Africa

By Sam Olukoya
NAIROBI, Nov 29 2018 (IPS)

Women make up about half of the over 120 million people whose livelihood depend on the blue economy. But women play only a marginal role in the blue economy with most of them earning subsistence income. Women are mainly excluded from more important aspects of the Blue Economy like shipping and large scale fishing.

The Canadian High Commission to Kenya and the Canadian government funded International Development Research Centre, IDRC, organized a side event at the first global Sustainable Blue Economy Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, with the aim of seeking ways of increasing women participation in the blue economy.

 

The post VIDEO: Seeking Ways to Include Women in the Blue Economy appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The home of Cameroon's Gaelle Enganamouit is vandalised in Yaounde following her penalty miss against Nigeria in the 2018 Women's Nations Cup semi-finals.

Nigeria forward Isaac Success has signed a new five-year contract with Watford to keep him at the club until 2023.

Senegal replace Tunisia as the highest ranked African national team in the new monthly statistics released by football's world governing body Fifa on Thursday.

Wilfried Bony vows to battle for Swansea City's cause following a lengthy injury absence during which his father passed away.

Credit: Sarah Farhat / World Bank

By Paul Makin
WASHINGTON DC, Nov 29 2018 (IPS)

Mobile phones are helping millions of low-income customers to access financial services for the first time, but they are also exposing them to new cyber threats they could never have imagined.

A few years ago, a friend of mine in Uganda — let’s call him Jonathon — learned this firsthand. The trouble started when Jonathon happened to glance at his mobile phone and noticed the words “NO SERVICE” on the screen.

At first, he wasn’t concerned. His mobile network occasionally went down, and within a few minutes his phone reconnected to the network.

Later that day, however, he tried to use his mobile money account to send his wife some money so that she could take their son to a doctor, but the transfer failed. When he checked his balance, he learned that the entire amount he thought was in his account — more than $100 — was gone.

What happened to Jonathon is becoming more commonplace in countries where mobile money is popular. For instance, the Serianu 2017 Africa Cyber Security Report estimates that cybercrime in mobile-based transactions costs businesses $140 million per year in Africa.

So, what exactly happened to Jonathon? Why is this becoming more common? And what can providers and policy makers do to prevent it?

This part is easy to explain. A criminal got into Jonathon’s account and sent all his money to a group of friends, perhaps as little as $10 each. After receiving the transfer, each friend went independently to an agent and cashed out.

They gave most of the cash to the criminal, keeping some for themselves. This type of low-level money laundering happens regularly in the modern criminal environment.

A more interesting question is how the criminal got access to Jonathon’s account in the first place. To carry out this type of crime, a criminal needs the victim’s account credentials. Specifically, he or she needs two pieces of information: the victim’s mobile money account number (usually a mobile phone number) and PIN.

Getting someone’s mobile phone number is fairly straightforward. Sometimes the victim is a well-known figure or shares his or her contact details on social media. In other cases, the victim is overheard giving his or her number to a friend in a bar.

Criminals have various ways of obtaining their victims’ PINs too. The old-fashioned way is to stand behind customers at an agent’s shop and watch them complete transactions (i.e. shoulder surfing).

Unfortunately, many people are still unguarded when typing their PINs. Some people even write their PIN on the back of their mobile phone, which displays a disappointing lack of awareness of the implications.

However, industrial-grade PIN harvesting is supplanting these slow approaches to obtaining individual PINs. There are many opportunities to acquire DFS account numbers and the associated PINs without ever meeting (or even knowing) the person whose money is being stolen.

USSD is the most common form of access to mobile money services in developing countries, and it does not offer much protection for these sensitive credentials. Credentials can be collected in a number of ways that providers and policy makers should be aware of.

For example:

• Someone using a laptop in a coffee shop can capture all of the USSD sessions (including PINs) for everyone using a nearby cell tower.

• If a criminal wants to target a specific group of people, such as businesspeople attending a conference in a hotel, he or she can set up a fake cell tower with nothing more than a laptop and a mobile phone attached to it, looking as if it is simply being charged. The criminal can then trick everyone’s cell phones into connecting to the fake cell tower, giving him or her access to the group’s transactions.

• Someone with access to the mobile operator’s network – say, a disgruntled staff member – can connect a laptop to the network and quietly log users’ credentials as they enter them over the network.

• If criminals want to target a particular person (e.g., a high-net worth individual), they can do it from a laptop without even being in the same country. Criminals often do this by using USSD to push a message to the victim’s phone that looks like it is from his or her DFS provider, saying that because of a security issue they need to re-enter their PIN. The information they enter is then returned directly to the criminal.

Obtaining Jonathon’s credentials was only the first part of the attack. In this type of crime, the criminal then has to use the stolen credentials to access his money. For example, through a SIM swap.

A SIM swap is the transfer of a mobile phone number from its original SIM to a new SIM. It is an important service that allows customers to keep their number and account after acquiring a new SIM card.

Unfortunately, the service can be misused to transfer a victim’s mobile phone number to a new SIM (resulting in the “NO SERVICE” message on their mobile phone) without their knowledge or permission.

The new SIM is placed in a mobile phone, at which point the criminal uses the captured PIN to access the target’s account and send money to be cashed out and laundered. Afterwards, the SIM swap is reversed, and the victim’s mobile phone comes back to life — but the money is gone.

By the time Jonathon realized something was wrong, his money was long gone. While it might be possible to trace the people who carried out the money laundering, it is virtually impossible to get Jonathon’s money back – and in his country,

Jonathon is liable for the loss, not the DFS provider. It would have been better if the service had been better secured in the first place. As detailed in the slide deck below, there are some simple measures that providers and policy makers can adopt to protect other mobile financial services users from cyberattacks.

This article was originally published by the Washington-based Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) which is a global partnership of more than 30 leading development organizations that works to advance the lives of poor people through financial inclusion.

The post Mobile Phones Exposed to Growing Cyber Threats appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Paul Makin is the head of mobile money at Consult Hyperion

The post Mobile Phones Exposed to Growing Cyber Threats appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Kenyan women's football star Cheris Avila says sport has changed her life on and off the pitch.

Al Ittihad beat Miracle Bandran 8-0 in the first leg of their Confederation Cup preliminary round tie - a record away winning margin in the competition.

Last season's semi-finalists, Primeiro de Agosto of Angola, come from from two goals behind to beat Otoho of Congo 4-2 in a 2019 preliminary round first leg.

Kenya's anti-graft unit launches a manhunt after police officers free colleagues accused of bribery.

By IPS World Desk
ROME, Nov 29 2018 (IPS)

Did you know bamboo can help combat climate change? Fast growing and flexible, bamboo plants and products can store more carbon than certain types of tree. Bamboo is also used around the world as a source of renewable energy, and to make thousands of durable products – providing a lifeline for communities vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

In early October, the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a dire report on the state of our planet: it stressed the urgent need for solutions, to cut the risks of extreme heat, drought, floods and poverty.

A part of the solution may be found in a surprising place – bamboo.

There are at least 30 million hectares of bamboo in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. Fast growing and quick to mature, this grass plant is already a staple part of many people’s lives and livelihoods – as a source of food, fibre and fuel, which can be used to make thousands of products.

Bamboo can be an important carbon sink, storing more carbon than certain kinds of tree. This is because it can be harvested regularly, creating a large number of durable products which store carbon for several years, as well as the carbon in the plant itself. These products are long-lasting, recyclable, and can replace a variety of emissions-intensive materials, such as PVC, aluminum, steel and concrete.

Bamboo is also a sustainable source of bio-energy, whether used directly as fuel wood, modified into charcoal for cooking and heating, or converted into gas for thermal and electrical energy. It can, furthermore, help prevent desertification: its extensive root systems mean that bamboo binds earth and restores soil health, even in the most desertified landscapes.

Bamboo can help communities adapt to the negative impacts of climate change – providing a sustainable, year-long source of income, and creating flexible, strong, disaster-resilient housing.

The International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation (INBAR) is an intergovernmental organisation which promotes the use of bamboo and rattan for environmentally sustainable development and green growth.

Since its inception in 1997, INBAR’s aim has been to help people realise the full potential of bamboo – providing research, on-the-ground projects and training in areas such as climate-smart agriculture and carbon storage.

As bamboo grows throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia and the Americas; INBAR believes it can provide a significant contribution to combatting climate change in the developing world.

This video was produced by the International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation and Inter Press Service.

 

The post VIDEO: Combatting Climate Change with Bamboo appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credit: UNDP/Andrea Egan

By Carolina Rivera and Monica Jahangir
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 29 2018 (IPS)

Poverty has many dimensions beyond a lack of money. The need for a better understanding of the multiple ways people experience poverty is gaining momentum, as is the importance of measuring the often – overlapping deprivations people face. Understanding both is vital for better decision making.

This has obvious parallels with human development, a full understanding of which requires considering many dimensions of life, ranging from health, education and income through voice and empowerment.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been a pioneer in developing broader measures of poverty such as the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) that seeks to widen the poverty debate.

But while work on measuring poverty is now going beyond simple income-based measures, it typically focuses on, what is referred to, as the “objective aspects of poverty”. That is, it focuses on a set of tangible goods and services, without which people might be defined as poor.

Yet, poverty also has a subjective side: people can also be thought of as poor because of how they feel about important aspects of their lives – dimensions that they value.

Many now recognize the importance of considering measures of subjective well-being – most famously happiness or life satisfaction – when assessing a society’s development. This is also the case with poverty, which has many subjective elements as well.

Poverty can affect human beings in different ways, either internally (shame, humiliation for example) or externally (lack of political power and voice). Within this framework and against the backdrop of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which calls for “ending poverty in all its forms everywhere”, the International Movement ATD Fourth World and the University of Oxford are leading a conversation to redefine poverty by re-examining its key dimensions and how they interact with each other through their “Poverty in All its Forms: Determining the dimensions of poverty and how to measure them” project.

Based on the Merging of Knowledge methodology, this project is a programme of international research bringing academics and practitioners together with people, who have a direct experience of poverty, as co-researchers, putting them on an equal footing. The research starts with a peer group discussion, where people with similar backgrounds meet to discuss their experiences, knowledge and perceptions of poverty.

The different peer groups then meet to share their findings with one another and work to expand their definitions of poverty. National teams, which include academics, practitioners and people with direct experience of living in poverty, are undertaking research in Bangladesh, Bolivia, France, Tanzania, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Their findings will be consolidated at a national level and then brought together internationally to identify dimensions of poverty common to the South and the North.

Ranking exercise: Using the image of a stone’s ripple effect in a pond, the group prioritized their dimensions of poverty from the most (center) to the least (outskirt) impactful in people’s lives.

Recognizing the importance of this work, the Human Development Report Office (HDRO) participated in one of the peer groups, sharing its experience in defining and measuring multidimensional poverty through the human development approach with its focus on people as well as their opportunities and choices.

Human development is about giving people more freedom to lead lives they value. And that was precisely one of the starting questions: participants were asked – what were the aspects of their lives they valued the most.

Participatory research like this can challenge traditional concepts by giving a voice to people living in poverty who are arguably the greatest experts on what it is really like to be poor. The findings can redefine the way as to how public policy worldwide targets poverty eradication.

Many participants in the programme followed a traditional approach and placed basic needs at the center of their poverty hierarchy. They felt that only by meeting basic needs would human beings be able to participate in society and political life, develop professionally, connect with others, and find purpose in life.

Others had a different view. They felt the most important dimension of poverty was how individuals are perceived and whether their dignity and identity are denied. If one looks at poverty in this way, one can view the other dimensions as consequences of the (lack of) respect to their human rights.

Defining non-traditional poverty can support monitoring of both poverty and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), allowing countries to design innovative solutions for tackling poverty in areas that are not traditional. Such areas are often neglected, at least in part because of the difficulty of measuring concepts such as identity and self-awareness, social connections, and a sense of belonging. We hope this work will raise the importance of such measures and stake a claim for them to be included in statistical data collections everywhere.

Note: The full report, presenting the nine dimensions of poverty in the United States resulting of the merging of the work of 23 peer groups including the one used as example in this blog post and those of practitioners and people living in poverty peer groups, will be available on January 29, 2019 on ATD Fourth World USA’s website. The international report will be available in September 2019.

The HDialogue blog is a platform for debate and discussion. Posts reflect the views of respective authors in their individual capacities and not the views of UNDP/HDRO.

HDRO encourages reflections on the HDialogue contributions. The office posts comments that supports a constructive dialogue on policy options for advancing human development and are formulated respectful of other, potentially differing views. The office reserves the right to contain contributions that appear divisive.

The post Re-Defining Poverty in its Many Dimensions appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Carolina Rivera is a Research Analyst at the Human Development Report Office at UNDP and Monica Jahangir is a Policy and Advocacy Officer at the International Movement ATD Fourth World.

The post Re-Defining Poverty in its Many Dimensions appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Geneva Centre
GENEVA, Nov 29 2018 (Geneva Centre)

In observation of the 2018 International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the Executive Director of the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue Ambassador Idriss Jazairy appealed to the international community to express solidarity to the endeavours of the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination.

Ambassador Jazairy stated that Israel’s de facto annexation of East Jerusalem impedes the prospects of a two-state solution and hinders the realization of regional peace and security. The decision of several countries to move their embassies to Jerusalem, thus recognising the latter as the capital of Israel, contradicts the provisions set forth in the Arab Peace Initiative that calls for the normalization of relations between Arab states and Israel once the latter cedes, inter alia, its military occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem.

The Arab Peace Initiative was adopted during the 2002 Arab League Beirut Summit. It was subsequently re-endorsed at the Arab League Summit held in Jordan from 23 to 29 March 2017. In view of the prospects of attaining peace and identifying a peaceful resolution to the conflict, the Geneva Centre’s Executive Director said:

“The Arab Peace Initiative lays the foundation for the creation of genuine and long-term peace and stability in the Middle East and between Palestinians and Israelis. A two-state solution – with the creation of an independent Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital – the return of Palestinian refugees in line with the provisions set forth in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of 11 December 1948 and the return of occupied land are key conditions that must be fulfilled.

“The Arab Peace Initiative is the blueprint for building a peaceful and stable Middle East. The decision to rubber-stamp the proclamation or recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is a serious set-back to joint aspirations of Arab countries to achieve a peaceful resolution to one of the world’s most enduring and bitter conflicts.”

Against this background, the Geneva Centre’s Executive Director considers that the enduring occupation of Palestinian land including East Jerusalem impedes the Palestinian people’s right to “decide their own destiny. The current situation is deplorable as the occupation of Palestinian land is intensifying in force. The Wall of Shame that has been erected to separate Palestinian Territories further restricts the Palestinians’ freedom of movement across Jerusalem. The Wall of Shame has now become the symbol of the 21st century’s Berlin Wall. The illegal occupation of Palestine must come to an immediate end.”

In addition, Ambassador Jazairy added that the removal of all illegal settlements is a prerequisite for the creation of peace and for the establishment of a viable Palestinian State in which its citizens can live freely without having their human rights violated on a daily basis, as highlighted by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories Mr. Michael Lynk in his latest report submitted to the UN General Assembly.

In order to reinvigorate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the Geneva Centre’s Executive Director appealed to the international community to show greater determination and resilience in addressing the main issues impeding the realization of peace and stability. Ambassador Jazairy concluded:

“Without addressing the question of Jerusalem, peace will not prevail. A two state-solution with East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine remains a prerequisite for the creation of peace and for the establishment of a viable state in which the Palestinian people can live freely without having their human rights violated on a daily basis.”

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Liverpool will need to improve going forward if they are to keep their Champions League hopes alive, says former Reds defender Stephen Warnock.

Former France youth Kalidou Koulibaly has no regrets about choosing Senegal above the reigning world champions.

How the 500,000 tonnes of e-waste that Togo imports each year has become a goldmine for its innovators.

Rocaya Alangadi, an IDP from Marawi City to Lanao del Norte, Philippines. Photo: IOM/Julie Batula

By International Organization for Migration
Nov 28 2018 (IOM)

(Podcast) – Around the world, the number of people forced from their homes and neighbourhoods has more than doubled in the past twenty years. The current official estimate of displaced persons is more than 68 million.

In this podcast episode, we ask: What would you hold onto if you were forced to flee your home and had only moments to decide what to take with you?

A landap (a traditional article of clothing), a pot and a government-issued health card are some of the answers from three internally displaced people, who fled Marawi City in the Southern Philippines during intense fighting in 2017. We hear their personal stories as they explain why these items are their most cherished possessions.

These interviews are part of IOM’s global art exhibition and digital campaign, Holding On: Symbols of Displacement.

Click here to listen

The post Holding On: Their Most Cherished Possession appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Nigeria international Oghenekaro Etebo says he made the right decision in joining Stoke City despite interest from top German and French clubs.

Speed up the trial process

By Editor, The Daily Star, Bangladesh
Nov 28 2018 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

Although incidents of gender-based violence have increased over the years, there is hardly any improvement in terms of getting justice in the cases filed over these incidents. A recent ActionAid commissioned research study has revealed that in the cases filed in such incidents, 97 percent women do not get justice, four out of five such cases brought before the court remain unaddressed for two years before they get court dates, and only in 3.1 percent cases the court rules in favour of the victims. Another striking finding of the study is that two-thirds of such violence occur inside victims’ homes. According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, an average of 137 women across the world are killed by a partner or family member every day.

These findings have brought to light the fact that the measures taken by the government and non-government organisations to end gender-based violence and bring the perpetrators of such crimes to justice are just not enough. And the fact that in 96.9 percent of the cases, victims either did not get court hearings or had their cases dismissed is a clear indication of how these cases are manipulated by the perpetrators who are generally powerful or influential.

It is also a well-known fact that compared to the large number of incidents of violence, cases are filed only in a few of them. Having little or no information about filing complaints, interference by community leaders and the slow rate of case proceedings at court are the common reasons for low report rate.

Therefore, the state must ensure that appropriate information is disseminated among women to make them aware of resources and channels to safely file legal complaints and grievances. In addition, a lot needs to be done to change the “socially accepting attitude” towards this kind of violence. And the media also has a very important role to play here in terms of raising awareness campaigns, reporting more on violence inside the home and doing follow-up reports on the court proceedings in such cases.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

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Excerpt:

Speed up the trial process

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Former Caf president Issa Hayatou and secretary general Hicham El Amrani will appeal against a $55m fine handed out in Egypt over a TV rights deal.