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The carts of “cartoneros” or garbage pickers stand in front of a merchandise purchase warehouse in the La Paternal neighborhood in the city of Buenos Aires. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Apr 6 2023 (IPS)

It’s a Monday morning in April on Florida, a pedestrian street in the heart of the Argentine capital, and a small crowd gathers outside the window of an electronic appliance store to watch a violent scene on a TV screen. But it is not part of any movie or series.

The scene, broadcast live, is happening a few kilometers away, in a poor suburb of Buenos Aires: colleagues of a city bus driver who was murdered during a robbery throw stones and fists at the Minister of Security of the province of Buenos Aires, Sergio Berni, who had come to talk and offer the government’s condolences in front of the cameras.

No one seems surprised among the office employees watching the scene on TV, and several make no effort to hide a certain sense of satisfaction that other ordinary people have decided to take action against a representative of the political leadership, the target of widespread discontent, as reflected by the opinion polls.“There is growing social polarization in Argentina, with an increasingly weak middle class. Each crisis leaves another part of society outside the system.” -- Agustín Salvia

“This was bound to happen sometime, if the politicians earn a fortune for doing nothing and we work all day to earn a pittance… And on top of that you go out on the street and they kill you just to rob you,” comments one of the viewers, as the rest listen approvingly.

The scene reflects the climate of tension and the sense of being fed-up that is felt in large swathes of Argentine society, in the midst of a long, deep economic crisis, which in the last five years has constantly chipped away at the purchasing power of wages, due to inflation that occasionally stops growing for a couple of months, only to surge again with greater force.

If there was room for modest optimism in 2022, as the result of a recovery in economic activity after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems distant today, since the beginning of this year brought news that reflects the magnitude of the breakdown of the social fabric in this Southern Cone country.

On Mar. 31, the official poverty rate for the second half of 2022 was announced: 39.2 percent of the population, or 18.1 million people in this South American country of 46 million, according to the most up-to-date figures.

Since 2021 ended with a poverty rate of 37.3 percent, this means that in one year a million people were thrown into poverty, despite the fact that the economy, thanks to the rebound in post-pandemic activity, grew 4.9 percent, above the average for the region, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

But these data are already old and the figures for 2023 will be worse due to the acceleration of inflation, which is surprising even by the standards of Argentina, a country all too accustomed to this problem.

The price rise in February reached 6.6 percent, exceeding the 100 percent year-on-year rate (from March 2022 to February 2023) for the first time since 1991.

When you look a little closer, perhaps the worst aspect is that prices grew much more than the average, 9.8 percent, for food, the biggest expense for the lowest-income segments of society.

To this picture must be added an extreme drought that has affected the harvest of soybeans and other grains, which are the largest generator of foreign exchange in Argentina. The estimates of different public and private organizations on how much money the country will lose this year in exports range between 10 and 20 billion dollars.

This is one of the reasons why the World Bank, which had forecast two percent growth for the Argentine economy this year, revised its estimates at the beginning of April and concluded that there will be no economic growth in 2023.

 

Luis Ángel Gómez sits in the soup kitchen that he runs in the municipality of San Martín, one of the most densely populated areas in Greater Buenos Aires. For the past 10 years, he has been serving lunch and afternoon snacks to about 70 children, but lately he has also been helping their parents and grandparents. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

 

Soup kitchens

About 15 kilometers from the center of Buenos Aires, in the Loyola neighborhood, the cold statistics on the economy translate into ramshackle homes separated by narrow alleyways, with piles of garbage at the corners and skinny dogs wandering among the children playing in the street.

In a truck trailer that carries advertising for a campaigning politician, a dentist extracts teeth free of charge for local residents, who have increasing problems accessing health services.

The neighborhood is in San Martín, one of the municipalities on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Eleven million people live in these working-class suburbs (almost a quarter of the country’s total population), where the poverty rate is 45 percent, higher than the national average.

“I have never before seen what is happening today. Before, only men went out to pick through the garbage (for recyclable materials to sell), because the idea was that the streets weren’t for women. But today the women also go out,” Luis Ángel Gómez, 58, born and raised in the neighborhood, who does building work and other odd jobs, told IPS.

Indeed, the carts of the “cartoneros” or garbage pickers, which used to be seen only in the most densely populated working-class neighborhoods of Buenos Aires after sunset, when the building managers take out the garbage, are now seen throughout the city and at all hours.

 

A market selling clothes at low prices in Parque Centenario, one of the best-known markets in Buenos Aires, located in Caballito, a traditional upper middle-class neighborhood of Buenos Aires. This type of street fair has mushroomed in Argentina in the face of persistent inflation that is destroying the purchasing power of wages. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

 

Gómez has been running a soup kitchen in Loyola for 10 years, where he provides lunch three times a week and afternoon snacks twice a week to more than 70 children and adolescents. It is in a room with a tin roof, a couple of gas stoves and photos of smiling boys and girls as decoration.

“The municipality gives me some merchandise: 20 kilos of ground meat and two boxes of chicken per month. Besides that, I cook with donations,” said Gómez. “This box was given to me by the company that collects garbage in the municipality,” he added, pointing to cartons of long-life milk.

But the soup kitchen cannot meet all the needs of the local residents, said Gómez. “My concern was to give the kids a better future and I fed them until they were 14 or 15 years old. Today I also have to help their parents and grandparents.”

 

The carts of “cartoneros” or garbage pickers, which until a few years ago were only seen after sunset in the most densely populated low-income neighborhoods, today have become a common image in every part of Buenos Aires at all times of the day. One is seen here in the neighborhood of Flores. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

 

The middle class on the slide

The crisis has picked up speed since 2018 and deepened with the pandemic, but Argentina is going through a period of stagnation, with low economic growth and very little formal private sector job creation for more than a decade.

A study recently presented by the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina (UCA) shows that since 2010 access to food, healthcare, employment and social security have steadily worsened, despite social assistance, affecting five million households out of a total of 12 million.

“There is growing social polarization in Argentina, with an increasingly weak middle class. Each crisis leaves another part of society outside the system,” sociologist Agustín Salvia, director of the UCA’s Social Observatory on Argentine Social Debt, which is considered a chief reference point in the country, told IPS.

Salvia explained that the improvement in economic activity after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic drove the creation of new jobs until the third quarter of last year, although poverty grew just the same because they were almost all precarious low-wage jobs.

“The post-pandemic recovery cycle is over. Since the last quarter of 2022 there has been no more job creation, which added to inflation will cause poverty to grow in 2023,” added Salvia.

The expert said structural or chronic poverty used to be 25 or 30 percent in Argentina, but has now held steady at 40 or 45 percent, with a deterioration marked by the stagnation of quality employment, which has pushed many formerly middle-class families into poverty.

Credit: UNICEF/UN0658410/But

By Robert Jenkins
NEW YORK, Apr 6 2023 (IPS)

With schools now reopened around the world, countries are called to take transformative action on education financing to recover and accelerate learning for all children, especially the poorest and most marginalized.

Findings from our recent study, however, reveal that we have yet to overcome hurdles to equitable education financing: in far too many countries, the poorest children often benefit the least from public education funding.

To transform education for every child, governments must address all three aspects of education financing: adequacy, efficiency, and equity. Our analysis covering 102 countries zeroed in on the equity challenge in education.

Many dimensions of equity are important to address, as vulnerable children can face simultaneous disadvantages related to poverty, disability, gender, location and more.

However, our study focuses on the poorest children, often hit the hardest by multiple, compounding barriers to quality education and learning.

Unfortunately, children from the poorest households often benefit the least from public education spending. On average, the poorest learners receive only 16 per cent of public funding for education, while the richest learners receive 28 per cent.

In 1 out of every 10 countries, learners from the richest 20 per cent of households receive four or more times the amount of public education spending than the poorest.

In Guinea, Mali and Chad, the richest learners benefit from over six times the amount of public education spending compared to the poorest learners.

Moreover, despite repeated commitments towards equitable financing – including the Incheon Declaration adopted at the World Education Forum 2015, the Paris Declaration of the 2021 Global Education Meeting, and most recently at the Transforming Education Summit in 2022 – data suggests that progress in delivering on these promises has been far too slow.

Evidence from 46 countries indicates that public education spending has become more inequitable in 4 out of every 10 countries. The data speaks for itself: the poorest learners are not receiving their fair share of public education funding, and we must intensify efforts to address these inequities.

Equitable education spending is critical and can reverse the effects of the global learning crisis before an entire generation loses its future. Our analysis shows that if public education spending stagnates, a one percentage point increase in the allocation of public education resources to the poorest 20 per cent is associated with a 2.6 to 4.7 percentage point reduction in learning poverty rates – translating to up to 35 million primary school-aged children that could be pulled out of learning poverty.

How can we address the equity challenge and ensure education funding reaches the poorest? One way is to ensure public funding prioritises lower education levels.

This financing principle refers to ‘progressive universalism’, by which resource allocation initially prioritises lower levels of education, where poor and marginalized children tend to be more represented. These first few years of learning lay the groundwork for children to acquire basic foundational skills. Then, when coverage at lower levels is near universal, resource allocation is gradually increased to higher levels, with a continued focus on the poorest and most marginalized.

Finally, it is important to note that inequity issues exist not only in domestic education financing, but also in international aid to education.

For instance, over the past decade, official development assistance (ODA) to education allocated to the least developed countries (LDCs) has never exceeded 30 per cent, far from the 50 per cent benchmark set forth by the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.

Moreover, appeals for education in emergencies often receive just 10 to 30 per cent of the amounts needed, with significant disparities across countries and regions. On average, the education sector receives less than 3 per cent of humanitarian aid.

The global community must come together to ensure that children living in the poorest countries and in emergencies can benefit from equitable education financing.

To respond to the equity challenge in education, we call on governments and key stakeholders to take the following key actions:

• Most critically, unlock pro-equity public financing to education through broader coverage and volume of decentralized allocations, resources to schools, resources to students of disadvantaged backgrounds (by education and social protection ministries), and strengthened resource allocation monitoring.
• Prioritize public funding to foundational learning by securing funding for all in pre-primary and primary education and targeting the poor and marginalized at higher levels of education.
• Monitor and ensure equitable education aid allocation in developmental and humanitarian contexts between and within countries, including sub-sector levels, when applicable.
• Invest in innovative ways of delivering education to complement gaps in existing public funding through multiple and flexible pathways, including quality digital learning.

We cannot hope to end the learning crisis if we invest the least in children who need it the most.

We must act now to ensure education resources reach all learners and progress towards achieving the goal of inclusive and quality education for all – allowing every child and young person a fair chance to succeed.

Source: UNICEF Blog

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

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A camp for displaced people in Jindairis in northwestern Syria. Credit: UN News/Shirin Yaseen
 
Syrians whose lives have been upended by a 12-year civil war and a catastrophic earthquake are looking to return home and rebuild their lives. Shirin Yaseen from the Office of the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General visited northwestern Syria as part of an interagency mission to assess the situation there. 1 April 2023

By Malik al-Abdeh and Lars Hauch
LONDON, Apr 5 2023 (IPS)

Europe’s current approach to facilitating refugee returns and containing new arrivals from Syria is based on wishful thinking. Europeans have come to terms with the fact that a political settlement for Syria’s 12-year conflict is not on the horizon.

In conversations with diplomats, one hears a reoccurring theme these days: Syria is not a priority anymore. Notoriously hesitant to lead and busy with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europeans want to keep things as calm as possible.

But what stands in the way of this old-fashioned wait-and-see approach is the issue of refugees. Not only are significant numbers not returning to Syria, but tens of thousands more continue to set out to the EU each year.

Against this background, Europeans have indicated to president Bashar al-Assad that concessions on the ‘refugee issue’ could prompt them to re-think their policy of ostracising the Syrian dictator and his regime.

Notably, discussions on refugee return have almost exclusively been about their return to regime-held Syria. Much of the official thinking on the matter, which includes that of the UN envoy, envisages Assad conceding to taking back refugees in return for the normalisation of relations with other Arab countries and Western political and financial inducements.

Putting refugee return on the negotiating table with Assad makes sense from a diplomatic expediency angle. And it is certainly attractive: if voluntary and dignified returns can be realised, this would please the domestic audience in Europe and foreign ministries as well as EU institutions could sell it as an indicator that political progress is being achieved.

However, Europe’s current approach to facilitating refugee returns and containing new arrivals is based on wishful thinking.

Assad’s ‘population warfare’

First of all, Europe falsely assumes that Assad wants his people back. Apart from the crippling pressures that any sizeable refugee return would place on resources in regime areas – water, electricity, fuel, food, etc. – there is the more important matter of security.

The regime considers all Syrians who have fled to neighbouring countries to be at best cowards and at worst traitors. By placing themselves out of the reach of the regime’s military conscriptors, they are seen as having voted with their feet in Syria’s civil war.

‘We will never forgive or forget’ echoes a longstanding view among regime supporters of those perceived to have skipped the war but now want to return once the fighting is over.

The testimonies of those who have returned only to see their loved ones arrested and killed suggest that it is not an empty threat. Those connected to rebels or their families by blood or marriage, or those that have been reported as having anti-Assad views by informants, immediately fail the regime’s security check for returning refugees, as will most that hail from former rebel strongholds.

Additionally, living in a neighbouring country for many years and establishing roots there, as most refugees have done, enables the regime to brand them as ‘politically suspect’. Syria’s Foreign Minister claims that refugees can return ‘without any condition’, but this magnanimity is only voiced when around Western reporters.

‘Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the Syrian regime’s discourse on refugees is that there barely is one’, a study on the matter finds. This should not come at all as a surprise.

Syria’s mass population displacement has for too long been seen as an unfortunate secondary effect of the war rather than an intended goal. But in civil wars that take on an ethnic or sectarian nature, de-population becomes a strategic goal in itself.

According to one study, ‘combatants displace not only to expel undesirable populations but also to identify the undesirables in the first place by forcing people to send signals of loyalty and affiliation based on whether, and to where, they flee.’

In Syria, population displacement was at the heart of Assad’s counter-insurgency strategy. Moreover, Assad’s use of chemical weapons and its wider war effort are inextricably linked – tactically, operationally and strategically.

Whether it be artillery strikes, barrel bombs, or sarin gas, the overall war strategy was collective punishment of the population in opposition-held areas.

Assad’s ‘population warfare’ doctrine aims to ensure the population balance of pre-war Syria – so nearly fatal to his family and clan – cannot be recreated. ‘Two-thirds of the population [of Syria] was Sunni and half of it has been scattered to the winds, as refugees or internal exiles’, writes one observer – a favourable outcome for the Alawite president.

For Assad, the country has now gained a ‘healthier and more homogenous society’. With that in mind, it is understandable that most Syrians reject returning to areas under the control of his regime.

Working with Turkey

Does this mean that Europeans should remove the ‘refugee file’ from the negotiating table? Not quite. But they would be well advised to be sober about their goals. If they try to utilise the refugee file as an entry point for advancing a moribund political process, it would be ethically irresponsible.

In fact, EU diplomats have already signalled that credible steps allowing refugee returns could pave the way for gradual engagement with the Assad regime. This is concerning given that turning refugees into a diplomatic currency to trade concessions with Assad hardly passes the ‘do no harm’ test.

If the goal is to get results where refugees actually return to Syria in large numbers and fewer people leave the country, Europeans should be talking not with Damascus but with Ankara.

The inconvenient truth about refugee return is that it will only work if enough refugees are willing to return voluntarily, given realistic conditions and a serious partner on the ground with an active interest in seeing returns happen.

Right now, only Turkey and a share of its Syrian refugees can tick both boxes, given the connectivity between populations on both sides of the border and Turkey’s ability to assure relative security.

According to UNHCR figures, about 800 Syrian refugees are returning to Syria from Turkey every week despite the UN agency’s assessment that conditions are not suitable for a large number of voluntary returns.

Moreover, of the nearly 750,000 refugees that have returned to Syria since 2016, most of them (500,000) have returned from Turkey to opposition-controlled areas in the north and northwest of Syria. In contrast, only 10,766 refugees returned to regime-controlled areas between January and October 2022. A greater number have fled Assad’s Syria in the same period.

The absence of security hurdles to return and compulsory military conscription (both major push factors in regime areas and those controlled by the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces) and the fact that Sunni internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees feel relatively safe under Turkey’s protection are solid foundations on which to build a realistic returns policy.

Perhaps most important for European policymakers, Turkey controls the territory in northern Syria through which large numbers from regime and SDF areas are passing through to enter Turkey and continue to Europe, all for vast sums of money.

Dealing with Ankara on a programme for voluntary refugee return would create a firebreak in the logistical chain of the people traffickers that ends in Berlin and Amsterdam but begins at the M4 Highway.

In sum, Europeans should recognise that significant refugee returns to areas currently controlled by the Assad regime cannot precede a political settlement. Talk of ‘post-conflict reconstruction’ and investments in local development labelled as ‘Early Recovery assistance’ will not change that fact.

This also applies to limiting new refugee movements. Any sort of minor concession from the regime has the purpose of maintaining the momentum of normalisation, but it cannot alter the calculus of Syrians who have no illusions about the regime’s unalterable nature.

The facts support the case for European engagement with Turkey both on returns and border security. Europeans are of course entitled to take a critical stance on Ankara’s Syria policy. Notwithstanding their condemnation of Turkey’s incursions into Syria, new realities have emerged that require a nuanced position rather than blissful ignorance.

Unless Europeans adapt to the reality that Syria is now a de facto divided country, their policy response will remain poor. If areas outside of the regime’s control continue to be seen as not being part of Syria proper, and therefore not integral to any credible nationwide refugee return programme, there will be much more talk but no delivery.

Individual diplomats may be very much aware of this reality, but as long as this realisation does not translate into actual policy, the EU will continue to deceive itself.

Malik al-Abdeh is a conflict resolution expert focused on Syria. He is managing director of Conflict Mediation Solutions, a consultancy specialized in Track II work.

Lars Hauch works as a researcher and policy advisor for Conflict Mediation Solutions, a London-based consultancy specialising in Track II diplomacy.

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

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The Abortion Dream Team (from left to right Natalia Broniarczyk, Justyna Wydrzynska, Kinga Jelinska) outside the Warsaw court after Wydrzynska's conviction. Credit: Abortion Dream Team

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Apr 5 2023 (IPS)

“People want the abortion laws here liberalised. Society has changed; even the politicians can see it,” Kinga Jelinska, a Polish reproductive rights activist, says. “In four or five years, I believe, the abortion laws here will be liberalised, because it’s what the people support.”

Jelinska, a member of the Abortion Dream Team (ADT) collective, which provides assistance to women in Poland who need an abortion, spoke to IPS not long after her fellow activist and ADT co-founder Justyna Wydrzynska had been sentenced to eight months of community service for giving abortion pills to another woman.

She is disappointed by the ruling but, like her colleague, remains defiant and determined to carry on her work.

“The case against Justyna was politically motivated,” said Mara Clarke, co-founder of Supporting Abortions for Everyone, told IPS, pointing out that the judge in the case was promoted on the same day as she handed down the verdict and that the Christian fundamentalist group Ordo Iuris was allowed a role in the trial helping the prosecution.

“We’re just going to keep going. The court claimed Justyna was ‘guilty of helping’ someone have an abortion. Well, we have to help each other in cases where people are being systematically denied access to care.

Without people like Justyna, women are left to take their own decisions [on abortions], and they may take an unsafe option,” Jelinska says.

It is this public support which, Jelinska believes, may have stopped the court from handing down a jail sentence to the activist.
“Justyna’s case put even more focus on the issue and the ways women can access abortion services,” says Jelinska.

“People want access to abortions; public surveys have shown that. We see it too in the work we do every day,” Jelinska says, adding that during Wydrzynska’s trial, “public opinion was overwhelmingly pro-Justyna.”

Wydrzynska’s trial and conviction have, activists such as Jelinska say, highlighted problems connected with abortion access in Poland and the risks women needing the procedure – and those they turn to for advice – often face. Poland has some of the world’s strictest abortion laws – terminations are only permitted where the pregnancy threatens the mother’s life or health, or if it results from a criminal act, such as rape or incest – and while not illegal to have an abortion, it is illegal to help someone do so.

Many women in Poland who want an abortion self-administer pills bought online from abroad or travel to neighbouring countries with less restrictive legislation, such as Germany and the Czech Republic, for terminations. Some contact groups like ADT for help. It is not illegal to give out information about abortions, including advice on how to buy pills online.

In February 2020, at the start of the Covid pandemic in Poland, ADT had been contacted by a woman named Anya*, who was 12 weeks pregnant and desperate. She said she was a victim of domestic violence and was considering going abroad to terminate her pregnancy as the pills she had ordered online were taking too long to arrive.

Wydrzynska decided to give Anya her own pills, but the package she sent was intercepted by Anya’s partner, who reported what had happened to police. Anna later miscarried.  Wydrzynska was convicted of “aiding an abortion” – a crime under Polish law which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison – by a Warsaw court in March 2023 in what is believed to be the first time in Europe that a women’s health advocate has gone on trial for aiding an abortion.

The conviction was immediately condemned by both local and international activists who said the case should never have been brought to court.

“We were disappointed that Justyna was convicted. We are happy that she is not going to jail, but her trial has dragged on for a year, in which time a lot of international organisations, including gynaecologists, said the case should be dropped. It should never have come to trial, and this would never have happened in another country,“ Clarke says.

Amnesty International described the court’s ruling as “a depressing low in the repression of reproductive rights in Poland”.

“This ruling is going to have a chilling effect and we are already seeing women who are worried about what they should do if they found themselves in the situation that they need an abortion,” Mikolaj Czerwinski, Senior Campaigner at Amnesty International, told IPS.

Others believe the trial was part of a wider campaign to crack down on women’s rights and those of the minorities such as the LGBTQI community, by the right-wing government and its conservative religious allies.
The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has long been accused by critics in Poland and abroad of systematically suppressing women’s rights, and it was instrumental in pushing through a tightening of abortion laws in 2021 which banned abortions even in cases where the foetus was diagnosed with a severe birth defect.

Meanwhile, the European Commission (EC) has raised serious concerns over judicial independence in the country under the PiS, with some judicial bodies seen as being under the control of the ruling party.

Czerwinski said that following the trial, there were now “questions over the independence of the judiciary in Poland and what impact that [lack of independence] might have on women’s rights, and human rights in general, in Poland”.

But while anger remains at Wydrzynska’s conviction, activists such as Jelinska and Clarke believe that the trial has only highlighted how out of touch Poland’s government is with society on abortion laws.

Since the abortion laws were tightened even further in 2021 – a move which was met with massive street protests – surveys have shown strong support for liberalisation of abortion laws. In one poll last November, 70% of respondents backed allowing terminations on demand up to 12 weeks.

“People want access to abortions, public surveys have shown that. We see it too in the work we do every day,” she says, adding that during Wydrzynska’s trial “public opinion was overwhelmingly pro-Justyna.”

In a public opinion poll carried out in February for Amnesty International, 47% of respondents said they would have done the same as Wydrzynska. The survey also found that people were overwhelmingly against punishment for helping to access an abortion in Poland.

Meanwhile, some opposition politicians have suggested they would introduce legislation which would allow for abortion on demand if they get into power, pointing to public support for such a measure.

It is this public support which, Jelinska believes, may have stopped the court handing down a jail sentence to the activist.

“This is an election year, and the government knows it would be political suicide to give her a harsher sentence with so many people in favour of liberalising access to abortion,” she explains.

It may also be behind Polish parliament’s rejection in early March of a bill, proposed by an anti-abortion group as a citizen’s legislative initiative under a special parliamentary procedure, which would have criminalised even providing information about abortions. Government MPs voted against it with some reportedly saying they did back it for fear of fuelling protests just months away from elections.

“Even they know that would have been going too far,” said Czerwisnki. The trial, which was reported extensively in Poland and widely in international media, has also helped raise awareness of the work of groups like ADT and others with some organisations, including the Abortions Without Borders network, which has a Polish helpline reporting a three-fold rise in calls since the trial began.

“Justyna’s case put even more focus on the issue and the ways women can access abortion services,” says Jelinska.

If the conviction was designed to put activists off their work, it seems to have backfired, said Czerwinski.

“A lot of activists have been re-energised by this because they have seen Justyna and her response to the ruling,” he said. “They are aware of the risks, but at the same time, will not stop helping women.”

Wydrzynska has appealed her conviction and insists that she has done nothing wrong. She has also vowed to continue her activism.

Speaking on public radio after her trial, she said: “Even if I should leave the country, I will never stop. In the same way, I know that there are thousands of people who’d do the same for me.”

*NOT REAL NAME

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We’re spewing a torrent of waste and pollution that is affecting our environment, our economies, and our health, warns UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Apr 4 2023 (IPS)

Straight to the point: the current system of voracious money-making production and the induced over-consumption patterns have turned Planet Earth into a giant garbage dump.

And straight to the facts:

• Every minute, the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic is dumped into the ocean.
• If food loss and waste were a country, it would be the third biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
• More than 75% of all electronic waste is not safely managed.
• Resource extraction is responsible for half of the world’s carbon emissions.
• The amount of municipal solid waste generated globally could rise from around 2.24 billion tons to 3.88 billion tons by 2050.
• 80% of marine pollution originates on land.

 

One billion tons of food in the garbage

The waste sector contributes significantly to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity and nature loss, and pollution.

Those who produce waste must design products and services that are less resource and material intensive, smartly manage any waste created across all stages of their products’ lifecycle, and find creative ways to extend the lives of the products they sell
António Guterres, UN Secretary-General


Just take the shocking case of food. Every year, around 931 million tons of food is lost or wasted and up to 14 million tons of plastic waste enters aquatic ecosystems.

Such an unimaginable waste of food in a world of one billion empty plates, is just to be added to the dumping of billions of tons of plastics, textiles, discarded electronics, and debris from mining and construction sites.

 

‘Trashing our only home’

“The planet is literally drowning in garbage, and it is high time to clean up,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned, marking the first-ever International Day of Zero Waste (30 March 2023).

“We are trashing our only home,” he said. “We’re spewing a torrent of waste and pollution that is affecting our environment, our economies, and our health.”

Guterres said it was time for “a war on waste” on three fronts, calling on polluters themselves to take the lead.

“Those who produce waste must design products and services that are less resource and material intensive, smartly manage any waste created across all stages of their products’ lifecycle, and find creative ways to extend the lives of the products they sell,” he said.

“We need to find opportunities to reuse, recycle, repurpose, repair and recover the products we use. And we need to think twice before throwing these items in the garbage.”

 

The case of Türkiye

The Türkiye’s Zero Waste Project has so far managed to conserve some 650 million tonnes of raw material, and to eliminate four million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions through recycling.

“All life on earth is connected but industrialization has led to the over-consumption that is polluting the planet, said the Turkish First Lady, Emine Erdoğan, who spearheads the Project.

“Humans have created this frightening landscape.”

“We are obliged to establish a fair system and take on measures based on burden sharing where we look out for countries deeply impacted by the consequences of climate change which had no part to play in the first place,” she said.

 

Be ‘waste wise’

The head of the UN’s urban development agency, UN-Habitat, Maimunah Mohd Sharif, urged countries to be “waste wise”, including through finding value in reusing items before discarding them.

“Zero Waste is the first step towards creating waste-wise societies,” she said. “The first step is to take responsibility and make a conscious effort to reduce our consumption of single-use plastics. Remember that everything we use and discard must go somewhere.”

 

Food systems

The global population is on track to reach 10 billion by 2050, and demand for food and non-food agricultural products is also expected to rise by up to 56%, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

Meeting this demand will require healthier and more sustainable food production and consumption, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said.

“We need to urgently address the inefficiencies and inequalities in our agri-food systems to make them more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable.”

For this, it would be of great help to implement the world’s Global Strategy for Sustainable Consumption and Production, which calls for the adoption of sustainable consumption and production objectives across all sectors by 2030.

Another available tool is the “End plastic pollution: towards an internationally legally binding instrument”, which was adopted at the United Nations Environment Assembly on 2 March 2022.

 

Zero waste?

A zero-waste approach entails responsible production, consumption and disposal of products in a closed, circular system. This means that resources are reused or recovered as much as possible and that we minimise the pollution of air, land or water.

Products should be designed to be durable and require fewer and low-impact materials. By opting for less resource-intensive production and transport methods, manufacturers can further limit pollution and waste.

Consumers can also play a pivotal role in enabling zero waste by changing habits and reusing and repairing products as much as possible before properly disposing of them.

 

‘The world is bigger than five’

Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has suggested that “the world is bigger than five” – a reference to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.”

Sounds good. But the fact is that those five are the world’s major producers and their corporations are dominating the global markets, making astonishing profits from destruction, being all of them the greater polluters.

For example, alongside oil and gas corporations, food companies more than doubled their profits in 2022 at a time when more than 800 million people were going hungry and 1.7 billion workers live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, as reported by Oxfam International.

Meanwhile, the food industry continues to intensively use toxic chemicals in their products, some of them provoking heart diseases and death. Trans fat is just one of them, adding to contaminating fertilisers, pesticides, microplastics and a long etcetera, that end up in land, water and the air.

Shouldn’t such deadly practices be classified as “crimes against humanity”? And their perpetrators be taken to International Criminal Courts?

 

Most vendor tables are empty in the large fresh produce market in Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila, due to the widespread devastation of food gardens and crops by Cyclones Judy and Kevin in early March. Photo credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
PORT VILA, Vanuatu , Apr 4 2023 (IPS)

One month after the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu was hit by two Category 4 cyclones within three days, food scarcity and prices are rising in the country following widespread devastation of the agriculture sector.

In the worst affected provinces of Shefa and Tafea, the “scale of damage ranges from 90 percent to 100 percent of crops, such as root crops, fruit and forest trees, vegetables, coffee, coconut and small livestock,” Antoine Ravo, Director of Vanuatu’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development told IPS.

Vanuatu is an archipelago nation of more than 80 islands located east of Australia and southeast of Papua New Guinea. More than 80 percent of the population of more than 300,000 people were impacted by Cyclones Judy and Kevin, which unleashed gale-force winds, torrential rain and flooding across the nation on the 1 March and 3 March. Properties and homes were destroyed, power and water services cut, seawalls damaged and roads and bridges blocked.

In the aftermath, many households turned to their existing stores of food and any fresh produce that could be salvaged from their food gardens. But these have rapidly depleted.

In the large undercover fresh produce market in the centre of the capital, Port Vila, about 75-80 percent of market tables, which are usually heaving with abundant displays of root crops, vegetables and fruits, are now empty. Many of the regular vendors have seen their household harvests decimated by wind and flooding.

Susan, who lives in the rural community of Rentapao not far from Port Vila on Efate Island, commutes

Regular market vendor, Susan, lost much of her garden produce during the two cyclone disasters and is selling dry packaged food, such as banana chips, instead. Central Market, Port Vila, Vanuatu. Photo credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

daily to the market. “The cyclones destroyed our crops and our homes. We lost a lot of root crops and bananas. Today, I only have half the amount of produce I usually sell,” Susan told IPS. But, faced with the crisis, she quickly diversified and, alongside a small pile of green vegetables, the greater part of her market table is laden with packets of dried food, such as banana and manioc or cassava chips.

Agriculture is the main source of people’s income and food in Vanuatu, with 78 percent and 86 percent of households in the country relying on their own growing of vegetables and root crops, respectively, for food security and livelihoods.

But, as families grapple with increasing food scarcity, they have also been hit by a steep rise in prices for basic staples that are the core of their daily consumption. A cucumber, which sold for about 30 vatu (US$0.25) prior to the disasters, is now priced from 200 vatu (US$1.69), while pineapples and green coconuts, which could be bought for 50 vatu (US$0.42) each, also sell for 200 vatu (US$1.69).

Leias Cullwick, Executive Director of the Vanuatu National Council of Women, said that, in the wake of the cyclones, children were experiencing deprivation and anxiety. “Water is the number one concern [for families] and, also, food. And children, when they want water and food, and their mother has none to give, become traumatised,” she told IPS.

Lack of clean water and contamination by the storms of water sources, such as rivers and streams, in peri-urban and rural areas is also causing illnesses in children, such as dehydration and diarrhoea. Meanwhile, the current wet season in Vanuatu is increasing the risks of mosquito-borne diseases, including malaria and dengue fever, Cullwick added.

It will take months for some households to regain their crop yields. “Root crops have been damaged, and these are not crops that you plant today and harvest tomorrow. It takes three months, it takes six months, it will take a while for communities to get their harvests going, so it’s a concern,” Soneel Ram, Communications Manager for the Pacific Country Cluster Delegation from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies told IPS in Port Vila. Although, he added that access to food at this time is easier in Pacific cities and towns.

“In urban areas, the main difference is access to supermarkets. People can readily access supermarkets and get food off the shelf. For rural communities, they rely on subsistence farming as a source of food. Now they have to look for extra funds to buy food,” Ram said. In response, the government is organising the distribution of dry food rations to affected communities, along with seeds, planting materials and farming tools.

The Pacific Island nation faces a very high risk of climate and other natural disasters. Every year islanders prepare for cyclones during the wet season from November to April. And being situated on the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’, it is also prone to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts that Vanuatu will experience increasingly extreme climate events, such as hotter temperatures and more severe tropical storms, droughts and floods, in the future. And, on current trends, global temperatures could exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming as early as 2030, reports the IPCC.

The impacts of Cyclones Judy and Kevin in the country follow damages wrought by other cyclones in recent years, including Cyclone Pam in 2015, which is estimated to have driven 4,000 more people into poverty, and Cyclone Harold in 2020. And the impacts of the pandemic on the country’s economy and local incomes, especially from agriculture and tourism, since early 2020. Agriculture and tourism are the main industries in Vanuatu, and agriculture, forestry and fisheries account for 15 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The most important cash crops are copra, cocoa and kava, with copra alone accounting for more than 35 percent of the Pacific nation’s exports. Now the environmental havoc and the sudden decline in international tourist arrivals following the cyclones threaten to hinder the building of recovery in the country.

The government reports that this month’s disasters will leave the country with a recovery bill of USD 50 million. And it predicts that the rescue of the agricultural sector will take years.

“It will take three months for immediate recovery of short-term food production, and six to nine months for mid-term crops, such as cassava, taro, yam and bananas. But it will take three to five years for coconut, coffee, pepper, vanilla and cocoa,” Ravo said.

With climate losses predicted to continue accumulating in the coming decades, the Vanuatu Government remains determined to pursue its ‘ICJ Initiative’, now supported by 133 other nations worldwide. The initiative aims to investigate through the International Court of Justice how international law can be used to protect vulnerable countries from climate change impacts to the environment and human rights.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Financing is vital for growth. Credit: Unsplash / Towfiqu Barbhuiya

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Apr 4 2023 (IPS)

The unprecedented fiscal firepower used to protect the vulnerable from the harsh socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic contraction have pushed the average government debt level in the Asia-Pacific region to its highest since 2008.

Public debt distress is expected to worsen amid the global economic slowdown, record high inflation and rising interest rates, and uncertainty induced by the war in Ukraine.

And surging debt service payments are expected to put public debt sustainability of several developing Asia-Pacific economies at risk. Most concerning, debt distress risk is highest for countries with the highest development finance needs, including small island developing States.

Public debt is a powerful development tool in need of a major rethink

Yet, a higher debt level is not necessarily a bad thing, according to this year’s edition of the Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific. Current policy debates on public debt sustainability do not take into account the long-term positive socio-economic and environmental impact of public investments in laying the foundations of inclusive, resilient and sustainable prosperity.

Indeed, left unaddressed, development deficits and climate risks hurt economic prospects and public debt sustainability itself. Our analysis shows that social spending cuts increase poverty and inequality and undermine economic productivity in the long term.

Conversely, investing in healthcare, education, social protection and climate action is good economics.

Multilateral lenders and credit rating agencies focus excessively on keeping debt sustainable in the short term. Such perceived optimal debt levels are too low and lead to suboptimal development outcomes.

Revisiting current debt sustainability norms has also become necessary with the emergence of major non-traditional bilateral creditors and a drastic fall in concessional development lending to Asian and Pacific countries over the past decade.

It is time for a bold shift in thinking about public debt sustainability. We propose an augmented approach that assesses public debt viability that takes into account a country’s SDG investment needs, government structural development policies aiming to boost economic competitiveness, and national SDG financing strategies.

It is time for creditors, international financial institutions and credit rating agencies to consider the positive long-term economic, social and environmental outcomes of investing in the SDGs, while assessing public debt sustainability.

Our research finds that public debt is found to decline over the long term when the socio-economic and environmental benefits of public investments are incorporated.

Rather than penalizing bold fiscal support for people and the environment, international creditors should consider if such spending would boost economic productivity.

Lenders and credit rating agencies should see debt relief as helping support the fiscal outlook, rather than as a sign of an upcoming debt default.

Developing countries should also strive to balance investing in the SDGs with ensuring debt sustainability. Governments should not feel deterred from borrowing for essential, high-impact sustainable development spending; rather, funds should be used efficiently and effectively.

Public coffers should also be boosted by resource mobilization strategies designed to generate social and/or environmental benefits, such as through progressive taxation.

Effective public debt management reduces fiscal risks and borrowing costs, with several examples of good public debt management practices in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, countries with high debt distress levels may need pre-emptive, swift and adequate sovereign debt restructuring, while efforts towards common international debt resolution mechanisms and restructuring frameworks needs to be accelerated.

We are in the fourth year of the Decade of Action to accelerate progress towards the SDGs with not much to show in gains. It is time for Asia and the Pacific to rise to the challenge of mobilizing the financial resources to realise the dream of resilient and sustainable prosperity for all.

The Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2023 will be launched on 5 April 2023. https://www.unescap.org/events/2023/launch-survey-2023-rethinking-public-debt

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

Equal Inheritance Rights March in Tunisia. Credit: Equality Now, Ben Ibrahim

By Hyshyama Hamin
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Apr 3 2023 (IPS)

Discriminatory family laws and policies that restrict women’s access to educational opportunities, employment, inheritance, property ownership and equal pay, are making women disproportionately vulnerable to the impacts of the global economic downturn.

Not only is it unjust to deny women equal economic rights, but it is also significantly hampering socio-economic progress of nation states. Governments urgently need to reform discriminatory family laws that privilege men over women because countries cannot afford to sideline half their population.

Women shoulder a greater burden of unpaid labor

Many countries are currently mired in financial crisis, soaring inflation, and debilitating debt. The backdrop to this is a global economic slowdown triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and extreme weather fuelled by climate change. Research shows that gender inequality at home is exacerbated by such economic slumps, with women more likely than men to be saddled with increases in unpaid domestic work like cooking, cleaning, and caring for family members.

According to the International Labour Organisation, up to 76% of unpaid care work is done by women and girls. The unequal division of informal labor requires women to forgo paid employment, work more hours, and can curtail their financial and career prospects.

Unpaid care work can account for anywhere between 10% and 39% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and a potential tenth of the world’s economic output. It contributes hugely to a society’s economic well-being, but is excluded from official GDP figures that measure the economic performance of countries. This is because many people, including some economists and policymakers, view unpaid domestic labor as women and girls “fulfilling their family duty.”

Discriminatory gender stereotypes of this kind are embedded within patriarchal family structures and are both encoded in and perpetuated by sex-discriminatory family laws that limit women’s ability to participate in the economic sphere.

Legally prohibiting women from equal education and economic involvement limits their earning potential, reduces their decision-making power, and widens the gender pay gap.

All this traps women in a cycle of poverty and forces many to remain financially dependent on male relatives, thus putting them at greater risk of a range of human rights violations, including sexual and gender-based violence and exploitation.

Around half of countries have economic status laws that treat women unequally

Equality Now’s policy brief, Words & Deeds: Holding Governments Accountable to the Beijing +30 Review Process – Sex Discrimination in Economic Status Laws, highlights how around half of countries still have economic status laws that treat women unequally, making them more vulnerable to exploitation in real life and online.

Recent data from the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law 2023 report shockingly shows that only 14 out of 190 economies surveyed have achieved full legal equality, and a typical economy only grants women 75% of the same rights as men.

According to the same report, women face restrictions in marriage and divorce matters in 89 economies. Lamentably, 43 economies do not grant equal inheritance rights to male and female surviving spouses and 41 economies still favor sons in the division of property.

One factor highly corresponds with these statistics – family laws that discriminate against women and girls. In Gender-Discriminatory Laws and Women’s Economic Agency, Mala Htun, Francesca R. Jensenius, and Jami Nelson Nunez analyzed World Bank data. They found a strong correlation between restrictions on women’s economic agency and gender-discriminatory legislation relating to family laws and personal status laws that regulate relationships between individuals, such as in marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance.

Religious and legal discrimination entwines

Sri Lanka is one of many countries with sex-discriminatory family laws. It has also recently been experiencing a severe economic crisis and public demands for political change.

Lawyer and activist Ermiza Tegal highlights how this upheaval tallies with an uptick in domestic violence and sexual abuse.

Tegal is calling for legal reform, citing mounting evidence of the “direct relationship between discriminatory family laws and women’s physical and mental health, and vulnerability to exploitation and violence,” with unjust legal provisions and practices driving women and children to destitution and excluding them from education and development.

Examples of Sri Lanka’s discriminatory laws include the Muslim Intestate Succession Law, which stipulates that daughters can only inherit half of parental property compared to sons, and the Jaffna Matrimonial Rights and Inheritance Ordinance (or Thesawalamai) that applies specifically to Jaffna Tamils and prevents a married woman from disposing of real estate without her husband’s consent.

Another example is the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA), which allows child marriage, denies women the ability to sign their own marriage documents, and does not recognize the concepts of matrimonial property or alimony.

Currently, Sri Lanka is in the process of reforming the MMDA following widespread public demand for reform, led by Muslim women’s rights groups.

In Tunisia too, women do not have equal inheritance rights, despite a very progressive Personal Status Code enacted in 1956 that promoted equality between spouses and abolished polygamy.

Samia Fessi is President of Kadirat, an NGO working to repeal discriminatory laws, and she is part of a vibrant women’s rights movement that has campaigned for decades for equal inheritance.

According to Fessi, “Women rights activists argue rightfully that equality in the inheritance will benefit economically marginalized women as half is better than nothing. We believe that discriminatory laws should be abolished if we want women’s conditions to improve.”

In 2017, there were hopes that equal inheritance would be granted as part of progressive amendments to Tunisia’s Personal Status Code announced by former president Beji Caid Essebsi.

Despite opposition from conservatives arguing that equal inheritance is a violation of Islamic Shari’a law, he succeeded in getting the reform Bill approved by the Ministerial Council.

Unfortunately, Essebsi’s death in 2019 meant the loss of presidential support, and the Bill has not passed. The likelihood of imminent reform has faltered under the new president, Kais Saeid. He holds conservative views on inheritance and other social issues, and has overseen the passing of a new Constitution that declares Tunisia is an Islamic nation and the state must work to achieve “the goals of pure Islam in preserving life, honour, money, religion and freedom.”

Reforming family laws benefits everyone

Equality Now’s report summarizes that “women’s legal capacity – their ability to act and make choices independently of the men in their lives about money, travel, work, property, and children – by far is the strongest predictor of the share of women with bank accounts, the share of women who participate in firm ownership, and female labor force participation.”

Mala Htun et al.’s study concurs, concluding that egalitarian reform of family laws “may be the most crucial precondition to empower women economically,” and this should be everyone’s priority because it would “unleash massive economic potential.”

Global data demonstrates that accelerated progress toward gender equality can result in huge economic gains for a country, and compelling evidence shows that nations have more diverse, dynamic, and resilient economies when they foster environments that enable women to enter and thrive in labor markets.

Employment and property rights can grant women access to loans, insurance, and social protection schemes like pensions and provident funds, reducing the likelihood of old-age poverty, and making women and their families more resilient during economic crises.

Women with full legal capacity and agency are more likely to pursue education, fund skills and income-building, and contribute to the national economy. Women are also more likely to invest in their family’s welfare, such as by prioritizing their children’s education, nutrition, and healthcare.

To advocate for much needed legal change, the Global Campaign for Equality in Famly Law was launched by eight leading women’s rights and faith-inspired organizations, alongside UN Women.

The campaign calls on governments to prioritize equality in family law, policy, and practice, especially in light of severe economic crises that affect women and girls disproportionately. Sexist family and related laws need to be repealed or reformed and attempts to introduce new discriminatory laws should be blocked.

Ensuring that laws which govern the family and personal status protect and promote women’s economic and legal rights must be a prerequisite for every country striving to overcome economic challenges. This must also be a priority for multi-lateral and bilateral agencies supporting countries. Economic equality in the family culminates in economic equality in society. The time for family law reform is now!

Hyshyama Hamin is Campaign Manager, Global Campaign for Equality in Family Law, Equality Now

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Overview of the Club des Pins, venue of the First Ministerial Meeting of the Group of 77, held in Algeria in October 1967. Credit: National Center of Archives, Algiers, Algeria/ Group of 77

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 3 2023 (IPS)

As signs of a new Cold War are fast emerging at the United Nations, the US continues its war of words with the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The rivalry, which extends from Russia and Taiwan to Iran and Myanmar – where the UN’s two permanent members are on opposite sides of ongoing political or military conflicts– has now triggered a battle on semantics.

Is China, described as the world’s second largest economy ranking next to the US, really a “developing nation”?

The US House of Representative unanimously passed a bill March 27 directing the Secretary of State Antony Blinken to strip the PRC of its “developing country” status in international organizations

Titled “PRC Is Not a Developing Country Act” — the bill cleared the House in an overwhelming 415-0 vote. The legislation reads: “It should be the policy of the United States—

(1) to oppose the labeling or treatment of the People’s Republic of China as a developing country in any treaty or other international agreement to which the United States is a party;

(2) to oppose the labeling or treatment of the People’s Republic of China as a developing country in each international organization of which the United States is a member; and

(3) to pursue the labeling or treatment of the People’s Republic of China as an upper middle-income country, high income country, or developed country in each international organization of which the United States is a member”.

At the United Nations, China is closely allied with the 137-member Group of 77 (G77), the largest single coalition of “developing countries” (a group created in 1964 with 77 members).

Since China is not a formal member of the G77, the group describes itself either as “The G77 and China” or “The G77 plus China.”

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, a former Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN and a former UN Under-Secretary-General, told IPS the defining of a developing country is a complex challenge.

“There is no established framework or charter for defining a “developing country,” he noted

According to well-respected economist Jeffrey Sachs, the current divide between the developed and developing world is largely a phenomenon of the 20th century. Some economists emphasize that the binary labeling of countries is “neither descriptive nor explanatory”.

For the UN system, the G77, which provides the collective negotiating platform of the countries of the South, is in reality synonymous with nations which are identified as “developing countries, least developed countries (LDCs), landlocked developing countries and small island developing states” (SIDS).

“They are all sub-groupings of developing countries and belong to the G-77, he pointed out.

Outlining the group’s history, he said, the G-77 was established in 1964 by seventy-seven developing countries, signatories of the “Joint Declaration” issued at the end of the first session of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva.

Although members of the G-77 have increased to 134 countries, the original name was retained due to its historic significance. Developing countries tend to have some characteristics in common, often due to their histories or geographies, said Ambassador Chowdhury, Chairman of the Administrative and Budgetary Committee (Fifth Committee) of the UN General Assembly in 1997-98 and Chair of the Group of 27, working group of G-77, in 1982-83.

In October 1997, he said, China joined the G-77 while keeping its special identity by proposing the nomenclature as “G-77 and China”. China aligns its positions on the global economic and social issues with G-77 positions for negotiating purposes.

Being the largest negotiating group in the United Nations, and in view of the mutuality of their common concerns, G-77 is not expected to agree to separate China from the current collaborative arrangements.

“And more so, if the pressure comes from the US delegation, in view of the recent resolution of the House of Representatives of the US Congress, to take away the categorization of China as a developing country”, declared Ambassador Chowdhury.

In a World Bank Data Blog, Tariq Khokhar, Global Data Editor & Senior Data Scientist and Umar Serajuddin, Manager, Development Data Group, at the World Bank, point out that the IMF, in the “World Economic Outlook (WEO)” currently classify 37 countries as “Advanced Economies” and all others are considered “Emerging Market and Developing Economies” according to the WEO Statistical Annex.”

The institution notes that “this classification is not based on strict criteria, economic or otherwise” and that it’s done in order to “facilitate analysis by providing a reasonably meaningful method of organizing data.”

The United Nations has no formal definition of developing countries, but still uses the term for monitoring purposes and classifies as many as 159 countries as developing, the authors argue.

Under the UN’s current classification, all of Europe and Northern America along with Japan, Australia and New Zealand are classified as developed regions, and all other regions are developing.

The UN maintains a list of “Least Developed Countries” which are defined by accounting for GNI per capita as well as measures of human capital and economic vulnerability.

“While we can’t find the first instance of “developing world” being used, what it colloquially refers to — the group of countries that fare relatively and similarly poorly in social and economic measures — hasn’t been consistently or precisely defined, and this “definition” hasn’t been updated.”

“The World Bank has for many years referred to “low and middle income countries” as “developing countries” for convenience in publications, but even if this definition was reasonable in the past, it’s worth asking if it has remained so and if a more granular definition is warranted.”

In its legislation, the US House of Representatives says “not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report identifying all current treaty negotiations in which—

(a) Any international organization of which the United States and the People’s Republic of China are both current member states, the Secretary, in coordination with the heads of other Federal agencies and departments as needed, shall pursue—

(1) changing the status of the People’s Republic of China from developing country to upper middle income country, high income country, or developed country if a mechanism exists in such organization to make such a change in status;

(2) proposing the development of a mechanism described in paragraph (1) to change the status of the People’s Republic of China in such organization from developing country to developed country; or

(3) regardless of efforts made pursuant to paragraphs (1) and (2), working to ensure that the People’s Republic of China does not receive preferential treatment or assistance within the organization as a result of it having the status of a developing country.

(b) The President may waive the application of subsection (a) with respect to any international organization if the President notifies the appropriate committees of Congress, not later than 10 days before the date on which the waiver shall take effect, that such a waiver is in the national interests of the United States.

Speaking during the debate, Representative Young Kim (Republican of California) said: “The People’s Republic of China is the world’s second largest economy, accounting for 18.6 percent of the global economy.”

“Their economy is second only to that of the United States. The United States is treated as a developed country, so should PRC,” Kim said. “And is also treated as a high-income country in treaties and international organizations, so China should also be treated as a developed country.”

“However, the PRC is classified as a developing country, and they’re using this status to game the system and hurt countries that are truly in need,” she added.

Elaborating further, Ambassador Chowdhury said the World Bank, as a part of the Bretton Woods institutions, classifies the world’s economies into four groups, based on gross national income per capita: high, upper-middle, lower-middle, and low income countries.

In 2015, the World Bank declared that the “developing/developed world categorization” had become less relevant and that they will phase out the use of that descriptor.

Instead, their reports will present data aggregations for regions and income groups.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) accepts any country’s claim of itself being “developing”.

He said certain countries that have become “developed” in the last 20 years by almost all economic metrics, still wants to be classified as “developing country”, as it entitles them to a preferential treatment at the WTO – countries such as Brunei, Kuwait, Qatar, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates.

The term “Global South“, used by some as an alternative term to developing countries, began to be mentioned more widely since about 2004.

The Global South refers to these countries’ interconnected histories of colonialism, neo-imperialism, and differential economic and social change through which large inequalities in living standards, life expectancy, and access to resources are maintained.

“Most of humanity resides in the Global South,” declared Ambassador Chowdhury.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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These containers hold food produced by women in the rural community of Choquepata, in the municipality of Oropesa, in the southern Peruvian department of Cuzco. Ana María Zárate places salad with various vegetables on the right, and the traditional dish mote, made from white corn and broad beans, on the left. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
CUZCO, Peru, Apr 3 2023 (IPS)

Paulina Locumbe, a 42-year-old peasant farmer who lives in ​​the Andes highlands of southern Peru, learned as a child to harvest and dry crops, one of the ancestral practices with which she combats the food insecurity that affects millions in this Andean country.

“I have tarwi (Lupinus mutabilis), peas and dry beans stored for six years, we ate them during the pandemic and I will do the same now because since I have not planted due to the lack of rain, I will not have a harvest this year,” she told IPS in her community, Urpay, located in the municipality of Huaro, in the department of Cuzco, at more than 3,100 meters above sea level.“Farmers faced a very hard 2022, it was a terrible year with water shortages, hailstorms, frosts and an increase in pests and diseases. These factors are going to reduce by 40 to 50 percent the crops they had planned for planting corn, potatoes, vegetables, and quinoa.” -- Janet Nina Cusiyupanqui

She, like a large part of the more than two million family farmers in Peru, 30 percent of whom are women, has been hit by multiple crises that have reduced their crops and put their right to food at risk.

A study by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published in January estimated that more than 93 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean suffered from severe food insecurity in 2021, a figure almost 30 million higher than in 2019.

Compared to Mesoamerica and the Caribbean, the situation was more alarming in South America, where the affected population climbed from 22 million in 2014 to more than 65 million in 2021.

In Peru, a country of 33 million people, food insecurity already affected nearly half of the population, according to the FAO alert issued in August 2022, far exceeding the eight million suffering from food insecurity before the COVID-19 pandemic, mainly due to the increase in poverty and the barriers to accessing a healthy diet.

Women from the Andes highlands areas of Peru, such as those who reside in different Quechua peasant communities in the department of Cuzco in the south of the country, are getting ahead thanks to the knowledge handed down by their mothers and grandmothers.

Putting this knowledge into practice ensures their daily food in a context of constant threats to agricultural activity such as extreme natural events due to climate change -droughts and hailstorms in recent times – the rise in the cost of living and the political crisis in the country which means the needs of farmers have been even more neglected than usual.

Paulina Locumbe, an agroecological farmer from the rural community of Urpay, in the municipality of Huaro, in the southern Peruvian department of Cuzco, shows her recent planting of vegetables in her greenhouse, which once harvested will go directly to the family table to enrich their diet. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Producing enough for daily sustenance

Yolanda Haqquehua, a small farmer from the rural community of Muñapata, in the municipality of Urcos, answered IPS by phone early in the morning when she had just returned with the alfalfa she cut from her small farm to feed the 80 guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) that she breeds, a species that has provided a nutritious source of protein since ancient times.

“I don’t sell them, they are for our consumption,” she explained about the use of this Andean rodent that was domesticated before the time of the Incas. “I cook them on birthdays and on a daily basis when we need meat, especially for my eight-year-old daughter. I also use the droppings to make the natural fertilizer that I use on my crops,” she added.

Haqqehua, 36, the mother of Mayra Abigail, has seen how the price of oil, rice, and sugar have risen in the markets. Although this worries her, she has found solutions in her own environment by diversifying her production and naturally processing some foods.

“I grow a variety of vegetables in the greenhouse and in the field for our daily food. I have radishes, spinach, Chinese onion, chard, red lettuce, broad beans, peas, and the aromatic herbs parsley and coriander,” she said.

She also grows potatoes and corn, which last year she was able to harvest in quantity, although she does not believe this will be repeated in 2023 due to the devastating effects of climate change in the Andes highlands in the first few months of the year.

“Fortunately, I got enough potatoes and so that they don’t spoil, we made chuño and that’s what we’re eating now,” she said.

Chuño is a potato that dries up with the frost, in the low temperatures below zero in the southern hemisphere winter month of June, and that, when stored properly, can be preserved for years.

“I keep it in tightly closed buckets. I also dry the corn and we eat it boiled or toasted. And the same thing with peas. It’s like having a small reserve warehouse,” she said.

Selecting the best ears of corn, carrying out the drying, storage and conservation process is the result of lifelong learning. “My parents did it that way and we are continuing what they taught us. With all this we help each other to achieve food security, because if not, we would not have anything to eat,” she said.

Janet Nina Cusiyupanqui, a young Quechua agronomist, talks with a farmer in her vegetable greenhouse in the rural community of Muñapata in Cuzco, southern Peru, during her work providing technical assistance for food security to rural women, as part of the Agroecological School of the non-governmental Flora Tristán Center. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Agroecology to strengthen Andean knowledge

Janet Nina Cusiyupanqui, an agronomist born in the Cuzco province of Calca, is a 34-year-old bilingual Quechua indigenous woman who, after studying with a scholarship at Earth University in Costa Rica, returned to her land to share her new knowledge.

She currently provides technical assistance to the 100 members of the Agroecological School that the non-governmental feminist Flora Tristán Center for Peruvian Women runs in six rural communities in the Cuzco province of Quispicanchi: Huasao, Muñapata, Parapucjio, Sachac, Sensencalla and Urpay.

“Farmers faced a very hard 2022, it was a terrible year with water shortages, hailstorms, frosts and an increase in pests and diseases. These factors are going to reduce by 40 to 50 percent the crops they had planned for planting corn, potatoes, vegetables, and quinoa,” she told IPS in the historic city of Cuzco.

She stressed that women are leading actors in the face of food insecurity. “They know how to process and preserve food, which is a key strategy in these moments of crisis. To this knowledge is added the management of agroecological techniques with which they produce crops in a diversified, healthy and chemical-free way,” she said.

The expert stated that although they would have a smaller harvest, it would be varied, so they would depend less on the market. Added to this is their practice of exchanging products and ayni, a bartering-like ancestral tradition: “You give me a little of what I don’t have and I pay you with something you lack, or with work.”

Luzmila Rivera (2nd-L) poses for photos together with her fellow women farmers from the rural community of Paropucjio, in the highlands of Cuzco in southern Peru, after participating in a market for agricultural products organized by the municipality of Cusipata, where they sold their vegetables, grains and tubers. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Don’t give up in the face of adversity

At the age of 53, Luzmila Rivera had never seen such a terrible hailstorm. In February, shortly before Carnival, a rain of pieces of ice larger than a marble fell on the high Andean communities of Cuzco, “ruining everything.”

In the peasant community of Paropucjio where she lives, at more than 3,300 meters above sea level, she felt the pounding on her tin roof for 15 seemingly endless minutes, and the roof ended up full of holes. “Hail has fallen before, but not like this. The intensity knocked down the tarwi flowers and we are not going to have a harvest,” she lamented.

Tarwi is an ancestral Andean cultivated legume, also known as chocho or lupine, with a high nutritional value, superior to soybeans. It is consumed fresh and is also dried and stored.

Rivera is confident that the potato planting carried out in the months of October and November will be successful in order to obtain a good harvest in April and May.

And like other small farmers in the Andes highlands of Cuzco, she also preserves crops to store. “I have my dry corn saved from last year, I always select the best ones for seeds and for consumption. I also store broad beans, after harvesting I air dry them and in a week they can be stored,” she said.

This provides the basis for their diet in the following months. “I cook the broad beans in a stew as if they were lentils or chickpeas, I put them in the soup or we have them at breakfast along with the boiled corn, which we call mote, it’s very tasty and healthy,” she said.

In another rural community at an altitude of 3,100 meters, Choquepata, in the municipality of Oropesa, Ana María Zárete, 41, manages an organic vegetable greenhouse as part of the Flora Tristán Center’s proposal to promote access to land and agroecological training to boost the autonomy of rural women.

She said it is valuable to have all kinds of vegetables always within reach. “This is new for us, we didn’t used to plant or eat green leafy vegetables. Now we benefit from this varied production that comes from our own hands; everything is healthy and ecological, we don’t poison ourselves with chemicals,” she said.

This knowledge and experience places Quechua women in Cuzco on the front line in the fight against food insecurity. But as agronomist Nina Cusiyupanqui stated, they continue to lack recognition by government authorities, and to face conditions of inequality and disadvantage.

Related Articles

• Agroecological Women Farmers Boost Food Security in Peru’s Highlands

By External Source
Apr 1 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 

 
This is David.

He is becoming an exceptional chess player.

This is Mai.

She loves beaches and the ocean.

This is Kwame.

He is a passionate architect.

The only thing these people have in common…

…is that they all identify as Autistic.

Autistic people have a wide range of talents and challenges that are often not recognized by the world they are born into.

They continue to face discrimination and other challenges.

Levels of awareness and acceptance vary dramatically from country to country.

In recent years, however, major progress has been made in increasing awareness and acceptance.

Thankfully, we are moving away from the narrative of curing or converting autistic people.

We now focus much more on education, support and inclusivity.

This is a major transformation for all autistic people, their allies, and neurodiversity.

It enables autistic people to claim their dignity and self-esteem.

And to become fully integrated as valued members of societies.

Without stigma.

This year, we celebrate World Autism Awareness Day with a pivotal theme:

Transforming the narrative: Contributions at home, at work, in the arts and in policymaking

Together, we must transform the narrative around neurodiversity to overcome barriers and improve the lives of autistic people.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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On the occasion of World Autism Awareness Day on 2 April 2023, IPS is republishing ‘When Is Too Much Autism Awareness Still Not Enough?'

By Saima Wazed and Zain Bari Rizvi
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Mar 31 2023 (IPS)

When is too much Autism awareness still not enough? This thought recurs every April as we near World Autism Day on April 2, and parents reach out to me after reading enthusiastic and well-meaning news and journal articles – which are actually harmful and hurtful.

Saima W. Hossain

In 2008, along with a few dedicated parents and professionals, we began our effort to raise awareness around Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We eventually came together to form an advocacy, capacity-building, and research-based not-for-profit organization (Shuchona Foundation) established in 2014.

Today, we feel our work in Bangladesh, through effective national and international partnerships with equally dedicated parents and professionals, has impacted the country. Professional training, extensive awareness activities, and inclusion in social situations are demonstrable. The best part is that parents no longer view themselves as victims punished by fate for having a child with a disability.

Despite all the efforts in educating people in the many sectors of our country, including the formulation of a detailed National Strategic Plan, it is shocking to still find blatant disregard for the truth. I have, therefore, requested a parent, a former Shuchona Foundation head of operations and now a member of our executive board, to share her thoughts. Nothing speaks the truth louder and stronger than the person who has been on the receiving end of the discriminatory, hurtful, and unethical behaviour than the parent who hears it over and over again.

Here below excerpts of what I learned from Zain Bari Rizvi

If I had a Taka (Bangladesh currency) for each time someone said: ‘But he looks so normal,’ when I share that my son is on the Autism Spectrum, I would have been able to take early retirement at a villa in the Maldives!

Zain Bari Rizvi

I do not blame these mostly well-meaning people and their lack of awareness when widely read, and circulated dailies choose to use photos of children with Downs Syndrome to illustrate what children with Autism look like. Autistic traits cannot be captured with a still photograph, and most individuals with ASD look just like any other typical peer.

This sort of misrepresentation is not innocent and borders on dangerously harmful.

Deliberately associating a congenital genetic condition with a neurodevelopmental one will confuse the readers into thinking they are the same. This may also prevent parents and caregivers of children with Autism from seeking early intervention services that could potentially improve outcomes because they will have the false sense of comfort that their child ‘looks normal’, aka neurotypical.

There is no one true face of Autism because it is a not-one-size-fits-all spectrum disorder. It stays true to this famous quote by an Autism Advocate and Autistic person, Dr Stephen Shore: “If you’ve met one individual with autism, you’ve met one individual with autism.”

I am not a psychologist nor an expert, but as a parent who had the privilege to be educated and used my spare time and resources to do research, this incorrect and harmful visual misrepresentation enrages and upsets me.

Bangladesh has made considerable strides in Autism advocacy and policy changes due to extraordinary efforts by the leadership team at Shuchona Foundation. The Foundation has selflessly spearheaded the job of educating and opening the minds and hearts of people about what it entails to be on the Autism Spectrum. Because of their single minded dedication to this cause, we, in Bangladesh, are finally having a discourse on what Autism is and acknowledge and accept the differences in our children with Autism. We also have access to world-class services like early interventions such as ABA therapy and parent/caregiver engagement without shame or guilt.

And if there is one thing I learnt working closely with Shuchona Foundation, the key to making a difference is “to acknowledge that people will not always get it right but to look out for whether they want to learn to make it right”.

As World Autism Day on April 2 nears, my humble request to journalists and mainstream media is to do your duty of imparting factual and medically sound knowledge and information. Learn from your mistakes and ensure your stories and visual representations are accurate because media has the power to help or harm.

As I watch my feisty, opinionated and uber affectionate ASD child thrive in a typical school and social setting thanks to early childhood interventions and therapy, I shudder at the thought of what could have been our reality if I had paid heed to the photos of what Autism looks like in Bangladesh media.

I hope those reading this will take heed. Autism is a complex state of being, and no two autistics are alike. Every time I meet and spend time with someone with Autism, I am amazed at how unique, creative, and what a gift they are to the world. I want to change how we treat those we deem to be different, not change who they are.

For centuries all we have done is find creative ways to separate the majority from the minority. I hope the two years of the global pandemic will finally make us realize that when one group of people mistreat another, be it through military, financial or social power, we all suffer, not just the ones we discriminate against.

Saima Wazed Hossain is Advisor to the Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), on Mental Health and Autism. She is Chairperson, National Advisory Committee for Autism and NDDs, Bangladesh and Chairperson, Shuchona Foundation. She is a specialist in Clinical Psychology and an expert on Neurodevelopment disorders and mental health. Her efforts have led to international awareness, policy and program changes, and the adoption of three international resolutions at the United Nations and WHO.

Zain Bari Rizvi is a Board Member of Shuchona Foundation, an Operations and Finance professional who is a passionate advocate for people with Autism and a mother of two children.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

On the occasion of World Autism Awareness Day on 2 April 2023, IPS is republishing ‘When Is Too Much Autism Awareness Still Not Enough?'

The State of Civil Society report from CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance which was officially launched on March 30, 2023, exposes the gross violations of civic space. Credit CIVICUS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Mar 31 2023 (IPS)

As conflict and crises escalate to create human emergencies that have displaced over 100 million people worldwide, civil society’s vital role of advocating for victims and monitoring human rights cannot be over-emphasised.

The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize award to activists and organisations in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine for working to uphold human rights in the thick of conflict underpins this role.

Yet this has not stopped gross violations of civic space as exposed by the State of Civil Society report from CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, which was officially launched on March 30, 2023.

“This year’s report is the 12th in its annual published series, and it is a critical look back on 2022. Exploring trends in civil society action, at every level and in every arena, from struggles for democracy, inclusion, and climate justice to demands for global governance reform,” said Ines Pousadela from CIVICUS.

The report particularly highlights the many ways civil society comes under attack, caught in the crossfire and or deliberately targeted. For instance, the Russian award winner, the human rights organisation Memorial, was ordered to close in the run-up to the war. The laureate from Belarus, Ales Bialiatski, received a 10-year jail sentence.

Mandeep Tiwana stressed that the repression of civic voices and actions is far from unique. In Ethiopia, “activists have been detained by the state. In Mali, the ruling military junta has banned activities of CSOs that receive funding from France, hampering humanitarian support to those affected by conflict. In Italy, civil society groups face trial for rescuing migrants at sea.”

Ines Pousadela at the launch of the CIVICUS State of Civil Society Report. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Spanning over six chapters titled responding to conflict and crisis, mobilising for economic justice, defending democracy, advancing women’s and LGBTQI+ rights, sounding the alarm on the climate emergency and urging global governance reform, the analysis presented by the report draws from an ongoing analysis initiative, CIVICUS Lens.

On responding to conflict and crisis, Oleksandra Matviichuk from the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine spoke about the Russian invasion and the subsequent “unprecedented levels of war crimes against civilians such as torture and rape. And, a lack of accountability despite documented evidence of crimes against civilians.”

Bhavani Fonseka, from the Centre for Policy Alternatives, Sri Lanka, addressed the issue of mobilising for economic justice and how Sri Lanka captured the world’s attention one year ago through protests that start small in neighbourhoods and ultimately led to the President fleeing the country.

Launched in January 2022, CIVICUS Lens is directly informed by the voices of civil society affected by and responding to the major issues and challenges of the day.

Through this lens, a civil society perspective of the world as it stands in early 2023 has emerged: one plagued by conflict and crises, including democratic values and institutions, but in which civil society continues to strive to make a crucial difference in people’s lives.

On defending democracy, Amine Ghali of the Al Kawakibi Democracy Transition Center in Tunisia spoke about the challenge of removing authoritarian regimes, making significant progress in levels of democracy only for the country to regress to authoritarianism.

“It starts with the narrative that democracy is not delivering; let me have all the power so that I can deliver for you. But they do not deliver. All they do is consolidate power. A government with democratic legitimacy demolishing democracy is where we are in Tunisia,” he said.

Erika Venadero from the National Network of Diverse Youth, Mexico, spoke about the country’s journey that started in the 1960s towards egalitarian marriages. Today, same-sex marriages are provided for in the law.

On global governance reforms, Ben Donaldson from UNA-UK spoke about global governance institutional failure and the need to improve what is working and reform what is not, with a special focus on the UN Security Council.

“It is useful to talk about Ukraine and the shortcomings of the UN Security Council. A member of the UN State Council is unable to hold one of its members accountable. There are, therefore, tensions at the heart of the UN. The President of Ukraine and many others ask, what is the UN for if it cannot stop the Ukraine invasion?”

Baraka, a youthful climate activist and sustainability consultant in Uganda, spoke about ongoing efforts to stop a planned major pipeline project which will exacerbate the ongoing climate crisis, affecting lives and livelihoods.

His concerns and actions are in line with the report findings that “civil society continues to be the force sounding the alarm on the triple threat of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. Urging action using every tactic available, from street protest and direct action to litigation and advocacy in national and global arenas.”

But in the context of pressures on civic space and huge challenges, the report further finds that “civil society is growing, diversifying and widening its repertoire of tactics.”

Moving forward, the report highlights 10 ideas, including an urgent need for a broad-based campaign to win recognition of civil society’s vital role in conflict and crisis response as well as greater emphasis by civil society and supportive states on protecting freedom of peaceful assembly.

Additionally, the need for civil society to work with supportive states to take forward plans for UN Security Council reform and proposals to open up the UN and other international institutions to much greater public participation and scrutiny.

In all, strengthening and enhancing the membership and reach of transnational civil society networks to enable the rapid deployment of solidarity and support when rights come under attack was also strongly encouraged.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Mar 31 2023 (IPS)

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), an organisation whose motto is ‘For democracy. For everyone’, just held its global assembly in a country with a mock parliament and not the slightest semblance of democracy.

For Bahrain’s authoritarian leaders, the hosting of the IPU assembly was yet another reputation-laundering opportunity: a week before, they’d hosted Formula One’s opening race.

The day after the race, Ebrahim Al-Mannai, a lawyer and human rights activist, tweeted that the Bahraini parliament should be reformed if it was to be showcased at the assembly. His reward was to be immediately arrested for tweets and posts deemed an ‘abuse of social media platforms’.

That same week, the Bahraini authorities revoked the entry visas for two Human Rights Watch staff to attend the assembly.

Rather than opening up to host the event, Bahrain further shut down.

A mock parliament and no democracy

Bahrain is member of the IPU, which defines itself as ‘the global organization of national parliaments’, because, on paper at least, it has a parliament. But its parliament is neither representative nor powerful. Bahrain is an absolute monarchy.

The king has power over all branches of government. He appoints and dismisses the prime minister and cabinet members, who are responsible to him, not to parliament. The two prime ministers the country has had so far – the first served for over 50 years – have been prominent members of the royal family, and many cabinet ministers have been too.

The king appoints all members of the upper house of parliament, along with all judges. Parliament’s lower chamber is elected – but everything possible is done to keep out those who might try to hold the government to account.

Political parties aren’t allowed; ‘political societies’, loose groups with some of the functions of political parties, are recognised. To be able to operate, they must register and seek authorisation, which can be denied or revoked.

In recent years the government has shut down most opposition political societies, arresting and imprisoning their most popular leaders. All members of dissolved groups and former prisoners are banned from competing in elections. And just in case new potential opposition candidates somehow emerge, voting districts are carefully gerrymandered so the opposition can’t get a majority.

In November 2022 Bahrain once again went through the motions of an election. A large number of eligible voters were excluded from the electoral roll as punishment for abstaining in previous elections – a tactic used to ensure any boycott attempts wouldn’t affect turnout. Exactly as it was meant to, the election produced a legislative body with no ability to counterbalance monarchical power.

No space for dissent

In 2018, the king issued a decree known as the ‘political isolation law’. It banned members of dissolved opposition parties standing for election. It also gave the government control of the appointment of civil society organisations’ board members, limiting their ability to operate, and has been used to harass and persecute activists, including by stripping them and their families of citizenship rights.

In 2017, Bahrain’s last independent newspaper, Al-Wasat, was shut down. No independent media are now allowed to operate. The government owns all national broadcast media outlets, while the main private newspapers are owned by government loyalists.

Vaguely worded press laws that impose harsh penalties, including long prison sentences, for insulting the king, defaming Islam or threatening national security encourage self-censorship. Many people, including journalists, bloggers and others active on social media, have been detained, imprisoned and convicted.

This has turned Bahrain into a prison state. It’s estimated that almost 15,000 people have been arrested for their political views over the past decade, at least 1,400 of whom are currently in jail. Most have been convicted on the basis of confessions obtained under torture. Appallingly, 51 people have been sentenced to death.

An advocacy opportunity

Given the IPU’s evident lack of interest in the human rights records of host states, civil society focused its advocacy on parliamentary delegations from democratic states.

Ahead of the assembly, two dozen civil society groups published a joint statement addressed at parliamentarians who would be attending, urging them to publicly raise concerns over Bahrain’s lack of political freedoms, including violations of the rights of parliamentarians, and to ensure their presence wouldn’t be used to legitimise the authoritarian regime.

Civil society’s calls for the freedom of political prisoners were loudly echoed by parliamentary delegations from countries including Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands, among several others.

The director of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy described the event as ‘a PR disaster for the Bahraini regime’, a failure of its image-laundering plan.

The response of the Bahraini authorities was however far from encouraging. They reminded foreign parliamentarians they shouldn’t interfere in Bahrain’s domestic affairs and continued to deny evidence of imprisonment and torture.

Sustained international pressure is needed to urge the Bahraini regime to free its thousands of political prisoners and allow spaces for dissent. That, rather than high-level image-laundering events, is what will fix the country’s well-deserved bad reputation.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 

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The open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights was established in 2014 in response to Human Rights Council resolution 26/9 with a mandate to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Mar 31 2023 (IPS)

The ongoing discussions on an internationally treaty, described as a “legally binding instrument” on business and human rights, remains one of the most neglected issues that should instead command the attention of the public.

Such a legal tool would bind companies to uphold high standards and most importantly, it would entail mandatory guarantees for accessible and inclusive remedy and therefore, clear liabilities for victims of alleged abuses perpetrated by companies.

It all started in 2014 when two nations of the South, Ecuador and South Africa successfully pushed for a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council on the establishment of a so called “international legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights”.

By reading the title of the resolution you can immediately realize that one of the conundrums being discussed is the overarching scope of such treaty especially in the reference of the nature of the companies being subject to it.

In practice, would only multinational or also national private corporations come under its jurisdiction?

Interestingly, at the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) created to draft the text of the treaty, many developing nations, for example, like Indonesia, were strongly advocating for only multinationals to be included.

This is a position of convenience that would exclude local major operators involved in the plantations business from coming under scrutiny of the treaty.

Other complex issues are centered on the liability especially in relation to instances where a corporation is “only” directly linked to the harm rather than cause.

As explained by Tara Van Ho, a lecturer at the University of Essex School of Law and Human Rights Centre, if “a business is only “directly linked to” the harm, it does not need to provide remedies but can instead use its “leverage” to affect change in its business partners.”

The difference between causing or contributing to harm and instead being only liked to it can be subtle and remain an exclusive debate among scholars, but its repercussions could or could not ensure justice to millions of people victims of corporate abuses.

Another point of attrition is the complex issue of the statutes of limitations and the role of domestic jurisdiction over the future treaty.

With all these challenges, after 8 years of negotiations, the drafting is moving in slow motion amid a general disinterest among state parties, as explained by Elodie Aba for Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

An issue that should capture global attention has instead become a realm of technical discussions among governments, academicians and civil society members without generating mass awareness about it.

The need for a treaty related to abuses of corporations is almost self-evident, considering the gigantic proofs that have been emerging both in the North and South.

Despite nice words and token initiatives, the private sector has been more than often keen to close its eyes before abuses occurring through its direct actions or throughout its supply chains.

Amid weak legislations, especially in developing countries, the hard job of trying to keep companies accountable, until now, has depended on a set of non-binding, voluntary procedures formally known as the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

The Principles, prepared by late Harvard Professor John G. Ruggie in his capacity as UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, proved to be a useful but at the same time inadequate tool.

It has been useful because it was instrumental in raising the issue of human rights within the corporate sector, something that was for too long and till recently, a taboo.

In order to further mainstream it, for example, a UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights has been established as a special procedure within UN Human Rights.

Along the years, this independent group, composed by pro bono academicians, has carried out considerable work to strengthen both the understanding of and the adherence to the Principles.

There is no doubt that there have been attempts at going deeper, especially from the legal point of view on the Principles, especially on their articles related to right to remedy, the thorniest issue.

In this regard, the Accountability and Remedy Project have been providing a whole set of insights through multiple consultations and discussions, a process that still ongoing with the overall purpose of making a stronger cases on “the right to remedy, a core tenet of the international human rights system”.

Yet principles, UN Global Compact, are toothless tool and showed considerable limitations, starting from the most obvious element, the fact that they are not binding.

In the meantime, in 2021 the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, on occasion of their 10th anniversary of the Principles, launched road map for the next 10 years.

It is actions, despite their intrinsic limitations due to the nature of the Principles, should be supported but more financial resources are indispensable. Yet finding the financial resources or better the political will to do so remains an issue.

A recommendation from late Prof. Ruggie to create a Voluntary Fund for Business and Human Rights did not go anywhere.

“The Fund would provide a mechanism for supporting projects developed at local and national levels that would increase the capacity of governments to fulfill their obligations in this area as well as strengthen efforts by business enterprises and associations, trade unions, non-governmental organizations and others seeking to advance implementation of the Guiding Principles”.

Even more worrisome is the fact that till now a new Special Representative for Business and Human Rights has not been appointed yet.

Having an authoritative figure, especially a former head of state rather than an academician, could help bring more visibility to the ongoing “behind the curtain” discussions related to the need for a strong Treaty.

Such a political figure could not only command a stronger attention on the issue but also provide “cover” to the delicate work of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, complementing and strengthening its mandate.

Engagement with the education sector, law and business schools, as advocated by a report published by Business and Human Rights Asia, a UNDP Program, can be essential.

Together with a stronger media coverage, students and academicians can help elevate the issue of human rights and its linkages with the private sector.

We could imagine competitions among students at national and international levels on how the principles can be better implemented as a “bridge” tool towards a binding legal mechanism.

Students could also have a major say on the opaque drafting process of this treaty.

At the end of the day, there will be compromises and shortcomings, but with a bigger bottom-up approach, a strong Treaty could become a “global” Escazu’, the first ever binding environment agreement in Latin America and the Caribbean.

UNDP with its Business and Human Rights Asia unit that recently organized in Kathmandu an excellent 4th UN South Asia Forum on Business and Human Rights. But it could also be bolder.

The forum did a great job at giving voice to indigenous people, one of the key stakeholders in the global negotiations for the treaty.

A lot of discussions were rightly held on the impact of issues like climate change and migration and their links with businesses’ attitudes and behaviors towards local populations.

Yet, there was no conversation nor on the treaty nor on the future evolution of the principles. It might certainly be an issue of a limited “mandate” but UNDP could, together with UN Human Rights, be a neutral enabler on a global discussion on the treaty and on how the Principles can further evolve while we wait for such a legal tool.

The Principles should also be better linked with the UN Compact, creating more synergies and coordination between the two.

The fact that nations like France, Germany and the Netherlands have been stepping up with new vigorous legislations in the field of business and human rights is extremely positive.

Equally important is the commitment of the EU to come up with Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) or the OECD to revise its Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct but the nations behind these initiatives must commit to the drafting process of the Treaty.

Otherwise, we run the risk that discussions will continue without anyone caring about them. Such an unfortunate situation must truly be “remedied’ with the right smart mix, political will, starting from the Secretary General and a powerful alliance of progressive nations in the both South and North driving the process and involving other peer nations.

Ultimately civil society must also step up beyond their technical and legal recommendations and truly engage the people.

Simone Galimberti is the co-founder of ENGAGE and of the Good Leadership, Good for You & Good for the Society.

Opinions expressed are personal.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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LGBTIQ+ activists in Caracas protest outside the National Electoral Council, in charge of the civil registry, demanding enforcement of the legal statute that authorizes a change of name for trans, intersex or non-binary people. The agency has delayed compliance with the law for years. CREDIT: Observatory of Violence

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Mar 30 2023 (IPS)

The vulnerability and struggles of the LGBTIQ+ community in Venezuela were once again highlighted when the Supreme Court finally annulled the military code statute that punished, with one to three years in prison, members of the military who committed ” acts against nature.”

The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court ruled that the statute, in force since the last century, “is contrary to the fundamental postulate of progressivity in terms of guaranteeing human rights,” and also “lacks sufficient legal clarity and precision with regard to the conduct it was intended to punish.”

The statute, in the Code of Military Justice, was the only one that still punished homosexuality with jail in Venezuela, and it was overturned on Feb. 16."In Venezuela LGBTIQ+ people (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, intersex, queers and others) must still fight for the right to identity, to equal marriage, to non-discrimination in education, health and housing.” -- Tamara Adrián

However, “in Venezuela LGBTIQ+ people (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, intersex, queers and others) must still fight for the right to identity, to equal marriage, to non-discrimination in education, healthcare and housing,” transgender activist Tamara Adrián told IPS.

Even the procedure followed to overturn the statute, the second paragraph of article 565 of the Military Code, was an illustration of the continued disdain towards the LGBTIQ+ minority.

Activist Richelle Briceño reminded IPS that civil society organizations had been demanding the annulment of the statute for seven years, receiving no response from the Supreme Court.

“All of a sudden, the Ombudsman’s Office (in Venezuela all branches of power are in the hands of the ruling party) asked the court to overturn that part of the article and in less than 24 hours the decision was made, on Feb. 16,” Briceño observed.

In addition, the Ombudsman’s Office argued that the statute was not used in the last 20 years, but Briceño said that around the year 2016 there were several documented cases.

Different NGOs see the legal ruling as linked with the presentation, the following day, of reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council of serious violations on this question in Venezuela, including the non-recognition of the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community.

In the Venezuelan armed forces, homosexual conduct or acts “against nature” were still punishable by prison sentences of one to three years, until the statute was finally overturned by the Supreme Court in February. CREDIT: Mippci

Many pending issues

In Venezuela, “according to current medical protocols, blood donations by people who have sexual relations with people of the same sex are not even accepted,” Natasha Saturno, with the Acción Solidaria NGO, which specializes in health assistance and supplies, told IPS.

“Forty days ago they operated on my son. I brought a dozen blood donors, they were all asked this question, and several were turned away,” she said.

If these restrictions still exist, even further away are the hopes of the LGBTIQ+ community to obtain identity documents that reflect their gender option, to same-sex unions or equal marriage, or to outlaw all forms of discrimination, Saturno said.

Adrián said that “recognizing gender identity or equal marriage with both spouses enjoying the right to exercise maternity or paternity are achievements that are advancing or expanding throughout Latin America, and Venezuela, which has moved forward in civil rights since the 19th century, is now among the laggards.”

The activist, founder in 2022 of the political party United for Dignity, highlighted the progress made on this issue in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay, “with only Guyana, Paraguay, Suriname and Venezuela lagging behind in South America.”

With regard to identity, since 2009 the Civil Registry Law states that “everyone may change their own name, only once, when they are subjected to public ridicule (…) or it does not correspond to their gender, thus affecting the free development of their personality.”

But the rule is not enforced in the case of trans, intersex and non-binary people, with countless procedural obstacles in the way, which is why, frustrated by meaningless paperwork, LGBTIQ+ groups have protested before the Supreme Court, the Ombudsman’s Office and the National Electoral Council, which the civil registry falls under.

Adrián maintained that “we are guided by the opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which in 2017 recognized the right to identity as essential for the development of personality and non-discrimination in areas such as labor, health and education.”

A demonstration by the LGBTIQ+ community outside the Supreme Court in Caracas demanded the right to same-sex marriage, which is legal in many parts of Latin America but remains a distant dream in Venezuela. CREDIT: Acvi

Victims of violence

LGBTIQ+ people in Venezuela “suffer numerous forms of discrimination and violence, from the family sphere to public spaces,” said Yendri Velásquez, of the recently created Venezuelan Observatory of Violence against this community.

It manifests itself “in psychological violence, very present in the family sphere, beatings, denial of identity, access and use of public spaces – from restaurants to parks -, extortion, bullying based on gender expression, employment discrimination and even murder,” Velásquez said.

He pointed out that in 2021 there were 21 murders of people “just for being gay or lesbian,” and that in the second half of 2022 the Observatory recorded 10 “murders or cases of very serious injuries” with a total of 11 gay, lesbian or transgender victims.

The activists are advocating for norms and policies that help eradicate hate crimes and hate speech, as well as online violence, because through social networks they receive messages as serious as “die”, “kill yourself”, “I hope they kill you” or “you shouldn’t be alive.”

The organizations share these fears and are protesting that the legislature, in the hands of the ruling party, is drafting a law that would curtail and severely restrict the independence and work of non-governmental organizations.

Marches for the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community and against discrimination are growing in size in Venezuela, and groups of European residents and diplomats have even joined in on some occasions. CREDIT: EU

Healthcare as well

For the LGBTIQ+ community, healthcare is a critical issue, in the context of a complex humanitarian emergency that, among other effects, has led to the collapse of health services, with most hospitals suffering from infrastructure and maintenance failures, lack of equipment and supplies, and the migration of health professionals.

Adrián said “there are barriers to entry into health centers, both public and private, for people who are trans or intersex, for their stay in hospitals – sometimes they are treated in the corridors – and for adherence to the treatments.”

An additional problem is that hormones have not been available in Venezuela for 10 years, and users who resort to uncontrolled imports are exposing themselves to significant health risks.

The community was greatly affected by the AIDS epidemic, although in 2001 civil society organizations managed to get the Supreme Court to make it obligatory for the government to provide antiretroviral drugs free of charge.

They were available for years, although Saturno points out that the supply became intermittent starting in 2012.

That year marked the start of the current economic and migration crisis suffered by this oil-producing country of 28 million people, with the loss of four-fifths of GDP and the migration of seven million Venezuelans.

Currently, deliveries are made regularly, according to the NGOs dedicated to monitoring the question, although usually with only one of the treatment schemes prescribed by the Pan American Health Organization, “and not everyone can take the same treatment,” Saturno said.

Some 88,000 HIV/AIDS patients are registered in Venezuela’s master plan on HIV/AIDS that the government and United Nations agencies support. But according to NGO projections, there could be as many as 200,000 HIV-positive people in the country.

The activists also note that the climate marked by the denial of identity and rights for individuals and couples, discrimination, harassment, violence and work handicap, plus health issues, push LGBTIQ+ people to form part of the flow of migrants that has spread across the hemisphere.

The cumulative needs of injured patients from the war have created a medical crisis. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By Abdo Husen
ADDIS ABABA, Mar 30 2023 (IPS)

There are about 5 billion people globally who cannot access surgery. In Ethiopia, for every 5,000 needed surgeries per 100,000 people, the country’s health system can only provide 192. Yet, this is Africa’s second largest population, with over 120 million people.

The statistics are worrying. This is further exacerbated by a recently ended two-year war in the northern part of the country that devastated among others, the health sector. There is however an opportunity to build back better as the government institutes post-war reconstruction. This is possible through prioritizing access to surgical care as part of restoring the country’s health system in post-war reconstruction efforts.

Armed conflict increases the demand for health services yet hampers the system’s ability to deliver these services as it disrupts the supply chain, results in direct damage to health facilities, and forces health workers to flee their duty stations. In Ethiopia, unofficial estimates put the proportion of health workers who fled their duty stations at over 90% of the pre-conflict numbers.

Armed conflict increases the demand for health services yet hampers the system’s ability to deliver these services as it disrupts the supply chain, results in direct damage to health facilities, and forces health workers to flee their duty stations

The cumulative needs of injured patients from the war have created a medical crisis. It is a vicious cycle whose victims are innocent civilians. Take for instance patients with open fractures and bullet wounds who require some form of reconstructive surgery. This service is largely unavailable in affected regions, particularly in Tigray. If left untreated, these injuries can result in infections, amputation, permanent disability, or even death.

This was the case for 17-year-old Hakeem* (not his real name). He suffered bone and nerve damages as a casualty of the war. Hakeem was facing the threat of disability from abnormal bone healing and wrist-drop, which is paralysis of the muscles that enable hand function.

Fortunately, he received surgical care that allowed him to return to his daily activities with reduced physical challenges. Not many people have been as lucky. Reports show that over 100,000 people died from lack of access to medical care in war time. This includes lack of access to surgical care.

Additionally, the influx of surgical patients owing to the war has slowed down the already strained health system’s ability to provide non-emergency surgical care. Although not life threatening, these surgical needs have a major impact on improving the quality of life of those in need.

These include cleft lip and cleft palate, which are birth defects that occur when a baby’s lip or mouth do not form properly during pregnancy. Failure to correct this, often results in social and economic exclusion of patients who are often ostracized by their communities for allegations based on false and harmful cultural and religious beliefs including their participation in witchcraft.

Arguably, the Federal Government of Ethiopia has indeed made efforts toward the rehabilitation of health infrastructure in conflict areas. For example, the government’s effort to restore 36 hospitals in Afar and Amhara. There is however much more to be done. Rebuilding the health system will cost the country an estimated 74.1 billion ETB (Approx. US$1.4 billion).

To restore all social service infrastructure- including health facilities damaged by conflicts in the country, the government has allocated 20 billion ETB into the capital budget for the current fiscal year. This is way below the requisite threshold to rebuild the health services alone.

There is indeed urgent need to prioritize surgical care at the forefront of rehabilitation efforts. The Ministry of Health must provide health workers – including specialist surgical and anesthesia workforce with monetary and non-monetary incentives to return to their pre-war duty stations to fill the gaping vacuum in human resourcing.

The federal government must allocate resources towards the rehabilitation and equipping of all health facilities including surgical theatres in northern Ethiopia. This budgetary allocation must be included in the 2023/2024 budget cycle (2016 Ethiopian fiscal year). Critics could argue that there is simply not enough money to this end.

While the government could be cash-strapped to rebuild different sectors of the economy; it is its ultimate responsibility to ensure the life and health of its citizens. It must therefore seek innovative ways to fund reconstruction efforts. One such way could be through leveraging public private partnerships.

Not only will this provide the necessary funds but has the prospect of being an accountability mechanism to ensure lasting peace as a condition of the disbursement of funds or gifts in kind. These would be tangible steps towards reconstruction, alleviating the suffering of Ethiopians who without these services, continue to suffer preventable medical conditions and deaths.

 

Abdo Husen is a public health specialist by training, Program Lead at Operation Smile Ethiopia, and a 2023 Global Surgery Advocacy Fellow

Malawi’s Department of Disaster Management Affairs shows that 2.2 million people have been affected, with 676 killed and 538 missing after Cyclone Freddy hit Malawi earlier this month. Credit: Red Cross

By Charles Mpaka
SONJEKE, MALAWI, Mar 30 2023 (IPS)

In Sonjeka village in Mulanje district, which lies on the border with Mozambique in southern Malawi, destroyed crop fields stretch almost interminably after floods ripped through them when Tropical Cyclone Freddy pounded the country.

One of those fields lying in waste with its drying maize stalks flattened to the ground, if not ripped off altogether, belongs to Eliza Mponya.

A field close to a hectare in size, this has been the lifeline for the single mother and her four children.

Not that it gives her all the maize which the family needs for the whole year, but it still gets Mponya and her children enough to carry them close to the next harvesting season.

By her estimation, this year, she would have harvested maize that would have lasted the family until the end of November.

Crops destroyed by Cyclone Freddy, which left at least 676 dead and 650 000 displaced. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS

“We had good rains here, and we were lucky because my son found piece work in Mozambique, and we managed some fertiliser through what he earned.

“But now, after all the hard work and just when we were close to reaping the rewards, we have this damage. It’s heartbreaking,” she says.

Malawi is in a mourning period, courtesy of the worst natural disaster to have struck the country in recent memory.

Exactly a year after the battering by tropical storms Ana and Gombe, whose devastation the country is yet to recover from, Tropical Freddy hit rather more brutally.

After barreling through Madagascar and Mozambique, the cyclone stormed into Malawi on March 11, 2023. From the afternoon of March 12, rain poured over 10 of the 13 districts in the southern region of the country for the next 72 hours.

Rivers broke their banks; furious waters gorged through unlikely landscapes, and, beyond anyone’s expectation, several mud avalanches pushed down giant boulders from mountainous areas that, in some cases, swept away entire villages and crushed homes and people below at night.

President Lazarus Chakwera declared it a state of disaster, calling for help, a plea to which both local and the international community have responded generously.

The scale of the destruction is unprecedented in any natural disaster Malawi has experienced. A draft situation report which the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA), a government agency, released on Wednesday, March 29, shows that up to 2.2 million people have been affected thus far; 676 have been killed, and 538 are missing – many of them feared to have been buried in the mudslides and rubble of collapsed buildings or washed away to unknown lands.

At the appropriate time, the police will declare the missing people dead, DoDMA says.

According to the report, up to 2,000 people are nursing various degrees of injuries, some while still in the over 760 evacuation camps that are hosting over 650,000 that have been displaced in the affected districts.

Up to 405 kilometres of road infrastructure have been damaged, and 63 health facilities and close to a million water and sanitation facilities have been affected.

The worst hit of all sectors, according to the report, is agriculture, the mainstay of Malawi’s economy. Over 2 million farmers have lost their crops and livestock, and over 179,000 hectares of crop fields have been destroyed.

Mponya’s field is among those counted.

Her maize crop would have been ready for harvest sometime towards the end of April. Now floods have harvested it, and Mponya is broken.

“I have never experienced anything like this in my life,” she tells IPS.

On March 23, 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture launched its own assessment of the damage the cyclone has caused to the agriculture sector in the region. It is yet to release its report on the assessment and the interventions that it will undertake to bail out the affected farmers.

However, in effect, the cyclone has worsened the food security situation for millions of people for the year. This comes against the backdrop of the government distributing food to 3.8 million food-insecure households, an exercise meant to see them through to the next harvest, which is now struck by the storm.

In an earlier forecast, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET), a USAID-supported global food security monitoring activity, said the southern region could register a decrease ranging between 30 and 50 percent in the harvest of maize, Malawi’s staple crop and a key factor in the economy.

This, it said, would leave poor households running out of food stocks by end of August instead of October, as it usually happens with most such households in a good harvest year.

FEWSNET cited limited and delayed access to fertiliser for most subsistence farmers who rely on the government’s fertiliser subsidy programme that was rocked by logistical and procurement challenges in this growing season and due to high prices of the commodity on the normal market, which drove the farm input out of reach for most of them.

FEWSNET compiled the report before Cyclone Freddy lashed the country.

Christone Nyondo, a research fellow at MwAPATA Institute, a local independent agricultural policy think-tank, says the cyclone has effectively struck a blow on household food security in the region and the country.

According to Nyondo, families that have lost their food crops will struggle to cope without external help. He, therefore, suggests assistance for the affected farmers to replant short-duration maize varieties.

He further says crops that can still do well when planted under residual moisture should be promoted to provide a short-term coping mechanism for the households as they recover.

However, Nyondo argues that Malawi needs to invest in long-term and enduring disaster-proactive measures considering that these natural shocks will keep occurring in the face of climate change.

According to Nyondo, an agricultural economist, for a long time, Malawi has focused much of its efforts on post-disaster recovery. It is high time the country did a deep rethink of its policies and invest significantly in early warning systems and forward planning based on intelligence gathered from these early warning systems, he says.

“The specific interventions to safeguard food security will vary by season by the nature of the predicted disaster. If the predicted disaster is a widespread drought, then forward planning in terms of strategic investments in irrigation infrastructure will be key,” Nyondo tells IPS via email.

He adds: “But, in any case, we need to invest more in irrigation, storage and other critical infrastructure without waiting for disasters. That’s the surest way of safeguarding our food security. Yes, it will be expensive but it will also be necessary.”

Back in Mulanje district, Mponya has no idea how she will recover.

Unlike some people in her village, she has not suffered any damage to her house or the loss of any member of her family. But she says it is a tragedy of her life that for the first time as a farmer, the 51-year-old will harvest almost nothing from her field after months of toil, leaving her to face a year-long struggle for food.

Asked whether she has a way out, Mponya stares blankly and then says, “I don’t know what to do.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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The Government of Colombia expands its educational response to the Venezuelan regional crisis. ECW high-level mission highlights need to expand education response to the world’s largest refugee and displacement crisis. Urgent financial support required to fill US$46.4 million funding gap for the multi-year resilience response.

By External Source
BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Mar 30 2023 (IPS-Partners)

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) Executive Director Yasmine Sherif announced today that ECW intends to continue to expand its investments in Colombia. ECW’s support to the current Multi-Year Resilience Programme exceeds US$12 million, and the Fund has allocated an additional US$12 million for the next three-year phase, which, once approved, will bring the overall investment in Colombia to over US$28 million.

The new Multi-Year Resilience Programme will be developed during the course of 2023 – in close consultation with partners and under the leadership of the Government of Colombia – and submitted to ECW’s Executive Committee for final approval in due course. The catalytic grant funding expands the Multi-Year Resilience Programme in support of the Government of Colombia’s efforts to respond to the interconnected crises of conflict, forced displacement and climate change, and still provide a quality education.

“The National Government seeks to coordinate efforts among various sectors to strengthen actions to guarantee protection and care of Venezuelan families, especially children. Our greatest challenge for the effective integration of this population is to guarantee health, education and food sovereignty for all children, adolescents, and young people, with an emphasis on those in vulnerable conditions,” said Aurora Vergara Figueroa, Minister of Education, Colombia.

The extended programme will advance Colombia’s support for children and adolescents from Venezuela, internally displaced children, and host, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities impacted by these ongoing crises. The investment closely aligns with the Government of Colombia’s strategy on inclusion and will strengthen the education system at the national level and in regions most affected by forced displacement. The programme will have a strong focus on girls’ education. An estimated US$46.4 million is required to fully fund the current multi-year resilience response in Colombia.

On a high-level mission to Colombia this week, ECW Executive Director Yasmine Sherif called on world leaders to scale up the global response to the education and learning crises in Colombia to leave no child behind and deliver on the targets outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals.

“We must act now to provide the girls and boys impacted by the interconnected crises of conflict, displacement, climate change, poverty and instability with the safety, hope and opportunity of a quality education. The Government of Colombia has taken remarkable measures in providing refugees and migrants from Venezuela with access to life-saving essential services like education. By supporting these efforts across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, we are creating the foundation to build a more peaceful and more prosperous future not only for the people of Colombia, but also for the refugees and migrants from Venezuela above all,” said Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait, the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

The Venezuela regional crisis has triggered the second largest refugee crisis in the world today. Colombia is host to 2.5 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants in need of international protection. The country also has 5.6 million internally displaced people. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples, girls and children with disabilities are also often left behind.

Despite the efforts of the Government of Colombia to extend temporary protection status to Venezuelans in Colombia, children continue to miss out on their human right to a quality education. In 2021, the dropout rate for Colombian children was 3.62% (3.2% for girls and 4.2% for boys). The figure nearly doubles for Venezuelans to 6.4%, and reaches 17% for internally displaced children.

Even when children are able to attend school, the majority are falling behind. Recent analysis indicates that close to 70% of ten-year-olds cannot read or understand a simple text, up from 50% before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools across Colombia.

As of November 2022, over half a million Venezuelan children and adolescents have been enrolled in Colombia’s formal education system. ECW investments have reached 107,000 children in Colombia to date. ECW’s Multi-year Resilience Programme in Colombia is delivered by UNICEF and a Save the Children-led NGO consortium including the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), World Vision and Plan International.

“Education is the best engine for creating new life opportunities and personal growth. It allows rebuilding and strengthening the resilience of communities that live in violence and extreme poverty. All the actors around the education system have to act together and bring their best knowledge, their best professionals and, thanks to the investment of ECW, we are achieving great changes in the education of thousands of girls and boys in Colombia,” said Norwegian Refugee Council, Plan International, Save the Children, UNICEF and World Vision in a joint statement.

ECW investments in Colombia provide access to safe and protective formal and non-formal learning environments, mental health and psychosocial support services, specialized services to support the transition into the national education system for children at risk of being left behind, and a variety of actions to strengthen capacities of local and national education authorities in order to support education from early childhood education through secondary school.

 

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Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim

By Ameenah Gurib-Fakim
PORT LOUIS, Mauritius, Mar 30 2023 (IPS)

On 12th March 2023, The Republic of Mauritius celebrates 55 years of post-independence history. It would be an understatement to just say that there has been a lot of water under the bridge on our journey to self-determination!.. Indeed, we have made massive progress since we lowered the Union Jack and unfurled our own flag. It was and remains a moment of great pride whenever I see our flag in any international event, I participate in.

We are a small vulnerable island, deprived of natural resources and at the time of independence, we were flanked with a monoculture economy, high unemployment, low education and low income were amongst the major challenges. We had been relegated to being a basket case. Even by Nobel prize winners concluded that because of our isolation from the then major capitals; climate challenges etc. we were doomed at a time when our per capita income hovered around 200USD.

We were more a recipe for disaster than that of a success story. Still over time, with leadership and vision, we proved to the world that another outcome was feasible, but more importantly, that profound transformation was possible, and we succeeded within one single generation.

We became the shining star especially South of the Sahara and our experience brings useful insights into the dynamics and pitfalls of an economic transformation journey. Nonetheless, this transformation has been conducted in such a manner that the economic landscape, society and institutions were modernised simultaneously, albeit at various speeds, taking into consideration the political, human, institutional and economic realities and constraints of the time. The approach was largely inclusive because the major asset then and now remains our diverse, talented population.

Our story had been based on the following foundational stones: political leadership, strong institutions, ethnic diversity, a class of versatile indigenous entrepreneur and a well-structured private sector engaged in dialogues on policy matters. Coupled with this, the balance has been between economic and social objectives, with a strong focus on the human capital, through free education since 1976, free health care, and a minimum basic social safety net for the most vulnerable.

Still the strength of our institutions were a key guarantee for investment, entrepreneurship and innovation. While acknowledging that significant progress has been achieved in the last 50+ years, the global dynamics call for more and more reforms if our country wants to avoid the middle-income trap and join the club of high-income countries within the realm of a changing climate. There are already indications of worrying signals: the average growth rate has been stabilizing at less than 5%, necessary to enable incremental changes, but insufficient to steam up the engine to the next level. Beyond the redesigning and re-engineering of the economic landscape, some implementable reforms will have to be addressed.

The main weaknesses are found in our education system. While we have a 99% enrolment rate at the primary level, but what comes next is disappointing. Let’s take the hypothetical 100 children entering our primary school, 80 will manage to pass their primary school exam to enter secondary school; only 60 will manage to succeed after the first 3 years, 40 will pass the Grade 5 (O-level) exams and with only 20-30 will reach the end of the secondary school cycle. This is in total contradiction to the requirements of a high-income country; one that ambitions to attract High Tech investment. The curriculum needs to move away from being too academic and with little openings for technical and vocational training.

Also, labour market reforms need to ensure flexibility. A diversified economic base only makes sense if it is possible for people to move across sectors. Currently, the stiffness of labour market and employment schemes that go with it, makes it difficult for people to move around. The basic principle must remain the protection of the people as opposed to jobs.

Finally, Mauritius must step up efforts to plug into regional and global value chains. We must continue to build on the regional market and must upgrade our participation in the global value chains, by capturing activities with higher value addition. Our regional market penetration remains weak. In the last decade it has been estimated that Mauritius export to the SADC region amounted to only 1.3% while its imports from the SADC region amounted to 2.5%. Similarly, we still have too big a bias towards our traditional markets to export low value added products.

Competition over concepts rather than over processes will be increasingly necessary to have a meaningful role. To achieve this, increased investment in quality education, innovation, research and development and technology, the appropriate ecosystem for start-ups, is crucial. We are at a crossroad in our economic transformation. The latter can remain a continuous process as we have had a good track record so far. The challenge for our country now lies in combining sustained domestic reforms with efforts required to keep up with international trends to become a global player. This demands that we align all our talents, competence and resources.

Next door to us, a giant is waking up – The African continent and the AfCFTA presents a huge opportunity, for, inter alia, our manufacturing sector, provided we engage with her, like in any relationship, seriously, and not just pay lip service. We have to keep reminding ourselves that the world we embraced in 1968, is now fast mutating. We were born in a bipolar world and now living in an increasingly multipolar world. Our foreign policy must remain agile as it is going to be a rocky road especially as we will have to count the presence of new emerging African middle-income countries that are increasingly catching up with their economic trajectory.

We will only succeed if we manage to navigate through competition, build trust and strengthen our institutions, acknowledge our diversity as strength, ensure meritocracy and by turning challenges into potential opportunities as ONE people and ONE Nation, in Peace, Justice and Liberty.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim is Former President of the Republic of Mauritius