.

Obviously, there is no good prison in the world. Short of execution, long term imprisonment is the most severe form of punishment, and in most parts of the world it’s intended, at least in part, to demean the people being held.

For political prisoners, which jailed journalists almost unanimously qualify as, a stripping of dignity is invariably a key part of the process.

In prison I had no way of maintaining good hygiene or avoiding malnutrition. There was no access to vitamins, clean water or fresh air. Psychological pressure leads to stress levels that are unimaginably higher than the ones we experience in our normal lives.

In such an environment, rest doesn’t come easy. Attempting to sleep on the ground, with only filthy blankets as cover and the lights that were turned on 24 hours a day made it nearly impossible.

Imagine the increased risks posed by such circumstances with a fast moving and lethal virus on the loose in confined spaces. One becomes immuno-compromised by default the moment they are imprisoned.

In prison there are no adequate medical supplies or doctors to administer them. If a country is being decimated by the coronavirus right now, as Iran, China and Turkey are for example, the risks for prisoners increase exponentially. Especially in overpopulated public wards.

It is a disheartening irony that those prisoners currently being held in solitary confinement, as I once was, may actually be safer than those in general prison populations.

In the confined spaces of prison, one’s mind works over time. You are constantly worried about your loved ones in the outside world and they for you. With a pandemic spreading day by day, the sense of hopelessness imprisoned journalists are experiencing today for me is palpable.

Adding to that strain is the decision, however wise it may be, by most prisons to indefinitely suspend in person visits to inmates.

At a time when journalists could be helping to slow the spread of the virus by educating the public, too many are languishing behind bars, at least 250 according to the latest figures from the Committee to Protect Journalists where I work.

Many of them are ill and are not provided adequate access to healthcare. All of them are colleagues unjustly imprisoned for their work.

The imperative to ensure the safety of fellow journalists no matter where they are or what they cover drives my work at CPJ. In the current circumstances that means protecting their health, too.

This is why I join with colleagues from around the world in asking leaders to release journalists they are holding in prison. Doing so would be good for the world at a time when cooperation at all levels of society is desperately needed.

 

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Excerpt:

Yegi Rezaian is Advocacy Associate at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

 
The international community will commemorate World Press Freedom Day on May 3—which was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly back in December 1993, following a recommendation by the UNESCO's General Conference.

The post As Coronavirus Spreads, No Journalist Should be Sidelined in Prison appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A pregnant woman in Kenya's North Eastern Province with one of her children. Overpopulation in the area contributes to poor maternal health. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 27 2020 (IPS)

Sexual and reproductive health and pandemics might seem to be unrelated topics, but large and dense populations are drivers of the high velocity transmission of COVID-19, and there are lessons to be learned for the future.

Gains made in women’s sexual reproductive health and rights just took several steps backward in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Access to contraceptives has been interrupted, resulting in an increase in unintended pregnancies. With schools closed, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and child marriages are rising. Globally gender-based violence has risen exponentially, as people are advised or required to stay home, and women and girls may not be able to leave an unsafe or violent situation.

The United Nations Population Fund(UNFPA) Executive Director, Natalia Kanem has said, “the world needs to do much more to ensure that the most intimate, yet essential, needs of the world’s women and girls are met while we battle COVID-19.”

Among the chief immediate concerns is severely reduced access to sexual and reproductive healthcare while the pandemic rages on. But diminished women’s rights and services have even greater long-term implications for the outbreak and spread of future epidemics.

Africa has yet to see the devastation from COVID-19 that most developed countries are facing in terms of infections and deaths, but the virus is already wreaking havoc on the livelihoods of millions on the continent. With travel bans, curfews and lockdowns, for countless who depend on daily wages and small informal businesses, are facing hunger and destitution. Unlike richer nations, most African countries have little wriggle room in their budgets to afford meaningful stimulus packages and have social safety nets.

Some forecasts suggest that in the absence of a considerable fiscal stimulus, COVID-19 could see Africa’s GDP decline by over 5% in 2020.

So how can the world–and the African continent in particular–better prepare itself for the next pandemic?

A good place to start is with the root of recent pandemics. Zoonosis is the transmission of a disease from animals to human. COVID-19, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) are all coronaviruses, and all originated in bats, which are a natural reservoir for viruses.

Such jumps from animals to humans are on the rise for reasons that include unhygienic and close proximity to animals, bush meat consumption, wet markets and–crucially–human encroachment into wilderness and wildlife habitats.

One of the main drivers of such encroachment is the exponential population growth.

We are exploiting forests at a calamitous rate, eating away into the traditional buffer zones that once separated humans from animals, and from the pathogens that they carry. Forest destruction also drives climate change and soil erosion. In turn, growing urbanization means higher population densities, providing a ready route for the rapid and extensive spread of disease.

Long-term preparation must begin with the acknowledgment that runaway population growth is a driver of modern pandemics.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres observed on the 2019 World Population Day, “for many of the least developed countries, the challenges to sustainable development are compounded by rapid population growth as well as vulnerability to climate change.”

Most African health systems operate in a constant state of struggle and crisis. There is only one doctor for every 1,000 people in Africa, and each must serve overwhelmingly young, poor and unemployed patient populations.

Family planning and sexual health services are only patchily available, and cultural pressures mean girls and women may find it difficult to access them even where they exist. Too often the result is large families living in poverty and ill-health, and a worrying predominance of early pregnancy.

Africa is the most rapidly urbanizing region in the world, with 50-70% of urban dwellers living in slums. Uncontrolled population growth, crowded and unhygienic conditions, and destruction of natural ecosystems combine to create a perfect storm for the next pandemic, whose speed, scale and virulence may well surpass COVID 19.

Urgent action needed now

In such circumstances there is a central need for bold global leadership. That is why policymakers, led by the US, must reconsider the Mexico City policy, often known as the global gag rule. The recently expanded global gag rule now applies not only to comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare and safe abortion, but also to programmes that include HIV, water, sanitation and hygiene.

In Kenya we are already seeing the domino effect of the global gag rule with increased teenage pregnancies and a spike in unsafe abortions. Almost one in five girls aged 15-19 is either pregnant or already has a baby. Adolescent girls in the worst affected parts of Kenya have lost their ability to make informed choices. It is a crisis of health, education and opportunity, made far worse by COVID 19.

It should concern all leaders that reduced resources for such programmes have led to more poor women suffering the effects of unplanned pregnancies, contributed to higher rates of maternal mortality and to an increase in unsafe abortions. Goals for programmes such as the Family Planning 2020 (FP 2020) launched by Melinda Gates, which includes giving 120 million more women and girls access to contraceptives by 2020, will remain unfulfilled as the deadline approaches. FP2020 is based on the principle that all women, no matter where they live, should have access to lifesaving contraceptives.

Today, Africa has the world’s highest fertility rates. On average, women in sub-Saharan Africa have about five children over their reproductive lifetime, compared to a global average of 2.5 children. Africa’s population is expected to grow from the current 1.1 billion to 2.3 billion people by 2050 while the global population is expected to reach 10 billion at that time.

If Africa accelerates structural reforms, some believe the continent can emulate China’s rapid rise of the last 50 years. McKinsey predicts $5.6 trillion in African business opportunities by 2025. If Africa succeeds, it could be a poster child for Sustainable Development Goal 1-ending poverty by 2030, as well as become a stable and prosperous economic partner for the rest of the world.

At the top of the reforms must be safeguarding the primacy of reproductive health and rights. With a median age of 19 years, for Africa to benefit from the demographic dividend its youthful population could offer, family sizes must fall drastically. Smaller households link directly to improved health, education and living standards, which in turn translate into investment, employment, and economic growth. This can only happen if programmes that increase access to family planning are widely available.

We must look at strategies to stabilize the global population with renewed urgency. Political and religious, globally must show courage, responsibility and vision through a robust commitment to ensuring that every person, everywhere, has access to affordable contraception and is able to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights.

To help stave off the havoc of the next pandemic, the world must unite behind UNFPA’s mission “to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.”

Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya. Follow him on twitter-@sidchat1. This opinion piece originally appeared in CNBC Africa.

This story was first issued by CNBC Africa

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By Aarti Narsee
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Apr 27 2020 (IPS)

Censorship, smear campaigns and harassment. These are just some of the daily struggles that media professionals are facing in Hungary. And now the threat of jail time may be looming. In the context of World Press Freedom Day, there is little to celebrate in the Eastern Bloc region.

The government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Victor Orban and his Fidesz Party, has ramped up its efforts to destroy any remaining media independence with its ‘Bill on the Protection against the Coronavirus’. The new legislation gives government the power to rule by decree, allowing it to prolong emergency measures and evade parliamentary scrutiny. In addition, independent journalists in Hungary covering the pandemic may face prison time of up to five years for publishing any content about the virus which is considered ‘fake news’ by the government.

Arguably, what is considered ‘conveying false information’ is open to the government’s interpretation and may be anything that paints a negative picture of its response to the pandemic. A case in point – the week before the bill was submitted, Orban’s party and pro-government media accused the independent press of spreading ‘fake news’ for reporting that Hungarian doctors and nurses lack proper protective gear.

Ironically, criticism of the new coronavirus bill has been labelled ‘fake’ by Orban’s political allies, who deny that it gives the government unlimited power.

Hungary’s response to COVID-19 has been flagged as a cause for concern by the CIVICUS Monitor, an online platform that records violations to civic freedoms, such as freedom of expression. In a recently published report documenting civic space restrictions during the pandemic, the Monitor cites “overly broad emergency laws and new restrictive legislation” implemented in Hungary.

However, this latest move by Orban’s government, which will negatively impact the working life of journalists, shouldn’t come as a surprise. Censorship is the number one violation documented in Europe and Central Asia by the CIVICUS Monitor, and the most common violation globally, occurring across 178 countries.

Freedom of expression has been in decline for several years in Hungary. In 2013 Hungary was ranked 56 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index but it slid down to 89th place this year.

In January 2020, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) reported that several online independent media platforms were barred from covering the prime minister’s annual press conference (‘Orbáninfo’) without a legitimate reason.

While in February, an investigation by Politico reported that, according to internal emails obtained, Hungarian public media (MTVA) employees require special approval from their editors to cover some topics, such as climate activist Greta Thunberg and migration. Coverage of reports from leading human rights organisations, like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW), is prohibited.

In addition, journalists face continuous attacks and intimidation, such as smear campaigns which brand them ‘Hungary-haters’ or ‘foreign agents’, and female journalists are also under attack.

Examples of harassment faced by female journalists are documented in a recent report by the International Press Institute (IPI). It describes the case of Rebeka Kulcsár, a journalist with 444.hu, who was subjected to bullying (“you stupid b***h”), sexual violence (“I’m going to rape you”) and public shaming when her picture was posted online.

Index.hu’s photo editor, Tímea Karip, explains that some female journalists choose to leave their bylines off their stories because of harassment. “Politics and being a woman are both risk factors for harassment,” she says. Acts such as these, which aim to suppress freedom of expression, have had a chilling effect on journalists.

The recent developments in Hungary are a huge concern for democracy, freedom of expression and the rule of law. Despite this, the European Union has failed to take any concrete action against its member state.

The EU has shied away from directly criticising Hungary. In March, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “Democracy cannot work without free and independent media. Respect for freedom of expression and legal certainty are essential in these uncertain times.” Although she was referring directly to Hungary, she failed to mention the EU state by name. Von der Leyen finally broke her silence in April by openly condemning Hungary’s new coronavirus bill. However, the EU’s response can barely be considered a slap on the wrist – Hungary is yet to feel any real pressure from its big brother supervisor.

The EU needs to act more decisively: silence and prevarication may have a ripple effect on media freedom for other countries in the Eastern bloc.

Media freedom is already under threat in neighboring states, such as Poland. According to the International Press Institute (IPI), around 50 criminal and civil cases have been brought against the Polish newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, by various state or state-controlled institutions. Also, the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) has used several successful methods to stifle critical reporting, and PiS politicians repeatedly invoke criminal libel laws against journalists.

If Hungary is to be held accountable for its recent actions, then a more direct approach is needed from the EU in order to prevent freedom of expression from deteriorating any further.

In the meantime, another way to protect media freedom in Hungary is through the judicial system. This was recently demonstrated when the Budapest-Capital Regional Court ruled that the decision of the Hungarian Competition Authority to allow for the creation of a pro-government media empire (KESMA) was unlawful. In late 2018, 476 pro-government media outlets were swept into KESMA, with many affiliated to allies of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Although there are no reported cases of journalists being arrested under the new coronavirus law, the bill has created a hostile environment for media professionals, and many Hungarian journalists are now facing threats and demands to censor their work.

The EU should take note: while we wait for it to act decisively, on World Press Freedom Day journalists continue to remain under threat, as the little media freedom that does remain in Hungary is slowly eroded.

Hungary is rated ‘obstructed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.

* Aarti Narsee is a Civic Space Research officer at CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation

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IPBES Expert Guest Article by Professors Josef Settele, Sandra Díaz and Eduardo Brondizio1 and Dr. Peter Daszak2 on 27 April 2020

By Josef Settele, Sandra Díaz, Eduardo Brondizio and Peter Daszak
Apr 27 2020 (IPS)

There is a single species that is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic – us. As with the climate and biodiversity crises, recent pandemics are a direct consequence of human activity – particularly our global financial and economic systems, based on a limited paradigm that prizes economic growth at any cost. We have a small window of opportunity, in overcoming the challenges of the current crisis, to avoid sowing the seeds of future ones.

Josef Settele

Diseases like COVID-19 are caused by microorganisms that infect our bodies – with more than 70% of all emerging diseases affecting people having originated in wildlife and domesticated animals. Pandemics, however, are caused by activities that bring increasing numbers of people into direct contact and often conflict with the animals that carry these pathogens.

Rampant deforestation, uncontrolled expansion of agriculture, intensive farming, mining and infrastructure development, as well as the exploitation of wild species have created a ‘perfect storm’ for the spillover of diseases from wildlife to people. This often occurs in areas where communities live that are most vulnerable to infectious diseases.

Our actions have significantly impacted more than three quarters of the Earth’s land surface, destroyed more than 85% of wetlands and dedicated more than a third of all land and almost 75% of available freshwater to crops and livestock production.

Sandra Díaz

Add to this the unregulated trade in wild animals and the explosive growth of global air travel and it becomes clear how a virus that once circulated harmlessly among a species of bats in Southeast Asia has now infected more almost 2 million people, brought untold human suffering and halted economies and societies around the world. This is the human hand in pandemic emergence.

Yet this may be only the beginning. Although animal-to-human diseases already cause an estimated 700,000 deaths each year, the potential for future pandemics is vast. As many as 1.7 million unidentified viruses of the type known to infect people are believed to still exist in mammals and water birds. Any one of these could be the next ‘Disease X’ – potentially even more disruptive and lethal than COVID-19.

Future pandemics are likely to happen more frequently, spread more rapidly, have greater economic impact and kill more people if we are not extremely careful about the possible impacts of the choices we make today.

Eduardo Brondizio

Most immediately we need to ensure that the actions being taken to reduce the impacts of the current pandemic aren’t themselves amplifying the risks of future outbreaks and crises. There are three important considerations that should be central to the multi-trillion-dollar recovery and economic stimulus plans already being implemented.

First, we must ensure the strengthening and enforcement of environmental regulations – and only deploy stimulus packages that offer incentives for more sustainable and nature-positive activities. It may be politically expedient at this time to relax environmental standards and to prop up industries such as intensive agriculture, long-distance transportation such as the airlines, and fossil-fuel-dependent energy sectors, but doing so without requiring urgent and fundamental change, essentially subsidizes the emergence of future pandemics.

Second, we should adopt a ‘One Health’ approach at all levels of decision-making – from the global to the most local – recognizing the complex interconnections among the health of people, animals, plants and our shared environment. Forestry departments, for example, usually set policy related to deforestation, and profits accrue largely to the private sector – but it is public health systems and local communities that often pay the price of resulting disease outbreaks. A One Health approach would ensure that better decisions are made that take into account long-term costs and consequences of development actions – for people and nature.

Dr. Peter Daszak

Third, we have to properly fund and resource health systems and incentivise behaviour change on the frontlines of pandemic risk. This means mobilising international finance to build health capacity in emerging disease hotspots – such as clinics; surveillance programs, especially in partnership with Indigenous Peoples and local communities; behavioural risk surveys; and specific intervention programs. It also entails offering viable and sustainable alternatives to high-risk economic activities and protecting the health of the most vulnerable. This is not simple altruism – it is vital investment in the interests of all to prevent future global outbreaks.

Perhaps most importantly, we need transformative change – the kind highlighted last year in the IPBES Global Assessment Report (the one that found a million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction in coming decades): fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values, promoting social and environmental responsibilities across all sectors. As daunting and costly as this may sound – it pales in comparison to the price we are already paying.

Responding to the COVID-19 crisis calls for us all to confront the vested interests that oppose transformative change, and to end ‘business as usual’. We can build back better and emerge from the current crisis stronger and more resilient than ever – but to do so means choosing policies and actions that protect nature – so that nature can help to protect us.

Enquiries and Interviews: media@ipbes.net

Note: The above article is not a formal product of IPBES – but of the four authors who are leading global experts in their own right – building on the results of approved IPBES Assessment Reports. Work is currently underway on three IPBES assessments with direct relevance to the current crisis and future pandemics: an assessment on the sustainable use of wild species; another on invasive alien species, and one on the different ways of understanding the plural values of nature. Work has also just begun on scoping a new IPBES nexus assessment on the interlinkages between biodiversity, water, food and health in the context of climate change.

1 Co-chairs of the 2019 IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services which found, inter alia, that 1 million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction within decades.
2 President of EcoHealth Alliance and scoping expert for the new IPBES nexus assessment on the links between biodiversity, health and food.

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• FEATURED TRANSLATION – FRENCH

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Excerpt:

IPBES Expert Guest Article by Professors Josef Settele, Sandra Díaz and Eduardo Brondizio1 and Dr. Peter Daszak2 on 27 April 2020

The post COVID-19 Stimulus Measures Must Save Lives, Protect Livelihoods, and Safeguard Nature to Reduce the Risk of Future Pandemics appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Russian capital, Moscow. Sex workers in the country say although public opinion about their work is shifting, they still face marginalisation and criminalisation. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Apr 27 2020 (IPS)

Despite seeing a shift in attitudes towards them in recent years, Russian sex workers say they continue to struggle with marginalisation and criminalisation which poses a danger to them and the wider public.

• Sex work is illegal in Russia and, historically, public attitudes to the women, and more recently men, involved in providing it have been predominantly negative, and often virulently hostile.
• This has led to them being marginalised and with little protection against violence and prejudice not just among the general public and clients, but also the police and wider justice system.
• However, they say they have seen a change in the last two to three years as some of their work campaigning for rights and awareness of their work, has begun to bear fruit in the last few years.

“Media have begun to talk and write much more about sex work. Much of this has been more positive to sex workers, …and both their tone and rhetoric have become more tolerant,” Marina Avramenko of the Russian Forum of Sex Workers, which offers legal consultancy and support to sex workers, told IPS.

She added: “Sometimes media outlets conduct informal opinion polls about attitudes in society towards sex work and according to the results of these informal surveys, it is evident that more people have begun to talk about the need to allow sex work.”

• Sex work, which has been illegal in Russia since the Russian Federation was formed in 1991, is punishable both under criminal law and Russian civil offences legislation.
• Organising, or forcing someone into, prostitution, is a criminal offence carrying a penalty of up to eight years in jail. But sex work itself is a civil offence punishable by fines of up to 30 Euros.

Sex workers are one of the most marginalised groups in Russia today.

This is down in part to the influence of the Orthodox Church, which has grown in popularity in the decades since the fall of communism, on society and government policy. As with many other minority groups, such as the LGBTI community, sex workers have been demonised by the clergy.

Politicians also often publicly speak of sex workers in derogative or sometimes violently hostile terms.

“A negative attitude towards sex workers has been formed in society through propaganda and the Church. Sex workers are not recognised as a ‘social group’ and when people call for them to be killed or raped, or spread hate against them, they are not punished.

“False myths are also spread in society that sex workers destroy families, that they infect people with various diseases, and that sex workers are associated with organised crime,” said Avramenko.

Criminalisation itself also fuels this marginalisation.

International rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have repeatedly highlighted the effects of criminalisation of sex work.

They point out it often leaves sex workers with no protection from police, unable to report crimes against them during their work for fear of getting a criminal record, or having their earnings confiscated or their work reported to others.

This means that the perpetrators of the crimes against them know they can act with impunity, while police can also abuse, extort or physically and sexually assault them with equal impunity.

Indeed, this is often the case in Russia. According to the Russian Forum of Sex Workers, informal surveys have shown that in about 80 percent of police raids on brothels or independent sex workers’ establishments, officers beat sex workers.

Some sex workers also recount horrific incidents they know of colleagues gang-raped by police, or held for days at police stations and beaten and starved.

“In general, police officers feel even more impunity than criminals and commit many crimes against sex workers,” said Avramenko.

Because of this, sex workers seldom report crimes to police. And, even if they do, these are rarely, or poorly investigated.

Evgenia Maron of the Russian Forum of Sex Workers’ Executive Committee, spoke to IPS about some of the cases which the group had been involved in, including that of sex worker from Gelendzhik who was raped. Investigators refused to initiate proceedings against her attacker on the grounds that “the applicant provides sexual services, which means that the perpetrator’s actions are not socially dangerous”.

He was eventually jailed for five years after Russia’s Commissioner for Human Rights intervened.

In another case, a man filmed the robbery and rape of a sex worker in Ufa and forced his victim on camera to say that she was a prostitute as he was sure this would guarantee his impunity. He was eventually convicted but was sentenced to just over two years in jail and released immediately because he had already served that time in prison awaiting trial.

Sex workers also struggle to access lawyers. According to Maron, out of 250 cases where sex workers ended up in court under Administrative Code offences, only two were represented by lawyers in their hearings.

A church in Moscow. Russian sex workers say that Russia’s Orthodox Church has helped foster negative attitudes towards them in society. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

International rights and health organisations have also warned of the serious health threat posed by marginalisation of certain groups in society, including sex-workers.

Russia has one of the world’s worst HIV epidemics with more than a million people infected and infection rates running higher than in sub-Saharan Africa. The epidemic has been driven largely by injection drug use but HIV is increasingly transmitted sexually and sex workers have been identified as particularly vulnerable.

A study published in 2016 by the Sex Workers’ Rights Advocacy Network (SWAN) in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, showed more than a quarter of sex workers had faced physical or sexual violence by police officers and that police persecution deprived them of the opportunity to work in safe conditions, choose clients, or use condoms with every client.

But stigma and fear of their work being exposed mean sex workers struggle to access proper healthcare.

“Sex workers face obstacles in receiving medical care, primarily because there are very few special programs for them, and when they turn to state healthcare services, sex workers hide because of concerns about stigma that they are engaged in sex work,” said Maron.

Maron said that ensuring sex workers’ rights was essential, not just for the workers themselves, but for any country’s wider society, including public health.

“In the the event of violence, a sex worker cannot control the use of condoms, for example. Sex workers having greater guarantees of protection from violence, being able to file complaints with the police without obstacles, and rapists being punished to the fullest extent of the law will lead to positive health outcomes in the long run.

“It is violence that prevents necessary protection against STIs and other infections which have an important impact on public health,” she said.

In a few months a new version of Russia’s Administrative Code, which governs civil law offences, is due to be approved by lawmakers.

During its drafting phase Russian rights organisations and sex worker groups campaigned to have penalties for sex work stripped from the new version of the code.

The fines are officially recorded in an Interior Ministry database and employers running background checks on job applicants will often reject those they see have fines for sex work. There have also been reported incidents of the children of sex workers being refused access to higher education or employment in the public sector after these records have been found.

“[Having] prostitution as an offence destroys all opportunities for [these] women in their future lives,” Irina Maslova, director of the Silver Rose sex workers’ rights movement, was quoted as saying in the Kommersant newspaper in March.

The calls were ignored and relevant articles in the current code on sex work will remain in the new code.

Many rights groups say that the work undertaken by groups like the Russian Sex Workers Forum to try and guarantee sex workers’ rights is essential to ensuring wider gender equality.

In a 2017 report, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects argued that “ultimately, there can be no gender equality if sex workers’ human rights are not fully recognised and protected”.

The group said: “Sex workers’ rights activists, feminist allies and human rights advocates have long held that the agency of sex workers must be recognised and protected, that all aspects of sex work should be decriminalised, and that sex work should be recognised as work and regulated under existing labour frameworks.

“Given that the majority of sex workers are women and many come from LGBT communities, protecting sex workers’ rights is imperative to achieving gender equality as defined under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)”.

Meanwhile, Russians sex workers continue to call for decriminalisation, although, Avramenko argues, it will only help to a certain extent.

“By itself, decriminalisation will not change much,” said Avramenko, citing the experience of sex workers in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan where sex work is decriminalised.

“There, sex work is not punishable, but the police and the state are constantly finding ways to violate sex workers’ rights,” she said.

She added decriminalisation needed to be accompanied by greater public awareness of sex work and its benefits for society as well as rooting out police corruption.

It appears unlikely this will happen any time soon with the Church continuing to wield significant influence over political policy and public opinion, and the recent lack of change to civil law offences for sex work.

Maron said that for activists like her there was little they could do than carry on their work.

“We will continue to try to improve access to healthcare and justice for sex workers and open dialogue about what sex work is and what interaction with a sex worker means for wider society,” she said.

Their work does seem to be having some effect though, as the change in media reporting and surveys showing a more positive public attitude to sex work suggest.

“This is down to our work,” said Avramenko.

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Excerpt:

Ensuring sex workers’ rights was essential, not just for the workers themselves, but for any country’s wider society, including public health

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 27 2020 (IPS)

Thandika Mkandawire (1940-2020) had a wicked sense of humour. But he was so considerate that he often made himself the butt of his jokes which typically had a moral. When others struggled to pronounce his surname, he would help them out, “Me kinda weary”.

Thandika Mkandawire. Credit: CODESRIA

But as tired as he might have been, he would often summon up the energy for yet another struggle. As Thandika was never one for self-pity, I shall always be ashamed that I did not know that he had succumbed to his third battle with cancer on 27 March.

Loving Africa, loving life
Blessed at birth with two Pan-Africanist names, he was always generous with me, for which I shall always be most grateful. Through example, he showed that a progressive pan-Africanist could be anti-imperialist without being racist, ethno-populist or jingoist.

Although both trained as economists, we rarely ‘talked shop’, and then usually about some new controversy in economics, preferring instead to banter about everything else which interested us, where there was far more coincidence than I ever expected.

His intellectual reputation had preceded him when we first met a quarter century ago in Dakar, listening to West African instrumental music as I tried to meet filmmaker, author and former railway worker, Ousmane Sembene. Later I learnt that Thandika was even an impresario of sorts for Senegalese singing sensation, Youssou N’Dour.

In Buenos Aires for a UNESCO conference years later, we were on a panel with the late Brazilian First Lady Ruth Cardoso and then Senator Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Again, he reminded me of his joie de vivre, tangoing in La Boca and listening to the music of Astor Piazzolla and Daniel Barenboim. In Johannesburg more years hence, he introduced me to South African pianist extraordinaire, Abdullah Ibrahim.

A life in exile
Having experienced racist settler colonialism, African despotism and other social injustices first-hand, Thandika’s experiences undoubtedly shaped his choices and thinking. From an early age, his family was forced to move — first from his mother’s Zimbabwe, then Southern Rhodesia, to Zambia, then Northern Rhodesia, and then to his father’s Malawi, then Nyasaland, where he had his secondary education.

Thandika became active in nationalist student politics, then served as assistant editor of Malawi News for the newly formed Malawi Congress Party. Then accused of sedition and inciting violence, he was sentenced to 18 months hard labour after a farce of a trial. On appeal, he was released after three months breaking rocks in a colonial prison.

He later went to study journalism and economics in the US, but could not return after several student activists, including Dr Guy Mhone of the International Labour Office (ILO), had their passports withdrawn by Malawian dictator Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda in 1965.

Stranded for a period in Ecuador, he became a political refugee in Sweden. After a difficult transition, he taught economics in Swedish at the University of Stockholm with Nobel laureate Gunnar Myrdal. His appreciation of social democracy and the now much maligned ‘welfare state’ grew during this unplanned extended sojourn.

African researchers unite
After a decade in Sweden, Thandika returned to his beloved continent with grants to visit several research institutions. One planned six-month trip later extended to 13 years, including a decade (1986-1996) helming the Council for the Development of Social Science Research (CODESRIA), following the renowned Samir Amin and then Abdulla Bujra.

Advancing African sovereignty required protecting and advancing progressive intellectual development with African scholars at the forefront. CODESRIA saw academic freedom as necessary for African universities to fulfil their crucial role in development.

Thandika’s tenure as Executive Secretary was marked by tremendous organizational innovation, and mobilization of the researchers themselves, rather than their institutions, around emerging themes, often even before they became fads elsewhere.

Against the tides
Despite a quarter century of African economic stagnation from the late 1970s, Thandika rejected the widespread mood of ‘Afro-pessimism’ among Western scholars of African development, including ostensibly radical social scientists.

Instead, he argued that the African malaise was an outcome of its unique colonial and post-colonial histories rather than due to something inherently African.

He also consistently rejected the neoliberal development ‘solutions’, strategies and policies strongly recommended, if not demanded as conditionalities by international financial institutions and like-minded foreign economic advisors and consultants from the 1980s.

Thandika reminded us how well Africa had done economically and socially, e.g., in extending education and health provision, in the early years after independence before the counter-revolution against development economics.

Almost single-handedly, he countered the narrative that African states were too corrupt to bring about development, urging Africans to look to East Asian and other developmental states while rejecting authoritarianism as necessary for such development.

Social development and the UN
From 1998 to 2009, Thandika served as Director of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) in Geneva where his considerable mobilization and fund-raising skills, honed at CODESRIA, injected new life into UNRISD as it entered the new century.

The uniquely independent, but unfunded research institute had first been established by later Nobel economics laureates Jan Tinbergen and Myrdal in the mid-1960s, to mobilise researchers to work on pressing social issues in the course of economic development.

Under Thandika’s leadership, UNRISD provided the analytical heft to the ILO (International Labour Organization) initiated campaign to address inequality and universal social protection, leading to the social dimensions of the Sustainable Development Goals, instead of the Millennium Development Goals’ narrow World Bank inspired focus on poverty and targeted social safety nets.

Thandika was also instrumental in helping establish International Development Economics Associates (IDEAS), led by Professor Jayati Ghosh from Delhi, as a South-based network of heterodox development economists, hosting the founding conference in Cape Town days before 9/11 in 2001.

Leaving UNRISD, Thandika became Professor at Stockholm’s Institute for Future Studies and then first Chair of African Development at the London School of Economics. Africa’s best-known imperialist must surely have squirmed in his grave when Rhodes University recognized Thandika’s work with an earned doctorate, i.e., not honoris causa.

Viva Thandika! A luta continua
Thandika had a life well lived indeed, much richer than most of us can even imagine. Sadly, persistent patterns of intellectual hegemony and his iconoclastic predilection and democratic insistence are likely to prevent the typically universal implications of much of his oeuvre from being more widely appreciated.

Thankfully, despite, or perhaps because of various hardships, including long exile, his wide ranging, progressive intellectual legacy extends beyond his ideas and writings to include the initiatives and opportunities he selflessly created for African intellectuals at CODESRIA.

While he published some of his most significant work after UNRISD, being the perfectionist that he was and still rethinking so much, there was much more in the pipeline which he hesitated to put out, which I hope his family will let Codesria publish as works in progress with his erstwhile colleague and intellectual biographer Yusuf Bangura as editor.

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UN Secretary-General António Guterres briefs the media on the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: UN/Mark Garten

By Alexander Trepelkov
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 27 2020 (IPS)

The SDGs, with their universal scope, interlinked nature and focus on leaving no one behind will be more essential than ever during and after this crisis.

The SDGs encourage investments in critical public goods like minimum levels of social protection and the provision of services like health care, clean water and education which help to build resilience and enhance the mechanisms people have to cope with the immediate and longer-term impact of shocks.

The most recent estimates indicate that some 3 billion people are without basic handwashing facilities at home and 4 billion people lack any kind of social protection.

The SDGs are a commitment to leave no one behind, and this includes ensuring everyone is able to take measures to reduce their exposure to the disease and have the means to cope and recover.

If anything, the SDGs will become more important in the days and months ahead. The goals and targets set in 2015 are precisely the areas where progress needs to be made to build resilience and guard against future crises and where we will need to work to build back after the immediate tragedy subsides.

Preliminary projections from the UN system indicate that COVID-19 could lead to the first increase in global extreme poverty in over 20 years, since the Asian financial crisis of 1981. It could push 40 to 60 million people into extreme poverty and could double the incidence of food insecurity in the world.

The challenge for improving people’s lives after this crisis will be greater than ever, but the SDGs will help guide the path forward to ease suffering.

Do any goals stand out at the moment as most pressing?

Because the SDGs are all interconnected, interventions can be taken in ways that achieve one goal while also leveraging positive synergies among other goals to have a wider reach. UN DESA launched the Global Sustainable Development Report last September and a key message there was that taking advantage of synergies and addressing trade-offs among goals is the only way to achieve the 2030 Agenda.

Strengthening human well-being was identified in the report as an entry point for maximizing progress across the Agenda and there are examples that investing in education in science and technology can help build capacities for responding to pressing challenges like climate change and also like the current pandemic.

The report also emphasizes the need for increasing access to social protection as economies change and people need to cope with disasters, including health related; and the need for increasing support for workers to transition to new types of work when livelihoods are dependent on unsustainable sectors.

All of these are policy arenas that will be at the forefront of decision-makers’ attention as countries grapple with responses to Covid-19 and try to build stronger social and economic systems to reduce future vulnerabilities.

Are they unrealistic? What about the 2030 deadline in light of the pandemic?

The science and knowledge needed to achieve the 2030 Agenda is well advanced and from a science perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic may even encourage greater collaboration and knowledge sharing for the public good.

There are also some surprising trends in areas of the 2030 Agenda where progress has been slow. There is evidence that lockdown polices and the resulting reductions in economic activity have seen CO2 emissions decline substantially.

The conditions of these declines have been tragic and with loss of human lives and livelihoods. But there are questions now as to whether some of the shifts in human activity in response to Covid-19 government implemented guidelines could open space for dialogue about behaviour changes that can support longer term climate action.

So, we have the evidence needed to take action and possibly the space to make significant policy changes. But to be successful, all stakeholders should be involved in dialogue and inform the decision-making processes.

Two annual events that DESA organizes can provide a model for multi-stakeholder engagement and decision-making: the Science, Technology and Innovation Forum (STI Forum) and the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF).

The post SDGs: the Challenge to Improve Lives After the COVID-19 Crisis appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Alexander Trepelkov is Officer-in-Charge of the Division for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)

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Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By External Source
Apr 26 2020 (IPS)

Following the outbreak and declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, there has been a flurry of scientific research and publications to address challenges posed by the virus. Publications have risen exponentially over the past few months as scientists work tirelessly to find out more about the pandemic, and the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing it.

Knowledge is a product of a social collaboration and should thus be owned by and placed in service of the community. But is it? Are researchers doing enough to translate and simplify the important messages so that this knowledge could be clearly communicated to citizens and policy makers?

We would argue not.

There are salutary lessons from the recent past. In 2007, for example, an extensive review citing 434 original research articles and other relevant scientific publications warned that:

The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic mammals in southern China, is a time bomb. The possibility of the reemergence of SARS and other novel viruses from animals or laboratories and therefore the need for preparedness should not be ignored.

Why were the scientists’ warning not heeded? What more should have been done to communicate the insights?

The example underscores why the rapid sharing of research is so vital. In cases like the COVID-19 pandemic, it can save lives. As commentators have noted, a robust and scientific system – and an informed citizenry – require immediate and public access to research. As the scientific response to COVID-19 demonstrates, there are benefits to opening the scientific system.

 

A rethink is necessary

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity for countries to understand how members of the public are accessing and engaging with scientific information.

A Swedish non-profit organisation, Vetenskap & Allmänhet, recently conducted a study on how people in Sweden are interpreting information about COVID-19.

It showed that nine out of ten Swedes indicated that they had fairly to very high confidence in the information supplied by doctors and other health care professionals. A similar number of people (87%) showed confidence in researchers. They also reported a significantly lower confidence in the information from politicians and journalists.

This picture is likely to look very different depending on the level of trust in scientific information and institutions in a particular country.

There are interventions that can shift the dial on distrust. But it requires a national effort and a rethink of the roles of various actors within the national research landscape when it comes to communication and engagement with research.

In South Africa the Department of Science and Innovation has established a strategy for engaging the South African public. This includes inviting greater citizen participation in the institutions of science. It also involves greater interactions between the state, universities and other research performing entities, business and industry, and civil society.

A recently approved law amendment has contributed to the rethink around the relationship between science and society. The act gives the National Research Foundation (NRF) – a science grant funding foundation – the mandate to support national development by, among other responsibilities, “supporting and promoting public awareness of, and engagement with, science”.

COVID-19 has shown some of these crucial elements coming together.

 

Encouraging signs

The current pandemic has seen the South African government and scientists, researchers and clinicians working jointly to engage the public with robust scientific evidence guiding key decisions around national health and safety.

The most visible sign of this has been the role played by one of the country’s internationally renowned epidemiologists, Professor Salim Abdool Karim. Appointed to chair the Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19, he has engaged the public in a nationally televised presentation. He also held a webinar.

In both of these ‘science and health conversations with the nation’ Karim shared deep thinking on complex science issues, and excellent scholarship in an accessible way.

These interactions have shown that South Africa has come some way to using the products of science in its daily life (for example, asking questions, collecting and analysing evidence, and evaluating possible results); and engaging in debate on science-related matters of public interest.

 

Access

But the first hurdle is to ensure that scientific papers are more readily available. This cause has been championed by the Open Science movement which has gained considerable traction over the past 15 years. Open Science aims to make the primary outputs of publicly funded research results – at a minimum publications and the research data – publicly accessible in digital format, with no or minimal restriction.

The campaign advocates the participation of citizens in the scientific process, the sharing of knowledge through social networks and the development of educational resources that serve to enrich the discourse between science and society.

One key initiative has been Open Access 2020. This is a global alliance committed to accelerating the transformation of the subscription publishing system to new open access publishing models. The aim is that these ensure transparent costing of the article processing charges as well as the immediate and free availability of the information and knowledge.

South Africa’s NRF has embraced the philosophy of Open Science with specific emphasis on Open Access. NRF analysis done on articles published by South African universities between 2009 and 2018 shows that 36% were published in open access formats. This is slightly above the global average of 28%.

Open Science has the potential to reduce the amount of time that research findings take to make their way into the public domain where they can be read, drafted and translated into strategies, policies and laws. The COVID-19 pandemic shows how vital this is.

 

Building trust

Ultimately, trust needs to be built between the general public and scientists. This needs to be done by strengthening the interface between science and society and increasing public understanding of the process and impact of science.

And high quality and innovative public engagement needs to be built as an integral part of research. Like many of our colleagues worldwide it is our hope that science engagement will be enhanced as part of the broader debate about public value. This, in turn, will stimulate continued conversations about science, publics, democracy and governance.

 

Michael Ellis, Science Communication Manager at NRF South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement, co-authored this article.

The authors also acknowledge the inputs of NRF colleagues Dr Molapo Qhobela, Dr Makobetsa Khati and Ms Faranah Osman.

Dorsamy (Gansen) Pillay, Deputy Chief Executive Officer (DCEO) responsible for leading the Research and Innovation Support and Advancement, National Research Foundation and Beverley Damonse, Group Executive: Science Engagement and Corporate Relations, National Research Foundation

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

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Credit: Gopen Rai/NEPALI TIMES ARCHIVE

By Sonia Awale
Apr 26 2020 (IPS)

The number of Nepalis suffering from mental health issues is increasing with the prolonged COVID-19 lockdown, and the lack of treatment and counselling means the country may be facing an epidemic of psychosocial disorders.

Mental health is a hidden pre-existing crisis in Nepal because of social stigma, with a survey three years ago showing that a shocking 37% of the population suffered from some form of mental health problem.

“During a time of a disaster or an epidemic, anxiety disorder, phobia, obsessive compulsive tendencies and depressive thoughts are more likely to be triggered in mentally-ill people and aggravate their condition”

But a new survey this month shows that the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown to contain the contagion has exacerbated the problem, with a quarter of those surveyed saying they felt restless, fearful, anxious, worried all the time.

42% suffered from at least one kind of psychosocial problem, and 26% from two or more. At least 15% of respondents admitted they had taken to alcohol and substance abuse.

Over 1,500 Nepalis participated in the survey by Transcultural Psychosocial Organisation (TPO) Nepal and Sharecast Initiative during the lockdown, which has now lasted a month.

“The fact that 25% of those surveyed admitted to experiencing constant psychosocial problems due to the COVID-19 pandemic is a significant finding,” said Kamal Gautam, psychologist at TPO Nepal. He explained that problems were more frequent among women, students stressed about postponed exams, people whose businesses are impacted by the lockdown, and daily-wage earners.

The findings could be a warning about an impending epidemic of psychiatric problems as the lockdown and its impact is felt across society. In fact, mental healthcare providers say they are already seeing more patients with depression and anxiety disorder, as well as more severe psychoses.

A 21-year-old boy was recently admitted to Patan Hospital for psychotic breakdown after he started throwing things around his house, and screaming that everyone was going to die from the coronavirus. Also last week, a girl who had taken to excessive cannabis use during the lockdown was brought in due to serious side effects.

 

“A lot of people are suffering silently, unable to come to us due to the lockdown and it is very likely many do not recognise the symptoms of mental disorder,” said Raju Shakya, professor of psychiatry at the Patan Academy of Health Sciences. “It is normal to be worried during the time of a pandemic, and most people can cope with it. But some experience persistent symptoms of mental health disorder, and prolonged stress can also lead to self-harm.”

Alcohol consumption as a coping mechanism adds to existing mental and physiological problems, as well as lead to an increase in domestic abuse. Alcohol relapse is among the most common cases during the lockdown at Patan Hospital.

For mental health counsellors this is a vivid reminder of the mental health crisis following the earthquake five years ago this week. A survey of earthquake-affected districts of Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Makwanpur by TPO Nepal in 2017 showed that nearly 40% of respondents suffered from depression and anxiety for a year-and-half after the earthquake. Another 22% said they had suicidal thoughts, and a quarter had taken to drinking heavily.

“We are going to see a huge surge in mental health cases once the lockdown and the COVID-19 pandemic is over. We have to get our limited facilities prepared to handle the situation,” Shakya predicted.

Mita Rana, a clinical psychologist at Teaching Hospital agreed that service providers will be overwhelmed with old and new patients if the lockdown is expended. She said many of her patients with pre-existing mental health disorders have not been able to come for follow-up consultations or get medications.

“During a time of a disaster or an epidemic, anxiety disorder, phobia, obsessive compulsive tendencies and depressive thoughts are more likely to be triggered in mentally-ill people and aggravate their condition,” Rana explained.

Although children tend to be generally spared by the virus, they quite easily pick up anxiety from their parents and relatives. Health care workers, migrant workers and their families are among the most vulnerable to mental health breakdowns because they often face stigma and discrimination from neighbours and relatives.

Mental health care providers including hospitals, clinics and non-profits have started a tele-mental health program during the lockdown. TPO Nepal alone has responded to 126 calls in the last three weeks through a toll-free number. Others have set up social media platforms, and 24/7-consultation services.

Nepal’s second confirmed coronavirus patient Prasiddhi Shrestha, wrote in her blog this week following a successful recovery: ‘One thing I have grown to realise in this process is that often times we disregard the mental health part of the virus. Symptoms like shortness of breath are largely capable of exacerbating one’s anxiety as well as the ignorance the public may show towards them.’

TPO Nepal:

Toll-free number: 16600102005

Centre for Mental Health and Counselling Nepal

Toll-free: 16600185080, Hotline: 1145

 

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

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Children eating lunch in the João Baptista Cáffaro School cafetería. Itaboraí, Brazil, 45 km from Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Jo Becker
NEW YORK, Apr 24 2020 (IPS)

Children may escape the worst symptoms of Covid-19 and suffer lower mortality rates, but for millions, the pandemic will have devastating effects.

The choices that governments make now are crucial for children. Governments can both lessen the worst effects of the crisis on children in the months to come, and also put policies in place that will improve children’s lives long after the pandemic is over.

School shutdowns in 192 countries have left more than 90 percent of the world’s student population – more than 1.5 billion students – out of school. Many schools have moved online, but nearly half the world has no access to the internet, leaving many students even further behind
The pandemic has highlighted huge fault lines in many countries’ protections for children, including the lack of emergency action plans for large-scale school shutdowns, the overuse of detention, and insufficient safety nets for low-income families.

School shutdowns in 192 countries have left more than 90 percent of the world’s student population – more than 1.5 billion students – out of school. Many schools have moved online, but nearly half the world has no access to the internet, leaving many students even further behind.

The problem isn’t limited to low-income countries: last week in Phoenix, a high school principal found three students huddled under a blanket in the rain, trying to access their school’s wifi to complete their assignments.

As the global death toll — currently more than 190,000 – continues to rise, so will the number of children left without one or both parents. Orphaned children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking and other forms of exploitation. During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, for example, girls who lost family members resorted to transactional sex to meet their basic needs, leading to a sharp increase in teenage pregnancy.

Even when countries are not in crisis, children are at greatest risk of violence in their own home. The United Nations secretary-general recently reported a “horrifying” surge in domestic violence linked to Covid-19. Family stresses related to the crisis – including job loss, isolation, excessive confinement, and anxieties over health and finances—have escalated violence between partners and against children.

Despite the increased risks, child abuse is less likely to be detected during the pandemic. Teachers – often the first to identify signs of abuse – have far less access to children, and many child protection agencies have cut back or eliminated home visits to avoid spreading the virus.

Massive global job and income losses are likely to increase rates of child labor and child marriage. The International Labor Organization projects that by mid-2020, nearly 200 million jobs could be lost globally from the crisis.

Before the pandemic, an estimated 152 million children were already engaged in child labor and 12 million girls married each year before their 18th birthday. Without government support to families struggling to meet their basic needs, these numbers will rise.

Children are also more vulnerable to online sexual exploitation, as they spend more time online and may be anxious or lonely due to school shutdowns and stay-at-home orders. Europol has documented an increase in online offenders seeking child sexual abuse material online and attempting to initiate contact with children through social media.

Millions of children are institutionalized or detained, often in crowded conditions where Covid-19 prevention measures such as frequent handwashing and “social distancing” are nearly impossible. UNICEF has warned of outbreaks in these facilities and called for a moratorium on new admissions and the urgent release of children who can be returned to their families or other appropriate care.

Governments that make smart policy choices now will not only protect children during the immediate crisis, but also benefit children significantly over the long term. Expanding internet access will transform education for many children, enhance their access to information, and strengthen their ability to organize and express themselves.

Transferring children out of institutions and detention centers will limit transmission of the virus, and also help countries transition to family-based alternatives for children, which are proven to be healthier, often cheaper, and for children in the justice system, linked to lower recidivism rates. Expanding networks of kinship and foster care can provide homes and critical support for children left without parents.

The economic crisis should prompt governments to strengthen social protection measures, such as cash transfers, to help low-income families hit hardest by the pandemic and enable them to meet their basic needs without resorting to child labor or child marriage. Hotlines and public education campaigns can help protect children at risk of violence in the home or online sexual exploitation.

The pandemic demands government leadership to protect children from the worst impacts of Covid-19. It also offers the chance for policymakers to put measures in place that will benefit children long after the pandemic ends.

 

The post Why Covid-19 Choices Are Critical for Children appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Jo Becker is the children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch

The post Why Covid-19 Choices Are Critical for Children appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Agricultural markets or mandis have few buyers due to the coronavirus lockdown across India. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

By Neeta Lal
NEW DELHI, Apr 24 2020 (IPS)

Heartbreaking images of Indian farmers standing amidst swathes of rotting vegetables, fruits and grain have been flooding newspapers and TV screens lately. Crashing prices and transport bottlenecks due to the 40-day coronavirus lockdown in India, on till May 3, have driven some to set their unsold produce ablaze.   

As a nationwide lockdown has confined a record 1.3 billion Indians to their homes since Mar. 24, one of the hardest hit communities has been that of Indian farmers.

Crops set ablaze and farmer suicides

“We take our produce to the mandi (market) but there are hardly any buyers these days. I was forced to sell four quintals of chilli at Rs 10 per kg as against a normal price of Rs 40. But I was desperate to clinch the deal, else the transportation cost of bringing all that produce back would have broken my back,” Lekhi Ram, a smallholder farmer from Khairpur village of west Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, told IPS over the phone.

Unable to harvest his crop in time, Ram’s neighbour, also a smallholder, set his fields on fire. Unexpected rain and hailstones last week decimated whatever little was left. “The leftover vegetables were fed to the sheep and goats,” said Ram. 

March and April mark the peak harvesting season in India when crops like wheat, chickpea, barley, flax seed, pea, potato, mustard plant, cotton and millet are reaped and sold. But the current pandemic means this cannot happen.

“We were hoping to reap a rich harvest of rabi (spring) crops due to a good spell of rains. But God clearly had other plans,” Balbir Singh Rajewal, President of the Bharatiya Kisan Union in Punjab, a representative organisation for small farmers that protects their interests, told IPS. “Urban demand has been minimal during the lockdown. Even online grocery stores, whose orders we normally can’t cope with, have stopped calling.”

Farmer suicides have been reported from some villages.

• A farmer in the southern Indian state of Karnataka committed suicide last week after being unable to sell his harvest because of the lockdown.
• Rambhavan Shukla, another farmer from Jari village in Uttar Pradesh killed himself by hanging himself from a tree over non-availability of labourers for harvesting his wheat crop.  

Nearly 700 million people of the country’s 1.3 billion rely directly or indirectly on an agriculture-derived livelihood.

• Agriculture and allied sectors sector contribute 16.5 percent to the country’s $2.6 trillion GDP, according to the Indian government’s Economic Survey 2019-20.
• As per International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) statistics, the share of agriculture in India’s total workforce was 43.9 percent in 2018. 
• The ILO warned last week that about 400 million workers engaged by the informal economy, which accounts for a staggering 90 percent of the country’s total workforce, risk falling deeper into poverty during the ongoing crisis.

Farmers unions ask government to do more

A report released by the World Bank stated that the pandemic will reinforce inequality in South Asia, urging governments to ramp up action to protect their people, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, including through temporary work programmes.

According to Jagdish Singh, President, Bhartiya Kisan Union, Madhya Pradesh, a representative body of 0.3 million farmers, bureaucratic apathy has hurt farmers most.

“We didn’t get any combined harvesters from Punjab due to transport restrictions due to which we weren’t able to harvest our grain on time. Lack of farm labour and bad weather last week only made things worse.”

Singh rues the state government made no efforts to operate local mandis to enable farmers to sell whatever grain they were able to harvest.

“Through our own efforts, we’ve been running a mandi in the town of Satna [Madhya Pradesh] to sell pulses, mustard and wheat while observing social distancing norms. This helped many families to get some money for sustenance. There are many districts across Madhya Pradesh where there are no corona cases. Why isn’t the government operating markets there?”

Grain farmers with larger land holdings are experiencing greater struggles under the combined effects of low demand and acute paucity of migrant farm labour. This has severely interrupted agricultural patterns especially harvesting activities in the northwest northern breadbasket states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana where wheat and pulses are grown, said Rajewal.

Food stocks may help weather the storm…

In southern Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, for farmers who cultivate cash crops like cotton, onion and bananas, transportation has proved to be an issue.

According to Pravin Paithankar, president of the Maharashtra Heavy Vehicle and Inter-State Container Operators’ Association, as urban areas are reporting more coronavirus cases than rural ones, truck drivers and container operators are preferring to stay in their villages.

“They won’t be back until May-June,” Paithankar told IPS.

Immediately after the nationwide lockdown was announced, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman declared a 1.7 trillion Rupee (about $22 billion) package, mostly to protect vulnerable sections (including farmers) from any adverse impacts of the pandemic.

However, with most Indian farm households being small and marginal farmers, and a significant part of the population being landless farm labourers, this amount is woefully inadequate, according to Rajewal.   

• Of the total agricultural workforce in India, 45.1 percent are cultivators (farmers with land or self-employed in agriculture) and the rest, 54.9 percent, are agricultural labour (or landless), as per the Pocket Book of Agricultural Statistics of 2017.

The current crisis will also have a domino effect on agricultural output during the kharif (winter) season as good quality seeds, fertilisers and other inputs are not available, a senior official of Uttar Pradesh’s food, civil supplies and consumer affairs department who did not wish to be named told IPS. 

Given how the unfolding crisis has hit the farming community, the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, an umbrella organisation of over 250 farmer unions across the country, urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to procure the entire wheat produced in the country to protect farmers.

Despite the turbulence within the rural economy, however, there’s optimism that India’s food security won’t suffer. The country maintains substantive buffer stocks of wheat and rice and its granaries are overflowing with nearly 60 million tons of food grain, according to the Food Corporation of India.

However, keeping supply chains functioning seamlessly will be vital for future food security, warn experts, for which farmers must have continued access to markets. Indian Institute of Technology (Gandhinagar) scientists who analysed 150 years of drought data have highlighted in a report that 2 to 3 million deaths in the Bengal famine of 1943 were due to food supply disruptions—not lack of food availability.

According to the Food Sustainability Index, created by the Barilla Centre for Food and Nutrition and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), among other middle income countries India has an above-average score of 65.5 out of 100 when it comes to sustainable agriculture.

…and what about post-COVID-19?

Meanwhile, experts say in the post-COVID-19 scenario existing food and agriculture policies must be repurposed to factor in pandemics. In an essay, Containing COVID-19 impacts on Indian agriculture, Dr. Arabinda Kumar Padhee and Dr. Peter Carberry argue that development of export-supportive infrastructure and logistics would need investments and support of the private sector to boost farmers’ income in the long run.

The duo also suggest that India, being trade-surplus on commodities like rice, meat, milk products, tea, honey, horticultural products, should seize the opportunities by exporting such products with a stable agri-exports policy. India’s agricultural exports were valued at $38 billion in 2018-19 and can rise up further with conducive policies.

“The Government of India has now increased its focus on nutrition (besides food)- security and raising farmers’ income rather than enhancing farm productivity. Changing consumer behaviour with suitable programs and incentives is already in the agenda.

“For all these to happen, the existing landscape of policy incentives that favour the two big staples of wheat and rice has to change. Designing agricultural policies, post-COVID-19 scenario, must include these imperatives for a food systems transformation in India,” wrote the experts.

 

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The post COVID-19: India’s Harvests also Locked Down appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

As a nationwide lockdown has confined a record 1.3 billion Indians to their homes since Mar. 24, one of the hardest hit communities has been that of Indian farmers.

The post COVID-19: India’s Harvests also Locked Down appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Greenpeace activists in front of the Prime Minister’s office in Warsaw, Poland. "We need to build a Green Welfare State". Credit: Maks Zieliński

By Savio Carvalho
LONDON, Apr 24 2020 (IPS)

In our current COVID 19 context of suffering and fear, that may sound like a strange and spooky quote. But let’s be clear: what we have achieved so far in the present is not – and shouldn’t be – indicative of what we can achieve in the future.

And, as Arundhati Roy reminds us, crisis moments can be portals to a different world.

There is enough scientific evidence to show that we have been living on borrowed time. We have not only inflicted unrestrained damages to the planet but also crossed planetary boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed.

Over the past century, as a civilisation, we have focused on un-sustained growth, power and profits, and in the bargain, we have meandered from our values, our humanity and our inner longing for peace and harmony.

We have heard it said multiple times, that we are living in an “unprecedented” situation. The same was said for the world wars and the 9/11 attack. What is unprecedented can either become the new normal or an opportunity to change and create something new.

And in the situation of COVID 19 which has infiltrated and impacted the entire planet, the world must now put aside their differences and come together to work towards the one unified goal of finding medicines and a vaccine – and giving access to them to all.

And we must do more than that. We must build a new world order. We are not at war with the virus. But we are in a situation as global and as groundbreaking as the two world wars. And there are lessons we can learn.

World War I led to fundamental changes in politics, economics and society. Aside from the gravely high human costs, the war resulted in new territories, where boundaries and political maps were redrawn, especially in Europe.

The war destroyed empires, created new nation-states and encouraged independence movements. The power of autocracy and the upper class was diminished, if not destroyed. It wasn’t all positive change, for sure. But fundamental change it was.

World War II also resulted in significant changes, and some called 1945 “the year zero”. The war led to the creation of the United Nations, thereby resulting in increased collaboration and peaceful cooperation amongst nations.

Another collaborative achievement that came out of WWII was the Bretton Woods Conference, a gathering of over 700 delegates from 44 allied nations who agreed to create institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to enhance international economic cooperation.

Again, those institutions were not perfect (and in recent decades these institutions became avenues in which the developed world imposed cruel economic conditionalities on poorer countries). But they were new institutions born out of the zeitgeist and values of their time.

The COVID 19 crisis is not a world war, but just like the wars, it has led to a collective, global shock, a shock that is now urging humankind to live a life based on values and principles which work for people and the planet.

During this time when we have closely experienced the unimaginable, we have gained renewed respect and admiration for our front line essential workers, a greater appreciation for human kindness towards self and the community, as well as a deeper appreciation for nature – birds and fish are returning to areas they have abandoned; cities are seeing a drastic drop in air pollution and nitrogen levels; there is less dependence on fossil fuel; the destructive capitalistic economic model of extract and grow at any price is literally on its knees.

Yet, despite growing global social movements fueled by the people and citizens – such as Fridays for Future, the Fight Inequality Alliance or urban movements for change worldwide – our world leaders have sadly and continuously let us down.

But these are all the more reasons why this is the time to push the reset button – also for multilateralism and global institutions! This is the time to create something different, based on our human values of peace, dignity, and harmony with nature while respecting planetary boundaries.

Taking a leaf from the pages of history, now is the right time for the people and citizens to call for a world order that reflects these intrinsic human values. Now is the time to give birth to a new world order based on the principles of solidarity that COVID 19 have surfaced as key values for all of us all over the world.

As the United Nations marked 24th April as the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace, this is the perfect moment to get the ball rolling, and work in close collaboration and coordination for a global call to action. Such global call will lay the foundations for the creation of the new world order.

Citizens must push their leaders to show real statesmanship by working together, and be bold and forge a new path, no matter how difficult it may be. This new governance for people and our planet must be based on human values and not profits.

We need global governance that puts equality, peace, dignity, democracy, and sustainable economics all at its very core. Public good should triumph over private profits.

This pathway would involve tackling climate change, developing a green and just economy via a just transition, ensuring food sovereignty, as well as investing to promote small localised agriculture, localised green energy production, and sustainable transport and cities.

Financial assistance, incentives, technical support and grants should be provided to emerging economies whilst at the same time incentivising developed economies to make the necessary shifts towards this new path for people and the planet. Corporations need to be fully accountable to people and planet, and trade needs to serve the public good.

The new world order can start with new institutions – like after the last two wars. Or it can be a re-founding of the United Nations. What is key is that we need global institutions with teeth. We need for health care, social protection and the environment global governance at least as powerful as the World Trade Organization is on trade.

We need global institution(s) that have the ability to hold governments and corporations to account if they fail to deliver on global agreements such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or the Paris Agreement, able to provide financial support and incentives to not breach 1.5 degrees of warming threshold and ensure protection and restoration of biodiversity on land, forest and oceans.

A clean, sustainable and green economic system should be a centrifugal force of the new world order – not captured by corporate greed or entangled by complex bureaucratic procedures – and move at a lightening speed for the planet and its people.

Let the last day of this pandemic be the first day of the beginning of a new world many have been dreaming of. Because as illustrated in The Alchemist, when we really, really want something, the universe will conspire to help us achieve it.

The time to hit the reset button is NOW.

 

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The post Why the International Day of Multilateralism Must Start a New World Order appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Savio Carvalho is a Global Campaign Leader at Greenpeace International. Twitter: @savioconnects

 
And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it
                                                                                                               ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

The post Why the International Day of Multilateralism Must Start a New World Order appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) estimates that more than 1.5 billion children from more than 190 countries are at home because of the global coronavirus lockdown. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 24 2020 (IPS)

Soon schools in Timor-Leste, Ukraine, and Kosovo, where some 6.5 million children are currently at home, will hopefully start teaching their children once again — albeit online. 

A learning platform, originally designed to assist refugee and displaced children, was launched this week to address the current global crisis affecting children who are out of school as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Timor-Leste, Ukraine, and Kosovo are the first three countries to adopt the programme for their schools, which includes programmes such as online books, videos, and additional material and resources for children with special needs and their parents.

“Timor-Leste, Kosovo and Ukraine, where approximately 6.5 million learners have been affected by school closures, were the first to identify a need; gain necessary approvals; and access relevant content to support the roll out of the Learning Passport in their markets,” United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Chief of Education Robert Jenkins told IPS.

The platform that was designed to assist refugee and displaced children was launched this week to address the current global crisis affecting children who are out of school as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The programme, called “Learning Passport” was launched to “help children continue their education from home during the pandemic,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the Secretary-General António Guterres, said at a press briefing on Monday. 

“It was scheduled to start as a pilot programme this year, but it has now been scaled up to become available in all countries with a curriculum that can be taught online,” he added. 

It was designed in partnership between UNICEF, Microsoft and the University of Cambridge. 

According to the latest estimate by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 1.57 billion children from more than 190 countries are impacted because of the global coronavirus lockdown. 

Reality for refugee children

Meanwhile, Jenkins said that under the current lockdown the refugee children are likely to face increased risk.

“The needs of refugee children are even more acute,” Jenkins told IPS this week, adding that children who are displaced have limited access to a host of services such as testing and treatment.

On top of all these factors, measures taken to address the pandemic such as lockdowns and school shutdowns are affecting their safety and education.

“We are seeing that some displaced children – many of whom rely on school for their one nutritious meal a day and access to clean water – are going without the basics,” says Jenkins.  “Moreover, displaced children are likely to face an increased risk of neglect, abuse, gender-based violence and child marriage as families are left with even more socioeconomic hardship.”

For a community already living under hardship, this is only further exacerbating the problem, says Jenskins. He voiced concerns that many who have been restricted to go to school might never return to school once the lockdowns are lifted. 

18 months in the making

The ‘Learning Passport’ has been in the making for 18 months, and was scheduled to be launched this year for the education of refugee children. Once the pandemic broke and schools started being shut down, the programme went through an expansion process in order to address this new and urgent need. 

Jenkins added that UNICEF is working with teams on the ground in different countries to “identify specific gaps and needs; validate the above criteria; and identify and map”.

Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, has said that the solution should be exactly how the problem is: one with no borders. He also highlighted that the programme will be effective with collaboration of public and private sectors. 

A continuing gap

One gap that remains, however, is that the programme is accessible only to those who have access to the internet. Only 30 percent of low-income countries have been able to ensure digital training for students, as IPS reported last week. 

Neither Microsoft nor UNICEF, however, were able to give details on how this would address the digital divide that excludes many children who don’t have access to to the internet or digital technology, in mainly low socio-economic countries. 

“For children and youth who do not have access to an internet connection there should be solid plans in place to ensure the continuity of learning – through radio programmes, television and textbooks,” Jenkins said. “Teachers, parents and trusted community members must be able to guide children through their learning and check on their progress.”

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By Rochelle Jones
BRISBANE, Australia, Apr 23 2020 (IPS)

Feminist responses to COVID-19 have been swift, insightful, and numerous.

There have been webinars (so.many.webinars), twitter threads, illustrations, press releases and policy recommendations, and online house parties. Analysis pieces cover everything from the gendered impacts of COVID-19 to how to work remotely to the role of neoliberal capitalism.

Most strikingly, feminists have mobilized on a massive scale to generate our own autonomous resources for daily acts of solidarity and survival and to respond politically, collectively, and powerfully to this moment.

Many of these actions are coming from within communities and movements in some of the hardest hit and less privileged places, and especially amongst Black, LBTQI+, disability, migrant, land & labour movements. Some of the responses are localised, while others are global.

Feminist solidarity right now is the 'engine room,' driving some of the most innovative and needed action taking place today. Our movements are literally resourcing each other during this pandemic -- with emergency funds, information provision, art, love, time, sharing of experience, documentation of impact, and more -- sharing, connecting, analysing, strategising and imagining new feminist realities more than ever before

Feminist solidarity right now is the ‘engine room,’ driving some of the most innovative and needed action taking place today. Our movements are literally resourcing each other during this pandemic — with emergency funds, information provision, art, love, time, sharing of experience, documentation of impact, and more — sharing, connecting, analysing, strategising and imagining new feminist realities more than ever before.

Sex worker communities have been particularly impacted by COVID-19. As Red Umbrella Fund (RUF) describes, “as ever, [sex workers] are situated at the crosshairs, experiencing this new catastrophe in all its multiplicities… human rights violations in all its forms including insecure housing, income disparity, food scarcity, unequal access to healthcare and other public services, and violence” but have responded with “resiliency and agency.”

This resiliency and agency has translated into self-led initiatives to support sex workers in every region of the world. For instance, Aprosmig (Association of Sex Workers in Minas Gerais) in Brazil are leading a campaign to provide shelter, food, cleaning products, and money for sex workers and the homeless.

In Berlin, Karada House, a Queer collaborative art space, has pivoted to providing emergency relief through “LGBTQIA+ & WOMXN RELIEF FOR COVID-19,” with direct financial assistance, pre-cooking and delivering meals, and even matching people together to talk in order to relieve mental stress.

In the United States, SUSU: a black feminist giving circle is dispersing rapid response funds to Black feminists who are “living/caring/healing/responding and beyond to COVID-19.” Black empowerment and democracy collective Cooperation Jackson is repurposing its “fab lab” for community production to turn out 3-D printed and hand-sewn masks, with plans to “post videos to teach others how to make them, modeling the DIY [do-it-yourself] culture—which is a core part of the black radical tradition.”

Feminist activists in Kenya are taking to Twitter to raise funds for queer and trans people affected by COVID-19. They are also driving resources to groups like #MutualAidKe, which distributes food, sanitation supplies, educational supplies, and money. #MutualAidKe underscores its mission, quoting Toni Morrison, “The function of freedom is to free someone else.”

Global Women’s Strike (GWS) and Women of Colour GWS, which have campaigned for financial recognition for unwaged caring work for decades, have joined with the Green New Deal for Europe to urge governments everywhere to provide a Care Income, starting now.

In many cases, feminist movements are doing this whilst still resisting attacks on their rights. In Poland, for example, the government decided that the middle of a global pandemic is a good time to debate a ban on abortions of fetuses with serious abnormalities, and another bill that could ban sex education.

The debate was thankfully postponed for now, but protestors creatively responded to the COVID-19 lockdown rules by standing two metres apart holding placards or displaying them on their cars and bicycles.

All this amazing, risky work, whilst at the same time setting up a solidarity crowdfunding campaign to support activists and people affected by intersectional discrimination in Poland, and who are in a difficult economic situation due to COVID-19.

This is ALL autonomous resourcing in action.

But how is this even possible? Amongst all of the personal, political and economic hurdles people are facing with COVID-19 (layered upon the multiple challenges feminist organising already faces), how is it that feminist movements have been inspired and able to achieve this incredible response over such a short term?

Firstly, the constituencies that feminist movements belong to and serve are worst hit by the pandemic, so there is an urgent need for feminist analysis, solidarity actions and responses. As Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has noted: “The ability to isolate, work from home, homeschool your children, stockpile your shelves, access healthcare, and financially (and psychologically) put your life back together after the pandemic is class, gender, race, age, and geography dependent”.

Nearly everyone is hit financially by the crisis, but state support, which varies vastly from one country to another, is always reserved to particular categories of workers, freelancers, citizens, with millions – often women and gender diverse people – falling short of fitting these categories.

Second, feminist movements have been able to respond so quickly because it is what they do. Feminist and other social movements are used to relying on each other, pulling a rabbit out of a hat and co-creating collective momentum and power to resist and disrupt oppressions, advocate for change and importantly – care for each other.

That’s certainly not to say that this is our lot in life. Feminist movements and agendas deserve MUCH more than the meagre resources made available to us. The COVID-19 pandemic is yet another example of the work that feminist and other social movements do.

Third, feminist and other social movements have been connecting, documenting, supporting, analysing, and theorising within and across borders to plan for and design a new world for decades. The COVID-19 pandemic may have added to the complexity of the moment, but we’re not starting at square one.

With the feminist ‘engine room’ kicking into high gear and driving these innovative and needed actions in a context that is both unique and extremely challenging, it demonstrates the power of autonomous resources to yield real ownership, influence and impact.

But – the sheer existence and breadth of feminist responses to COVID-19 also demonstrates the urgent need to transform our ailing and unfair systems that leave so many in peril. When civil society is again left scrambling to plug all the holes in a sinking boat, we should be turning to the architecture of the boat itself.

This is a moment that highlights system failures around wealth distribution and should draw our collective gaze toward structural transformation of the way resources are generated and distributed in society – the kind that feminist movements have been calling for and are best positioned to lead.

 

Rochelle Jones has been researching and writing about women’s rights and international development for over fifteen years. She is currently Organisational Learning and Strengthening Coordinator at AWID

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As famines of “biblical proportions” loom, Security Council urged to “act fast”. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 2020 (IPS)

The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), described as an integral part of its highly-ambitious development agenda, may be in deep trouble.

Aimed at addressing some of the global challenges the world faces– including extreme poverty and hunger, inequalities in incomes and gender, climate change and environmental degradation– the SDGs now seem threatened by a world economy facing a brutal recession.

With a 2030 deadline,the SDGs are in near disarray, as the coronavirus pandemic has decimated the economies of both rich and poor countries—even as warning signs reflect a possibly massive rise in poverty and hunger worldwide.

The slump in the global economy has triggered a recession in several donor nations, including Japan, the US, UK, France, Germany and China, among others.

In its most recent report released April 14, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that the world is facing its worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the global economy would contract by 3.0 percent in 2020.

This was a significant reversal from early this year when the IMF predicted the world economy would outpace 2019 and grow by 3.3 percent in 2020.

Ambassador Mona Juul of Norway, President of the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), told delegates April 23 that COVID-19 shows “it is more important than ever to focus on the implementation of the SDGs.” Therefore, issues such as resource mobilization, illicit finance, debt and women’s empowerment must be priorities,” she said.

Still, at the United Nations, several lingering questions remain: What are the new obstacles facing the implementation of SDGs? Will they survive an uncertain future?

Will donor nations help rescue the development agenda? Andwill the General Assembly be forced to push back the 2030 deadline?

Tariq Ahmad, Oxfam America’s Senior Policy & Research Advisor told IPS: “We are seeing COVID-19 wreak havoc on the global economy, which is felt acutely in the homes and communities of the most vulnerable among us”.

The economy downturn, he said, paints a dismal picture of what resources will be available to finance the SDGs. This crisis could push half a billion more people into poverty unless urgent and drastic action is taken.

A recent Oxfam brief has called for an Economic Rescue Plan For All, suggesting how the world could help finance UN’s estimated needs while the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has called on governments to mobilize at least $2.5 trillion dollars to support developing economics in order to tackle the pandemic and prevent a global economic collapse.

And a new study by the UN University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) predicts that the COVID-19 pandemic could increase global poverty by as much as half a billion people, or 8% of the total human population. This would be the first time that poverty has increased globally in thirty years, since 1990.

In its annual Global Report on Food Crises, an international alliance of UN, governmental and non-governmental agencies, said, at the end of 2019, 135 million people across 55 countries and territories experienced acute food insecurity.

But the coronavirus pandemic is expected to make the situation worse and negatively impact on hunger and food insecurity, specifically in the developing world.

Jens Martens, executive director of Global Policy Forum, (a civil society think tank based in New York and Bonn), told IPS the COVID-19 pandemic not only has serious consequences for the health situation in many countries of the world but it will also have a massive impact on the implementation of almost all SDGs.

“The looming global recession will dramatically increase unemployment, poverty and hunger worldwide,” he said.

The situation, he pointed out, is even more serious because the macroeconomic situation in many countries of the global South had already deteriorated before the outbreak of the virus.

A vicious circle of debt and austerity policies have threatened socio-economic development from Argentina to Lebanon, he warned.

“The food situation had also deteriorated in many countries, even before COVID-19, for example, due to the locust plague in East Africa”.

Without effective multilateral counter-measures, Martens argued, inequality between rich and poor countries will increase considerably.

“COVID-19 is thus also a global wake-up call for international cooperation and solidarity”, he declared.

Keep critical food supply chains operating to save lives during COVID-19, urges a new UN-backed report. Credit: United Nations

In a report released April 20, the World Food Programme (WFP) said the COVID-19 pandemic could almost double the number of people suffering acute hunger, pushing it to more than a quarter of a billion by the end of 2020.

The number of people facing acute food insecurity stands to rise to 265 million in 2020, up by 130 million from the 135 million in 2019, as a result of the economic impact of COVID-19, according to a WFP projection.

Ahmad said one of the ways to free up vital resources to tackle the issues of hunger and poverty would be to cancel the debt of developing nations.

For example, Oxfam also jointly warned of the risk in West Africa, of 50 million people threatened by hunger and malnutrition in the coming months.

Meanwhile, Ghana is spending 11 times more on servicing its debts than it is on health. The costs of the debt burden are paid by the poorest people, in cuts to government services, while women are the hardest hit.

Aid is a critical ingredient to help finance the response. Of the estimated 2.5 trillion USD need, the UN estimates a need of 500 billion in new official development assistance (ODA).

In a soon to be released report, Oxfam estimated almost 300 billion of this should be provided by traditional northern donors. And there are still some fundamental flaws in the current system that prevent aid from supporting local responders on the front line of care.

“This crisis is the time for bold and visionary choices for our collective future. It’s time for donors to profoundly transform their aid to build a world that is free from poverty, that is more equal, feminist and sustainable. COVID-19 could set back the fight against poverty by decades – we must now act and build a better future,” he declared.

Asked if the 193-member UN General Assembly should postpone the 2030 deadline to achieved SDG targets, Martens said postponing the deadline for achieving the SDGs because of COVID-19 would send out completely the wrong signal.

On the contrary, he said, the coronavirus crisis shows how important these multilateral goals are, and how fatal it was that governments have not taken their implementation seriously enough since 2015.

Key SDG targets like the development of social protection systems, universal health care and a functioning public infrastructure must be given top priority. Only in this way can the current crisis be overcome and future crises prevented. This also requires effective policies of global solidarity, said Martens.

“What we need now is a Solidarity Summit under the auspices of the United Nations to deal with the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in an integrated manner”, he declared.

Asked about the postponement, Ahmad said “pushing back the SDG deadline won’t help pull anyone who is facing poverty or hunger – instead we need to see sweeping action across the globe to help offset some of this crisis’ worst impacts on the world’s most vulnerable”.

The challenge here is not time, it’s political will, he noted.

“This is an unprecedented daunting global challenge, but we must meet it both with urgent action that saves lives now and interventions that create a more fair system going forward, like the cancellation of debt for developing nations, and other support to help families stay healthy and safe until they are able to earn a living again.”

Even before COVID-19, he said, “we were dangerously behind on meeting many of the SDGs, but if this moment has taught us anything, it’s that we are able to make massive shifts in how we all live and cooperate to tackle a joint challenge – we must see the same approach taken to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.”

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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PRESS RELEASE

By Amnesty International
Apr 23 2020 (IPS-Partners)

The Bangladesh authorities should rescue and welcome Rohingya refugees currently stranded at sea, Amnesty International said today. Other governments must fulfil their shared responsibility to carry out search and rescue efforts, in line with their international obligations to protect life, and allow safe disembarkation of refugees and asylum seekers at sea.

Two fishing trawlers carrying an estimated 500 Rohingya women, men and children are currently in the Bay of Bengal after being pushed away by Malaysia, which has imposed restrictions on all boats in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The two trawlers are headed towards Bangladesh a week after an earlier vessel carrying nearly 400 Rohingya refugees arrived there on 15 April. Monitors also believe there could be another vessel still at sea with hundreds more Rohingya stranded, further highlighting the need for governments in the region to get involved in search and rescue operations if needed.

“In contrast to the cruel indifference demonstrated by other governments, who have actively pushed away boats, Bangladesh has maintained its positive record of giving sanctuary to people who have lost their homes and suffered horrific crimes,” said Biraj Patnaik, South Asia Director at Amnesty International.

“We hope that Bangladesh will continue to welcome Rohingya refugees in these difficult times. The international community has an obligation to help the Bangladeshi authorities in this task, including in supporting efforts to set up quarantine centres and provide refugees the immediate medical assistance they require to recover from the journey and to protect them against the spread of the COVID-19 virus.”

Amnesty International last week called on Southeast Asian governments to launch immediate search and rescue operations for potentially hundreds more Rohingya refugees languishing at sea.

Malaysia has actively brought one vessel to shore but launched aggressive military patrols to scare others with Rohingya refugees away while Thailand has remained silent about the growing crisis, not saying whether it has pushed back boats or if it will assist any boats carrying refugees found near its coast.

The situation revives troubling memories of the 2015 Andaman Sea crisis when an untold number of Rohingya people were not rescued and hundreds lost their lives.

In February 2020, the Taskforce on the Bali Process – which included the participation of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar – “emphasized the primacy of saving lives at sea and not endangering the life and safety of persons in responding to irregular maritime migration.”

The COVID-19 pandemic, Amnesty International said, cannot be a pretext for governments to abandon their responsibilities towards refugees.

“All countries in the region have a responsibility to ensure the seas do not become graveyards for people seeking safety. Bangladesh cannot be left to address this situation alone. The fact that it is upholding its own obligations is not an excuse for others to abandon theirs,” said Biraj Patnaik.

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Excerpt:

PRESS RELEASE

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Coronavirus pandemic threatens crises-ravaged communities, UN appeals for global support. Credit: United Nations

By The Rev. Liberato C. Bautista
NEW YORK, Apr 23 2020 (IPS)

Since the founding of the United Nations in 1945, space for multilateral policy development and commitment has grown. Its growth in the global health field augurs well as we find ways to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Multilateralism is a difficult word, often misconstrued to be about the global and not the local and daily life. Perception plays a major role in how the public perceives multilateralism. This is in part due to the complexity of modern global challenges, which are well beyond the capacity of any one state or even a small group of states to resolve by themselves.

The novel coronavirus pandemic may yet change this perception.

As the saying goes, all politics is local. My rejoinder to this is that one’s local is another’s global. The local and the global are simultaneous realities. United Methodist connectionalism is akin to multilateralism.

As a church, we address social issues central to the multilateral agenda, including health, migration, peace, climate, and concerns about global poverty, trading and commerce, sustainable development, social justice, women, children and gender justice, human rights, indigenous peoples, and more.

Holistic health, healing and wholeness are intrinsic to Methodism and its Wesleyan roots. John Wesley attended to both the care for the soul and for the biological body with his abundant tips and remedies for ailments during his time.

Throughout the United Methodist connection, we are doing advocacy on public health policies at national legislatures and multilateral settings. We are in global mission together for sustainable development and humanitarian assistance, building capacity for peoples and communities to manage their healthcare needs.

Our numerous United Methodist-affiliated clinics, hospitals, colleges and universities around the world are training medical, health, social work and pastoral care professionals.

The Rev. Liberato Bautista. Credit: Marcelo Schneider, World Council of Churches

Human rights intrinsic to health, healing and wholeness

Global pandemics such as the novel coronavirus respect no sovereign boundaries or national allegiances. The coronavirus ravages all peoples across races and social classes, but its effects are more devastating on vulnerable populations everywhere and on struggling low- and middle-income economies around the world.

To mitigate the virulent spread of COVID-19, we are called by national authorities to stay at home, wash our hands, stay in place and practice physical distancing. These public health directives imply that we have houses to stay in, water to wash our hands, and some space where we can move around and still maintain six feet distance from each other.

When Philippine government officials issued the directive for Filipinos to stay at home, Norma Dollaga, a United Methodist deaconess and justice advocate from the Philippines, reacted through her Facebook page: “Stay at home. That’s for those who have homes. How about the homeless?”

The reality is that the human rights to health, housing and water, along with human mobility, have long been imperiled in many places around the world prior to COVID-19’s onslaught. Moreover, the health crisis has been used as an excuse in other parts of the world to grab power or tighten national security laws that are assaulting civil liberties and violating democratic rights.

Neither pandemic nor political or economic exigency can derogate from the enjoyment of fundamental human rights.

That the outbreak of COVID-19 started in Wuhan City in China has resulted in undue rise in racist and xenophobic acts especially against people of Chinese origin, or Asians in general. This is on top of an ongoing surge of populism and xenophobic nationalism around the world.

Health is wealth, fund it robustly

If health is wealth, it behooves peoples and their governments to protect it. Health care workers who are on the front line against this pandemic should have all the resources they need without begging for them.

A war may have been declared in the eradication of the novel coronavirus pandemic. But it is looking more like the deployment of war rhetoric and not the funding that real wars have received.

National budgets are moral documents. Health is the true common wealth that we must invest human and budgetary resources to. Yet we know that defense spending today far outweighs the puny investments from national coffers that health care urgently needs and strategically deserves.

Global collaboration is indispensable

The role of the U.N. in forging global cooperation is crucial, in times of crisis or calm. Global cooperation in the surveillance of emerging viruses and bacteria is necessary if pandemics are to be mitigated and diseases eradicated.

Coordinating this global collaboration and leading the development of a vaccine to treat the COVID-19 disease gives the public good reason to trust global institutions like World Health Organization. Think of the eradication of smallpox — and the ongoing programs to eventually eradicate polio and malaria — as examples of how global cooperation benefits us in our local daily lives.

To triumph over COVID-19, comprehensive cooperation is needed on many fronts — medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare workers, mental health providers, healthcare facilities. Public and private coordination is necessary in ensuring that the supply chain for much needed testing kits, ventilators, as well as personal protective equipment like N95 face masks, gloves, gowns, aprons, face shields and respirators remain unbroken.

A successful multilateral response requires a “whole-of-government,” “whole-of-society” and evidence-based public health approach. Mitigation works best when countries share expertise and scientific knowledge about threats to health, to climate, to populations and to peace and security.

Social inequalities imperil public health

The Commission on the Social Determinants of Health established by WHO in 2005 elaborated on the disastrous effects of social inequalities on people’s health. The intersections of physical, mental and social health, healing and wholeness are abundantly clear.

The commission’s 2008 final report stated: “The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels.

The social determinants of health are mostly responsible for health inequities — the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries.”

The U.N. commemorates its 75th anniversary this year. It is an auspicious time to reaffirm support for its mandates, especially the securing of health for all peoples and the planet. A healthy population makes for a healthy planet.

Nongovernmental organizations, including faith-based organizations like our United Methodist representations at the U.N., are in a kairos moment to help achieve the U.N.’s mandates.

COVID-19 may have been virulent and will forever change the rules of social etiquette and socialization. But the novel coronavirus has done what multilateral negotiations have not done — pause globalization and its unbridled pursuit of profit and capital.

When the world reopens from the ravages of the virus, we have a momentous task not to return to, but to transform, global and local arrangements to protect humanity and the planet, at least from the ravages of pandemics and social inequalities.

It comforts me that not all contagions are deadly. Some are beneficial. Love and kindness are. So are hospitality, mercy and justice.

*This article 0riginally appeared in UM News”. The link follows: https://www.umnews.org/en/news/collaboration-can-help-eradicate-covid-19

 

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Excerpt:

Rev Liberato C. Bautista is assistant general secretary for United Nations and International Affairs of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society. He also serves as president of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations.

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