Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Michael Lim Mah Hui
KUALA LUMPUR and PENANG, Feb 4 2020 (IPS)

Financialization has worsened inequality through various channels, including macroeconomic policies. For example, quantitative easing and low, if not negative interest rates have fuelled credit and asset price bubbles, while fiscal spending cuts have adversely affected those depending on government assistance.

Unequal gains
Inequalities have increased due to financialization. The rich benefit from more rentier options and government efforts to protect the value of financial assets. The main gains of financialization tend to go to those who most successfully speculate at low cost, and to the asset management and investment firms involved.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Financial globalization has been accompanied by increased income inequality and broad stagnation in real incomes of wage earners in OECD countries. These developments starkly contrast with the 1990s’ promises of ‘citizens as investors’ and agents for ‘democratizing finance’.

Financialization in high-income countries has transformed everyday life with more and more financial products (home mortgages, private health insurance, pensions, stocks, and other securities) needed to deal with future uncertainties no longer mitigated by the welfare state.

Financial globalization affects lives and livelihoods in developing countries somewhat differently. Financialization is less pronounced in the South than in the North as fewer people have access to the formal financial system. Middle class families seek asset-based welfare — via mortgage housing, insurance and pension funds — while financial inclusion may reach others.

Financialization enriches
As yields on long term securities plunge and asset prices surge, very low interest rates encourage companies, private equity, hedge funds and the rich to borrow even more to invest in financial assets, sending prices even higher.

Finance also increases inequality through greater wealth concentration thanks to exclusive wealth management services for rich clients who get favoured access to specialized services and structured, high yield products.

Corporations and wealthy individuals use the best available professional services for tax avoidance and evasion, often facilitated by banking secrecy.

Michael Lim Mah Hui

Private banking employs top fund managers to manage the wealth of rich clients, offering double digit returns while ordinary depositors have to accept modest interest rates on their deposits.

Rising debt and equity transactions have generated lucrative fees for bankers, traders, fund managers and private equity investors, mainly benefiting market players with means.

With finance capturing more profits than manufacturing, unlike before, those working for finance now secure much higher incomes compared to others. ‘Excessive’ financial sector salaries took off in the 1980s, reaching 40% just prior to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, with ‘rents’ accounting for 30-50% of this ‘excess’.

The protracted decline of real wages in the US and the UK has been enabled by new rules and laws favouring wealth owners over labour incomes. In the US, capital gains can be taxed a maximum of 20%, while the highest marginal tax rate for wages is 37%.

Financial inclusion
By contrast, the poor have less, but also costlier access to finance, and contribute more to financial gains for others, e.g., through subprime mortgages, or unsecured personal loans.

Stagnant or declining wages have imposed greater indebtedness on the poor, with finance reaping lucrative profits from such lending to households. Between 1960 and 2007, US household debt rose from 41% to 100% of annual GDP.

But the celebratory discourse of ‘financial inclusion’ presumes that everyone successfully manages their involvement in increasingly complex financial markets, and that light regulatory touches and ‘financial literacy’ effectively deter predatory financial practices.

With real wages for many not rising for decades, increased financial inclusion has meant greater indebtedness for many of them.

Some national financial authorities have tried to make financialization more inclusive through initiatives to reach the ‘unbanked’, e.g., via micro-finance schemes and ‘agent banking’, with technological innovation and FinTech showing potential in this regard.

Such technological innovations in finance have had mixed distributional consequences. Higher computing capacity has enabled financial innovations that enrich investors, with economies of scale, at the expense of the less tech savvy and less well informed. But innovations can also serve those with less means.

Vicious cycle
If inequality contributed to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, ‘unconventional’ monetary policy responses to the crisis, especially quantitative easing (QE), have also exacerbated inequality as QE works by raising financial asset prices.

With the earliest hints of recovery after 2008 and the bailouts, the ‘masters of the universe’ who had been pleading for them, claiming they were ‘too big to fail’, changed their tune, condemning fiscal efforts as irresponsible.

Financial crises thus offer opportunities for those with power and influence to secure reforms to their advantage. This also happened following the 1997-1998 Asian financial crises, after a decade of financial liberalization following military rule in South Korea.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided emergency credit, requiring major structural changes, including greater ‘labour market flexibility’, reducing workers’ bargaining power and reversing the rising wage shares and low inequality of growth before 1998.

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Woman gives birth to healthy baby in …., Democratic Republic of the Congo, facilitated by the delivery that day of emergency reproductive health kits. Credit: UNFPA

By Julitta Onabanjo, Shoko Arakaki and Sennen Hounton
GENEVA / JOHANNESBURG / KINSHASA, Feb 4 2020 (IPS)

Eleven-year-old “Anne” went to a health facility with her mother in the conflict-affected province of Ituri, in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. At first, she could barely tell her story.

Traumatized and frightened, she feared reprisal from her attackers. Painstakingly, she recounted the brutal rape she had suffered and the pain that she felt in her body. It took her a while to gain confidence in the service provider and to allow support for her recovery.

Today, Anne remains displaced with her mother, staying in a camp, as it is not safe for them to return home. With support and services, she has resumed some of her daily activities. She now plays with other children and will eventually return to school.

After decades of conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), women and girls continue to suffer disproportionately from the crisis. They also offer one of the best hopes for peace and stability.

In the camp with other displaced persons, Anne now plays a new role. She sensitizes her peers about gender-based violence and reproductive health and rights. When she speaks, others listen.

For this reason and more, local women and girls play an increasingly critical role in humanitarian action and recovery. With their survival strategies, they offer hope, resilience and solutions to long-lasting challenges.

It is time for increased support and funding to place the needs, rights and leadership of women and adolescent girls at the centre of humanitarian efforts.

As we celebrate the anniversary of the first peaceful political transition of power, there is renewed hope, and a genuine window of opportunity, to address and accelerate progress for gender equality.

In a historic first, the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has committed, through an addendum to the joint communique signed by the Prime Minister, to implement concrete actions to fight conflict related sexual violence.

The Congolese National Police and National Army have endorsed national plans to combat gender-based violence with zero tolerance for sexual violence, with a commitment to integrate the protection of women and children during military operations.

With this new momentum, there is no time to waste. Ongoing humanitarian situations now affect 12 of 26 provinces in the country, and recent floods and food insecurity place increased strain and hardship on women and families. The humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the world’s worst protracted crises.

The number of people who urgently require humanitarian assistance is up from 8.5 million in 2017 to 15.6 million in 2020, including 5 million people displaced from their homes.

Today, many survivors like Anne suffer psychological consequences, such as depression and trauma. Through the multi-stakeholder Call to Action on Protection from GBV in emergencies, which launched a roadmap in DRC in 2019, and the new national strategy to eliminate gender- based violence, concerted efforts are underway with a broad array of partners to strengthen the rule of law and accountability.

This must help thousands of survivors like Anne to rebuild their lives.

Investing in safety, dignity and health

As stated by Mark Lowcock, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, “Doing more to strengthen our support to women and girls in humanitarian crises is in everyone’s interest.”

UNFPA is working with the Government, the UN system and civil society to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender-based violence prevention and response, and mental health and psychosocial support. The majority of our partners are national and local NGOs, including women’s organizations.

In the 2020 humanitarian response plan for the DRC, UNFPA is appealing for US$65 million to strengthen protection and provide life-saving services to three million people, including 700,000 women of childbearing age. This will support the provision of life-saving reproductive health equipment, drugs, contraceptives and supplies.

With this support, women will enjoy safe birth, couples and individuals will have access to free family planning enabling them to make choices, GBV prevention will be strengthened, and GBV survivors will have access to free life-saving psychosocial and medical services.

In addition, youth friendly services, including recreational spaces and peer education for boys and girls, will benefit young people.

By investing in women and young people, prospects for peace and stability will increase in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Now is the time to act.

The post Women & Girls Up Front — the Humanitarian Response in Democratic Republic of Congo appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Julitta Onabanjo is Regional Director, UNFPA East and Southern Africa based in Johannesburg; Shoko Arakaki is Director, UNFPA Humanitarian Office, Geneva; & Sennen Hounton is UNFPA Representative in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

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People wear face masks in the waiting area at China's Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport. Credit: UN News/Jing Zhang

By Fairuz Ahmed
NEW YORK, Feb 3 2020 (IPS)

We are now living in a hyper communicative world where news does travel faster than lightning. Boundaries, borders, geographical and time differences have become next to obsolete in today’s speed driven world. At any point in time people, news and local occurrences can influence internationally without much local isolation. Along with the advantages of technology, communications and connections world is also facing new challenges that are proportionally evolving with advancement. One region affected today is affecting the global economy and population in frenzy of minutes, hours and days.

China’s population reached 1 billion in 1982. As of November 2019, China’s population stands at 1.435 billion, the largest of any country in the world. And Chinese nationalities are avid travelers. In less than two decades China has grown to the world’s most powerful outbound market. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Chinese tourists overseas spent $277.3 bn in 2018, up from around $10 bn in the year 2000. (1)

In February 2020, China has reported an outbreak of a highly pathogenic strain of the H5N1 virus which is a subtype of the influenza A virus which can cause illness in humans and many other animal species when affected. The flu has been detected at a farm in Shaoyang city of the southern province of Hunan in China. The case occurred on a farm with 7,850 chickens, 4,500 of which have died of the bird flu. The authorities have culled 17,828 poultry following the outbreak. (2) No human cases of the Hunan H5N1 virus have been reported yet.

The pandemic influenza virus has its origins in avian influenza viruses. The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus subtype H5N1 is already panzootic in poultry, with attendant economic consequences. It continues to cross species barriers to infect humans and other mammals, often with fatal outcomes. A study published in the open-access journal Respiratory Research reveals that, in human cells, the virus can trigger levels of inflammatory proteins more than 10 times higher than the common human flu virus H1N1. This might contribute to the unusual severity of the disease caused by H5N1 in humans, which can escalate into life-threatening pneumonia and acute respiratory distress. (3)

The outbreak of the H5N1 virus has a severe impact on the global economy and health. The virus was first detected in 1996 in geese in China. Asian H5N1 was first detected in humans in 1997 during a poultry outbreak in Hong Kong and has since been detected in poultry and wild birds in more than 50 countries around the world. However, bird flu is highly deadly to humans who contract it, with a mortality rate of more than 50 percent in cases over the last 15 years, which is much deadlier to humans than either SARS (a 10 percent mortality rate) or the novel coronavirus (a 2 percent mortality rate in the outbreak so far). From 2003 to 2019, WHO reported a total of 861 confirmed human cases of H5N1 worldwide, of whom 455 have died. In China, 53 human cases of bird flu infections have been reported in the past 16 years, with 31 having died. (4)

This outbreak of H5N1 is following the outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus, which is believed to have originated from a bat in the Hubei province, which is North of Hunan, continues to spread throughout the country. The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus worldwide is now 14,557, most of which are in China, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) data. The death toll has risen to at least 304. A 44-year-old man in the Philippines died of the virus on Saturday, making him the first reported death outside of China. All territories and provinces in China have now been impacted by the virus. (6) The rise in new coronavirus cases outside China now constitutes a global health emergency, the World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee declared on all countries to take urgent measures to contain the respiratory disease. (5) Coronaviruses are a large family of respiratory viruses that can cause diseases ranging from the common cold to the Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) (7).

The Novel Coronavirus has now spread to 16 countries. While this represents only one percent of the total, the geographic spread is wide, with patients diagnosed in Australia, Europe, and North America as well as several countries in Southeast Asia. At a press briefing in Geneva, Michael Ryan, the head of the World Health Organization health emergency program, said that “the whole world needs to be on alert now. The whole world needs to take action and be ready for any cases that come from the epicenter of another epicenter that becomes established”. (8)

Chinese authorities have announced a temporary ban on outbound group travel. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and the Philippines have stopped accepting visitors from China’s Hubei province, and Russia and Mongolia have closed their borders with China. The latest numbers of cases detected so far internationally according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control of Coronavirus outside China till February 3rd, 2020 are: 20 cases in Japan, 19 in Thailand, 15 in South Korea, 12 in Australia, 11 in Taiwan there, 8 cases in Malaysia, Singapore, the United States, Germany, and & in Vietnam. UAE, Canada, Italy, The United Kingdom, Russia, Cambodia, Finland, Nepal, Spain, SriLanka, and Sweden have also reported the detection of cases. (9). Across the world, from United Airlines to British Airways have cut flights to and from China or suspended them altogether. The chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities estimates that if the Chinese government banned travel overseas for six months—an extreme scenario—spending by Chinese group tourists would decline $83.1 billion and take 0.1 percentage points off global economic growth. (10)

China is planning to push a net 150 billion yuan into its economy to help protect it from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. China’s central bank said the move would ensure there was enough liquidity in the banking system and help provide a stable currency market. Analysts say the impact of the virus – which has left major cities in full or partial lockdown, could harm growth if it lasts for a prolonged period. Global markets have been also been shaken by the epidemic. (11)

The Chinese authorities have established massive efforts and helped to slow down the spread of the virus, but it has not been halted. There is a continuous increase in the number of cases and the evidence of human to human transmission outside China is deeply concerning. The inbound and outbound travel occurring before the cases were detected have created a massive impact on spreading the virus.

Notes:

1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/rise-of-the-chinese-tourist/
2.(https://cmr.asm.org/content/20/2/243)
3. https://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/11/14/14469.aspx
4. https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2020/02/02/china-reports-h5n1-bird-flu-outbreak-in-hunan-province
5. https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/01/1056372
6. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/02/coronavirus-live-updates-white-house-studying-economic-impact.html
7. https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/01/1056112
8. https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/01/1056222
9. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51345855
10. https://time.com/5775027/wuhan-coronavirus-global-economy/
11. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-5134749710

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Kenyans register Huduma-Namba. Credit: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic

By Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 3 2020 (IPS)

A recent opinion piece in the New York Times titled, “Kenya’s New Digital IDs May Exclude Millions of Minorities” raises an issue that the UN is passionate about: that the pursuit of sustainable development should leave no one behind.

In seeking inclusivity of all in the development narrative. Kenya is making important gains in making the invisible, visible.

The court ruling that gave the Government the green light to continue with digital civil registration- if implemented in an inclusive and non-discriminatory manner, could assist many citizens who have come to be known as ‘invisible’ people – including stateless persons, people with disabilities, and people living in rural and remote areas. This will improve inclusion and access to services.

Most of these groups continue to miss out on a range of key services such as schooling, bank accounts, obtaining a mobile phone, getting a job, voting and registering a formal business.

Estimated to number one billion globally, they are ‘invisible’ because they have often failed to get registered, with UN member states adopting SDG Target 16.9 “to provide legal identity for all, including birth registration” by 2030, with consensus that identification is a key enabler of many other SDG goals and targets.

Several organizations including the UN and the World Bank Group are currently supporting civil registration and ID-related projects that will enhance and strengthen the transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness of governance and the delivery of public services and programmes.

For years, Kenya has had unique challenges in the registration of citizens, especially due to a migrant population, and those with historical and cultural ties to relatively unstable areas, particularly on the border with Kenya. The terrorist attacks by the Somalia-based Al Shabaab have often led to stricter requirements for proof of citizenship by those living in the bordering counties. This is an issue the national and county authorities must come together to resolve.

I have seen first-hand the scourge of cross border terror attacks in Kenya and we are mindful of the concerns of the state security apparatus, but the primacy of Human Rights must be safeguarded.

A compounding factor is that many Kenyans do not have birth certificates as many mothers give birth at home. In the absence of birth certificates, registration officers have had to demand for other documents as proof of citizenship, demands that have been deemed discriminatory. This is challenge and must be resolved. Birth registration is important because it’s the first step in ending statelessness in the country. As per UNHCR, it is estimated that there are at least another 14,000 stateless people in Kenya seeking nationality who need help.

There have been cases of non-citizens acquiring IDs by corrupting government registration officials.

The issue of registration of minority ethnic groups has been raised by human rights groups for a long time. Embracing of digital technology per se is not in itself the problem. Indeed, a past report by the Kenya National Human Rights Commission proposed the fast-tracking of a bio-metric system of registration among other policy and administrative recommendations.

While biometric registration is expected to reduce cases of fraudulent issuance of IDs, there are also genuine fears that digital technology can increase many of the risks associated with collecting and managing personal data, and this is one of the issues being canvassed in the on-going court case. This underscores the need to implement the digital registration respecting rights to data protection and ensuring participation of the public for their buy in.

The high court emphasized this in its ruling on 31 January 2020.

To its credit, the government has already acknowledged the challenges related to civil registration, and the Minister for Interior Mr Fred Matiangi has been remarkably hands-on in reforming the department.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has launched the blueprint themed “powering Kenya’s transformation” one of whose pillars is the use of digital services and platforms to generate more revenue; reduce waste; improve Government services and efficiency and increase citizen participation.

Despite its unique challenges, Kenya cannot be an exception and will need to join the rapidly growing number of countries implementing new digital ID systems. Kenya is indeed a leader on this biometric ID project and as such the example that Kenya will undoubtedly influence others within the region. This is why the UN in Kenya is dedicated to an ongoing process of support to develop the country’s capacity, institutions, laws and regulations to make the registration process inclusive and fit-for-purpose in the digital age.

This support is in line with the Principles on Identification for Sustainable Development that were developed in 2017 and endorsed widely by the UN and international organizations, non-governmental organizations, development partners, and private-sector associations.

As Kenya prepares for its national elections in 2022, and with over 1 million voters coming of age every year, a robust digital identity can dispense with the need of voter registration which is time consuming and expensive

While speaking to Joe Mucheru, the Cabinet Secretary for ICT, Innovations and Youth, he said, “as emphasised in the court ruling, we will together with all key partners, including the UN to develop rigorous security systems and regulations for data protection”.

The UN in Kenya is committed to partner with the Government to avoid risks of exclusion and discrimination, especially those of the poorest and most vulnerable and leave no one behind.

Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Kenya.

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By PRESS RELEASE
Djibouti City, Feb 3 2020 (IPS-Partners)

At the Closing Ceremony of the III ForumBIE 2030, 38 governments, civil society organisations and academic entities became the first to sign the Universal Declaration of Balanced and Inclusive Education (UDBIE). Furthermore, with the objective of achieving the aspirations and commitments contained within the UDBIE, 30 signatories, including governments and civil society organisations, agreed to establish the Organisation of Educational Cooperation (OEC), a new international organisation from the Global South creating platforms and mechanisms of solidarity-based technical and financial cooperation and support for educational reforms.

The OEC, whose General Assembly will function on the democratic basis of one country, one vote, ensuring accountability to its Member States which will benefit from its support, will also count civil society and academic organisations as Associate Members with limited rights.

The OEC will be established with a wholly-owned financial subsidiary, accountable to the General Assembly, capable of generating funds ethically and sustainably in support of educational reforms. This subsidiary, structurally directed towards investments in socially and ecologically responsible projects in its member states, will eventually fully finance the organisation’s operations and provide funds for the OEC to support Member States’ education systems with solidarity-based financing.

The OEC is designed with a rational, streamlined structure, follows a strategy of efficient systematic intervention, and puts education at the service of communities, of society and of national development as required by the commitments made in the UDBIE.

Sheikh Manssour Bin Mussallam, President, The Education Relief Foundation

The OEC’s first Secretary General has been elected with the task of setting up and presiding a Preparatory Committee, which will lay the groundwork for the OEC until the Constitutive Charter of the Organisation enters into force, upon its ratification by a minimum of 10 of the founding State signatories. The Constitutive Charter’s entry into force will trigger the convening of the first General Assembly.

All signatories to the UDBIE embrace the four key pillars of balanced and inclusive education: Intraculturalism, Transdisciplinarity, Dialecticism and Contextuality. They commit to applying these principles within their education systems, with the cross-sectoral support of the OEC, based on the contextualised needs of their populations, their national priorities, and the global imperative of sustainable development.

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A boy in the Bedouin refugee community of Um al Khayr in the South Hebron Hills where large scale home demolitions by Israeli authorities took place. Credit: UNRWA

By Ameen Izzadeen
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Feb 3 2020 (IPS)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu was slapped corruption charges last week while he was hobnobbing with US President Donald Trump in Washington. Bibi has, apparently, done his homework in psychology. He knew the quickest way to get around Trump was to flatter him.

Addicted to praise, Trump is incapable of understanding that there is a great deal of deception if someone praises him too much. In a June 16, 2017 article, USA Today opinion columnist Windsor Mann wrote, “Flattery is Trump’s cocaine — he’s addicted to it — and, like cocaine, it’s not always genuine.”

Rarely does he get sincere praises from honest people. So, Trump often self-praises himself.

On Tuesday, when Trump announced his Middle East peace plan, Bibi was superlative in his praises. As the drama unfolded in a White House room full of sycophants ready with applauses to ego massage praise-addict Trump and insincere Netanyahu, it became obvious that the peace plan was not worth the paper it was written on.

It also became clear that Trump did not have a thorough knowledge of the Middle East, for he failed to identify a typo in the text on the teleprompter. He read al-Aqsa as al-Aqua.

Many believe that the timing of the announcement was aimed at bolstering the political base of both Trump and Netanyahu – Trump embroiled in an impeachment battle was trying to appease pro-Israeli evangelical Christian voters, a key component of his support base, while Netanyahu used the occasion to go one-up over his political rival Benny Gantz in Israel’s election battle of the right-wings.

When Trump, impeached by the House of Representatives, and Netanyahu, an indicted suspect in a corruption case — a paper pharaoh and fake Moses – make a plan, it will be far from being value-based.

No wonder, the peace plan they unveiled promotes anything but peace and is an agenda to legalise Israel’s illegal land grab on the West Bank. No wonder peace analysts are unanimous in condemning the Trump plan as ‘dead on arrival’. (DOA)

It is one-sided and a travesty of justice in breach of the hallowed legal principle Audi alteram partem —which requires that the other side also be listened to. There was no Palestinian side in this ex-parte ruling that Trump’s pro-Israeli son-in-law Jared Kushner was instrumental in drafting.

If there is one US president who cares no two hoots about the Palestinians, it is Trump. He stopped aid to Palestine and his country’s annual US$ 360 million contribution to the United Nations Relief Work Agency which cares for more than five million Palestinian refugees.

Trump, Kushner and Netanyahu could not find a single Palestinian to endorse the plan made by Zionists for Zionists to continue their crimes in Palestine. Pro-American Arab states, however, have welcomed the peace effort but avoided extending support for the content of the plan.

Key regional powers Turkey and Iran, meanwhile, have given an outright thumbs-down to Trump’s plan, which declares Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, thus ignoring the Palestinians’ aspiration of making East Jerusalem their future capital. The Palestinians are condescendingly told they can have their capital anywhere east of Jerusalem.

Rejecting the Trump plan, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Jerusalem and “all our rights are not for sale and are not for bargain.”

The Palestinians have dismissed the plan as Balfour 2.0, whereby one country (the United States) is trying to hand over chunks of another’s country (Palestine) to a third country (Israel) just as Britain in 1917, through an atrocious colonial act of injustice, allowed the Zionist movement to set up a homeland in Palestine.

In 1947, the United Nations adopted a partition plan that unfairly divided historic Palestine, giving the Jews who were a little more than 30 percent of Palestine’s population, 55 percent of the land. Most of them were European migrants who came to Palestine following the 1917 Balfour declaration. The indigenous Palestinians who were about 67 percent of the population were given 45 percent of the land.

The Trump plan will leave the Palestinians with a mere 15 percent of historic Palestine. In other words, 85 percent of Palestine will come under Israel’s sovereignty while the balance to be declared as the State of Palestine will be bits and pieces of territory – or Bantustans connected by tunnels and roads guarded by the Israeli military.

Trump’s plan was unofficially conveyed to Arab leaders more than two years ago. This came after the Trump administration on December 6, 2017 recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital.

At the US-sponsored Middle East economic conference in Bahrain in June last year, the plan was partially unveiled by Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East envoy Kushner. The Palestinians boycotted the event where they were promised billions in development aid if they accepted the plan.

To promote the plan, Kushner partnered Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. On December 3, 2017, a New York Times report said the Saudis had summoned Palestinian President Abbas to force him to accept Trump’s plan, where, instead of Jerusalem, the neighbouring town of Abu Dis that overlooks the Dome of the Rock mosque, was offered as the Palestinian capital.

When news leaked out that the Saudis were backing Trump’s plan and had no qualms over al-Aqsa– Islam’s third holiest site –being placed under Israeli sovereignty, the Saudi royals became jittery, fearful of the reaction on the Arab streets.

King Salman invited Abbas to Saudi Arabia again and assured his support for the Palestinians’ stand. Abbas’ Saudi visits indicated that the Saudi establishment is divided over the Palestinian issue. Once the old king becomes history, the kingdom is likely to endorse Trump’s plan.

In December 2017, after Trump misused the US veto to quash yet another United Nations mechanism to bring peace to Palestine, the world community overwhelmingly passed a UN General Assembly resolution asking nations not to establish diplomatic missions in the historic city of Jerusalem.

They did so, defying Trump’s threat to developing nations that they would face an aid cut if they voted for the Jerusalem resolution. Just as the then US president George W. Bush’s 2003 Middle East peace roadmap, Trump’s plan, touted as the deal of the century, is bound to collapse, because it is not founded on justice. It is the fraud of the century.

It ignores international law, numerous UN resolutions, principles of justice, and norms of decency. Sri Lanka, as a true friend of Palestine, should not endorse Trump’s plan which promotes chaos and conflict instead of peace.

*Ameen Izzadeen is Editor International and Deputy Editor, Sri Lanka Sunday Times

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Credit: Maricel Sequeira/IPS

By Joseph Chamie
NEW YORK, Feb 3 2020 (IPS)

In addition to the emotional stress and sorrow of widowhood, most people are unprepared to deal with the daunting challenges following the death of a spouse. Rather than treating widowhood as a taboo subject or something to ponder only in old age, couples need to discuss, plan and make decisions early on regarding the eventual and inevitable passing away of one’s spouse. 

In general, the term widowhood relates only to married couples. However, with the growing incidence of cohabitation, civil unions and partnerships, some countries have broadened the concept of widowhood to include those who have survived the loss of a long-term partner.  

Statistics on widowhood typically refer to current marital status. National population censuses, registrations and surveys do not generally gather information on the previous martial status information of those who have remarried after widowhood.

Consequently, the numbers of people who have experienced widowhood are greater than the sums of current widows and widowers. 

The estimated number of widowed persons worldwide in 2020 is approximately 350 million, with the large majority, approximately 80 percent, being widowed women. While globally about one out of every 15 people in the marital ages are widowed, country rates vary enormously across a broad range.

Widowhood levels are largely determined by the age and sex structure, mortality rates, including war fatalities, marital ages and rates of marriage, divorce and remarriage. 

One widowhood pattern, however, that is universal is the rates for women far exceed those for men. For this reason, it is often remarked that widowhood is predominantly a woman’s experience. 

Irrespective of region, level of development, government, culture, etc., women are substantially more likely to experience widowhood than men. In Russia and Ukraine, for example, the proportions widowed among women and men in marital ages are 20 and 4 percent, respectively.

Even in countries were overall widowhood rates are lower, such as China, Nigeria, Pakistan and the United States, women’s widowhood rates are more than double those of men (Figure 1). 

 

Source:  National Statistical Offices.

 

Another useful measure of the prevalence of widowhood is the number of widows per widower. That number spans a wide range from lows of two or three widows per widowers in countries such as China, the United Kingdom and the United States to highs of six to eight in countries, such as Nigeria, Russia and Ukraine (Figure 2). 

 

Source:  National Statistical Offices.

 

That measure also illustrates that even though the overall level of widowhood may be comparably low, the number of widows per widower can be high.

In Nigeria, for example, while the percent widowed for women and men is among the lowest at 4 and 1 percent, respectively, the number of nearly 8 widows per widower is among the highest.

A number of important demographic factors contribute to the gender differences in widowhood rates. In addition to women generally being at least several years younger than their spouses, women have lower mortality rates and survive to older ages than men. 

Gender differences in mortality can be relatively large with young men dying at a faster pace than normal resulting in high widow rates, as has happened in Russia and Ukraine. As a result of young men’s comparatively high death rates, the Russian and Ukrainian sex ratios at age 50 have declined to 87 men per 100 women, substantially lower than the typical sex ratio of 100 or more observed in most developed countries, such as Germany (102), Japan (102), Sweden (103) and the United States (101). 

While general widowhood rates for women and men provide an indication of its prevalence in a country, rates by age offer more comparable information about differences among countries. Examination of the age group 60 to 64 years, for example, provides insight into the transition to widowhood among elderly women and men.

While one out of ten women aged 60 to 64 years are widows in Italy, Japan United Kingdom and the United States, no less than one out of three women in the same age group are widows in Egypt, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Ukraine (Figure 3).

 

Source:  National Statistical Offices.

 

Also as observed earlier, the rates of widowhood for men across age groups are a fraction of those for women. Among the age group 60 to 64 years, for example, less than one in ten men are widowed in most countries, with many instances of less than one in twenty men widowed.

Worldwide widowed women are less likely to remarry than widowed men. In the United States, for example, ten times as many widowers as widows over age 65 years remarry, though there are fewer older men than older women.

Although remarriage may be less frequent in developing countries for demographic as well as cultural reasons, widowers remarry more often than widows. In India, for example, the percentage of men who remarry is twice that of women.

In virtually every society the transition to widowhood is widely recognized as an inevitable outcome for married and partnered couples. Nevertheless, most people are not at all prepared for the emotional stresses, personal upheavals and other challenges resulting from widowhood. 

Certainly, one cannot be fully prepared for the death of one’s spouse or partner, which is ranked as number one on the Holmes/Rahe stress scale of adverse life events. However, couples can take a number of steps that can help mitigate many of the difficult consequences of widowhood.

Planning for widowhood is an important and prudent thing that all couples need to do. The chances of avoiding widowhood in a good marriage or long-term partnership are close to nil.

To start with, couples should not view widowhood as an unmentionable subject. Husbands and wives need to talk candidly and plan explicitly for the transition into widowhood. The discussions need to cover a broad range of issues, including a will, inheritance, funeral wishes, estate planning, finances, properties, official documents, personal information, family matters, relations with in-laws and future living arrangements. 

Those discussions will no doubt be difficult and uncomfortable, especially in traditional settings where rigid norms and cultural prohibitions severely limit discussing and planning for the future death of one’s spouse.

Nevertheless, couples need to be prepared for the death of a spouse or partner and its onerous consequences well before it happens.

It is also important for couples, especially women, to recognize the near certain significant life changes that occur after a spouse passes away. Additional responsibilities, family and in-law relationships, friendships, time use, financial matters, loneliness, childrearing, housing, relocation and life style are just a few of the many challenging areas faced by widowed persons. Given the new and daunting circumstances facing the surviving spouse, going slow and postponing making major decisions is strongly advised.  

Some couples may choose to read about widowhood and how to deal with the resulting grief and sorrow as well as how best to handle practical matters. Others may prefer to talk with family members and close friends about how to prepare for coping with widowhood.  

Grief, bereavement, shock, depression and even guilt have been found to dominate the first twelve months after a spouse’s death, greatly impairing meaningful decision-making, undermining mental stability and threatening overall health.

The sadness, anxiety and loneliness over the loss of a spouse or life partner typically have detrimental effects on the psychological, social, physical and economic wellbeing of the surviving spouse, especially among the elderly, for the rest of their life. 

Those effects differ somewhat by gender. Widowers, for example, may become more depressed and withdrawn than widows because men typically do not have a strong enough social support network of friends that women tend to develop.

In contrast, widows tend to encounter greater financial difficulties  and economic hardships than widowers, particularly in societies where wives have little status or entitlement except in relation to their husbands. In many instances, the road to poverty, indignation, discrimination and abuse for widows begins after their spouse or partner dies.

When a spouse passes away, the widowed person has an increased risk of dying over the next few months, often referred to as the widowhood effect. Elderly widows and widowers living on their own, in particular, are likely to benefit from an active and strong support network of family and friends to help counteract the grief, anxiety and loneliness of losing a spouse. Also, counseling, both individual and group, may be helpful for the recently widowed.   

It is increasingly evident that the plight of widowed persons is not only a moral issue, but also one that has systemic implications for societies that threaten economic and social stability.

Widowhood remains an important risk factor for transition into poverty. Also in a in a rapidly aging world, widowhood has become an even more critical concern with more people, especially women making up the large majority, outliving their spouses by many years. 

In addition to ensuring the fundamental rights and dignity of widowed persons, governments should develop appropriate policies and programs to prepare and assist couples and their families for the difficult but inevitable transition to widowhood. 

Complementing state and community activities, non-governmental organizations, such as the Loomba Foundation, Global Fund for Widows , and Widow Rights International, should continue their educational and advocacy efforts on the challenges and plight of widowhood.

Finally, planning for widowhood is an important and prudent thing that all couples need to do. The chances of avoiding widowhood in a good marriage or long-term partnership are close to nil.

Discussing and preparing for widowhood will certainly not reduce the grief and loneliness following the death of a spouse or partner. However, being unprepared for widowhood exacerbates bereavement, gives rise to unnecessary stresses and greatly complicates a surviving spouse’s remaining years of life.

*Joseph Chamie, a former director of the United Nations Population Division, is currently an independent consulting demographer.

 

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Local market in Rome. Credit: Maged Srour/IPS

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 3 2020 (IPS)

A sophisticated Italian food system is placing a heavy burden on Italy’s workers and farmers, an independent UN human rights expert said on Friday, following an 11-day visit to the country that many regard as the world’s food capital.

Despite an estimated gross domestic product (GDP) of $2.84 trillion, world-renowned innovative businesses, a large agriculture sector and modern manufacturing capabilities, smallholder farmers are being exploited in Italy, the expert said.

“Italy is very active in promoting human rights internationally, in particular the right to food, but this does not altogether resonate nationally”, said Hilal Elver, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food.

Following conversations with people who depend on food banks and charities for their next meal, she upheld that people in agriculture “work excessively long hours, under difficult conditions and with a salary too low to cover their basic needs.”

Moreover, undocumented migrant workers are often left “in limbo” with no access to regular jobs or the possibility of renting a decent place to live. And students do not have access to school canteens because their families are too poor to pay for it.

“As a developed country and the third largest economy in Europe, such levels of poverty and food insecurity in Italy are unacceptable”, spelled out Ms. Elver.

“The Italian Government should understand food charity is not to be confused with right to food.”

 

Vulnerable migrant workers

Agricultural migrant workers are one of the most vulnerable groups.

Between 450,000 to 500,000 migrants work in Italy’s agricultural sector, representing about half of its total workforce.

The field is often the only sector in which low-skilled workers can find employment, and hires the highest share of illegal migrant workers.

“From the north to the south of Italy, hundreds of thousands of workers farm the land or take care of livestock without adequate legal and social protections, coping with insufficient salaries and living under the constant threat of losing their job, being forcibly repatriated or becoming the object of physical and moral violence”, the UN expert said.

She maintained that seasonal and non-seasonal workers often find in the caporalato system, which outsources the recruitment of temporary workers to intermediaries and is accused of being exploitative, “the sole possibility to sell their labour and obtain payment.”

 

Illicit activity

Other ways in which the black market encroaches on the Italian food system include dumping and burning contaminated products in rural areas; purchasing land with illicit cash; and using toxic fertilizers, often sprayed by workers without their knowledge.

“The increase in large-scale retailing has led to a significant reshaping of the food sector, as major distribution chains control the majority of the market and impose low prices that small-scale farmers cannot match”, the expert said.

The Special Rapporteur travelled to ten cities in the regions of Lazio, Lombardy, Tuscany, Piedmont, Apulia and Sicily where she met with local authorities, migrant workers, small-scale farmers and agricultural workers, among others.

She also discussed access to school canteens with academics, teachers and students.

“They expressed the urgent need to establish a national framework for school feeding programmes to combat disparities among municipalities and ensure that all students have access to canteens, despite their families’ economic situation”, concluded the independent expert.

Independent experts are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honourary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

 

This story was originally published by UN News

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 3 2020 (IPS)

With over 37,500 staffers in its global Secretariat payroll, the United Nations has gone high alert as the deadly coronavirus continues to take a heavy toll worldwide.

The 39-storeyed Secretariat building is perhaps the only sprawling office space in New York city where thousands of staffers and diplomats from 193 countries either work or meet under one roof — along with hundreds of journalists and representatives of civil society organizations (CSOs).

Patricia Nemeth, President of the UN Staff Union (UNSU) in New York, told IPS that staff members have “expressed concerns” to the UNSU, “as to what measures are being taken by the administration to prevent the possibility of contracting the virus from colleagues who may have visited areas where prevalence of the virus is high.”

The Staff Union has requested the Department of Operational Support (DOS) to keep staff informed in a timely manner.

“The Staff Union has already been advised that colleagues in DOS are working on various scenarios and options for both the safety of staff and to mitigate any potential impact on the continuity of operations”, Nemeth added.

Currently, the total membership of the UN staff union in New York is approximately 6,400 but overall it is close to 20,000 (representing UNHQs NY staff, locally recruited staff in overseas peacekeeping missions and some of the departments that are governed by the Secretariat but their offices based outside of New York ie.United Nations Information Centres (UNIC)

The rest of the staff are not members of UNSU.

The spread of the coronavirus is being described as a pandemic. And at last count, there have been more than 360 deaths in mainland China where the disease originated, with over 17,200 infected, mainly in China, while it has spread to 27 countries and territories—even as researchers are struggling to develop a new vaccine to fight the virus.

The disease has plunged US stocks and threatened to disrupt the global economy as it undermines the import-export trade in China, the world’s second largest economy. At least three major US airlines – Delta, United and American Airlines – have temporarily suspended flights to China.

Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General (ASG), told IPS the U.N. lead agency, World Health Organization (WHO), seems to be moving in the right direction by suggesting preventive measures and precaution.

A swift appearance by its Director General on the spot indicated serious professional attention.

Obviously, he pointed out, the widespread epidemic across borders places limitations on both the efforts of staff professionally combatting the virus and those trying to perform their regular tasks worldwide.

“It raises a challenge on finding balanced action between the international community and one of the most widely populated member states, a permanent member of the Security Council (namely China)”.

That stretches way beyond the WHO framework to the whole U.N. system, said Sanbar, a former head of the UN’s Department of Public Information (re-christened Department of Global Communications).

He also suggested that perhaps an Administrative Committee on Co-ordination (ACC) –now under another title — composed of heads of UN agencies, funds, programmes and departments should meet to focus in such pressing issues under the leadership of the Secretary-General.

Meanwhile, a UN circular dated January 31 says: “You will have noted that the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the outbreak of a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) as a public health emergency of international concern”

”While there is currently no known infection of staff and other personnel actively deployed within the Secretariat, the situation is being closely monitored and issues and options are being developed to both maintain the safety and protection of personnel and mitigate any impact on operations where possible.”

Precautions and prevention are a priority in supporting preparedness and response efforts across the Secretariat. Multiple actions have already been taken, including strengthening preparedness of UN health facilities and initial efforts to raise awareness amongst all colleagues, the circular added.

A dedicated webpage has been established to provide all staff and other Secretariat personnel with more information. Information on precautions and other preventative measures will continue to be added to the site.

“For any UN personnel who are free of symptoms, and returning from China, managers are encouraged to exercise flexibility in terms of using remote working arrangements for staff in these situations who would like to limit their contact with others and work from home for 14 days post travel,” the circular says.

A January 30 travel advisory by the US State Department pointedly says: “Do Not Travel to China due to novel coronavirus” — first identified in Wuhan, China, which has a population of over 11 million people.

Travelers should be prepared for travel restrictions to be put into effect with little or no advance notice. Commercial carriers have reduced or suspended routes to and from China.

The US has also placed additional restrictions and advised foreign citizens they will be denied entry into the US in they had traveled in China within the past 14 days.

This would apply to most UN staffers who are neither US citizens or permanent residents who are exempted from the new restrictions.

At this moment, said Nemeth, the Staff Union does not know if any UN staff member has been affected by this new directive.

“Nevertheless, we will continue to follow-up with the administration regarding this matter and should there be a need, we will recommend appropriate action to maintain the safety and well-being of staff”.

Moreover, the Staff Union also stands ready to assist any staff members with concerns,
she declared.

The UN circular also says: “If you must travel to China or another area known to be affected:

• Avoid contact with sick people.
• Discuss travel to China with your healthcare provider. Elderly adults and travelers with underlying health issues may be at risk for more severe disease.
• Avoid contact with animals (alive or dead), animal markets, and products that come from animals (such as uncooked meat).
• Wash hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer if soap and water are not available.

Any individual who has travelled in China in the last 14 days and feels sick with fever, cough, or difficulty breathing should be advised to:

• Seek medical care right away. Before you go to a doctor’s office or emergency room, call ahead and tell them about your recent travel and your symptoms.
• Avoid contact with others, including public places, commuter transport, and the workplace.
• Do not travel while sick.
• Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when coughing or sneezing.
• Wash hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer if soap and water are not available

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

The post UN Staffers Rattled by Deadly Coronavirus Pandemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Thalif Deen
NEW YORK, Feb 2 2020 (IPS)

Faced with a potential pandemic of the deadly coronavirus, New York city officials took a series of preventive measures to stall the spread of the disease as it was spinning out of control in China.

Mayor Bill de Blasio told news reporters at the Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan: “With the best emergency response teams in the nation, New York City stands ready to respond to any potential cases of the coronavirus.”

“We will remain vigilant and ensure New Yorkers have the facts they need to stay safe”, he said at a briefing on February 1.

With the New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot by his side, de Blasio said: “We take the threat of this illness very seriously.”

And “robust measures” will be continued to ensure the virus has not — and does not — spread, said Barbot.

Barbot said the virus is only spread through “droplets,” such as from a cough or sneeze.

The mayor said he was also trying to obtain permission for the city to conduct its own coronavirus testing.

At present, only the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta has that lab capability, and test samples must be sent there for testing.

“There is still a lot that we do not know,” de Blasio said. “What we do know causes us a tremendous amount of concern. We will use all measures at our disposal to protect New Yorkers.”

The briefing followed the first case of corona virus in a city with the population of over 8.3 million people, and one of the most populous in the US.

A woman hospitalized in Bellevue Hospital Center might have been infected by the virus, according hospital authorities.

A second patient was tracked down on February 2 at the Flushing Hospital Medical Center in Queens.

As of Monday, there were eight suspected cases of the coronavirus in the US and over 17,000 worldwide, mostly in China, where the disease originated in Wuhan with a population of 11 million people.

The City remained on a 24-hour alert, particularly the Kennedy International, La Guardia and the Newark Liberty international airports—all of which come under the supervision of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Meanwhile the CDC recommended that New Yorkers avoid non-essential travel to Wuhan. For travel deemed essential, the Health Department has shared the following CDC recommendations with healthcare providers regarding travelers to Wuhan:

• Avoid contact with sick people
• Avoid animals (alive or dead), animal markets, and products that come from animals (such as uncooked meat);
• Wash hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.
• Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer if soap and water are not available.
• Older travelers and those with underlying health issues may be at risk for more severe disease and should discuss travel to Wuhan with their healthcare provider.

The post New York City, with 8.3 million People, on High Alert to Stall Spread of Deadly Coronavirus appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Colorised scanning electron micrograph of MERS virus particles (yellow) both budding and attached to the surface of infected VERO E6 cells (blue). Credit: NIAID

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

Weeks into widespread panic about the “Coronavirus” that has so far killed at least 170 people in China, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday declared it a public health emergency. As of Friday, the disease had spread to all the regions in Mainland China, with more than 7,500 cases in the country alone, according to the BBC. 

In a statement, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said owing to the large number of cases, the pace at which it is spreading, and for not knowing what this damage could do, he was declaring it “a public health emergency of international concern over the global outbreak of novel coronavirus”.

The virus has so far spread to countries such as South Korea, and England with four countries reporting human-to-human transmission: Vietnam, Germany, Japan and the United States. A key message from Ghebreyesus was the concern regarding facilities in countries that have “weaker health systems”. 

He reiterated that it is not known the extent of the “damage” the virus could do if it spread to countries that don’t have the capacity to address such viruses. It’s unclear in what capacity WHO is working with these countries, and the organisation did not clarify when asked. 

“We support all countries as they coordinate the efforts of multiple sectors of the government and partners – including bi- and multi-laterals, funds and foundations, civil society organisations and private sector – to attain their health objectives and support their national health policies and strategies,” WHO said in a statement to IPS. 

The health network operates in six regions around the world with 149 field offices. 

Experts told IPS some of the main challenges for countries with “weaker health systems” include the laboratory access, staffing challenges, and bedding capacity.  

There remains a grave challenge in diagnosing the Coronavirus, especially given the symptoms are very similar to the flu. Because pneumonia can be caused by a number of viruses, there are extra lab test required to diagnose a patient with the coronavirus, and not all countries are equipped with that. 

Furthermore, it’s difficult to gauge what kind of treatment each patient needs: a person with a “severe” case might require different treatment. Also, if a larger group of patients each require a bed for treatment that can take up to 20 days, not all hospitals may have that capacity. 

Other concerns that experts worry about is how the virus is transmitted and how infected it is in a patient. In many places that fall under the category of “weaker health practices”, the enforcing of Infection Prevention and Control (IPC), the set of regulations for medical staff to prevent the spread of infections, in itself can be a challenge. 

Depending on how it’s contained and how soon a vaccine is available to stop it, the virus could affect anywhere between 39,000 to 190,000 people in Wuhan province of China, according to a Nature report.

Meanwhile, other countries that have key relations with China — such as those in Asia and Africa are turning away flights. Kenya Airways and RwandAir have suspended all flights from China. 

When asked by IPS whether countries with identified cases are seeking out assistance from WHO, the organisation said, “WHO is working 24/7 with networks of scientists, clinicians, disease trackers, governments, supply chain experts and partners from the public and private sector to coordinate the new coronavirus response and support affected and non-affected countries in various capacities as well as providing help if needed.”

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The post WHO Declares Coronavirus a Public Health Emergency, Highlights Need to Support Countries ‘Weaker Health Systems’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A flock of grey cranes peck for food amidst the shallow watergrass. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
KOLKATA, India, Jan 31 2020 (IPS)

Ramkumar Mondal’s farm is awash in a brilliant yellow mustard bloom. A flock of grey cranes peck for food amidst the shallow watergrass. But Mondal’s fishpond digs in there like a do-or-die last sentinel as nearby high-rise buildings, a symbol of development and encroachment, menacingly tower over the fishpond, permanently blocking the eastern sun so essential for the pondwater to convert sewage into fish-feed.

Mondal’s fishpond is part of the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW), spread over 12,500 hectares in coastal West Bengal’s Kolkata city in eastern India that “promotes the world’s largest wastewater-fed aqua culture system,” Shalini Dhyani, a senior scientist at India’s Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), told IPS.

EKW was designated a Ramsar site in 2002 under the convention and identified as a perfect example of the “wise use” of a wetland ecosystem.

Currently, everyday some one billion litres of wastewater, an estimated 30 to 50 percent of the sewage from central Kolkata, is drained into, treated and reused by the fishponds and again drained out to rice and vegetable farms from where, in about 30 days, the water drains into the sea.

“Where wastewater might deteriorate the entire wetland water quality, Kolkata’s wetland cleans its wastewater in just 20 days,” said Dhyani, who is also the South Asia chair Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Where rich biodiversity meets traditional knowledge

A government baseline report prepared on the EKW prior to its designation as a Ramsar site in 2002 mentions 40 fresh-water and brackish water fish species were common, 11 of which were cultivated. Plant species found were 104.

This complex play of diverse organisms from the humble microbes, wetland plants to more valued fish, aided by sunlight, suitable temperature, dissolved oxygen in the water – all free of cost – cleans Kolkata wastewater of 80 percent organic pollution and 99.9 percent coliform bacteria “much better than sewage treatment plants,” biologists said.

A key insight into how the system works also lies on the reliance of the fisherfolk feeding the human-waste-turned-to-algae to their fish.

“In a conventional waste water treatment, booming algae might be an issue while, in EKW the phytoplankton and algae growth, which is nothing but optimised human waste, is regularly netted by fishermen and fed to the fish. Every hectare gets 20 to 60 kilograms of (nature’s free) feed a day,” Dhyani said.

There are also unique bacteria in the wetlands that serve as “bio-filters”.

“There are 40 species of algae, 2 species of fern, 7 species of monocot and 21 species of dicots plants plays an important role in cleaning the sewage water by reducing the eutrophication, preventing oxygen depletion and ensuring that the fish survive. Around a dozen aquatic vascular hydrophytes in the region serve as bio-filters,” said Bonani Kakkar a leading Kolkata-based environmental activist heading non-profit People United for Better Living in Calcutta (PUBLIC).

There is no indication of how long the wetlands has been functioning as a natural waste treatment plant. But it could be well over a century. The East Kolkata Wetlands Management Authority’s (EKWMA) historical timeline shows that in 1884 underground sewers to the city were laid, and by this time the waterbodies that now comprises EKW had already a number of established fish farms.

A conventional Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) would have cost Kolkata $125 million back in 2010. But thanks to this complex system in the wetlands, the city has its own free sewage treatment, according to a University of Essex study.

In an area already marked out for ‘development’ Ramkumar Mondal’s domestic sewage-fed fishpond makes the most of what little time is left. Harvested rice gives place to a mustard crop while a pumpkin vine perches over the water. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Aggressive urban encroachment threatens wetland biodiversity, ecosystem services

One would assume this unique and free natural sewage system would be highly preserved.

But Kakkar is concerned. It was Kakkar’s non-profit PUBLIC that in 1991 filed the first-ever lawsuit against land-use change and encroachment in the EKW that resulted in a major court ruling the following year.

“The 1991 public-interest lawsuit by PUBLIC was triggered by a veiled land-grab for setting up a World Trade Centre on 227 acres (90 hectares) of wetland proposed by a private company, and it was supported by the West Bengal government,” she told IPS.

Calcutta High Court’s ruled in 1992 and directed the state government to ensure no change in the wetlands’ land use. 

“The EKW are yet to be demarcated (on the ground, though an official map exists) 28 years after the court order. A proper management plan is yet to be formulated,” Kakkar said. 

Because of this lack of management plan and clear demarcation, there is a frenzy of building activity around the wetlands on land that was previously designated as “wetlands” but is no longer legally so and has since been taken over for development.

“From 1992 onward, PUBLIC  has had to file over a dozen complaints in court against violations of the order, including two in India’s highest court against projects that received funding commitment from the state government’s industrial development wing,” Kakkar said adding, “all of these have posed serious threats to the biodiversity, flood mitigation and other benefits offered by the Kolkata wetland.”

High-rise buildings glare down at one small remaining patch of the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW) fishponds. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Protection, not development, of the wetlands is needed

“Ironically, some of the biggest threats have been due to the state government – large construction proposals for a flyover bridge and another to access the wetlands, for instance,” Kakkar explained.

Studies and anecdotal evidence tell of surreptitious land-use change where fish ponds are being converted to rice farms aimed eventually for small industrial or residential utilisation.

EKWMA, the government custodian, shows on its official website that 391 cases for violations it has registered with local police from 2007 till 2014. More recent updates are unavailable. Calls made by IPS to EKWMA for their response went unanswered.

Rich returns from a perfect nature-based solution

But one thing is clear, between 1980 to 2000 around 2,200 hectares fishponds had been converted to rice paddies.

The remaining 254 individual sewage-fed fish ponds, some single holdings sprawling over 144 hectares with the smallest being a third of a hectare, are spread over 3,900 hectares on the eastern fringes of the city, crisscrossed with canals and creeks, a dead intertidal river, Bidyadhari, and another named Kulti that carries the city’s wastewater to the Bay of Bengal.

Together they send 10,000 tonnes of fish to Kolkata’s markets yearly, fulfilling one-third of the demand in a city of over five million people.

Not having to buy commercial fish feed saves the farmers money.

And this “nutrient subsidy” fish growers get from the wetland and their low transportation cost to their market is passed on the Kolkata city folks who get fish and vegetable not only farm fresh but reportedly up to 30 percent cheaper than India’s other metropolitan cities. For the city’s poor, the wetland fish remains one of the few affordable protein sources.

Fishing and the vegetable farms in this biodiverse wetland provides livelihoods, albeit many of these are subsistence-based, to around 100,000 people including large numbers of women and children. Maintaining fishponds, catching fish and carrying them to markets, sowing, weeding and harvesting vegetables and rice are among several employments, some of which get paid in kind.

“Kolkata’s wetlands ecosystem is an excellent example of a nature-based solution,” Dhyani told IPS.

Generations of knowledge and practices could be laid to waste by development

Dhyani said three generations of EKW fishers’ traditional knowledge is kept alive from father to sons. Pondwater is cleaned using kerosene, lime and oil cakes; digging the ponds to the accurate depth of three to five feet to allow sunlight to the bottom, mixing the right amount of sewage, maintaining the required time for conversion of wastewater into fish feed, when to add spawns and how to protect the embankments from emerging threats of water hyacinths are knowledge gleaned from long years of experience.

But it is slowly disappearing. Like the wetlands around Mondal’s fishpond, which has long been converted for development, though a few straggler ponds remain.

Some of the younger generation have turned away from traditional wastewater fisheries owing to several factors including an uncertain future in the face of aggressive urban encroachment and demand for land for city expansion. 

“My son has completed a diploma in plumbing and left last year to work in Pune [a city near Mumbai – India’s commercial hub],

“He dreams of going to Saudi Arab, says there is money there,” he told IPS, with an inaudible catch in his voice.

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The post India’s Unique Water Purification Wetland Could Soon Become Extinct appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

World Wetlands Day is on Sunday, Feb. 2. IPS senior correspondent Manipadma Jena marks the day by visiting the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW), a unique wetland that operates as a natural water purification ecosystem.

The post India’s Unique Water Purification Wetland Could Soon Become Extinct appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Celebrating the people and landscapes of Mt. Everest and the Khumbu valley

By Valentina Gasbarri
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jan 31 2020 (IPS)

Since I was a kid, I grew up with adventures and stories of famous characters of the books of Jack London: White Fang, Make a Fire… and the incredible ode to perseverance of Martin Eden.

I was absolutely fascinated by the fact that human beings could establish a deep link with the environment, even in the remote, high-altitude, coldest and hardest places of our Planet. This was the first contact I had with the theoretical concept of sustainability.

But when theory meets curiosity, the result is clear: always looking for stories to be told to document successful models of living where Human-Nature result in creating a perfect balance.

On the way from Phakding (2,610 m) to Namche Bazar (3,440m). Walking duration is 5 to 6 hours to cross the 830 meters elevation through deep blue sky, snow-covered peaks, mystical landscape, breathing in fresh air, pine forests and ancient Buddhist sites. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

Majestic landscape of mountains, deep valleys and glaciers are dominated by Mt. Everest (Sagarmatha in Nepalese, which means “forehead in the sky” and Chomolungma in Tibetan, meaning “goddess mother of mountains”) at 8,848m above the sea level.

This mountain of many names has always attracted pilgrims, whether Tibetans honoring a peak they believe is abode of a deity, or climbers or trekkers fascinated by the highest point on Earth.

Since the first successful ascent on 29 May 1953 by Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and Sir. Edmund Hillary, a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer and philantropist, a pivotal change is taking place but local mountain Sherpas show resilience and are committed to protect high mountain ecosystem, plants and wildlife from the valley to the icy summits, where they have lived for more than 400 years.

“It is our hope that the people who are coming to the Sagarmatha Park and the Khumbu valley will agree that the Sherpa people and landscapes in our land have exhibited an overall stability and resiliency which can provide important insights and lessons-learned for mountain people around the globe” said Sherpa Paisang during our journey to the Everest Base Camp (8.364m).

The term Sherpa or sherwa derives from the Sherpa language words Shyar (“East”) and Pa (“People”), which refer to their geographical origin of Eastern Nepal.

“It’s hard to become a Sherpa guide, there’s a 1 year course to attend and an exam to pass on subject related to mountain and case-studies to be solved. Majority of Sherpas are porters. They can usually carry on their shoulders max 130kg from Lukla airport to Namche Bazar or up to the other villages. They get around $8 per kg. They got a little salary for a huge effort” said Paisang, a young guide with a long experience in trekking in the Himalays.

The 2011 Nepal census recorded 312,946 Sherpas within its borders.

Changes in the Sherpa livelihoods from tradition across the Himalaya to Global Tourism

As a population, the Sherpas have historically responded and adapted to changes brought by the outside world. In the mid-1800s, the King of Nepal granted the Sherpas a trade monopoly by prohibiting anyone but a Khumbu Sherpa from crossing the Nangpa La, the high-altitude pass to Tibet.

Many Sherpa families benefited to some degree from the bartering that took place in either Tibet or border towns of India.

Namche Bazar, 3,450m above the sea level, is the starting point for expeditions to Mt. Everest and other Himalayan peaks in the area. It has been the main trading centre since 1905. Prior to that, it was simply a place where traders from Khumjung stored their trading goods between the seasons when they could travel to the lowlands. The trade to Tibet was drastically reduced after it was taken over by the People’s Republic of China in the late 1950s.

At present only a few Tibetan and Sherpa traders crossed the pass in both directions. They could be seen at the weekly market with lowland in Nepal traders. The weekly market is not a Sherpa tradition, it was started in the mid-1960s by an army officer stationed in Namche to meet the needs of the growing population of Nepali civil servants.

Since the Nepali government first allowed Westerners to visit the Kingdom in 1950s, tourism has grown to be now the main source of livelihood for the Sherpas. Until the beginning of the 21st Century, the number of explorers coming to the SNP annually grown from 1,400 ( ‘70s) to over 25,000. According to the last figures more than 40,000 people per year make the trek from Lukla airport to the Everest Base Camp.

The growing prosperity brought also opportunities for new lifestyles. The Sherpas have constantly balanced outside influences with their own culture, which has valuable spiritual and cultural aspects to share with the world.

Before Western explorers, adventurers and climbers, Sherpas’ economy was based primarly on agriculture (potato and buckwheat farms) yak herding, and trade of salt, wool, rice, yaks and cows from Nepal to Tibet and viceversa. But in the valleys of Khumbu, the summer monsoon lasts from June to September. During the quiet but productive season people carry out their chores of hearding and farming. But… farming is not easy.

Most fields for cultivating food crops are at relatively lower elevtions of about 3,300 meters near the main Sherpa villages. During the cold winter, herds of yak or nak ( female) are grazed on nearby hillsides; when the summer comes, the yaks or nak are taken up to high valleys wher the rains changed the dry mountinsides to rich, green pastures.

Periche, Lobouche and Dingboche were established as their summer huts and hay fields. The shaggy bovines provide dairy products ( yak milk, butter and meat), wool and transportation.

But, nowadays we are witnessing a crucial shift for Sherpa culture, and in particular for the sub-culture of Sherpa guide, climbing and porters community. When the interest for adventurous explorations grew gradually over the decades, Sherpas were firstly hired away from their farms to carry loads, as porters, to become guides and climbers.

In some ways, Sherpas have benefited from this commercialization fo the Mt. Everest more that any ethnic group, earning money from trekkers or climbers. The job of “sherpa” has been progressively formalized and now they own hotels, trekking companies, airlines.

Paradoxically, Khumbu Sherpas are nowadays among the wealthies of Nepal’s dozens of ethnic groups.

***This story is a first of a series based on my experience on the Mt. Everest Base Camp Trekking Route with the aim to discover and understand more the spirit of the mountaneers and communities in a close relationship with the surrounding Nature

The suspension bridge marks the entrance into Sherpa land. There are five long suspension bridges over Dudhkosi river on the trail to Namche Bazaar. It is a steel cable suspension bridge, with a metal grid for a walkway and hurricane fencing along the sides. Prayer flags are tied to it, fluttering in the constant breeze. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

During the trek you can continually come across locals, yak- and donkey trains. The sound of the donkey bells was a loyal companion throughout the hike to Namche. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

During the trek you can continually come across locals, yak- and donkey trains. The sound of the donkey bells was a loyal companion throughout the hike to Namche. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

Sherpa porter carrying wood in the Himalaya, near Mount Everest, taking a rest from carrying their heavy loads. Generally, they can carry up to 130kg. There are legal restrictions, such as a maximum carry weight and a minimum age, but in reality, these regulations go largely unenforced. Their daily expenses are around $15 a day, while they make about a range of $8-11. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

Sherpa porter carrying wood in the Himalaya, near Mount Everest, taking a rest from carrying their heavy loads. Generally, they can carry up to 130kg. There are legal restrictions, such as a maximum carry weight and a minimum age, but in reality, these regulations go largely unenforced. Their daily expenses are around $15 a day, while they make about a range of $8-11. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

Porters on the trails of Nepal, carrying heavy loads. These include rice, coke, Sherpa beer, food and a range of products that locals and trekkers need while they are in the region… and Coca-Cola! Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

Namche Bazar, capital of the Sherpa Land. It is located within the Khumbu area at 3,440 metres at its low point, populating the sides of a hill. Most Sherpa who are in the tourism business are from the Namche area. Namche is the main trading center and hub for the Khumbu region with many Nepalese officials, a police check, post, a bank, and even a beauty salon. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

Namche Bazar, capital of the Sherpa Land. It is located within the Khumbu area at 3,440 metres at its low point, populating the sides of a hill. Most Sherpa who are in the tourism business are from the Namche area. Namche is the main trading center and hub for the Khumbu region with many Nepalese officials, a police check, post, a bank, and even a beauty salon. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

Pasang, a young Sherpa guide which dreams to climb to the Summit of Mt. Everest. To become an official guide, he followed a 1-year training programme in Kathmandu and almost 6 months in the Himalaya mountains. He successfully passed a difficult exam many years ago. He has two daughters and a wife living in a village close to Lukla. He dreams to travel abroad, one day. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

Pasang, a young Sherpa guide which dreams to climb to the Summit of Mt. Everest. To become an official guide, he followed a 1-year training programme in Kathmandu and almost 6 months in the Himalaya mountains. He successfully passed a difficult exam many years ago. He has two daughters and a wife living in a village close to Lukla. He dreams to travel abroad, one day. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

Starting the day by heading North-West out of Dingboche and passing by a stunning path to reach Lobouche. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

Mount Everest: melting Khumbu glacier. The terminal moraine of the Khumbu Glacier looms 400 meters above Dughla, a rest stop for climbers. This is the debris bulldozed down from Mt. Everest and surrounding peaks over millions of years and represents the extent of the glacier’s advance in the last Ice Age. Today, the surface ice on the world’s highest glacier is all but gone due to natural and anthropogenic warming. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

What kind of food can you find at the top of the world? Dal bhat is a traditional meal from the Indian subcontinent, popular in many areas of Nepal, Bangladesh and India. It consists of steamed rice and a cooked lentil soup called dal. It is a staple food in these countries. Bhat or Chawal means “boiled rice” in a number of Indo-Aryan languages. At higher elevations in Nepal, above 6,500 feet (2,000 m), where rice does not grow well, other grain such as maize, buckwheat, barley or millet may be substituted in a cooked preparation called dhindo or atho in Nepal. Bhat may be supplemented with roti in Nepal. Dal may be cooked with onion, garlic, ginger, chili, tomatoes, or tamarind, in addition to lentils or beans. It always contains herbs and spices such as coriander, garam masala, cumin, and turmeric. Recipes vary by season, locality, ethnic group and family. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

What kind of food can you find at the top of the world? Dal bhat is a traditional meal from the Indian subcontinent, popular in many areas of Nepal, Bangladesh and India. It consists of steamed rice and a cooked lentil soup called dal. It is a staple food in these countries. Bhat or Chawal means “boiled rice” in a number of Indo-Aryan languages. At higher elevations in Nepal, above 6,500 feet (2,000 m), where rice does not grow well, other grain such as maize, buckwheat, barley or millet may be substituted in a cooked preparation called dhindo or atho in Nepal. Bhat may be supplemented with roti in Nepal. Dal may be cooked with onion, garlic, ginger, chili, tomatoes, or tamarind, in addition to lentils or beans. It always contains herbs and spices such as coriander, garam masala, cumin, and turmeric. Recipes vary by season, locality, ethnic group and family. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

What kind of food can you find at the top of the world? Dal bhat is a traditional meal from the Indian subcontinent, popular in many areas of Nepal, Bangladesh and India. It consists of steamed rice and a cooked lentil soup called dal. It is a staple food in these countries. Bhat or Chawal means “boiled rice” in a number of Indo-Aryan languages. At higher elevations in Nepal, above 6,500 feet (2,000 m), where rice does not grow well, other grain such as maize, buckwheat, barley or millet may be substituted in a cooked preparation called dhindo or atho in Nepal. Bhat may be supplemented with roti in Nepal. Dal may be cooked with onion, garlic, ginger, chili, tomatoes, or tamarind, in addition to lentils or beans. It always contains herbs and spices such as coriander, garam masala, cumin, and turmeric. Recipes vary by season, locality, ethnic group and family. Credit: Valentina Gasbarri

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Celebrating the people and landscapes of Mt. Everest and the Khumbu valley

The post The Role of Sherpas in Nature Conservation as Guardians of the Himalayas appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: WaterAid/ DRIK/ Habibul Haque

By Tim Wainwright
LONDON, Jan 31 2020 (IPS)

There was only one topic on everyone’s lips at Davos this year – climate change. The headlines focused on the cold war between Greta Thunberg and Donald Trump, but there was much greater consensus among those gathered for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The Forum itself updated its manifesto for responsible business – with climate right at its core.

Among those calling for urgent action was WaterAid’s own president, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. It’s more than 30 years since he last attended Davos and, as he reminded the audience, 50 years since he made his first speech on the environment.

His message was stark, and his call to action challenging: the climate emergency requires nothing less than an overhaul of the current economy, with a new deal for people and planet.

The mood is slowly shifting towards the scale of action needed, given that climate change will affect every part of the economy. This cannot be truer than for water – the WEF has ranked water crises in its top five global risks in terms of likelihood or impact every year since 2012.

Infographic showing the top 10 risks over the next 10 years, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2020 report. Credit: World Economic Forum

The climate crisis is a water crisis, and a threat multiplier

Throughout the forum I had one consistent message: for the world’s poorest, the climate crisis is a water crisis. Yes, it has long-term implications for your businesses and economies. But, first and foremost, it is a question of survival, dignity and justice, with climate change already having devastating impacts on the lives of the people who did least to cause it.

Flooding, storms and droughts, which all impact on how and if people can get clean water, are becoming more frequent and extreme, and these trends are predicted to rise as the climate continues to change. This will undermine the already precarious access to water for billions around the world.

Climate change acts as a huge threat multiplier, worsening existing barriers to these services and rolling back progress already made.

As people living in climate-vulnerable areas experience changing weather patterns, less predictable rainfall, salt water intrusion and increased exposure to disease, water and sanitation become a critical line of defence.

If your water supply comes from a shallow aquifer that fills with sea water, then you can no longer drink it. But if the person designing your water supply has thought of this threat and factored it in, perhaps by drawing on deeper aquifers, then you can carry on living in your neighbourhood.

If your toilets and sanitation systems are constructed to withstand flooding, then your community does not suffer the same level of contamination after flooding as if human waste had been spread by the high waters.

The water and sanitation sector could become a leader in climate adaptation

But we currently lack the level of public and private sector investment and innovation required to deliver the sustainable water services that would benefit poverty reduction, industry and economic development.

This is a huge blind spot for business leaders and politicians, and a missed opportunity for creating a more sustainable future.

Rather than lagging behind, the water and sanitation sector could become a leader in delivering the kind of green infrastructure, services and jobs urgently required to enable adaptation to the worst impacts of climate change.

Tim Wainwright, Chief Executive of WaterAid UK, speaking with Hassan Nasir Jamy, Secretary Ministry of Climate Change, at Pakistan’s Ministry of Climate Change in Islamabad, Pakistan. Credit: WaterAid/ Sibtain Haider

Water, sanitation and hygiene are core to a sustainable future

Leaving Davos last year, I was frustrated. I felt that too few understood or discussed the impact climate change would have on the already grave state of the world’s water and sanitation, and the devastating consequences for education, health, productivity and development.

This year, I sensed a greater understanding of the interlinked challenges we face, and with that an air of urgency and proactivity. Businesses are looking for solutions – not just raising concerns.

That is why WaterAid will be one of the organisations working closely with HRH the Prince of Wales as part of his 2020 year of action.

In March, in London, we will bring together the public, private and philanthropic sectors for a high-level summit that will position water, sanitation and hygiene at the forefront of the fight against climate, and work on the solutions that will ensure a sustainable future for all.

And we will continue that work across the WaterAid federation throughout the year, including at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kigali in June, and at the UN Climate Change Conference, COP 26, in Glasgow in November, to help build momentum for decisive action.

In this way we hope WaterAid can play its part in shifting the global trajectory in the coming decade, resulting in a fairer world for the poorest and most marginalised people.

Read our guide Water and resilient business: the critical role of water, sanitation and hygiene in a changing climate to learn more about how businesses can take action.

The post Our Message at Davos: Water & Sanitation Are a Critical Line of Defence Against Climate Change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Tim Wainwright is Chief Executive of WaterAid UK.

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Passengers wear face masks while riding the subway in Shenzhen, China. Credit: UN News/Jing Zhang.

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 31 2020 (IPS)

The rise in new coronavirus cases outside China, now constitutes a global health emergency, the World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee declared on Thursday, calling on all countries to take urgent measures to contain the respiratory disease.

Latest WHO figures state there are more than 7,800 confirmed cases globally, with 7,736 confirmed in China, and a further 12,167 suspected cases inside the country where the outbreak began in Wuhan, a city of around 11 million which remains in lockdown.

 

Latest figures

So far, 170 people have died in China, and 1,370 cases there are officially described as severe. A total of 124 have recovered and been discharged from hospital.

Outside China, there are 82 confirmed cases, in 18 different countries, and only seven had no history of travel in China.

“There has been human-to-human transmission in three countries outside China”, according to a statement released by WHO’s Emergency Committee. “One of these cases is severe and there have been no deaths.”

“The Committee believes that it is still possible to interrupt virus spread, provided that countries put in place strong measures to detect disease early, isolate and treat cases, trace contacts, and promote social distancing measures commensurate with the risk.”

When the committee met last week, there were “divergent views” on whether the outbreak which began last month, constituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), but the expert body convened by the WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was in agreement on Thursday.

 

Chinese leadership welcomed

“The main reason for this declaration is not what is happening in China, but what is happening in other countries”, said the WHO chief, praising the “extraordinary measures” taken there by authorities.

“China quickly identified the virus and shared its sequence, so that other countries could diagnose it quickly and protect themselves, which has resulted in rapid diagnostic tools”, said the statement from the Committee.

With concern rising that less developed countries will be more vulnerable, China has agreed to work internationally, with others who need support and “the measures China has taken are good not only for that country, but also for the rest of the world”, the statement added.

However, there remain “many unknowns”, the Committee warned, concerning the speed and spread of the epidemic.

 

Virus can be contained

“The Committee believes that it is still possible to interrupt virus spread, provided that countries put in place strong measures to detect disease early, isolate and treat cases, trace contacts, and promote social distancing measures commensurate with the risk.”

Mr. Tedros tweeted following the meeting: “We must remember that these are people, not numbers. More important than the declaration of a public health emergency are the committee’s recommendations for preventing the spread…and ensuring a measured and evidence-based response.”

 

Travel and trade should continue

He said there was there was “no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. We call on all countries to implement decisions that are evidence-based and consistent. WHO stands ready to provide advice to any country that is considering what measures to take.”

The Committee said evidence has shown that restricting the movement of people and goods during public health emergencies “may be ineffective and may divert resources from other interventions.

“Further, restrictions may interrupt needed aid and technical support, may disrupt businesses and may have negative effects” on the economies of those countries affected.

 

Advice to China:

The Committee is advising China to:

• continue to implement a “comprehensive risk communication strategy”, regularly informing the population on developments. Public health measures need to be enhanced to contain the virus, and the resilience of the health system ensured, while health-workers are protected.
• Enhance surveillance and active case finding.
• Collaborate with WHO and partners to investigate and understand the spread and evolution of the disease.
• Share full data on all human cases.
• Strengthen the efforts to identify the animal-to-human source of the infection, and “particularly the potential for ongoing circulation with WHO as soon as it becomes available.”
• Exit screening at international airports and ports, for early detection.

 

Other countries

“Countries are reminded that they are legally required to share information with WHO” now the health emergency is officially declared, said the Committee.

Despite encouraging countries not to impose blanket restrictions on trade and travel, “in certain specific circumstances, measures that restrict the movement of people may prove temporarily useful, such as in settings with limited response capacities and capabilities, or where there is high intensity of transmission among vulnerable populations.”

WHO is calling for greater support for low- and middle-income countries, to support their reponse to any cases, and allow them access to vaccines and drugs, as well as better surveillance and diagnostic tools.

 

Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) advice for the public.WHO

 

This story was originally published by UN News

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Alejandro Werner is Director of the Western Hemisphere Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

By Alejandro Werner
WASHINGTON DC, Jan 30 2020 (IPS)

Economic activity in Latin America and the Caribbean stagnated in 2019, continuing with the weak growth momentum of the previous five years and adding more urgency and new challenges to reignite growth.

Indeed, real GDP per capita in the region has declined by 0.6 percent per year on average during 2014–2019—a sharp contrast from the commodity boom’s average increase of two percent per year during 2000–2013.

This weak momentum reflects structural and cyclical factors. On the structural side, potential growth remains constrained by low investment, slow productivity growth, a weak business climate, and the low quality of infrastructure and education.

On the cyclical side, growth has been held back by low global growth and commodity prices, elevated economic policy uncertainty, economic rebalancing in some economies, and social unrest in others.

Regional challenges

Elevated policy uncertainty in several large Latin American countries continues to weigh on growth. For example, uncertainty about the course of economic policy and reforms in Brazil and Mexico likely contributed to the slowdown in real GDP and investment growth in 2019.

Continued economic rebalancing in stressed economies that experienced sudden stops in capital flows in 2018-19 (Argentina, Ecuador), while helping restore internal and external balances, have also acted as a drag on economic growth.

More recently, a few countries in the region experienced social unrest—Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, and Ecuador—which, in some cases, disrupted economic activity. Economic policy uncertainty has also risen in these countries as governments consider alternative policies and reforms to make growth more inclusive and address social demands.

Outlook and risks

As noted in the recent World Economic Outlook update, growth in the region is projected to rebound to 1.6 percent in 2020 and 2.3 percent in 2021—supported by a gradual pick up in global growth and commodity prices, continued monetary support, reduced economic policy uncertainty, and a gradual recovery in stressed economies.

However, there are also prominent downside risks. While previous external downside risks have moderated following globally synchronized monetary policy easing and the signing of the U.S.-China phase one trade deal, some new risks have appeared, including the potential global spread of the coronavirus, which could significantly disrupt global economic activity, trade, and travel.

Domestic and regional downside risks have also intensified. Social unrest could spike throughout the region, while economic policy uncertainty could rise further due to both heightened social tensions and policy slippages.

Policy priorities

Economic policies will need to strike a balance between rebuilding policy space and maintaining economic stability on the one hand and supporting economic activity and strengthening the social safety net on the other hand.

Although the causes and triggers of social unrest have varied across countries, they generally reflect discontent with some aspects of the economic and political systems. A key priority going forward is to reignite growth, while making it more inclusive.

Promoting competition will be important to avoid monopolistic practices that may hurt the poor disproportionally. Tackling corruption and weak governance will help make political systems more representative, although deeper political reforms may be needed.

Fiscal policy will need to support to growth, expand the social safety net, and improve the quality of public goods and services. However, in many countries, spending room in the budget remains constrained by high deficits and public debt.

These countries will need to improve spending efficiency, reallocate spending from nonpriority areas to public investment and social transfers and increase revenues over the medium term to finance additional increases in these areas.

Monetary policy can remain accommodative to support growth given the stable inflation outlook, well-anchored inflation expectations, and declining neutral rates worldwide.

South America

In Brazil, growth remained subdued at 1.2 percent in 2019, but is projected to accelerate to 2.2 percent in 2020 due to improving confidence following the approval of the pension reform and lower monetary policy interest rates in the context of low inflation.

Steady implementation of the government’s broad fiscal and structural reform agenda will be essential to safeguard public debt sustainability and boost potential growth.

In Chile, the outlook is subject to uncertainty resulting from social unrest and the evolving policy responses to the social demands. Following a sharp decline in late 2019, economic activity is expected to recover gradually supported by a significant fiscal expansion and looser monetary policy, with growth reaching about 1 percent in 2020.

In Colombia, strong domestic demand led to a pickup in growth to 3.3 percent in 2019 and a widening of the current account deficit to 4½ percent of GDP. Growth is projected to accelerate to around 3½ percent in 2020 due to continued monetary support, migration from Venezuela, remittances, civil works and higher investment due to recent tax policy changes.

In Peru, growth is estimated to have slowed to 2.4 percent in 2019, hampered by lower global trade and under-execution of government spending. With these factors dissipating in the coming years, growth is projected to recover to 3.2 percent in 2020 and 3.7 percent in 2021, with inflation remaining well-anchored within the central bank’s target range.

Venezuela remains immersed in a deep economic and humanitarian crisis. Since the end of 2013, real GDP has contracted by 65 percent driven by declining oil production, hyperinflation, collapsing public services, and plummeting purchasing power.

A continuation of these trends is projected for 2020, although at a slower pace. The acute humanitarian crisis has led to one of the largest migratory crises in history, with migration to neighboring countries expected to surpass 6 million—20 percent of the population—by 2020.

Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean

In Mexico, economic activity stagnated in 2019 due to policy uncertainty and slower global and U.S. manufacturing production. Growth is expected to recover to 1 percent in 2020 as conditions normalize, including with the ratification of the trade agreement between the United States, Mexico, and Canada (USMCA) and the recent easing of monetary policy, which should continue as along as inflation expectations are well-anchored.

Fiscal policy should be geared at putting the public debt-to-GDP ratio on a downward trajectory, with priority on increasing revenues, improving the efficiency of spending, and enhancing the fiscal framework.

In Central America, Panama, and the Dominican Republic growth is projected to rebound to 3.9 percent in 2020, from 3.2 percent in 2019, supported by the beginning of operations of a large copper mine in Panama, and accommodative monetary policy in Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. In Costa Rica, continued implementation of all measures in the fiscal reform bill will be key to rebuild market confidence and fiscal space.

In Honduras, the economic plan includes important efforts to improve institutional, governance, and anti-corruption frameworks supporting business confidence, while Guatemala is expected to continue benefitting from a fiscal impulse and economic reform plans of the new administration.

El Salvador is already reaping the effects of the pro-growth agenda of the new administration inaugurated in June, while unfavorable political tensions in Nicaragua are creating a significant headwind to economic recovery.

In the Caribbean, economic prospects are improving, but with substantial variation across countries. Growth in tourism-dependent economies is expected to strengthen in 2020. With commodity prices remaining broadly stable, commodity exporters are expected to see modest recovery in growth, while large oil discoveries and the start of their production in 2020 is expected to boost growth in Guyana.

The region’s exposure to climate risks continues to require strong policies. Potential growth continues to be impeded by lingering structural problems including high public debt, weaker financial systems, high unemployment, and vulnerability to commodity and climate-related shocks.

Some countries have started to strengthen their fiscal positions, but further tightening is needed in others to ensure debt sustainability.

*IMFBlog is a forum for the views of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff and officials on pressing economic and policy issues of the day. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF and its Executive Board.

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Excerpt:

Alejandro Werner is Director of the Western Hemisphere Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The post New Challenges to Growth in Latin America & the Caribbean appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: Palestine Campaign.Org

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 30 2020 (IPS)

The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has described the much-ballyhooed US Middle East peace plan as “more like Swiss cheese– with the cheese being offered to the Israelis and the holes to the Palestinians”.

“There are many ways to end the occupation, but the only legitimate options are those based on equality and human rights for all,” said the Jerusalem-based B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.

“This is why the current plan which legitimizes, entrenches and even expands the scope of Israel’s human rights abuses, perpetuated now for over 52 years, is utterly unacceptable”, it said.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, based in Johannesburg, drew a parallel between Israel and apartheid South Africa of a bygone era.

“We concur with our Israeli comrades, and we painfully recall how Apartheid South Africa tried to impose its own plan during the 1980s where white people would own South Africa and the indigenous Black South Africans needed to be happy with small enclaves called Bantustans.”

“We rejected this then in Apartheid South Africa, and we, today, join those in rejecting it in Palestine-Israel,” said BDS in a statement released here.

Mouin Rabbani, co-editor Jadaliyya, an ezine focusing on the Middle East and produced by the Arab Studies Institute (ASI), told IPS the Trump Plan is not a peace initiative, that seeks to lay the basis for meaningful negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to resolve the core issues of the conflict.

Rather, it seeks to unilaterally implement a permanent status reality that is tantamount to the extreme reaches of the Israeli political spectrum, with the imprimatur of US recognition and legitimacy, he said.

Any analyst with even a passing acquaintance of this conflict can immediately recognize that it cannot possibly serve as a basis of negotiations, let alone a negotiated settlement, because it prejudges virtually every Palestinian right, claim, and interest, Rabbani argued.

“This is deliberate — the references to negotiations are no more than a diplomatic fig leaf to enable Israeli to proceed unilaterally with acts of territorial annexation, the liquidation of the refugee question, the transfer of Arab citizens of Israel to Palestinian jurisdiction (thus removing there status as Israeli citizens), and the like,” he added.

Credit: PalestineUN.Org

Ramzy Baroud, a syndicated columnist, editor of The Palestine Chronicle and a senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs in Istanbul, told IPS the Deal of the Century is a complete American acquiescence to the right-wing mentality that has ruled Israel for more than a decade.

This is certainly not an American peace overture, he pointed out, but an egregious act of bullying.

However, it is hardly a deviation from previous rounds of “peace-making,” where Washington always took Israel’s side, blamed Palestinians and failed to hold Tel Aviv accountable to its violations of previously signed treaties and international law, he noted.

“In truth, the Deal of the Century is not a ‘peace plan’, nor was it ever intended to be, despite what its chief architect and White House adviser Jared Kushner has been claiming”.

As expected, said Baroud, Trump has handed Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu everything that he and Israel ever wanted.

He also pointed out that the Middle East Plan does not demand the uprooting of a single illegal Jewish settlement and recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s ‘undivided’ capital.

“It speaks of a conditioned and disfigured Palestinian state that can only be achieved based on vague conditions, rejects the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees, and doesn’t mention the word ‘occupation’ even once”, said Baroud, author of the newly-released book These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons.

According to Cable News Network (CNN), the Trump administration unveiled its much-anticipated Middle East plan, which it’s touting as a “realistic two-state solution.”

But Palestinians definitely don’t see it that way. The plan caters to nearly every major Israeli demand, including the annexation of its settlements in the contested West Bank region, said CNN.

“A future Palestinian state, meanwhile, would get a capital in eastern Jerusalem, physically separated from the rest of the city. The plan doesn’t lay out what would happen to Palestinian refugees displaced by ongoing conflict”.

In a brutally frank comment, Robert Malley, president of the International Crisis Group, was quoted as saying: “The message to the Palestinians, boiled down to its essence, is: You’ve lost, get over it.”

Rabbani said the peace plan is also not a framework for a two-state settlement.

“The potential Palestinian entity presented in the initiative, assuming it comes to pass, does not have any – I repeat, any – of the attributes of statehood as commonly understood.”

He said its objective is not the establishment of a Palestinian state but rather the permanent expansion of the Israeli state into occupied territory, less those areas heavily populated by Palestinians that Israel does not intend to annex.

The Palestinian entity, or rather the patchwork of Palestinian-populated regions within Israel according to this plan, are held together by some 15 bridges and tunnels, he noted.

“The purpose here is not Palestinian statehood, but rather achieving Israel’s long-term objective of maximum territory with minimum Arabs – an objective additionally furthered by the proposed transfer of Palestinian population centers within Israel to the jurisdiction of this entity”.

The broader purpose of this initiative, he argued, is to utilize the weakness, fragmentation, and polarisation of the Palestinians, and the Arab world more generally, to ram through a unilateral settlement of this conflict while the opportunity presents itself.

A second objective is to facilitate the formalisation of Israeli-Arab normalisation, though given the contours of this plan that is unlikely to be achieved.

In a word, the formalisation of Palestinian capitulation to not only Israel but a particularly extremist Israeli agenda, he declared.

More broadly, said Rabbani, it seeks to replace international law and the international consensus with the principle that might makes right and thus the law of the jungle in which power is the sole principle for the resolution of international disputes.

From the Trump administration’s perspective this therefore has much broader application than only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he declared.

Baroud said the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ has confirmed what many have argued for years: a just and peaceful future in Palestine and Israel cannot be achieved with Washington at the helm.

“So obviously only Israel benefits from the plan, as the Zionist discourse, predicated on maximum territorial gains with minimal Palestinian presence, has finally prevailed.”

He said every Israeli request has been met, to the last one. Meanwhile, Palestinians get nothing, aside from the promise of chasing another mirage of a Palestinian state that has no territorial continuity and no true sovereignty.

Not only will Trump’s plan fail to resolve the conflict, he argued, it will exasperate it as well; it will divide the region into blocs, with some Arabs normalization with Israel and others refusing to do so, especially while Palestinians continue to live in perpetual suffering.

As for the economic component of Trump’s plan, history has proven that there can be no economic prosperity under military occupation. Netanyahu and others before him tried such dubious methods, of ‘economic peace’ and such, and all have miserably failed.

“Time and again, the UN has made it clear that it follows a different political trajectory than that followed by Washington, and that all US decisions regarding the status of Jerusalem, the illegal settlements and the Golan Heights, are null and void; only international law matters, and none of Trump’s actions in recent years have succeeded in significantly altering international consensus on the rights of Palestinians”.

As for the status of and Palestinian rights in their occupied city, said Baroud, East Jerusalem, renaming a few neighborhoods – Kafr Aqab, the eastern part of Shuafat and Abu Dis – as al-Quds, or East Jerusalem is an old Israeli plan that failed in the past.

The late Yasser Arafat rejected it, and neither Mahmoud Abbas or any other Palestinian official would dare compromise on the historic and legal Palestinian rights in the city.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post US Mideast Peace Plan: Israelis Offered the Cheese & Palestinians the Holes appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Wuhan City has a population of over 11 million. Credit: Tauno Tõhk/CC by 2.0

By Fei Chen
Jan 30 2020 (IPS)

On January 23, the authorities of Wuhan City, China, sealed off the motorways and shut down all public transport to stop the coronavirus outbreak from spreading. Shortly afterwards, at least ten other cities in China were under quarantine orders, most of them located in the areas surrounding Wuhan.

It sounds unbelievable to quarantine a city of 11 million people, but it may work because movement within and between cities in China relies heavily on public transport infrastructure. Major cities in China are well connected by airports, express railways, motorways and long-distance buses. Once the entry points of these transport routes are controlled and patrolled, people cannot easily get out.

Fei Chen, Senior Lecturer, Architecture, University of Liverpool

The transport infrastructure is built by the state and over 90% funded by public money, so control remains in the hands of the authorities. The one-party government in China also helps to effectively implement such a strategy.

Another reason this containment strategy may work is that major Chinese cities are large and dense. Wuhan has an urban area of 1,528km2, which makes it extremely difficult for people to walk out of the city if they are not able to take public transport or travel on the motorways using private cars.

People who live on the periphery of the city may still be able to get out through small local road networks that mainly lead to villages or the countryside. As long as the major roads are closed off, they are not able to reach other major cities with a large, concentrated population and the quarantine remains effective.

Megacity regions

The urbanisation process facilitated by the Chinese state results in big cities surrounded by smaller cities, towns and counties. This form of city cluster, known as megacity regions, are a recent phenomenon in China and their development
has been driven by both political and economic factors. The Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta are the most well known megacity regions, holding enormous economic power and attracting labourers regionally and nationally.

Wuhan and its surrounding cities, towns and counties holds a similar status in central China thanks to its strategic location on the Yangtze River and national railway network. The local authority’s Great Wuhan Economic Region plan is intended to promote Wuhan in efforts to become comparable to the aforementioned megacity regions.

Megacity regions are connected by transport routes and mostly developed around transport nodes, at both the regional and neighbourhood scales. This so-called transit-oriented development means that if the entry points of public transport are closed off in cities of the whole region, to a large extent, people are controlled in the region.

Chinese New Year

For more than three decades, Chinese urbanisation has seen large scale domestic migration. People from the countryside and smaller cities and towns move to big cities for more work opportunities and better education and healthcare. Chinese New Year is most important occasion when people return to their home towns to celebrate the festival with their families.

The coronavirus containment measures coincided with the national movement for the New Year celebration. This massive movement of people, if not controlled, would be a serious threat to containing the virus. People were advised against long-distance travel and the New Year holiday has been extended into February. These measures are to make sure movement within the country is restricted as much as possible. Workers will stay in their home cities as their returns are suspended.

The containment measures in Wuhan and other cities are likely to continue until further studies of the virus suggest other effective solutions. At the current moment, international travellers from China have all been checked at airports and some flights have been cancelled.

Cities nowadays rely on complex systems to operate. The concentration of labour and resources may enable efficiency but leaves them vulnerable to attacks. The outbreak put enormous pressure on Wuhan’s healthcare system as people can only seek treatment in the city. A few high-ranked hospitals in Wuhan possess the best resources, but they cannot cope with the healthcare demand from large groups at the same time. Two new hospitals are being built in Wuhan to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. They are expected to be completed on February 3rd and 5th respectively and provide 2,300 beds in total.

In the foreseeable future digital technologies and smart city measures may also play a role in dealing with pressure on health infrastructure by, for instance, reporting cases and coordinating the allocation of resources. Wuhan has a reputation for the active integration of smart technologies in urban management.

Although effective, sealing off an entire city or region should always be a last resort. It will surely have a negative social impact and damage the economy.

Fei Chen is a senior lecturer of architecture, University of Liverpool

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

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The seed bank at Navdanya, and (right) Vandana Shiva at the organic farm. Courtesy: Sapna Gopal

By Sapna Gopal
HIMALAYAS, India, Jan 30 2020 (IPS)

Vandana Shiva, a pioneer of organic farming in India, is incensed by the 2019 draft law to compulsorily register all seeds used by farmers. On a wintry afternoon, at her farm Navdanya in the Himalayan foothills, the noted ecologist spoke on the future of the organic farming movement in India. Excerpts:

Q: What is your view on the Himalayas? How different from the plains is it as a terrain?

A: Agriculture in the Himalayas is diverse because every valley is different, every slope is different, every altitude is different – the North and South faces are different. So, biodiversity is even more important for mountainous regions and for the Himalayas in particular. This is because the difference between Himalayas and other mountains is, for instance in the Alps, there is snow in the winter and there is no agriculture during that time – our peak agriculture season is the monsoon and we get it in four months. So, to not consider biodiversity while planning agriculture is a recipe for ecological disaster as it was for forestry which is why the Chipko movement started – which is how I started my ecological life, 45 years ago.

Q: Do you think there is a revolution in organic farming in India? Do you think the demand for organic produce is much more now and there’s heightened awareness in this regard? If yes, is this good news for the Indian market and the overseas market?

A: There are three levels on which the awareness on organic is growing — we have all worked for 35 years to build this movement. Beginning with a network of people concerned, we started Samvardhan, from Gandhi’s ashram in the early 80s. Then, my book, Violence of the green revolution, is the work that made me realise that we had to give up chemicals and move to organic. So, in a lot of places, it is a revolution happening because the green revolution has destroyed water (since it uses ten times the water). As a result, people are shifting, because there’s no way we can continue to deplete the last drop of water. Farmers are also shifting because the cost of chemical agriculture is so high that it is trapping farmers in debt – 77% of them are in debt. This is for input purchase, not for marriages or wastage of money, but for input of agriculture that’s based on chemicals. Also, it is capital intensive and the fact is that there are 400,000 suicides among indebted peasants in India [over the last few decades]. All these are helping farmers wake up to the fact that this kind of agriculture is not for them.

Then, there are people in the cities who are realising that most of their health problems are related to food and we know that chronic diseases are food related. This being the case, it’s better to shift to organic since it is the best medicine. As Ayurveda says, annam sarvodayi [food as universal upliftement], so that is the shift.

Over the years, I have worked with many states and we have helped around seven of them make a shift towards organic policies. They include Uttarakhand, Kerala (where the movement is very strong and is spreading very fast), Madhya Pradesh, Sikkim (the first 100% organic state in the world), Bihar and Odisha. Now, the government in Odisha has declared an organic policy and our colleagues in Odisha are on the board of the organic policy team. Ladakh as a region (before all the political changes), declared itself organic.

Outside India, the government of Bhutan is totally committed to moving towards organic, and we have helped give advice. So, it is a movement that must grow because there is no other way to farm. In any case, the big companies that draw the chemicals are saying, we don’t need farmers now. We will do farming without farmers. And worse, they are also saying, we don’t need food either – we will just cook together constituents in the lab – so between no farmer and no food, the alternative that will work, for the farmer, for the earth, for the people who have to eat, will be organic. So, no matter how much of a denial takes place, this is the future.

Q: Do you think there is a problem in terms of certification for organic farmers? Are there some policies which could help address this issue?   

A: In the first instance, I remember going into the commerce ministry and saying, why on earth are organic standards being set by the commerce ministry? Our certification is too heavily driven by European standards. I was on the National Organic Board and we said that farmers can’t afford this – so, what was done was that we created group certification. In fact, Navdanya works through group certification — 100 farmers get together and then the overheads come down. In 2018, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) tried to take over the organic standards and were going to make it impossible for any farmer to distribute food, even locally, without certification cost. I recollect fighting it out and saying, “No, where farmers are growing food either for themselves or those they know and directly selling it, the state will not enter in that domain, you don’t need certification, you need relationship,” and we managed to get that exclusion in the national law.

However, it’s a permanent fight because there are those who do want to destroy the small farmer. Which is why for us in Navdanya, from the time I founded it, it is beej swaraj (seed sefl-rule) and ann swaraj (food self-rule) – so, we have to have swaraj (self-rule, freedom) in our seed  and in our food.

We wrote the laws on seed, we got rid of patenting in our laws, we wrote the farmers rights law. I have been part of drafting these laws, 10 to 15 years ago, and we did a satyagraha against seed law that would have made compulsory registration of seed, like compulsory certification of food. However, they have come back with a worse draft in 2019, something that was defeated in 2004. So, you can see that the powers of the industry are strong.

Q: We have witnessed a lot of suicides by farmers in India. Where does the solution lie?

A: The solution comes from understanding the cause, which is debt. Due to debt, there is loss of the land of the farmer. Of all the suicides that I have studied, if I have been in a region where the farmer has committed suicide, the story always goes that the latter went to his field to take one last look,  bought pesticide, and drank it in his field.

Why doesn’t a farmer commit suicide in his home and why the field? That is because in India, most smallholder farmers have received that land through generations of farming and the day the creditors, who are agents of the corporations, come to say that now your land is ours because you did not pay the debt – if he says he never mortgaged his land, he is told that he signed a paper – the shock of being cheated, the disaster of feeling he has betrayed mother earth, all his ancestors who had this land, is what leads to these suicides.

So, why does the farmer get into debt? I watched this in the area of BT Cotton – they are told to sign a piece of paper. The seeds are given for free, but the farmer does not realise he is being piled under debt. Worse, the seeds keep failing, because they are not designed for a drought prone area and are hybrids. They can’t be saved, they can’t control pests – therefore, all these false promises that are made, compel the farmer to constantly go back to the market and take more and more seed, not realising that it is all on credit.

I think it is wrong for a government to say replace your seed and take bad seeds – what kind of government is this? Forcing bad seeds in the name of seed replacement for farmers – it is really anti-national, which is why I do satyagraha against all this. The government’s public breeding has stopped – I filed an RTI (Right to Information petition) and wanted to know how many seeds the Cotton Research Institute had released and why farmers are not buying it. It was found that there wasn’t a single release in Vidarbha.

When I did a study and did not see an alternative, I decided we would bring back the old cotton seed. In villages where we work in, 60% of the (genetically modified) BT cotton has gone.

**This story was first published by Thirdpole.net. You can read it here.

The post ‘Organic is the Future’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Idriss Moumin, president of the Association for the Physically Disabled in Djibouti, says that understanding, dignity and honouring of rights of the disabled are very important for inclusive education. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
DJIBOUTI CITY, Jan 29 2020 (IPS)

Neema Namdamu, 42, grew up in the village of Bukavu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where children with disabilities were considered a curse.

As a child Namdamu contracted polio, leaving her paralysed from the waist down. Her neighbours advised her mother to do what they felt was the “right thing”: to leave the child alone in a hut until she died of starvation.

However, thanks to her mother who refused to give in to the community’s demand, Namdamu lived and went on to attend school and pursue her studies all the way to post graduate level.

But, all through the years of her education, she struggled just to get to her classrooms.

“Not a single educational institute – be that school or college or university – had a disabled-friendly building. I cried while climbing the stairs everyday,” recalls Nmadamu. She has since founded Mama Shuja – an NGO which gives vocational training including computer operating, data entry, digital story telling, tailoring and handicrafts to young girls and women with disabilities living in eastern DRC’s conflict areas.

Nmadamu is attending the 3rd International Summit on Balanced and Inclusive Education currently being held in Djibouti City, Djibouti. Organised by the Education Relief Foundation (ERF), there are over 200 delegates and government representatives from over 35 countries currently in the Horn of Africa nation.

But the government representative from the DRC is absent. And Namadamu says that this reflects the overall lack of awareness about the importance of education in her country.

Making more learning institutions disability-friendly is key for inclusive education

Idriss Moumin is a passionate advocate of inclusiveness. As the President of the Association for People with Disabilities in Djibouti, and someone who lives with total visual impairment, he strongly wants all the disabled people in his country to be able to access education as their right.

Understanding the special needs and rights of people with disabilities is one of the issues discussed at the summit, but Moumin feels the level of understanding hasn’t matched his expectations.

“I have been hearing several speakers say phrases and terms like ‘we are doing this for them (disabled) and ‘normal people’’. I want to remind them, this is not about giving a handout, but providing (for those with disabilities) what is their right. And who are these normal people? Am I then an abnormal person?” asks Moumin.

• In Djibouti – a country of less than a million people, there are 10,500 people with various degrees of disabilities, according to an ongoing population survey. The complete data from the survey will be released only in February, but for now it is assumed that there are about 600 students and about 300 are in early years of school.

“Our main issues are accessibility, equipment and social acceptance. We lack transportation and roads and learning materials. We definitely need resources to fill these gaps. But, there is an equal need for providing these facilities as a right. For example, we should get jobs because we have our rights to employment, not because we need compassion,” Moumin tells IPS.

• According to the World Bank estimates, globally one billion people experience some form of disability. Of those, it is estimated that 93 to 150 million are children. According to Plan International these children are 10 times less likely to go to school than other children.
• And when they do attend, it is likely to be in a segregated setting. Historically, children with disabilities have been excluded from the general education system and placed in ‘special schools’. In some cases, they are separated from their families and placed in long-term residential institutions where they are educated in isolation from the community, if they are educated at all.

Investing in disabled-friendly schools in Niger

But, according to UNESCO, one of the biggest reasons why children with disabilities don’t access education, even if education policies are inclusive, is because of the lack of disabled-friendly school buildings and suitable learning materials.

• Niger is the largest country in west Africa. But according to the latest data published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), on average a person goes to school only for six years. As a result, Niger also has the lowest literacy rates in the world at 15.5 percent — far behind the global rate of 92 percent. 
• Niger has an education index of .20. The education index is a statistic from the U.N. which is calculated using the mean number of years of schooling and the expected number of years of schooling. Its education index means that Niger is ranked at the bottom of all 189 countries with available data.
• Children with disabilities are also at increased risk of school violence and bullying, preventing the safe enjoyment of their right to education, says the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), School violence and bullying: Global status report, 2016.

However, despite political conflicts and extreme poverty, several organisations are working to improve education in Niger. One such organisation is Remember Niger Coalition (RNC) – an American charity that has stepped in to help children with disabilities attend school.

In 2019, the RNC partnered with the Maradi Association for People with Disabilities and the Hosanna Institute to establish the School of Hope, a school specifically designed for children with disabilities. The three-classroom building was completed in November 2019 with one class ready for use in October when the school year began with 20 kindergarten students.

According to Julie Frye, director of marketing and communications at RNC, this is the first phase in establishing a primary through high school complex for all children, including students with learning differences and unique needs. When complete, the school will have classes from kindergarten all the way to high school for over 600 students.

The design of the School of Hope classrooms takes into consideration issues of accessibility and barrier-free spaces such as handrails, wide doorways, and access ramps. Construction included the installation of four accessible toilets and hand-washing stations, customised to meet the special needs of the disabled community.

“School infrastructure is pivotal to our mission to create quality educational opportunities in Niger. In order for quality learning to take place, students and teachers must have facilities that are safe and adapted to their needs,” Frye tells IPS. The RNC has invested a total of $50,000 so far, she reveals.

DRC: Education curbs violent crimes against the disabled

In DRC, especially in Bukavu and other eastern towns and villages, there remains significantly high levels of violence against women and girls, who are often beaten, raped and tortured. Those who are disabled cannot run away, making them more vulnerable.

The solution, Namadamu says, lies in education for the disabled and joint financing by the government and private sector funders.

“If we invest $1 million, we can build a large school, hostels, toilets, vocational skill training,  special learning materials for the blind and other technologies like computer, TV camera etc. Such a facility can provide total, inclusive education to a large community. But where is that money? We need external investment,” says Namadamu.

Sheikh Manssour Bin Mussallam, the president of ERF, says that though there is space for private investors in inclusive education, it needs to happen in a more collective and cohesive way. It should not be fragmented, but confederated.

“Regardless of whether its private sectors or philanthropists or academic bodies, we need to act through coordination. The main issue or tragedy is that where there is regional lack of initiatives, organisations or individuals, they do not communicate. When they do communicate, they do not cooperate. And when they do cooperate, its not very efficient,” Mussallam tells IPS in a special interview.

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