Africa

What will be the impact on communities and the economy if the ban on hunting elephants is lifted?

This report is produced by UNB United News of Bangladesh and IPS Inter Press Service.

By Abdur Rahman Jahangir
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Feb 22 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(IPS/UNB) – Bangladesh economy’s impressive growth trajectory over the last decade has been buttressed by the demographic dividend resulting from a large portion of its population — around 65 percent on average — being of working age.

However, experts think growing prosperity has also resulted in an increase in the population’s longevity as people live longer these days and that poses a new challenge for the government as the number of dependents keeps rising without corresponding steps to ensure their rights, dignity and necessary facilities.

According to information provided by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, around 7.5 percent (12.5 million) of the country’s total population constitutes the elderly people while the number is expected to increase sharply and reach around 20 percent (over 40 million) by 2050.

Under the circumstances, Bangladesh’s population experts and rights activists think the government should take proper programmes and policies to cater to the specific needs, including health, finical, civic amenities, of the growing number of ageing population.

Dhaka University’s Population Sciences department Prof AKM Nurun Nabi said population trends in Bangladesh show that Bangladesh is well into third phase of demographic transition, having shifted from a high mortality–high fertility regime to a low mortality–low fertility one, offering a window of opportunity to the country, referred to as the ‘demographic dividend’.

“The demographic dividend usually continues for 30 to 35 years. Although the demographic transition creates the demographic dividend, it also brings significant challenges with it,” he observed.

In Bangladesh, Nabi said various projections suggest that by 2025 one in 10 persons will be elderly and by 2050 one in five persons will be elderly.

The population scientist said the policymakers need to take effective steps for ensuring various necessary services for the poor, middle-class and urban affluent ageing population by increasing the number of service providing institutions. “The ageing population must be integrated to society by involving them with their old profession.”

Nabi put forwarded some more suggestions, including creating endowment funds by building partnership between different segments of society and sectors of economy, introducing an a priori deduction system from wages at earlier ages as a forced savings for old age allowance, establishing community ageing deposit scheme, restructuring the retirement age and finding way out for resulting crisis in occupational mobility.

Bangladesh National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chairman Kazi Reazul Hoque said special measures and polices alongside raising awareness are essential to ensure the welfare of ageing people as their number keeps growing due to rise in the average lifespan.

“I feel the rights of elderly persons are not being ensured now that much way. The older persons deserve more attention and care from the state as well as society,” he observed.

The (NHRC) chairman said ageing people, especially women ones, are very vulnerable group in the country and the policymakers need to take steps to protect the vulnerable people and ensure their rights.

He said the National Policy on Older Persons are not implemented for lack of sincere efforts by the authorities concerned while the Parents’ Maintenance Act–2013 are not being enforced for lack of its rules and regulation and awareness among people.

Hoque said the ageing people are being subjected to various repressions and negligence by their children and others.

Social Welfare Ministry joint secretary Abeda Akter said their ministry is thinking of taking various steps to ensure the rights and dignity of the older persons and meet the challenges of their management in the days to come.

She said the government introduced a monthly allowance programme for older people in 1998 and currently 40 lakh elderly people are getting Tk 500 ($6) each month as old age allowance. “The number of the allowance recipients will gradually be increased.”

Another official of the ministry, wishing anonymity, said they have formulated a work plan four years back in light of the National Policy on Older Persons to provide the senior citizens with various facilities, including ID cards, health cards, and reserved seats and tickets at reduced rates during their travel in buses, trains, steamers, health access vouchers, saving schemes, accommodation, but they could not implement those due to bureaucratic complications.

In his research titled “Elderly People’ in Bangladesh: Vulnerabilities, Laws and Policies, Jahangirnagar University Anthropology department teacher Sazzadul Alam, identified 12 types of vulnerabilities -– lack of social dignity, economic crisis, accommodation problem, illness, falling health, physical assault, mobility problem, emotional vulnerability, recreation problem, family burden, far from relatives and food crisis –that are faced by the elderly people in Bangladesh.

He said elderly population needs economic support including food, clothing, medical care, and housing as well as cultural support.

The post Bangladesh faces a challenge to ensure welfare of its aging population appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This report is produced by UNB United News of Bangladesh and IPS Inter Press Service.

The post Bangladesh faces a challenge to ensure welfare of its aging population appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Monique Taffe, a 22-year-old London-based fashion designer, makes clothing from recycled textiles and objects. Credit: A.D. McKenzie/IPS

By A. D. McKenzie
PARIS, Feb 22 2019 (IPS)

As the grandchild of Jamaican citizens who moved to Great Britain, Monique Taffe says she inherited a tradition of recycling and learned not to be part of the “throwaway culture”, as some environmentalists have labelled consumerist societies.

“I saw how my grandmother re-used things, and that was passed down to my mother who inspired me to do the same,” said Taffe, who wants to use waste materials and recycled fabrics in fashion design.

The 22-year-old London-based designer is a recent graduate of a British fashion school and she participated the 3rd Women4Climate conference that took place Feb. 21 in Paris. She joined other young women from around the world, including from several Latin American countries, who have launched sustainability projects and are being mentored by member cities of C40, a network of 94 “megacities” committed to addressing climate change – and which co-organised the conference titled “Take the Lead”.

Taffe has started a project to design maternity sportswear, encouraging expectant mothers to exercise during their pregnancy. All the clothing is being made from recycled textiles and objects at her Taffe Jones startup company, she told IPS.

She is also one of 10 finalists from some 450 contestants for London’s Mayors Entrepreneur Programme 2018, in which the city linked to the Women4Climate Mentoring Programme. The aim is to develop innovative businesses that are meant to tackle climate change.

“Women leaders played a pivotal role in negotiating the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015 and will be crucial to its success in the future,” says Women4Climate, which was launched in 2016. “Now more than ever, enhancing women’s participation and leadership will be critical to securing a healthy, prosperous and sustainable future for us all.”

Taffe said in an interview that she would like to see young people in Britain, the Caribbean and around the world getting together via social media to share best practices for textile recycling. This could include information about leaving used clothing in central depots or designated places, where designers and others could retrieve material. Recycling in the fashion industry could have a positive environmental impact, as the sector is one of the most polluting, according to experts.

The United Nations Environment Programme says that the fashion industry “produces 20 percent of global wastewater and 10 percent of global carbon emissions – more than all international flights and maritime shipping.” The agency adds that “textile dyeing is the second largest polluter of water globally and it takes around 2,000 gallons of water to make a typical pair of jeans”.

At the U.N. Environment Assembly next month, the agency will “formally launch the U.N. Alliance on Sustainable Fashion to encourage the private sector, governments and non-governmental organisations to create an industry-wide push for action to reduce fashion’s negative social, economic and environmental impact,” the U.N. says.

With clothing factories across Latin America and the Caribbean, this is an area that environmentalists are addressing as well, with organisations saying that the main focus is on waste management, including textiles and plastics that pollute the region’s beaches.

The Jamaica Environmental Trust, an NGO based in Kingston, emphasises recycling, conducts beach clean-ups with volunteers, and works to protect air and water quality, a spokesperson told IPS. Its leadership team consists mostly of young women, like Taffe, who work to sensitise the public to environmental and climate issues.

“Raising awareness will help other young people to see what’s being done and make it easier for us to form alliances for climate action,” Taffe said.

She and other observers have noted the measures taken in the Caribbean to ban single-use plastic bags and straws and to expand the use of solar power. The Jamaican government, for instance, announced last year that it wants the country to reach 50 percent renewable energy by 2030, up from the previous policy of 30 percent.

Although no Caribbean city is a member of C40, attending international conferences such as Women4Climate was one way of bringing ecological entrepreneurs together to share experiences, participants said.

In fact, forming international links was a central theme of the event, hosted by Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo (the initiator of the Women4Climate idea) and held in the French capital’s imposing city hall – flanked by the blue and green bicycles of the city’s bike-sharing scheme.

Representing cities such as Quito (Ecuador), Mexico City, and Santiago (Chile), Taffe and other women from around the world shared projects on sustainability and carbon-emissions reduction. They described ventures to improve species conservation in towns, understand and stop urban sprawl, transform restaurant waste into biogas and increase textile recycling.

Young innovators also presented technology solutions in a Women4Climate Tech Challenge.

“Climate change often has impact first on the lives of women … who traditionally are the ones taking care of the family, so women’s skills should be acknowledged,” said Hidalgo at the conference. “This is not to say women are better than men but that women have different skills and competences that are crucial in the fight against climate change.”

Hidalgo said policy makers and activists had to “think locally to act globally”.

Participants in the conference included women mayors from several cities – Freetown, Sierra Leone; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dakar, Senegal; and Sydney, Australia – alongside several male mayors working to address climate change.

“We cannot fight against climate change effectively without empowering women,” said Rodacio Rodas, the mayor of Quito. He described food-security and urban garden projects that employ women and added that at the “community” level, women could be empowered and could empower themselves to take action.

Many delegates, however, highlighted the lack of national support for climate action by some male leaders, with Clover Moore, the Lord Mayor of Sydney, deploring the global effects of climate-sceptic governments.

“We’re as devastated across the world by Trump as you are in the U.S.,” Moore said, referring to the U.S. president’s lack of support for the Paris Agreement on climate change, but she added that the prime minister of Australia was not “much better”.

“It’s very depressing times, but we don’t despair … we fully support our young community coming out and telling our national government to act responsibility. Full strength to our young communities.”

In a movement known as “Youth Strike 4 Climate”, led by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, students in several countries have been staying out of school on certain days to protest inaction by their governments against global warming. “Young people see what’s happening, they know the science,” Moore said.

Student participants at the Women4Climate conference included 17-year-old Youna Marette, a Belgian high school activist who was one of the keynote speakers.

“We’ll continue to fight, strike … for our future,” Marette declared, urging governments to create more inclusive societies and to increase action to protect the planet.

For Taffe, the up-and-coming designer, thinking of the future and a liveable world is a strong motivation. “My grandmother passed down ways to live sustainably, and I want to carry that on,” she told IPS. “We have to re-use and recycle and do what we can wherever we live.”

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The post Taking the Lead in Fight Against Climate Change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Dr. Hanif Hassan Ali Al Qassim, Chairman of the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue

By Dr. Hanif Hassan Ali Al Qassim
GENEVA, Feb 22 2019 (IPS)

The massacre of Srebrenica will enter human history as one of our darkest chapters. From 11 to 22 July 1995, Bosnian Serb military forces massacred approximately 8,000 Muslim Bosniaks. It became the largest massacre committed on European soil since the end of the Second World War. In November last year, the Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic was convicted of war crimes and of genocide. This constituted relief for the victims of the Srebrenica genocide and a victory for international justice after 22 years.

Dr. Hanif Hassan Ali Al Qassim

Although the European Parliament denounced this gruesome crime in 1995 stating that “such horrendous crimes must never happen again”, atrocious crimes are once again inflicted on civilian populations. In Myanmar, systematic and grave human rights violations and campaigns of ethnic cleansing brought bereavement to the Rohingyas. As a result of the military clampdown in September/October 2017, more than 700,000 Rohingyas fled to neighbouring Bangladesh to escape the brutal suppression. In the words of the United Nations, the situation in Myanmar constituted “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. Or a tropical Srebrenica that we were promised would “never happen again”.

The euphoria that prevailed following Myanmar’s decision to open itself to the world was ambiguous. Although Myanmar’s reforms have brought some measure of change, the systematic human rights violations of the Rohingya did not come to an end. The human rights situation of the Rohingyas in Myanmar is a result of enduring denial of basic human rights. The international community has also remained silent on this issue for too long.

In Myanmar, the Muslim Rohingya population are denied the “right to have rights”. They are denied these rights as non-citizens in their own land. Indeed the 1982 Citizenship law and the 2008 Constitution impede the realization of full citizenship rights for the Rohingya people unless they have lived in the country for the past three generations. They are also being denied the right to enjoy full and unconditional legal protection and fundamental freedoms in violation of international human rights standards.

The disturbing testimonies of the Rohingyans fleeing Myanmar confirm that serious human rights violations are being carried out against the civilian population. Atrocities, massacres, looting and rape of innocent civilians confirm that appalling human rights violations are inflicted on the Rohingyas. Satellite imagery likewise reveal that dozens of Rohingya villages have been razed and burned to the ground in a deliberate attempt to once and for all erase their identity, culture and history.

The violent turmoil in Myanmar in 2012 is a legitimate struggle for justice, freedom and dignity reminiscent of the popular resistance in South Africa to tear down the Apartheid system. The government of Myanmar must review and revoke the 1982 Citizenship law that degrades the status of the Rohingya people and other minorities to at best that of second-class citizens. The gross violations of human rights must come to an end. The discrimination against the Rohingyas cannot continue unabated. In the words of the Roman philosopher Seneca “Injustice never rules forever.”

According to research carried out by the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue, the international community has “turned a blind eye” to the human rights violations of the Rohingyas. The UN Security Council is yet to address the human rights situation in the Rakhine State. Although the UN General Assembly expressed concern about the human rights situation in the country in 1991, it failed to mention the grave injustices inflicted on the Rohingyas.

It was only after the adoption of the 2008 Constitution – which was supposed to herald a new era of democracy – that the UN became more vocal. In 2009, the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council adopted Resolutions 10/27 and 64/238 respectively to express concern over the situation of the Rohingya ethnic minority. Although a Special Session was held on 5 December 2017 by the UN Human Rights Council on the human rights situation of the Rohingyas, the international response has trailed “one step behind reality.”

In this regard, the Geneva Centre is proud to have successfully campaigned for the holding of a Special Session at the United Nations Human Rights Council on the human rights situation of the Rohingya Muslim population in Myanmar after sending out individual letters to the Permanent Representatives of the members of the Human Rights Council on 12 October appealing for the holding of an urgent Special Session.

Addressing the fate of the Rohingyas is therefore a moral responsibility for world society. Bismarck’s idea of realpolitik must not be left to rear its head letting politics prevail over values and human rights. The efforts of the international community to address the situation in Myanmar will be in vain if their actions are limited to the adoption of resolutions and declarations. The momentum of 5 December 2017 has decreased as other humanitarian crises enter into and exit from the agenda of decision-makers. The planned repatriation of Rohingyas to Myanmar from Bangladesh – as stipulated in the 2017 bilateral arrangement on return of displaced persons from Rakhine state – will hardly be of any value if the central government fails to allow for the safe return and reintegration of Rohingya refugees.

The lack of livelihood options and economic development might trigger another exodus in which the Rohingya community may decide never to return which is the objective pursued by their tormentors. The international community must therefore work for the recognition of the human rights of the Rohingya community to avoid that the world’s most unwanted people becomes the forgotten people of the 21st century.

The post The Unwanted People of Myanmar: A Tropical Srebrenica in the Land of the Golden Pagodas appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dr. Hanif Hassan Ali Al Qassim, Chairman of the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue

The post The Unwanted People of Myanmar: A Tropical Srebrenica in the Land of the Golden Pagodas appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The roof of the original headquarters of the Toki Foundation on Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, located 3,800 kilometers from the Chilean coast, is also used to collect rainwater, which runs into eight large storage ponds, and to generate electricity by means of 18 solar panels. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
HANGA ROA, Chile, Feb 22 2019 (IPS)

A school in the capital of Easter Island (Rapa Nui, in the local indigenous tongue) gives an example of clean management with the use of solar energy, rainwater recovery and an organic vegetable garden, as well as rooms and spaces built with waste materials.

Rapa Nui is a Chilean territory in the Polynesian triangle of Oceania: Hawaii to the north, New Zealand to the south, and Maori and Rapa Nui to the east. The island has about 8,000 permanent residents, most of them families from the Rapa Nui indigenous people. In addition, some 120,000 tourists visit the island every year.

With an area of 163.6 square kilometers and a triangle-like shape, the island is nicknamed the “navel of the world” in the Rapa Nui language. It is 3,800 kilometers from Chile.

On Easter Island, formally classified as a “special Chilean territory”, the Toki Foundation emerged seven years ago, created by 11 young people, including award-winning local pianist Mahani Teave, 35, the daughter of an American woman and a local artist.

Thanks to the Foundation’s school, located three kilometres from Hanga Roa, the island’s capital and only town, hundreds of Rapa Nui children have taken music workshops.

Some study classical music (violin, piano, cello or trumpet) and others traditional music, playing the popular ukulele. Children from the age of six attend the workshops in the afternoon, after school.

Michael Reynolds, an American nicknamed the garbage architect, designed the 850-square-meter Toki school house with eight classrooms plus a small auditorium and a roofed terrace.

Reynolds spent about two months in Hanga Roa building the unique facility with 80 volunteers, using tires, glass bottles, cardboard, cans and compacted earth.

“They built the main structure using garbage,” Carla León, 30, coordinator of the Foundation’s school, told IPS. Last year it served 120 students, who will return to the classrooms in March after the southern hemisphere summer vacation.

For the last three years, the house has had 18 solar panels on its roof to take advantage of the island’s strong sunlight and convert it into electric power. The panels generate 10 kVA and supply all of the electricity required by the school.

But Enrique Icka, 34, director of the Foundation and Mahani’s partner, told IPS that they want to extend the experience to a nearby site where the cultural organisation will operate, thus creating a microgrid.

In its organic garden, the Toki Foundation in Chile’s Rapa Nui or Easter Island is researching the most efficient way to recover ancestral crops of the Rapa Nui indigenous people, with minimal labour, taking best advantage of the soil and rescuing the stone garden technique that prevents erosion and maintains moisture. Credit: Orlando Milesi/IPS

The generation of solar power is important on this island, where the electricity supply depends on the 300,000 liters of oil that tankers bring each month from the continent to meet the consumption needs of the local population: 2.5 megawatts (MW).

The generation and distribution of electricity is the responsibility of the company Sasipa, which in November 2018 inaugurated the first solar power plant, Tama Te Ra (which means “first rays of the sun”, in Rapa Nui), which only generates power in the daytime, using 400 photovoltaic panels to produce 105 kilowatts.

It covers between two and eight percent of Rapa Nui’s energy needs.

The Toki Foundation is also a pioneer in rainwater recovery. The curvilinear rooftop collects rainwater, which runs into eight ponds in the shape of stone towers, each of which has a capacity of 5,000 litres.

“It’s time to take care of the water,” Easter Island Mayor Pedro Edmunds Paoa told IPS.

“Since four governments ago (for 16 years) I have been calling for metering wells to know how much water we have and how dangerous is the way we are getting it. That information is important today and the investment is not being made,” he said.

“In the meantime, we started our own awareness-raising theme by working with fairy tales so that children understand the value of water, take care of it and tell their parents not to water when it rains, for example,” Paoa said.

Drinking water in Rapa Nui is also provided by Sasipa which has six wells, from which water is channelled to six ponds to treat it and make it potable.

Meanwhile, the Toki Foundation’s rainwater harvesting system began to be replicated in some houses on the island, and the model is expected to continue to expand.

That is important for the island because in the future “we are going to have a great shortage of water resources,” Tiare Aguilera Hey, 37, an attorney who is an expert in urban and territorial planning, told IPS.

Carolina Campos, 42, the executive director of the Foundation, highlighted the promotion of an agro-ecological garden with drip irrigation using well water “that seeks to rescue traditional crops like taro root (Colocasia esculenta).

The garden is on part of Toki’s 2.5-hectare arable land, and will require about 700,000 litres of water for irrigation.

The initiative received a positive assessment from the government’s Foundation for Agrarian Innovation, which supported it with 90,000 dollars over two years.

Diego Valenzuela, 29, who has been working with the Foundation’s crops for six months, proudly showed IPS their tomatoes, lettuce, lemons, oranges, custard apples and 80 banana trees, which will soon be producing fruit ready to harvest.

They are also using manavai or stone gardens, which facilitate agriculture because the stones protect the crops from erosion, preserve moisture, maintain the temperature and provide the plants with minerals.

The Rapa Nui used these gardens to make it through tough times, Valenzuela pointed out.

In the future, the gardens will be used to help recover other ancestral species, such as the Toromiro (Sophora toromiro), an endemic tree of Rapa Nui that today is only found in the nurseries of the state-run National Forestry Corporation.

Four youngsters from the Rapa Nui Educational Village High School were invited to participate in the last Conference of the Parties on climate change, in Poland, to describe how the gardens work.

“We have several focuses. The first was music and art school, to give children opportunities that didn’t exist before,” Teave told IPS.

“If they are practicing music, coming to classes and taking part in group activities after school, they’re not on the streets using drugs,” she said. “Here they learn about respect: if you can play next to a woman cellist, listen to her and be on an equal footing, you probably won’t hit her when you’re married.”

According to Teave, Toki seeks “to make a contribution here on the island which, because it is so visible worldwide, can have an impact elsewhere, inspire other people and serve as a model.”

Icka told IPS that all these initiatives in Toki “are born out of the Rapa Nui worldview and the motivation of young people on the island.”

He also highlighted “the participation of more than 1,000 volunteers in all these years.”

Teave stresses the need to rescue the roots of the Rapa Nui people, including the language, “which is the root of this culture.”

“We need to do everything we can to recover that ancestral worldview that has to do with respect and a lot of knowledge that was being lost and that some people here are also trying to rescue,” she said.

The pianist also believes that recovering species that are not currently being planted, by using more efficient systems, can result in “producing here, on the island, what we ourselves eat.”

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The post Local School Is a Model for Energy and Water in Rapa Nui appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Oswaldo Guayasamín, The Workers, 1942.

By Vijay Prashad
Feb 22 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(Tricontinental) – As the United States and its allies put pressure on Venezuela, a poem by the Salvadoran radical Roque Dalton (1935-1975) clarifies the structure of politics in Latin America. Dalton came from one of Latin America’s smallest countries, El Salvador, which he used to call the little finger (pulgarcito). A deeply compassionate poet, Dalton was also a militant of the People’s Revolutionary Army, whose internal struggles claimed his short life. El Salvador, like so many other Latin American states, struggles to carve out its sovereignty from the tentacles of US power. That hideous Monroe Doctrine (1823) seemed to give the US the presumption that it has power over the entire hemisphere; ‘our backyard’ being the colloquial phrase. People like Dalton fought to end that assumption. They wanted their countries to be governed by and for their own people – an elementary part of the idea of democracy. It has been a hard struggle.

Dalton wrote a powerful poem – OAS – named for the Organisation of American States (founded in 1948). It is a poem that acidly catalogues how democracy is a farce in Latin America. It is from the poem that we get the title of our newsletter this week.

The president of my country
for the time being is Colonel Fidel Sanchez Hernandez
but General Somoza, president of Nicaragua
is also the president of my country.
And General Stroessner, president of Paraguay,
is also kind of the president of my country, though not as
much as the president of Honduras,
General Lopez Arellano, but more so than the president of Haiti,
Monsieur Duvalier.
And the president of the United States is more the president of my country
Than is the president of my country,
The one whose name, as I said,
is Colonel Fidel Sanchez Hernandez, for the time being.

Rafael Enriquez, Foreign Debt, OSPAAAL, 1983.

Is the President of Venezuela the President of Venezuela or is the President of the United States the President of Venezuela? There is absurdity here. Collapsed oil prices, reliance upon oil revenues, an economic war by the United States and complications in raising finances has led to hyperinflation and to an economic crisis in Venezuela. To deny that is to deny reality. But there is a vast difference between an economic crisis and a humanitarian crisis.

Most of the countries on the planet are facing an economic crisis, with public finances in serious trouble and with enormous debt problems plaguing governments in all the continents. This year’s meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos (Switzerland) focused attention on the global debt crisis – from the near-trillion-dollar deficit of the United States to the debt burdens of Italy. The IMF’s David Lipton warned that if interest rates were to rise, the problem would escalate. ‘There are pockets of debt held by companies and countries that really don’t have much servicing capacity, and I think that’s going to be a problem’.

Hyper-inflation is a serious problem, but punitive economic sanctions, seizure of billions of dollars of overseas assets and threats of war are not going to save the undermined Bolivar, Venezuela’s currency.

European Parliament, Strasbourg, 2015.

Eradication of hunger has to be the basic policy of any government. According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation, 11.7% of the Venezuelan people are hungry. Hunger rates in other parts of the world are much higher – 31.4% in Eastern Africa. But the world’s attention has not been focused on this severe crisis, one that has partly generated the massive migration across the Mediterranean Sea. The picture above is from the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where – in 2015 – activists laid out the 17,306 names of people who have died attempting that crossing (the number is now close to 40,000 drowned). Members of the European parliament had to walk to their session over these names. They are harsh in their attitude to start a war against Venezuela, but cavalier about the serious crises in Africa and Asia that keep the flow of migrants steady.

The government of Venezuela has two programmes to tackle the problem of hunger:

a. Comité Local de Abastecimiento y Producción (CLAP). The Local Committees for Supply and Production are made up of local neighbourhood groups who grow food and who receive food from agricultural producers. They distribute this food to about six million families at very low cost. Currently, the CLAP boxes are being sent to households every 15 days.
b. Plan de Atención a la Vulnerabilidad Nutricional. The most vulnerable of Venezuelans – 620,000 of them – receive assistance. The National Institute of Nutrition has been coordinating the delivery of food to a majority of the country’s municipalities.

These are useful, but insufficient. More needs to be done. That is clear. Through CLAP, the Venezuelan government distributes about 50,000 tonnes of food per month. The ‘humanitarian aid’ that the US has promised amounts to $20 million – which would purchase a measly 60 tonnes of food.

1st US PSYWAR (Psychological War) battalion hands out anti-communist posters in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), 1965.

On the issue of ‘humanitarian aid’ to Venezuela, the international media has become the stenographers of the US State Department and the CIA. It focuses on the false claims made by the US government that it wants to deliver aid, which the Venezuelans refuse. The media does not look at the facts, even at this fact – that $20 million is a humiliating gesture, an amount intended to be used to establish the heartlessness of the government in Venezuela and therefore seek to overthrow it by any means necessary. This is what the US government did in the Dominican Republic in 1965, sending in humanitarian aid accompanied by US marines.

Democracy Now, February 19, 2019.

The US has used military aircrafts to bring in this modest aid, driven it to a warehouse and then said that the Venezuelans are not prepared to open an unused bridge for it. The entire process is political theatre. US Senator Marco Rubio went to that bridge – which has never been opened – to say in a threatening way that the aid ‘is going to get through’ to Venezuela one way or another. These are words that threaten the sovereignty of Venezuela and build up the energy for a military attack. There is nothing humanitarian here.

If you don’t let us breathe, we won’t let you breathe. Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 2019. Photograph: Hector Retamal.

The term ‘humanitarian’ has been shredded of its meaning. It has now come to mean a pretext for the destruction of countries. ‘Humanitarian intervention’ was the term used to destroy Libya; ‘humanitarian aid’ is being used to beat the drum for a war against Venezuela.

Meanwhile, we forget the humanitarian solidarity offered by the Venezuelan government to the poorer nations and to poorer populations. Why is Haiti on fire now? It had received reduced price oil from Venezuela by the PetroCaribe scheme (set up in 2005). A decade ago, Venezuela offered the Caribbean islands oil on very favourable terms so that they would not be the quarry of monopoly oil firms and the IMF. The economic war against Venezuela has meant a decline in PetroCaribe. Now the IMF has returned to demand that oil subsidies end, and monopoly oil firms have returned to demand cash payments before delivery. Haiti’s government was forced to vote against Venezuela in the OAS. That is why the country is aflame (for more on this, please read my report). If you don’t let us breathe, say the Haitian people, we won’t let you breathe.

In 2005, the same year as Venezuela set up the PetroCaribe scheme, it created the PetroBronx scheme in New York City (USA). Terrible poverty in the South Bronx galvanised community groups such as Rebel Diaz Arts Collective, Green Youth Cooperative, Bronx Arts and Dance, and Mothers on the Move.

The PetroBronx Story (Spanish).

They worked with CITGO, the Venezuelan government’s US oil subsidiary to develop a cooperative mechanism to get heating oil to the people. Ana Maldonado, a sociologist who is now with the Frente Francisco de Miranda (Venezuela), was one of the participants in the PetroBronx scheme. She and her friends created the North Star to be a community organisation that helped deliver the resources to the very poorest people in the United States. ‘People had to wear their coats inside their homes during the winter’, she told me. That was intolerable. That is why Venezuela provided the poor in the United States with subsidised heating oil.

Josh MacPhee, Malcolm X, Just Seeds.

The South Bronx and Harlem, the privations produced by racism – all this is familiar territory in Latin America. In 1960, Fidel Castro came to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly. He was refused a hotel in the city. Malcolm X, a leader of the African American community, came to his aid, bringing the Cuban delegation to Harlem’s Hotel Theresa, whose owner – Love B. Woods – warmly welcomed Fidel and his comrades. Four years later, at a meeting in Harlem, Malcolm X said in connection with his meeting with Fidel, ‘Don’t let somebody else tell us who our enemies should be and who our friends should be’.

The post The President of the United States Is More the President of My Country Than the President of My Country appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

From the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

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Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. Credit: Masdar

By Rabiya Jaffery
ABU DHABI, UAE, Feb 22 2019 (IPS)

According to data from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the Arab world is one of the most urbanised areas in the world, with more than 70 per cent of the population of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)— Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)– living in urban areas.

In 2018, about 93% of the population of the UAE lived in urban cities – and it is expected to continue rising in the coming years. Dubai, the largest city in the country, has a population of over 3 million people, one-third of UAE’s 9.3 million, and is expected to double by 2027.

As the country’s cities continue to expand and grow, the challenge of civic authorities to provide adequate living conditions, water, sanitation, public transportation, and waste management features becomes more important to address.

“One of the direct results of the increase in UAE’s population, nearly all who live in urban cities, is the huge expansion in construction, facilities, and infrastructure,” says Habiba Al Marashi Chairperson of the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG), one of the most active non-government organization (NGO) based in the UAE.

“While construction is a major contributor to UAE’s economy, it is also amongst the most resource intensive sectors. Thus, growing cities such as Dubai need to plan along sustainable lines in order to reduce their negative environmental impacts and natural resource depletion,” she adds.

EEG mounted an awareness campaign to popularize the concept of green buildings in an environment that was still unfamiliar with the imperative for sustainable development and energy transition several years ago.

And Al Marashi states that a change – an understanding of the importance of sustainability – has begun to roll out.

The UAE sits on eight percent of the world’s oil reserves, meets most of its energy demand through fossil fuels, and has had a history of having one of the largest carbon footprints in the world but it seems to now be taking active measures to change this.

In 2017, during the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, the country announces its intentions to transition to at least 44% renewable energy by 2050.

“Our aim is to balance our economic needs with our environmental goals,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE prime minister and ruler of Dubai, said on Twitter to accompany the announcement. “The plan aims to increase usage efficiency by 40 percent and increase clean-energy contributions to 50 percent.”

Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. Credit: Masdar

This includes making sustainable development one of the key goals of its ‘Vision 2021’, including a focus on ‘green’ urban development.

“Cities are at the heart of any country’s development and define the direction of its growth and innovation and this is especially relevant in the Arab world where nearly all people are urbanized,” explains Al Marashi. “And the the future of urbanism is in sustainable cities and UAE wants to be a pioneer.”

Masdar City in Abu Dhabi is one of UAE’s most ambitious sustainable urban development projects that was built to be amongst the world’s “most sustainable developments” and “serve as a green-print for the sustainable development of cities through the application of real-world solutions in water, energy efficiency and the reduction of waste.”

The residential and retail development that is housing thousands was developed by Masdar, a renewable energy company based in Abu Dhabi, to be one of the region’s first entirely sustainable, mixed-use, low-carbon development that relies on solar and other renewable energy sources.

It is also home to Masdar Institute, the Gulf’s first research institution dedicated to advanced energy and sustainable technologies that, to date, has secured 14 US patents.

One of Masdar’s projects, in cooperation with Bee’ah, is spearheading waste-to-energy production in Sharjah that is currently generating enough power to supply to 28,000 residential complexed. Due to the facility, the rate of diversion of waste from landfills has gone up from 20% in 2009 to 70% in 2016.

The project’s goal is to eventually reduce the Sharjah’s landfill contribution to zero.

And on-site in Abu Dhabi, Masdar has developed a residential eco-villa, which aims to consume 35 percent less water and 72 per cent less power than a typical villa of the same size.

The prototype is being monitored for its energy, water, and waste management performances and the data will then be used to refine the eco-villa to support the eventual commercialization of the building concept.

Abu Dhabi also has a mandatory sustainable development framework for all its buildings. Developed by the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC), Estidama, Arabic for “sustainability’, was introduced in 2009 and was amongst the first sustainability initiatives in the region.

The framework establishes a clear vision for sustainability as the foundation of any new development occurring in UAE’s capital.

Estidima imposes sustainability requirements in the planning process and imposes a green building code with the classifies development projects under a ‘pearl’ rating system. All public buildings must have a minimum two pearl rating and all other new buildings must meet a minimum one pearl rating criteria.

“Right now, the focus of Estidama is on new developments, however, there are talks – and we are hoping – that it will be expand to include already existing buildings be retrofitted to meet the new standards,” says Al Marashi.

Dubai’s municipality also introduced its ‘Green Buildings Specifications’ in 2011 which were immediately mandatory for all new government buildings and then, in 2014, became a prerequisite on all new building developments.

“In practice this means goals of reducing energy and water consumption, the use of environment-friendly materials, renewable energy characteristics, alternative energy sources and increased efficiency,” says Al Marashi.

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South African rugby star Bryan Habana asks if Caster Semenya is being specifically targeted by the governing body of athletics, the IAAF.

Witnesses tell the BBC they were taken home from refugee camps despite the threat from Boko Haram.

Morocco international Adel Taarabt returns to Benfica first-team training after a seven-month spell with the reserves, manager Bruno Lage confirms.

Chelsea have been banned from signings during the next two transfer windows for breaching rules in relation to youth players, Fifa announces.

A government report recommends lifting a four-year ban on hunting elephants.

Rohingya girls taking religious education lessons at a Madrasah in the camps. Globally, 75 percent of refugees of secondary education age are not in school. In Bangladesh, Kenya, and Pakistan, the figure is closer to 95 percent. Credit: Kamrul Hasan/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 22 2019 (IPS)

Globally, youth are being left behind in education and employment, threatening the future vision of sustainable, inclusive, and prosperous societies.

In a new report, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) highlight the need to pay attention to and invest in youth as they are critical to building the world’s future including by helping achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Youth are being referred to as the “torchbearers” of the 2030 Agenda and have a pivotal role to play both as beneficiaries of actions and policies under the Agenda and as partners and participants in its implementation,” the report states.

“A few years into the implementation of the Agenda, unacceptably high numbers of young people are still experiencing poor education and employment outcomes, and future prospects remain uncertain,” it adds.

Today, there are 1.2 billion young people between 15 to 24 years, representing 16 percent of the global population. Despite advances in technology and information dissemination, attending school remains elusive to many.

Around the world, over 260 million children under the age 19 were out of school in 2014. Of them, 142 million were of upper secondary age.

The disparities between and within countries are even more stark—84 percent of youth in high-income countries are able to complete upper secondary education while the figure is only 14 percent for low-income countries. Additionally, almost 30 percent of the poorest 12 to 14 year olds have never attended school and many others do not have access to primary education.

Displaced and refugee children face particular challenges and are quickly becoming a “lost generation.”

“A lost generation is not only identified by empty classrooms, silent playgrounds and short, unmarked graves. A lost generation is one where hope dies in those who live,” said U.N. Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown.

Globally, 75 percent of refugees of secondary education age are not in school. In Bangladesh, Kenya, and Pakistan, the figure is closer to 95 percent.

In Nigeria alone, where conflict has ravaged the north, over 13 million children are out of school, the highest proportion in the world.

If nothing changes, approximately 80 percent of refugee teenagers will never get a secondary school education, and 99 percent will not be able to access higher education.

With no hope for a formal education or future prospects, some children have turned to suicide.

At the Moria refugee camp in Greece, Medicins Sans Frontières (MSF) found that a quarter of children had self-harmed, attempted suicide, or thought about committing suicide.

“At 10, when life should be in front of you – full of hope and excitement at every new dawn – young boys are so devoid of hope that they attempted to take their own lives,” Brown said.

“These young people are no longer only the lost generation, they are the invisible generation. And we must do more,” he added.

Without accessible and quality education, youth also end up being left out of the world of work.

Youth unemployment has worsened in recent years, with 71 million young people unemployed around the world.

Even those that are employed often find themselves living in poverty.

U.N. DESA pointed to the need to ramp up action on youth education and employment, especially as it relates to all of the SDGs including gender equality, health, and inequality.

However, such policies and programmes must address specific individual and socioeconomic contexts.

“It is important to recognise that the flourishing of youth is about more than successful transitions to employment. Young people have aspirations that are far broader and need to be valued and supported,” the report states.

“Rather than rating the success of programmes on narrow measures of educational or employment attainment, it is crucial that institutional, programme and policy evaluations be more firmly grounded in young people’s own accounts of what they value for their human development and for the sustainable development of their communities and this shared planet,” it adds.

For instance, the Young Rural Entrepreneurs Programme in Colombia helps aspiring entrepreneurs set up innovative, productive, and sustainable businesses in rural areas.

The programme provides targeted skills development and vocational training to unemployed youth in high-demand sectors, particularly targeting vulnerable groups such as displaced persons and indigenous communities.

The report highlighted the need to invest in such capacity building, providing youth with life skills such as effective communication and problem solving as well as skills that match the demands of the job market.

Lebanon has seen success in the double-shift school system which helps provide education to Syrian refugees. Of the 400,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon who are in school, 300,000 attend double-shift schools.

“The only way to reach the SDG of every child at school is for a child’s real passport to the future stamped in the classroom – and not at a border check post,” said Brown.

“The 2030 Agenda offers a positive vision for youth development; however, a great deal of effort will be needed to realise this vision,” U.N. DESA said.

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More and more elections are being held in Africa however analysts dismiss many as being "lawful but illegitimate".

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Local governance structures—in which every individual has the right, capacity, and opportunity to take part—must be kept alive | Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

By Debjeet Sarangi
ODISHA, India, Feb 21 2019 (IPS)

Failing to understand the Adivasi world view and imposing the dominant development paradigm on Adivasi peoples is affecting their identity and well-being. The mainstream development paradigm has aggravated discontent among Adivasi communities. The reasons are not difficult to recognise—it encourages the siege of native resources, drives competition, is surplus-driven, instils private ownership, and consequently, is affecting the cultural identity of Adivasi peoples.

Adivasi thought leaders believe that the root causes for the failure of development lie in a failure to understand their world view, and the continued imposition of the dominant development paradigm is significantly affecting the of well-being of Adivasi peoples.

 

Land and forest

The process of pushing Adivasi communities from their traditional homelands to distant frontiers is not new. Historical research shows that the eviction of Adivasi peoples is an age-old process. Their geographical history has been one of incessant displacement and relocation—often with the use of force and violence—deeper and deeper into inhospitable terrain.

Data shows that the proportion of rural Adivasi households that do not own any land (not even homestead land) increased from 16 percent of all Adivasi households in 1987–88 to 24 percent in 2011–12.

When it comes to forest land, the usage and access of resources by Adivasi peoples has been considered to be ‘encroachment’ by the government. In 2006, the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, tried to amend this by recognising the customary rights of forest dwellers, including the right over commons areas, as well as the right to manage and sell forest produce. However, implementation of this Forest Rights Act (FRA) has been unsuccessful, with inadequate community awareness, conflicting legislations, lack of dedicated structural implementation, administrative roadblocks, and government deficit.

Adivasi thought leaders believe that the root causes for the failure of development lie in a failure to understand their world view, and the continued imposition of the dominant development paradigm is significantly affecting the of well-being of Adivasi peoples

The forest bureaucracy, reluctant to give up control, has misinterpreted the FRA as an instrument to regularise ‘encroachment’. This can be seen in its emphasis to recognise individual claims while ignoring collective claims (Community Forest Resource (CFR) rights, as promised under the FRA).

To add to this,  the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has reportedly been pushing for a new set of rules that would dilute the FRA, and limit the power of local governing bodies like Gram Sabhas, despite objections raised by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA).

What can be done?

Local governance structures and systems where decision-making starts at the smallest unit of human settlement—in which every individual has the right, capacity, and opportunity to take part—must be kept alive. Communities should mobilise to file their community forest rights claims under the FRA, and facilitate community-led regeneration and conservation of natural biodiverse forests.

 

Culture and education

While Adivasi parents do feel that education and literacy are important, sending children away to residential schools also means that an entire generation will not learn their way of life, and will be alienated from agriculture, forests, and their parents’ livelihoods.

Children studying in residential schools are allowed to go home only once in a year, and struggle to bridge two totally different and disconnected worlds together. In an attempt to be mainstreamed, many lose their Adivasi identity.

“Without this knowledge, in the future we will have a weak education without memory. We will have a sick society where our generations to come will have no traditions—an empty space in history. We need to pass on our customs and law and way of life just as our grandparents did. We need to pass on the pride of being an Adivasi,” says a mother.

“The dominant education system in India is top-down. In this system, everything is de-contextualised,” says an Adivasi youth.

What can be done?

Facilitating dialogue on the implications of emergent ‘development’ paradigms, deliberating possible alternatives, and supporting efforts of Adivasi communities to envision their future is extremely necessary today.

Spaces need to be created for inter-generational learning for young Adivasi peoples, where adults in the community can play the role of ‘teachers’, impart local knowledge and reclaim the culture of communitarian living. To build curricula, traditional experts and thought leaders should interface with scientists and academicians from mainstream institutions. Curriculum should be contextual, and based around local issues—Adivasi agriculture, architecture, agro-ecology, food sovereignty, direct democracy, PESA and FRA.

 

Agriculture and livelihoods

Traditional Adivasi food systems tie together ecological realities, Adivasi identity, indigenous knowledge, social meanings, health, nutrition, and economics. Production practices are grounded in ecological principals like sustaining soil fertility, sustaining biodiversity, and conserving energy through practising poly-cultural farming, with numerous crops growing in tandem.

However, in recent years these self-reliant, biodiverse agricultural practices have been under threat. The green revolution model of agriculture, in the name of modernisation, has been characterised by the imposition of alien agricultural technology, ‘high-yielding’ varieties of seeds, the chemicalisation of farming, and the growth of commercial mono-cultural plantations, all of which have endangered the farms and forests of Adivasi peoples.

What can be done?

Livelihoods based on the essence of the agro-ecology, in keeping with the non-accumulative attitude of Adivasi peoples must be created.

Democratising production and consumption, involving clusters of villages with common ecological features to enhance local self-reliance in which tribal villages can trade goods and services with each other would reduce dependence on the outside market and government.

 

Health and nutrition

Although only 8.6 percent of the Indian population, Adivasis disproportionately represent people living below poverty line, and suffer from poor physical health.

When it comes to food and nutrition security, Adivasi areas have been identified as high-risk areas. Several factors have contributed to the increasing food insecurity, ranging from loss of traditional food sources in the forest, and decreasing size of land holdings, to a shift from self-sufficient agriculture to chemical-intensive agriculture, and increasing land alienation.  All this has rendered a considerable part of Adivasi communities as food insecure, with growing numbers falling into food scarcity and starvation.

What can be done?

To address changing diets influenced by external culture, local food systems need to be reoriented to produce safe, nutritious food, promote dietary diversity, and ensure balanced diets, along with revival of local health traditions and health security.

Modern doctors should be exposed to local health traditions—working with healers, midwives, traditional birth attendants, and so on—in order to sensitise them regarding local practices, and to come up with a framework to distinguish between ailments that require traditional healthcare and those that require clinical assistance.

To address malnutrition, the core existential issues that affect Adivasi peoples and other rural marginalised communities need to be examined. Poverty, indebtedness, food insecurity, lack of control over productive resources, and so on, all significantly impact nutritional outcomes. With critical reflection of these underlying structural causes, the communities themselves should undertake the responsibility of addressing them and decide the next course of action, as opposed to approaches where outsiders ‘consult’ communities, with no assurance that they will actually do anything.

 

Debjeet Sarangi has been involved with Kondh community in Odisha in building narratives of self-reliance that are primary to their way of life. This includes putting in practices and knowledge to reclaim the shared spaces, strengthen internal solidarity within the community, reclaim control over local food systems, and defending cooperative modes of living with humans and nature. He works with Living Farms, a nonprofit organisation in Odisha.

 

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

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By Arul Louis
NEW YORK, Feb 21 2019 (IPS)

Maldives Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid has reiterated his nation’s commitment to a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region and to democracy.

During his meeting with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in Washington Feb 20, Shahid “underscored the importance of his government’s reform efforts to (ensure) the vitality of Maldives’ democracy,” the department’s Deputy Spokesperson Robert Palladino said.

Maldivian Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid

The two leaders spoke of their “common interest in deepening bilateral ties between the United States and Maldives, and their shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” his statement added.

Pompeo appreciated the Maldives’ commitment to judicial reform, transparency, and rule of law, Palladino said.

Their statements on democracy and rule of law were a boost to the Indian Ocean nation’s fragile democracy.

Maldives had fought back a challenge to its democracy in September when the opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih assumed the presidency after defeating President Abdulla Yameen, who had declared a state of emergency and arrested Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed and Justice Ali Hameed when the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of nine opposition leaders, including former president Mohamed Nasheed.

The US-Maldives declaration of commitment to free and open Indo-Pacific region has added significance because of the China factor

Yameen, who had moved closer to China and Pakistan, sent emissaries seeking support from them after the emergency declaration that India and the US criticised.

China sent warships to the Indian Ocean region near the Maldives after the emergency was proclaimed in February last year. Beijing is also major investor and aid-giver to the Maldives.

Palladino said that Pompeo undertook to work with Congress to provide $9.75 million in additional aid to Maldives.

David J. Ranz, the deputy assistant secretary for Central and South Asian affairs, announced in December an aid package for Maldives comprising $7 million in military aid for maritime security and $3 million for supporting civil society and environmental programmes.

According to Maldives Finance Minister Ibrahim Ameer, the country owes $1.4 billion to China.

The State Department said that the Treasury Department would help the Maldives government with developing a debt strategy and with domestic debt management.

Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter @arulouis

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Suriname’s First Lady Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring says the Caribbean nation has been affected by climate change as it has experienced many destructive floods. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
PARAMARIBO, Feb 21 2019 (IPS)

Two of the most prominent women in the Caribbean nation of Suriname are speaking out about developed countries that release large volumes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

First Lady Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring and Speaker of the National Assembly Jennifer Geerlings-Simons say Suriname and other countries in the region are feeling the brunt of the effects of climate change.

“If we go to the interior of our country, then we see that we have had a lot of floods in those areas. These floods are destructive for the people who are living there. The effects are clearly noticeable especially to the women and the children,” Bouterse-Waldring told IPS.

“In the coastal area . . . we have had a lot of very strong winds. These winds, actually we never had them before, so it’s also new to us. These are all things that we are facing now with climate change.”

In the aftermath of Hurricanes Maria and Irma that devastated Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and others in 2017, many countries are still struggling to recover.

Geerlings-Simons told IPS: “Some of our countries have seen devastation and we have seen examples in 2017 and 2018 of what will happen to our countries if at any point in time, a hurricane or any other type of disaster happens.”

“You can start rebuilding your economy . . . but next year another hurricane might come and wipe you out again. Did you contribute to clime change? No, you just get hit by it. How would Suriname recover from one hurricane? Seventy-five percent of our people live on the coast and 75 percent or more of our economy is right here. How will we recover? Our homes are not built for hurricanes,” Geerlings-Simons said, adding that

The Speaker of Suriname’s National Assembly said that more than 1,000 homes lost their roofs in extreme weather conditions over the last 10 years. Previously, this sort of destruction to homes due to the weather was unheard of.

“So, we’re feeling the effects right now,” she said.

Jennifer Geerlings-Simons Suriname’s Speaker of the National Assembly says poor and even highly forested countries have no way to defend themselves against this onslaught of climate change which is already happening. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Geerlings-Simons said countries like Suriname, whose forests are actually aiding many other parts of the world, should get something in return. Not only do forests provide oxygen to the world, but according to the World Wide Fund For Nature two billion people either directly or indirectly rely on them for food, shelter and food security etc.

“We have no way as poor countries or even a highly forested countries to defend ourselves against this onslaught of climate change which is already happening, and which is actually threatening our future in the relatively short term of a few decades,” Geerlings-Simons told IPS.

“We as highly forested countries should . . . have an international fund in which we put some money if we push carbon into the air, and we get some money if we take it out of the air.”

Geerlings-Simons said this has already been tried and proven in Costa Rica. Twenty-two years ago, Costa Rica was the first in the world to start a nationwide scheme for compensating landowners for preserving their forests when it embarked on its national programme of payment for environmental services (PES).

“If you pay someone to keep the forest standing, they will keep it standing because they don’t have to give it to someone to cut it down to get something to eat,” Geerlings-Simons said.

“I am sure that if Europe, the United States or China would develop some kind of mechanism, some kind of machine, everybody would gladly be paying for it because it would strengthen their economy.

“But now, finally after a few hundred years, some money has to come to this part of the world, at this moment where we are facing a very dire situation. The [International Panel on Climate Change] IPCC is not some kind of scaremongering organisation and they really gave us a stern warning. You do something, you get paid for it. Why is this an exception?” she added.

Last year, the IPCC released a report assessing the impacts of global warming of 1.5 degrees C.

But as global emissions continue to rise, hopes of containing the planet’s warming well below 2 degrees C–the headline target of the Paris Agreement–are fading.

“Why do we have to beg for money while delivering a service that put carbon into the air? The only way that some people will start reducing their carbon is when they have to pay. This is the way this world works,” Geerlings-Simons said.

High Forest Cover and Low Deforestation (HFLD) nations hosted a major conference in Suriname earlier this month.

The conference ended with the Krutu of Paramaribo Joint Declaration on HFLD Climate Mobilisation. Krutu—an indigenous Surinamese word—means a gathering of significance or a gathering of high dignitaries, resulting in something that is workable.

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Caf dismisses the Gambia Football Federation's appeal over the eligibility of Togo defender Adewale Oloufade.