Africa

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A French diplomat accuses Daily Show comedian Trevor Noah of denying the players' "Frenchness".

Inmates at the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Credit: David Bryden

By David Bryden
WASHINGTON DC, Jul 19 2018 (IPS)

Dozens of grown men peered from behind the barred doorway of a crammed window-less prison cell, eyes pleading desperately from sweaty faces.

Their physical discomfort was so palpable, I could almost feel it. Because of my work, I also knew of at least one serious unseen risk facing them – that of contracting tuberculosis in the cramped, poorly ventilated space.

Touring the largest prison in Port-au-Prince was part of a research visit I made there in 2106. Two years later, the image of those men still haunts my memories—more so now that the first ever United Nations High-Level Meeting (UNHLM) on Tuberculosis (TB) approaches in September and the global spotlight gets set to turn on this neglected disease and conditions that continue to influence its spread.

At the upcoming 22nd International AIDS Conference, in Amsterdam July 23 – 27, civil society organizations will seek to put the spotlight on vulnerable populations and deepen collaboration to ensure a united position on key issues such as the link between HIV/AIDS and TB and the need for an integrated approach to diagnosis and treatment.

A special session, Friday, July 27, titled “Seizing the moment for TB: Current challenges in TB care and in TB and HIV integration,” will feature Eric Goosby, the United Nation’s Secretary General’s Special Envoy on TB; Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health; and Carol Nawina Kachenga, of the Zambian-based group CITAMplus. Former US President Bill Clinton will give the special sessions opening keynote.

The scale of the prison problem is particularly staggering. In 2016, The Lancet published a study by Kate Dolan and her colleagues at the University of New South Wales explaining that of the total global incarcerated population of 10.2 million, 2.8 percent or 286,000 have active TB.

A further 3.8 percent or 389, 000 also have HIV. The Stop TB Partnership estimates that, the risk of TB in prison on average, is 23 times higher than in the general population.

The high rate of HIV in prisons is exacerbated by a lack of prevention options as well as sexual violence. However, even prisoners living with HIV who can overcome barriers to treatment, face a much greater risk of TB.

Data from sub-Saharan Africa show a prevalence of HIV infection among prisoners from 2.3 percent to 34.9 percent and of TB, from 0.4 to 16.3 percent.

Overcrowding seems to be the single biggest root cause of the prison TB epidemic. Dolan et al lay the blame on the practice of mass incarceration of people who inject drugs. They urge decriminalization, alternatives to incarceration, and access to opioid agonist therapy.

Another driver of overcrowding is the use of pre-trial detention and the slow process of adjudication. Slow judicial processes have been blamed for the massive overcrowding in jails in the Philippines, a country with a high level of TB, including drug resistant TB.

In Port-au-Prince, the National Penitentiary was built for 800 prisoners, but now houses 4600; the rate of tuberculosis is 17 times that of the general population of the country. There is no prison hospital in which patient can be appropriately isolated and treated.

The prisoners are poorly fed, with only one or two meals a day and little or no protein, making tuberculosis – caused by an airborne bacterium- even more likely. The state of the world’s prisons ensures they are “factories” for TB transmission, including drug resistant TB—now the single biggest infectious disease killer in the world. Tackling prison conditions, therefore, is essential to ending the disease.

Some countries are directly addressing the issue. Mongolia, for instance, reported a two-thirds reduction from 2001 to 2010 of TB among prisoners through active TB case finding and upgrading health services and living conditions. Reducing prison populations and improved nutrition was important to this success.

In a project in Zambia, supported by TB REACH, peer educators have been trained from among the prison population to support TB screening as well as HIV counseling. This approach was found to be highly effective and sustainable, since the peer educators knew the prison culture and were enthusiastic and committed.

Experts on TB also point to the need for screening and treatment, not only for active TB, but also for latent TB infection, which is very widely prevalent among prisoners, to support better TB prevention. TB preventive therapy, a course of antibiotics, has been proven highly effective but is still not widely used in high burden countries.

At the penitentiary in Port-au-Prince, I saw the dedicated work of an NGO, Health Through Walls, to provide TB and HIV services, despite adverse conditions. With USAID and Global Fund support, they are providing HIV and TB diagnoses, including using the latest methods, as well as treatment and nutritional supplementation, in eleven prisons in Haiti. With a tiny budget, they are saving many lives.

During a civil society hearing on TB held earlier this year at the United Nations, Assembly in preparation for the UNHLM, Donald Tobaiwa, from Jointed Hands Welfare Organization, Zimbabwe, called for urgent action to address TB in prisons, as well as in the mining industry.

“What are countries doing about this?” he asked. “The question, he said, was not what it costs to find people with TB, but what it will cost us if we fail to find them.”

Advocates gathering at the UNHLM plan to make this their rallying cry to heads of state. With a strong commitment to finding TB cases, including those hiding in plain sight in prison populations, and support from member states for an independent and regular progress assessment, the meeting cane be a turning point in the drive to end this disease.

The post How Prison Conditions Fuel the Tuberculosis Epidemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

David Bryden is the TB advocacy officer at RESULTS. He coordinates US advocacy, and co-chairs the TB Roundtable

The post How Prison Conditions Fuel the Tuberculosis Epidemic appeared first on Inter Press Service.

He had not seen them for 16 years because of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

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By WAM
DUBAI, Jul 19 2018 (WAM)

The Regulatory and Supervisory Bureau, RSB, for electricity and water in Dubai has revealed that Dubai’s cumulative investments in the energy efficiency market increased to AED500 million in 2017.

According to RSB’s 2017 annual report, published today, investments in energy efficiency projects were AED250 million in 2017, an increase of one-third compared to 2016. These projects are expected to achieve 21 percent savings in electricity, and 31 percent in water. Since 2014, energy service companies launched energy-efficiency projects worth AED200 million in around 2,500 buildings as part of the building retrofit programme. This is done by implementing measures to increase efficiency in energy and water use.

“We work to achieve the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to transform the Emirate into a global hub for clean energy and green economy. The report issued by the RSB, which is overseen by the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, demonstrates the promising potential for the energy-services market and the financial savings that can be achieved in building retrofits. This supports the Demand Side Management Strategy to reduce demand by 30 percent by 2030,” said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Vice Chairman of the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy.

“Dubai Electricity and Water Authority established Etihad Energy Services Company, a leading energy service company to contribute to providing investment opportunities for energy-efficiency companies, financial organisations, and green technology and equipment suppliers. Over 30,000 buildings in Dubai are being retrofitted to make them energy-efficient. The present costs for this strategic project are approximately AED30 billion, with returns of AED82 billion and a net present profit of AED52 billion,” added Al Tayer.

RSB’s report highlighted the substantial progress achieved by projects under the Independent Power Producer, IPP, system. It mentioned awarding the 700MW fourth phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, the largest Concentrated Solar Power, CSP, investment project in the world. It will feature the world’s tallest solar tower at 260 metres. It will also have the biggest thermal energy storage capacity for 15 hours. This makes it produce energy round the clock.

The report also highlighted the efforts of district cooling companies and their use of recycled water rather than desalinated water for their cooling needs, with 40 percent met from recycled water in 2017, with the support of Dubai Municipality.

“There is now substantial tangible evidence of Dubai’s energy transformation. We are pleased with our contribution to increasing reliance on renewable energy sources in the energy production system and accelerating investments in energy efficiency projects,” said Ali bin Abdullah Al Owais, Chairman of the RSB.

WAM/سالمة الشامسي/Nour Salman

The post Dubai invests AED500 million in energy efficiency appeared first on Inter Press Service.

ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - July 19, 2018: HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President, Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai and Minister of Defence (3rd R), and HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces (L) receive HE Xi Jinping, President of China (2nd L), at the Presidential Airport. Seen with Peng Liyuan, First Lady of China (R).( Hamad Al Kaabi / Crown Prince Court - Abu Dhabi ) ---

By WAM
ABU DHABI, Jul 19 2018 (WAM)

President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China arrived here on Thursday for a three-day state visit to the UAE accompanied by First Lady Peng Liyuan.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, received the distinguished guest and his accompanying delegation at the Presidential Flight.

 

WAM/Rola Alghoul/MOHD AAMIR

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Hardeep S. Puri, India’s Minister of State for Housing & Urban Affairs, in his address to the UN’s High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development

By Hardeep S. Puri
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 19 2018 (IPS)

It is with great pleasure and pride that I interact with you this afternoon as India’s Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, to share some thoughts on India’s extremely ambitious, and arguably the world’s largest planned urbanization programme under the leadership of our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.

Hardeep S. Puri

In 1947, when we became an independent country, 17% of our population lived in urban areas. This 17% was on a population base of 350 million or so. At present, over 30% of our population, on a base of 1.2 billion, lives in urban centres.

By 2030, when we complete work of the 2030 Development Agenda, nearly 600 million Indians, or 40% of our population, will reside in urban spaces. To lay further emphasis on India’s urban prospects – from now till 2030, India has to build 700 to 900 million square meters of urban space every year.

In other words, India will have to build a new Chicago every year from now till 2030 to meet its urban demand. More importantly, the new urban infrastructure India builds for 2030, 70% of which still needs to be constructed, will have to be green and resilient.

India has been in the vanguard of the sustainable development agenda even prior to 2015. By promoting cooperative federalism, ensuring integrated planning through convergence, and focusing on an outcome-based approach compared to a project-based approach, we have embarked upon the most ambitious and comprehensive programme of planned urbanisation ever undertaken in the world.

With these principles as the backbone, India is implementing some of the world’s largest and most ambitious national schemes for social inclusion, economic growth, and environmental sustainability, through silo-breaking approaches.

In the words of Prime Minister Modi at the UN summit for post-2015 development agenda, “Just as our vision behind Agenda 2030 is lofty, our goals are comprehensive. It gives priority to the problems that have endured through the past decades. And, it reflects our evolving understanding of the social, economic and environmental linkages that define our lives”.

India has consistently achieved a growth rate of over 7% year on year through bold economic reforms, and has strong prospects for an even higher growth rate in the near future. Given our size and scale, India is fast becoming a pillar of global growth and stability.

SDG 11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

As President of the Governing Council of UN-Habitat, it gives me great pleasure to note international efforts towards inclusive, resilient, and sustainable human settlements and SDG 11 have been greatly strengthened in the last few years by the New Urban Agenda signed at Habitat III, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Quito Declaration on Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements.

Today, more than 90% of the global urban growth is occurring in the developing world. India, China, and Nigeria together will account for 35 % of the growth in the world’s urban population between 2018 and 2050. It would not be an overstatement to say that India’s urban agenda will constitute one of the defining projects of the 21st century.

Urban areas in India face multi-pronged challenges. We remain confronted by a complex ecosystem of urban challenges through and in ensuring housing for all, technology based solutions to enhance service delivery, better mobility and greener transport, smart governance, and in doing more with less.

Mahatma Gandhi had famously said, “Freedom from insanitary practices is even more important than political freedom”.

As a tribute to the father of the nation, India launched the largest sanitation and hygiene program in the world – the Swachh Bharat Mission, with the objective of make India open defecation free and achieve scientific waste management by October 2nd 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of the Mahatma, well ahead of the deadline for SDG 6.

The Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and the National Rural Drinking Water Program (NRDWP) seek to provide urban and rural areas with universal drinking water supply and sewage treatment respectively. Both these missions have been making steady progress and are on track to achieve their goals.

The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana or the Prime Minister’s scheme on Affordable Housing for All is the world’s largest housing programme for the poor. The government aims to build 11 million affordable homes for urban Indians by the year 2022.

We have already sanctioned over 5 million and are confident of meeting the targets by middle of 2019. Giving a fillip to gender empowerment, the title of each home under the Mission is under the lady of the house, or co-jointly.

The mission also encompasses a Technology Sub-Mission to facilitate adoption of green, disaster resistant building materials and construction techniques for ensuring faster and cost- effective construction.

This not only addresses SDG 11 directly but also aims to effectuate, SDG 1 by ending spatial poverty of homeless people; SDG 3 by giving access to all-weather protected living environment; SDG 7 through increased usage of sustainable, affordable construction practices; and SDG 10 by reducing inequalities of access to basic minimum standard of living.

India is in the process of creating 100 Smart Cities to strengthen urban infrastructure by applying smart solutions and giving a decent quality of life to citizens. Improving the urban governance reforms through creation of Integrated Command and Control Centre has made city management efficient and effective resulting in savings of city revenues.

This has made a significant impact on India’s promise to create inclusive and sustainable cities under the SDG 11 by building institutional capabilities through efficient administrative processes and strengthening grassroots democracy.

Smart Cities Mission also focuses on SDG 12 by reducing the pressure on resources through promotion of sustainable consumption and production pattern which again is promoted by sustainable practices being adopted by cities in reducing the carbon footprint, leveraging vertical expansion and reducing the overall burden on infrastructural resources by switching to cleaner substitutes.

India has ensured that all its international commitments are mirrored in the national development goals. With India striving to meet its national socio-economic development targets, achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 169 targets linked to them will be a major success story of the millennium affecting more than a billion persons all at once.

India’s national development goals and its “Sab Ka Saath, Sab Ka Vikas” or “development with all, and for all,” policy initiatives for inclusive development converge well with the SDGs, and India will play a leading role in determining the success of the SDGs, globally.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted, “The sustainable development of one-sixth of humanity will be of great consequence to the world and our beautiful planet.” India stands truly committed to achieving an equitable and sustainable future for all its citizens, and in working with the global community to achieve the SDGs together.

The post India Fast Becoming a Pillar of Global Growth & Stability appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Hardeep S. Puri, India’s Minister of State for Housing & Urban Affairs, in his address to the UN’s High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development

The post India Fast Becoming a Pillar of Global Growth & Stability appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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IOM team discusses improving poor living conditions with displaced Ethiopians. Photo: Olivia Headon IOM

By International Organization for Migration
Addis Ababa, Jul 18 2018 (IOM)

Clashes between communities on the border of Ethiopia’s Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR) and Oromia regions have forced some 970,000 people to flee their homes since April 2018, most becoming displaced in June alone.

Rapid woreda (district) level assessments conducted by IOM’s Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) teams have found that 822,187 people are displaced in Gedeo zone (SNNPR region) and at least 147,040 people in West Guji (Oromia region). Due to ongoing security concerns and access problems, IOM’s DTM teams could only assess internal displacement in four of the six woredas in West Guji where people are displaced.

In both zones, most of the displaced population are staying with local communities (Gedeo: 514,446; West Guji: 84,681), while the remainder are sheltering in collective sites (Gedeo: 307,741; West Guji: 62,359) such as schools, government properties, spontaneous sites and disused or unfinished buildings.

The buildings in the collective sites generally are not fit for human habitation and are extremely overcrowded – forcing many people to sleep outside on dirt, rarely with anything but a single sheet of tarpaulin shielding them from the rain.

Mujib is sheltering in a small four by five metre area of dirt ground that he shares with 26 other displaced people, many of whom are his former neighbours. “This place is very cold. We don’t have enough food, and our children are not getting proper nutrition,” said Mujib. Part of the 26 is Mujib’s family of eight, including his mother, brothers, wife and two-year-old daughter. “I do not know what the impact of all this is going to be on the lives of our children. This is hard to imagine right now,” he added.

The assessments identified 80 collective sites and 103 host community locations in Gedeo and 21 collective sites and 60 host community locations in West Guji. Food was reported as the primary need in both zones. This is in addition to major shelter needs, as well as concerns over access to safe sanitation. A more detailed assessment of displacement sites in both zones is currently underway, which will produce more qualitative data in terms of how many people are displaced and their needs.

IOM’s country-wide DTM Round 11, conducted in May and June 2018, identified 1,776,685 internally displaced persons in Ethiopia, of which 1,204,577 are displaced due to conflict and 536,321 due to climate change.

Since June, IOM has been scaling up its response in Gedeo and West Guji. Over the last two weeks, in addition to assessments, IOM has constructed over 190 latrines of a planned 263, four communal shelters of a planned 40, two communal kitchens, as well hosted workshops with the government on site management.

For more information, please contact Olivia Headon in Ethiopia, Tel: +251902484062, Email: oheadon@iom.int

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This year's African Champions League winners will be given direct entry into the group phase of the next edition, as Caf aims to alleviate fixture-congestion.

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