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Faustino Perez, Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America, Day of Solidarity with the People of Venezuela, 1969.

By Vijay Prashad
Feb 1 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(Tricontinental) – On 15 September 1970, US President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger authorised the US government to do everything possible to undermine the incoming government of the socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende. Nixon and Kissinger, according to the notes kept by CIA Director Richard Helms, wanted to ‘make the economy scream’ in Chile; they were ‘not concerned [about the] risks involved’. War was acceptable to them as long as Allende’s government was removed from power. The CIA started Project FUBELT, with $10 million as a first instalment to begin the covert destabilisation of the country.

CIA memorandum on Project FUBELT, 16 September 1970.

US business firms, such as the telecommunication giant ITT, the soft drink maker Pepsi Cola and copper monopolies such as Anaconda and Kennecott, put pressure on the US government once Allende nationalised the copper sector on 11 July 1971. Chileans celebrated this day as the Day of National Dignity (Dia de la Dignidad Nacional). The CIA began to make contact with sections of the military seen to be against Allende. Three years later, on 11 September 1973, these military men moved against Allende, who died in the regime change operation. The US ‘created the conditions’ as US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger put it, to which US President Richard Nixon answered, ‘that is the way it is going to be played’. Such is the mood of international gangsterism.

Phone Call between Richard Nixon (P) and Henry Kissinger (K) on 16 September 1973.

Chile entered the dark night of a military dictatorship that turned over the country to US monopoly firms. US advisors rushed in to strengthen the nerve of General Augusto Pinochet’s cabinet.

What happened to Chile in 1973 is precisely what the United States has attempted to do in many other countries of the Global South. The most recent target for the US government – and Western big business – is Venezuela. But what is happening to Venezuela is nothing unique. It faces an onslaught from the United States and its allies that is familiar to countries as far afield as Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The formula is clichéd. It is commonplace, a twelve-step plan to produce a coup climate, to create a world under the heel of the West and of Western big business.

Tweet from US Senator Marco Rubio on 24 January 2019.

Step One: Colonialism’s Traps. Most of the Global South remains trapped by the structures put in place by colonialism. Colonial boundaries encircled states that had the misfortune of being single commodity producers – either sugar for Cuba or oil for Venezuela. The inability to diversify their economies meant that these countries earned the bulk of their export revenues from their singular commodities (98% of Venezuela’s export revenues come from oil). As long as the prices of the commodities remained high, the export revenues were secure. When the prices fell, revenue suffered. This was a legacy of colonialism. Oil prices dropped from $160.72 per barrel (June 2008) to $51.99 per barrel (January 2019). Venezuela’s export revenues collapsed in this decade.

Step Two: The Defeat of the New International Economic Order. In 1974, the countries of the Global South attempted to redo the architecture of the world economy. They called for the creation of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) that would allow them to pivot away from the colonial reliance upon one commodity and diversify their economies. Cartels of raw materials – such as oil and bauxite – were to be built so that the one-commodity country could have some control over prices of the products that they relied upon. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), founded in 1960, was a pioneer of these commodity cartels. Others were not permitted to be formed. With the defeat of OPEC over the past three decades, its members – such as Venezuela (which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves) – have not been able to control oil prices. They are at the mercy of the powerful countries of the world.

Step Three: The Death of Southern Agriculture. In November 2001, there were about three billion small farmers and landless peasants in the world. That month, the World Trade Organisation met in Doha (Qatar) to unleash the productivity of Northern agri-business against the billions of small farmers and landless peasants of the Global South. Mechanisation and large, industrial-scale farms in North America and Europe had raised productivity to about 1 to 2 million kilogrammes of cereals per farmer. The small farmers and landless peasants in the rest of the world struggled to grow 1,000 kilogrammes of cereals per farmer. They were nowhere near as productive. The Doha decision, as Samir Amin wrote, presages the annihilation of the small farmer and landless peasant. What are these men and women to do? The production per hectare is higher in the West, but the corporate take-over of agriculture (as Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research Senior Fellow P. Sainath shows) leads to increased hunger as it pushes peasants off their land and leaves them to starve.

Step Four: Culture of Plunder. Emboldened by Western domination, monopoly firms act with disregard for the law. As Kambale Musavuli and I write of the Democratic Republic of Congo, its annual budget of $6 billion is routinely robbed of at least $500 by monopoly mining firms, mostly from Canada – the country now leading the charge against Venezuela. Mispricing and tax avoidance schemes allow these large firms (Canada’s Agrium, Barrick and Suncor) to routinely steal billions of dollars from impoverished states.

Step Five: Debt as a Way of Life. Unable to raise money from commodity sales, hemmed in by a broken world agricultural system and victim of a culture of plunder, countries of the Global South have been forced to go hat in hand to commercial lenders for finance. Over the past decade, debt held by the Global South states has increased, while debt payments have ballooned by 60%. When commodity prices rose between 2000 and 2010, debt in the Global South decreased. As commodity prices began to fall from 2010, debts have risen. The IMF points out that of the 67 impoverished countries that they follow, 30 are in debt distress, a number that has doubled since 2013. More than 55.4% of Angola’s export revenue is paid to service its debt. And Angola, like Venezuela, is an oil exporter. Other oil exporters such as Ghana, Chad, Gabon and Venezuela suffer high debt to GDP ratios. Two out of five low-income countries are in deep financial distress.

Step Six: Public Finances Go to Hell. With little incoming revenue and low tax collection rates, public finances in the Global South has gone into crisis. As the UN Conference on Trade and Development points out, ‘public finances have continued to be suffocated’. States simply cannot put together the funds needed to maintain basic state functions. Balanced budget rules make borrowing difficult, which is compounded by the fact that banks charge high rates for money, citing the risks of lending to indebted countries.

Step Seven: Deep Cuts in Social Spending. Impossible to raise funds, trapped by the fickleness of international finance, governments are forced to make deep cuts in social spending. Education and health, food sovereignty and economic diversification – all this goes by the wayside. International agencies such as the IMF force countries to conduct ‘reforms’, a word that means extermination of independence. Those countries that hold out face immense international pressure to submit under pain of extinction, as the Communist Manifesto (1848) put it.

Step Eight: Social Distress Leads to Migration. The total number of migrants in the world is now at least 68.5 million. That makes the country called Migration the 21st largest country in the world after Thailand and ahead of the United Kingdom. Migration has become a global reaction to the collapse of countries from one end of the planet to the other. The migration out of Venezuela is not unique to that country but is now merely the normal reaction to the global crisis. Migrants from Honduras who go northward to the United States or migrants from West Africa who go towards Europe through Libya are part of this global exodus.

Step Nine: Who Controls the Narrative? The monopoly corporate media takes its orders from the elite. There is no sympathy for the structural crisis faced by governments from Afghanistan to Venezuela. Those leaders who cave to Western pressure are given a free pass by the media. As long as they conduct ‘reforms’, they are safe. Those countries that argue against the ‘reforms’ are vulnerable to being attacked. Their leaders become ‘dictators’, their people hostages. A contested election in Bangladesh or in the Democratic Republic of Congo or in the United States is not cause for regime change. That special treatment is left for Venezuela.

Alfredo Rostgaard, OSPAAAL poster, 1969.

Step Ten: Who’s the Real President? Regime change operations begin when the imperialists question the legitimacy of the government in power: by putting the weight of the United States behind an unelected person, calling him the new president and creating a situation where the elected leader’s authority is undermined. The coup takes place when a powerful country decides – without an election – to anoint its own proxy. That person – in Venezuela’s case Juan Guaidó – rapidly has to make it clear that he will bend to the authority of the United States. His kitchen cabinet – made up of former government officials with intimate ties to the US (such as Harvard University’s Ricardo Hausmann and Carnegie’s Moisés Naím) – will make it clear that they want to privatise everything and sell out the Venezuelan people in the name of the Venezuelan people.

Step Eleven: Make the Economy Scream. Venezuela has faced harsh US sanctions since 2014, when the US Congress started down this road. The next year, US President Barack Obama declared Venezuela a ‘threat to national security’. The economy started to scream. In recent days, the United States and the United Kingdom brazenly stole billions of dollars of Venezuelan money, placed the shackles of sanctions on its only revenue generating sector (oil) and watched the pain flood through the country. This is what the US did to Iran and this is what they did to Cuba. The UN says that the US sanctions on Cuba have cost the small island $130 billion. Venezuela lost $6 billion for the first year of Trump’s sanctions, since they began in August 2017. More is to be lost as the days unfold. No wonder that the United Nations Special Rapporteur Idriss Jazairy says that ‘sanctions which can lead to starvation and medical shortages are not the answer to the crisis in Venezuela’. He said that sanctions are ‘not a foundation for the peaceful settlement of disputes’. Further, Jazairy said, ‘I am especially concerned to hear reports that these sanctions are aimed at changing the government of Venezuela’. He called for ‘compassion’ for the people of Venezuela.

Step Twelve: Go to War. US National Security Advisor John Bolton held a yellow pad with the words 5,000 troops in Colombia written on it. These are US troops, already deployed in Venezuela’s neighbour. The US Southern Command is ready. They are egging on Colombia and Brazil to do their bit. As the coup climate is created, a nudge will be necessary. They will go to war.

Edson Garcia, Titina Silá (1943-1973).

None of this is inevitable. It was not inevitable to Titina Silá, a commander of the Partido Africano para a Independència da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) who was murdered on 30 January 1973. She fought to free her country. It is not inevitable to the people of Venezuela, who continue to fight to defend their revolution. It is not inevitable to our friends at CodePink: Women for Peace, whose Medea Benjamin walked into a meeting of the Organisation of American States and said – No!

It is time to say No to regime change intervention. There is no middle ground.

The post Twelve Step Method to Conduct Regime Change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

From the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

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In Bol, Chad, the Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed meets Halima Yakoy Adam who survived a Boko Haram suicide bombing mission. Credit: Daniel Dickinson / UN News

By Amina J. Mohammed
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 1 2019 (IPS)

After flying into the city of Bol in the Republic of Chad, over the lush fields and receding lakes, we landed to a rapturous welcome from traditional rulers and local women. Their faces reflected a hope and dignity slipping away under the harsh reality of poverty and insecurity.

The women, smiling at us as we disembarked, showed the same resilience I have seen in women in countless contexts: an ability to survive, even in the face of multiple forms of violence and insecurity at home, in public or from political conflict.

I visited Chad last summer as part of a three-country mission that included South Sudan and Niger, leading a delegation of senior women from the United Nations and the African Union.

In Niger and Chad, we were joined by Margot Wallström, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden, a country that has pioneered the idea of a feminist foreign policy and given prominence to the dynamic between women’s status in society and international peace and security during the country’s two years on the Security Council.

Throughout the mission, I could not shake what we have come to know, that women, and their rights, are the first to suffer in times of crisis. And that this often compounds already high levels of inequality and violence.

I met Halima, a young girl whose life had not been her own. Against her will she was forced to marry. Then her husband, a member of Boko Haram, indoctrinated her with promises of a better afterlife. Halima strapped on a suicide belt, yet never made it to what they were told was a target, as the belts of two other girls went off as they stopped to pray.

Halima lost both her legs. Her future seemed grim, yet she had a measure of hope as she spoke and is working as a paralegal in her community to empower other women.

In Niger, at a centre for fistula survivors, we met girls as young as 12 and 13. Mere children forced into marriage and then raped by their husbands, without any agency or voice over their futures, their bodies, their lives.

Over 75% of girls in Chad and Niger marry before they are 18. They drop out of school and many become pregnant soon after, and because of their young age and complications during pregnancy, these countries have some of the highest maternal mortality rates globally.

Faced with dire poverty and often conflict, families believe they have no choice. They cannot feed their children, but hope maybe a husband can.

As we commemorated 16 days of activism to end violence and harmful practices against women and girls last year, it is important that we acknowledge the multiple forms of violence women and girls face, and the consequences they have for individuals, families, communities, and our shared agendas for development—the 2030 Agenda and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.

From early forced marriage to femicide, from trafficking to sexual harassment, from sexual violence to harmful traditional practices: violence in all its forms is a global impediment to sustainable development, peace and prosperity.

It prevents women from fully engaging in society, scars successive generations, and costs countries millions in health expenses, job days lost, and long-term impacts.

The United Nations, together with partners, national governments and civil society, is leading efforts to end all forms of violence against women and girls by 2030. And we have existing efforts we can build on.

During our trip, we met traditional leaders, in particular men, who are taking actions in their own communities to stop early marriage. We talked to fisherwomen on Lake Chad who have taken over a traditionally male job in order to provide for their families and who are engaged in sustainable resource management, income generation and empowerment.

And across a number of countries in Africa, we are implementing a new effort with the European Union—the Spotlight Initiative to eliminate violence against women and girls. The approximately $300 million investment in Africa will target all forms of gender-based violence, with a particular focus on child marriages, female genital mutilation and the sexual and reproductive health needs of women and girls.

I finished my travels with a great sense of urgency and hope. The visit reinforced my conviction that we need to implement our global agenda on sustainable development—the 2030 Agenda—with urgency, and gender equality is at the very heart of this.

I am inspired and hopeful because of women like Halima, like the survivors of marriages they never chose, like the girls who were forced into sex and pregnancy long before their bodies were ready. They survived. They are telling their story, and they are determined to have a better future, not only for themselves, but also for their sisters.

In the words of the late Kofi Annan, “Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance.”

The link to the original article:
https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/december-2018-march-2019/ending-violence-against-women-and-girls-sahel-crucial-sustainable

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Excerpt:

Amina Mohammed is the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations

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Credit: Hafiz Johari / Shutterstock.com

By Yina Shan, Praem Mehta, Duminda Perera, & Yurissa Varela
HAMILTON, Canada, Feb 1 2019 (IPS)

Cost-effective technologies are available to remove arsenic in groundwater. Why then do tens of millions still fall ill to this chronic problem?

High natural levels of arsenic are characteristic of the groundwater supply in many countries, including Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Mongolia, and the United States.

Some of the contamination is caused by mining, fertilizers and pesticides, waste disposal, and manufacturing, but mostly it is due to arsenic leeching — dissolved from rocks underground by highly acidic water.

At least 140 million people in 50 countries have drinking water containing arsenic at levels above the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline — 10 μg/L (micrograms per litre). In some places, people are using groundwater with arsenic levels 10 times or more the WHO’s recommended limit.

This exposure, through drinking water and crops irrigated with contaminated water, can lead to severe health, social and economic consequences, including arsenicosis (symptomized by muscular weakness, mld psychological effects), skin lesions, and cancers (lung, liver, kidney, bladder, and skin). The social implications of these health impacts include stigmatization, isolation, and social instability.

Arsenic-related health problems lead to significant economic losses due to lost productivity in many places. In Bangladesh, where the groundwater arsenic problem is most acute, the economic burden from lost productivity is expected to reach an estimated US$ 13.8 billion in about 10 years.

There are many technologies today that, broadly speaking, use one of six approaches to remove arsenic, described in an abundance of scientific studies. Between 2014 to 2018 alone, over 17,400 papers were published describing elements of the problem and a myriad of low-cost treatment technologies.

A report, published by the UN University’s Canadian-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health, draws on 31 peer-reviewed, comparable research papers that appeared between 1996 and 2018, each describing new technologies tested in laboratories and / or in field studies. The papers covered:

* 23 lab-tested technologies that used groundwater from nine countries (Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Guatemala, India, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam) and demonstrated arsenic removal efficiencies ranging from 50% to almost 100%, with a majority reaching over 90%. About half achieved the WHO standard of 10 µg/L.

* 14 technologies tested at the household or community level (in Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile, China, India, and Nicaragua) achieved arsenic removal efficiency levels ranging from 60% to about 99%, with 10 removing more than 90%. Only five reached the established WHO standard.

For lab-tested technologies, the cost of treating one cubic meter of water ranged from near-zero to about US$ 93, except for one technology (US$ 299 per m³). For field tested technologies, the cost of treating a cubic meter of water ranged from near-zero to about US$ 70.

No single technology offers a universal solution, but the report helps point to remedies likely to prove most economical and efficient given the many variables present in different locations worldwide.

Key factors influencing removal efficiencies and costs are:

• the arsenic concentration of the influent water,
• pH of the influent water,
• materials used,
• the energy required,
• absorption capacity,
• labour used,
• regeneration period and
• geographical location

The report also notes that a technology can only be considered efficient if it successfully removes arsenic to a level that meets or exceeds the WHO standard of 10 µg/L.

Bangladesh, China and India and some other countries with resource constraints or certain environmental circumstances – such as very high arsenic concentrations in groundwater – set higher, easier-to-reach national arsenic concentration targets.

In Bangladesh, for example, where the nationally-acceptable arsenic limit in water is set to 50 µg/L, it’s estimated that more than 20 million people consume water with arsenic levels even higher than the national standard.

Globally, despite international efforts, millions of people are exposed to arsenic concentrations reaching 100 µg/L or more.

While national limits higher than the WHO standard may help policymakers report better arsenic reduction results, if a country feels that the situation is coming under control it may reduce the sense of urgency in policy circles to eradicate the problem, and the population continues to suffer from ingesting high levels of arsenic.

A limit less stringent than the WHO guideline effectively shifts attention from the problem and impacts and postpones the best health outcome for citizens — and needlessly so, given the technologies available.

The technologies in hand today can significantly reduce the numbers of people affected by this public health problem. Needed is a sustained, concerted effort from policymakers, engineers, healthcare providers, donors, and community leaders to achieve quantifiable and sustainable impacts.

Over the next decade, we need wide-scale implementation of remediation solutions to meet the WHO standard and achieve two key Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 3 (“Good health and wellbeing” and SDG 6 (“Clean water and sanitation”).

We have cost-effective tools to alleviate and ultimately eradicate the problem of arsenic-contaminated water consumption. Let’s use them.

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Excerpt:

Researchers Yina Shan, Praem Mehta, Duminda Perera and Yurissa Varela developed this report at the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, hosted by the Government of Canada and McMaster University

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International Migration Organisation Volunteer Field Officers campaign in public places in Nigeria’s Edo State against irregular migration. Credit: Sam Olukoya/IPS

By Sam Olukoya
BENIN CITY, Nigeria, Feb 1 2019 (IPS)

“Don’t assume if you attempt the journey your fortune will change for the better,” a woman says over the public address system in the crowded Uselu market in Benin City, the capital of Nigeria’s Edo State. “Many embarked on the journey and never made it. Many people are dying in the Sahara Desert.” 

She was speaking of a journey that many here in this West African nation have sought to go on in the hope of making a better life for themselves and their families. But it entails embarking on a route of irregular migration reportedly fraught with danger, trauma and abuse.

But in an ironic twist of fate, many young Nigerians who have attempted the irregular travel to Europe, through the Sahara Desert and across the Mediterranean sea, are back home and campaigning against the practice.

Using experience to teach about the dangers of irregular migration

Known as Volunteer Field Officers, VFOs, a group of 15 returnee migrants are working with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), under its Migrants as Messengers (MaM) Programme in Nigeria.

These VFOs were among the Nigerian migrants the IOM brought home from Libya and other transit countries under the European Union-IOM Joint Initiative For Migrant Protection and Reintegration. Since the beginning of the project in April 2017 more than 11,500 migrants have been returned home after their failed attempt to reach Europe.

Marshall Patsanza of the IOM  described it as a peer to peer advocacy programme under which “migrants who embarked on the journey to Europe through Libya are sharing their experiences, thus informing others of the dangers of the journey.”

It includes a series of messages and videos posted on social media, interviews on community radio stations, and community screenings of a movie on irregular migration.

The campaign has also taken place in the media, at schools and in public places like on busy highways and markets.

A dangerous journey and a sensitive subject

The Uselu campaign starts with the female VFO addressing traders and customers in the market over a public address system.

She tells her audience that irregular migration through the desert to Libya and then over the Mediterranean sea to Europe is highly dangerous and no one should undertake it, irrespective of the hardships they face at home.

But the market turns rowdy when she criticises the widespread practice in Edo State where poor mothers encourage their children to embark on the dangerous journey, hoping that they will earn a lot of money abroad to lift their families out of poverty.

Edo is the Nigerian state with the highest incidence of irregular migration.
Data gathered from the IOM under the EU-IOM Joint Initiative, shows that about 50 percent of migrants returned from Libya under the initiative since April 2017 are from Edo State.

It is here that the VFOs are most active, many times going the extra mile to ensure a successful campaign. And it is what they do now in Uselu market.

“Many of our mothers here, some of them have sent their children to the Libyan route, it is bad, you should advise yourselves because there is nothing in the Libya route,” the female returnee migrant says.

Economic recession leads to support for irregular migration

But angry women shout her down and engage the VFO team in a war of words. They insist that irregular migration has become inevitable in the face of the economic situation in the country, which has left many families extremely poor. In 2017 the country began recovering from the worst economic recession in a quarter of a century. But rising inflation, and a slowdown in the oil sector are among the contributors to a sluggish growth.

“Many of the good houses in Benin [City] were built with money sent home by those who went abroad through Libya,” one woman says. Another argues that it is unfair to ask people not to travel to Europe through the desert and the sea when they are not allowed to travel by air.

Such deep support for irregular migration from parents account for the widespread practice of it in Edo State.

This and the long history of irregular migration in the state, which started in the 1980s following a downturn in Nigeria’s economy, makes the work of the VFOs challenging at times.

Personal, traumatic stories and photographic evidence change minds

But the personal stories of the VFOs remain an effective tool in their campaigns. They are also armed with posters and handbills that illustrate their near-death experiences when they attempted the journey to Europe.

VFO Jude Ikuenobe says when confronted with a situation similar to the one faced at Uselu Market he always tells people about his imprisonment in Libya. He supports this by showing people photos, taken shortly after his return from Libya, of how emaciated he was due to his imprisonment.

He also tells people how his friends died while crossing the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean sea.

Because traditionally people from Edo State are buried near their loved ones, Ikuenobe often tells people how sad it is to die in a place like Libya or how tragic it is to have their bodies thrown away in the desert, rather than being buried by their loved ones at home. He says when people hear his first-hand experience and see his photographs they often become discouraged to attempt irregular migration.

The VFOs use their new communications skills with good result at the Uselu market. A tensions soon calm down after people see the photographs, posters and handbills.

A safe space to share own stories of tragedy

Some people in the market even feel safe enough to share their own stories. One lady admits her young, beautiful friend drowned at sea as she attempted to cross from Libya to Europe.

One man, Chinedu Adimon, says two of his friends also drowned making the same crossing. “One of them had two young daughters,” he recalls.

Many in the market whose relatives have embarked on irregular migration, and whom they have not heard from since, are sobered by the reality of the dangers. They wonder what could have happened to their loved ones.

Pius Igede bursts into tears.

He says his daughter recently made the irregular journey to Europe and he does not know her whereabouts.

“She only made a phone call that she is out of the country. I don’t even know where she is now, whether it is Libya or any other place I don’t know,” he explains.

He adds that he suspects some of his other children are planning to travel to Europe as well.
And for him, the VFO’s posters and handbills may be the saving grace to convince them to remain at home.

“I want to collect the posters to show my children to discourage them from going to Libya,” he says. “I got scared when I saw the posters. I am frightened [that] my children will secretly travel without my knowledge.”

Closing a vital information gap

Osita Osemene of the Patriotic Citizen Initiatives, a non governmental organisation campaigning against irregular migration, says the VFOs were able to convince people in the market about the dangers of irregular migration because they have first-hand experience.

“It would have been very difficult to convince anyone in the market if the VFOs were just ordinary people who had no experience of irregular travels,” says Osemene, who is himself a returnee migrant.

He explains that lack of information about the true impact of irregular migration is a serious problem as many people assume those who attempt the dangerous journey to Europe actually arrive there and attain success.

“They were surprised when we showed them some of the things people go through, how people cross the sea in boats that can easily sink,” he says.

Ikuenobe says as VFOs they are working to close a vital information gap.

“So many mothers are not educated, so many mothers are desperate to see their children succeed, but we have to make them understand that irregular migration would not bring success,” Ikuenobe says.

For Patsanza the performance of the VFOs at Uselu Market shows how effective they can be in the fight against irregular migration.

Ikuenobe says the campaign is being conducted continuously in order to educate as many people as possible.

“The  message is that even if things are bad at home, that is no justification for people to go and commit suicide. It is like going to kill yourself when you attempt to travel to Europe through the desert and sea.”

 

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• For Love of the Game: Using Football to Educate Nigerians About the Dangers of Irregular Migration

The post Nigerians Hear How Migrating Irregularly “Is Like Killing Yourself” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD’s) is focusing more on a drought preparedness approach which looks at how to prepare policymakers, governments, local governments and communities to become more drought resilient. Credit: Campbell Easton/IPS

By Desmond Brown
GEORGETOWN, Feb 1 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD’s) Drought Initiative is in full swing with dozens of countries signing up to plan their drought programme.

The Drought Initiative involves taking action on national drought preparedness plans, regional efforts to reduce drought vulnerability and risk, and a toolbox to boost the resilience of people and ecosystems to drought.

“As of right now we have 45 countries who have signed on to our drought programme,” UNCCD Deputy Executive Secretary Dr. Pradeep Monga told IPS.

He said UNCCD is focusing more on a drought preparedness approach which looks at how to prepare policymakers, governments, local governments and communities to become more drought resilient.

UNCCD says that by being prepared and acting early, people and communities can develop resilience against drought and minimise its risks. UNCCD experts can help country Parties review or validate existing drought measures and prepare a national drought plan to put all the pieces together, identify gaps and ensure that necessary steps are taken as soon as the possibility of drought is signalled by meteorological services. It is envisaged that such a plan would be endorsed and eventual action triggered at the highest political level.

UNCCD Deputy Executive Secretary Dr. Pradeep Monga said UNCCD is focusing more on a drought preparedness approach which looks at how to prepare policymakers, governments, local governments and communities to become more drought resilient. Courtesy: Desmond Brown

“Drought is a natural phenomenon. It’s very difficult sometimes to predict or understand when it happens or how it happens. Yes, prediction has become better with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) so we know in advance that this year there can be more drought than last year so we can prepare communities better,” Monga said.

He said the more resilient communities are, the better they can face the vagaries of climate change.

“They can also preserve their traditional practices or biodiversity, and most importantly, they can help in keeping the land productive,” Monga said.

“This is also important to migration – whether it’s migration of people from urban areas to borders and then to other countries and regions. We believe that addressing drought, preparing communities, governments, policymaker and experts better in drought becomes very relevant for addressing those issues which otherwise will have cascading effects.”

He spoke to IPS at the 17th Session of the Committee for the Review of Implementation of the UNCCD (CRIC 17), which wrapped up in Georgetown, Guyana on Jan. 30.

Minister of State in the Ministry of the Presidency Joseph Harmon says Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean are faced with their own problems with drought.

He said that Guyana is looking at the utilisation of wells in the communities which have been hit the hardest.

Harmon said Guyana and the Federative Republic of Brazil have signed an agreement where the Brazilian army, working together with Guyana Water Incorporated, Civil Defence Commission and the Guyana Defence Force are drilling wells in at least eight major indigenous communities in the southern part of the Rupununi.

“That will now allow for them to have potable water all year round and that’s a major development for those communities,” Harmon told IPS.

“Here in Guyana we speak about the Green State Development Strategy and part of our promotion is that we speak about the good life for all Guyanese. So, when we are able to provide potable water to a community that never had it before, then to them, the good life is on its way to them.

“This is what we want to replicate in every part of this country where people can be assured that drought will never be a factor which they have to consider in planning their lives, in planting their crops, in managing the land which they have again,” Harmon added.

UNCCD Executive Secretary Monique Barbut said droughts are becoming more and more prevalent. For this reason, she said it is even more crucial for countries to prepare.

“We see them more and more, and if you look at all the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] IPCC reports, we know that they are going to become even more severe and more frequent. This is the reality we are faced with, whatever increase of temperature we get,” Barbut told IPS.

“We have been looking in NCCD at what we do on drought. Last year, I did propose a new initiative to the Parties because we noticed that only three countries in the world had a drought preparedness plan. Those three countries are the United States, Australia and Israel.”

Barbut said while preparedness planning will not stop drought, it will mitigate its effects if it is well planned.

“We launched an initiative last year and we’ve got the resources to help 70 countries with their planning. They are now in the process of doing that exercise and we hope that at the next Conference of the Parties in October, we will be able to report on those 70 countries and extend it to the rest of the world.”

According to the latest report from the IPCC, without a radical transformation of energy, transportation and agriculture systems, the world will hurtle past the 1.5 ° Celsius target of the Paris Climate Agreement by the middle of the century.

Failing to cap global warming near that threshold dramatically increases risks to human civilisation and the ecosystems that sustain life on Earth, according to the report.

To keep warming under 1.5 °C, countries will have to cut global CO2 emissions 45 percent below 2010 levels by 2030 and reach net zero by around 2050, the report found, re-affirming previous conclusions about the need to end fossil fuel burning. Short-lived climate pollutants, such as methane, will have to be significantly reduced as well.

More than 1.5 °C warming means nearly all of the planet’s coral reefs will die, droughts and heat waves will continue to intensify, and an additional 10 million people will face greater risks from rising sea level, including deadly storm surges and flooded coastal zones. Most at risk are millions of people in less developed parts of the world, the panel warned.

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The post Making Communities Drought Resilient appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Central Combined Cycle Plant, located in the Nahua indigenous farming community of Huexca, in central Mexico, is practically ready to operate, but local inhabitants managed to block its completion because of the pollution it could cause, and they want to use the facility to open a solar panel factory. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
YECAPIXTLA, Mexico, Feb 1 2019 (IPS)

Social organisations in the central Mexican municipality of Yecapixtla managed to halt the construction of a large thermoelectric plant in the town and are now designing a project to convert the installation into a solar panel factory, which would bring the area socioeconomic and environmental dividends.

Antonio Sarmiento, from the Institute of Mathematics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, outlined the idea when the state-run Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) launched the construction of the Morelos Integral Project (PIM), which consists of a gas and steam generating plant, a gas pipeline that crosses the states of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala, and an aqueduct.

“The plant can be reconverted. There are alternative uses. It can generate significant economic development in the region and make energy change possible,” the expert told IPS, estimating that an investment of some 260 million dollars would be needed."We don't want the thermoelectric plant to operate, because it's going to cause irreparable damage. If the solar plant is viable, go ahead. Or they could turn it into a university, so our children don't have to travel long distances to study and be exposed to violent crime. Something worthwhile should be installed.” -- Teresa Castellanos

Sarmiento calculates that the use of half of the area of the Central Combined Cycle Power Plant, which covers 49 hectares in the community of Huexca and has a capacity of 620 megawatts (MW), would permit the installation of solar panels, the planting of crops under the panels, and a factory to produce them.

“Agrophotovoltaic technology” takes advantage of the water that condenses on the panels, which drips onto the crops below, before it can evaporate – technology that is already used in Germany and other nations. In addition, farmers can use solar-powered irrigation pumps to access water from wells.

For this area of solar cells, with a useful life of 25 years, the generation would total 359 MW-hour per day, which would meet the consumption needs of 34,278 households. The electricity generated would supply the municipality and replace energy from fossil fuel-powered plants, the academic explained.

Huexca, home to the thermoelectric plant that is no longer being built, about 100 kilometers south of Mexico City, has some 1,000 inhabitants, mostly Nahua Indians, part of the total 52,000 people living in Yecapixtla.

The transformation would reduce gas consumption, methane leakage, massive use of water, the generation of liquid waste and the release into the atmosphere of nitrous oxide, which causes acid rain that contaminates the soil and destroys crops.

The local struggle

By means of several judicial injunctions, the People’s Front in Defence of Land and Water in Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala and its ally, the Permanent Assembly of the Peoples of Morelos (APPM), have blocked the completion of the power plant and 12-kilometer aqueduct, as well as the start of operations of the 171-kilometer gas pipeline.

Huexca and other Nahua peasant communities, through legal action brought at the start of the construction of the power plant in 2012, managed to stop construction of the pipeline in 2017 for violating indigenous rights.

In addition, groups of “ejidatarios” – people who live on “ejidos” or rural property held communally under a system of land tenure that combines communal ownership with individual use – blocked the extraction of water from the nearby Cuautla River to cool the turbines of the plant in 2015, and the People’s Front secured, early this year, the suspension of the discharge of treated water into the river.

On Jan. 28, a group of demonstrators blocked the entrance to the Central Combined Cycle Power Plant in Huexca, a village in the municipality of Yecapixtla, Morelos state in central Mexico. Their signs call for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador not to betray his people, and to keep the plant from opening. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Opponents of the power plant also resorted to protests and roadblocks to bring to a halt a project that affects more than 900,000 people, including 50,000 indigenous people from 37 indigenous tribes, according to a 2018 estimate by the autonomous governmental National Human Rights Commission.

Now, they want leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who took office on Dec. 1, to cancel the Morelos Integral Project and reach an agreement with the local population on the fate of the plant.

“We don’t want the thermoelectric plant to operate, because it’s going to cause irreparable damage. If the solar plant is viable, go ahead. Or they could turn it into a university, so our children don’t have to travel long distances to study and expose themselves to violent crime. Something worthwhile should be installed,” activist Teresa Castellanos told IPS.

Castellanos, a member of the APPM, has been involved in the battle against the plant from the beginning, which has earned her persecution and threats. For her activism, she won the Prize for Women’s Creativity in Rural Life 2018, awarded by the Geneva-based non-governmental Women’s World Summit Foundation.

The opposition to the plant by the affected communities, who make a living growing corn, beans, squash and tomatoes and raising cattle and pigs, focuses on the lack of consultation, the threat to their crops due to the extraction of water from the rivers, and the dumping of liquid waste.

Mexico’s energy outlook

In the first half of 2018, Mexico had a total installed capacity of 75,918 MW, of which 23,874 MW come from clean technologies. The capacity of clean sources grew almost 12 percent with respect to the first half of the previous year.

Mexico assumed a clean electricity generation goal of 25 percent by 2018, including gas flaring and large hydroelectric dams; 30 percent by 2021; and 35 percent by 2024.

But the reality is that the renewable matrix is only around seven percent, although it could reach 21 percent by 2030 with policies aimed at fomenting it, according to data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena).

By 2021, more than 200 clean energy generators are to come into operation, generating 19,500 MW. Of these 200, 136 are solar and 44 depend on wind power, according to the Energy Regulatory Commission.

As López Obrador reiterated during the election campaign, his energy plan consists of the construction of a refinery in the southeastern state of Tabasco, the upgrading of the National Refinery System’s six processing plants and of 60 hydroelectric plants, as well as investment in solar energy.

The president continues to refuse to close plants of the state generator CFE, due to the need to meet the growing energy demand of this Latin American nation of 129 million people, the second largest economy in Latin America.

According to government investment projects for 2019, state-owned oil giant Pemex would have at its disposal about 24 billion dollars for oil exploration and extraction, the overhaul of six refineries and the start of construction of another.

For its part, the CFE will be able to spend some 23 billion dollars on projects such as the renovation of 60 hydroelectric plants and the development of solar energy.

The solar panel factory that is proposed as an alternative for Huexca, could, in fact, cover a significant deficit in technology and inputs in the solar energy sector in Mexico, say experts.

Hopes for change

López Obrador plans to visit the area on Feb. 11 and has requested that a file be put together on the generator in order to decide the future of a construction project which so far has cost around one billion dollars.

The local population does not want to see seven years of struggle against the plant go to waste. “We need alternatives. We voted for López Obrador, he can’t let us down. We are only demanding respect for our right to life,” said Castellanos, the activist.

For Sarmiento, the academic, the environmental and health damages would be greater if the plant goes into operation. “The maintenance of the plant will be more expensive than solar generation. And what will happen when it reaches the end of its useful life? It will be useless,” he said.

Meanwhile, the inactive smokestacks of the unfinished plant are waiting for a signal to belch out smoke and the electric pylons are rusting with no power to transport. Perhaps they never will, if the local residents have their say.

Related Articles

• Indigenous Peoples Link Their Development to Clean Energies
• Use of Water for Electricity Generation Triggers Outcry in Mexico
• Expansion of Renewable Energies in Mexico Has Victims, Too

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Photo: REUTERS

By Amitava Kar
Jan 31 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(The Daily Star, Bangladesh) – The book “Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism” (2018)—as provocative as it sounds— has nothing to do with women’s carnal pleasures. In it, Professor Kristen Ghodsee of the University of Pennsylvania argues that implementing socialist concepts would make women’s lives more independent and fulfilling. That such an idea is put forth by an Ivy League academic from the United States of America, and not by a bleeding-heart leftist from Cuba, is striking. But not surprising.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the word “socialism” may have landed in the wastebasket of history but is still available for recycling. Socialism is becoming increasingly appealing to young people around the world who value universal health care, strong unions, affordable college, banking regulation and living wages. Some make the case that it would benefit women especially.

Professor Ghodsee insists that the free market is failing most women in many ways. Women are paid less. They are financially dependent on better compensated men. They are seen as less valuable or less productive employees because they are consistently having to take time off in order to work around the house. Most of the housework including child care and elder care and care for the infirm generally falls on the shoulders of women, a job that does not pay.

On the other hand, states that notoriously coerced political conformity and a planned economy also enforced policies to emancipate women. Socialist regimes that we usually vilify, like the former East Germany, supported gender equality in all aspects of life. In the socialist countries of the twentieth-century Eastern Europe, they were fully integrating women into the workforce, which allowed them to achieve economic freedom. Government-funded kindergartens and paid maternity leave were introduced to reduce the economic burden on women.

Life behind the Iron Curtain was not without problems. Many people died under planned economies that led to famines, purges and labour camps. But Professor Ghodsee asks, why not learn from the mistakes and try socialist policies that actually work, like empowering women, a la Scandinavia? Why not try to build a society where profits would be invested back into social services, and human relationships would be ultimately more genuine and satisfying, because people will not look at each other in a transactional way?

Ghodsee opines that the problem with capitalism is that it commodifies everything, including romance. She cites the example of seeking.com, a website that matches young women with wealthy older men, the so-called sugar daddies. The site boasts more than 10 million active users in more than 139 countries. One of the pages on this site suggests being somebody’s sugar baby can reduce your debt, send you to shopping sprees, expensive dinners and exotic vacations. You can get paid for your “time.”

And the free market has not lifted everyone, as promised. We see wage stagnation; we see growing inequality. The contemporary market that we are in has created a lot of risks for young people. Social safety nets have all but disappeared. The top 1 percent now own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. Which may help explain why about 51 percent Americans between 18 and 29 hold a positive view of socialism.

People are showing interest in an alternative political system that would lead to a more egalitarian and sustainable future. The imbalances of the existing order have fuelled the rise of leftist politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the US, Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, Jean-Luc Melenchon in France, Yanis Varoufakis in Greece and Sahra Wagenknecht in Germany. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the New York Congresswoman who ran on an ultra-progressive platform which includes Medicare for all, guaranteed family leave, abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, free public college and a 70 percent marginal tax rate for incomes higher than USD 10 million.

In sum, Professor Ghodsee is saying that we can learn from the experiences of Eastern Europe and that we can actually see them functioning in countries like Denmark and Sweden. And so, why not have a conversation about how socialist policies not only impact our economies but also our personal lives? It may come as a surprise to the younger reader that one of the founding principles of Bangladesh was socialism meaning economic and social justice.

Amitava Kar is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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Stephanie Sugars is North America Research Assistant at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

By Stephanie Sugars
NEW YORK, Jan 31 2019 (IPS)

Since announcing his candidacy in the 2016 presidential elections to the end of his second year in office, U.S. President Donald Trump has sent 1,339 tweets about the media that were critical, insinuating, condemning, or threatening.

In lieu of formal appearances as president, Trump has tweeted over 5,400 times to his more than 55.8 million followers; over 11 percent of these insulted or criticized journalists and outlets, or condemned and denigrated the news media as a whole.

To better monitor this negative rhetoric, CPJ’s North America program created a database to track tweets in which Trump mentioned the media, individual journalists, news outlets, or journalistic sources in a negative tone.

The president’s tweets can have an impact and consequences for the press both at home and abroad. His rhetoric has given cover to autocratic regimes: world leaders from Cambodia to the Philippines have echoed terms like “fake news” in the midst of crackdowns on press freedom.

And the rhetoric has sometimes resulted in harassment of individual journalists in the U.S., where CPJ is aware of several journalists who say they were harassed or threatened online after being singled out on Twitter by Trump.

CPJ’s database of tweets can be viewed here and our methodology can be found here.

CPJ found that the focus of the tweets has shifted dramatically. During the campaign, Trump frequently called out specific journalists by name or Twitter handle, accounting for over a third of his negative tweets about the press during that period.

This trend declined in the months leading up to the election and, since taking office, his focus shifted instead to the media as a whole, accounting for 63 percent of his tweets about the press in the first two years of his presidency, compared with 23 percent as a candidate.

The overall number and rate of Trump’s tweeting has also decreased since he took office. However, those targeted at the press constitute a larger percentage of his total tweets during his presidency.

Nine percent of all original tweets during his candidacy contained negative rhetoric about the press, compared with 11 percent in his first two years in office.

His rhetoric–increasingly targeting swaths of the press–appears to be escalating, first from the introduction of “fake news” to “opposition party” and his use of “enemy of the people.”

The term “fake news” did not appear in Trump’s tweets until after he was elected. It was used for the first time in December 2016. It came into more frequent use in January 2017, in reference first to leaked reports on Russian hacking and then to reports on his inauguration and approval ratings.

Overall, in each of the first two years in office the term was used in over half his negative tweets about the press. Trump’s use of the term “enemy of the people” was first used on February 17, 2017, one day after the Trump campaign team distributed a survey urging supporters to “do your part to fight back against the media’s attacks and deceptions.”

Trump uses his tweets to respond and react to critical coverage or investigative reporting. The months where tweets critical of the press accounted for the highest percentage of all original tweets posted were:

• January 2017 (15 percent): In response to reports on the Intelligence Community Assessment’s confirmation of Russian hacking.
• February 2017 (19 percent): In response to reports about his election win, emerging news about Russian hacking, and leakers.
• March 2017 (17 percent): In response to reports about infighting within the Trump administration, the leak of part of his tax returns, and Russian hacking.
• October 2017 (15 percent): In response to reports on hurricane relief in Puerto Rico, Rex Tillerson allegedly threatening to resign, and a perceived lack of positive economic coverage.
• December 2017 (16 percent): In response to focusing on reporting on collusion with Russia, the Republican tax reform, and reviews of Trump’s first year in office).

Trump insulted individual journalists via Twitter 280 times as a candidate. CPJ has documented cases of several journalists who said after being targeted by him on Twitter they were harassed or doxxed.

During the first two years of his presidency, Trump has cited specific journalists 48 times. Notable exceptions to this sharp decline took place in January and September 2018, when Trump tweeted about Michael Wolff and Bob Woodward when their books on the president and his administration were released.

The database showed that the outlets targeted the most–either directly or through tweets about their journalists–were the New York Times and CNN, with Fox News coming in third. During the Republican primaries, Fox was a frequent target, cited in 148 tweets.

Of these, Fox broadcaster Megyn Kelly was the primary target in nearly half, cited in 64 tweets, after the first Republican presidential debate in 2016, where she questioned Trump about the derogatory language he uses against women.

In the weeks following the debate, Trump tweeted negative comments about Kelly, including insulting her both personally and professionally. Trump also targeted other conservative-leaning outlets during this period, including The Blaze, The Weekly Standard, RedState, and the National Review.

Trump has also used Twitter to accuse the press of falsifying anonymous sources. Trump tweeted about “phony,” “nonexistent,” or “made up” sources on five occasions during his candidacy, all of which were posted in the three months between winning the Republican primary and the election.

This number doubled to 11 instances in his first year in office and then again to 27 in his second year as his administration was plagued with leaks and the investigation being led by Robert Mueller.

In the wake of the Annapolis shooting in June, CPJ, press freedom advocates, and media outlets called on Trump to moderate his rhetoric. However, five days after the shooting Trump called the “Fake News” the “Opposition party,” and 17 days after, he tweeted that “much of our news media is indeed the enemy of the people.”

The moniker “enemy of the people” appeared in only four tweets during his first year in office. In his second year, the number was 21, nearly all after Annapolis.

The post From Fake News to Enemy of the People: An Anatomy of Trump’s Tweets appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Stephanie Sugars is North America Research Assistant at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

The post From Fake News to Enemy of the People: An Anatomy of Trump’s Tweets appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Hazel Halley-Burnett, head of Women Across Differences in Guyana (left); and Ruth Spencer, GEF Focal Point for Antigua and Barbuda, attended the 17th Session of the Committee for the Review of Implementation (CRIC 17) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in the Guyana capital Georgetown. Hazel-Burnett and Spencer are two Caribbean champions for gender equality issues. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
GEORGETOWN, Jan 31 2019 (IPS)

In parts of the world where the gender gap is already wide, land degradation places women and girls at even greater risk.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) framework for Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN), highlights that land degradation in developing countries impacts men and women differently, mainly due to unequal access to land, water, credit, extension services and technology.

It further asserts that gender inequality plays a significant role in land-degradation-related poverty hence the need to address persistent gender inequalities that fuel women’s poverty in LDN interventions.

Against this background, Dr. Douglas Slater, Assistant Secretary General Human and Social Development at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, said gender mainstreaming is very important in all aspects of sustainable development for the Caribbean.

“We know in agriculture, that on several occasions our women are very much involved in some of the work and we have to ensure that they continue to be so, but that the resources are placed at their disposal to get them to really be fully engaged,” Slater told IPS.

“I think that at the same time, because we are small countries, technology that is utilised in agriculture has to be looked at for us to be most efficient and we need to see how all genders can get involved.”

He noted that particularly with regards to the training of agricultural workers and the use of agricultural equipment, there was too much bias towards the male gender.

He added that more needs to be done to convince young people that agriculture can provide a good livelihood and women are capable and should be involved too.  Slater spoke to IPS at the 17th Session of the Committee for the Review of Implementation (CRIC17) of the UNCCD in Georgetown, Guyana.

“When conducting training at our agricultural institutions, we should expect our women to be operating tractors, be managers of greenhouses. They have demonstrated they can do it, we have to encourage them to do more of it,” Slater said.

Globally, women comprise 43 percent of the agricultural labour force, rising to 70 percent in some countries, and UNCCD has cited the importance of taking gender roles into account when making policies and laws to promote land degradation neutrality.

In Africa, for instance, 80 percent of agricultural production comes from smallholder farmers, who are mostly rural women.

Despite their majority in the smallholder agricultural sector, women typically don’t have secure control over their farmland or over its productive resources, especially commercially marketable produce.

This lack of control is linked to land ownership rights in rural areas, which habitually favour men. Women’s access to the land, meanwhile, is mediated by their relationship to the male owner.

Climate change is a compounding factor in land degradation that increases uncertainty with regard to women’s production, accessibility and utilisation of food, as well as in relation to food systems stability.

Late last year, UNCCD organised a technical workshop on the Caribbean sub-regional LDN transformative project – Implementing Gender-Responsive and Climate Smart Land Management in the Caribbean.

The workshop, which was held in St. Lucia, sought to build and strengthen capacity on gender mainstreaming. It also addressed how to refine and finalise a project concept note with the involvement of all key stakeholders prior to seeking financial support from the Green Climate Fund.

A key focus of the project is to build synergies between the on-going activities to the LND initiative, and the workshop was designed to embed gender perspectives in the synergistic implementation of activities in the Caribbean.

UNCCD Executive Secretary Monique Barbut says women are the first to be affected by the main indirect causes of land degradation – population pressure, land tenure, poverty and lack of education

“If you look at all those, generally it’s the women who are the first target of all those things. It is absolutely abnormal. In many countries, women do not have any property rights,” Barbut told IPS.

“So how can you ask a woman who is managing land to manage it well, to think of the future when the land will never be hers? That’s a real question.”

As it relates to education, Barbut said women are usually less educated than men, adding that that is something that also has to be looked at.

She said UNCCD is highlighting all of these issues in its gender plan, while stressing the “for very positive action towards them.”

The UNCCD Executive Secretary also pointed to how LDN interventions can bring positive change to the lives and women and girls.

She cited a planned project in Burkina Faso to transform 3,000 of the country’s 5,000 villages into eco-villages, noting that this will provide solar ovens and also potable water.

“Just by doing that we are taking out six hours of work of women because it takes them about three hours per day to go get food to cook and three hours per day to go get water,” Barbut told IPS.

“We want to have those women get out of that so that they can go to agroforestry programmes which will on top of everything give them revenue. We will make sure that the revenue that they get will go mainly into education of the children and into health facilities for both children and women in particular.”

“So clearly, there is a direct link between the consequences of land degradation and the wellbeing of women in most countries. It’s not as severe in some countries but in every single country we see how things change when we empower women on the land management,” Barbut added.

The UNCCD says gender equality for rural women should include equal ownership rights to family land since security of tenure could be a catalyst for grassroots land management prioritising land degradation neutrality.

It adds that ensuring equality is also about decreasing the burdens of rural women and enabling them to access vital services and goods.

Land degradation and drought affect more than 169 countries today, with the severest impacts being felt in the poorest rural communities.

Previous estimates projected that by 2025, approximately 1.8 billion people – more than half of them women and children – would be adversely affected by land degradation and desertification. These estimates have already been significantly surpassed, with 2.6 billion affected today.

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• Poverty-Stricken Communities in Ghana are Restoring Once-Barren Land

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Activists and communities gathered in Manila, Philippines to build people's power in the fight against inequality. Credit: Jilson Tiu / Greenpeace

By Jenny Ricks
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Jan 31 2019 (IPS)

They said they cared about climate change but they flew in on private jets in record numbers. They said they cared about inequality but laughed off the idea of higher taxes for the rich. They spoke about democracy and human rights but they dined with a far-right populist. If there was ever any doubt about Davos representing the epitome of duplicity, then 2019 has firmly laid that to rest.

The billionaires and politicians that clinked champagne glasses at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) charade in Davos tried, as usual, to project concern about the world and those outside of their bubble.

The WEF public relations machinery ensured that the event was slick and that there were panels on climate change and inequality. But the hypocrisy of elites was clear for all to see.

Not only that, this year even some of their usual supporters in the mainstream media said that the global elite is currently out of enthusiasm and ideas.

Opening the conference, David Attenborough urged world leaders to take serious action on climate change, but the attendees broke the record for the number of private jet flights that ferried them in to the luxurious Swiss ski resort.

This, despite WEF’s own report on global risks for 2019 showing that environmental threats are seen as the biggest danger to the world. The disconnect is quite staggering, and further proof that Davos generates nothing more than empty rhetoric and bloated media coverage.

Another disconnect moment, now rightly gaining infamy on social media, saw our Fight Inequality ally Winnie Byanyima of Oxfam, alongside historian Rutger Bregman, tell some badly needed home truths to billionaires – that they need to be taxed more, and about the reality of work without dignity that so many people endure around the world. A reality check that Davos Man was unwilling and unable to face up to.

Whilst Davos played itself out for another year, the leadership required to face up to multiple, urgent challenges that we desperately have to address was coming from elsewhere, including from a sixteen-year-old climate activist.

Greta Thunberg provided a direct challenge to the elites at Davos that put profit before people and planet: “Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular, have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money. I think many of you here today belong to that group of people.”

Thunberg is part of a growing global movement of students demanding urgent change from their governments. Their protests are exciting and vital.

In India, residents of Delhi put forward their demands to end inequality. Credit: Oxfam India

In the face of urgent social problems not being addressed, other grassroots movements too have emerged during the last few years. From students demanding ‘fees must fall‘ in South Africa, to the global me too movement demanding an end to sexual assault and violence against women.

These are examples and reminders of an important historical lesson: that all social progress, from the fight against apartheid to securing women’s right to vote, came about by the power of the people challenging the people in power.

And so it is with inequality, ironically also identified by the Davos elite for several years as one of the greatest risks facing the world, and a subject that remains on the WEF agenda. Unsurprisingly, nothing has been done about it by Davos. The policy prescriptions and solutions are thoroughly researched and well-known but rejected by the plutocrats and politicians in order to maintain the status quo and the economic system that benefits them.

As leading inequality economist Branko Milanovic says about the elites: “Not surprisingly, nothing has been done since the Global Financial Crisis to address inequality. Rather, the opposite has happened.”

Of course, the idea of elites ‘solving’ inequality is absurd – given that the problem is of their making and its perpetuation in their interests. The statistics on inequality bear testament to this.

Wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated – last year 26 people owned the same wealth as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity.

Currently the wealth of the world’s 2208 dollar billionaires is now five times the GDP of the whole of Africa. In the UK, the average FTSE 100 CEO takes home 133 times the salary of the average worker.

We are dealing with a worldwide inequality crisis that is reaching new extremes and undermining global efforts to end poverty and marginalisation, advance women’s rights, defend the environment, protect human rights and democracy, prevent conflict, and promote fair and dignified employment.

Even Davos Man knows this. But what the elites at Davos again made clear, through their rhetoric and inaction, is that only a grassroots movement will fix this.

A growing global movement called the Fight Inequality Alliance – comprised of trade unions, social movements and leading international and national non-profit organisations – is busy organising while those at Davos eat canapés and mouth platitudes.

While the 1% gathered in the Swiss Alps, activists and campaigners held a week of action calling on governments to curb the murky influence of the super-rich who they blame for the Age of Greed, where billionaires are buying not just yachts but laws.

Community groups’ ideas, which elites don’t mention, include minimum living wages, an end to corporate tax breaks, higher taxes on wealth, capital and profits of the richest companies and individuals to enable quality public services for all, and a limit to how many times more a boss can earn than a worker.

From Nairobi to Manila to Guadalajara, to Delhi to London and many countries beyond, tens of thousands gathered in slums and towns across the world in contrast to the opulence of Davos, putting forward their solutions to inequality and celebrating their resilience through music, theatre and cultural expression.

Ultimately, the solutions to inequality will come from those who are at the frontlines of it, not the 1% that caused it and continues to benefit from it. And as anger about shocking levels of inequality continues to grow, so will the movement to fight inequality.

Deflated by its own duplicity and by the movements mobilising people power outside of it, Davos is a gathering in search of a purpose. The real power for the radical and systemic change we need is with ordinary people coming together and organising to demand it. It’s what has worked in the past and it’s the only thing that will work now.

Follow the alliance on Twitter at https://twitter.com/FightInequalit1

The post People Power Will Bring Change — Not Davos appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Jenny Ricks is the global convenor at Fight Inequality Alliance.

The post People Power Will Bring Change — Not Davos appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 30 2019 (IPS)

The steady decline in multilateralism—accompanied by a rise in unilateralism– is beginning to threaten democratic norms, including press freedom, global governance, civic participation and human rights across Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East.

The threats – directly or indirectly – are being sourced to the outbreak of right-wing nationalism in the United States, reflected in the jingoistic political rhetoric coming out of several countries, including Brazil, the Philippines, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Turkey, Myanmar and Egypt.

Speaking to reporters last month, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that multilateralism is under attack from many different directions precisely “when we need it most.”

“In different areas and for different reasons, the trust of people in their political establishments, the trust of states among each other, the trust of many people in international organizations has been eroded and … multilateralism has been in the fire,” he complained.

Lysa John – Credit: CIVICUS

So, how will civil society survive against these heavy political odds during 2019?

Lysa John, the new Secretary-General of the Johannesburg-based CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations (CSOs) advocating citizen action worldwide, told IPS: “Sadly in this current political climate, governments are undermining decades of work by citizens and leaders across the world to build an effective framework for global cooperation’.

She specifically cited the withdrawal of the United States from the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement and the UN Human Rights Council as “a stark reminder that we are living in a world where governments are operating in a state of active denial”

Across the world, there is a sense of outrage as leaders – including of major democracies such as Brazil and India – are seen championing the interests of the elite while suppressing citizen and community movements that are working to ensure civic participation and governance accountability, said John, who has worked on issues of governance accountability and social justice since 1998.

She most recently worked with Save the Children International as their global Campaigns and Advocacy Strategy Director, and previously served as Head of Outreach for the UN High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Agenda.

Asked how CSOs will cope with this growing new trend against multilateralism, she said that in a globalised world,” the solutions to the new and complex challenges we face – such as conflict, climate change and inequality – are heavily inter-dependent”.

“We need governments to adopt a ‘one-world’ approach that allows them to actively combine resources, share lessons and scale up innovations to cope with the social, environmental and economic changes that are unfolding at a rapid rate”.

In this context, she pointed out, multilateralism isn’t just a “nice-to-have option”, but an urgent necessity which will determine the survival and well-being of future generations.

Excerpts from the interview:

IPS: What are some of the key political and socio-economic issues that will be on the CIVICUS agenda this year?

John: 2019 has kicked off with some alarming signals for the global civic space emergency that we have been calling out over the last year.

In Brazil, the new Bolsonaro government has threatened to close down human rights organisations, while in Zimbabwe protesting activists and groups have been subjected to shocking levels of force and intimidation.

Overall, internet shut-downs and violence as a means of curtailing voice and dissent is on the rise. In this context, ensuring governments take measures to protect and expand the right to organise and express dissent will continue to be a massive priority for us this year.

Across the world, journalists and activists are often the most vocal and visible when it comes to calling out governance failures or violations – making them an easy target for government and businesses who have an interest in keeping them silent.

Alongside this, we will continue to work on ways to connect, amplify and strengthen the great work that civil society does across the world.

In a hyper-connected world, it is ludicrous that governments continue to use archaic laws and policies to stifle the global flow of knowledge, technology and resources that can help millions trapped in poverty and discrimination to harness the benefits of modern development.

Ensuring public and donors invest in creating an enabling environment for civil society – one that allows us to be the most innovative, diverse and accountable version of ourselves – will also be an important part of our work this year.

IPS: How will the erosion of multilateralism — as singled out last month by UN secretary general Antonio Guterres — impact on CSOs in general, and CIVICUS in particular.

John: Where governments fail to act in the interest of ordinary people, civil society has had to step in and step up!

Across the world, voluntary organisations are acting as the first line of refuge for the most marginalised communities.

This includes extending life-saving assistance to fleeing from violent conflicts, fighting to change laws and practices that perpetuate discrimination against traditionally excluded communities or standing as the last line of defence.

It is disturbing that in this context many governments are choosing to increase surveillance and criminalise civil society rather than recognising and supporting their critical efforts.

Our research on civic space through the CIVICUS Monitor shows that attacks on civil society around the world are predictably common, and often severe.

Currently only 4% of the world’s population live in countries where the freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly are adequately protected.

Six in ten people live in countries where there are serious constraints on civic space.

Without the national and global mechanisms to protect and expand civic freedoms, civil society and citizens across the world would be left even more vulnerable.

This is why it’s important to continue to fight to not only protect multilateralism as it stands but also to make our global institutions more democratic and inclusive.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

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When St. Vincent was hit hard by flooding and landslides in recent years, it was blamed on climate change and deforestation. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
GEORGETOWN, Jan 30 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has debunked the notion that there is no funding available for countries to prevent, reduce or reverse land degradation.

UNCCD Executive Secretary Monique Barbut says there are millions of dollars available for Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) projects that are based on sound scientific guidelines and human rights principles, as set out in the Convention’s Scientific Conceptual Framework for LDN.

The LDN concept represents a paradigm shift in land management policies and practices by providing a framework to counterbalance the expected loss of productive land with the recovery of degraded areas.

To date, more than 100 countries have embarked on national processes to set and implement voluntary LDN targets as part of their contribution to the third target under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 15 (life on land).

“We have about 125 countries which have decided to set what we call their LDN targets. But we are difference from many other conventions. We have decided to also follow up on the implementation,” Barbut told IPS. She was speaking to IPS at the 17th Session of the Committee for the Review of Implementation (CRIC17) of the UNCCD which opened in the Guyana capital on Monday, Jan. 28

“We have said targets are not enough. We would like now for the countries to go for what we call the transformative projects. This is where the funding discussion comes up because those transformative projects are usually large scale. We are not taking about pilot projects of 200,000 dollars here and there.”

The Executive Secretary said countries can rest assured that if they want to go into major projects, UNCCD will finance the pre-feasibility exercise.

She explained that “major projects” are which cost a minimum of 5 million dollars and can run into hundreds of millions of dollars. She pointed to China and India as examples where large scale transformative projects have been implemented.

“Nobody can say that the funding is not available. None of those transformative projects is yet at a stage that we are going for the funding outside,” Barbut said.

“I have been, prior to this position, the CEO of the GEF (Global Environmental Facility) which is the largest funding mechanism of the world; and I am going to tell you something which might surprise you. The lack of funding is never a problem. The problem is to get the right project. If you have a good project, I can tell you that the funding is always available.”

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Executive Secretary Monique Barbut says t says there are millions of dollars available for Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) projects. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Barbut said UNCCD wants to help countries identify and build projects, as well as help them go for the funding at a later stage “to all those big international multilateral and bilateral institutions.”

“To give you an example, we are working with Burkina Faso in Africa. They have decided to transform 3,000 of the 5,000 villages that they have into what we call eco-villages. By doing that, they will restore two million hectares of degraded land and they will give jobs to almost one million people,” she said.

“This project is going to be between 150 million to 300 million dollars and I have no doubt that we will raise funds because it’s going to be done in a way that donors will accept.”

“Many developing countries say there is no funding, I am saying no. The project that you are presenting are not right or rightly presented to attract the donors. Our job is to help you to make them attractive enough,” Barbut added.

She cited the Gambia as another example where the necessary political will was demonstrated when the entire government, including the president, decided to go for a very large-scale project and put their full GEF allocation into it.

“It means, already, we have about 12 million dollars secured. Just by doing that, showing the world that they were willing to put their full allocation into that, we have already got IFAD, a big global multi-lateral financial institution which has said, we’re ready to add 45 million dollars,” Barbut explained.

“So, without even yet having the project being designed, we know that we have about 55 million dollars for that project that we are going to set up in the Gambia.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Richard Byron-Cox, action programme alignment and capacity building officer at UNCCD, also said that funding is available, but he said Caribbean countries have several problems.

The first of these problems, he said, is that in the Caribbean, most people are not trained to deal with the ramifications of applying for these funds.

“Sorry to say this, but some of these funds they have such a bureaucratic procedure and our people are not trained as to how you prepare projects and how you beat that bureaucracy,” he told IPS.

“The second problem is that we are not interested. We really don’t go out and look for it. In other words, it is there for the taking but we are not aggressive towards it.”

Additionally, the Guyanese national said that until recently, Caribbean countries always thought that their problem was only climate change and so their only focus was on climate change and getting money for it.

But Byron-Cox said there was yet another problem which Caribbean countries faced.

“A lot of those who give us money never really want to give us money for land. They would prefer to give you some money to build a hospital because when you build a hospital, everything comes from the donor abroad – the windows, the doors, the toilet and the engineers who build it. So, they give you 10 million dollars and the 10 million dollars goes back to them,” he explained.

“Outside of that, whenever anything breaks in the hospital or if you need new machinery you have to go back to them again. So, at the end of the day they gave you 10 million dollars but they end up getting 20 million dollars.”

Byron-Cox said because Caribbean countries know that donors are not usually willing to give money for land, they do not bother to ask.

He said the time has come for governments in the Caribbean to appoint an environmental overseer who covers the entirety of the environment in each country.

“One of the roles of this environmental czar would be to find the necessary resources. If we had a regional approach where the expertise is shared it might be easier to tackle this question,” Byron-Cox said.

“I have no doubt that the funding can be found. It is there and if we go searching for it, we can get it. It is there, we have to go out there and aggressively look for it.”

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Members of Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN) Guyana chapter. CYEN is on a drive to empower youth to address big issues, like climate change, facing their generation. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
GEORGETOWN, Jan 30 2019 (IPS)

A group of youngsters in the Caribbean who promote environmental protection in the region is on a drive to empower other youth to address some of the big issues facing their generation.

National Coordinator of Caribbean Youth Environment Network (CYEN), Kiefer Jackson, says the organisation has been working to gather the youth perspective, build capacity at a grassroots level and fill the gaps that would have been missed by government initiatives or plans.

“The Ministry of Presidency’s Office of Climate Change has recognised the work being done by this chapter of CYEN and has asked us to join with them this year in facilitating their climate change awareness in schools around Guyana,” Jackson told IPS.

“We believe this partnership to be one step in the direction of ensuring that young people play an active role in climate action and ensure non-governmental organisation and government partnership for the betterment of our people.”

Jackson said CYEN Guyana has been offering young people experiential learning opportunities and internships overseas which help to build the country’s capacity for climate resilience.

As far as capacity is concerned, last year, CYEN was approved by YOUNGO, the Children and Youth constituency to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to undertake a Conference of Youth in the countries where CYEN operates. CYEN’s website reflects a presence in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Saint Lucia, among others.

Jackson added that the activity was used to assist in further building the current participatory environmental awareness programmes for young citizens of Guyana.

“We have also been engaging in a series of panel discussions, in an effort to inform and educate young people on the Sustainable Development Goals,” Jackson said.

“The last talk would have been on Goal 13 (Climate Action). Based on the feedback of these activities, we have recognised that young people in Guyana, have robust and innovative ideas and we have been working on creating a platform for them to showcase their ideas or projects that guarantee the strengthening resilience and adaptive capacity to climate change in Guyana.”

In addition to facilitating larger scale education and awareness, Jackson believes more attention should be given to ensuring adequate and appropriate infrastructure and housing that can withstand, as far as possible, the perils of climate change.

Guyana is plagued by poorly-maintained drainage and sea defence infrastructure.

The low coastal plain which houses the capital Georgetown, and where a large percentage of the population resides, is below sea level and at high risk of flooding. “With the effects of climate change becoming even more present through intensifying natural disasters, more should be done to prepare this region for what seems to be inevitable,” Jackson said.

“We can also ensure that there are early warning systems and more accurate forecasts – information that can be passed on to farmers through simple technology.”

In addition to being prone to flooding, Guyana is also affected by drought.

Joseph Harmon, Minister of State in the Ministry of the Presidency of Guyana, says drought and flooding have proven to be a double-edged sword, especially for the country’s farmers.

“Some people might find it difficult to appreciate that in a country like Guyana, a part of the tropical rainforest, that you can still have portions of this land which have drought,” Harmon told IPS.

“But I can say to you that in the south Rupununi . . . we do have some portions of that land that for a part of the year they have drought, and at other times they have flooding.”

He said government has taken steps to address the problem of flooding with the implementation of projects by the Ministry of Agriculture.

“They are dealing with how to sustainably harvest water so that it can be utilised for farming and other domestic purposes,” Harmon said.

“In the period of drought, we are now looking at the question of utilisation of wells.”

In December 2017, the Guyana Government and the Government of the Federative Republic of Brazil signed a technical cooperation agreement for the implementation of a project to reduce the impact of drought in the Upper Takatu-Upper Essequibo, Region 9 of Guyana.

Harmon said the agreement was established to mitigate the historical impact of droughts in the Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo region and its implementation has so far resulted in the drilling of eight wells that are now providing year-round potable water to the indigenous peoples in the south Rupununi.

In its quest to bridge the gap between climate change and climate awareness, Jackson said CEYN is hampered by limited availability of financial resources, particularly for long term projects that could ensure sustainability.

Additionally, she said quite often, urgent need for climate action is hampered by the effects not always being glaring to the public eye.

“So, the challenge is making climate seem real in the context of day to day life in the Caribbean,” Jackson said.

“Hurricane season is once a year. Sea level rise is slow and almost unnoticeable. We try to identify indicators which can catch people’s attention, and which are personal as well as immediate.”

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FrontPageAfrica publisher Rodney Sieh, pictured on his release from prison in November 2013. Sieh says journalists in Liberia continue to face threats and harassment for their critical reporting. (AP/Mark Darrough)

By Angela Quintal, CPJ Africa Program Coordinator
Jan 29 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(CPJ) – Rodney Sieh, editor-in-chief and publisher of Liberian investigative outlet FrontPageAfrica, knows first-hand the harassment and risks critical journalists in his country face. In 2013, CPJ documented how he was sentenced to prison over unpaid fines in a criminal defamation case.

Sieh served three months of the 5,000-year sentence before being released after an international outcry. He has written about his experiences in his book, Journalist on Trial: Fighting Corruption, Media Muzzling and a 5,000-Year Prison Sentence, published in late 2018.

Sieh told CPJ this month that he and his journalists continue to be targeted. He is currently working with the London-based Media Legal Defence Initiative to file a lawsuit at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice in Nigeria over the harassment of his newspaper, staff, and other media in Liberia.

Sieh, a member of CPJ’s Africa advisory group, spoke with CPJ about his experiences and the current climate for Liberia’s press in the year since George Weah became president.

[This blog has been edited for length and clarity]

Looking back on President Weah’s record so far, would you describe his administration as a friend or enemy of press freedom?

To be honest, it is rather difficult to say whether President Weah is a friend or an enemy to the press. Personally, I was grateful that he paid me a visit during my incarceration when I was sentenced to 5,000 years in prison. As head of the leading opposition party, I think his visit showed that he means well and his presence showed a commitment to free press and a means of identifying with me during my struggles with the former regime of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. However, since assuming the mantle of authority of the country, I have been a bit disappointed over the manner in which some of his supporters and officials of government have come after me and my newspaper for simply reporting the ills in society such as corruption, greed, misuse of public resources, the president’s failure to declare his assets, and the construction of several multi-million dollar properties.

I would like to hold him to his word that he is committed to a free press and want to believe that he is sincere and is truly a friend–and not an enemy of the press, but the actions and public statements he has made in recent time by labeling journalists as “enemies of the state” makes it difficult to conclude that this administration is sincere about its relationship with the press.

How does Weah’s record on press freedom compare with that of his predecessor, Sirleaf?

On paper, Sirleaf signed Liberia on to the Table Mountain Declaration, which calls for the repeal of criminal defamation and insult laws across the African continent. In reality, my 5,000-year sentence blemished that. Sirleaf herself was critical of investigative reporting and her supporters were often found on social media attacking critical media and journalists when stories did not sing to the government’s tone. I would though give Sirleaf the edge on the level of tolerance. She managed to withstand a barrage of criticisms and investigative reports. She had a tough skin on that end, something I think President Weah and his officials and followers could take a cue from. President Weah’s labeling of the press and critics as “enemies of the state” and investigative reports as “fake news” in the shadows of U.S. President Donald Trump, in my view, dampened whatever efforts or overtures he is trying to make toward the press in his quest to soften some of the negative reporting against his government.

The government invited David Kaye, the U.N. Special Rapporteur, to visit Liberia in March 2018. In his subsequent report, Kaye identified the decriminalization of defamation and the transformation of the state broadcasting system as a priority. Has the Weah administration followed through on any of this?

Looking at the tone of unfriendliness toward the media I have seen so far, I don’t see this government working toward making the state broadcaster independent. The president and his supporters, including senior officials, are more keen to hear positive and favorable stories being reported than having critical and constructive critical reporting. So, the idea put forward by Mr. Kaye is a good one and it’s been floated around for some time, but I do not see any signs of it being implemented in the near future. On a lighter note, we are all still eagerly anticipating full passage of the bill aimed at decriminalizing speech. Sirleaf initiated the process but it remained lingering in the corridors of the national legislature. It has been fine-tuned under Weah and renamed in memory of the late Press Union of Liberia president, Abdullai Kamara. The Lower House has signed off on it and the Senate is weighing in before it hits the president’s desk. If it does complete the process, it would be a landmark for the press in Liberia.

Information Minister Lenn Nagbe suspended all new broadcasting licenses issued from January 1 to June 18, 2018. What do you believe was the reason for this and what has happened since?

I really believe this strategy was aimed at broadcast journalist and talk show host Patrick Honnah, who was on the verge of launching Punch FM. Honnah, a former deputy managing director of Liberia’s state radio, was openly critical of Weah during the election campaign, because he felt he was anti-media. He had met all the requirements, registered his entity, and did all that is required by the government, only for the Ministry of Information to come out with that pronouncement. It is saddening to note that several new radio stations and newspapers have opened since that mandate, but Punch FM has not hit the airwaves. This is one of the reasons why I said earlier that the government is not sincere in its quest to make amends with the press.

[Editor’s Note: Nagbe did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment on January 29, and also at the time of the license suspension.]

The Minister of State for Presidential Affairs last year called FrontPageAfrica a criminal entity and said he would sue for defamation. Has he followed through on this and what does the president have to say?

The president has not said anything about those threats made by his senior minister, who is considered to be one of the most powerful members of his Cabinet. We are still waiting to receive the writ or summons from the court. I’m used to being labeled a criminal, so I am not deterred. All this has done is make me much stronger in my resolve to continue speaking truth to power. FrontPageAfrica has a track record of exposing corruption, we have a track record of holding government feet to the fire, and we have a track record of ensuring that the voices of those languishing at the bottom of the economic ladder are heard.

What other threats does your paper, or Liberia’s press as a whole, face?

We continue to receive threats and insults daily in the open on social media by supporters and sympathizers of the Weah-led government and we continue to receive baits from senior officials of government on Facebook, dissecting our reports and raining public ridicule of our work.

The most visible these days [are] threats on Facebook and other social mediums. Late last year [government sympathizers] went as far as posting a photograph of my home on Facebook, I guess to give sympathizers of the government ammunition or motivation to attack me. They’ve tried everything, including creating fake Facebook profiles in my name with attacks on the president aimed at stirring anger among the president’s sympathizers to come after me. I have made several inquiries to Facebook but so far nothing has been done. One of the fake pages in my name has been removed, but at least two others are still there–the last time I checked. Social media is good, but the emerging trend has made journalists like me easy targets for those in power.

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By Rosli Omar and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jan 29 2019 (IPS)

Owing to our varied circumstances and experiences, there are contradictory tendencies to either exaggerate or underestimate the power and importance of artificial intelligence (AI) in contemporary society.

Nor should we uncritically legitimize everything AI can be used for, even if it has been hailed as the main frontier of the Davos-proclaimed Fourth Industrial Revolution. AI, more than other elements of Industry 4.0, is transforming humanity’s understanding of ourselves in novel ways the world has neither experienced nor conceived.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

AI unfettered
The AI market is already huge but still growing fast. The expertise needed is said to be growing ‘exponentially’. In fact, many enterprises seem to be struggling to meet this fast growing demand for expertise with the needed capabilities.

AI’s role is already very significant, but it is still transforming many painstakingly slow processes in diverse fields, typically displacing manual as well as skilled labour. For example, precision agriculture uses equipment to supply water and plant nutrients as well as to measure plant growth, eliminate pests, including weeds, and cater to the needs of individual plants.

Driverless cars are at very advanced stages of testing in many jurisdictions while AI is greatly improving supply chains and logistics. AI-based equipment is being used to track, police and solve crime, while its military applications, including killing enemy targets, are already infamous, not least because of the collateral damage caused.

AI applications in health care, elderly care and precision medicine and surgery are among some of the better-known applications. AI machines have the capacity to do many things more efficiently than humans and even perform tasks too dangerous or difficult for human beings.

The mantra we are being urged to accept is to accept all AI without qualification or to risk being left further behind. But there is no reason to define the challenge in such all or nothing terms.

Much AI development and applications are driven by business considerations, and business in turn shapes politics and the law, influencing science and technology, and how AI and its uses are seen and understood.

Business rules
Big business and its representatives have long managed, shaped and manipulated public knowledge, opinion and sentiment, not only about AI and its applications, but also industry’s accountability and responsibilities. AI depends heavily on information, especially big data, in order to mimic and improve upon human thought processes and behaviour.

The issue of breach of privacy has received considerable attention as questions of individual freedom, privacy and property rights have allegedly been violated. Frequent apologies by tech companies for earlier breaches and even sale of personal data have become so routine as to cast doubt on their sincerity.

AI’s continued progress may displace many more workers very quickly as suggested by some scenarios, while others suggest that AI’s advent will enable us to devote more time to care work and creative endeavours. With so much conjecture, it is difficult to plan, e.g., revise educational curricula.

Known and unknown unknowns
For businesses involved with AI, established or start-up, financial bottom lines are crucial although deep pockets and medium-term strategies may give start-ups longer leases.

But to survive, beating the competition remains imperative, which often means being the biggest, the best and the most innovative in order to survive challenges from disruptive new technologies marginalizing and displacing incumbents.

AI’s role in advancing medical technology has also enhanced its reputation for doing good, eclipsing the plight of victims of AI. Meanwhile, there has been growing acceptance of the individualistic ideology that we are all responsible for the decisions we make, whether explicit or implicit.

One fallacy often invoked is that we just do not know enough about AI to rush to judgement about our concerns. But clearly, the businesses involved and the governments that purchase, use and shape demand have the relevant experience and knowledge to make better-informed tentative assessments.

Policymakers generally lag behind in regulating AI, especially in developing countries. Regulating what is little known or understood remains especially challenging. AI is not only to help us do things better, faster and more efficiently. We must recognize the multiple functions of AI to begin to understand its complexity. Legislation and industry regulations must keep up with changes.

We must deal with it
AI is here to stay or at least the businesses, investors, politicians and technologists have decided so. AI offers potentially great means to enhance human capacities, but what and how businesses, governments and people deploy it is another matter.

What are the responsibilities of businesses creating, selling and using AI? Will the rise and spread of AI lead to new modes of mass surveillance, control and manipulation, even digital dictatorship or authoritarianism?

The seemingly limitless potential of AI is undoubtedly attractive, even seductive. Those directly involved have identified much of the immediate and even medium-term potential. Futurologists are more likely to envision, reflect and speculate on the longer-term potential.

But much of the public, even those unfamiliar with AI, imagine its potential after encountering some applications in their own experience. As it continues to evolve in human society, pundits increasingly debate the many dimensions of the ecosystems of AI.

A few will disagree over how best to encourage and ensure the optimum development and use of AI for the greater good in the face of the imperatives of profits and power.

Others worry about how AI is already being made use of and the potential for further abuse, but it is not clear what impact this will have on government interventions and social collective action.

Rosli Omar was the first Malaysian to get a PhD in artificial intelligence and is now a nature photographer. His latest book is Forest Birds of Peninsular Malaysia.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram is Senior Adviser with the Khazanah Research Institute. He was an economic professor and United Nations Assistant Secretary General for Economic Development.

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Africans march on New York streets during the African Day Parade. Credit: Alamy /Richard Levine

By Benjamin Tetteh
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29 2019 (IPS)

In the heart of Accra, Ghana’s capital, just a few meters from the United States embassy, lie the tombs of W. E. B. Du Bois, a great African-American civil rights leader, and his wife, Shirley.

The founder of the US-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People moved to Accra in 1961, settling in the city’s serene residential area of Labone and living there until his death in August 1963.

Du Bois’s journey to Ghana may have signaled the emergence of a profound desire among Africans in the diaspora to retrace their roots and return to the continent. Ghana was a major hub for the transatlantic slave trade from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

In Washington, D.C., in September 2018, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo declared and formally launched the “Year of Return, Ghana 2019” for Africans in the Diaspora, giving fresh impetus to the quest to unite Africans on the continent with their brothers and sisters in the diaspora.

At that event, President Akufo-Addo said, “We know of the extraordinary achievements and contributions they [Africans in the diaspora] made to the lives of the Americans, and it is important that this symbolic year—400 years later—we commemorate their existence and their sacrifices.”

200 years since the abolition of slavery

US Congress members Gwen Moore of Wisconsin and Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, diplomats and leading figures from the African-American community, attended the event.

Representative Jackson Lee linked the Ghanaian government’s initiative with the passage in Congress in 2017 of the 400 Years of African-American History Commission Act.

Provisions in the act include the setting up of a history commission to carry out and provide funding for activities marking the 400th anniversary of the “arrival of Africans in the English colonies at Point Comfort, Virginia, in 1619.”

Since independence in 1957, successive Ghanaian leaders have initiated policies to attract Africans abroad back to Ghana.

In his maiden independence address, then–Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah sought to frame Africa’s liberation around the concept of Africans all over the world coming back to Africa.

“Nkrumah saw the American Negro as the vanguard of the African people,” said Henry Louis Gates Jr., Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard, who first traveled to Ghana when he was 20 and fresh out of Harvard, afire with Nkrumah’s spirit.

“He wanted to be able to utilize the services and skills of African-Americans as Ghana made the transition from colonialism to independence.”

Ghana’s parliament passed a Citizenship Act in 2000 to make provision for dual citizenship, meaning that people of Ghanaian origin who have acquired citizenships abroad can take up Ghanaian citizenship if they so desire.

That same year the country enacted the Immigration Act, which provides for a “Right of Abode” for any “Person of African descent in the Diaspora” to travel to and from the country “without hindrance.”

The Joseph Project

In 2007, in its 50th year of independence, the government initiated the Joseph Project to commemorate 200 years since the abolition of slavery and to encourage Africans abroad to return.

Similar to Israel’s policy of reaching out to Jews across Europe and beyond following the Holocaust, the Joseph Project is named for the Biblical Joseph who was sold into slavery in Egypt but would later reunite with his family and rule Egypt.

The African-American community is excited about President Akufo-Addo’s latest initiative. In social media posts, many expressed interest in visiting Africa for the first time.

Among them is Amber Walker, a media practitioner who says that 2019 is the time to visit her ancestral home.

“The paradox of being an African-American is that we occupy spaces where we are not being considered as citizens. So I love the idea of Ghana taking the lead to kind of help African-Americans claim their ancestral space,” she told Africa Renewal. “It is a step in the right direction.

“It is definitely comforting because that kind of red carpet has not been rolled out by our oppressors in the Western world,” she added.

In making the announcement, President Akufo-Addo said: “Together on both sides of the Atlantic, we’ll work to make sure that never again will we allow a handful of people with superior technology to walk into Africa, seize their people and sell them into slavery. That must be our resolution, that never again, never again!”

But Walker took issue with Akufo-Addo for appearing to downplay the actions of some Africans in the slave trade.

“In the president’s [Akufo-Addo’s] statement, he sounds like the entire blame is placed on white people coming in with weapons and taking black people away, but that’s not necessarily the history. So I think that needs to be acknowledged,” she said.

She suggested a form of reconciliation such as took place in post-apartheid South Africa—a truth and reconciliation process that will satisfy the millions of Africans whose forefathers were sold into slavery.

In 2013 the United Nations declared 2015–2024 the International Decade for People of African Descent to “promote respect, protection and fulfilment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms of people of African descent.”

The theme for the ten-year celebration is “People of African descent: recognition, justice and development.”

The “Year of Return, Ghana 2019” will coincide with the biennial Pan African Historical Theatre Festival (Panafest), which is held in Cape Coast, home of Cape Coast Castle and neighbouring Elmina Castle—two notable edifices recognized by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) as World Heritage Sites of the slave era.

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Excerpt:

Benjamin Tetteh is a writer for Africa Renewal published by the United Nations

The post 2019: Year of Return for African Diaspora appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Paul Tacon
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jan 29 2019 (IPS)

When 164 UN member states adopted the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (the Marrakech Compact on Migration) on 10 December last year, I read on social media that they had decided to give up control over migration to the UN.

So, did that mean, as someone who works on migration in the UN, I could pick and choose who gets to go where?

In that case, the possibilities seemed endless. One country looking overcrowded? No problem – let’s just send people abroad!

Not enough workers coming into the workforce to replace those retiring? Bring in young people elsewhere in the region who are struggling to find jobs!

People facing natural disasters? Easy-peasy – send ‘em out of harm’s way!

But when I logged into my computer the next day, imagine my surprise when there was no “Move People” button. Surely some mistake?

Paul Tacon

I called IT, who claimed to have no idea what I was talking about. I wrote to my boss, but she said something about me “misunderstanding the whole point of the exercise.”

And António Guterres never replied to my email.

What was going on?

How it actually works

What was going on, of course, was that the UN was operating, as it always does – in full respect of the sovereignty of its member States (it’s right there in the Charter – and the Compact!)

So, despite what those social media posts say, neither I nor any of my colleagues were ever going to move anyone. We weren’t going to tell anyone how to run their immigration systems, or to force any country to take anyone.

The Marrakech Compact on Migration is explicit – it is non-legally-binding.

Instead, member states set themselves an agenda for action on international migration that they negotiated among themselves throughout 2018.

They agreed that they had a common understanding on migration, shared responsibilities and unity of purpose.
They recognised that migration is a reality as old as humanity that must be acknowledged and addressed so that everyone can benefit, migrant and non-migrant alike.

They reminded us that any instance of international migration inherently involves at least two countries – an origin and a destination – and no State can manage migration alone.

Thus, they agreed to work together with the help of the UN to build on the work they had already done to improve the outcomes of migration. In short, they wanted to make sure that:

• migration is a choice;
• it brings benefits to the communities that migrants come from, and the communities they go to; and
• it contributes to sustainable development for the benefit of their citizens, and in the spirit of common humanity that unites us all.

Out of this shared vision, they built a cooperative framework with 23 objectives and 194 suggested actions, grounded in existing international agreements (which they themselves had negotiated and ratified) covering everything from data to documents, border security to decent work, skills to services.

That means I don’t move anyone, anywhere. But I get something better: the chance to work with member states and others, to contribute to a world where every migrant’s move is voluntary, empowering and beneficial for all.

Migration realities in the Asia-Pacific

This matters for the Asia-Pacific region. It is a migration hub, home to 62 million migrants in 2017 – more than the population of Myanmar – and the origin of over 101 million migrants – more than the population of Viet Nam.

Given the scale, what happens to migrants to and from the region makes a big difference, and not just to migrants. These migrants sent over $316 billion in remittances in 2018 to their families, contributing to poverty reduction.

The majority of these migrants also worked, contributing to growth, productivity and employment creation in their countries of destination. Many countries in the region would be worse off without migrants, especially as their workforces age.

But migrants also face major challenges. Many are recruited by middlemen who make false promises and charge inflated fees, locking migrants into cycles of debt.

They are vulnerable to exploitation by employers who know that they would rather suffer underpayment and overwork rather than risk deportation by denouncing those who were abusing them.

Finally, migrants everywhere suffer the effects of xenophobia – not least exemplified by the coverage of the Compact itself.

The effects of these problems are huge. They violate migrants’ rights and can even lead to human trafficking. They also limit the contributions migrants can make to sustainable development.

So safe, orderly and regular migration matters for this region. Going forward, ESCAP will work with its partners in the UN system, civil society and beyond in support of its member States to help them make it a reality.

Not by telling countries what to do, but rather by supporting dialogue, building capacities and working together.

The post The Marrakech Compact on Migration: Myths & Realities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Paul Tacon is Social Affairs Officer, Social Development Division at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

The post The Marrakech Compact on Migration: Myths & Realities appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Geneva Centre
GENEVA, Jan 29 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(Geneva Centre) – In a letter sent to the Geneva Centre by the Patron of the 25 June 2018 World Conference on “Religions, Creeds and Value Systems: Joining Forces to Enhance Equal Citizenship Rights” HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the latter has extended his most sincere congratulations to the Geneva Centre for having organized this major international conference at the United Nations Office in Geneva.

HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal

In the letter, the Patron of the World Conference commended the efforts of the Geneva Centre and the World Conference Sponsoring Committee “to achieve progress and civilizational promotion” in the pursuit of equal and inclusive citizenship rights worldwide.

HRH further added that the objective of the World Conference was to consolidate the concept of inclusive citizenship and “to confirm that there are in religions, creeds and value systems commonalities that can effectively contribute to the promotion and advancement of the concepts of equal citizenship rights.”

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Zainab Samo, along with her son and daughter, planting a lemon seedling on her farm in Oan village in Pakistan’s southern desert district of Tharparkar, to fight desert’s advance. New data shows that globally two billion hectares of land—roughly twice the size of China—have been degraded. Credit: Saleem Shaikh/IPS

By Desmond Brown
GEORGETOWN, Jan 29 2019 (IPS)

New data show that globally two billion hectares of land—roughly twice the size of China—have been degraded. And of this amount, 500 million hectares are abandoned agricultural lands. 

The 17th Session of the Committee for the Review of Implementation (CRIC17) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) opened in the Guyana capital on Monday, Jan. 28, with the release of this staggering data in relation to land degradation and desertification.

“We know also that every year we destroy totally, 12 million hectares of land. So, clearly all those lands that we destroy we have a potential for restoration,” UNCCD Executive Secretary Monique Barbut told IPS. It’s for this reason that Barbut said that land degradation and desertification is “a subject of hope.”

Desertification is the process by which fertile land becomes desert, typically as a result of drought, deforestation, or inappropriate agriculture.

UNCCD says desertification is a silent, invisible crisis that is destabilising communities on a global scale, and more should be done to combat it, reverse land degradation and mitigate the effects of drought.

But unlike the finality that comes with the loss of biodiversity, Barbut said humans get second chances when it comes to land degradation and desertification.

“When you have lost a species, you have lost a species. Land does not work like that, and can be restored, everywhere, in every single country,” she told IPS.

“So, it’s not just a subject of depression like many other subjects on the environment. The more you restore land, the better a number of things to come.”

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Executive Secretary Monique Barbut says new data show that globally, two billion hectares of land have been degraded. But unlike the finality that comes with the loss of biodiversity, Barbut said humans gets second chances when it comes to land degradation and desertification. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

She pointed to China’s Loess Plateau—the biggest programme of land restoration in the word that can be referred to as an example of what is possible.

“They restored in one go, 400 million hectares of land and transformed it into an agroforestry programme,” Barbut said.

“This programme has helped [uplift] out of poverty, 6.7 million people. Secondly, we have seen now that the rain patterns have changed. Where there was no rain before, rain is coming back, so there are many positive impacts of land restoration.”

The new data also show that there is a direct link between land restoration and the reduction in the number of people living in poverty in rural areas.

Barbut said the data show a 27 percent decline in the number of people in rural communities living in poverty.

“This is a positive signal,” she said, while noting that at the same time urban poverty is increasing.

“That’s something interesting to note, that instead of sending people to cities, you better restore the land, make sure they can live on the land.”

Barbut said the data show that the main human causes of land degradation are deforestation, overgrazing and improper soil management.

There are also other indirect human causes like population pressure, land tenure, bad governance and lack of education.

The Caribbean has its own example of desertification with one scientist telling IPS that Haiti is the Caribbean’s desert.

Dr. Richard Byron-Cox, action programme alignment and capacity building officer at UNCCD, said more than 100 years ago, Haiti had the best soils and was also the Caribbean’s leading producer sugarcane.

“As you know, Haiti is one of two countries on the island of Hispaniola. When you fly over Hispaniola, one part is green, and the other part is brown. Why? Because one has desertification, that’s Haiti,” Byron-Cox told IPS.

“That same country, 150 years ago, had the best soils in the entire Caribbean. Today it is a desert. Desertification has nothing to do with natural deserts. So, when you talk about combatting desertification, this does not include natural deserts, it’s good land becoming bad.”

In addition to deforestation, devastating floods and landslides have left bare many areas in Haiti which were once covered with forests.

In 2013, World Vision Australia carried out a scoping mission to examine the potential for natural regeneration of forests through Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). This was inspired by the success of a similar programme in Ethiopia, developed under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

The CDM allows for reforestation projects to earn credits (Certified Emission Reductions or CER’s) for each tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent sequestered or absorbed by the forest.

Joseph Harmon, Minister of State in the Ministry of the Presidency in Guyana says when it comes to sustainable use of land and other resources, Guyana aspires to be a success story and example for fellow countries and parties. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Desertification was also on the mind of Guyana’s Minister of State Joseph Harmon, as he welcomed representatives from 135 countries to the capital for CRIC 17.

In his speech at the opening, he told a packed hall at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre that in its implementation of the UNCCD Guyana aspires to be a success story and example for fellow countries and parties.

“While Guyana’s context may not be seen as extreme to be considered ‘desertification,’ the impact of land degradation is being taken into consideration as we plan and strategise for the sustainable use of our land resources.”

He later told IPS that Guyana is deeply conscious land represents a link between people and the environment and that it connects economic, social, cultural and geographical spheres.

“Guyana is fully committed to the protection and conservation of its natural patrimony, including its land resources. Our record of environmental protection and conservation of land and its resources provides a global model for good practice,” Harmon told IPS.

“Guyana endorses and fully support UNCCD’s vision which is to support the development and implementation of national and regional policies, programmes and measures to prevent, control and reverse desertification and land degradation and mitigate the effects of drought.”

Guyana has finalised its Land Degradation Neutrality Target Setting Programme and its aligned national plan to combat land degradation.

Harmon said they have also operationalised the Sustainable Land Development and Management project, which seeks to establish an enabling environment for promoting sustainable and climate-resilient land development, management and reclamation in support of Guyana’s Green State trajectory.

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