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Shabana Basij-Rasikh, co-founder and President of SOLA, speaks at the Women Deliver conference in Rwanda. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

By Aimable Twahirwa
KIGALI, Aug 1 2023 (IPS)

When providing education to her small group of Afghan girls, who had been studying at a boarding school back home, became tenuous, Shabana Basij-Rasikh, relocated them to Rwanda.

She had set up a pioneering school under the project SOLA, the Afghan word for peace, and a short form for School of Leadership Afghanistan. But as the Taliban swept to power in August 2021, she closed the doors of the school, destroyed any school records which could help identify the girls, and on August 25, relocated 250 members of the SOLA community, including the student body and graduates from the programme, totally more than 100 girls, to Rwanda.

Basij-Rasikh, co-founder and SOLA’s President said a major challenge had been the lack of resources and capacity to teach Afghan girls after the return of the Taliban deprived right to education of girls in secondary schools and above.

As the Taliban swept back into power in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, Shabana Basij-Rasikh, the founder of the nation’s only all-girls boarding school, initially ran the school out of a former principal’s living room. But that soon became untenable.

Speaking on the sidelines of The Women Deliver 2023 Conference (WD2023), which took place in Kigali from 17-20 July 2023, Basij-Rasikh, who completed her undergraduate studies in the United States, explained that when Kabul fell under the control of the Taliban, she managed within a short time to evacuate the entire school community to Rwanda.

“Although we managed to move the school to a safe country, it is still embarrassing and shameful for me since Afghanistan is the only country in the world where women and girls’ access to education has been suspended,” she said.

Initially, SOLA started as a scholarship program where Afghan youth would be identified and could access quality education abroad and, later on, go back to their home country as highly-skilled Afghans in whichever profession they chose.

“When the US announced that they were to withdraw their troops in Afghanistan, it created a lot of anxiety among young Afghans who were in the West hoping to return to the country.”

Basij-Rasikh regrets that some of her former students, who were able to leave Afghanistan after the Taliban’s return, are still struggling to continue their education overseas.

“We wish to see many Afghan girls return to schools,” she said, explaining that the migration status of the students in many countries restricted their access to education.

Since the school opened last year’s admissions season, Shabana Basij-Rasikh and her team have been inviting Afghan girls worldwide to apply and join the rest in Rwanda. Last year they enrolled 27 girls in their first intake.

“The major challenge is that there are several hundreds of thousands of girls who want to join our campus, but space is limited, and so places are being granted on merit and need,” Shabana told IPS.

Shabana argues investing in girls’ education is a smart investment; she is convinced that the current situation in Afghanistan must and should not be accepted or supported by any country around the world.

On September 18, 2021, a month after taking over the country, the Taliban ordered the reopening of only boys’ secondary schools. A few months later, in March 2022, according to human rights organizations, the Taliban again pledged to reopen all schools, but they officially closed girls’ secondary schools.

“These girls deserve the opportunity to realize their full potential, and the international community has an important role to play,” Shabana said.

UNESCO’s latest figures show that 2,5 million or 80 percent of school-aged Afghan girls and women are out of school.  The order suspending university education for women, announced in December last year, affects more than 100,000 students attending government and private institutions, according to the UN agency.

On the sidelines of the Women Deliver Conference 2023, Senegalese President Macky Sall pledged that his government would offer 100 scholarships for women who have seen their right to education decimated under Taliban rule in Afghanistan to pursue their university degrees in Senegal.

Rwanda is one of several African countries that agreed to temporarily host evacuated Afghans.

Sall, who was reacting to the concerns raised by Basij-Rasikhat, said his Government was ready to give chance to Afghan girls to pursue their studies.

So far, SOLA school has received 2,000 applications across 20 countries where some Afghans are living.

In 2022, it received 180 applications from Afghans living in 10 countries, but only 27 girls were admitted.

“That explains how families in Afghanistan are ready to support the girls in moving abroad to pursue their education,” Shabana said.

“Boarding schools that allow Afghan girls to study and live together are the best way to promote their education.”

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The tea-pluckers with their wet-weather gear at Blue Field tea estate in Ramboda, Sri Lanka. Amid a looming food security crisis linked to Sri Lanka’s cost-of-living crunch, the country’s most vulnerable breadwinners wonder how much longer they can cope, as the Government battles the nation’s worst economic crisis since independence in 1948. November 2022. Credit: UN News/Daniel Johnson

By Neville de Silva
LONDON, Aug 1 2023 (IPS)

When this Indian Ocean- island gained independence from Britain in 1948 after some 450 years of colonial rule under three western powers, it was simply named the “Dominion of Ceylon”.

This country which was granted universal franchise nearly two decades before independence was seen as one of Asia’s first democracies-if not the first.

Sadly, that reputation has fast faded.

Today, that right to vote is being denied with even elections to local bodies been halted for dubious reasons including the lack of state funds. The Supreme Court issued an interim order asking that funds be made available for the election. ruling.

That order was simply ignored. Instead, the ruling Sri Lanka People’s Front (SLPP) MPs threatened to summon the judges to parliament for allegedly violating their privileges

The most recent is a desperate move by one government MP to move a private member’s motion to have parliament vote to let the expired bodies continue in the absence of elections.

Fortunately, the Attorney-General informed the Speaker that such a move was unconstitutional and so would require a two-third majority vote and perhaps a referendum. That shut the door on this piece of frippery.

The government’s concern is understandable. It is led by a stand-in president of one party propped up in parliament by a majority from a one- time political enemy the SLPP, now living a symbiotic political existence.

Neither of them wants an election even at the lowest levels of governance for fear of what the results might signify. Negative results would sound alarm bells ahead of the presidential elections next year and parliamentary elections the year after, though the president could call parliamentary elections earlier.

Those who would look back at Sri Lankan political history since 1977 might well wonder whether current president Ranil Wickremesinghe, filling in until November next year for predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa who resigned after fleeing public wrath, has taken a page out of his uncle Junius Richard Jayewardene’s book of political Machiavellianism.

But if “Yankee Dicky”, as Jayewardene was called from his early days for his pro-American foreign policy views and his capitalist economic outlook, took a turn to the right when he came to power in 1977, his nephew has taken a sharper turn in that direction, his neoliberal views meshing with the IMF rescue programme intended to pull the country out of the economic mess that Gotabaya Rajapaksa created during his short presidency.

Yet Wickremesinghe’s path to economic resuscitation is strewn with political and working- class casualties against whom some of the most abrasive laws in the country’s statute books have been employed, such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).

International conventions such as the ICCPR have been stood on its head to detain dissidents and clamped down on public protests and other rights guaranteed under the constitution that his uncle imposed on the country.

If the IMF agreement calls for the government to sell the family silver, as Wickremesinghe’s offer of even profit- making state- owned enterprises and other state assets to foreign and local investors suggest, this is bound to adversely affect employment adding to the amounting joblessness in recent years following the Covid pandemic and President Rajapaksa’s misguided economic policies.

Besides this, a new Labour law that would repeal some 28 existing laws granting workers’ rights won over the years through hard struggles by leftist trade unions and political parties, would be replaced by stringent new laws heavily weighted in favour of employers.

The proposed labour laws now been waved about by an over-enthusiastic Labour Minister hoping to please the president and the business community will, if not challenged before the Supreme Court, will jettison many long existing workers’ rights to create a comfortable environment for prospective foreign investors and the government’s business cronies.

A new anti-terrorism law, more abhorrent than the PTA, has drawn heavy flak both at home and internationally. An anti-corruption law has just been passed, more to satisfy the IMF than to catch the crooks, particularly politicians who fattened themselves over the years. Though Sri Lanka already has stringent laws not even a fistful of politicians have been prosecuted and convicted for bribery and corruption.

Meanwhile the country is facing a huge brain drain. Since 2022 some 700 or so doctors, specialists and medical staff have left for employment abroad. So have other professionals including engineers, IT specialists, airline pilots and technicians.

Education Minister Susil Premajayantha admitted in parliament the other day that 255 university academics and some 150-odd non- academic staff have vacated posts since last year.

Furthermore, UN reports have pinpointed the rise of poverty in the country with families and school children skipping meals because people cannot afford the high prices for domestic essentials like electricity.

The Agriculture Minister was warning the other day about the possibility of poor harvests in the coming season which, if sadly it does happen, could lead to food shortages

The seeming political stability with no queues and no demonstrators, should not be misconceived. While Wickremesinghe’s governing alliance in which fissures have been more conspicuous recently, prepares the ground to welcome foreign and local capitalist entrepreneurs, the same ground is being cut under the feet of the vast majority who survived all these years on their meagre earnings and now are struggling to survive.

In 1972, the then coalition government led by the world’s first woman prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike which came to power two years earlier, made the final constitutional break with Britain, dropping the British monarch as its head of state and declaring the country as the “Republic of Sri Lanka”. It maintained the Westminster-style parliamentary system it was accustomed to.

That government was roundly defeated at the 1977 general election. The right-wing United National Party (UNP) under its new leader Jayewardene, popularly called “JR”, won an unprecedented five-sixth majority in parliament driving Mrs Bandaranaike’s SLFP to a single digit presence.

Jayewardene decided the country needed a new constitution. But it was drafted without any public consultation whereas the 1972 constitution was drafted by parliament meeting separately as a constituent assembly.

Jayewardene named himself president and was sworn-in on 4th February 1978 under a new executive presidential system. The name of the country was changed into an ostentatious “Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka”.

Armed with enormous powers and a party with a five-sixth majority in parliament Jayewardene said the only thing he could not do was to change a man into a woman and vice versa.

The new name for Sri Lanka was a tragic misnomer. It did not take long for Jayewardene to show that he was neither democratic nor socialist. He set up a presidential commission which hauled up former prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, her closest minister Felix Dias Bandaranaike and others before it for alleged corruption and abuse of power. They were stripped of their civic rights, eliminated from political activity for seven years.

The president was more concerned about preserving his huge majority in parliament fearing that a general election would see a resurrected opposition returning in larger numbers.

In a move unheard of in democratic governance, President Jayewardene obtained signed letters of resignation from parliament from all his 140 MPs. The one thing missing was the date which the president would fill in if required. That was Jayewardene’s Damocles-ean Sword suspended over his own MPs.

The biggest blot on Jayewardene’s escutcheon is the bloody events of July 1983 when minority Tamils in Colombo and around the country were physically attacked and some 3000, according to reports were killed, their houses burnt and the businesses destroyed and looted. Thousands were made refugees in their own country or abroad.

The immediate cause for this horrendous and tragic happening 40 years ago was said to be the killing of 13 soldiers by Tamil insurgents in the north.

But when the attacks on Tamils and their homes really unfolded on July 25, as I witnessed that day and later, there were clear signs of government involvement. The fact that neither the president nor any minister appeared on TV calling a halt to this ethnic convulsion spoke volumes.

When the government did finally speak about four days later, it claimed the attacks were the “spontaneous outburst of Sinhala wrath” at the killing of the soldiers.

But with international community critical at the government’s inaction to stop the carnage, Jayewardene swiftly changed tack. The government claimed there was a “Naxalite” conspiracy to assassinate government figures and overthrow the government. A foreign hand-unnamed- was involved, it said.

Jayewardene evoked the Public Security Act to round up opposition politicians he feared were growing in popularity and throw them in jail and sealed the Communist Party newspaper. I remember my friend John Elliot of the “Financial Times” calling it “a crude cover up” while other foreign journalists simply dismissed the story.

What does matter now is that right through these events of the Jayewardene years, Sri Lanka’s current President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Jayewardene’s nephew, was a faithful member of his uncle’s cabinet and possibly privy to what went on inside.

In fact, if I remember correctly, he made a speech in parliament on the so-called “Naxalite” plot.

There is one essential difference. JR served two terms as president. His nephew lost two presidential elections and yearns to be at elected president at least once.

Next March he will be 75. Would he then be at the door step of the Last Chance Saloon? If so how far would he go to make sure he becomes and elected president like his uncle before retires from politics.

The United National Party (UNP) that his uncle represented and he does now, was called the Uncle Nephew Party from its early days. We shall see before long, won’t we.

Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who held senior roles in Hong Kong at The Standard and worked in London for Gemini News Service. He has been a correspondent for the foreign media.

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As Dipak Subedi was organizing a vaccination programme against the human papillomavirus (HPV) in the city of Bharatpur in Chitwan district of southern Nepal he was getting phone calls from neighbouring districts asking if he had extra doses available — people were willing to travel for hours to get their girls vaccinated against HPV, which […]

Several Southern African countries have or are in the process of enacting legislation that limits the civil society space, with implications for human rights. Credit: CIVICUS Monitor

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Jul 31 2023 (IPS)

Freedom of expression is under threat as governments in Southern Africa have enacted laws restricting civil society organizations, says global rights advocacy organisation, CIVICUS, warning that human rights violations are on the increase globally.

“The state of civil society is unfortunately not improving; civil restrictions continue across the world,” said David Kobe, the advocacy Lead at CIVICUS.

“More than 2 billion people live in countries that are rated as closed, which is the worst rating any country can have – this means that 28 percent of the world’s population are not able to speak out when there is corruption or human rights violations restrictions or cannot write articles as journalists without facing appraisals,” Kobe told IPS in an interview, noting that the organization’s human rights tool is indicating growing suppression of civil space across the world.

The CIVICUS Monitor, a tool accessing the state of civic space in more than 190 countries, provides evidence of restrictions on human rights by governments. The CIVICUS Monitor rates the state of civil space ‘open, ‘repressed’, and ‘closed’ according to each country.

Kobe notes that human rights violations are increasing globally with more restrictions on civil society in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The picture is not different in the Southern Africa region where restrictions on civil space have been continuing, and these have included censorship, violent response to protests and restrictive laws as seen in Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe

Closing Civil Society Space

Zimbabwe remains on the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist as attacks on civic space continue ahead of the scheduled 2023 national elections.

Last November, Zimbabwe approved the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment Bill, 2022, known as the Patriotic Act. The law seeks to create the offence of “wilfully damaging the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe” and will essentially criminalise the lobbying of foreign governments to extend or implement sanctions against Zimbabwe or its officials.

Furthermore, the Zimbabwe government gazetted the Private Voluntary Organisations Amendment Bill in November 2021, amending the Private Voluntary Organisations Act, which governs non-profit organizations. The main aim of the Bill is to comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations to strengthen the country’s legal framework to combat money laundering, financing terrorism and proliferation.

Civil society organizations warn that the Bill could hinder their activities and financing with potential adverse impacts on economic development. Besides, NGOs argue that they are a low-risk sector with no precedence of financing terrorism and money laundering.

Musa Kika, Executive Director of Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, says the PVO will affect the operations of NGOs, including deterring donors from funding PVOs, fearing the money could end up under the grip of the government. Besides, the Bill has a provision giving the Minister of Justice unfettered powers to place under supervision or surveillance, using subjective discretion, those PVOs the Minister deems to be high risk.

“Continued hostility and harassment on the part of the government towards the work of CSOs in the country will thus only result in a hugely detrimental effect on their efforts in advancing the protection of and respect for the basic human rights and freedoms of ordinary Zimbabwean civilians as espoused under Zimbabwe’s Constitution,” Kika said. He noted that civil society organisations were operating in a tough environment in Zimbabwe where the government does not trust them, especially those working in the fields of governance and human rights.

“We have a government that does not want to account,” said Kika. “We have had many human rights activists who have been arrested on flimsy charges…Terrorism finance is being used as a cover, but the motive is to close the democratic space because the government and accountability in human rights and governance are sworn enemies.”

In Zimbabwe, NGOs have, in partnership with the government, supported development, providing a range of services in health, education, social protection, humanitarian assistance, environmental management, emergency response and democracy building.  A research report commissioned by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum in collaboration with the Southern Defenders and Accountability Lab has warned of huge job and financial losses if the Bill is passed into law.

United Nations experts have urged Zimbabwe’s President Emerson Mnangagwa to reject enacting a bill that would severely restrict civic space and the right to freedom of association in the country.

However, President Mnangagwa has defended the passage of the PVO Bill, vowing to speedily “sign it into law once it reaches my desk”. In a commentary in his weekly column published by the government-owned Sunday Mail, Mnangagwa said signing the bill into law will usher Zimbabwe into a “new era of genuine philanthropic and advocacy work, unsullied by ulterior political or financial motives.”

Mnangagwa said the law was meant to defend the country from foreign infiltration.

Engendering Patriotism but Endangering Democracy

Zimbabwe has also recently approved another repressive law known as the ‘Patriot Act’.

“The Patriotic Act is an extremely repressive and unconstitutional piece of legislation that has serious ramifications for citizens’ rights, particularly the rights of freedom of expression in the lead up to the elections,” human rights lawyer, Dough Coltart, tells IPS in an interview.

“There is a very real need to educate the citizens on what the ramifications of this Act are for people’s lives because the Act has far-reaching consequences for the entire country and will essentially stifle any public dialogue around the challenges we are facing as a country.”

“The Patriot law is a bad piece of legislation which is an affront to the practice of ethical journalism in Zimbabwe,” Njabulo Ncube, Coordinator of the Zimbabwe National Editors’ Forum (ZINEF), told IPS. “It stinks to the highest skies as it criminalizes the practice of good journalism. It is anti-media freedom and free expression…civil society organisations have also been caught in the mix; they cannot effectively make government account for its actions.”

Democracy Dimming

The situation in Zimbabwe is echoed in some countries across Southern Africa, where governments are cracking down on CSOs in the name of protecting national sovereignty and the threats of money laundering and terrorism financing.

In Angola, the country’s National Assembly, on May 25 2023, passed a draft NGO Statute, which CSOs have criticized for limiting freedom of association by giving the state excessive powers to interfere with civil society activities.

According to the Movimento de Defensores de Direitos Humanos de Angola (Movement of Human Rights Defenders of Angola, KUTAKESA), the government has targeted civil society with legislation that is meant for terrorists and money launderers, though it has never been proven in any court that a CSO has committed an act of terrorism in Angola.

On the contrary, the rationale of this legislation constitutes institutional terrorism, the target of which are CSOs, said Godinho Cristóvão, a jurist, human rights defender and executive director of KUTEKA in an interview with the CIVICUS Monitor.

“The Angolan authorities should have aligned themselves with the democratic rule of law and respected the work of CSOs and HRDs,” Cristóvão is quoted as saying.

“Instead, there has been an increase in threats, harassment and illegal arrests of human rights defenders who denounce or hold peaceful demonstrations against acts of bad governance and violations of citizens’ rights and freedoms. There have been clear setbacks with regard to the guarantee of fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the constitution, as well as the rights set out in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other human rights treaties Angola has ratified.”

In Mozambique, a new NGO on Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act, which overregulates CSOs, is seen as the death knell for the civic movement in the country. The Act was approved in October 2022 under the pretext of fighting terrorism. It has further curtailed freedoms of expression, information, press, assembly and public participation.

Paula Monjane, Executive Director of the Civil Society Learning and Capacity Building Centre (CESC), a Mozambican non-profit civil society organisation, said currently, the legislation was being proposed to silence dissenting voices and people fighting for better governance of public affairs and the protection of human rights in the country.

The draft Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Act law establishes a legal regime for the creation, organisation and functioning of CSOs, and Monjane highlighted that it contains several norms that violate freedom of association despite this right being safeguarded by the constitution and international human rights treaties.

“It gives the government absolute and discretionary powers to ‘create’, control the functioning of, suspend and extinguish CSOs,” said Monjane, adding, “If the bill is approved, it will legitimise already existing practices restricting civic space, allowing the persecution of dissenting voices and organisations critical of the government, up to banning them from continuing to operate.”

Monjane said if the bill is passed into law CSOs in Mozambique will push for it to be declared unconstitutional and will ask the African Union, through the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the United Nations, through the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association to urgently condemn it.

On actions to foster human rights and human rights defenders, Kobe said civil society organisations must be supported to hold governments accountable for upholding national and international human rights conventions that they have subscribed to.

The Universal Periodic Review, an assessment of the state of civic and human rights of a country over a four-year period, provides recommendations to governments enabling them to open civic space and remove restrictive laws.

“Governments need to implement the recommendations of the UPR and not treat them as a formality for them to be seen by the international community as respecting human rights when they are not,” said Kobe, adding that encouraging governments to implement the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development was also a way of getting them to see development alongside human rights.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Humanitarian efforts in Niger are continuing despite the military coup. In Niger, Only 56% of the population has access to a source of drinking water, according to UNICEF. Photo credit: EU/ECHO/Jean de Lestrange

By Abigail Van Neely
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2023 (IPS)

Nicole Kouassi, the UNDP resident representative in Niger, is constantly faced with the challenge of coordinating aid delivery to 4.3 million people in need. On Wednesday, Kouassi woke up and learned this must happen in a country where the president had just been overthrown. She said she did not see warning signs of a coup.

Kouassi told journalists that UN humanitarian, development, and peace programs continue in Niger because their support is still desperately needed. According to the World Bank, over 40% of Niger’s population was living in extreme poverty in 2021. Before the present political crisis, 3.3 million people were acutely food insecure, mostly women and children. However, the $583 million dollar appeal for aid has only been 32% funded.

“The humanitarian response continues on the ground and has never stopped,” Jean Noel Gentile, the World Food Bank representative, said.

Nevertheless, the military coup in Niger affects the flow of humanitarian aid to other neighboring countries while Niger airspace and borders are closed.

While aid programs are individual to a country, closed borders can interfere with supply chain logistics. Gentile explained that there is a crucial route through Niger that allows for the transport of aid from a logistics hub in Yemen to Mali and Burkina Faso. Aid deliveries for Niger to Chad for Sudanese refugees have also been temporarily suspended.

Gentile said it is unclear exactly how many people will be affected. He noted that there may be alternative aid routes through Cameroon and Nigeria.

When borders are open, migrants from Mali and Burkina Faso also travel to Niger. According to Emmanuel Gignac, UNHCR chief of mission, no movement has been detected across Niger’s borders since their closure.

Kouassi has not been in contact with the military leaders in power and does not yet have plans to discuss humanitarian aid delivery with them. She noted that her office does not have a political UN mandate but echoed concerns expressed by Secretary-General António Guterres.

Guterres has strongly condemned the “unconstitutional change of government in Niger.”

“Stop obstructing the democratic governance of the country and respect the rule of law,” Guterres said in a statement to those detaining the president.

Kouassi said that all UN staff were accounted for and that Niamey, the capital, seemed calm as civilians respected their new curfew.

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In April 2023, India overtook China as the world’s most populous country. Credit: United Nations

By Taira Bhargava
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 31 2023 (IPS)

This year, India surpassed China as the world’s most populous nation. China is expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2035, but its population will likely continue to decline, while India’s will continue to grow.

India is projected to surpass 1.5 billion people by the end of this decade, reaching 1.7 billion people by 2064. Goldman Sachs analysts recently predicted India will be the world’s second-largest economy by 2075.

India’s population growth is widely touted as an economic opportunity to be seized, a chance for India to press its advantage as the most populous nation on Earth, with the greatest proportion of working age people.

For example, there have been recent calls for India to take the helm as a world leader in steel production. Demand for steel is expected to surge as India’s population grows, and more steel production capacity could boost India’s economy.

But there is more to population growth than just bigger markets and workforces. The same population growth that drives up demand also puts immense pressure on environmental, education, and health infrastructure.

For example, it will increasingly strain access to clean water, threatening drinking water safety and sanitation for communities. It could also lead to shortages in teachers and schools, and scarcity of medical professionals and health facilities.

So, as India’s population grows, it’s imperative that we balance its economic development with the well-being of its people. Sabina Dewan, a senior visiting fellow at the Center for Policy Research, says population growth could be a “tremendous productive force for the economy” but economic growth “hinges on providing good quality, productive, and well-remunerated jobs.” As Wilson Center scholar Jennifer Sciubba put it, “We’ve got 1.4 billion people in India, and it’s up to India to decide whether or not that becomes a resource or a burden.”

How population growth ultimately impacts people depends on how government, civil society, and society as a whole address its challenges and capitalize on its benefits. One key aspect of this is upholding people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).

As India’s population expands, the number of people of child-bearing age will continue to grow, and the stakes of SRHR will get higher. Studies show access to comprehensive SRHR services is key for health and well-being and helps women and girls reach their educational and economic goals. It also enables them to delay and space childbearing, moderating population growth and easing pressure on natural resources and infrastructure.

Currently, women and girls in India do not have sufficient access to SRHR services. Two million adolescent Indian women have an unmet need for modern contraception. A staggering 78% of abortions among adolescents are unsafe, leading to an elevated risk of complications.

And as India’s population grows, it also raises the stakes of gender discrimination and achieving gender equity. Without sufficient investment in the health and rights and women and girls, population growth is likely to exacerbate existing gender disparities.

But when women gain access to more education, economic opportunity, and family planning resources, it leads to greater economic participation and prosperity. Research finds such programs can help lift people out of poverty, improving their standard of living and contributing to a more inclusive economy.

In order to leverage the demographic dividend from population growth, in addition to manufacturing, transportation, energy, and digital infrastructure, India’s government should invest in its people.

It should focus on skill development and quality education programs that include women and girls, with emphasis on vocational training and technical education to equip the workforce with the skills the rapidly changing job market demands.

India’s rapid population growth is neither a blessing nor a curse, neither utopian opportunity nor dystopian destiny. Instead, it’s a blend of challenges and possibilities. The outcome for people depends on the actions we take and the investments we make.

Conventional investments like ramping up steel production may raise India’s GDP, but won’t by themselves make people happier or healthier, or lead to greater productivity and prosperity in the long run.

For that we’ll need a comprehensive approach, including policies and investments that prioritize SRHR, gender equity, education, and health. That’s the pathway towards beneficial economic growth, sustainable development, and a more balanced, prosperous future.

Taira Bhargava is a Stanback Reproductive Health Research fellow at the Population Institute in Washington, DC. Hailing from New Delhi, India, she is a rising junior at Duke University, studying Human Biology and Environmental Science.

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The UN General Assembly in session. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2023 (IPS)

A rash of military coups in African countries — including Burkina Faso, Sudan, Guinea, Mali, and most recently Niger– has raised a legitimate question: What should be the response of the United Nations, a world body that swears by multi-party democracy, on army take-overs?

Condemnation? Yes.

Last week, the strong denunciations of the coup in Niger came not only from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk — but also from all 15 members of the Security Council in a rare unanimity on a seemingly politically divisive issue.

But what if these military leaders seek to exercise their right to address the upcoming General Assembly sessions, come September?

As the New York Times pointed out July 30, Africa’s coup belt stretches the continent from coast-to-coast that has become “the longest corridor of military rule on Earth”

In a bygone era, the UN provided a platform to at least four such leaders, including Fidel Castro of Cuba, Col Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, Amadou Toure of Mali (who assumed power following a coup in 1991 but later served as a democratically elected President), and Jerry Rawlings of Ghana (who seized power in 1979, executed former political leaders but later served as a civilian president voted into power in democratic elections).:

But ironically, there was at least one instance of a Prime Minister from Thailand – a country where military coups once arrived with clockwork frequency — being ousted from power when he was addressing the UN General Assembly rendering him homeless and sending him into political exile in a Middle Eastern country.

The 2006 Thai coup d’état took place on 19 September 2006, when the Royal Thai Army engineered a military take-over against the elected caretaker government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

As a result, there was an unsolicited piece of advice to world leaders visiting New York: If you are heading a politically unstable government, make sure to bring all your military leaders—army, navy and air force chiefs—as members of your delegation to prevent a coup back home during your absence from the country.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN (1996-2001) and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (2002-2007), told IPS any group of a few well-meaning countries at the UN, having respect for participatory democracy, should come together proposing a resolution of the General Assembly disbarring leaders of military coups, who overthrew democratically elected governments, from addressing any of the major organs of the UN system, particularly the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“I believe such a resolution would pass with a big majority. We need only a few Member States, believing in democracy. to take that much-needed courageous, resolute, and forward-looking first step. I would look forward to welcoming such a history-making decision by the General Assembly,” he said.

“I would also add that the military leaders should know that the UN would not allow their countries to join any of its peace operations and/or to hold any high office in the UN system. There should be a price that those leaders should pay for their anti-democratic actions,” said Ambassador Chowdhury, President of the UN Security Council (2000 and 2001) and Chairman of the UN’s Budgetary and Administrative Committee (1997-1998).

“In many of my public speeches on multilateralism and effectiveness of the United Nations, which is its most universal manifestation”, he said, “I have repeatedly alerted that ”… I have seen time and again the centrality of the culture of peace and women’s equality in our lives. This realization has now become more pertinent amid the ever-increasing militarism, militarization and weaponization that is destroying both our planet and our people.”

“I believe wholeheartedly that only participatory democracy can effectively and appropriately reflect the true spirit of the UN Charter which begins with the words, “We the peoples …”. Yes, understandably the democratic system has its deficiencies”.

“But is there anything more effective and have more legitimacy in representing the opinion of the peoples of various Member States in this deliberative global parliament?” he asked.

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco, told IPS the United Nations was originally founded by the victorious allies in the war against fascism.

While having a democratic government was never a prerequisite for UN membership, the principle that there should be a rule-based international order implied that such principles should also apply to those of member states, he pointed out.

Similarly, the human rights provisions adopted by the United Nations also imply the necessity of democratic governance.

An important first step in living up to its democratic underpinnings would be for the United Nations to bar leaders of military regimes from speaking before the United Nations, said Dr Zunes who has written extensively on the politics of the UN and the Security Council.

“Unfortunately, powerful autocratic governments—like permanent UN Security Council members Russia and China—would likely oppose such a rule”, he said. And the United States, despite its pro-democracy rhetoric, could very well have objections, as well.

“The Biden administration is the world’s biggest supporter of autocratic regimes, providing arms to 57% of the world’s dictatorships. Indeed, Egypt’s General Sisi is the second largest recipient of U.S. military aid, with U.S. taxpayers spending over one billion dollars annually to prop up his military regime which seized power in a bloody military coup in 2013,” declared Dr Zunes.

Meanwhile, in 2004, when the then Organization for African Unity (later African Union) barred coup leaders from participating in African summits, Secretary-General Kofi Annan of Ghana went one step further and said he was hopeful that one day the UN General Assembly would follow in the footsteps of the OAU, and bar leaders of military governments from addressing the General Assembly.

Annan’s proposal was a historic first.

But it never came to pass in an institution where member states, not the Secretary-General, rule the Organization. However, any such move could also come back to haunt member states if, one day, they find themselves representing a country headed by a military leader.

The outspoken Annan, a national of Ghana, also said that “billions of dollars of public funds continue to be stashed away by some African leaders — even while roads are crumbling, health systems are failing, school children have neither books nor desks nor teachers, and phones do not work.”

Needless to say, the UN does not make any distinctions between “benevolent dictators” and “ruthless dictators.” But as an international institution preaching multiparty democracy and free elections, it still condones military leaders by offering them a platform to speak — while wining and dining them during the annual General Assembly sessions.

Asked whether the UN General Assembly should set a new standard, Ambassador Chowdhury said: “yes, of course!”

“This should have been done long ago when our much-loved, much-respected Secretary-General Kofi Annan suggested it at the outset of the new millennium”

That was the appropriate time for such a landmark decision as the African Group, the biggest regional group of UN Member States, would have championed it not only because the African Union’s predecessor OAU had decided in 2004 to bar coup leaders from African summits, but also because the proposal came from a Secretary-General who was a son of Africa, he said.

“We missed that opportunity when a visionary leader of the UN had the courage to suggest that the UN General Assembly should follow Africa’s lead. Two decades have gone by. I cannot envisage any other Secretary-General would have the guts to suggest that publicly,” declared Ambassador Chowdhury.

This article contains excerpts from the recently-released book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That,” available on Amazon. Thalif Deen, who authored the book, is Senior Editor at IPS, an ex-UN staffer and a former member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the UN General Assembly sessions. A Fulbright scholar with a Master’s Degree (MSc) in Journalism from Columbia University, New York, he shared the gold medal twice (2012-2013) for excellence in UN reporting awarded by the UN Correspondents Association (UNCA). The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows:

https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

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Credit: Prakash Mathema/AFP via Getty Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Jul 28 2023 (IPS)

Nepal is the latest country to join the global wave of marriage equality. On 28 June, its Supreme Court ruled that the government must immediately offer temporary registration of same-sex marriages, pending a change in the law. Around 200 couples reportedly sought to register as soon as the court judgment was made.

Nepal will therefore become the second country in Asia, after Taiwan, to recognise the right of all couples to marry. It’s little surprise that, as in many countries that have achieved marriage equality, it’s civil society that’s making the change happen, having brought the decisive court case.

Civil society’s breakthrough

Each year brings further important steps forward on two crucial fronts: decriminalisation of same-sex relations in the many countries where they’re still criminalised and recognition of marriage equality in countries that have made more progress.

Only last month a landmark was achieved in Estonia, which became the first post-Soviet state to legalise same-sex marriage. Now Nepal should become the 36th country in the world where LGBTQI+ people can marry, and the ninth this decade.

In Nepal, these efforts built on an earlier legal breakthrough, when in 2007 the Supreme Court ruled that the government must take measures to guarantee equal rights and end discrimination against LGBTQI+ people. This too was the result of a legal petition filed by several LGBQTI+ rights organisations following the country’s transition from a monarchy to a democratic republic. LGBTQI+ people had been as active as anyone else in demanding democracy but LGBTQI+ rights weren’t immediately recognised in the new Nepal.

The 2007 ruling unlocked significant progress: laws that banned gay sex were repealed that year. In 2015, Nepal’s new constitution recognised the fundamental rights of LGBQTI+ people and forbade discrimination. The court also recognised a third gender – a longstanding identity in the cultures of Nepal and other South Asian countries – and the right to have it registered on official documents.

Nepali schools now offer comprehensive sexuality education to students aged 13 to 15, which includes discussion of LGBTQI+ issues. This came as a result of a campaign by the Blue Diamond Society, a civil society organisation that has led the fight for LGBTQI+ rights in Nepal since 2001.

As further rights were recognised, continuing marriage discrimination increasingly stood out. A bill to legalise it was drafted soon after the 2007 ruling, consistent with the court’s order to guarantee equal rights, but not much happened after that. It fell on civil society to hold the government to account.

There are still challenges ahead. As yet, the government hasn’t responded to the court ruling, which suggests it’s hardly in a hurry to legislate. That means people’s rights remain vulnerable to administrative resistance, leading to uneven enforcement. On 13 July, for instance, the Kathmandu District Court rejected an application from a male couple to register their marriage.

Anti-rights backlash

Litigation has become the key means by which civil society wins change on LGBTQI+ rights, as reflected by a recent string of decriminalisation rulings in Caribbean countries. This strategy has the potential to bring legal and policy changes that are ahead of social attitudes. That’s been the case in Nepal, where there’s still stigma, social bias and discrimination, and in Nepal’s often fractious politics, some politicians seek to capitalise on that.

Globally, progress towards the recognition of LGBTQI+ rights is a much stronger trend than regression. But steps forward are inevitably followed by an anti-rights backlash, combined with politically opportunistic efforts to mobilise anti-LGBQTI+ sentiment.

This backlash is seen in the USA, from which emanates most of the funding that enables anti-rights campaigning around the world, as well as in European countries, including Hungary, Spain and Turkey.

But it’s felt most strongly in global south countries, where forces opposing LGBTQI+ rights spread disinformation that these are some kind of western imposition. This is apparent in several countries in Africa – such as Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda – and Asia – including Indonesia, where a new criminal code effectively criminalises same-sex activity, and Malaysia, where politicians profit from vilifying LGBTQI+ people.

That’s why positive moves in Africa and Asia are so valuable: they offer hope to embattled LGBTQI+ people not just domestically but around the world.

Progress in Nepal should particularly give heart to activists in India, where the Supreme Court is currently considering a case demanding the recognition of same-sex marriage, and Japan, where attempts to win court judgments have encountered setbacks. The good news should also resonate in Thailand, a country with a relatively progressive reputation on LGBTQI+ rights but where same-sex marriage still isn’t allowed.

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Shifting attitudes

Evidence from the countries that have adopted marriage equality shows that public attitudes to same-sex marriage tend to shift in the wake of legal change. In the countries that introduced it in the early years of this century, it now has majority support.

That’s also the case in Taiwan, which legalised same-sex marriage in 2019. And there, changing social attitudes have gone hand-in-hand with further reforms: in January, the government recognised same-sex marriages of Taiwanese people with foreign partners. In May, same-sex couples were given full adoption rights.

When it comes to changing social attitudes in Nepal, the annual roster of Pride events – the main Nepali Pride Parade held each June, a trans parade in December and an LGBQTI+ women’s rally that marks International Women’s Day each March – will remain vital spaces to make LGBTQI+ people more visible and assert their right to exist in public space.

Nepali civil society will hope that by the next Pride event, the law will have changed. But they’ll do more than hope. They’ll keep campaigning until the law is changed – and after that, they’ll stay alert to backlash and keep pushing back against discrimination.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report

 

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Shu'fat refugee camp is home to 120,000 Palestinian refugees on the outskirts of East Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. Photo credit: Jawad Al Malhi

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Jul 28 2023 (IPS)

The likelihood of further confrontations remains high following a major Israeli military assault on an impoverished camp of more than 23,500 Palestinian refugees in Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank earlier this month. The landlocked Palestinian territory, located between Israel to the west and Jordan to the east, has been illegally occupied, according to international law, following the invasion by Israel 56 years ago.

“The destruction I saw was shocking. Some houses were completely burned down; cars had been crushed against walls …I saw the trauma in the eyes of camp residents who had witnessed the violence. I heard them speak about their exhaustion and fear,” Leni Stenseth, Deputy Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the near East (UNRWA), stated after visiting Jenin on 9 July.

There have been numerous Israeli incursions into Jenin this year, and authorities claim the air and ground invasion on 3-5 July was to target Palestinian militant groups believed responsible for attacks on Israelis. Twelve Palestinians and one Israeli were killed, 900 homes damaged or destroyed, services decimated, and thousands displaced.

The military raid followed the death of four Israeli settlers by an armed Palestinian in the region in June. “Over the past hours, our security forces have been operating against terror hotspots in the city of Jenin,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on 3 July. Palestinian resistance groups have since strengthened their rhetoric. Israel intended “to kill any resistance, and they have failed in that 100 percent”, a Jenin Brigades spokesperson told the international media. Both Israelis and Palestinians claim the West Bank as part of their homelands.

Palestinian armed resistance groups have grown in the region in response to Israel’s harsh military occupation. Most Palestinians in the West Bank are refugees living with chronic poverty, unemployment, human rights abuses, deprivation of civil liberties and statelessness. All of this is especially acute for youth in long-term displacement camps.

“I am not surprised at what happened in Jenin. After 30 years [since the 1993 Oslo Accords], there is no plan for them [people of Jenin], no development and no political agreement. They are losing the future and losing hope,” Jawad Al Malhi, a Palestinian living in the West Bank, said in an interview with IPS.

The overcrowded Jenin camp, established in 1953, is home to three generations of Palestinians who were evicted from their home villages during the ‘Nakba’ of 1948. The ‘Nakba’ refers to the widespread dispossession of Palestinians of their traditional lands and villages during the formation of the Israeli state. It has a population density of 56,000 people per square kilometre.

Shu’fat refugee camp is home to 120,000 Palestinian refugees on the outskirts of East Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. Credit: Jawad Al Malhi

In June, a United Nations special committee on Palestinian human rights in occupied territories reported that Palestinian fatalities at the hands of Israeli authorities in the West Bank in the first five months of this year had skyrocketed by 124 percent compared to the same period last year.

The Israel-Palestine conflict, in its 75th year, is one of the world’s longest. But the West Bank, which was governed by Jordan, became a battleground when Israel seized it and annexed East Jerusalem during the Six Day War in 1967. Successive Israeli governments have ignored condemnation of its occupation by the international community.

In further defiance, Israeli settlers have been encouraged to build permanent homes in the West Bank. And settler attacks on neighbouring Palestinian communities, involving physical assault and desecration of homes and property, have occurred with impunity for years. From 2020-2022, Israeli settler violence against Palestinians rose by 137 percent, reports the UN. The trend is unlikely to reverse following the election last year of a new hardline Israeli Government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has pledged to harden its hold on the West Bank.

The erosion of Palestinian rights and hope of the West Bank becoming the site of their future state has deepened the loss felt by those living in its many refugee camps. One of these is Shu’fat, a sprawling warren of congested buildings that are being built higher as each generation tries to live within its boundaries on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It was established as a refugee camp in 1965 and is now flanked on one side by the Israeli separation or ‘apartheid’ wall.

Jawad Al Malhi was born in Shu’fat after his family, who were evicted from their village, moved there in 1966. His home is a few hundred metres from the narrow checkpoint, manned by armed Israeli soldiers, which he and other residents are forced to negotiate daily to go to the shops, the hospital and access public services and schools for their children.

The challenges of life have only intensified with the rapid growth of Shu’fat’s population. “In the 1980s, there were about 10,000 people living in Shu’fat, but now there are 120,000 people here. So, you no longer see the light; you don’t see the sun because of the higher buildings. There is no space, and it is difficult to walk anywhere. There are no places for cars and no places for people,” Al Malhi described, adding that life in the camp “has definitely got a lot worse over the last decade.”

The video, ‘Gas Station’ (2009), created by Jawad Al Malhi, portrays the reality of young Palestinian lives within the confines of Shu’fat camp. Credit: Jawad Al Malhi

Now in his fifties, Jawad has spent most of his life making art about life in the camp and the human experience of occupation. And he has been a dedicated art teacher to children in the camp. He described a video he made in Shu’fat, called the ‘Gas Station’, which gave an insight into the lives of Palestinian youth today. The video records the lives of young men working in a small gas station on the camp’s margins. As the hours pass and the day turns to night, their interactions around a pre-fabricated cabin and petrol tank unfold in an endless cycle of waiting. Time changes, but crucially nothing else does.

“Among the younger generation, there is now more distrust and suspicion [of people and the world]. Young people have a dream to leave the camp, but they can’t leave. It is very difficult for youths to build healthy social lives and relationships,” Al Malhi said. Unemployment among Palestinian youth is estimated at 30 percent.

Haneen Kinani of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy in Brussels told IPS that most of the younger generation “have never seen life without siege, raids and a brutal Israeli military regime that dehumanises them.”

Evidence of growing discontent among younger Palestinians is fuelled by numerous factors, including the failure of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, the absence of any tangible peace process and the ineffectiveness of the Palestinian Authority, responsible for administering Palestinian-held areas of the West Bank, to address Israel’s actions.

“At present, there are no prospects of a political solution. The Israeli Government has no willingness to engage and has no policy beyond possible formal annexation of parts of the West Bank. At the same time, the Palestinian Authority is too weak to be able to negotiate anything,” John Strawson, a Law Professor at the University of East London, told IPS.

Some nations, such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, have called for Israel to cease its aggressive settlement building, seen as a spur to violence. But commentators point to the unwavering support Israel receives from the United States as a major factor in its ongoing impunity.

Nasser Mashni, President of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, said it was time for this to change. “The UN and individual countries should be taking immediate and decisive action, as it has shown is possible with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Israel must be subject to UN and international sanctions until it abides by and meets its obligations under international law,” he told IPS.

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Firefighters battle a wildfire in Spain. July 2023 is the hottest month ever recorded in human history. Credit: Wikipedia

By Abigail Van Neely
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 28 2023 (IPS)

“Humanity is in the hot seat today,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told journalists as the world confronted official data confirming that July 2023 is the hottest month ever recorded in human history.

This includes the hottest three-week period on record, three hottest days on record, and the highest-ever ocean temperatures for this time of year. Workers, children, and families around the world have felt the scorching effects of the cruel summer as they struggle to breathe and bear the heat, Guterres said.

“For scientists, it is unequivocal that humans are to blame. All this is entirely consistent with predictions and repeated warnings. The only surprise is the speed of the change.”

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned that accelerated action is needed to bring global warming under control. Credit: Abigail Van Neely/IPS

The secretary-general declared that inaction and excuses were unacceptable. In order to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, accelerated action is required. This is especially true for the world’s largest economies.

“Leaders and particularly G20 countries responsible for 80 percent of global emissions must step up for climate action and climate justice,” Guterres said.

To reach this goal, Guterres asked developed countries to aim for zero emissions by 2040. Emerging economies should reach the same goal by 2050 with support from developed countries. He urged companies, cities, regions, and financial institutions to create credible plans to transition to renewable energy from fossil fuels.

“No more greenwashing, no more deception, and no more abusive distortion of antitrust laws to sabotage net zero alliances,” Guterres said.

When asked how he planned to hold countries accountable to climate action, Guterres said that only those who have made clear commitments would be able to go to the Climate Action Summit.

Guterres warned countries to protect their people from extreme weather, which is becoming the norm. He noted that this burden is acutely placed on developing countries and small island nations.

“Those countries on the frontlines who have done the least to cause the crisis and have the least resources to deal with it must have the support they need to do so.”

Funding for environmental protection efforts also remains inadequate. Guterres expressed concern that only two G7 countries, Canada and Germany, have pledged to replenish their Green Climate funds. He called for dramatic changes to the global financing system that supports climate action.

“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning. The era of global warming has ended, and the era of global boiling has arrived,” Guterres said.

“We must turn a year of burning heat into a year of burning ambition and accelerate climate action now.”

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By Elias Yousif and Rachel Stohl
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 28 2023 (IPS)

The Biden administration’s decision to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions, a weapon widely banned for the inherent dangers they pose to non-combatants, is risky.

In addition to the immediate and long-term humanitarian consequences, the transfer of clusters jeopardizes the domestic and international political consensus around support for Ukraine which will be instrumental in ensuring military assistance can be sustained for the long haul.

Just a day before triumphantly announcing the final destruction of the remaining U.S. chemical weapons arsenal, the Biden administration revealed it was approving the export of another internationally banned weapon – cluster munitions to Ukraine.

The decision comes in spite of strong opposition from lawmakers, human rights defenders, and even U.S. allies involved in the military aid effort to Ukraine. The controversy reflects the globally recognized risk cluster munitions – projectiles that break apart and disperse dozens of smaller munitions – pose to civilians.

Though some have argued the provision of these intentionally condemned munitions may provide some battlefield advantage to Ukraine, they also pose serious humanitarian and strategic dangers that could jeopardize both civilian protection imperatives as well as the long-term sustainability of Ukraine’s international military aid enterprise.

Cluster munitions are a category of ordinance that breaks apart in mid-air, dispersing smaller sub-munitions over a large area, sometimes as wide as several football fields. Beyond the inherently imprecise nature of these weapons, many of the bomblets they scatter fail to detonate, leaving behind a large blanketing of unexploded ordnance that presents an enduring threat to civilians, especially curious children.

Accordingly, non-combatants make up the vast majority of those killed by cluster munition duds, with tens of thousands of civilian casualties since the 1960’s, including many that occur years after conflict has subsided.

More than 100 countries, including most of the United States’ closest allies, have signed on to an international convention banning their use or transfer and U.S. law prohibits the export of cluster munitions with a dud rate of over 1%, lower than even the most generous estimates of the ordnance being sent to Ukraine.

Additionally, the cluster munitions the United States is sending to Ukraine, known as Dual-Purpose Improved Cluster Munitions (DPICMS), are from old stockpiles with older fuses that have few safety features. DPICM duds are especially dangerous.

The legal and normative taboo, growing international consensus, and U.S. prohibitions surrounding cluster munitions place the Biden administration’s decision to proceed with their transfer to Kyiv in an especially harsh light.

Both Kyiv and Washington have argued that these weapons are essential for Ukraine’s efforts to dislodge occupying Russian forces, especially amidst a Ukrainian offensive that has been proceeding more slowly than its backers had hoped.

Some analysts have argued that these weapons provide a unique battlefield capability for Ukrainian forces, especially in terms of addressing Russia’s extensive networks of defensive trenches.

However, the U.S. government has explained that a major factor in their decision to provide cluster munitions rests on a broader effort to shore up dwindling Ukrainian and Western stockpiles of munitions, allowing the United States to draw from an alternative source without further depleting its own supplies of conventional artillery.

In other words, these munitions are meant to extend the time available to Ukraine to conduct its summer offensive by alleviating a supply crunch in shells made more acute by a slow-moving effort dependent on attrition of enemy defenses.

Despite these military-based rationales, the risks the provision of these weapons pose are both immediate and long-term, with consequences that extend beyond the summer offensive and beyond the war in Ukraine. In the first place, the inherently indiscriminate nature of cluster munitions adds to the civilian protection risks for Ukrainian civilians.

Indeed, cluster munitions used in Ukraine, overwhelmingly by Russian forces but also by Ukrainian troops, have already resulted in numerous civilian casualties. Moreover, the use of cluster munitions will increase the risks to Ukrainian troops by adding especially sensitive unexploded ordnance to already dangerous terrain they will have to traverse as they press forward with their offensive.

It is why, in addition to their humanitarian concerns, many veterans, including Retired Lt. General Mark Hartling, have voiced their own reservations about the transfer decision.

And while it has been suggested that these munitions will be used overwhelmingly in the open countryside and in areas already heavily mined by Russian forces, once these munitions are transferred it will be difficult for the United States to influence how they are employed.

Should fighting move to more densely populated areas, the temptation to continue to use all available weapons will be strong and could result in scenes reminiscent of Moscow’s widely condemned and ongoing use of cluster munitions in urban centers, especially during the early stages of the war.

The Biden administration insists it has assurances from Kyiv that these weapons will be used under strict conditions meant to limit civilian harm. But while Ukraine has taken great pains to limit civilian casualties, its fidelity to past commitments around the use of U.S.-origin weapons has been imperfect, adding to concerns around the efficacy of the risk mitigation measures the Biden team has put in place.

Secondly, using these cluster munitions will complicate and exacerbate what is already going to be a daunting demining enterprise.

Compared to their unitary munition counterparts, cluster munitions scatter far more dud weapons, not only adding to the volume of ordnance that will eventually need to be cleared but also to the challenge of finding them.

Cluster munitions have notoriously high dud rates, with even the most generous assessments placing the figure at between 2-14%. But even those numbers are thought to be undercounts, with significant variation in testing and real-world application, and without any meaningful transparency into how the U.S. government has conducted its assessments.

The administration says that it is transferring munitions with a dud rate of 2.5% – a figure that is both difficult to verify and in violation of U.S. law. Some analysis suggests that the failure rate of the weapons being transferred to Kyiv is far higher, with the potential to litter the region with hundreds of thousands of additional pieces of unexploded ordnance.

Additionally, a rapid expenditure of the supposedly lower dud rate munitions in Ukraine could lead the administration to start drawing down from even higher dud rate stocks, raising the risks of civilian harm and long-term humanitarian dilemmas.

Strategically, the transfer of these controversial weapons systems risks creating fissures in Kyiv’s alliance of international supporters which has been critical to Ukraine’s defense. Consensus among Ukraine’s backers has both enabled a more robust military assistance enterprise and denied from Moscow the opportunity to prey upon political divisions in the West to deter security assistance efforts.

Accordingly, electing to transfer weapons systems banned by most NATO members offers a compelling point of contention among governments aiding Kyiv’s defense, as well as polarizes even further domestic support for backing Ukraine. This is especially true in Europe, where public support for Ukraine remains sizable but divisive.

With no end to this conflict in sight, and with most analysts agreeing Ukraine will depend on international support for the long term, the provision of cluster munitions risks eroding the enduring political support necessary to sustain military assistance to Ukraine for the long haul.

Beyond Ukraine, the transfer of clusters sends a dangerous signal about the United States’ commitment to civilian protection and international norms. Whatever conditions the United States may say it is placing on its package to Ukraine, other governments across the world will feel their justifications for using, stockpiling, or selling cluster munitions are made far stronger.

Undermining the global taboo around these weapons risks making cluster munitions use more likely, including by governments with far less discerning human rights practices.

The Biden administration is well justified in providing Kyiv the means to defend itself against Russia’s illegal war of conquest. Moscow’s irredentism has wrought unimaginable damage to the country and people of Ukraine and shattered global norms around sovereignty, security, and civilian protection.

But beyond creating a lasting, life-threatening hazard for Ukrainian civilians, providing cluster munitions to Ukraine risks eroding the moral authority of the cause, and narrows the reputational gap that has both distinguished Kyiv’s defense from Moscow’s invasion and sustained its lifeline of international military support.

Arguments in favor of providing cluster munitions are narrow in scope and should not outweigh international law, norms, and the long-term interests of Ukraine’s people and its military aid enterprise.

Elias Yousif is a Research Analyst with the Stimson Center’s Conventional Defense Program. His research focuses on the global arms trade and arms control, issues related to remote warfare and use of force, and international security cooperation and child soldiers’ prevention.

Rachel Stohl is a Vice President of Research Programs at the Stimson Center and Director of the Conventional Defense Program. Prior to joining Stimson, Stohl was an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, from 2009-2011. She was a Senior Analyst at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C. from 1998-2009.

Source: Stimson Center, Washington DC

IPS UN Bureau

 

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"Migration is a right," read the handkerchiefs held by two women at a demonstration in the Argentine capital for migrants' rights. At left is Natividad Obeso, a Peruvian who came to Buenos Aires in 1994, fleeing political violence in her country. CREDIT: Camilo Flores / ACDH

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jul 27 2023 (IPS)

Remi Cáceres experienced gender-based violence firsthand. She struggled, got out and today helps other women in Argentina to find an escape valve. But because she is in a wheelchair and is a foreign national, she says the process was even more painful and arduous: “Being a migrant with a disability, it’s two or three times harder. You have to empower yourself and it’s very difficult.”

When she came to Buenos Aires from Paraguay, she was already married and had had her legs amputated due to a spinal tumor. She suffered violence for several years until she was able to report her aggressor, got the police to remove him from her home and raised her two daughters watching after parked cars for spare change in a suburb of the capital "The places where women victims of gender-based violence are given assistance are not accessible to people who are in wheelchairs or are bedridden. And the shelters don't know what to do with disabled women. Recently, a woman told me that she was sent back home with her aggressor." -- Remi Cáceres

On the streets she met militant members of the Central de Trabajadores Argentinos (CTA), one of the central unions in this South American country, who encouraged her to join forces with other workers, to create cooperatives and to strengthen herself in labor and political terms. Since then she has come a long way and today she is the CTA’s Secretary for Disability.

“The places where women victims of gender-based violence are given assistance are not accessible to people who are in wheelchairs or are bedridden. And the shelters don’t know what to do with disabled women. Recently, a woman told me that she was sent back home with her aggressor,” Remi told IPS.

From her position in the CTA, Remi is one of the leaders of a project aimed at seeking information and empowering migrant, transgender and disabled women victims of gender violence living in different parts of Argentina, for which 300 women were interviewed, 100 from each of these groups.

The data obtained are shocking, since eight out of 10 women stated that they had experienced or are currently experiencing situations of violence or discrimination and, in the case of the transgender population, the rate reached 98 percent.

Most of the situations, they said, occurred in public spaces. Almost 85 percent said they had experienced hostility in streets, squares, public transportation and shops or other commercial facilities. And more than a quarter (26 percent) mentioned hospitals or health centers as places where violence and discrimination were common.

 

One of the trainings held by the “Wonder Women Against Violence” project. On the left is Remi Cáceres, who escaped domestic violence and today is Secretary of Disability at the Central de Trabajadores Argentinos central trade union. CREDIT: María Fernández / ACDH

 

Another interesting finding was that men are generally the aggressors in the home or other private settings, but in public settings and institutions, women are the aggressors in similar or even higher proportions.

The study was carried out by the Citizen Association for Human Rights (ACDH), an NGO that has been working to prevent violence in Argentina since 2002, with the participation of different organizations that represent disabled, trans and migrant women’s groups in this Southern Cone country.

It forms part of a larger initiative, dubbed Wonder Women Against Violence, which has received financial support for the period 2022-2025 from the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. Since 1996, this fund has supported projects in 140 countries for a total of 215 million dollars.

The initiative includes trainings aimed at providing tools for access to justice to the most vulnerable groups, which began to be offered in 2022 by different organizations to more than 1,000 women so far.

Courses have also been held for officials and staff of national, provincial and municipal governments and the judiciary, with the aim of raising awareness on how to deal with cases of gender violence.

 

María José Lubertino, president of the Citizen Association for Human Rights, takes part in a feminist demonstration in Buenos Aires. Lubertino coordinates the project on violence against disabled, transgender and migrant women in Argentina that runs from 2022 to 2025. CREDIT: Camilo Flores / ACDH

 

Fewer complaints

“Argentina has made great progress in recent years in terms of laws and public policies on violence against women, but despite this, one woman dies every day from femicide (gender-based murders),” ADCH president María José Lubertino told IPS.

“In this case, we decided to work with forgotten women. We were struck by the fact that there were very few migrant, trans and disabled women in the public registers of gender-violence complaints. We discovered that they do not suffer less violence, but that they report it less,” she added.

Lubertino, a lawyer who has chaired the governmental National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI), argues that these are systematically oppressed and discriminated groups that, in her experience, face their own fears when it comes to reporting cases: “migrants are afraid of reprisals, trans women assume that no one will believe them and disabled women often want to protect their privacy.”

Indeed, the research showed that 70 percent of trans, migrant and disabled women who suffered violence or discrimination did not file a complaint.

Many spoke of wanting to avoid the feeling of “wasting their time,” as they felt that the complaint would not have any consequences.

Each group faces its own particular hurdles. Migrant women experience discrimination especially in hospitals. Transgender people, in addition to suffering the most aggression (sometimes by the police), suffer specifically from the fact that their chosen identity and name are not recognized. Disabled women say they are excluded from the labor market.

More than three million foreigners live in this country of 46 million people, according to last November’s data from the National Population Directorate. Almost 90 percent of them are from other South American countries, and more than half come from Paraguay and Bolivia. Peru is the third most common country of origin, accounting for about 10 percent.

Of the total number of immigrants, 1,568,350 are female and 1,465,430 are male.

As for people with disabilities, the official registry included more than 1.5 million people by 2022, although it is estimated that there are many more.

Since 2012, a Gender Identity Law recognizes the legal right to change gender identity in Argentina and by April 2022, 12,665 identification documents had been issued based on the individual’s self-perceived identity. Of these, 62 percent identified as female, 35 percent as male and three percent as non-binary.

 

Women participate in one of the trainings on gender-based violence in Buenos Aires. The project is carried out by the Citizen Association for Human Rights with financial support from the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. CREDIT: Camilo Flores / ACDH

 

Different forms of violence

Yuli Almirón has no mobility in her left leg as a result of polio. She is president of the Argentine Polio-Post Polio Association (APPA), which brings together some 800 polio survivors. Yuli is one of the leaders of the trainings.

“Through the trainings, those of us who participated found out about many things,” she told IPS. “We heard, for example, about many cases related to situations of power imbalances. Women with disabilities sometimes suffer violence at the hands of their caregivers.”

The most surprising aspect, however, has to do with the restrictions on access to public policies to help victims of gender-based violence.

The Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity runs the Acompañar Program, which aims to strengthen the economic independence of women and LGBTI+ women in situations of gender-based violence.

The women are provided the equivalent of one monthly minimum wage for six months, but anyone who receives a disability allowance is excluded.

“We didn’t know those were the rules. It’s a terrible injustice, because disabled victims of violence are the ones who most need to cut economic dependency in order to get out,” said Almirón.

Another of the project’s partner organizations is the Human Rights Civil Association of United Migrant and Refugee Women in Argentina (AMUMRA). Its founder is Natividad Obeso, a Peruvian woman who fled the violence in her country in 1994, during the civil war with the Shining Path guerrilla organization.

“Back then Argentina had no rights-based immigration policy. There was a lot of xenophobia. I was stopped by the police for no reason, when I was going into a supermarket, and they made me clean the whole police station before releasing me,” she said.

Natividad says that public hospitals are one of the main places where migrant women suffer discrimination. “When a migrant woman goes to give birth they always leave her for last,” she said.
“Migrant women suffer all kinds of violence. If they file a complaint, they are stigmatized. That’s why they don’t know how to defend themselves. Even the organizations themselves exclude us. That is why it is essential to support them,” she stressed.

Credit: Albert González Farran, UNAMID

By Mark J. Wood
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 27 2023 (IPS)

When war broke out in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, in April 2023, those of us who know the region well feared what would happen to the west, in Darfur. In 2003, former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir called on the Janjaweed Arab militia to quell an uprising in Darfur.

The systematic raping, pillaging, looting, and scorched-earth tactics of the Janjaweed led to the deaths of more than 300,000 people in what has been recognized as a genocide.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of today, which is battling the Sudanese Armed Forces for control of the country, traces its origins to the Janjaweed of 20 years ago. The rise of ethnically targeted violence in the region now threatens a recurrence of that dark chapter.

Experts and organizations from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to the UN’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide are once again warning of genocide.

Yet the world’s response remains muted and lacks a clear strategy for Sudan. The United States has placed sanctions on Sudanese leaders, worked with Saudi Arabia to broker short-lived ceasefires, and seems set to belatedly appoint a Special Envoy.

But there is another measure taken in response to the violence of 20 years ago that is yet to be seriously considered— military intervention. This can take the form of a United Nations Peacekeeping force, or a hybrid force in partnership with the African Union, which seeks to enforce the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

While geo-political barriers to such a step are formidable, the pace and brutality of today’s violence demand it be considered.

Following the struggles to respond swiftly and prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 1990s, the Responsibility to Protect, a “political commitment to end the worst forms of violence and persecution,” came into being by an act of the United Nations General Assembly in 2005. R2P stands on three pillars:

1) Every state has the responsibility to protect its populations from mass atrocities; 2) The international community has a responsibility to assist states to meet their obligations; 3) If a state is failing to protect its population, the international community must take appropriate action in line with the UN Charter.

It is clear based on the situation in Sudan and Darfur that the authorities in Sudan are failing in their obligation to protect civilians. Pillars two and three need to be enforced. Invoking R2P will lay the foundation for what will be needed when this violence subsides—a stabilization peacekeeping force.

The UN, which was founded on the principle “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” must endeavor to use the tools at its disposal to save the people of Sudan.

At the beginning of the Millennium, peacekeeping was still viewed as a powerful and effective tool to protect civilians. To be sure, peacekeepers were limited by ambiguous and unrealistic mandates and a lack of resources to effectively carry out missions. But they saw some success, notably in Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire and Liberia.

However, today in a divided Security Council, a tepid approach is taken towards peacekeeping. China and Russia continue to speak in echo chambers and maintain a hardline view of sovereignty to avoid any precedent for intervention in their own countries. This limits constructive dialogue and effective utilization of a key tool in the UN Security Council’s tool kit.

Peacekeepers in Sudan are not infeasible. There is precedent for peacekeepers in Darfur, and it is worth considering. In June 2021, the African Union–United Nations Mission Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) completed its withdrawal following 13 years trying to stabilize the region.

The operation brought relative stability and a semblance of normality, highlighting the effectiveness of peacekeeping operations. It is abundantly clear three months into the war that no one among Sudanese authorities is fostering a substantial effort to ensure civilians are protected, particularly those in Darfur.

Under chapters VI, VII, and VIII of the UN Charter, the Security Council is instructed to take the appropriate action to settle disputes; act when peace is being breached; and utilize regional arrangements to bring about peace. There is a precedent of having regional provisions, through diplomatic, operational, and joint operational support, under Chapter VIII.

For example, in the former Yugoslavia, NATO provided air support for UN troops on the ground. And the Organization of American States, in conjunction with the UN, launched MICAH, a civilian mission in Haiti in 1993.

The role of the East African bloc IGAD, and its call to send a standby force to protect civilians and create a humanitarian corridor, is a welcomed step. With a regional bloc providing military support, the UN secretariat can use its good offices to provide humanitarian assistance and facilitate a road map toward nation building. Diplomacy must continue until cessation of hostilities is in place, and an observer mission is deployed.

The conflict in Darfur—once again on the lines of ethnicity, tribal allegiances, and coveted minerals—has the potential to catapult the region into a new dimension. The international community should not be surprised at the repeated tragedies unfolding in Darfur and the country at large.

Decades of impunity emboldened the protagonists of today’s conflict. The instruments to protect civilians are there. The UN Security Council has its mandate. Lives can be saved if swift action is taken. We cannot afford to fail the people of Sudan who never asked for this—and certainly do not deserve it.

Mark J Wood is the program associate for Refugees International. He has extensive research and advocacy experience on peace and security efforts in Africa and the Middle East, focusing on the root causes of violence. Prior to joining Refugees International, he worked for CARITAS Internationalis at their UN office as an Advocacy Assistant and with the International Peace Institute as a Research Assistant – where we focused on UN Peacekeeping challenges and mandate renewals.

Source: Global Dispatches: a newsletter read by over 9,300 members of the international affairs community, including senior leadership at the United Nations, government, the NGO community and media.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Lack of accessible information in sign language has made online platforms, education, healthcare inaccessible for the Deaf due to non-provision of information in sign language formats. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Egwelu Timothy
KAMPALA, Jul 27 2023 (IPS)

Every July, the disability community honors its history, accomplishments, and experiences during Disability Pride Month. One such group is the deaf community in Uganda, which makes up 3.4% of the population.

Members of the Deaf community celebrate the positive aspects of deaf culture, activism, and the pride of being Deaf, and feel value. But, we also recognize our oppression and know that we deserve better than the prevalent discrimination, exclusions and inaccessibility we regularly face.

While the inclusion of Deaf persons in organisations such as Uganda National Association of the Deaf (UNAD) , Deaf Youth Advocacy Network, and National Union of Persons with Disabilities enables us to help with some development of policies and best practices, merely having representation in consultations is not enough.

It is critical for a truly inclusive and accessible society that Deaf persons are involved in the decision-making processes. However, it is only feasible if policies can be understood, deaf people can actually attend meetings, and their voices are heard and taken seriously

All mainstream laws, policies and services also must be accessible to Deaf persons in sign language beforehand so we can contribute and guide language and outcomes.

Too often, however, Deaf persons are excluded. For instance, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an unfortunate digital gap for over 20,000 Deaf persons who use assistive devices like smart phones to access information.

Today, generally, lack of accessible information in sign language has made online platforms, education, healthcare inaccessible for the Deaf due to non-provision of information in sign language formats.

Furthermore, the lack of adequate support services such as access to interpretation, Sexual Reproductive Health, mental health services and social protection are concerning. In policy consultations, there is no meaningful participation as 60% of deaf participants cannot comprehend the written law.

The Constitution of Uganda is the second in the world to recognize the right to sign language both within the body and under the Cultural Objective Principle XXIV (iii) of the National Directives of State Policy. Article 21(1) on equality before the law, under the law and all spheres of life is equally instrumental.

These are further operationalised under the Persons with Disability Act of 2020. Most notably under Section 6, 7, 9 and 12 on non-discrimination under provision of education and general commercial services, health and employment. Despite this plethora of legal backing, the provision of information in sign language is still lacking.

The Constitution and other relevant laws such as the Penal code Act chapter 120 laws of Uganda are similarly inaccessible in sign language therefore ignorance of law is guaranteed for deaf persons despite it being no exception to criminal liability.

There is widespread agreement around the world that governments and institutions must take proactive measures to ensure that deaf persons have equal access to mainstream policies, systems, and services.

This includes providing accessible communication, transportation, education, healthcare, employment opportunities, and other essential services. However, the law and appropriate implementation are two different things.

Furthermore, regardless of the sector, policymakers must ensure that sign language accessibility is considered from the outset of policy development and implementation. They must engage Deaf persons and their representative organizations in meaningful consultation to understand their needs, preferences, and priorities.

Policymakers must also ensure that the Deaf have equal protection under the law to engage in the policy formulation process, voice their opinions, and influence decision-making. This includes providing accessible venues, information, formats, and technologies to facilitate their participation. In the recent consultations on development of the policy guidelines for television access, I applaud Uganda Communication Commission for inviting stakeholders from the various organisations to partipate in the consultancies and ensuring accesibility to sign language.

To sum up, it is critical for a truly inclusive and accessible society that Deaf persons are involved in the decision-making processes. However, it is only feasible if policies can be understood, deaf people can actually attend meetings, and their voices are heard and taken seriously. In this Disability Pride month, let’s level the playing field and ensure that everyone can participate in meaningful ways to make a truly inclusive society.

Egwelu Timothy is a lawyer and a disability policy & inclusion consultant

Secretary-General António Guterres (centre) visits residential neighborhoods of Irpin, in Ukraine's Kyiv Oblast February 2023 . Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 27 2023 (IPS)

The Secretary-General of the United Nations is the creature of—and subservient to — the 193 member states who largely reign supreme in the world body.

But, in reality, Antonio Guterres has been defiant and openly challenged one of the five permanent members of the Security Council lambasting Russia for its 17-month-old invasion of Ukraine.

Mercifully, and hopefully, he has no plans to run for a third term and face a Russian veto— as did former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who defied the US, and was defeated in his bid for a second term (when 14 members of the Security Council voted for him while the US exercised its veto).

Guterres, a former Prime Minister of Portugal, has been consistent in his attacks on Russia pointing out that Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is a violation of the United Nations Charter and international law.

In his most recent a statement released July 23, Guterres “strongly condemned the Russian missile attack on Odesa that resulted in civilian causalities and damaged the UNESCO-protected Transfiguration Cathedral and other historical buildings in the Historic Centre of Odesa, a World Heritage site.”

“In addition to the appalling toll the war is taking on civilian lives, this is yet another attack in an area protected under the World Heritage Convention in violation of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.”

Guterres said he was concerned about the threat that this war increasingly poses to Ukrainian culture and heritage. Since 24 February 2022, UNESCO has verified damage to 270 cultural sites in Ukraine, including 116 religious sites.

Still, is Guterres — and the international community– fighting a losing battle against Russian President Vladimir Putin? Are there any other alternatives in sight?

James Paul, a former Executive Director of the New York-based Global Policy Forum (GPF), told IPS the Secretary-General should really be able to help with negotiations– or even lead them.

“Thus, he cannot be too partial. But the Secretary-General (SG) is always partial to the US and any criticism is dealt with very severely as when Kofi Annan said the US had broken international law in Iraq,” said Paul, author of the 2017 book titled “Of Foxes and Chickens: Oligarchy and Global Power in the UN Security Council”.

“All his staff were stripped away, and he was humiliated in The New York Times,” he pointed out. “I think the SG should try to stay in a position that enables him to act as an intermediary”

“Did the then SG criticize the damage to heritage sites in Iraq by US forces? No. The P-5 are not equal”, said Paul, who was a prominent figure in the NGO advocacy community at the United Nations and a well-known speaker and writer on the UN and global policy issues.

Martin S. Edwards, Professor, School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University in New Jersey, told IPS the SG is playing this correctly, working to delegitimize Russia, and rightly so. There’s not much else that can be done to make Russia into a pariah state.

“The SGs voice on this in recent days (not only in criticizing this missile strike but also the end of the grain deal) has been both steadfast and needed,” he said.

“The main problem, sadly, is that this needs to be resolved on the battlefield”.

“ The more that Putin realizes he will not achieve any of his objectives, and the more that he realizes his regime is in danger, the more he would be willing to listen to overtures for peace. This war remains a huge tragedy for all involved,” declared Edwards.

Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders, told IPS it is part of the UN Secretary-General’s duties to protect the rules and values of the UN Charter.

The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, aimed at annexing territory and erasing Ukraine’s existence as an independent state, is the most blatant violation of the Charter’s fundamental rules and of international law, he pointed out.

“The Secretary General has no choice but to condemn Russia for its criminal actions even if this means that Russia does not accept him as a mediator. As the UN General Assembly has said, there is no solution to this war except for Russia to withdraw its troops and to cease all attacks,” declared Bummel.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has described the deaths and destruction in the nine-year-old civil war in Yemen as “the world’s worst humanitarian disaster”.

The killings, mostly civilians, have been estimated at over 100,000, with accusations of war crimes against a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) battling Yemen, described as one of the world’s poorest nations in the UN’s list of least developing countries (LDCs).

But the weapons used in these killings originated in the US which has remained the primary arms supplier to both countries. But neither the UN nor successive SGs have at least hinted or accused the US of being implicitly responsible for the civilian killings,

The New York Times said in 2017 that some US lawmakers worry that American weapons were being used to commit war crimes in Yemen—including the intentional or unintentional bombings of funerals, weddings, factories and other civilian infrastructure—triggering condemnation from the United Nations and human rights groups who also accuse the Houthis of violating humanitarian laws of war and peace.

https://www.globalissues.org/news/2019/04/26/25240

Going back to 2003, then Secretary-General Kofi Annan challenged the United States, and surprisingly, lived to tell the tale—but paid an unfairly heavy price after being hounded by the US administration..

When the US invaded Iraq in March 2003, he described the invasion as “illegal” because it did not have the blessings of the 15-member UN Security Council, the only institution in the world body with the power to declare war and peace.

But the administration of President George W. Bush went after Annan for challenging its decision to unilaterally declare war against Iraq: an attack by a member state against another for no legally-justifiable reason.

The weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), reportedly in Iraq’s military arsenal, which was one of the primary reasons for the invasion, were never found.

Subsequently, Annan came under heavy fire for misperceived lapses in the implementation of the “Oil-for-Food” program which was aimed at alleviating the sufferings of millions of Iraqis weighed down by UN sanctions

Meanwhile, in his 368-page 1999 book titled “Unvanquished: A US-UN Saga,” Boutros-Ghali provided an insider’s view of how the United Nations and its chief administrative officer (CAO) were manipulated by the Organization’s most powerful member: the United States.

Although he was accused by Washington of being “too independent” of the US, he eventually did everything in his power to please the Americans. But still the US was the only country to say “no” to a second five-year term for Boutros-Ghali.

In his book, Boutros-Ghali recalls a meeting in which he tells the then Secretary of State Warren Christopher that many Americans had been appointed to UN jobs “at Washington’s request over the objections of other UN member states.”

“I had done so, I said, because I wanted American support to succeed in my job (as Secretary-General”), Boutros-Ghali says. But Christopher refused to respond.

When he was elected Secretary-General in January 1992, Boutros-Ghali noted that 50 percent of the staff assigned to the UN’s administration and management were Americans, although Washington paid only 25 percent of the UN’s regular budget.

When the Clinton administration took office in Washington in January 1993, Boutros-Ghali was signaled that two of the highest-ranking UN staffers appointed on the recommendation of the outgoing Bush administration– Under-Secretary-General Richard Thornburgh and Under-Secretary-General Joseph Verner Reed — were to be dismissed despite the fact that they were theoretically “international civil servants” answerable only to the world body.

They were both replaced by two other Americans who had the blessings of the Clinton Administration.

Just before his election in November 1991, Boutros-Ghali remembers someone telling him that John Bolton, the US Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, was “at odds” with the earlier Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar because he had “been insufficiently attentive to American interests.”

“I assured Bolton of my own serious regard for US policy.” “Without American support” Boutros-Ghali told Bolton, “the United Nations would be paralyzed.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jul 26 2023 (IPS)

Currency values and foreign exchange rates change for many reasons, largely following market perceptions, regardless of fundamentals. Market speculation has worsened volatility, instability and fragility in most economies, especially of small, open, developing countries.

US Fed pushing up interest rates
For no analytical rhyme or reason, US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) chairman Jerome Powell insists on raising interest rates until inflation is brought under 2% yearly. Obliged to follow the US Fed, most central banks have raised interest rates, especially since early 2022.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The US dollar or greenback’s strengthening has been largely due to aggressive Fed interest rate hikes. Undoubtedly, inflation has been rising, especially since last year. But there are different types of inflation, with different implications, which should be differentiated by nature and cause.

Typically, inflationary episodes are due to either demand pull or supply push. With rentier behaviour better recognized, there is now more attention to asset price and profit-driven inflation, e.g., ‘sellers inflation’ due to price-fixing in monopolistic and oligopolistic conditions.

Recent international price increases are widely seen as due to new Cold War measures since Obama, Trump presidency initiatives, COVID-19 pandemic responses, as well as Ukraine War economic sanctions.

These are all supply-side constraints, rather than demand-side or other causes of inflation.

The Fed chair’s pretext for raising interest rates is to get inflation down to 2%. But bringing inflation under 2% – the fetishized, but nonetheless arbitrary Fed and almost universal central bank inflation target – only reduces demand, without addressing supply-side inflation.

But there is no analytical – theoretical or empirical – justification for this completely arbitrary 2% inflation limit fetish. Thus, raising interest rates to address supply-side inflation is akin to prescribing and taking the wrong medicine for an ailment.

Fed driving world to stagnation
Thus, raising interest rates to suppress demand cannot be expected to address such supply-side driven inflation. Instead, tighter credit is likely to further depress economic growth and employment, worsening living conditions.

Increasing interest rates is expected to reduce expenditure for consumption or investment. Thus, raising the costs of funds is supposed to reduce demand as well as ensuing price increases.

Earlier research – e.g., by then World Bank chief economist Michael Bruno, with William Easterly, and by Stan Fischer and Rudiger Dornbusch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – found even low double-digit inflation to be growth-enhancing.

The Milton Friedman-inspired notion of a ‘non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment’ (NAIRU) also implies Fed interest rate hikes inappropriate and unnecessarily contractionary when inflation is not accelerating. US consumer price increases have decelerated since mid-2022, meaning inflation has not been accelerating for over a year.

At least two conservative monetary economists with Nobel laureates have reminded the world how such Fed interventions triggered US contractions, abruptly ending economic recoveries. Although not discussed by them, the same Fed interventions also triggered international recessions.

Friedman showed how the Fed ended the US recovery from 1937 at the start of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s second presidential term. Recent US Fed chair Ben Bernanke and his colleagues also showed how similar Fed policies caused stagflation after the 1970s’ oil price hikes.

De-dollarization?
However, the US dollar has not been strengthening much in recent months. The greenback has been slipping since mid-2023 despite continuing Fed interest rate hikes a full year after consumer price increases stopped accelerating in mid-2022.

Many blame recent greenback depreciation on ‘de-dollarization’, ironically accelerated by US sanctions against its rivals. Such illegal sanctions have disrupted financial payments, investment flows, dispute settlement mechanisms and other longstanding economic processes and arrangements authorized by the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and UN charters.

Even the ‘rule of law’ – long favouring the US, other rich countries and transnational corporate interests – has been ‘suspended’ for ‘reasons of state’ due to economic warfare which continues to escalate. Unilateral asset and technology expropriation has been justified as necessary to ‘de-risk’ for ‘national security’ and other such considerations.

Horns of currency dilemma
For many monetary authorities, the choice is between a weak currency and higher interest rates. With growing financialization over recent decades, big finance has become much more influential, typically demanding higher interest income and stronger currencies.

Central bank independence – from the political executive and legislative processes – has enabled financial lobbies to influence policymaking even more. For example, Malaysia’s household debt share of national output rose from 47% in 2000 to over four-fifths before the COVID-19 pandemic, and 81% in 2022.

There is little reason to believe recent exchange rates have been due to ‘economic fundamentals’. Currencies of countries with persistent trade and current account deficits have strengthened, while others with sustained surpluses have declined. Instead, relative interest rate changes recently appear to explain more.

Thus, both the Japanese yen and Chinese renminbi depreciated by at least six per cent against the US dollar, at least before its recent tumble. By contrast, British pound sterling has appreciated against the greenback despite the dismal state of its real economy.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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The progress made in HIV prevention is nothing short of a global success story. It is time that TB caught up to HIV. Medicine is simply too advanced for us to tolerate how one disease can be beaten back yet another continues to flourish. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS.

By Violet Chihota
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 26 2023 (IPS)

Before COVID-19 came along, the two most lethal infectious diseases were HIV and tuberculosis (TB). Even though HIV still lingers, with 1.5 million people contracting the infection every year, epidemiologists point to the availability of many HIV prevention options as a primary reason for the decreasing caseload.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over the past two decades, new HIV infections decreased by 49%, HIV-related deaths decreased by 61% and an estimated 18.6 million lives were saved because of new treatments that minimise the infection and prevent its spread.

We have so many options for HIV prevention at our disposal, including the dapivirine vaginal ring, oral Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), harm reduction for people who use drugs, condoms for both men and women, voluntary medical male circumcision and the recently approved long-acting cabotegravir, with other options in development.

We have a suite of prevention tools because everyone is different, and people need to be able to choose their methods according to the way they live their lives. We observe a similar abundance of choice within family planning with oral pills, a variety of injectables, intra-uterine devices and condoms—we share this prevention method with HIV programs.

The urgency of the need is clear: an estimated 1.6 million people lost their lives to the disease in 2021, the second consecutive year the death toll went up after 14 years of progress. In Africa, an estimated 2.5 million people contracted the disease in 2021, one million of which were never diagnosed and treated

We do not have this many options for TB prevention, but the world needs to adapt to embrace choice if we are to meet the globally agreed-upon goal of reducing TB deaths by 90% by 2030—referred to as the “End TB targets.”

The urgency of the need is clear: an estimated 1.6 million people lost their lives to the disease in 2021, the second consecutive year the death toll went up after 14 years of progress. In Africa, an estimated 2.5 million people contracted the disease in 2021, one million of which were never diagnosed and treated.

Yet there are glimmers of good news. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, estimates of TB incidence have slowly declined over the past few years in Angola, Ethiopia, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia—all countries with high burdens of TB.

Of these countries, Zambia has also had success in finding and diagnosing an increasing number of these infections; the pandemic impacted the surveillance efforts of the other governments.

As for HIV, there is no effective vaccine to prevent TB in adults: the BCG vaccine only prevents severe TB in children. However, there are ways to prevent TB when someone is potentially exposed to an infected person. In the workplace or when a family member at home becomes sick, for example, prevention starts with masking, which was traditionally used in clinical care settings. The other ways work through prophylactic regimens. For TB, we initially only had isoniazid that could be taken for six, nine, 12 or 36 months depending on country guidelines, but now we have shorter regimens that allow for patient choice.

These options include regimens lasting one (1HP) and three months (3HP), with different combinations of the antibiotic drugs rifapentine and isoniazid, all with vitamin B6 supplements to help counter some of the side effects of treatment. There is also a three-month regimen of rifampicin and isoniazid (often given to children and adolescents) and a four-month regimen of rifampicin alone. Longer courses of isoniazid taken for 6–36 months also remain options, though most people are eligible to take a shorter rifapentine- or rifampicin-based regimen and should be given the choice to do so.

We need to do a better job of making sure that people at risk of TB have access to the full range of prevention options. A recent peer-reviewed study underlines this point, estimating that tracing the personal contacts of people diagnosed with TB and providing them with prevention treatment would save the lives of 700,000 children under the age of 15 and 150,000 adults by 2035.

Even the financial benefits of the prevention program, in terms of increased economic productivity, would outweigh the costs. Nobody questions the need to have options for HIV prevention or family planning, but questions arise when trying to roll out a one-month TB prevention regimen when there’s already a three-month regimen available. We need them all. We also need to collect more data to differentiate which prevention regimens are best for each patient type to ensure success.

The WHO guidelines for preventive TB treatment create the possibility of choice among TB preventive treatments by not ranking the regimens by preference or effectiveness. But health care facilities and outreach programs need to embrace that range of options and make sure that a choice exists in practice. Supply chains may limit choice initially, but if there is no demand for more options from providers, there is no impetus to expand the supply chains.

The progress made in HIV prevention is nothing short of a global success story. It took a combination of scientific ingenuity and innovation, combined with an intensive dedication of resources that made a range of preventive options available around the world.

It is time that TB caught up to HIV. Medicine is simply too advanced for us to tolerate how one disease can be beaten back yet another continues to flourish.

Violet Chihota is an Adjunct Associate Professor and Chief Specialist Scientist at the Aurum Institute. She has been a researcher in global health for over 10 years, designing and managing the conduct of clinical research studies in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Cameroon, Georgia, India and Malaysia.

Afshan Bhurgri, a cancer survivor, advises women to listen to their bodies and be aware of the symptoms of cervical cancer. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Jul 26 2023 (IPS)

“Listen to your body, and if there is anything strange happening, do not ignore it,” is the advice of 57-year-old Afshan Bhurgri, a cancer survivor.

Eight years ago, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer at a time when she was “in a good place” in life. Her kids were grown up, and she had more time to herself. A fitness freak, the schoolteacher’s daily routine included going to the gym daily. “I joined a creative writing class as I loved penning my thoughts!” she reminisced.

But then everything changed when she found out she had cancer.

Cancer of the cervix uteri is the fourth most common cancer among women worldwide, with an estimated 604,127 new cases and causing the death of 341,831 in 2020.

In Pakistan, an estimated 73.8 million women over the age of 15 are at risk of developing cervical cancer caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV).

Cervical cancer in Pakistan, according to the WHO. Credit: Shahzeb Ahmed

In the absence of complete data, it is estimated that of the 5,000 women diagnosed with this cancer in Pakistan, some 3,000 lose their lives every year due to lack of access to prevention, screening and treatment, thus making it the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women of the reproductive age group in the country, after breast and ovarian cancers. Up to 88 percent of cervical cancer cases are due to human papillomavirus (HPV) serotypes 16 and 18, as reported by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

“We are short on authentic data on the prevalence of the disease burden,” said Dr Arshad Chandio, who works at Jhpiego Pakistan as an immunisation lead. His organisation, which has supported HPV vaccine introduction in seven countries with Gavi support, is partnering with the federal and provincial governments, along with WHO, UNICEF, and USAID, to implement a roadmap for cervical cancer prevention and introduction of HPV vaccine in Pakistan. Cervical cancer is the only cancer that is preventable by a vaccine.

Cervical cancer worldwide, according to the WHO. Credit: Shahzeb Ahmed

“Without authentic data, our plan to eradicate this disease will not be watertight,” admitted Dr Irshad Memon, the director general of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation in Sindh.

Dr Shahid Pervez, senior consultant histopathologist at the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), co-chair of the country’s newly established National Cancer Registry, recommends legislation to make reporting of cancer mandatory. “This will be one way of collecting basic data, at one place, which is expected by international agencies to roll out an effective cancer control programme in Pakistan,” he added.

Cervical cancer warning signs. Credit: Shahzeb Ahmed

Although Bhurgri had knowledge about cancer of the cervix and went for regular health checkups and screenings, her doctors did not carry out full examinations, which led to the infection turning cancerous. It all started in 2009, five years prior to being diagnosed with cancer when she started noticing a “foul smell emanating from my vagina” after her period became “heavier” than usual.

“Let alone screening and testing for the cancer, many healthcare professionals do not even know of the disease, or how women get infected,” pointed out Chandio.

“I am an educated person, I could afford to get the best medical help, and I went to three of the city’s top gynaecologists, got pap smears done on their requests over the years, and I was only sent for HPV test when it was too late,” rued Bhurgri. In 2014, a doctor suggested an ultrasound which gave a true picture. A biopsy confirmed she had cervical cancer.

After her biopsy, Bhurgri started reading up on cervical cancer, and one of the indications was the foul vaginal smell.

“It could have been nipped in the bud if only the doctors had carried out a thorough examination,” said gynaecologist and obstetrician Dr Azra Ahsan, president of the Association for Mothers and Newborns, blaming “sheer negligence” on the part of her fraternity.

“A gynaecological consultation must not only be limited to a conversation across the table,” said Ahsan, but should include an “examination on the couch including a proper internal examination, ideally a pap smear and visual inspection,” especially if, like Bhurgri, a patient was complaining of heavy bleeding and a foul smell.

Bhurgri’s journey towards wellness was tough. A radical hysterectomy was recommended, and her cervix, her uterus and her ovaries were removed. Twenty-eight radiations and five chemos later, over a five-month period, she was given a clean chit by her oncologist. The cost of treatment, back in 2014 at a private hospital, was a whopping Rs30,000,000 (USD 1,097) back then.

Screening Can Save Lives

Although Bhurgri’s cancer may have remained under the radar despite regular screening via pap smears, doctors say HPV and pap smear tests are the best way to screen a woman for cervical cancer. They can identify patients who are at high risk of developing pre-cancerous changes on the cervix as well as pick up those who have already developed these changes.

These precancerous lesions can be treated before they turn into cancer. Sadly, in Pakistan, the uptake of pap smears is negligible and estimated to be as low as 2 percent.

According to Dr Uzma Chishti, assistant professor and consultant gynecologic oncologist, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, AKUH, Pakistan’s health system is so financially stretched that it cannot afford to provide screening of women by these expensive tests. Instead, she recommends WHO’s recommendations of performing a visual inspection of the cervix by acetic acid (VIA) to screen women to help reduce the incidence of cervical cancer. “VIA is an alternative screening test for low-and-middle-income countries like ours,” she said.

Vaccinations the Best Option

The WHO triple intervention recommendation to eliminate cervical cancer in countries like Pakistan includes scaling up HPV vaccination to 90 percent for girls aged between 9 to 14, twice-lifetime cervical screening to 70 percent and treatment of pre-invasive lesions and invasive cancer to 90 percent by 2030. “All three are essential if we want to eliminate cervical cancer completely,” emphasised said Ahsan.

HPV vaccinations to prevent cervical cancer are the way forward as it provides primary prevention, said Chishti, in the absence of VIA, screenings and pap smear tests. Almost 60 per cent of cervical cancer cases occur in countries that have not yet introduced HPV vaccination. Pakistan is one of them.

Once up and about, the first thing Bhurgri did was get her 14-year-old daughter vaccinated for human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. “My older daughter remains unvaccinated as she was 21 then and studying abroad. She needed three shots and could not make it to that timeline,” she said.

In Pakistan, two globally licensed HPV vaccines – Cervarix (protective against HPV serotypes 16 and 18) and Gardasil (against 6, 11, 16, and 18) were available till a few years ago, but very few doctors, even in the private sector, were prescribing them.

“We made it available in our clinic and counselled any and everyone, but it mostly fell on deaf ears, and very few people actually got vaccinated. As a result, huge amounts of vaccines expired in the warehouses, and the pharmaceutical firms decided to not make it available in Pakistan,” explained Ahsan.

In 2021, medical students at the AKUH interviewed 384 women attending outpatient clinics between the ages of 15 to 50 to find out their knowledge about cervical cancer. They found that of the 61.2 percent of women who had heard about cervical cancer, 47.0 percent knew about pap smear tests, and among them, 73 percent had gotten a pap test. A total of 25.5 percent of women, out of the 61.2 percent, knew that a vaccine existed for prevention, but only 9.8 percent had been vaccinated against human papillomavirus. The study concluded that a majority of the women interviewed for the study belonged to a higher socioeconomic class and were mostly educated, yet their knowledge regarding the prevention and screening of cervical cancer was poor. “This reflects that the knowledge levels as a whole would be considerably lower in the city’s general population,” the study concluded.

Shamsi highlighted the challenges of discussing HPV in a conservative society where sexual health topics are hardly discussed due to the embarrassment and taboo associated with sexually transmitted infections (STIs). This communication conundrum has resulted in a general lack of information about the disease. “There is a total lack of information about HPV, cervical cancer, and its prevention among the masses,” she said.

But this may change if Pakistan introduces the HPV vaccine at a national level, utilising routine effective and established immunisation delivery strategies. According to Dr Uzma Shamsi, a cancer epidemiologist at the AKUH, implementing the HPV vaccine at a national level in Pakistan could save hundreds of thousands of lives annually.

The benefits are enormous, and hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved each year, she emphasised.

Pakistan is in talks with Gavi the vaccine alliance, to support the country in including the single-dose HPV (two covers four strains) vaccine in its routine immunisation programme. “It will probably take another two years and USD 16 million before we can roll out the vaccine, but when it happens, it will be a country-wide campaign,” confirmed Memon.

Shamsi predicted some tribulation because the primary target group for vaccination is pre-adolescent girls. “A new vaccine for a new target age group comes with its own set of challenges in a society where conspiracy theories about vaccination programmes, stigma and misinformation about cancer and sexual health persist,” she said. And so before the actual rollout,  Shamsi emphasised, it was important to increase awareness about the HPV virus, cervical cancer causes, and vaccine’s safety and usage among the general public, patients, and healthcare professionals while actively dispelling misinformation.

Memon agreed that “conversation around the vaccine must begin”. For its part, the Sindh government set aside Rs 100 million ($365,884) for advocacy of HPV vaccine uptake in its current budget. “We will initiate a dissemination campaign once we know when the HPV vaccination programme is to begin,” he said. The Sindh province was also the first to initiate the typhoid conjugate virus vaccine after an extensively drug-resistant virus was found in the province. He was hopeful there would be less resistance to the HPV vaccine after the successful administration of measles and rubella and the pediatric Covid-19 vaccines earlier.

However, said Memon, “We will need more women vaccinators this time as young girls are shy of rolling their shirt sleeves up for male vaccinators.” With up to 125,000 female health workers across Pakistan, who were earlier trained by Gavi for MR immunisation, which is a much more difficult vaccine to administer (being subcutaneous) as opposed to the HPV one (which is muscular), he said, this workforce can be engaged to get trained for this vaccination campaign too.

In the end, however, according to Chandio, “without a strong political will and leadership, a national HPV vaccination programme cannot become a reality in Pakistan to eliminate this largely preventable cancer among women”.

Fighting her cancer has changed Bhurgri in more ways than one. Her message to women is to “not put yourself aside; make yourself a priority.” While she continues to lead a healthy life – going to the gym, eating healthy, resting, she said, “You cannot go on and pick up where you left off”.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: UNICEF/UNI403619/Karimi

By James Elder
KABUL, Afghanistan, Jul 26 2023 (IPS)

The needs of Afghanistan’s children and families are immense. So are the efforts of those supporting them: teams of community workers made up of family members, teachers in community-based schools, vaccinators, and health workers working around the clock to bring life-saving services in the face of an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe.

I recently traveled to eastern Afghanistan to meet some of the inspiring heroes who, this year already, helped UNICEF reach around 19 million children and their families with health and nutrition services.

UNICEF’s incredible health and nutrition response is supported by people across Afghan society. One of them is Mangal, a hero on two wheels. Every morning, Mangal picks up vaccines at a UNICEF-supported district hospital.

He carefully packs them in a cooler, which he straps to his motorbike before setting off to remote villages. Mangal braves rough, narrow roads, the scorching heat, and genuine security risks.

“I ride for nine kilometres every day to bring these vaccines to the people who need them,” he tells me. “They understand how important it is to protect their children from diseases. They don’t need any persuasion to come here. They greet me with gratitude and hope.” 

A doctor prescribes medicine for mothers and children during a UNICEF-supported mobile health and nutrition team visit. Credit: Karim / UNICEF

Some of Mangal’s supplies land here, with a UNICEF-supported mobile health and nutrition team providing services straight to the communities who need them most and who have no other way to access health care.

Like so much of UNICEF’s health and nutrition work across Afghanistan, these programmes are game-changers.

But these teams have their work cut out for them.

“Nearly half of all children under five in Afghanistan are malnourished, a truly devastating number,” UNICEF’s head of nutrition, Melanie Galvin, tells me. “Some 875,000 of them are expected to need treatment for severe acute malnutrition, the most lethal form of undernutrition and one of the top threats to child survival across the globe.”

Ramping up the response means staffing up the response, too. UNICEF has more than doubled the number of places where a child can be treated.

“Last year we put more nutrition nurses and nutrition counsellors into overflowing hospitals,” Melanie says. “We put them directly into communities where people live. We put them into mobile clinics that reach very small and isolated populations. We put them into day care centre spaces in poor urban areas.”

A child receives RUTF during a visit by a UNICEF-supported mobile health and nutrition team. Credit Karim/UNICEF

Mobile health and nutrition teams are critical in reaching rural areas with basic services like pre-natal checkups, vaccinations, psycho-social counselling, and ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF). It’s a heartbreaking condition to see up close. In this photo, little Zarmina receives an RUTF sachet from Melanie.

RUTF really is a magical paste – energy dense and full of micronutrients. Used to treat severe acute malnutrition, also known as severe wasting, RUTF is made using peanuts, sugar, milk powder, oil, vitamins and minerals, and has helped treat millions of children in Afghanistan.

As we tour a hospital, Dr. Fouzia Shafique, UNICEF Afghanistan’s Principal Health Advisor, explains how UNICEF has managed to support so many children, despite all the challenges.

“Health clinics, family teams of community workers, community-based schools, vaccinators, and trained female health workers,” she tells me. Donors such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank have also been critical partners, helping UNICEF provide care even in difficult-to-reach areas of the country.

So many of the life-saving interventions I encountered on my mission are made possible by the tireless work of UNICEF staff such as Dr. Shafique and Dr. Nafi Kakar, who fill a multitude of roles, including inspecting vaccines and parts of the cold chain system that is used to store them.

Helping families access quality primary and secondary health care means supporting thousands of health facilities, covering operating costs, paying the salaries of tens of thousands of health workers, and procuring and distributing medical supplies.

Together, these efforts are helping UNICEF reach many of the more than 15 million children in Afghanistan who need support. It’s a difficult number to comprehend, but easier to appreciate when you meet some of those very same children.

There’s the baby fighting for her life in an incubator; the children working for their families in fields of unexploded mines; the children grappling with the anxieties and pressures of poverty; or the girls deprived of their greatest hope – education. Each child is like my own. Unique. Each child is special.

The smiles say it all: For Dr. Shafique and young girls in Afghanistan, it’s been a good day. But there remains so much to do. Supporting the health and well-being of people in Afghanistan isn’t only about access to health services, it’s also about the protection of rights – notably, ensuring rights and freedoms for women and girls.

Given the enormity of UNICEF’s role in the health and nutrition sector, it’s critical for UNICEF – and for children in Afghanistan – that funding is maintained. So that the country’s children can grow up safe, healthy and be the heroes in their own stories.

Source: UNICEF Blog
The UNICEF Blog promotes children’s rights and well-being, and ideas about ways to improve their lives and the lives of their families. It also brings insights and opinions from the world’s leading child rights experts and accounts from UNICEF’s staff on the ground in more than 190 countries and territories. The opinions expressed on the UNICEF Blog are those of the author(s) and may not necessarily reflect UNICEF’s official position.

James Elder is UNICEF Spokesperson in Afghanistan.

IPS UN Bureau

Marisol and Misael Menjívar pose next to the biodigester installed in March in the backyard of their home in El Corozal, a rural settlement located near Suchitoto in central El Salvador. With a biotoilet and stove, the couple produces biogas for cooking from feces, which saves them money. The biotoilet can be seen in the background. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador , Jul 25 2023 (IPS)

A new technology that has arrived in rural villages in El Salvador makes it possible for small farming families to generate biogas with their feces and use it for cooking – something that at first sounded to them like science fiction and also a bit smelly.

In the countryside, composting latrines, which separate urine from feces to produce organic fertilizer, are very popular. But can they really produce gas for cooking?

“It seemed incredible to me,” Marisol Menjívar told IPS as she explained how her biodigester, which is part of a system that includes a toilet and a stove, was installed in the backyard of her house in the village of El Corozal, near Suchitoto, a municipality in the central Salvadoran department of Cuscatlán."When the first ones were installed here, I was excited to see that they had stoves hooked up, and I asked if I could have one too." -- Marisol Menjívar

“When the first ones were installed here, I was excited to see that they had stoves hooked up, and I asked if I could have one too,” added Marisol, 48. Hers was installed in March.

El Corozal, population 200, is one of eight rural settlements that make up the Laura López Rural Water and Sanitation Association (Arall), a community organization responsible for providing water to 465 local families.

The families in the small villages, who are dedicated to the cultivation of corn and beans, had to flee the region during the country’s 1980-1992 civil war, due to the fighting.

After the armed conflict, they returned to rebuild their lives and work collectively to provide basic services, especially drinking water, as have many other community organizations, in the absence of government coverage.

In this Central American country of 6.7 million inhabitants, 78.4 percent of rural households have access to piped water, while 10.8 percent are supplied by wells and 10.7 percent by other means.

With small stoves like this one, a score of families in El Corozal in central El Salvador cook their food with biogas they produce themselves, thanks to a government program that has brought clean energy technology to these remote rural villages. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Simple green technology

The biodigester program in rural areas is being promoted by the Salvadoran Water Authority (Asa).

Since November 2022, the government agency has installed around 500 of these systems free of charge in several villages around the country.

The aim is to enable small farmers to produce sustainable energy, biogas at no cost, which boosts their income and living standards, while at the same time improving the environment.

The program provides each family with a kit that includes a biodigester, a biotoilet, and a small one-burner stove.

In El Corozal, five of these kits were installed by Asa in November 2022, to see if people would accept them or not. To date, 21 have been delivered, and there is a waiting list for more.

In El Corozal, a rural settlement in the municipality of Suchitoto in central El Salvador, the technology of family biodigesters arrived at the end of last year, and some families are now producing biogas to light up their stoves and cook their food at no cost. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

“With the first ones were set up, the idea was for people to see how they worked, because there was a lot of ignorance and even fear,” Arall’s president, Enrique Menjívar, told IPS.

In El Corozal there are many families with the surname Menjívar, because of the tradition of close relatives putting down roots in the same place.

“Here we’re almost all related,” Enrique added.

The biodigester is a hermetically sealed polyethylene bag, 2.10 meters long, 1.15 meters wide and 1.30 meters high, inside which bacteria decompose feces or other organic materials.

This process generates biogas, clean energy that is used to fuel the stoves.

The toilets are mounted on a one-meter-high cement slab in latrines in the backyard. They are made of porcelain and have a handle on one side that opens and closes the stool inlet hole.

One of the main advantages that family biodigesters have brought to the inhabitants of El Corozal, a small village in the Salvadoran department of Cuscatlán, is that the whole process begins with clean, hygienic toilets, like this one set up in Marleni Menjívar’s backyard, as opposed to the older dry composting latrines, which drew flies and cockroaches. To the left of the toilet is the small handle used to pump water to flush the feces into the biodigester. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

They also have a small hand pump, similar to the ones used to inflate bicycle tires, and when the handle is pushed, water is pumped from a bucket to flush the waste down the pipe.

The underground pipe carries the biomass by gravity to the biodigester, located about five meters away.

The system can also be fed with organic waste, by means of a tube with a hole at one end, which must be opened and closed.

Once it has been produced, the biogas is piped through a metal tube to the small stove mounted inside the house.

“I don’t even use matches, I just turn the knob and it lights up,” said Marisol, a homemaker and caregiver. Her husband Manuel Menjívar is a subsistence farmer, and they have a young daughter.

In El Corozal, biodigesters have been installed for families of four or five members, and the equipment generates 300 liters of biogas during the night, enough to use for two hours a day, according to the technical specifications of Coenergy, the company that imports and markets the devices.

But there are also kits that are used by two related families who live next to each other and share the equipment, which includes, in addition to the toilet, a larger biodigester and a two-burner stove.

With more sophisticated equipment, electricity could be generated from biogas produced from landfill waste or farm manure, although this is not yet being done in El Salvador.

Marleni Menjivar gets ready to heat water on her ecological stove, watched closely by her four-year-old daughter, in El Corozal in central El Salvador, where an innovative government program to produce biogas has arrived. With this technology, people save money by buying less liquefied gas while benefiting the environment. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Saving money while caring for the environment

The families of El Corozal who have the new latrines and stoves are happy with the results.

What they value the most is saving money by cooking with gas produced by themselves, at no cost.

They used to cook on wood-burning stoves, in the case of food that took longer to make, or on liquefied gas stoves, at a cost of 13 dollars per gas cylinder.

Marleni Menjívar, for example, used two cylinders a month, mainly because of the high level of consumption demanded by the family business of making artisanal cheeses, including a very popular local kind of cottage cheese.

Every day she has to cook 23 liters of whey, the liquid left after milk has been curdled. This consumes the biogas produced overnight.

For meals during the day Marleni still uses the liquefied gas stove, but now she only buys one cylinder a month instead of two, a savings of about 13 dollars per month.

“These savings are important for families here in the countryside,” said Marleni, 28, the mother of a four-year-old girl. The rest of her family is made up of her brother and grandfather.

“We also save water,” she added.

The biotoilet requires only 1.2 liters of water per flush, less than conventional toilets.

In addition, the soils are protected from contamination by septic tank latrines, which are widely used in rural areas, but are leaky and unhygienic.

The new technology avoids these problems.

The liquids resulting from the decomposition process flow through an underground pipe into a pit that functions as a filter, with several layers of gravel and sand. This prevents pollution of the soil and aquifers.

Also, as a by-product of the decomposition process, organic liquid fertilizer is produced for use on crops.

Most families in the rural community of El Corozal have benefited from one-burner stoves that run on biogas produced in family biodigesters. Larger two-burner stoves are also shared by two related families, where they cook on a griddle one of the favorite dishes of Salvadorans: pupusas, corn flour tortillas filled with beans, cheese and pork, among other ingredients. CREDIT: Coenergy El Salvador

Checking on site: zero stench

Due to a lack of information, people were initially concerned that if the biogas used in the stoves came from the decomposition of the family’s feces, it would probably stink.

And, worst of all, perhaps the food would also smell.

But little by little these doubts and fears faded away as families saw how the first devices worked.

“That was the first thing they asked, if the gas smelled bad, or if what we were cooking smelled bad,” said Marleni, remembering how the neighbors came to her house to check for themselves when she got the latrine and stove installed in December 2022.

“That was because of the little information that was available, but then we found that this was not the case, our doubts were cleared up and we saw there were no odors,” she added.

She said that, like almost everyone in the village, her family used to have a dry composting toilet, but it stank and generated cockroaches and flies.

“All that has been eliminated, the bathrooms are completely hygienic and clean, and we even had them tiled to make them look nicer,” Marleni said.

She remarked that hygiene is important to her, as her little girl can now go to the bathroom by herself, without worrying about cockroaches and flies.

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