Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

A community member receiving treatment at Primary Health Centre (PHC) in Daura, Yobe State, constructed and equipped by UNDP with Japanese fund, 5 October 2022. Credit: UNDP

By Ahunna Eziakonwa
TOKYO, Japan, Aug 23 2023 (IPS)

At this year’s G7 summit in Japan, global leaders emphasized the importance of unity as the world navigates grave threats to multilateralism. The message was clear – trusted global platforms for dialogue and solutions are extremely crucial in current times.

They are right. More than ever before, effective multilateralism is needed to tackle the polycrisis and to create the world we want: one in which there is prosperity for all.

Thirty years ago, The Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), was launched as a multi-stakeholder forum for Japan and Africa to deepen collaboration, with the facilitation of partners like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

UNDP is proud to be associated with TICAD – not least for it unique in its ability to tackle a wide – range of key issues of critical interest to Africa – like investment, skills training and technology transfer.

Since inception, TICAD’s investments in both aid and investment to Africa extend over the $100 billion mark. In the last three years alone, Japan has implemented 69 projects across Africa.

Ahunna Eziakonwa

COVID -19 delivered a heavy setback to hard-won development gains, pushing millions back into poverty. Before the pandemic, Africa had seen important progress in human development, with living standards improving for a good part of the population. Six of the ten fastest – growing countries in the world were in Africa.

Today, we see regression – with COVID, growing conflict in some parts of Africa, and a cost-of-living crisis triggered by the impact of the war in Ukraine.

The challenges Africa faces today affect global prospects for attaining the SDGs, and put into sharp focus the criticality of effective partnerships. If we are to rescue the SDGs in Africa, we need to invest in opportunities that are foundational to accelerating Africa’s development.

So what is smart investment in Africa today?

It is all about investing in people. In less than ten years, 42 per cent of the world’s youth will live in Africa – and if the continent invests smartly, its young teeming innovators can create technology – led solutions to drive socioeconomic progress.

To secure a bright and prosperous future in Africa, Japan and UNDP are working together to invest in Africa’s people. This breadth stretches from support for inclusive governance, to ensuring women and youth are empowered, to social sectors like health and education.

In Nigeria, over 1000 young people in the conflict affected regions of the North-East and Middle Belt received an 8-week training on community – driven trade, and cash grants to help them set up new businesses. In Kenya and South Africa, young men and women participated in job skills training for car manufacturing in collaboration with Toyota Motor Corporation.

And in The Central African Republic, income generating activity groups were established, offering training in financial independence across sectors such as retail and animal husbandry. This initiative utilized the 5S-Kaizen methodology through a partnership with JICA. Japan’s support to UNDP’s Liptako Gourma Stabilization Facility has resulted in over 3000 women and youth benefitting from cross-border trade infrastructure and increased incomes for highly vulnerable borderland communities.

Literacy Training at Koudoukou Elementary School in the 3rd arrondissement of Bangui. Credit: UNDP Central African Republic, Arsène Christ NGOUMBANGO NZABE

Investing in green growth and trade

As the continent continues to chart its development pathway, with a strong vote for industrialization and diversification, the importance of advanced technological expertise is elevated. The new generation of development partnerships with Africa must frontload technology transfer including on a commercial basis – in areas of agriculture, health, education, energy transitions and smart cities.

A prime illustration is Japan’s Green Growth Initiative with Africa, which promotes green economics and support to just energy transitions with African ownership at the core.

Development of local industries and regional value chains will promote Africa’s industrialization – which both COVID 19 and the war in Ukraine have demonstrated – are key tenets of not just effective but also responsible partnerships.

A recent investment report by UNDP identified 157 SDG investment opportunities across 31 industries in Africa with significant financial and impact potential. The industries range from food and beverage to infrastructure, health care, renewable resources and alternative energy.

These investments now have an even larger network of markets – thanks to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) – the world’s largest trade zone by number of participating countries and geographical coverage.

The Japan – UNDP partnership has proven its worth in stepping into areas of development acceleration. As Africa stands at a critical inflection point, a vital window of opportunity exists to unlock the continent’s full potential – making Africa’s resources work for its people’s development. Now is the time for to step up the partnership. Now is the time to unlock Africa’s promise.

Read more about UNDP’s Renewed Strategic Offer in Africa ( Africa’s promise) here.

Ahunna Eziakonwa is Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa, UNDP

PREVENT project in Tanzania/Iringa, 2021, Helena Kindole. Credit: Colin Dames/CEVA

By Enrique Hernández Pando
El Castellar, Spain, Aug 22 2023 (IPS)

El Castellar – For 33-year-old mother-of-seven and poultry farmer Helena Kindole in Chanya village in Tanzania, one of the main barriers to growing her chicken business is a lack of access to health services. But not for herself or her family – for her animals.

With smallholder poultry farming often a lifeline for millions of low-income and rural families – accounting for 80% of poultry production in the region – access to medicines and vaccines is just as important for livestock as it is for people. And yet, logistical, infrastructural, and supply challenges are hindering access to veterinary services across the African continent and therefore, holding back smallholder productivity.

Enrique Hernández Pando

At the same time, a rapidly industrialising poultry sector in many developed countries, and an increase in grain prices globally, coupled with cheap imports from more developed markets and low access to animal health care is driving inequality between small- and large-scale producers, threatening to squeeze out smallholder poultry farmers.

Thankfully, this is starting to change. Animal health initiatives are helping local hatcheries to vaccinate chicks against common and damaging diseases before selling them to small-scale farmers, who rear the chicks until they are six months old, eventually selling them to neighbours, restaurants, and other businesses nearby.

For women like Helena, who make up nearly half of the global agricultural workforce in developing countries and in sub-Saharan Africa, the poultry sector offers a crucial source of income and healthy animals are essential for decent livelihoods.

Equipping farmers with the right tools can help to set them up for success to compete alongside more industrialised production systems.

Introducing vaccinations at local hatcheries can strengthen small-scale producers’ sustainability and commercial clout. Supporting these hatcheries with the necessary vaccination equipment and expertise means they can provide customers with large numbers of chicks that are vaccinated against common poultry diseases, such as Newcastle disease and Infectious bronchitis, the former of which contributes to 60% of poultry mortalities in many African countries. This reduces the risk of bird loss, contributing to improved income and more successful businesses overall.

Small-scale chicken farmer in Tanzania/Arusha, 2015. Credit: Karel Prinsloo/GALVmed

But implementing vaccination measures alone is not enough, as a lack of technical support and knowledge on zoonoses and other infectious diseases that affect poultry can also hinder productivity. Training on animal health practices, market development opportunities, and advice on biosecurity, good management practices, and more are also crucial pieces of the puzzle. Providing this can help to level the playing field between large scale, industrial hatcheries and small-scale producers.

The PREVENT project (Promoting and Enabling Vaccination Efficiently, Now and Tomorrow) is one example of an initiative working to improve poultry production for Africa’s rapidly growing population. In just two years, this four-year initiative has administered 159 million vaccine doses and vaccinated 49 million hatchery chicks. It has also trained 100 field technicians who have conducted 2,600 farm visits and held over 1,400 farmer meetings across four countries in sub-Saharan Africa, to date.

A low-input but high-producing sector, raising chickens offers a reliable pathway out of poverty for many rural households. A small-scale producer can easily sell their chicks or chickens at the market as they are more affordable for the consumer than beef, for example, but also bring a myriad of other benefits. They add value to social structures, are high in protein, and, on top of this, can directly benefit women who in fact make up the majority of smallholder poultry farmers in the developing world.

Small-scale chicken farmer in Tanzania/Arusha, 2015. Credit: Karel Prinsloo/GALVmed

Against the backdrop of a global cost of living crisis, record-breaking temperatures, and ongoing conflicts, closing the inequality gap for smallholder farmers is critical to build a sustainable future for all. Supporting small-scale producers with training, animal health measures, and much more can help to level the playing field, one small-scale producer at a time, just like Helena.

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Excerpt:

Enrique Hernández Pando is Executive Director, Commercial Development & Impact, GALVmed

By Anis Chowdhury
SYDNEY, Aug 22 2023 (IPS)

Qur’an burning has become a symbol of intolerance and “Islamophobia”, especially in some Western countries. Following the public burning of a Quran in front of Stockholm’s largest mosque on June 28 during the Islamic Eid al-Adha festival, a copy of the Qur’an was set on fire in the Danish capital on 24 July. Naturally, these events provoked protests from Muslims all over the world, including in Sweden and Denmark. The Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson is “extremely worried” that such protests could result in more burning of the Quran – thus creating a vicious circle – as the Swedish police received a large number of applications for anti-Islam protests.

Anis Chowdhury

Muslim rage
Burning a copy of the Qur’an itself is not what angers the Muslims. In fact, burning is one of the preferred options for disposing damaged or unusable copies respectfully.

The Muslim anger is due to the disrespect and desecration of the Devine Book which have become a mainstay of far-right extremists in the West.

The Qur’an haters demonstrate their disregard for the Book by throwing it to the ground, sometimes wrapped in bacon or soaked in alcohol – both prohibited in Islam –ripped it apart and spit on copies of the Quran, and dragged it around on a leash like a dog before burning. Some called it “The Whore Book” and “Shit Book”, and told people to urinate on it.

They also insult and ridicule Prophet Muhammed. Besides publishing his caricature cartoons, some called Prophet Muhammad a paedophile murderer.

Far right ignorance
The Qur’an is the only source that confirms the previous Scriptures – the Torah and the Gospel; “…this divine writ [Qur’an], setting forth the truth which confirms whatever there still remains [of earlier revelations]” (3:3). The Qur’an is “… bestowed … in confirmation of whatever [of the truth] you [Jews and Christians] already possess” (4:27).

It is only in the Qur’an where we find unblemished stories of the past prophets and messengers. It purges the perverse narrations, for example, about two daughters of Prophet Lot, or of a sinner female prostitute some describing her as Christ’s wife.

The Qur’an devotes one full chapter to categorically establish Mary’s chastity and virgin birth of Jesus by God’s will. It honours Mary: “O Mary! Behold, God has elected you and made you pure, and raised you above all the women of the world” (3:42).

The Qur’an also devotes one full chapter on Prophet Joseph to establish Joseph’s righteousness and upright character even when Potiphar’s wife attempted to seduce him.

Western prejudice
Contrary to the common belief that the Qur’an promotes violence and intolerance, the Qur’an declares sanctity of life: “do not take any human being’s life, which God has declared to be sacred other than in [the pursuit of] justice” (6:151; 17:33; 25:67). Therefore, “if anyone slays a human being [unjustly] …it shall be as though he had slain all mankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind” (5:32).

The Qur’an promotes tolerance: “O men! Behold, We have created you all out of a male and a female, and have made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another” (49:13). It commands believers: “Do not insult those they call upon besides God, lest they insult God out of hostility and ignorance” (6:108); and to declare, “… we make no distinction between any of them [God’s messengers]” (2:136, 2: 285, 3:84, 4:152).

The Qur’an guarantees freedom of religion: “Unto every one of you have We appointed a [different] law and way of life. And if God had so willed, He could surely have made you all one single community: but [He willed it otherwise] in order to test you … Vie, then, with one another in doing good works!” (5:48). The Qur’an declares sanctity of “monasteries and churches and synagogues and mosques … – would surely have been destroyed” [if not protected by God] (22:40).

The Qur’an prohibits female infanticides (81:8-9) and establishes the human dignity of women (17:70), including their rights to own properties, earn income and alimony (2:231, 2:233, 2:240, 2:241).

The Qur’an is a Guidance for mankind. The Qur’an opens by referring to God as the Lord of all creations (1:1) and concludes by calling God as the Lord of mankind (114:1). Nowhere it refers to God as exclusive to Muslims.

A Book for pondering
The Qur’an says, “there are messages indeed for people who think!” (13:3; repeated 20 times). This is a Book for those who have knowledge; who understand (38:29). Thus, the Qur’an was revealed with the first verse commanding, “Read in the name of your Sustainer; … Read – for your Sustainer is the Most Bountiful One; who has taught [man] the use of the pen; taught man what he did not know” (96:1).

Therefore, burning the Qur’an is a foolish act. Only the fools are oblivious of what is lost if the Qur’an is vanished as they wish. Thus, the only way to avert the risk of violence spiralling as the Swedish PM feared is to create awareness about the Qur’an. The State must bear the responsibility to educate and prevent spreading of misinformation, hate and prejudice.

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Credit: United Nations

By Anwarul K. Chowdhury
NEW YORK, Aug 22 2023 (IPS)

14 June has become a black day for the UN High Forum on The Culture of Peace (HLF-CoP) convened by the successive Presidents of the UN General Assembly since 2012.

This exalted, high profile, much-celebrated, much-awaited popular, productive, and purposeful gathering of the General Assembly was derailed in a very ill conceived and unthoughtful manner by the Office of the President of the UN General Assembly (OPGA) and the current Team Bangladesh at the UN.

And that was done without even informing the civil society which has been a major partner in organizing the day-long event for a decade.

Also, important to recall that during the last ten years, the Culture of Peace agenda of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) was taken up as an integral part of the HLF-CoP and the annual resolution on the follow up of the Declaration and Programme Action on a Culture of Peace was adopted.

That was purposeful and had substantive implications related to collaboration between Member States and civil society advocating the culture of peace.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury

Though adoption of a resolution is an intergovernmental affair, in view of the fact the UN’s foundational documents on culture of peace give civil society a special role asserting that “Civil society needs to be fully engaged in fuller development of a culture of peace” (Article 5 of the Declaration).

The first and only occasion the UN has done that.

The annual UN resolutions on the subject also repeated that special role since 1997. Why then this bypassing of the civil society by the organizers of the HLF-CoP? Over the last ten years since 2012, GMCoP has worked closely with OPGA mostly with positive outcomes.

But the 77th OPGA and Team Bangladesh at the UN were found to be not interested in collaborating with the civil society.

The event was truncated into a half-day affair calling it a Plenary Meeting. The whole spirit of connecting the Members States through a day-long engagement held in two parts was totally abandoned. The other half is known popularly as the civil society component of the Forum. In the decade-long history of the HLF-CoP, this has never happened.

Why the Culture of Peace is such an anathema?

The opening speech by current President of the General Assembly (PGA) on 14 June had no reference to the main issue – Culture of Peace. Even the foundational document was not mentioned in full in his presentation.

Wonder what was the motivation? PGA speaking on the agenda item 14 on Culture of Peace do not find it necessary to mention culture of peace even once, yes, not a single time. His speechwriter must have prepared it to recycle it for other similar peace-related occasions.

In the section containing “Conclusion and recommendations” of the “Report of the UN Secretary-General on a Culture of Peace (A/77/614)” of 29 November 2022, paragraph 42 says:

“As outlined in “Our Common Agenda” (OCA), a culture of peace must be based on a better understanding of the underlying drivers that sustain conflict, an idea that will be developed further through the Secretary-General’s “New Agenda for Peace” (NAP).

Neither of those two Agendas – OCA and NAP – mention “culture of peace” at all, yes, no reference at all. This is a gross misinformation recorded in the Report of the UN Secretary-General. One would again wonder where we have reached in terms of accuracy and thoroughness.

Nobody, not even the so-called culture of peace defender Team Bangladesh, noticed because the delegates do not read the SG’s report as thoroughly as they are expected to.

The incumbent Secreatary-General has the unique distinction of not attending a single HLF-CoP, including the 20th anniversary forum, during his seven years at the UN in the post. His predecessor attended in person a number of times to listen to the wise words of the Nobel laureates and other eminent persons.

HLF-CoP is the only Forum of the UN which was graced by the participation of as many as six Nobel Peace Laureates – all women to honor the global role and work of women for the culture of peace. In the UN history, nothing like this happened at any annual event or on any occasion.

Pope Francis’ recent book (English version) on war and peace is titled “Against War – Building a Culture of Peace” to the great delight amongst the culture of peace civil society organizations.

The Mayors for Peace, a multilateral organization based in Hiroshima with a membership of 8300 Mayors in 166 countries and regions have integrated “Promoting the Culture of Peace” as part of its Mission Statement in 2021.

Efforts from civil society thwarted unceremoniously

As the Founder of the Global Movement of The Culture of Peace (GMCoP), a coalition of the 18 civil society organizations advocating for the culture of peace at the UN, I had taken the initiative of meeting with the PGA77 and briefing him about the background of the HLF and the annual resolutions of the Assembly mandating the PGA to convene the Forum.

The gorgeous past programme booklets and approved UN visual identity samples were also left with him. He was kind and gracious. But unfortunately, his staff dealing with culture of peace were not. Thereafter, the civil society representatives reached out to staff responsible for the HLF but were advised to come through the relevant Member States.

I am flabbergasted finding such disdain for civil society. Civil society had collaborated and supported the OPGA since 2012. This OPGA was the most unhelpful of all to the civil society representatives.

How was the HLF-CoP initiated?

The HLF was initiated in 2012 by the 66th PGA Ambassador Nassir Al-Nasser mainly to address the weakest area of the implementation of the UN’s own Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace adopted more than two decades ago in 1999, namely the commitments by the Member States who were responsible for the adoption of the landmark resolution by consensus.

The other objective of Ambassador Al-Nasser was to build a true collaborative channel between Member States and the civil society organizations which are the strongest and most-enthusiastic about advancing the culture of peace. That was a visionary perspective put to action in initiating the HLF-CoP.

The 2019 HLF-CoP was a grand occasion convened by PGA72 María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the UN’s foundational document on culture of peace on 13 September 1999. For that, GMCoP commenced a 20th anniversary profile build-up advocacy with its other civil society partners.

Team Bangladesh fails miserably as the Culture of Peace champion

It is inconceivable when one finds the current Team Bangladesh’s disinterest in the culture of peace recalling that its predecessor Team Bangladesh took the first pioneering step on 31 July 1997 to write to the then newly elected Secretary-General Kofi Annan requesting inclusion of a new item of UNGA agenda on culture of peace.

My own voluntary guidance and attention, along with those from the civil society were extended to Teams Bangladesh and OPGAs over the years through many diverse ways that included writing the annual draft resolutions presented by Bangladesh on the culture of peace; inputs for remarks of PGAs on behalf of Bangladesh delegation; arrange funding for the travel and hospitality of keynote speakers occasionally from far off cities by arranging for resources.

All these civil society supports was shunned by the current Team Bangladesh.

Since 1996, the culture of peace became the flagship initiative of Bangladesh. Its leadership role on the culture of peace was recognized by PGA67 inviting Bangladesh Foreign Minister to chair the HLF-CoP in his place. Two Foreign Ministers and Ministerial level representatives of Bangladesh spoke at the Forum’s Panel Discussion on different occasions.

One wonders how this cold shoulder could be given to the culture of peace without instructions from the capital. Leadership of the Government of Bangladesh back home continue its whole-hearted support and encouragement to the long-standing high-profile role of Bangladesh on the culture of peace.

At the truncated HLF-CoP on 14 June 2023, Team Bangladesh obtained the lowest number of co-sponsors which had no countries of Europe or US. Lowest number also for the speakers and again no country from Europe spoke.

OPGA needs transparency and streamlining

One wonders why OPGA is so dismissive of the initiatives and of the valuable suggestions offered by the civil society.

In fact, OPGA has become another layer of UN bureaucracy. That is of a hybrid kind invoking that it works for the Member States through PGA leadership while reaching out to the Secretariat for all types of support and assistance.

Before this current structure of OPGA with 20+ support staff commenced some years ago, UN’s Department of General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM) was managing everything smoothly and efficiently. Now it spends most of the time convincing the OPGA staff who wants to assert the primacy of the PGA in the affairs of GA.

When Bangladesh Foreign Minister was PGA in 1986, I was his Special Assistant with a team of three Bangladesh colleagues. The exalted title of Chief of Cabinet of PGA was not in existence at that time. Things worked well and PGA’s responsibilities were carried out successfully.

OPGA needs to be more transparent. In 1998, I recall as Chair of the UN’s Budgetary Committee, an amount of US dollars $250,000 was approved for OPGA. What is its total budget now (not just UN’s regular one but through other contributions)?

How much of that is devoted to travels for PGA and his staff? On occasions, the GA issues take a secondary position to PGA travels. Which countries second their staff to the OPGA? After all these years of the experience of ever-expanding OPGA structure, there should be an independent evaluation of its value-added benefits, if any.

Conclusion

I believe that the UN should own the culture of peace and internalize its implementation throughout the UN system. Also, Secretary-General should prioritize the culture of peace as a part of his leadership agenda. He should make good use of this workable tool that UN possess in the culture of peace programme to advance the objective of sustainable peace.

We need to remember that the culture of peace remains permanently a decision of the UNGA. No one – a PGA or an Ambassador – can obliterate it from the attention and engagement of the global community.

Any cursorily organized, hurriedly-put-together, mandate-obligated arrangements for the HLF-CoP now would not get the trust and confidence of the culture of peace community, more so that of the GMCoP.

Keeping in mind the experience the role played by OPGA and Team Bangladesh during the 77th UNGA session, we hope there will be a better experience at the 78th session which commences in two weeks.

The Culture of Peace is not a quick fix. It is a movement, not a revolution!

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, Chair of the nine-month-long negotiations resulting in the consensus as mandated by UN General Assembly and presenter of the agreed text of this document (A/RES/53/243) for adoption by the Assembly; Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN (1996-2001); UN Under-Secretary-General (2002-2007).

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Women professors protested on Aug. 9 in Brasilia in front of the Ministry of Education, demanding better salaries in a sector where women are the vast majority, but face many barriers to promotion to better paid jobs, such as university teaching and scientific research, which in Brazil are concentrated in public universities. CREDIT: Joédson Alves/Agência Brasil-FotosPúblicas

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 22 2023 (IPS)

“I thought of studying journalism, because of the example of Gloria Maria,” a famous black TV journalist who died of cancer in February 2023, said mathematician Luciana Elias, while discussing the scarce female participation in exact sciences research in Brazil.

“There are no visible examples, female role models in scientific research, where there are white men, not women, let alone black women,” she said. This lack of representation blocks girls’ access from childhood to academic careers that are still perceived as “masculine,” the 52-year-old professor pointed out."There are no visible examples, female role models in scientific research, where there are white men, not women, let alone black women." Luciana Elias

Because she loved mathematics, Elias followed her vocation. She graduated in 1995, and earned a master’s degree and doctorate in exact mathematics at several Brazilian universities, later becoming a professor of this pure science at the Federal University of Jataí.

“At the graduation ceremony, there were only three women and I was the only black woman,” she told IPS by telephone from Jataí, a city of 105,000 people in the midwest Brazilian state of Goiás.

Women have excelled in educational advancement in Brazil, a country of just over 203 million people. In 1970 they made up only 25.6 percent of Brazilians graduating from university. By the year 2000 they represented 52.8 percent. This trend has continued, although at a slower pace.

 

Lagging behind in mathematics

But in mathematics, applied and computational mathematics and statistics, there was a small reduction in female participation between 2009 and 2019, according to a special bulletin released in May by the Gender and Diversity Commission of the Brazilian Societies of Mathematics (SBM) and Applied and Computational Mathematics (SBMAC).

From 53 percent of female graduates in 2009, the proportion dropped to 47 percent in 2019.

The percentage of women is even lower in the so-called baccalaureate, which in Brazil refers to a bachelor’s degree required to practice a profession, while a different kind of bachelor’s degree trains future professors.

Female baccalaureate degree holders in mathematics and related fields dropped from 43 percent to 37 percent between 2009 and 2019, according to the study, while those graduating specifically to teach dropped from 55 percent to 48 percent in the same period.

In computer science the situation is worse: “I know a student who was the only woman in her group of 40 students at graduation,” said Marilaine Colnago, PhD in computational mathematics and professor of that discipline at the Paulista State University (UNESP) in Araraquara, a city of 242,000 inhabitants in the state of São Paulo.

“Many female students drop out because they feel isolated,” she lamented, saying that the lack of women in careers such as engineering and computer science is the first barrier to women’s entry into universities to take courses in the exact sciences.

“There were many women in the beginning, when there were only the big computers, for calculations and secretarial services. Then, with personal computers and advances in computing, it became a purely male area,” said Colnago, the head of SBMAC’s “Women in Applied and Computational Mathematics” committee.

Women have been a majority in Brazilian universities since the end of the last century. But in addition to being a minority in higher income professions, such as engineering and computer science, they suffer from the so-called “scissors effect”, which prevents them from moving up the career ladder, especially in scientific research.

“At graduation, we make up about half of the students; at the doctoral level, women are down to 20 percent,” said Colnago, 34.

 

Luciana Elias is a professor of exact mathematics, a discipline in which she holds a PhD, at the Federal University of Jataí in midwest Brazil. She represents a small minority in pure science, especially in mathematics, where women have a scarce presence and are mainly engaged in teaching primary and middle school. CREDIT: UFJ

 

Maternity as a stumbling block

Maternity is one of the notable factors in the low presence of women in research. The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, electrical engineer Luciana Santos, the first woman to hold this position in the country, announced that she would promote “affirmative action” to ensure postgraduate scholarships for women scientists.

In addition to specific resources for women researchers equivalent to 20 million dollars over the next four years, she promised to modify the criteria for scholarships, respecting, for example, the question of maternity.

Until now, pregnant women lose points for productivity-based scholarships, because their evaluation considers the period of pregnancy and maternity leave as an interruption of their work.

Women researchers are faced with the dilemma between motherhood and a career, since the still dominant culture assigns women to care work and teaching, which is less well paid. They are also in the majority in nursing, but in the minority among physicians.

Added to that are “invisible barriers,” such as sexual harassment, a male environment with its prejudices, jokes and the silencing of female voices.

There have been advances in combating these issues, which previously “could not be spoken up about,” but they continue to hinder the promotion of women in the academic world, said Colnago, who is married and has no children.

She personally felt the difference in treatment between the master’s degree, where she had an understanding and friendly adviser, and the PhD that she earned in a more masculine world, as it was in computer science, “where there is different treatment for men and women.”

 

A meeting in Brasilia of the rectors of Brazil’s public universities with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which shows that most of the top university authorities are men, despite the fact that the majority of the university population is female. Luciana Santos, the first woman to hold the post of Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, next to the president in the foreground, represents a hope for a greater female presence in the exact sciences. CREDIT: Ricardo Stuckert / PR

 

Losses

“Scientific research, like all innovation projects, loses the diversity of views, the different visions of gender and race, which are fundamental,” by excluding a more effective participation of women and different ethnicities, said the professor of computational mathematics in the chemistry course at UNESP.

“We are losing female researchers with good projects because they see motherhood as a negative and because of a lack of incentives and public policies,” Colnago complained.

It is necessary to give visibility to female advances in the scientific area, to highlight women who made good contributions to science “that will inspire other women to follow their vocations,” she said.

This is what the SBM/SBMAC Gender and Diversity Commission, created in 2019, seeks in order to reduce gender differences and promote the diversity of actors in mathematics in Brazil.

A positive measure taken by SBMAC at its annual congresses was to set up a space to care for the children of the participants, so that their fathers and mothers could have equal conditions to discuss the topics of their work.

In Elias’s view, the first step, already partially accomplished with the bulletin on “gender and race” in mathematics, is to recognize existing gender disparities in the exact sciences.

The next would be to propose “institutional, public” actions to overcome inequalities, dismantle the myth that “men are more capable,” disseminate positive examples of women, and increase forums for debate on the subject.

It is also necessary to reduce regional imbalances, the professor said, pointing out that her city, Jatai, is more than 300 kilometers from an airport and has few resources to promote science.

“Society is losing brilliant minds that fail to fulfill their vocations and Brazil is giving up potential intellectuals” by failing to address gender and racial inequalities in scientific development as it should, she argued.

People took to the streets to protest against the military coup in Myanmar in February 2021. Credit: R. Bociaga / Shutterstock.com

By Kris Janssens
PHNOM PENH, Aug 21 2023 (IPS)

Three notable events have boosted the democratic process in Southeast Asia in recent decades. The fall of the Marcos regime in 1986, the Reformasi that shifted Indonesian politics in the late 1990s, and Aung San Suu Kyi’s victory over the military junta in Myanmar. However, today Marcos’ son is president of the Philippines, Indonesian presidential candidates want to centralize power again, and Myanmar is embroiled in an armed conflict.

What is going on in the region, and what does this mean for democracy?

Countries like Cambodia or Thailand seem to ignore basic democratic rules. For economic reasons, they are trying to placate the West, but at the other end of the spectrum, Beijing is beckoning.

The crackdown on independent media in Southeast Asia is getting worse. “There are very few even semi-democracies left in a region where democracy was once on the rise, and tiny Timor-Leste is actually the freest state in the region”

China has been able to drastically reduce poverty rates in only a few decade’s time, without having to organize these fearsome elections. The dogma that you need a multi-party system to be a prosperous country seems to be false. Then why should Southeast Asian regimes care about it?

Moreover, the state leaders hardly notice any disapproval from their neighbours. There is the loose-tight partnership ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). But the ten member states basically do not interfere in each other’s domestic politics, to avoid being criticised for their own human rights violations.

 

Humanitarian crisis in Myanmar

This lack of decisiveness became painfully clear in the spring of 2021 when the countries, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, gathered to discuss the situation in member state Myanmar.

In February, the army staged a coup there, resulting in bloody protests. ASEAN wanted to condemn violence against civilians in a compromise text.

Coup perpetrator Min Aung Hlaing sat at the table on behalf of his country. The head of the government, Aung San Suu Kyi, was captured by the junta after she had won the elections and did not receive an invitation.

Eventually, the meeting resulted in a 5-Point Consensus, without a clear timing and without agreements on political prisoners. The junta has recently pardoned the now 78-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi on five legal charges, meaning her 33-year jail term will be reduced by six years.

But various ethnic armed groups are still fighting the army stubbornly to this day.

 

Like father, like son

Accurate reporting on Myanmar is difficult because the fieldwork for journalists is downright dangerous. But the press is also being restricted in other Southeast Asian countries.

In the Philippines, former President Duterte revoked a broadcasting license held by ABS-CBN. The country’s largest broadcast company now works as a content creator but has lost much of its advertising revenue during the past three years.

Critics say this attack on press freedom is maintained by current president Marcos Junior. Important detail: ABS-CBN had already been shut down in the 1970s, during the reign of his father.

Dictator Ferdinand Marcos senior led an authoritarian regime for twenty years in which thousands were killed and billions of dollars of state money were said to have disappeared. He was finally ousted from power during a popular uprising in 1986. The impressive shoe collection, owned by his wife Imelda, symbolized his family’s exuberant wealth.

Last year, son ‘Bong Bong’ Marcos was elected as the new president of the Philippines. So far, according to independent journalist Joshua Kurlantzick, there is little sign of the promised ‘change’.

Kurlantzick works for think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and wrote the predictive blog post “Why democracy in Southeast Asia will worsen in 2023” late last year.

 

Solid democracy in Indonesia

In an interview with IPS, he says the crackdown on independent media in Southeast Asia is getting worse. “There are very few even semi-democracies left in a region where democracy was once on the rise, and tiny Timor-Leste is actually the freest state in the region”.

Indonesia is also seen as a solid democracy, although it is very unclear what next year’s presidential elections will bring.

Current president Joko Widodo has to make way after two terms in office. Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto is one of the presidential candidates. He has been linked to the killings of activists and journalists and has already made clear he doesn’t value democracy so much.

“Prabowo could cancel the many local and regional elections that have become the lifeblood of Indonesia’s highly successful program of democratic decentralization to consolidate power in himself”, Kurlantzick says.

The LGBTQIA+ community in Indonesia is also holding its breath. In an opinion article, gay rights activist Dede Oetomo points out that “morality is an important battleground for Islamist politicians”.

President Widodo has always been able to maintain a balance, but Oetomo fears there will be more prohibitions in the near future, including a ban on same-sex intercourse.

“Resistance in the streets and at the Constitutional Court are the best ways forward to preserve democracy in Indonesia”, he concludes.

 

Gay kiss

Sexual orientation issues are also stirring up emotions in other countries. Last month, a gig by the British pop-rock band ‘The 1975′ in Kuala Lumpur was cut short. Singer Matty Healy criticized the Malaysian law, which prohibits homosexuality, and then kissed his bassist. Subsequent concerts by the band in Indonesia and Taiwan have been cancelled.

“LGBTQIA+ rights are certainly benchmarks for democracy”, says Belgian researcher Bart Gaens in an interview with IPS. He teaches at the University of Helsinki, with an expertise in EU-Asia relations. “However, the question is whether external criticism such as the protest by ‘The 1975’ does any good”, Gaens adds.

He believes change can only be gradual and has to happen from within, for example through vibrant civil societies. “Along with democratic backsliding including in the US and elsewhere, Southeast Asian countries are now even more hesitant to accept external criticism”, he says.

 

Global phenomenon

Widespread homophobia and transphobia, and increasing bashing of ‘mainstream media’ can certainly be seen as symptoms of this global downturn Gaens mentions.

However, a key point needs to be added. Supporters of Trump in the US and of the former French presidential candidate Zemmour are mainly democracy-weary.

They prefer a strong autocratic leader over endless debates within a politically correct parliament or in-depth journalism with strong and valid arguments.

In the Western world, the system seems worn out and frayed. In Southeast Asia it has never been able to fully develop.

This article is the second in a series about declining democracy in Southeast Asia, read the first part here.

A partial view of the exterior of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad that was destroyed by a truck bomb on 19 August 2003. Credit: UN Photo/Timothy Sopp

By Martin Griffiths and Gilles Michaud
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 21 2023 (IPS)

This World Humanitarian Day on 19 August, we marked 20 years since 22 of our colleagues were killed and more than 100 injured when a suicide bomber detonated a truck full of explosives outside the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, the United Nations headquarters in Iraq. This devastating blow to the UN sent shockwaves across the humanitarian community.

Along with the suicide car bombing near the UN headquarters in Baghdad just three days later, the attack marked a turning point in how the UN perceived security and threats, and how we approached humanitarian operations in dangerous settings.

It triggered an urgent review of the UN’s security arrangements, with the Ahtisaari Panel recognizing the need for new UN security approaches that ensured an acceptable balance between operational objectives and staff security in high-risk environments.

The Panel recommended investment in a new, adequately financed UN security management system with the highest levels of professionalism, expertise, and accountability at its core. As a result, in 2005, the United Nations Department of Safety and Security, or UNDSS, was created, mandated to lead a collective approach to UN security.

In the 20 years since the attack, the number of people who need humanitarian assistance has grown at a near-exponential rate, from around 50 million in 2003 to 339 million today. In response, humanitarian assistance has never reached as many people as it does today and there have never been as many humanitarian workers deployed globally.

In many ways, we have become more flexible and dynamic, changing direction more rapidly when either needs or security risks change. We have incrementally improved our policies, support, and guidance to make right and justifiable decisions.

But the risks to aid workers remain very real. In 2022 alone, 444 aid workers fell victim to violence in 235 separate attacks, with 116 killed, 143 injured and 185 kidnapped. Many of those workers affected were national staff, and the majority were from non-governmental organizations.

The threats to humanitarian workers, already manifold, are now exacerbated by rampant misinformation and disinformation about their intent and goals, and by unabashed disregard for humanitarian law by many parties to conflict.

For us to be able to meet our commitment to affected populations and our obligations to our staff, the humanitarian and security communities must remain committed to moving our partnerships, policies and practices beyond the “gates and guards” approach that predominated immediately following the Canal Hotel bombing, towards one that enables humanitarians to get closer to the people we serve.

We must continuously look for ways to gain access to, and the acceptance of, communities in need. To that end, security approaches must listen to and be attuned to local dynamics and sensitivities.

These efforts to reach communities in need and to stay and deliver even in the most challenging circumstances must receive greater global support. At all levels, we must advocate, jointly and relentlessly, on behalf of our humanitarian workers and principles, and on behalf of the people we serve.

This includes educating parties to conflict on their obligations to respect, protect and provide support to relief personnel. It means demanding, clearly and unequivocally, an end to direct or indiscriminate attacks on civilians, non-combatants, and humanitarian workers during conflicts in breach of international humanitarian law.

And it requires us to challenge the disinformation and misinformation that are increasingly putting them at risk of attack and undermining humanitarian operations.

Finally, we need to continue high-level diplomacy in support of humanitarian operations and humanitarian access, especially in the context of heavy conflict. Recent experience shows that genuine agreements are possible, even when peace seems a distant possibility.

Take for example the evacuation of hundreds of civilians from the Azovstal Steel Plant in Mariupol, Ukraine in 2022, when we negotiated a pause in fighting to create a humanitarian corridor for a joint mission with the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN.

Or look at northern Ethiopia where, after months of blockade, the first humanitarian mission reached conflict-affected communities on 31 March 2022. And take the Declaration of Commitment signed by the parties to the conflict in Sudan in which they agreed to protect the civilians of Sudan and recognized their obligations to facilitate humanitarian action.

Despite repeated breaches of the agreement, it has been pivotal in facilitating the re-establishment of humanitarian operations in many parts of the country.

As we reflect on the gains of the past 20 years and how we can build on them to address the challenges of the next 20, we remain resolute in our determination to protect the communities we serve, while also protecting our staff.

This is how we can best honour the memory of those who lost their lives in the Canal Hotel bombing and reaffirm our joint commitment to the noble cause they served.

Martin Griffiths is Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, and Gilles Michaud, Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security.

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

A young child in Cox’s Bazar engages with her peers at one of BRAC’s Humanitarian Play Labs. CREDIT: BRAC

By Abigail Van Neely
NEW YORK, Aug 21 2023 (IPS)

A Rohingya woman tells a forum of peer counselors the story of her divorce. A survivor of domestic abuse, she has started a new life alone with her daughter. She has weathered a storm of neighbors telling her she was the problem. Now, she provides the support she didn’t have to other women like her.

Similar scenes occur across refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. Here, BRAC, an international NGO based in Bangladesh, has developed a program to train counselors who can provide mental health services to Rohingya refugees. This includes 200 community members who have begun to practice the psychosocial skills they’ve learned in their own lives.

A Growing Need for Support

Over 900,000 Rohingya have fled to Cox’s Bazar since massive-scale violence against Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine State began in 2017, the UN Refugee Agency reports. The prolonged exposure of the ethnic minority group to persecution and displacement has likely increased the refugees’ vulnerability to an array of mental health issues, a 2019 systematic review found. Their struggles include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and gender-based violence.

Around the world, there is growing attention to the importance of socio-emotional learning as a skill to help people in areas of crisis cope with challenges. Educators are often tasked not only with providing traditional academic instruction but with building resilience in children. They are asked to create a sense of normalcy in environments that are anything but normal.

The teaching the children need is much more than about reading, writing, and math; but about giving young children a safe space to practice socio-emotional skills. CREDIT: BRAC

“It’s about not only teaching [kids] how to read and how to do mathematics … in these settings, kids and teachers themselves have the need for psychosocial support,” Ramya Vivekanandan, the senior education specialist at the Global Partnership for Education, said.

Teachers, caregivers, and frontline mental health providers are overburdened, Vivekanandan explains. They lack adequate pay, working conditions, and professional development. As they try to support the growing number of people in crisis, who will support them?

For some counselors in Cox’s Bazar, the answer is each other.

Community Care

Even when resources are available, stigmas around mental health can prevent support from being received. Taifur Islam, a Bangladeshi psychologist responsible for mental health training and supervision at BRAC, says people in the communities he works with are rarely taught to identify their feelings. When you are struggling to access basic needs, Islam explains, it is easy to forget that emotional well-being can improve productivity. If a person seeks help, they may be labeled ‘crazy.’

Training people to take care of their own communities can be a powerful way to overcome stigma in a culturally relevant way.

BRAC’s Humanitarian Play Labs were established in 2017 to give Rohingya children a safe space to practice socio-emotional skills through play. Erum Mariam, the executive director of the BRAC Institute of Educational Development, explains that each play lab is tailored to fit the community it serves. Rohingya children now rhyme, chant, and dance in 304 Humanitarian Play Labs across the camps in Cox’s Bazar.

“We discovered the Rohingya culture through the children. And the whole model is based on knowing the culture,” Mariam said.

‘Play leaders’ are recruited from the camps and trained in play pedagogy. Mariam watched Rohingya women who had never worked before embracing their new roles. As they covered the ceilings of their play spaces with rainbows of flowers – the kind of tapestry that would hang from their homes in Myanmar – Mariam realized that a new kind of social capital could be earned by nurturing joy. Traditional play didn’t just help uprooted children shape their sense of identity – it was also healing for the community.

If a play leader notices a child is withdrawn or restless, they can refer the child to a ‘para counselor’ who has been trained by BRAC’s psychologists to address the mental health needs of children and their family members. Almost half of the 469 para counselors in Cox’s Bazar are recruited from the Rohingya community, while the rest come from around Bangladesh. Most para counselors are women.

Many para counselors are uniquely positioned to empathize with the people they serve as they go door to door, building awareness. This is crucial because it creates a bottom-up system of care without prescribing what well-being should look like, Chris Henderson, a specialist on education in emergencies, says.

At the same time, by supporting others, mental health providers are learning to take care of themselves.

Learning by Doing

A play leader engages the children in the session. Humanitarian professionals encourage frontline teachers, caregivers, and counselors to actualize their own ideas for improvement. CREDIT: BRAC

For months, Suchitra Rani watched violence against Rohingya people every time she turned on the news. When she was recruited by BRAC to become a para counselor in Cox’s Bazar, she saw an opportunity to make a difference. Alongside fellow trainees, Rani, a social worker originally from Magura, poured over new words she learned in the foreign Rohingya dialect and worked to find her place in the community.

Rani tested what she had learned about the value of psychosocial support and cultural sensitivity when she met a 15-year-old Rohingya girl too scared to tell her single mother she was pregnant. Terrified of bringing shame to the family, the girl had an abortion at home. As the young woman spiraled into depression, Rani felt herself slipping into her own fears of inadequacy.

It took time for Rani to convince the girl to open up to her mother. Talking through feelings of guilt slowly led to acceptance. As they worked to heal fractured family bonds, Rani began to feel surer of herself, too.

Now, the Rohingya community calls Rani a “sister of peace.” Rani says she has become confident in her ability to use the socio-emotional skills she’s learned to both help others and resolve problems in her personal life.

Throughout the program, para counselors have changed the way they communicate their feelings and felt empowered to create more empathetic environments.

Islam recounts a 26-year-old Rohingya refugee’s perilous journey to Cox’s Bazar: In Myanmar, the woman’s husband was killed in front of her. One of her two young children drowned during a river crossing as they fled the country. She arrived at the camp as a single mother without a support network. Only once she had the support of others willing to listen could she speak openly.

Islam remembers counselors telling the woman about the importance of self-care: “If you actually take care of yourself, then you can take care of your child also.”

Toward Empowerment 

According to Henderson, evidence shows that one of the best ways to support someone is to give them a role to help others. In places where there may be a stigma against prioritizing ‘self-care,’ people with their own post-crisis trauma are willing to learn well-being skills to help children.

A collection of teacher stories collected by the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies reveals a similar pattern. Teachers in crisis areas around the world say the socio-emotional skills they learned to help students helped them reduce stress in their own lives, too.

Henderson suggests that the best way international agencies can promote trauma support is by holding up a mirror to the strength already shown by refugee communities like the Rohingya.

Instead of seeing what they lack, Henderson encourages humanitarian professionals to help give frontline teachers, caregivers, and counselors the agency to actualize their own ideas for improvement. Empowered community leaders empower the young people they work with, who, in turn, learn to empower each other. This creates “systems where everyone sees their position of leadership as supporting the next person’s leadership and resilience.”

At the end of her para counselor training, the Rohingya domestic abuse survivor said she wasn’t sure what she would do with the skills she’d learned for working through trauma, Islam remembers. But she did say she wished they were skills she had known before. According to Islam, she is now one of their best para counselors.

“The training is not only to serve the community; that training is something that can actually change your life,” Islam says. It’s why he became a psychologist.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Ukraine Humanitarian Response Plan Only 30 Percent Funded
• Humanitarian Aid Efforts Continue in Niger Despite Military Coup
• The Era of Global Boiling Has Arrived – UN Secretary-General

Medardo Pérez, 60, sprays paraquat, a potent herbicide, to kill the weeds growing in his corn crop in the San Isidro canton of the municipality of Santa María Ostuma, in central El Salvador. Most small farmers in Central America use this and other agrochemicals on their crops, just as agribusiness does on monocultures such as bananas, pineapples, coffee and sugar cane. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SANTA MARÍA OSTUMA, El Salvador , Aug 21 2023 (IPS)

In his green cornfield, Salvadoran farmer Medardo Pérez set about filling the hand-held spray pump that hangs on his back, with the right mixture of water and paraquat, a potent herbicide, and began spraying the weeds.

Paraquat, the active ingredient in brands such as Gramaxone, from the German pharmaceutical manufacturer Bayer, is sold without any restrictions in El Salvador and in other nations in Central America and around the world, despite its toxicity and the fact that the label clearly states “controlled product”."We are risking our lives with these poisons, since we don't even use a waterproof cape to protect ourselves, so the chemical wets our backs, it gets inside our bodies, through our pores." -- Medardo Pérez

“We are risking our lives with these poisons, since we don’t even use a waterproof cape to protect ourselves, so the chemical wets our backs, it gets inside our bodies, through our pores,” the farmer from San Isidro, in the municipality of Santa María Ostuma, in the central Salvadoran department of La Paz, told IPS.

Pérez, 60, said he was aware of the risks to his health, but added that using the agrochemical made it easier and faster for him to get rid of the weeds growing in his cornfield on his two-hectare farm.

“Paraquat is restricted here in Guatemala, but it is commonly used in agriculture; any peasant farmer can buy it; it is sold freely,” David Paredes, an activist with the National Network for the Defense of Food Sovereignty in Guatemala, told IPS.

In 2016 the New York Times reported that scientific reports linked paraquat to Parkinson’s disease, and explained that the product could not be sold in Europe but could be marketed in the United States and the rest of the world.

 

Agrochemicals everywhere and no controls

Central America is a region where these and other agrochemicals are imported and marketed with virtually no controls, and where governments appear to have given in to the interests of the powerful transnational corporations that produce and sell them.

Some 51 million people live in the region and 20 percent of jobs are in the agricultural sector, which accounts for a total of seven percent of the GDP of the seven countries of Central America.

In addition to small farmers, agroindustry in the region uses agrochemicals intensively to produce monocultures for export, such as bananas, pineapples, African palm, coffee and sugarcane.

Sugarcane is the raw material for the sugar that the region exports to the United States, Europe and even China, through trade agreements.

The sugar agribusiness uses glyphosate, patented in 1974 by the U.S.-based Monsanto, to accelerate sugarcane ripening, but there are reports around the world about the damage caused to the environment and to health, including possible cancer risks, as warned by environmental watchdog Greenpeace.

And yet it continues to be widely used in the region and in other parts of the world. Glyphosate is known by commercial names such as Roundup, also owned now by Germany’s Bayer.

“There is indiscriminate use of agrochemicals by agribusiness,” Paredes said from his country’s capital, Guatemala City.

Paredes shared with IPS the preliminary results of a study, still underway, that has detected the presence of 49 chemicals in the water due to the use of pesticides, half of them banned in more than 120 countries, he said.

The research has been carried out along the southern coast of the country, where monocultures such as sugar cane, banana, African palm and pineapple are predominant, he said.

 

Juan Mejía, a small farmer, takes a break from his daily chores on his two-hectare plot in the El Carrizal canton, in the municipality of Santa María Ostuma, El Salvador. Mejía still continues to use herbicides such as paraquat, but has reduced their use by 90 percent, and is now shifting to agroecological production. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala

 

The fight against agrochemicals

“Glyphosate is applied through aerial spraying, it is very common in that area, and when the wind spreads it to the crops of poor communities, their harvests are destroyed,” he said.

The same is true in El Salvador, where environmental organizations have been carrying out the Bitter Sugar campaign for several years, against the indiscriminate use of glyphosate, in particular, and agrochemicals in general.

“In this campaign we have protested the fact that spraying by light aircraft continues, and that it is punishable, as an environmental crime,” Alejandro Labrador, of the Ecological Unit of El Salvador (UNES), told IPS.

In September 2013, El Salvador’s single-chamber legislature approved a ban on 50 agrochemicals, including paraquat and glyphosate. But the decree was rejected by then President Mauricio Funes and the bill has been bogged down ever since.

However, except for a list of 11 products – including paraquat and glyphosate – the agrochemicals that the legislature wanted to ban were already regulated by other national and international regulations, although in practice there is little or no state control over their use in the fields.

“The corporate lobby twisted their arm,” Labrador said, alluding to the failed attempt to ban them via legislative decree.

He also hinted at the influence exercised over presidents and government officials by transnational biotechnology corporations such as Bayer and Monsanto, whose interests are usually defended by the agricultural chambers of the Central American region.

He added that El Salvador is the Central American country that imports the most agrochemicals per year, “at a very high cost to ecosystems and people’s health.”

In this regard, in the last decade, the use of glyphosate during the sugar cane harvest has been linked to a high rate of kidney failure in El Salvador.

This nation has the highest rate of deaths from chronic kidney disease in Central America: 47 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants per year, according to a UNES report published in 2021, which states that 80,000 tons of fertilizers, 3,000 tons of herbicides and 1,200 tons of fungicides are imported annually into El Salvador.

 

The bittersweet taste of pineapple

In Costa Rica, the use of pesticides is also intensive in monoculture export crops like bananas and, above all, pineapples, activist Erlinda Quesada, of the National Front of Sectors Affected by Pineapple Production, told IPS.

Quesada pointed out that the product known generically as bromacil has been linked to cases of cancer, while nemagon has been linked to cases of infertility in men and women.

“It happened to us with the nemagon in banana production, which sterilized a lot of men in Costa Rica,” said Quesada, from Guásimo, a municipality in the province of Limón, on the country’s Atlantic coast.

Complaints from environmental organizations led the government to ban bromacil in 2017, due to the impact on underground water sources.

“However, I doubt that they have stopped using it,” Quesada said.

A report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) revealed in May 2022 that Costa Rica uses up to eight times more pesticides per hectare than other Latin American countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

“The average apparent use of pesticides in agriculture between 2012 and 2020 was 34.45 kilos per hectare, a figure higher than previous estimates” in the Central American country, the report cited, more than in OECD members Canada, the United States, Mexico, Chile and Colombia.

 

One of the one-liter cans of paraquat that Salvadoran farmer Medardo Pérez used during a day’s work to eliminate weeds in his cornfield. Paraquat is one of the most widely used agrochemicals in Central America and the world, despite health risks and environmental contamination. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

 

A blow to food sovereignty

The focus on intensively produced monocultures among national and international economic leaders has ended up damaging the capacity to produce food for the local population, Wendy Cruz, of the local affiliate of the international farmers’ rights movement Via Campesina, told IPS from Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital.

“Now it is the consortiums and elites that occupy large tracts of land to produce for global markets, and agrotoxins increasingly weaken the capacity of the land to produce food for our people,” Cruz said.

“We need to push for a change of model, with governments adopting an agroecological vision that sustains life,” she said.

Seeds of passion fertilize Brazil’s semiarid Northeast

This vision of producing agricultural products without damaging the environment with agrochemicals is shared by another Salvadoran, Juan Mejía, a 67-year-old small farmer who grows some of his products using ecological fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.

Paraquat is still used, he said, to “burn the weeds,” but on a smaller scale, and he is trying to use it less and less. He also uses – but “very little” – Monarca, another Bayer pesticide, whose active ingredient is thiacloprid.

“We have learned to work organically, maybe not 100 percent, but as much as possible,” said Mejía, during a break in the work on his two-hectare plot, located in the canton of El Carrizal, also in Santa María Ostuma, in central El Salvador.

Mejía produces organic fertilizer known as gallinacea and a pesticide based on chili, onion, garlic and a little soap, with which he combats whiteflies, a pest that damages growing vegetables.

“It’s effective, but it doesn’t work automatically, right away, it takes a little more time,” he said.

He added: “We farmers have always mistakenly wanted to see immediate results, like we get with chemicals. But organic agriculture is a process, it is slower, but more beneficial to our health and the environment.”

In addition to milpa, a traditional ancestral pre-Hispanic system of planting corn, beans, chili peppers and pipián, a type of zucchini, Mejía grows citrus fruits, plantains (cooking bananas) and cacao.

“We have diversified and included other crops, such as green leafy vegetables, so that we are not buying contaminated products and are harvesting our own, healthier food,” he said.

Related Articles

• ‘Passion Seeds’ Fertilize Brazil’s Semiarid Northeast

Women often walk miles to collect clean drinking water. This podcast looks at water solutions. CREDIT: Linah Mwamachi/IPS

By Linah Mwamachi
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 19 2023 (IPS)

In the wake of harsh climate change and erratic weather conditions, women and girls are most affected. They often walk miles to collect fresh water which makes them vulnerable to rape and other crimes and infringement of their rights. This podcast is highlighting simple water solutions for women and girls.

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

There is an urgent need to have actionable strategies to help strengthen plants and agricultural resilience to drought, heat waves, elevated temperatures, flooding, extreme precipitation, and insect outbreaks. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, USA, Aug 18 2023 (IPS)

Across the U.S., and around the world, extremes in weather patterns, from drought to excessive heat to flooding to wildfires to outbreaks of insect pests and disease have become frequent and are predicted to continue to become more intense because of climate change, and the warming of our planet.

These reoccurring climate-linked extreme events serve as warning signals that no state, country, or region is immune to climate change. Leaders and citizens in all areas must act with urgency to mitigate this existential threat to humanity.

As leaders around the world consider climate mitigation initiatives, they need to be sure to strengthen agricultural crops’ resilience to extreme heat, drought, insect herbivory and flooding, that have become increasingly common

These record-breaking and historical extremes in weather, impacting farmers and our ability to grow essential agricultural crops such as maize, wheat, soybeans, wheat, and vegetables including tomatoes, mark a pivotal moment for all of us, including scientists, and policy makers at both the state and federal levels. Much more needs to happen to strengthen agricultural systems of today so that crops can withstand these adversities.

As leaders around the world consider climate mitigation initiatives, they need to be sure to strengthen agricultural crops’ resilience to extreme heat, drought, insect herbivory and flooding, that have become increasingly common.

Like humans, crops are sensitive to drought and extreme heat and the interactions of drought and heat. When temperatures are high, normal crop growth and development is affected. Further, several important crop physiological processes such as respiration, photosynthesis and transpiration are affected by heat stress.

Similarly, agricultural crops including maize and vegetable crops such as tomato are also sensitive to excessive rainfall and flooding stress when it happens individually or in combination with other stressors. Evidence to date reveals that, in fact, excessive rainfall results in maize yield losses of comparable magnitude to drought.

Ultimately, because of extremes brought about by climate change, plants’ normal growth is affected with consequences for yields, food supply and security as well as agriculture. This is problematic for many reasons, including because agriculture is an important sector of economies of the US, the UK, France and many African countries.

Of concern are the cascading consequences and other legacy effects that may linger on, long after extreme events such as drought have happened. These legacy effects affect both soils, microbial communities living in the soils and the health of crop plants that are grown in years to come.

Clearly, there is an urgent need to have actionable strategies to help strengthen plants and agricultural resilience to drought, heat waves, elevated temperatures, flooding, extreme precipitation, and insect outbreaks.

Strengthening the resilience of agricultural and crop plants demands the incorporation of multiple actionable strategies.

Among the actionable strategies is to encourage farmers to adopt climate-smart practices. Climate smart practices include many approaches ranging from planting heat and drought tolerant crop varieties to planting varieties that have been bred to enhance their photosynthetic capacities and water use efficiencies when periods of stress occur, to applying products such as silicon and silicone nanoparticles to applying inoculants that are made from naturally occurring beneficial soil microbes that can confer tolerance to heat and drought among other stressors.

In addition, growers can adopt soil health conservation practices including planting cover crops, mulching, and practicing no till or reduced tillage. All these practices ultimately improve soil health. It’s a win-win,

In parallel, there is need to fund research to understand how agricultural crops respond to drought, flooding, insect herbivory outbreaks and other climate-linked stresses. There is need to fund research that breeds crops that can grow under the new climate extremes including crops that can grow and produce when two stressors happen in combination.

All these actionable strategies require some form of capital; hence it is important for growers to be assisted with the capital and other inputs they need to adopt climate-smart strategies and other soil health conservation practices. Governments, NGO’s, private funders must work together and create partnerships that seek to ensure that growers and researchers have funds needed to adopt these practices.

In dealing with climate change extremes that threaten the growth, development, and the health of agricultural crops that are important to meet our food security needs, we must choose to facilitate the adoption of practices that strengthen crops resilience to these stressors. Every investment in research and funding the adoption of these strategies by growers helps.

Esther Ngumbi, PhD is Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, African American Studies Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Women outside an emergency vehicle aimed at helping those affected by flooding. CREDIT: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN , Aug 18 2023 (IPS)

Torrential monsoon rains have left the people, especially women, in crisis as they are still grappling to recover from the last year’s floods in Pakistan.

“We are yet to return to normal lives after devastation caused by severe rains in June 2002 when the new series of rains have started only to further aggravate our problems,” Jannat Bibi, a resident of Kalam in the Swat Valley, told IPS.

Bibi, 44, a housewife, along with co-villagers, must walk about a kilometre twice a day to collect drinking water for her 10-member family. She says they want the government to provide them with essential needs like food, water, shelter, and medication.

“A new ongoing wave of monsoon rains has left us high and dry as we are facing a host of ailments due to contaminated water.”

“Some non-governmental organisations have given us mineral water, utensils and foodstuff last year in June when torrential rain damaged our mud-built houses, but this year, there’s nobody to extend us a helping hand despite severe floods,” she says.

Most people in the neighbourhood fear that more rain would bring more misery for them as the people have yet to rebuild their homes while roads and health facilities were in shambles.

Dr Farooq Khan in Swat district says the people desperately require clean drinking water as cases of diarrhoea have been increasing among them.

“There are more cases of vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue, haemorrhagic fever (DHF) and Leishmaniasis because the people are exposed to mosquitoes-bites, the transmitters of these diseases, due to pools of stagnant water which serves as breeding grounds for mosquitoes,” Khan said.

Power breakdowns create problems because people cannot get drinking water from wells, and they often store it in uncovered pots, which serve as breeding spots for mosquitoes. “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recorded 18,000 dengue Haemorrhagic fever patients and 18 deaths in 2022,” he said.

National Disaster Management Authority says at least 86 people, including eight children, have been killed by floods and landslides triggered by monsoon rains that have lashed Pakistan since last month. In June 2022, a flood killed 289 people, it says.

“Women are the worst victim of climatic changes as they stay home and have to prepare food, wash clothes and look after children, therefore, we need to focus on their welfare,” Dr Javid Khan, a local physician in Malakand district, which is adjacent to Swat, says.

According to him, about 20 cholera cases have been recorded because people use water contaminated by sewerage pipes during floods.

“The World Health Organization is establishing two diarrhoea treatment centres to prevent outbreaks of food and water-borne diseases,” he said.

Munir Ahmed, a local environmentalist, says that women, representing about half of the country’s population, are the worst affected by torrential rains.

Last year, massive flooding affected nearly two-thirds of the country’s population in Pakistan, as it submerged the low-lying areas inhabited by poor people, he says.

Rains destroyed 1.7 million homes in Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces which also damaged the water sources and cultivable land, he says.

“As the people were recovering from the past year’s devastation caused by flood, a new spell has started dampening their hopes of recovery,” Ahmed says.

More than 1 300 health facilities and 3 000 schools destroyed by 2022’s floods are yet to be built.

“More than 50 000 pregnant women are finding it hard to undergo mandatory checkups at hospitals because of bad roads and lack of transportation in the country,” according to the Ministry of Health. It says the government is providing alternate sources in the shape of mobile vehicles to ensure their home-based clinical examinations.

Jabina Bibi, of the remote Chitral district, waited in stayed at home despite being six months into her pregnancy and didn’t receive a medical checkup until a local NGO sent a team to her locality, and she managed to source iron tablets for the treatment of severe malnourishment.

“The NGO’s doctors proved a blessing for me, and I delivered a normal baby because they carried out an ultrasound which enabled me to know the date of delivery for which I was taken to the hospital located 50 km away,” she said.

Other women also benefited, but the facilities are scarce, she said.

Chitral experienced more floods in July this year, which killed at least ten people. Water-Aid, and non-profit organisation, says that the floods have left almost 700 000 pregnant women in the country without getting maternal healthcare, leaving them and their newborns without support, food, security, and basic medical care. The miscarriage rate also skyrocketed during this period.

Floods causing landslides also resulted in the displacement of people and the loss of millions of livestock.

In Mansehra district, extensive damage rendered many roads unusable, creating significant transportation difficulties.

“We need to find work because construction activities have stopped, and it’s extremely to travel to other districts to find jobs,” Mushtaq Ahmed, 24, a resident of Mansehra, said. Pakistan is the second country with the most melting glaciers due to global warming, and Mansehra is one of the affected districts.

Climate experts believe that women and children are at a much higher risk of losing their lives during a disaster due to their limited access to resources during emergencies. The situation regarding monsoon rains has been under control as of now, but there are forecasts of potential rains in the coming days, which can hammer the last nail in the coffin of those madly hit by rainwaters last year.

Climate change brings, in its wake, deprivation of people from food security, health, education, and jobs, besides exposing women to violence, displacement, and mental health issues, and the government needs to protect the people from the ill effects of floods, experts say.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Transgender People Face Growing Violence, Discrimination in Pakistan
• Theatre Used to Dispel Polio Immunisation Myths in Pakistan
• Stampedes as Destitute Throng Pakistan’s Free Flour Distribution Points

Israel's parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem. Credit: Unsplash/Rafael Nir

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Aug 18 2023 (IPS)

The prospect of normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia will have enormous implications on Israel and the entire region. Since it will certainly take a personal sacrifice to put Israel’s national interests first, the question is, will Prime Minister Netanyahu muster the courage to do what’s best for the country

Prime Minister Netanyahu faces a historic opportunity to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and set the country on an unparalleled path of progress, security, and peace. But for that to happen, Netanyahu will have to agree to accept the Saudis’ reported demand to establish a path that will lead to the end of the occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

Given, however, Netanyahu’s personal legal woes and his dependence on the most hard-core racist government in Israel’s history to stay in power, will he sacrifice his personal interests by accepting the Saudi demands, which would certainly precipitate the collapse of his government and force him to face his legal peril?

His other choice would be to forfeit such a historic opportunity by continuing to pursue policies that will dismantle Israel’s democracy, convert Israel into an autocracy, intensify the violent conflict with the Palestinians, and put Israel always on the defensive while its enemies lay in wait.

Saudi Arabia is the de facto leading Arab state and is representative of Sunni Islam. Whether or not the Saudis care about the Palestinian cause, they cannot simply abandon the Palestinians to their own devices and still claim the leadership role they highly covet. The Saudis cannot and should not, under any circumstances, agree to normalize relations with Israel unless the Netanyahu government agrees to end the conflict with the Palestinians based on a two-state solution.

For the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia offers the last hope to protect their national interests. Should the Palestinians feel abandoned by the Saudis and have nothing left to lose, they will feel that they have no choice but to resort increasingly to violence against the Israelis with the intent of destabilizing the region and disrupting the normalization process between Israel and the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia. The Palestinians know that should a major conflagration ensue between them and Israel, the Arab states will have little choice but to land on their side.

The advantages to Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia knows how much it can benefit directly from the normalization of relations with Israel in terms of technology, intelligence sharing, and above all regional security. Riyadh also knows that Israel wants normalization as much, if not more than they themselves.

In addition, the Saudis know how much the Biden administration would like Riyadh and Jerusalem to reach an agreement because it would greatly serve the US’s overall regional geostrategic interests. This includes curbing China’s influence, containing Iran’s nuclear weapon program, weakening extremism, and stabilizing the region to ensure the US’ long-term unchallenged power over a region of pivotal strategic importance.

Knowing how much both the US and Israel would benefit from normalization and how eager they are to conclude such an agreement, the Saudis put forth three major requirements from the US as a prerequisite to normalizing relations with Israel:

Guaranteeing Saudi Arabia’s national security along the line of the US’ commitment to NATO, where an attack on any member state constitutes an attack on all member states, including the US.
Providing nuclear facilities for civilian purposes including the production of clean energy and for medical purposes along with the prestige that goes with it.

Approving the purchase of the US’ most advanced weapons systems, including the F-35 airplane among other arsenals. The Saudis are fully aware that President Biden wants to secure a major win just before the elections by building on the Abraham Accords. Obviously, they are in a position to hand him such a win provided that he meets their requirements.

Regardless of how desirable and far-reaching the implications of normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia are, for President Biden it remains an extremely difficult task to achieve due to two major factors.

First, the Saudis’ conditional requirements from the US will certainly evoke significant Congressional resistance. But if the deal ends the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on a two-state solution, over which many Democratic leaders including Senators Chris Van Hollen and Tim Kaine insist, the Senate will more than likely approve it with some modifications because they understand and appreciate how significantly it will benefit the US’ geostrategic interest.

The second and more daunting difficulty President Biden faces is Netanyahu’s objections to making any major concession to the Palestinians, especially one that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. In addition, Netanyahu’s current coalition partners vehemently oppose any major concession to the Palestinians and any such move could lead to the dissolution of his government should Netanyahu make even a partial concession, such as the freezing of settlement expansion or ending any further annexation of Palestinian territory.

Juxtaposed to the position of Netanyahu and his government, it is critical for the Israeli public and a few of the less extreme members in the government to understand how paramount the consequences are for Israel’s future should it normalize relations with Saudi Arabia.

The advantages to Israel

It is hard to exaggerate the enormous advantages Israel would reap. To begin with, it will open the door for normalization of relations with most, if not all, of the Arab and Muslim-majority states, end once and for all Israel’s isolation, and dramatically strengthen its national security, as normalization of relations would inevitably entail security collaboration.

And since any Israeli-Saudi agreement will have to include a definitive roadmap to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it will pull the rug from underneath Israel’s staunch enemy Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, and force Hamas to reconsider its militant posture toward Israel.

Moreover, Israel’s export of technology and other scientific knowhow in all fields of endeavor, along with the export of military hardware, will exponentially grow along with foreign investments, making the country an economic powerhouse with a corresponding political influence.

With that, Israel’s friendship and collaborative relations with the US and the EU will reach new heights and dramatically enhance their shared regional geostrategic interest and mitigate any friction in policy or strategy in dealing with any regional conflict.

Finally, ending the occupation will restore Israel’s moral foundation, mitigate the poisonous hatred between Israel and the Palestinians, restore the dignity and the integrity of the Israeli military, and most importantly, end the dehumanization of Palestinians under occupation.

Should an agreement be reached, given the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflicting issues, Saudi Arabia and the US should establish a road map and timeline for the implementation of the various components of the agreement while monitoring the progress made to ensure that both sides are fully complying with the provisions included therein.

Moreover, the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement should be enshrined in a treaty between the two sides that binds future Israeli and Palestinian governments and is guaranteed by the US and Saudi Arabia.

I concede that the prospect of Netanyahu changing his position is remote. But given his inflated ego and his concern over his legacy, coupled with increasing pressure from the US, there might be a small chance that he changes his mind, albeit such a leap is laden with considerable personal risk.

The question is, will he nevertheless muster the courage and rise to the historic occasion, show statesmanship, and leave a legacy of one who sacrificed himself politically for the sake of the nation?

I doubt he will, but miracles do happen, and Israel today is desperately in need of one.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Cambodia's prime minister, Hun Sen. He will hand power to his son later this month, after rigged elections. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Kris Janssens
PHNOM PENH, Aug 17 2023 (IPS)

Democracy is declining in Southeast Asia. The Cambodian prime minister will hand over his office to his son later this month, after rigged elections. Meanwhile, Thailand’s largest political party is kept from power.

”What do you expect, he’s in the military!” My fellow journalist is quite firm when I ask her what she thinks about the prime minister-designate of Cambodia. We sit in her favourite coffee shop near the royal palace in the capital city Phnom Penh, where we occasionally meet to discuss political issues.

 

Little alternative

She doesn’t think Hun Manet (45), who will become the country’s next leader on August 22, will change the system. Not only because he is an army chief, but also because she thinks father Hun Sen (71) will continue to play an important role behind the scenes till his very last day.

This has always been Hun Sen's strategy. Emphasizing he has brought peace and stability after the turbulent Khmer Rouge era, while mildly pampering the middle class to avoid any uprising. According to his successor, who also held a post-election speech, “the nation’s biggest asset is its human resources”

“Until then, the son cannot possibly tackle the widespread corruption, even if he wanted to,” she says, referring to a story about children of party officials who are on the payrolls of ministries without actually working there.

My colleague has been living in Cambodia since the late 1990s and she knows that there’s little alternative. If the current rulers were to disappear today, the lights would go out in this country. Literally, because the prime minister’s family also owns the only electricity company.

The dynastic succession from father to son raised more eyebrows among foreign observers than among Cambodian citizens. In recent decades, they have mainly been busy rebuilding their country after the devastating Khmer Rouge period and the turbulent 1980s.

Hun Sen’s CPP (Cambodian People’s Party) has ruled the country since the late 1970s and has declared a landslide victory after last month’s national elections. This wasn’t a surprise, as all significant opponents had been eliminated in advance.

 

A game of thrones

In neighboring Thailand, the opposition was allowed to participate in recent elections. In May this year, the reformist and anti-junta Move Forward Party (MFP) even became the largest party. But leader Pita Limjaroenrat failed to gather enough support from the military-appointed senators to become prime minister.

Limjaroenrat is even suspended as a member of parliament for allegedly violating electoral rules. The new prime minister will be a candidate from the second largest group in Parliament, Pheu Thai. This is the party of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (74), who has been living in exile for fifteen years to escape convictions and will now return to Thailand.

“So it’s confirmed”, writes political journalist and Thailand expert Andrew MacGregor Marshall on his X-account (formerly Twitter).

“(King) Vajiralongkorn and Thaksin have done a deal (…) to pardon Thaksin if he keeps MFP out of power”

 

A history of coups

Thailand has a history of successive military coups, each time overthrowing civilian governments. The last one was in 2014 when outgoing Prime Minister Prayut took power. Five years later, he was able to stay in office as prime minister after doubtful elections. Future Forward, the predecessor of MFP, was sidelined.

But unlike the Cambodians, the Thai people are not easily lectured by an old power elite. In 2020, student protests grew into national anti-establishment demonstrations. For the first time, the monarchy was also openly questioned.

King Vajiralongkorn, who inherited the throne from his popular father Bhumibol in 2016, is accused of rapidly gaining powers never possessed by his predecessor. However, Thailand has strict laws against lese-majeste and several students were sentenced to prison for participating in these (peaceful) demonstrations.

 

Behind the scenes

Last month, dissatisfied MFP supporters gathered in the streets of Bangkok to express their anger. More protest is to be expected. In an opinion article for ‘Bangkok Post’, political scientist Thitinan Pongsudhirak says the voter has little to say, while the real political game takes place behind the scenes. He is referring to the Constitutional Court, which can easily eliminate (opposition) parties.

“The commotion and seeming chaos among political parties and politicians, in contrast to the appointed agencies and established centres of power, has been used to discredit and weaken democratic institutions”, he writes.

Same story in 2017 in Cambodia, where the Supreme Court outlawed the opposition party CNRP (Cambodia National Rescue Party). For this year’s ballot, political opponent Candle Light Party (CLP, the successor to CNRP) was simply disqualified. According to the election committee, “the party failed to submit a copy of the original party registration”.

 

Nation’s biggest asset

Meanwhile, in the coffee bar in Phnom Penh, we are finishing our coffees. The prediction about father Hun Sen’s interference seems to be accurate. In a recent speech, the outgoing prime minister hit out at election critics in the EU and the US. “Democracy has won,” he said. He called the family transfer of power “needed to ensure peace in the country and to prevent bloodshed”.

This has always been Hun Sen’s strategy. Emphasizing he has brought peace and stability after the turbulent Khmer Rouge era, while mildly pampering the middle class to avoid any uprising. According to his successor, who also held a post-election speech, “the nation’s biggest asset is its human resources”.

It is promising that the new leader recognizes the opportunities (but also the challenges) of his very young population, with a median age of 25 years well below the global average. Hopefully this Hun Manet will give Cambodian politics a more human face, even though he is ‘the son of his father’.

A South Sudanese soldier carries a machine gun. Credit: punghi/ Shutterstock

By Samuel Kofi Tetteh Baah and Christoph Lakner
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 17 2023 (IPS)

In 1990, about half of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia and two-thirds in East Asia and the Pacific were living in extreme poverty (defined as living on less than what today amounts to around $2.15 per person per day).

In the three decades that followed, these three regions have followed quite different development paths. In 2019, 35 percent of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa were estimated to be living in extreme poverty, compared to 9 percent in South Asia or 1 percent in East Asia and the Pacific.

Why has Sub-Saharan Africa been left behind? What explains the sluggish progress in poverty reduction in the region?

The role of fragility, conflict, and violence in stifling development

Fragility, conflict, and violence, or, more generally, the lack of peace and security, is one of the key barriers to poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The World Bank’s list of fragile, conflict-affected, and violent (FCV) countries in 1998, the year with the earliest available data, indicates that 13 of the 24 FCV countries worldwide were in Sub-Saharan Africa (54%, or slightly over a half).

By 2021, the year with the latest available data, the number of FCV countries in Sub-Saharan Africa had increased by six, and the region still accounted for roughly half of all FCV countries in the world (19 of the 37 FCV countries).

Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the world had already become more violent over the years, largely driven by increasing counts of FCV countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa.

These two regions do not only have the most cases of fragility, conflict, and violence, but also the worst trends in extreme poverty.

Thirty out of the 48 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (almost two-thirds) have been designated as a fragile, conflict-affected, or violent (FCV) country at least once since 1998; in the Middle East and North Africa, it is 7 out of 14 countries (or a half).

Extreme poverty has decreased at a slow pace in Sub-Saharan Africa and increasing in the Middle East and North Africa (though at lower levels of poverty and subject to greater uncertainty due to a lack of recent data for many countries in the Middle East).

Besides the severe impact on human life and happiness, conflicts worsen a country’s ability to promote its own development and eradicate poverty. They lead to the loss of lives (human capital) and property (physical capital), thereby stifling investment, growth, and poverty reduction.

From an economic standpoint, they destroy investor confidence in the economy and lead to wasteful military spending. Conflicts destabilize economic activity, disrupt food value chains, and increase the risk of food insecurity and hunger.

In times of political or civil unrest, people flee for safety in neighboring countries, human mobility and transportation can be restricted, trust and social capital get destroyed, and people live in fear and panic with little or no hope for a better life.

All these factors are contrary to the values of freedom, peace, and stability necessary for poverty reduction.

Poverty and fragility: a vicious circle

The lack of peace increases the risk of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. All FCV countries in the region in 1998 were low-income countries, whereas the non-FCV countries were split between middle-income and low-income countries.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, the Central Africa Republic, and Liberia are highly conflict-affected, and are the only countries that have remained FCV countries without interruptions since 1998.

These four low-income countries had an average extreme poverty rate as high as 73 percent in 1998, while the remaining FCV countries had an average rate of 44 percent compared with 56 percent for all non-FCV low-income countries.

In 2019, the abovementioned four countries still had a high extreme poverty rate of 58 percent, almost twice the extreme poverty rate in the remaining FCV countries or all non-FCV low-income countries (34 percent and 39 percent, respectively).

Fragility and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

Or could it be that the lack of peace in Sub-Saharan Africa is because of poverty (and inequality) in the region? Studies have suggested that grievance increases the risk of conflict, and grievance may occur when individuals or groups of individuals are socially, politically, or culturally deprived.

Conflicts are more likely when deprivation occurs along the lines of ethnicity, religion, or geographical location. In fact, high ethnic and cultural diversity in Sub-Saharan Africa increases the proclivity for such conflicts.

A negative relationship between income status and FCV status, supports the idea that poverty drives conflicts. On the other hand, it is important to stress that this is not an automatic mechanism: eight countries have always been low-income countries but were not FCV countries in 2019.

Also, two of them (Rwanda and Uganda) have never been FCV over the entire period for which data are available. Overall, poverty and fragility can re-inforce each other and create a vicious cycle or a trap.

There are other factors that might jointly explain the high levels of poverty and fragility in Sub-Saharan Africa, such as low schooling attainment, high inequality in educational outcomes, and the lack of decent jobs. Improving educational outcomes for all (i.e., SDG 4) and increasing job opportunities for all (i.e., SDG 8) would therefore be priority areas in Sub-Saharan Africa that could potentially break the poverty-fragility trap that the region seems to be stuck in.

A highly educated population is more likely to be tolerant, while education and employment opportunities offer the most likely route out of poverty. However, these policy actions are more long-term in perspective, and require peace and stability to be effective.

Samuel Kofi Tetteh Baah is Consultant, Poverty and Inequality Unit, Development Economics Research Group, World Bank; Christoph Lakner is Senior Economist, Development Data Group, World Bank.

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the UK Government through the Data and Evidence for Tackling Extreme Poverty (DEEP) Research Program.

Source: World Bank

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 17 2023 (IPS)

The artificial intelligence (AI) platform ChatGPT, whose negative consequences include misinformation, is facing new charges of political bias.

According to a study by the University of East Anglia (UEA), released August 17, AI ChatGPT shows “a significant and systemic left-wing bias”.

Published in the journal Public Choice, the findings show that ChatGPT’s responses favour the Democrats in the US, the Labour Party in the UK, and President Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party in Brazil.

Concerns of an inbuilt political bias in ChatGPT have been raised previously but this is the first largescale study using a consistent, evidenced-based analysis, say a team of researchers in the UK and Brazil, who developed a rigorous new method to check for political bias.

Lead author Dr Fabio Motoki, of Norwich Business School at the University of East Anglia, said: “With the growing use by the public of AI-powered systems to find out facts and create new content, it is important that the output of popular platforms such as ChatGPT is as impartial as possible”.

“The presence of political bias can influence user views and has potential implications for political and electoral processes.”

“Our findings reinforce concerns that AI systems could replicate, or even amplify, existing challenges posed by the Internet and social media.”

Asked if it was possible to avoid or circumvent the political bias in ChatGPT, Dr Motoki told IPS: “Our study does not directly address this issue. What you ask is a recent and active area of research. What we do create is a method to systematically measure bias by leveraging the ability of these more advanced models of answering questions in a human-like fashion, while statistically overcoming some issues around their randomness.”

The main contribution of the study, he pointed out, is addressing several standing issues in the AI bias literature with a simple procedure.

“We posit that our tool is a way of democratizing the oversight of these models, acting as a guide to measure their biases and hold their creators accountable”.

“I can’t go into details because of a non-disclosure agreement, but an entity (I cannot say whether a government agency or a private company) has asked me to produce a technical report using this method. Therefore, we expect it to have a real-world impact, helping address your concern of avoiding bias,” he said.

According to the study, the researchers developed an innovative new method to test for ChatGPT’s political neutrality.

The platform was asked to impersonate individuals from across the political spectrum while answering a series of more than 60 ideological questions.

The responses were then compared with the platform’s default answers to the same set of questions – allowing the researchers to measure the degree to which ChatGPT’s responses were associated with a particular political stance.

To overcome difficulties caused by the inherent randomness of ‘large language models’ that power AI platforms such as ChatGPT, each question was asked 100 times and the different responses collected.

These multiple responses were then put through a 1000-repetition ‘bootstrap’ (a method of re-sampling the original data) to further increase the reliability of the inferences drawn from the generated text, according to the study.

“We created this procedure because conducting a single round of testing is not enough,” said co-author Victor Rodrigues. “Due to the model’s randomness, even when impersonating a Democrat, sometimes ChatGPT answers would lean towards the right of the political spectrum.”

A number of further tests were undertaken to ensure the method was as rigorous as possible. In a ‘dose-response test’ ChatGPT was asked to impersonate radical political positions.

In a ‘placebo test,’ it was asked politically-neutral questions. And in a ‘profession-politics alignment test’ it was asked to impersonate different types of professionals.

“We hope that our method will aid scrutiny and regulation of these rapidly developing technologies,” said co-author Dr Pinho Neto. “By enabling the detection and correction of LLM biases, we aim to promote transparency, accountability, and public trust in this technology,” he added.

The unique new analysis tool created by the project would be freely available and relatively simple for members of the public to use, thereby “democratising oversight,” said Dr Motoki.

As well as checking for political bias, the tool can be used to measure other types of biases in ChatGPT’s responses.

According to the UEA study, while the research project did not set out to determine the reasons for the political bias, the findings did point towards two potential sources.

The first was the training dataset – which may have biases within it, or added to it by the human developers, which the developers’ ‘cleaning’ procedure had failed to remove.

The second potential source was the algorithm itself, which may be amplifying existing biases in the training data.

Besides Dr Motoki, other researchers included Dr Valdemar Pinho Neto (EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance – FGV EPGE, and Center for Empirical Studies in Economics – FGV CESE), and Victor Rodrigues (Nova Educação).

Meanwhile, citing a report from the Center for AI Safety, the New York Times reported May 31 that a group of over 350 AI industry leaders warned that artificial intelligence poses a growing new danger to humanity –and should be considered a “societal risk on a par with pandemics and nuclear wars”.

“We must take those warnings seriously,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last June. “Our proposed Global Digital Compact, New Agenda for Peace, and Accord on the global governance of AI, will offer multilateral solutions based on human rights,” Guterres said.

“But the advent of generative AI must not distract us from the damage digital technology is already doing to our world. The proliferation of hate and lies in the digital space is causing grave global harm – now. It is fueling conflict, death and destruction – now. It is threatening democracy and human rights – now. It is undermining public health and climate action – now,” he warned.

Guterres also said the UN is developing “a Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on Digital Platforms” — ahead of the UN Summit of the Future scheduled to take place in September 2024.

“The Code of Conduct will be a set of principles that we hope governments, digital platforms and other stakeholders will implement voluntarily,” he told reporters.

A copy of the study is available via the following Dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/dsfdvc77xdaumuau74ry1/h?rlkey=0mu6cr88ax8fdrj8k1k174741&dl=0

The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a UK Top 25 university (Complete University Guide and HESA Graduate Outcomes Survey) and is ranked in the UK Top 30 in the Sunday Times and Guardian University guides. It also ranks in the UK Top 20 for research quality (Times Higher Education REF2021 Analysis) and the UK Top 10 for impact on Sustainable Development Goals.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

If people living in informal settlements gained access to adequate housing, the average life span would jump 2.4 years on average globally, saving 730,000 lives each year. Credit: Lova Rabary-Rakontondravony/IPS

By Jonathan Reckford and Joseph Muturi
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Aug 16 2023 (IPS)

When representatives from dozens of countries gathered recently at the UN High Level Political Forum in New York to share progress on their efforts to achieve the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this disturbing reality was clear: the world is not even close to meeting the goals by 2030 as intended.

According to the report released at the meeting, progress on more than half of the SDG targets is weak and insufficient, with 30% of targets stalled or in reverse. In particular, progress towards SDG 11, which centers on making “cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” is stagnating, signaling regression for the third year in a row.

Unless governments take urgent action to address the plight of more than 1 billion people struggling daily to survive in slums and other poorly constructed informal settlements, we will not achieve the SDGs.

Unless governments take urgent action to address the plight of more than 1 billion people struggling daily to survive in slums and other poorly constructed informal settlements, we will not achieve the SDGs

Access to affordable, safe housing is a fundamental human right, and intrinsically linked to building sustainable and resilient communities. It’s time world leaders turned their attention to improving housing conditions in informal settlements as a critical first step in helping to solve the most pressing development challenges of our time, from health and education to jobs and climate resilience.

Consider Milka Achieng, 31, who lives among the more than 250,000 residents of Kibera, a bustling hub of mud-walled homes and small businesses that make up one of the world’s largest informal settlements on the south side of Nairobi, Kenya.

Every day, Milka heads out for work and walks past the kiosk where she pumps water that isn’t clean enough to drink without boiling. She passes neighbors who live with the constant fear of eviction and the threat of deadly fires sparked by jerry-rigged electrical lines.

Yet despite these conditions, Milka remains upbeat. She works for a Kenya-based startup that, from its production facility in the heart of Kibera, cranks out firesafe blocks designed to make homes in informal settlements safer and more resilient. These are the kinds of innovative, scalable solutions that not only hold promise for the future of Kibera, but also for the millions of families struggling to keep their loved ones healthy and safe in informal communities around the globe.

By 2050, nearly 70% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas, making the proliferation of informal settlements inevitable – unless world governments take bold, collective action.

A new report reveals the incredible, transformational benefits – in terms of health, education, and income –  if world leaders invest in upgrading housing in informal settlements. The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) modeling from 102 low- and middle-income countries shows that if people living in informal settlements gained access to adequate housing, the average life span would jump 2.4 years on average globally, saving 730,000 lives each year.

This translates to more deaths prevented than if malaria were to be eliminated. The report also found that as many as 41.6 million additional children would be enrolled in school worldwide.

Economic growth, meanwhile, would jump by as much as 10.5% in some countries, whether measured as GDP or gross national income per capita. The resulting increase in living standards would exceed the projected cost of improving informal settlements in many countries.

These findings provide a long-overdue wake-up call to governments and municipal authorities that prioritizing safe and secure housing would have far-reaching implications for advancing not just community wellbeing, but national and global economic prosperity.

World leaders whose countries contribute billions of dollars annually to foreign assistance yet don’t prioritize improving informal settlements are making a grave mistake. Their goals related to education, health, and other areas of human wellbeing hinge on how well the world responds to trends such as growing inequities, rapid urbanization, and a worsening global housing crisis.

As the heads of an international housing organization and a global network of slum dwellers, respectively, we believe governments have an urgent responsibility to invest in comprehensive solutions to our global housing crisis.

This includes supporting start-ups, such as Milka’s factory, which are pioneering innovative, low-cost, and community-driven solutions to strengthen the foundation of unsafe housing settlements worldwide.

Simultaneously, officials at the global, national and municipals levels must ensure that residents have land tenure security, climate-resilient homes, and basic services such as clean water and sanitation.

Importantly, IIED researchers also concluded that, while they couldn’t put a precise number on it, the rehabilitation of informal settlements would have a clear and positive “spillover effect” by strengthening environmental, political and health care systems for all. This, in turn, would improve overall societal wellbeing for generations to come.

Upgrading the world’s supply of adequate housing is a lever for equitable human development and a cornerstone for sustainable urban development. Global, national and community stakeholders must join forces with the more than 1 billion voices clamoring for greater access to safe and secure homes.

When residents of informal settlements do better, everyone does better. Strikingly, it’s that simple.

Jonathan Reckford is president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity International. Joseph Muturi is chair of Slum Dwellers International. 

Hilina Berhanu Degefa, researcher, gender policy expert and co-founder of the Yellow Movement AAU, addresses the UN Security Council. CREDIT: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Francis Kokutse
ACCRA, Aug 16 2023 (IPS)

The war in Tigray, northern Ethiopian, led to sexual and gender-based violence against women, but when Hilina Berhanu Degefa, researcher, gender policy expert and co-founder of the Yellow Movement AAU, appeared before the UN Security Council Open Debate on Sexual Violence in Conflict last year, and catalogued the problems that the victims of the war faced, it didn’t shock the world.

Giving a background, Degefa said, “When the war first started, Blen, a 21-year-old waitress from Badme, along with around 30 other Tigrayan women, was held against her will and subjected to sexual slavery, starvation, and gang rape by a group of Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers who took turns with her.”

“I documented many other stories like Blen’s during multiple visits to the Tigray region before June 2021. Sexual violence was used to terrorize communities and build camaraderie amongst allied forces of the Eritrean Defence Forces, Ethiopian National Defence Force, Amhara regional militia, and special forces through the shared experience of exploiting women’s bodies.

“The consistency across victims’ accounts shows that these crimes were committed with a degree of organization, planning, and intent to dehumanize individuals and communities,” she said.

Now, a new study has confirmed that 99 percent of the survivors of sexual and gender-based violence during the conflict have not received medical or psychological care because most health facilities were destroyed and looted.

Girmatsion Fisseha – Lead Author

The authors have, therefore, suggested the establishment of an urgent survivor centre approach with medical and psychological services, together with sustained community support, to reduce the lifelong impact on the behavioural, emotional, sexual, social, and economic fortunes of the victims.

Published by BMJ Global Health journal, the study, “War-related sexual and gender-based violence in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia: a community-based study,” is a survey conducted in six zones of Tigray after the Eritrean, Ethiopian and Amhara forces left Mekelle, the capital of Tigray.

The western zone of Tigray and the districts bordering Eritrea were not included for security reasons. Women of reproductive age (i.e., 15–49 years) recruited from the study communities were included as primary respondents in this survey. Information on girls under 15 years and women above 50 years of age was also collected from the primary respondents, and the period of the SGBV incidents covered from 4 November 2020 to 28 June 2021.

Findings from this study indicate a higher incidence, nearly 10 percent more of rape, than those reported in other studies during conflicts, such as in Northern Uganda, 4.2 percent; Sierra Leone, 8 percent and Ukraine, 2.6 percent. In the case of physical violence, 28.6 percent observed in this study was higher than the findings for East Timor, Indonesia, where 22.7 percent of the women were physically assaulted.

Co-author of the study, Kiros Berhane, professor at the Cynthia and Robert Citron-Roslyn and Leslie Goldstein, and Chair, Department of Biostatistics Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University in the U.S. told the IPS why they were motivated to conduct the study. “During the war period in Tigray, there were unprecedently high incidents of SGBV reported by various humanitarian agencies, local and international media, including gang-rape and other extreme types of abuses such as insertion of foreign objectives to the victims’ private parts.

Kiros Berhane Professor of Biostatistics at Columbia University

“Most of the reports were coming from health facilities around big towns. Health professionals working at university hospitals (including many on the author list of this manuscript) observed many rape survivors admitted to Mekelle Hospital and Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital (one-stop centre),” he said.

Berhane said the main objective of the study was to scientifically and thoroughly document the level and severity of war-related SGBV in Tigray beyond the sporadic and incomplete (but still shocking) reports in hopes that policies and actions could be activated to help rape survivors and further prevent the rape incidence in the community, adding that, “this study provides first-of-its-kind objectively/carefully collected primary data on scale/level of SGBV in Tigray.”

Degefa gave a chilling account of a Tigrayan woman who was fleeing the conflict zone with her children, and encountered the Amhara militia, who separated her from her family, gang-raped her and inserted a hot metal rod into her uterus and declared that a Tigrayan should never give birth.”

“Similar incidents of rape with claims of cleansing “Tigrayan blood” and mutilating women’s bodies to prevent the birth of more generations of Tigrayans have been extensively covered by different human rights reports,” she said.

Degefa said sexual violence was also used to humiliate survivors and their families and cited a case of an Amhara woman who was beaten and raped in the presence of her husband and child by two members of Tigrayan forces. Men and boys were also sexually assaulted, she said, adding that the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission found in Samre town, in Tigray, 600 men and boys who were stripped and forcibly paraded, some completely naked, while Eritrean female soldiers mocked them and took pictures.

She said women with disabilities and other vulnerable communities were also at particular risk during this conflict. “Many women with disabilities were specifically targeted in the Tigray region as they were presumed to be fighters in the previous war. Girls, older women, and women belonging to a minority or indigenous communities also faced higher risks, Degefa added.

The lack of access to the region for independent human rights monitoring means it has been tough to document the impact of the conflict in minority communities and especially those living in disputed areas on the Eritrean border, such as the Irob and Kunama in Tigray.

In her opinion, the conflict in Northern Ethiopia, and the effective siege of the Tigray region, in particular, has undermined women’s rights, including access to reproductive healthcare and psychosocial support, exacerbating the impacts of sexual violence.

Degefa said the lack of access to psychosocial support services means that the mental health of survivors of sexual violence hangs in the balance. Many have already died by suicide, adding that the story of a 50-year-old Amhara woman from Shewa-Robit in central Ethiopia, who was gang-raped by Tigrayan fighters in the presence of her son in the next room and later died of suicide.

Following their study, Berhane said he would expect the Ethiopian government and the international community “to provide immediate action such as supporting survivors, their children and provide the opportunity for medical, psychological and economic rehabilitation.”

In addition, there is a need for the supply of adequate medical supplies and medications to health facilities in the war zone. The government must also work with all partners and NGOs to try and trace survivors at the community level for further medical and psychological support.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Cash Transfers, Poverty Alleviation Assists with Mental Health – Study
• Sierra Leone’s Gender Law Boosts Women’s Participation in Politics, Business
• Africa’s Maternal Deaths Need Urgent Action to Meet SDG Goals

Togotia, a forgotten African leafy vegetable, has found its way back into markets as its high nutritional value could help address food security. CREDIT: Egerton University

By Wilson Odhiambo
NAIROBI, Aug 16 2023 (IPS)

Kenya’s fight for food security may have just gone ‘Old School’ as Egerton University dons win a grant to help bring back a pre-colonial delicacy that was gradually sliding its way off consumers’ plates.

Their project, dubbed ‘Exploring Potential of Togotia (Erucastrum arabicum), a forgotten African leafy vegetable for nutritional security and climate adaptation in Kenya,’ won the grant in October last year in a bid to help farmers and consumers realise the importance of the crop that many, today, term as a weed.

According to the project’s lead researchers, Togotia falls among the forgotten African leafy vegetable (fALVs), which have been ignored in formal research and policy and their nutritional values.

The project focuses on Togotia’s nutritional value and hardy nature compared to other vegetables such as cabbage, kale and spinach that are exotic to Kenya.

It involved the expertise of Prof. G Mendiodo (University of Nottingham), Dr Maud Muchuweti (University of Zimbabwe), Dr Miriam Charimbu (Egerton University) and Dr Charles Kihia (Egerton University).

The grant, worth Ksh 4.9 million (about USD 37 000) was awarded to the institution by the Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) UK.

“Togotia and many other traditional vegetables have their roots embedded deep in the pre-colonial era, where they formed a daily delicacy for many. However, the colonial period brought exotic crops that quickly became a favourite for many, majorly due to their high market demands,” Kihia told IPS.

Between 1960 and 1980, these exotic vegetables flooded the local markets, especially in towns, thus relegating Bogota and other traditional vegetables to the rural areas.

And, due to high market demand for the exotic vegetables, farmers in the villages also transitioned to cash crop farming, a move that saw Togotia gradually cast out as a weed.

However, the current global changes in climate conditions have seen many farmers suffer the consequences of unpredictable weather patterns that have seen crops dwindle in the local markets.

Most food crops that serve towns come from rural areas where farmers rely heavily on weather patterns to meet the market demands.

Kenya is currently facing one of the worst drought periods in its history, making food production a burden for the farmers who town dwellers rely on for their needs. Lack of rainfall means low food production, which leads to high food prices in the market.

“The drought has led to a scarcity of many vegetables, such as kale and spinach, which have the highest demand in town. The ones that we are getting right now have tiny leaves, which customers complain about,” said Nancy Mulu, a local grocer in Nairobi.

“We are forced to sell them in small bunches at high prices due to the trouble we go through to get them,” she explained to IPS.

“The only traditional vegetable I sell in my shop are Terere (Amaranthus), Managu (Solanum), Saga (Cleome), and Kunde (Vigna). I have never come across a fellow vendor selling Togotia in town. They are mostly found in the village areas, and even there, many still treat them as weed,” she added.

Despite the rains that recently kicked off, the meteorological department warned farmers that it may not be enough to meet their agricultural demands.

Charimbu told IPS that if embraced, Togotia will be important in helping the country meet both the supply and nutritional demand of the people.

“Emergence and intensification of climate change with associated unreliable rainfall (either too much or too little) limit capacity of local farmers, not only to produce their own food but also surplus for sale, resulting in impoverishment,” she explained.

“The high cost of farm inputs required for the exotic vegetable also makes them an expensive and unsustainable venture during draught seasons such as the one the country is experiencing. Being a hardy crop, Togotia easily has an edge over them.”

“They flourish in marginal soils, require limited agrochemical input, are fast maturing (takes two weeks), widely occurring and are resistant to many local pests, and hence are ideal candidates for sustaining nutritional and household food security even during such draught periods, Charimbu added.

In major crop production towns like Molo and Kuresoi, known for maize, potatoes, carrots, onions, kales, and cabbages, Togotia is usually considered a weed and farmers prefer to get rid of it or feed it to the livestock. Few people in the area consider it a food crop.

From their analysis, the dons found out that apart from being hardy, Togotia was a rich source of vitamin C, iron, zinc, protein and calcium, which are important for the human body.

Kihia believes that the project will not only help to redefine the current understanding of the use and ecology of Togotia but also identify and develop appropriate agronomic cropping protocols suitable for adoption among small-scale farmers in Kenya and elsewhere.

“For a farmer with a healthy crop of maize targeted for sale in the lucrative Nairobi market, it is a weed. But when the same farmer hires a number of locals to do weeding at his farm, they remove the weed and eat it. Similarly, when there is massive crop failure and the maise crops do poorly, this weed becomes an important survival crop for the farmer and the community,” Kihia added.

In counties like Baringo, which falls among the hardest hit by the drought, Togotia is one of the residents’ main vegetables to supplement their needs. If this can be incorporated in other drought-prone areas like Turkana, Marsabit and Samburu, it will go a long way in helping address the recurring food crisis in Kenya.

“Incorporation of Togotia and other fALVs into current land-use will not only increase farms agrobiodiversity and household food diversity but also provide important forage crop for bees and other pollinators that are disappearing from Kenyan landscapes,” he concluded.

The project will involve setting up demonstration farms at the university and sensitising local farmers and communities around on their importance in helping supplement their nutritional needs.

They aim to produce Togotia varieties that are responsive to environmental needs in terms of resistance to pests, diseases, and drought.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• East African International Students to Benefit from Single Qualification Framework
• New Mosquito Species Could Derail Fight Against Malaria
• Drones To Help Fishers Avoid Border Conflicts on Lake Victoria

By Sophie Meiners
BERLIN, Aug 16 2023 (IPS)

Reintegration assistance for migrants returning to their countries of origin is becoming increasingly salient. Germany and the EU cooperate closely with countries of origin to support local reintegration.

Here, assistance goes beyond purely monetary support and can also include additional assistance, such as vocational training and psychological support.

Still, such efforts encounter criticism and limitations: short-term and individualised support cannot address the root causes of migration and displacement, such as poverty, insecurity and a lack of opportunities, which are among the factors leading to migration in the first place.

One way to increase the effectiveness of this assistance can be the involvement of initiatives and groups led by returnees themselves. This not only makes it possible to strengthen the credibility and effectiveness of the projects, but also to implement sustainable structures beyond project cycles.

Diverse and transregional networks

The so-called ‘returnee networks’ are varied and active in a multitude of regions around the world. For instance, returnees in Nigeria have formed informal social media groups, and in Bangladesh, with the help of a local NGO, formalised networks of returnees emerged in various parts of the country.

These groups are sometimes made up exclusively of persons who recently returned but can also be led by those who do not, or no longer, struggle with the problems of reintegration.

Although the emergence of such networks is not a regional phenomenon, they cannot be found in all countries. There are different factors to explain this.

On the one hand, it can be observed that returnee networks develop in contexts in which a large number of migrants return in the same time period. They then get to know one another in registration processes or reintegration programmes and remain in contact.

Another factor is an already existing returnee network, which can serve as a role model. Common challenges, such as coping with trauma and stigmatisation, play just as much a role as a lack of reintegration support and family support systems.

Both these challenges make meeting like-minded peers a more urgent need. Support from external actors and an active civil society also contribute to the emergence of networks.

Regardless of how they developed and their level of formalisation, these networks can effectively support the reintegration of new returnees. They offer practical help with regard to housing, employment and bureaucratic hurdles.

They also act as trustworthy intermediaries, informing newcomers about the available support and acting as advocates for returnees’ interests. They can therefore play an important role in shaping reintegration policies and educating their communities about the realities of migrants’ lives during and upon return to their country of origin.

However, in addition to these indispensable strengths, returnee networks also harbour risks. Competition for resources, such as funds raised through projects with international organisations, and the lack of women participation can limit the representativeness of some networks.

Moreover, most networks have a very low degree of professionalisation, which is not negative in itself, but can lead to the groups duplicating existing support services and providing these only in a moderate quality.

Finally, involvement in the networks could result in members further distancing themselves from the rest of society due to their solid and longstanding identification as a ‘returnee’, thus delaying or even preventing their reintegration.

The notion of returnee networks being an exclusively positive force, which can and should be engaged under all circumstances, is therefore incorrect. Yet, this does not mean that cooperation should be ruled out either.

Inspite of the risks, the integration of networks is long overdue and is possible in compliance with safeguards. The perspective of returnees should always form a part of reintegration programmes.

The question is not whether to cooperate with returnee networks, but how to involve them in a meaningful way.

Sophie Meiners is a Research Fellow in the Migration Programme of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). Previously, she was a Carlo Schmid Fellow at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the Office of the Special Representative on Climate.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS)-Journal published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');