Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE

Credit: UN

By Natalia Kanem, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka & Achim Steiner
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 6 2018 (IPS)

The numbers are shocking: at least one in three women on the planet has suffered physical or sexual violence, usually at the hands of a family member or intimate partner. More than 700 million women alive today were married as children. Up to 250 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation.

Although violence against women and girls is widely recognized as a global pandemic, the response has ranged from indifferent to sporadic to inadequate, with weak enforcement of laws, the continued impunity of perpetrators and limited resources to address the issue.

But less than a year ago, something significant emerged: the Spotlight Initiative, an unprecedented, multi-year partnership between the European Union and the United Nations, with 500 million euros in seed funding from the EU. Comprehensive in scope, targeted in focus, it is changing how we do business across the UN system and across countries and regions.

We recognize that violence against women and girls is a complex phenomenon deeply embedded in unequal power relations between men and women, and persistent social norms, practices and behaviours that discriminate against women at home, in the workplace, and in society at large.

Several factors can further heighten the risk of women and girls facing violence, such as their ethnicity, religion, age, income, immigrant status, disability, and sexual orientation. Those who are most vulnerable to violence are very often those whose lives are under threat in other ways, through poverty or lack of access to health or education.

They are often those who society has left out. They are also those who, through Spotlight, we will not allow to be left behind, following the central tenet of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Until now, investments in prevention and essential services for survivors of violence and their families have been insufficient or uneven across or within countries. We know that the solutions rely on working at multiple levels and bringing many different players to the table.

We need to hold the uncomfortable conversations that address the root causes of such violence and extend rights and opportunities to those who have previously been excluded.

Since its launch, the Spotlight Initiative has been working closely with countries in Asia (the Safe and Fair programme for migrant women workers), Africa (with a focus on sexual and gender-based violence and harmful practices), and Latin America (focusing on femicide) with plans to extend activities to the Pacific and the Caribbean in the months ahead.

The planning phase has been nothing less than inspiring: government officials from multiple departments breaking through silos with international partners from different UN agencies and the EU, civil society and activists who are usually excluded from the tables of decision-making and project design.

Each country programme is being led by the UN Regional Coordinator, in line with the latest UN reform efforts to make the initiative more collaborative, transparent, and effective.

In Malawi, through Spotlight, we are supporting dialogue on discriminatory social norms, for example, through community theatre, engaging traditional leaders and educators to teach their communities how to build non-violent, respectful and equitable relationships from early childhood onwards.

In Mexico, we are training health care workers to identify early signs of abuse and prevent violence against women through school-based campaigns to raise awareness about gender stereotypes and negative ideas about masculinity.

In Niger, we are engaging men and boys and strengthening the ability of women’s rights defenders to advocate policy reform and hold decision-makers accountable. The focus in Niger, as in the other seven participating countries in Africa, is on sexual and gender-based violence, harmful practices (such as child marriage and female genital mutilation) as well as sexual and reproductive health rights.

In Zimbabwe, we are using radio and other media to spread awareness on the issue. To ensure that services are accessible to all women and girls, including those with disabilities, we are introducing measures such as access ramps at service centres, sign language, braille and audio versions of information materials.

Guided by common principles of human rights, the benefits of multilateralism, as well as the objectives set out by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Spotlight Initiative reflects a deep commitment to eliminating gender-based violence across the globe. The Initiative is a flagship programme for UN reform to deliver in an integrated way on the SDGs.

Violence against women has been ignored or kept in the shadows for far too long. The name of the Initiative – Spotlight –symbolizes the importance of driving this issue into the light so it can be seen, tackled and eliminated. The UN and participating countries are willing to spread that light. Now it is time for everyone to join us.

The post The Spotlight Initiative: Eliminating Violence & Harmful Practices Against Women & Girls appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Natalia Kanem is UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, UN Population Fund, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director, UN Women & Achim Steiner, Administrator, UN Development Programme

The post The Spotlight Initiative: Eliminating Violence & Harmful Practices Against Women & Girls appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, addresses the general debate of the UN General Assembly’s seventy-second session. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak

By Eduard Cousin
CAIRO, Jun 6 2018 (IPS)

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who was re-elected in March, continues the repression of regime opponents. Critics view the situation as increasingly dangerous. “There is no logic anymore,” says one.

“The injustice increases… the regime becomes more violent. I’ll take a must-needed break from politics… There is nothing more to say,” tweeted regime critic Hazem Abdelaziz on 18 May, after a number of prominent activists had been arrested over the span of a few days.

Less than a week after this tweet, police raided the Abdelaziz’s house in Cairo, arresting him on accusations of ‘spreading false news’ and  ‘joining a banned organisation’.

 

Blogger, actor and lawyer

In 2014 Abdelaziz still worked for the presidential campaign of President Al-Sisi, but later described this as his “biggest mistake” and became a strong critic of the regime, in particular concerning the limitation of freedoms and repression of opposition groups.

He was the sixth prominent activist arrested in May – after satirical actor Shady Abu Zeid, former opposition leader Shady Al-Ghazaly Harb, leftist lawyer Haitham Mohamedeen, women rights defender Amal Fathy, and blogger Wael Abbas – all on grounds of spreading false news and joining a banned or terrorist organisation, which typically is a reference to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

Arrests of activists, opposition members or otherwise critical voices are not something new in Egypt, but such a large number of arrested prominent figures in a short time span is exceptional and worrying

An Egyptian PhD student at the University of Washington, Walid al-Shobaky, befell the same fate. He did research on the judicial system in Egypt, and disappeared on 23 May. Four days later he resurfaced in a Cairo prison, and the prosecution ordered his detention on the same accusations of false news and terrorism links.

 

Logic lost

Arrests of activists, opposition members or otherwise critical voices are not something new in Egypt, but such a large number of arrested prominent figures in a short time span is exceptional and worrying. “The situation becomes more difficult, more dangerous,” said Azza Solimon, women’s rights defender and lawyer for the arrested actor Shady Abu Zeid. “There’s no logic anymore.”

Abu Zeid became known from a prank with the police in 2016. On the five-year anniversary of the 25 January Revolution – the popular uprising that forced former president Hosni Mubarak to resign – he handed condoms blown up as balloons to policemen and posted a video of this online. Since, he has received threats from the police, was forced to resign from the television programme he worked for, and started to work for himself, posting humorous videos on a Youtube channel.

 

Discipline critics

Abu Zeid was ‘shocked’ after his arrest, said Solimon, who tries to visit him frequently in prison. “He didn’t understand why he was arrested now. He doesn’t talk politics in his videos, and the accusations are vague.”

He is already over a month in pre-trial detention, and it is not clear when his case will start. “All we can do now is support him,” Soliman said. “I try to help him to deal with this situation, as his lawyer and mother-figure. He may be in jail for a long time.”

Soliman, who herself has a travel ban and whose bank accounts are frozen due to her involvement in activism, believes the recent arrests are a way to ‘discipline’ people. “Any person who joined in the revolution, they want to discipline.”

 

Football fans

In other fields of society the regime leaves no room for dissent. The Ultras Ahlawy, the hard-core fan group of Cairo football club Al-Ahly, dissolved themselves in mid-May, citing the safety of their members. The Ultras White Knights, fan group of the Egypt’s second largest team Zamalek, followed suit two weeks later. The Ultras played an important role during the 2011 revolution, not shying away from a fight with the police during demonstrations.

The mobilising capacity of the Ultras is seen as a threat to the regime and police, who have tried to break up these groups for the past years. Since 2012, supporters are banned from attending stadium matches, clashes between Ultras and police have frequently led to fatalities, and dozens of members are in prison.

“The Ultras are desperate and don’t see a bright future,” said journalist and football fan Mahmoud Mostafa. “They hope for a reconciliation with the regime to get their fellow members out of prison.”

For example, in April this year 21 Ultras were arrested over inciting protests. Seven more were arrested in early May after a confrontation with the police.

A particular dramatic event took place in early 2015. At least 20 Zamalek supporters were killed in a stampede when police fired tear gas at a crowd in front of a stadium’s gate. Afterwards, not policemen but Ultras present at the scene were convicted. They would have incited riots with the police and hence been held responsible for the death of their fellow fans.

 

No space for independent voices

“The regime does not tolerate organised groups outside of its control,” Mostafa said. “The Ultras have a large audience among youth, and have [in the stadiums] an open platform to express an independent voice. That worries the state.”

Mostafa’s words reflect the underlying trend of the recent developments: the state does not want to allow a public space for citizens to express an independent voice, whether it is through social media, videos, stadiums or universities.

While the risks for Egyptians are much higher, foreign journalists are also subject to the crackdown. Two weeks ago French journalist Nina Hubinet was stopped at Cairo airport, interrogated about her previous work on Egypt, and sent back to France. She hadn’t been reporting from Egypt for five years and was only travelling to visit friends.

 

Egypt rejects EU criticism

Last week the European Union expressed its concern about the recent arrests, describing them as a ‘worrying development’. The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded the same day. “No citizen in Egypt is arrested or tried as a result of engaging in an activity in the field of human rights or for directing criticism at the Egyptian government, but for committing crimes punishable by law,” spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid said in a statement.

While the Ultras have succumbed, Soliman remains resilient. “Yes I’m worried, and the arrests are becoming more, but I’m a fighter,” she said. She keeps trying to enforce her and other’s rights by law, even though sometimes it’s also too much for her. “But then I calm down, relax and hold on to the dream: Justice, equality and rule of law.”

That dream however, seems farther away than ever under the second term of President Al-Sisi.

The post President Al-Sisi Pursues Repressive Track with New Wave of Arrests appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Americans protest President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change outside the White House in June 2017. PHOTO: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP

By Saleemul Huq
Jun 6 2018 (The Daily Star, Bangladesh)

A year has passed since President Trump announced that the United States would formally withdraw from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. What has happened since has been a mixture of good and bad—but on the whole, more good than bad.

The obvious bad news was that the biggest and richest country was reneging on a commitment made by its president in Paris. This had several consequences, including the halting of the US pledge to provide funding for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) as part of the commitment of developed countries to provide USD 100 billion each year from 2020 onwards.

It also meant that the US federal government would not try to fulfil the commitments that it had made under President Obama to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases.

However, the worst news is by far for the citizens of the US rather than for the rest of the world. This is the denial of the science and reality of human induced climate change by Trump and the head of the Environment Protection Agency (EPA). This has already had the effect of depriving US citizens of the protection from its own federal government to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change. The more than 4,000 deaths of US citizens in Puerto Rico attributable to Hurricane Maria are just one example.

In contrast, the good news is that many people in the US are not following or even supporting their president. There is a growing movement of Americans who say they are still in the Paris Agreement and will do their best to fulfil the US commitments made under President Obama.

For example, around 20 governors of states, led by Governor Jerry Brown of California, have declared their intentions to fulfil their obligations under the Paris Agreement. In fact, California (which by itself is the 7th largest economy in the world) will be hosting a global summit on climate change in September this year.

At the same time, Mayor De Blasio of New York is leading many dozens of mayors of cities who are committed to fulfilling their obligations as well. In fact, he has re-constituted President Obama’s Climate Change Experts Advisory Committee which Trump had dismissed as soon as he moved
into the White House. This committee is now based at Columbia University in New York and is being funded by both the city of New York and the Governor of the State of New York.

Another even more important change for the better is the market driven shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy across the US even in states under Republican governors. This, despite efforts by Trump to subsidise the coal industry. No one wants to invest in coal any more.

At the international level the major reaction to the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement was to rally everyone else to redouble their commitment. Thus, for example, President Macron of France offered to make up the financial contribution of the US in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) while other developed countries have promised to make up the US deficit of USD 100 billion per year from 2020 onwards.

Another important indicator of US’ isolation on this issue is the fact that not a single country joined the US in withdrawing from the Paris Agreement (unlike when they withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol with Australia by their side).

Perhaps the biggest shift that has taken place, which is not necessarily directly attributable to Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, is the inexorable global shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy driven by a combination of technological advances in wind and solar energy efficiency, along with improved electricity storage capacity (which allows the intermittency problem to be solved).

Countries like China and India are in the forefront of this revolution in energy systems and are likely to be the winners in the 21st-century race to a post-fossil fuel world leaving the US behind and 20th-century technologies.

Finally, while it is important to acknowledge that the decision of Trump to officially withdraw from the Paris Agreement is not a good development for the world, nevertheless, the fact that the rest of the world, and indeed even the people in the US, don’t agree with him is the ultimate good news.

One of the most important, but under-appreciated elements of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change is that while it required the leaders of all countries to come to an agreement first, the implementation of the agreement does not necessarily need those leaders anymore. Anyone and everyone can do his or her own part to implement the agreement without permission from political leaders.

In less than a year of President Trump’s withdrawal, this fact has become abundantly clear.

Saleemul Huq is Director, International Centre for Climate Change and Development at the Independent University, Bangladesh.
Email: Saleem.icccad@iub.edu.bd

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post A year after Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A Nepali family. Credit: Mallika Aryal/IPS

By Sabin Shrestha
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jun 6 2018 (IPS)

Less than thirty years ago the likelihood of a mother dying due to pregnancy or childbirth in Nepal was one of the highest in the world. In 1990 UNICEF estimated that the rate was 901 women or girls out of 100,000 – significantly higher than any of its neighbours.

Since then the country has been somewhat of a global success story in maternal health. By 2015 the rate had been reduced to 215 and it is hoped that it has fallen even further in the last three years.

In the 1990s over half of maternal mortality instances were due to unsafe abortions. Still illegal in most circumstances women often sought backstreet options carried out by untrained personnel. Abortion laws were strictly enforced to the point that pregnant women sometimes feared they would be charged with homicide – even if they miscarried.

I grew up in Kathmandu and have worked on this issue for more than 15 years. I’ve seen how the lives and well-being of Nepalese women and girls were being put at serious risk during a time when they needed support. Thankfully, others were in agreement.

Responding to months of lobbying and coalition-building Nepal’s Parliament passed a bill in 2002 which legalised abortion without exception for 12 weeks. Services to enable women to access reproductive health care were also scaled up in quite a short time frame. Nepal had achieved a minor miracle.

Although a conservative country in many ways the transition was relatively smooth.

But making sustained progress in this landlocked and developing nation, where most people live in a remote or rural area, was not easy. In the past legal abortions were difficult for most women to access and the financial cost in a public hospital was often more than a month’s salary, meaning that some women were either forced to continue with an unintended pregnancy – or avail of an unsafe abortion carried out by somebody without proper medical training.

In the mid 2000s an estimated 4,000 Nepalese women were still dying each year as they were being forced to undergo unsafe abortions.

Coming from a poor household in Western Nepal a young woman called Lakshmi had little hope of being able to pay for an abortion after becoming pregnant. Like many other women her realistic choice was to either get an unsafe abortion or to continue her pregnancy.

She chose the latter, but in 2007, along with our partner the Center for Reproductive Rights and my organisation the Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD), she brought forward what would turn out to be a landmark case.

Lakshmi maintained that Nepal’s government had failed to enforce its own law on reproductive rights and that safe and legal abortion was extremely difficult to access for most Nepalese women and girls – including herself. She argued that it was not sufficient that abortion was technically legal, but that reproductive health care was a basic constitutional right, which should be affordable and easily accessible.

In May 2009 the Supreme Court of Nepal agreed with her and called on the government to promote the availability of safe and legal abortion in Nepal, to enact a new separate act addressing the issues of women’s reproductive health rights, to ensure personal information of women who get abortions remains confidential and to inform, educate and increase awareness among the general public.

This was a major step forward, but it has only partially come to pass. Abortion services are currently available in 75 district hospitals and also in a limited number of primary health check locations. Since 2016 the Nepalese government has also provided free abortion services through Government Health institutions.

However, only 41% of women of reproductive age know that abortion is legal, it is still seen as a social taboo – and even when they do avail of it it is still treated as homicide in some cases. I know of at least 13 women who are serving prison sentences, including Meera, a young woman from Biratnagar, who is currently serving a seven year sentence for infanticide after she had a miscarriage in 2015.

The government has failed to make it possible for women to be able to afford to pay for abortions, a significant number still do not know that abortion is legal, information on contraception is still not properly communicated, and midwives and other medical personnel have yet to be properly trained on reproductive health and rights.

Out of the 323,100 abortions which took place in Nepal in 2014 only 137,000 were safe and legal. Untrained health workers are still carrying out the majority of abortions here.

Following the devastating 2015 earthquake in Nepal that killed over 9,000 people up to 90% of birthing centers in the 14 most affected districts were either seriously damaged or destroyed. During this time abortion was next to impossible to access. Three years on not all have been re-built, meaning that the challenges already faced by pregnant women have been exacerbated.
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However, things may finally be about to change for the better. A new bill on reproductive rights has been recently approved in principle by the Office of Prime Minister and Ministers Council, which will respond to the concerns highlighted by our Supreme Court nine years ago and will separate reproductive rights as a distinct legal issue. It will ensure that women have much better access to information on their rights and that a fund is set up for women who cannot access free abortions, carried out by only qualified health personnel.

We are hopeful that the government will formally enact this into law in the coming months, which will also finally make it impossible to convict a woman of homicide if she has an abortion or suffers a miscarriage. This would provide a context for securing the release of those who are still in prison for very unfair reasons and transform the futures of millions of Nepalese women and girls.

The post Nepal: Where Abortion is Treated as Homicide appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Sabin Shrestha is Executive Director of the Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD), the Kathmandu-based partner of international women's group Donor Direct Action.

The post Nepal: Where Abortion is Treated as Homicide appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Juhern Kim, acting representative of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) in Colombia, gives a presentation on the intergovernmental organisation’s strategies. Credit: GGGI Colombia

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Jun 6 2018 (IPS)

Colombia is a global power in biodiversity and water resources, but at the same time it depends on exports of fossil fuels, coal and oil, to the world. But don’t panic: in the green economy there are also incomes and jobs – says a world expert on the subject, Juhern Kim.

“If Colombia makes intelligent use of its abundant natural resources, its natural capital, it can create new business opportunities linked to bio-economics, sustainable agriculture and forestry, which have the potential to generate income and create green jobs,” Kim, an environmental economist and ecosystem management specialist, told IPS in an interview.

Kim is acting representative in Colombia of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), an intergovernmental organisation created in 2012, which promotes sustainable development that is both economically viable and socially inclusive. It works directly in 26 countries, including Colombia.

In June last year, Colombia ratified the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, by which it pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2030, to help fight global warming.

Among other issues, Kim analysed in his interview with IPS how this South American country is moving towards climate change mitigation and adaptation and a low-carbon economy, as committed to in the climate agreement signed in December 2015 in the French capital, at the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The expert, who previously represented the GGGI in Vietnam and worked on issues related to the green economy at the UN Environment, also analysed how Colombia can make its energy mix and its economy greener in general.

IPS: Colombia is the world’s fifth largest producer of coal. How does the GGGI suggest bringing about an end to mining, an activity that runs counter to the climate accords?

JUHERN KIM: Coal production plays an important role in the Colombian economy: it contributes around 1.5 percent of GDP and 18 percent of total exports. Since about 95 percent of the coal produced in Colombia is exported, national coal production is affected by international market trends.

The recent volatile price fluctuation for commodities, and the associated impact on the Colombian economy, clearly shows that the country’s economy needs to be diversified in order to grow more and better.

Furthermore, future global demand for coal will tend to fall, although it will happen progressively and not for all types of coal.

Many countries have started to shut down their coal plants, and have been working on reducing the consumption of other fossil fuels, reinforced by international commitments such as the Paris Agreement, where Colombia made its own commitment as well.

GGGI promotes a sustainable and inclusive economic growth path, which implies the reduction of coal and other fossil fuel use, due to the negative environmental impacts.

That’s why GGGI has been supporting the government of Colombia for the last year and a half through the National Planning Department (DNP) to formulate a long-term green growth policy, that proposes actions related to the economic activity of coal in three ways:

1. Incorporation of renewable energy in the energy mix. GGGI advocates for countries to achieve energy transitions towards cleaner technologies. In Colombia, the production of electricity from coal amounts to 8 percent of the total.

2. Exploring new economic growth drivers to diversify the economy currently depending on the mining-energy sector (oil and coal exports). For instance, Colombia has abundant resources associated with natural capital, such as biodiversity – if Colombia utilizes these resources wisely, they can create new business opportunities related to bio-economy, sustainable agriculture, forest economy, which have the potential to generate income and create jobs (green jobs).

3. Curbing the environmental impacts of coal mining, especially by informal miners. Coal mining has informality rates close to 40 percent, while many productive units do not have an environmental license and have exploitation techniques that are harmful to the environment. It is intended to strengthen the mining formalization and provide technical assistance to reduce pollution.

IPS: How can the coastal population be protected from the intensification of tropical storms and the advance of coastal erosion?

JK: Colombia is being highly threatened by tropical storms and coastal erosion in two coastal areas that represent nearly 1,700 km in the Caribbean and 1,300 km in the Pacific.

Colombia has coasts on two oceans, and the frequency and intensity of such extreme events has been increasing, which, added to the deficient planning of urban development, increases the vulnerability and risk of people, infrastructure, and ecosystems.

The National Adaptation Plan recognises the country’s vulnerability to this type of events.

The country is now moving in the right direction led by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MADS) by including climate change variables within the planning and zoning of the territories, which will be articulated with adequate financing and technology transfer to implement mitigation measures for this type of risks.

Of particular importance is the ecosystems-based adaptation measure.

In this case, protecting and increasing the mangroves on the coastal lines will reduce coastal erosion, and at the same time allow the sustainable use of this type of ecosystem for the benefit of local people’s livelihood.

In other cases, it will be necessary to implement traditional infrastructure measures that avoid short-term calamities. Increasing local capacities, public awareness, adequate planning and the implementation of risk mitigation measures are key to achieving this objective.

IPS: A key question is the energy transition. How can clean energy be promoted in Colombia? Is community self-management better, or are large regional concessions, criticised as monopolies, preferable?

JK: Colombia has a high proportion of clean energy from hydroelectric generation (70 percent). However, this energy depends on the hydrological cycle which makes it vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

In that sense, it will be beneficial for Colombia to diversify its energy mix with other sources of clean energy, with some policy changes and regulations in the wholesale energy market.

Colombia currently lags behind in terms of the production of non-conventional renewable energy resources, compared to neighboring Latin American countries like Chile. However, Colombia has a strong potential for generation of solar, wind and biomass energy, and those can also serve as alternative off-grid solutions.

We believe that renewable energy projects should be carried out by entities that have the right technical and financial strengths required to develop, operate and maintain this type of projects.

IPS: What does the GGGI think of fracking?

JK: Fracking, like any other exploitation technique, has associated risks in its implementation and management, as it is known for generating many environmental impacts, such as potential contamination of ground and surface aquifers, methane emissions, air pollution, etc. In addition, it also has a potential for increasing oil spills, which can harm soil and surrounding vegetation.

In general, as an institute dedicated to green growth, we promote the development of alternative renewable energy sources to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. As mentioned above, it would be expected that the government make some efforts to diversify their economy to generate new sources of economic development while taking care of the environment and social impact.

IPS: According to environmental analysts, when the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) withdrew from the territories it controlled, it became evident that the guerrillas had played a role as forest rangers in those areas, because thousands of hectares have been razed since then. What is your take on the situation and what do you think can be done?

JK: Although the presence of guerrillas in many forested zones of the country prevented the entry of agricultural expansion and exploration for natural resources in some sense, it is probably not that simple to say that they played a role as forest rangers, because they also supported the production of illicit crops that generated deforestation.

In brief, understanding the reasons for the increase in deforestation in the country is not simple math at all. And finding solutions is not simple as well.

It seems that the post-conflict process has been generating a change in the territorial dynamics, in some cases through an absence of control arguably provided by guerrillas in the past, in other cases through a high-level of speculation associated with unproductive land use, with false hope embedded for some people wanting to be awarded land titles if they put any type of activities in the land, and sell their land at a better price in the future.

The playing field must be levelled. The abovementioned situation prevents rural producers and entrepreneurs from accessing land with adequate support for productive activities and conservation incentives, such as credits (i.e. financial instruments), access to markets, financial incentives for conservation (e.g. payment for ecosystem services), and so on.

In fact, the whole landscape should be properly planned in an integrated way – i.e. sustainable landscapes approach, which promotes economic gains but minimising environmental impact and increasing social returns.

For instance, productive zones for local economic development should be set up, but it is not wise to set them in the biological corridor. Also, financial instruments designed to promote sustainable agriculture methods, such as agroforesty, can be a driver for making a sustainable transition.

Also, Colombia has defined an Integrated Strategy for the Control of Deforestation and Forest Management, which sets clear guidelines on how to address this issue. However, having this strategy is not enough if there is no tight alliance among Colombian society as a whole.

In addition, the public authorities have an important role to play to implement the vision for conservation of forests (i.e. command and control) – e.g. functions of the prosecutor offices, judges and many other actors, committed to reduce illegality.

The post Q&A: Greening Colombia’s Energy Mix appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Constanza Vieira interviews JUHERN KIM, GGGI acting representative in Colombia

The post Q&A: Greening Colombia’s Energy Mix appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Michael Clemens is Co-Director of Migration, Displacement, and Humanitarian Policy & Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development

By Michael Clemens
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 5 2018 (IPS)

The US is going to use aid to shape migration. That’s at least how the president’s remarks seem to have laid it out on Wednesday, when he announced his White House is “working on a plan to deduct a lot of aid” from countries whose nationals arrive at the US border. “[W]e may not just give them aid at all.”

Michael Clemens

The target of these proposed cuts is clear. He was speaking at an event about gangs originating in El Salvador. The president’s words follow a recent series of remarks focused on the gang’s convicted and alleged crimes here in the US, purportedly the result of criminal entities sending members across the border as and among unaccompanied child migrants.

But slashing assistance would miss an opportunity to effectively and cost effectively shape migration through aid. Cooperation in Central America has the potential not only to meet this administration’s goal of reducing illegal migration, but simultaneously to extend more security and opportunity to children in the communities that child migrants are leaving.

To achieve this, the administration’s strategy to shape migration through aid needs to done right.
If evidence isn’t behind the president’s efforts, this policy will at best do nothing to deter illegal migration from El Salvador, and at worst will encourage it.

If what the United States wants to do is prevent irregular child migration in a way that works and is cost effective, it should not do what it has traditionally done—spend ten times as much on border enforcement trying to keep child migrants out as it spends on security assistance to the region.

In fact, smartly packaged security assistance is the only things that have been shown to reduce violence effectively and cost effectively.

This is based on the initial evidence we have: that well-considered expansion of security assistance may reduce child migration. There is a lot of evidence we don’t have—namely, zero evidence that slashing aid will reduce migration.

Let’s take stock of what we do know:

First, cutting aid to the Salvadoran government will not make it stop promoting illegal migration by gang members, because the Salvadoran government is not doing that. Emigration from El Salvador is a choice made by individuals, not a policy of the government.

And the Salvadoran government, like every other government, is barred under international law from restricting emigration of its nationals.

Second, enhanced US assistance can meet the goal of reducing illegal migration, including by Salvadoran youths. This is because projects financed by US aid have been shown to reduce violence in the region, and that violence is a major driver of illegal migration.

We know this from independent and scientifically sound evaluations of such projects. The best example comes from a rigorous multi-year evaluation of USAID-funded crime prevention programming, under USAID’s Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI), including in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

CARSI deployed a package of community-based programs aimed at violence prevention, also encompassing tools such as vocational skills building, engagement of at-risk youth, efforts to boost employment, and community-based policing.

The evaluation is reliable and transparent because it was carefully designed to compare randomly-chosen “treatment” and “control” communities, like a pharmaceutical trial. The package was shown to reduce reports of homicide and extortion by half.

Third, reduced violence acts directly to suppress illegal migration by youths. My research showed this through an unprecedented statistical analysis. I analyzed confidential government data on all 179,000 Unaccompanied Alien Children from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala apprehended by US Customs and Border Protection over a six-year period, linking this to detailed data on violence in their communities of origin.

I find that a decline of ten homicides in an average municipality of this region caused six fewer children from there to be apprehended at the US border. I don’t just mean that less violence was associated with less child migration.

I find that declines in violence caused less child migration, regardless of those Central American municipalities’ geographic location, size, urbanization, ethnic composition, or extent of prior migration.

Putting this together implies that cutting off US assistance to Central American governments in their fight the gangs and cartels could drive more youths to the desperate choice of emigration. That would miss a big opportunity to help those kids find the safety they deserve.

But it will also miss an opportunity to act in the direct national interest of the United States. Assistance that reduces the number of people moving in desperation takes revenue away from the transnational criminal networks that prey on those people.

Beyond this, unaccompanied child migration from Central America is a major burden on every taxpayer in the United States. Hannah Postel and I estimate that each apprehension of a child migrant at the US border costs taxpayers at least $50,000.

Averting just one homicide per year in the region between 2011 and 2016 would have prevented about four child migrant apprehensions—a savings to US taxpayers of $200,000. So if a violence prevention program can stop just one homicide per year, and that program costs less than $200,000 (which is quite likely), that would mean a savings to US taxpayers.

Strategically designing foreign aid programs to effectively reduce violence, building programs on the evidence we have and piloting other ideas of what might work, can help shape the migration flows—including deterring UACs from leaving home. Greater cooperation with Northern Triangle partners can advance the US national interest. Leaving Central America to its fate will do the opposite.

The post US Administration Wants to Control Immigration by Slashing Aid: Here’s What They Need to Know appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Michael Clemens is Co-Director of Migration, Displacement, and Humanitarian Policy & Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development

The post US Administration Wants to Control Immigration by Slashing Aid: Here’s What They Need to Know appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A group of demonstrators protest in the Argentine city of Rosario against the wave of lay-offs of public employees since President Mauricio Macri took office. Credit: Courtesy of Indymedia.org

By Yilmaz Akyüz
GENEVA, Jun 5 2018 (IPS)

It is now more than a decade and a half since the last severe currency crisis in a major emerging economy ‒ that was in Argentina in 2001-2002 following a series of crises in Russia, Turkey and Brazil.  It is now common knowledge that such crises generally occur when countries fail to manage surges in capital inflows so as to prevent build-up of fragility including currency appreciations, large and persistent current account deficits, increased leverage and currency and maturity mismatches in balance sheets.  

The absence of a major crisis in the Global South since the early years of the new millennium owes not so much to judicious management of the surge in capital inflows that had begun in the early 2000s and continued with full force after the global financial crisis, as to persistently benign global financial conditions resulting from exceptional monetary policies in the US, Europe and elsewhere in advanced economies and favourable global risk appetite.

Even though there has been no fundamental reversal of these policies, the arrival of Minsky moment appears to be imminent with markets, in expectations of normalization of monetary policy in the US, getting nervous about the risks they have taken by investing heavily in emerging economies with poor economic fundamentals in search for yield in conditions of low global interest rates and ample supply of liquidity.

Yilmaz Akyüz, chief economist of the South Centre, Geneva.

The first serious signs have appeared in Argentina with the recently elected government of Macri knocking on the doors of the IMF. But Argentina is perhaps only the tip of an iceberg. Several other emerging economies are equally and even more susceptible to sudden stops and reversals of capital flows and currency and balance of payments crises.

In typical IMF interventions in previous crises, liquidity support was provided mainly to keep debtor countries current on their payments to international creditors and to maintain the capital account open.  As a result, obligations to private creditors were translated into debt to the IMF. Simultaneously, austerity was imposed on debtors by means of hikes in domestic interest rates, fiscal retrenchment, cuts in employment, wages and pensions in order to achieve a sharp turnaround in the current account, primarily through import compression, and to restore confidence among international creditors and investors.

This approach to crisis management was widely criticised on several grounds.  A strong case was made that the combination of debtor austerity and creditor bailout would lead to inequality between debtors and creditors in the incidence of the burden of the crisis, create moral hazard by allowing creditors to avoid the full consequences of the risks they have taken and are paid for, and endanger the financial integrity of the Fund.

Inequalities could also be created among creditors; in the event of a default and restructuring, those who exit first could escape without haircut, leaving the others to take the full brunt of debt write-offs. Profit opportunities are also created for vulture funds, at the expense of genuine creditors as well as the debtor, as seen in the case of Argentina.

Considerable scepticism was also expressed within the Fund about the wisdom of using public money to bail out private creditors and investors.  During the earlier episodes of crises, the IMF Board recognized the need for involving the private sector in forestalling and resolving financial crises, but insisted on voluntary mechanisms, notably collective action clauses (CACs) and automatic rollover clauses in debt contracts and informal negotiations between debtors and creditors.

However, as these proved ineffective and some advanced economies started to oppose bailouts, the IMF Board agreed that in extreme circumstances, if it is not possible to reach agreement on a voluntary standstill, members may find it necessary, as a last resort, to impose one unilaterally, and that since there could be a risk that this action would trigger capital outflows, a member would need to consider whether it might be necessary to resort to the introduction of more comprehensive exchange or capital controls.

No protection against litigation was offered, but it was suggested that the Fund could signal its acceptance of a standstill imposed by a member by lending into arrears to private creditors.  The Fund staff went further and proposed a formal Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism (SDRM) to facilitate sovereign bond workouts.  However, this did not elicit adequate support and had to be abandoned. The issue was soon forgotten with a rapid recovery of capital inflows to emerging economies and bounce back of economic activity in crisis-hit countries.

However, private sector involvement in crisis resolution was back on the agenda again with the onset of the Eurozone crisis.  The Fund turned its attention to sovereign debt restructuring after misjudging the sustainability of the Greek debt, very much in the same way as it had done with Argentina about a decade earlier, pouring in money to bail out private creditors.

It restarted searching ways and means for involving the private sector in crisis resolution so as to “limit the risk that Fund resources will simply be used to bail out private creditors” and to ensure that private creditors made some concessions and took some losses on their holdings as a condition for Fund lending.

Subsequently it was suggested that the sovereign approaching the Fund for assistance were to be asked to find ways of rolling over all bonds and commercial loans falling due within the life of the Fund programme.  This would be necessary whether external payments difficulties are perceived to be as one of liquidity or solvency which is often difficult to identify with a reasonable degree of precision ex ante.

This so-called “reprofiling” was again to be market-based and voluntary.  However, no statutory mechanism was proposed for bailing in the private creditors in the event of failure of a voluntary agreement.  In such an event, as long as the IMF stood firm in refusing lending without private sector involvement, the debtor would have had no option but to impose unilateral standstills on its obligations to private creditors, but without any statutory protection against litigation.  Although various proposals were made outside the Fund to address the holdout problem and protect debtors against litigation, the matter was once again put aside without being resolved.

The stakes are now getting higher because of massive amounts of external liabilities that emerging economies built up in the past ten years.  These are not only in debt contracted in reserve currencies, notably by private corporations, but also unprecedented amounts of foreign holdings in local deposit, bond and equity markets.

Furthermore, most emerging economies have eliminated or significantly reduced restrictions over capital outflows by residents. Consequently, exit of nonresidents from local markets and capital flights by residents now constitute bigger sources of potential drain on reserves of emerging economies than external debt contracted in reserve currencies.

Emerging economies are widely commended for large amounts of international reserves they have accumulated in the new millennium.   However, in the large majority of cases these came from capital inflows rather than current account surpluses. Cumulatively, all G20 emerging economies except China and Russia have registered current account deficits since the beginning of the millennium, at a total amount of some $2 trillion while their external labilities have increased by over $4 trillion.

Reserves accumulated is less than a quarter of the increase in total liabilities while the rest of capital inflows (new liabilities) has been used for financing current account deficits or private acquisition of assets abroad – assets that would not necessarily return at times of interruption and reversal of non-resident capital inflows.

As of end 2016, on average, the reserves of deficit G20 emerging economies were less than one-third of their total non-FDI external liabilities including debt issued internationally and non-resident holdings in local deposits, bonds and equities.   In many cases these holdings plus short-term forex debt reach or exceed international reserves. In most cases reserves would be totally inadequate to provide a reliable buffer against a generalized exit of non-residents and a widespread capital flight by residents.

Given the dismal record of the IMF in crisis intervention and management, many emerging economies are loath to go back to the IMF in the event of a severe currency and liquidity crisis, except those such as Argentina whose neo-liberal policies are strongly supported by the IMF.  In any case at some $800 billion, the lending capacity of the IMF would be too small to take on the task. The level of liquidity that may be needed by many emerging economies in the event of capital reversals exceed by a large margin what the IMF could provide under exceptional financing.

Most emerging economies would also be highly reluctant to resort to unilateral debt standstills and exchange controls in view of their exposure to creditor litigation and chronic dependence on international lenders and investors.  On the other hand, not much relief could be expected from South–South multilateral arrangements for liquidity provision, notably the Chiang-Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM) of East Asian countries and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) of BRICS.

These are not only small in size but also have design problems. The CMIM has never been called upon, even during the global crisis. It does not include a common fund but a series of promises to provide liquidity, with each country reserving the right not to contribute to the specific request by a member.  Its size is $240 billion and access beyond 30 per cent of quotas is tied to an IMF program.

The CRA is also designed to complement rather than substitute the existing IMF facilities. Its size is even smaller, $100 billion, and access beyond 30 per cent is also tied to the conclusion of an IMF programme. Thus, these regional arrangements do not provide escape from IMF conditionality and surveillance.

That leaves bilateral swaps among central banks and bilateral lending by governments of reserve-currency countries, notably the US, and surplus emerging economies with ample international reserves such as China.  A very large part of bilateral swaps established by the US Federal Reserve is with other advanced economies.

Those with emerging economies (Brazil and Mexico) are too small to provide much relief.   In the words of the former chair of the US Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, expanding the swap lines to serve as a safety net for countries encountering balance of payments pressures is not within the Fed’s mandate and therefore is a complete non-starter.  China has swaps with over 30 countries. But these are mostly with advanced economies and designed to support trade and investment and to promote the international use of renminbi rather than boost reserves.

To sum, as recognised by the IMF, the global financial safety net including international reserves, Fund resources, bilateral swap arrangements, regional financing arrangements is “fragmented with uneven coverage” and “too costly, unreliable and conducive to moral hazard”.

Given the aversion of emerging economies to the IMF and unilateral debt standstills and exchange controls, the next crisis is likely to be even messier than the previous ones. Some countries may seek and succeed in getting bilateral support from China or some reserve-currency countries according to their political stance and affiliation.

For instance, one of the most vulnerable emerging economies, Turkey, is likely to approach China, Russia or some Gulf states with strong reserve positions rather than the IMF if its currency goes into a free fall. In such cases, crisis intervention would become even more politicised than in the past and a lot less reliant on multilateral arrangements.

By failing to establish an orderly and equitable system of crisis resolution, the IMF may very well find its role significantly diminished in the management of the next bout of crises in emerging economies. In other words, multilateralism, however imperfect, could face another blow in the sphere of finance after trade.

 

The post Renewed Crises in Emerging Economies and the IMF ‒ Muddling Through Again? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Yilmaz Akyüz is chief economist, South Centre, Geneva and former Director of the Division on Globalization and Development Strategies, UNCTAD, Geneva

The post Renewed Crises in Emerging Economies and the IMF ‒ Muddling Through Again? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Residents of the Eastern Cape's Amadiba coastal area gather in September 2015. Many fear mining would threaten their way of life by destroying grazing land and creating rifts in the community. Courtesy: Nonhle Mbuthuma

By Mark Olalde
PRETORIA, Jun 5 2018 (IPS)

South Africans await judgement to be handed down in a court case that could set a sweeping precedent by empowering communities on communal land with the right to reject new mining projects.

Calling the case a referendum on “the right to say no,” residents of several rural villages along the country’s eastern coast are asking the court to reinterpret current minerals extraction legislation to compel mining companies to gain explicit community consent prior to breaking ground on new operations.

The court case, for which arguments were heard in late April in Pretoria, stems from a dispute over a proposed titanium mine that has raged for more than a decade in the country’s rural Eastern Cape province in an area known as the “Wild Coast.” The project has pitted Australian mining company Mineral Commodities Ltd against a group of five local villages, collectively known as Amadiba. Locals consistently turned back the company’s attempts to mine, but bouts of violence have left several people dead.

“Their way of life is intrinsically linked to the land. Customary communities tend to suffer disproportionately from the impacts of mining,” the plaintiffs argued in their submission to the court, noting environmental degradation, displacement and loss of agricultural land. “Without free, prior and informed consent, they are at real risk of losing not only rights in their land, but their very way of being.”

Nonhle Mbuthuma is the secretary and acting leader of the Amadiba Crisis Committee, which represents many residents of the villages. She took over the group’s mantle of leadership when the committee’s chairperson, Sikhosiphi ‘Bazooka’ Radebe, was gunned down in front of his home in March 2016. Radebe was widely thought to have been murdered for his activism against the mine, and Mbuthuma’s name is believed to be written on a hit list alongside his.

“The land is our identity. When we lose that land, we lose who we are. And when you lose who you are, that’s no different than just someone killing you,” Mbuthuma said.

Nonhle Mbuthuma of the Amadiba Crisis Committee is believed to be on a hit list due to her opposition to a proposed titanium mining project on South Africa’s east coast. Credit: Mark Olalde/IPS

The communities and civil society organizations that have joined the plaintiffs asked that if the court does not side with their argument for consent, that it at least grants them the ability to negotiate terms such as royalties prior to mining. If the court declines that too, then the plaintiffs asked that the current legislation be found unconstitutional.

In the court filings, a subsidiary of Mineral Commodities argued that the plaintiffs misinterpreted the law well beyond its intended purpose in an effort to halt the mine, which already earned permits. The company noted that “if granted, [the plaintiffs’ application] will affect land and mining rights all over the country.”

“We hope that if the judge rules in favor of us, it will help all African communities, not only Xolobeni, because the problem of mining pushing people off their land is all over Africa,” Mbuthuma said, referencing one of the five villages in Amadiba that has become synonymous with the conflict.

Formerly under the control of the oppressive apartheid system, South Africa democratically elected a new government in 1994, which worked to return the country’s mineral wealth to its citizens while also fitting into international, capitalist markets. Under current legislation, mineral rights were claimed for the state in an attempt to foster economic development.

However, as the government handed out mining licenses, conflicts arose between mining companies and rural communities living on communal land. About 13 percent of the country’s land area remains held communally in the vestiges of apartheid-era “homelands” that were created as sham independent states to remove black South Africans from urban areas. An estimated 18 million South Africans live on these lands.

Traditional leaders such as chiefs, kings and queens and councils preside over communal land, but their mandate comes from the people, according to customary law. In this set of laws, these leaders cannot make decisions for their communities without the consent of the people.

In many cases, though, traditional leaders strike deals with mining companies that open up communal land to mining, often without community-level consent. This happened in Amadiba, where one chief supported the proposed mine and was made a director of a company linked to the project. In return, the chief said in a signed statement provided to the South African Police Service, he was promised that challenges to his chieftaincy would disappear and that he would earn profits from the mine.

Through a company spokesperson, Mineral Commodities CEO Mark Caruso declined to comment for this story.

Johan Lorenzen is an associate at Richard Spoor Inc. Attorneys, which is part of the community’s legal team. He said that such conflicts are common in rural areas that are struggling to realize the full benefits of a democratic South Africa.

“The majority of rural South Africans live on communal land such as the Amadiba community. Particularly as the world’s largest platinum producer, South Africa has seen a wave of mining right applications over customary land, and, without clarity over this question of whether there’s the right to say no, it has had sweeping effects on tens-of-thousands of people in rural South Africa,” Lorenzen said. He estimates a judgement will be delivered in several months.

The minister of the Department of Mineral Resources announced an 18-month moratorium that temporarily halted both the project as well as any new permit applications for the area. That is set to expire later this year, and it remains unclear what will happen when it does.

As part of the moratorium, the department committed to commission “independent social specialist/s to…investigate the deeply rooted cause of the problems and document the causes and possible solutions” of conflict surrounding the mine.

In a statement to IPS, the department admitted to eschewing that obligation. “There was no independent investigation conducted, due to the well-publicised challenges between the parties in the area,” the statement said, also noting that the department was yet to decide whether to renew the moratorium.

As an alternative way of elevating these residents’ voices, British photographer Thom Pierce recently shot a series of portraits of Xolobeni residents and made the frames into postcards that he plans to mail to the minister of the Department of Mineral Resources. On the postcards, community members described the importance of holding the final say over their own land.

Themba Yalo invoked the memory of the Pondoland Revolt, a 1960s uprising where residents of Amadiba and surrounding communities took up arms against the apartheid government and its supporters. “My grandparents fought for this land, for me to live freely. I will never agree to a mine coming here and destroying the land and the graves of my family,” he wrote.

Others, including Mamthithala Yalo, argued for agriculture instead of mining: “I have pigs, cows and goats that I farm on this land. I also grow all of the food that I need. I will never allow the mining to come and change the way I live. This land is not for sale.”

Related Articles

• Amid South Africa’s Drought, Proposed Mine Raises Fears of Wetlands Impact
• Bringing South Africa’s Small-Scale Miners Out of the Shadows
• Alternative Mining Indaba Makes Its Voice Heard

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By WAM
DUBAI, Jun 5 2018 (WAM)

Marking World Environment Day, DP World’s Jebel Ali Free Zone, Jafza, has launched the UAE’s first green storage and warehouse facilities in Dubai, helping business to reduce their carbon footprint.

The global trade enabler’s sustainable, long term growth is aligned with the United Nation’s ninth Sustainable Development Goal, SDG, to build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation.

While some cool storage facilities are now running entirely on solar energy, an increasing number of other Jafza warehouses will become more energy efficient as DP World’s Solar Programme is rolled out over the coming years.

The project supports the UAE Vision 2021 for a sustainable environment and includes construction of the largest distributed solar rooftop project in the Middle East, with the installation of 88,000 rooftop solar panels on DP World’s Dubai facilities. It is estimated that the panels will produce enough clean power for 3,000 homes a year.

Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, DP World Group Chairman and CEO, said, “Corporate citizenship is part of the fabric of society today and it will play a major part in our future. Building green infrastructure allows us to reduce carbon footprint in our facilities. By investing in these projects, we also encourage the development of new skills, driving economic growth and job creation.

“Our experience and studies have shown that a mindset to conserve and the development of sustainable business practices enables efficient operation. This streamlines effort and saves resources, which enhances employee productivity and reduces cost. It a win-win for all.”

DP World’s Solar Programme also contributes to energy diversification in the region as part of Dubai’s Integrated Energy Strategy 2030, which seeks to reduce energy demand by 30% by 2030.

In 2010, the company was the first international trade enabler to join the Carbon Disclosure Project, CDP, which runs the global system that enables companies, cities, nations and regions to measure and manage their environmental impact.

DP World has been reporting results across its portfolio in 40 countries, monitoring energy use, making terminal operations more efficient, embracing renewable energy projects and investing in low-carbon technologies.

For the third consecutive year in 2017, DP World’s CDP report received the ‘leadership’ score of A-, highlighting the company’s role in implementing best practice in greenhouse gas emissions and improving environmental performance within its industry.

 

WAM/Elsadig Idriss/Hassan Bashir

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Entire neighbourhoods in Raqqa are damaged beyond repair. Credit: Amnesty International

By Donatella Rovera and Benjamin Walsby
RAQQA, Syria, Jun 5 2018 (IPS)

Driving around in Raqqa, it was easy to believe what a senior US military official said – that more artillery shells were launched into the Syrian city than anywhere else since the Viet Nam war.

There was destruction to be seen on virtually every street, in the heaps of rubble, bombed-out buildings and twisted metal carcasses of cars. There were also constant reminders of devastated civilian lives, in the broken possessions, scraps of clothing and grubby children’s toys scattered amongst the ruins.

Between 6 June and 17 October 2017, the US-led Coalition mounted an operation to “liberate” Raqqa from the armed group calling itself the Islamic State (IS). The Coalition claimed its precision air campaign allowed it to oust IS from Raqqa while causing very few civilian casualties, but our investigations have exposed gaping holes in this narrative.

Our new report, ‘War of annihilation’: Devastating Toll on Civilians, Raqqa – Syria, presents the evidence we collected over several weeks in Raqqa, investigating cases of civilians who paid the brutal price for what US Defence Secretary James Mattis promised to be a “war of annihilation” against IS.

Residents were trapped as fighting raged in Raqqa’s streets between IS militants and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters, supported by the Coalition’s air and artillery strikes. IS mined escape routes and shot at civilians trying to flee.

Hundreds of civilians were killed: some in their homes; some in the very places where they had sought refuge; and others as they tried to flee.

We investigated the cases of four Syrian families, who between them lost 90 relatives and neighbours almost all of them killed by Coalition air strikes.

Destruction in Raqqa’s city centre. Credit: Amnesty International

In the case of the Badran family, 39 family members were killed in four separate Coalition air strikes as they ran from place to place inside the city, desperately seeking a way of avoiding rapidly shifting frontlines and coalition air bombardments over the course of several weeks.

“We thought the forces who came to evict Daesh [IS] would know their business and would target Daesh and leave the civilians alone. We were naïve. By the time we had realised how dangerous it had become everywhere, it was too late; we were trapped,” Rasha Badran told us.

“I don’t understand why they bombed us…Didn’t the surveillance planes see that we were civilian families?”

After several attempts to flee, Rasha and her husband finally managed to escape, having lost their entire family, including their only child, a one-year-old girl named Tulip, whose tiny body they buried near a tree.

The Aswads were a family of traders who had toiled hard all their lives to build a home in Raqqa. Some of them stayed behind to defend their home from being looted, sheltering in the basement. But, on 28 June, a Coalition air strike destroyed the building, killing eight civilians, most of them children.

Another family member was killed when he stepped on an IS mine after returning to the city to try to recover the bodies days later.

During the four-month offensive, US, British and French Coalition forces carried out tens of thousands of air strikes. US forces, which boasted about firing 30,000 artillery rounds during the campaign, were also responsible for more than 90% of the air strikes.

The Coalition repeatedly used explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas where they knew civilians were trapped. There is strong prima facie evidence that Coalition air and artillery strikes killed and injured thousands of civilians, including in disproportionate or indiscriminate attacks that violated international humanitarian law and are potential war crimes.

Precision air strikes are only as precise as the information about the targets. In addition, when bombs big enough to flatten whole buildings are being used, as well as artillery with wide-area effects, any claims about minimizing civilian casualties ring hollow.

Amnesty International is urging Coalition members to investigate impartially and thoroughly allegations of violations and civilian casualties, and to acknowledge publicly the scale and gravity of the loss of civilian lives and destruction of civilian property in Raqqa.

The USA, UK and France must disclose their findings. They must be transparent in disclosing their tactics, specific means and methods of attack, choice of targets, and precautions taken in planning and execution of attacks.

They must also review the procedures by which they decide the credibility of civilian casualty allegations and they must ensure justice and reparation for victims of violations.

The victims, including tiny one-year-old Tulip, deserve justice. Coalition members must not risk repeating the same mistakes elsewhere.

The post Civilians Paid a Very High Price for Raqqa’s Devastating “Liberation” by US-led Forces appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Donatella Rovera is a Senior Crisis Response Adviser and Benjamin Walsby is a Middle East Researcher at Amnesty International

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MECLEP Project studied how migration, displacement, and planned relocation can improve adaptation to environmental and climate change. Photo: IOM

By International Organization for Migration
Jun 4 2018 (IOM)

In late March 2017, the IOM published the final report for a project on Migration, Environment, and Climate Change: Evidence for Policy (MECLEP), which concluded that in many cases migration contributes to adaptation to environmental and climate change, as it allows affected families to diversify their income, improve their employment, health, and education opportunities, and prepare them to better face future dangers caused by natural factors.

The study also showed how the displacement of persons due to natural dangers poses more challenges to adaptation, since it often increases the vulnerability of those displaced. The survey conducted by the MECLEP Project in Haiti confirms the results of previous studies (Gütermann and Schneider, 2011; Courbage, et al., 2013; Sherwood, et al., 2014): the vulnerability of the persons displaced by the 2010 earthquake increased after the earthquake. Many of these people ended up living for several years without basic services such as potable water, food, restrooms, sanitation, and adequate protection. On the other hand, however, seasonal migration (temporary migration without a permanent change of residence) turned out to be a positive adaptation strategy in Haiti.

Consequently, one policy-related recommendation that came out of the study points out the importance of doing everything possible to avoid the displacement of persons, while facilitating other forms of mobility such as seasonal migration, thus strengthening the resilience of famililes in the face of natural dangers and reducing the risk of disasters.

The study calls for preventing the displacement of persons, while facilitating other forms of mobility such as seasonal migration. Photo: IOM

Other recommendations

Another important point highlighted by the MECLEP research refers to planned relocation, which can be a successful adaptation strategy while also exposing the population to new vulnerabilities. For example, field research conducted in the Dominican Republic (focused primarily on relocation of the population of Boca de Cachón, Jimaní, affected by the rising waters of Lake Enriquillo), shows that the relocation was positive in that it provided access to housing for the community, but the scarcity of water in the new lands ruled out farming, thus causing a great loss of the population’s ties to the land. In this sense, the study’s multiple recommendations for policy makers included the need to formulate politics and design relocation programmes with a socio-territorial focus and an emphasis on social participation when putting adaptation measures into practice.

Other important policy-related recommendations point out the need to integrate migration into urban planning efforts in order to reduce challenges for both the migrants and the destination communities, as well as the need to give special consideration to gender-related issues and the needs of the most vulnerable groups.

Generally speaking, the MECLEP Project stressed the importance, for countries affected by climate change, of gathering data and carrying out research on the connection between migration and climate change, in order to formulate proper policy responses. Workshops based on the first training manual focusing on the theme of migration, the environment, and climate change helped to develop tools for integrating human mobility into climate change adaptation plans and incuding environmental aspects in Haiti’s draft migratory policy.

The MECLEP Project, financed by the European Union and executed by the IOM with a consortium of six universities, concluded in late March 2017 after three years of implementation (January 2014 — March 2017). The objective of the Project was to study how migration, displacement, and planned relocation can improve adaptation to environmental and climate change, by comparing data gathered in six countries (the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Kenya, the Republic of Mauritius, Papua New Guinea, and Vietnam), as part of the IOM’s broader efforts in the area of migration, the environment, and climate change.

________________________________________

Further Information
• Diagnosis of Information for Public Policies: Migration, Environment, and Climate Change in the Dominican Republic (text in Spanish)
• Challenges, Proposals, and Policies: Migration, Environment, and Climate Change in Haiti (text in French)
• Glossary on Migration, the Environment, and Climate Change (text in Spanish)

About the Authors:
Irene Leonardelli worked as a Research Assistant at the IOM’s Global Migration Data Analysis Centre in Berlin. Between October 2015 and March 2017, she collaborated with the MECLEP Project (Migration, Environment and Climate Change: Evidence for Policy). Leonardelli holds a Master’s Degree in International Migration and Social Cohesion from the University of Amsterdam, as well as a Licentiate Degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Bologne.

Guillermo Lathrop is a staff member at the Latin American School of Social Sciences (FLACSO), where he has worked on issues related to local economic development. Lathrop collaborated with the MECLEP Project in 2015 and 2016. In addition, he served as a conference speaker on regional development at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Holland. He holds a graduate degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the Catholic University of Chile.

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In one of her last public appearances as president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet visits Lo Prado, a community in Santiago, the capital, on International Women’s Day, March 8, 2018. Her advice to women and girls who want to lead an exemplary life in our chaotic times? Don’t try to be perfect.

By Dulcie Leimbach
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 4 2018 (IPS)

Michelle Bachelet ended her second term as president of Chile on March 11, 2018. Her first term, from 2006 to 2010, was marked by an ambitious social and economic agenda advancing women’s rights and better health care. Her cabinet of ministers, for example, was composed of an equal number of men and women, as she vowed to do during her campaign.

During her second presidency, Bachelet, 66, aimed higher in reducing inequalities but met more resistance. Nevertheless, her achievements included free education at the university level, especially for poor students; creating a Ministry of Women and Gender Equality; and decriminalizing abortion.

Her tax-reform measures helped subsidize her social reforms, although some experts contend that higher taxes on the rich and corporations have stifled the economy.

Bachelet’s history of being imprisoned and tortured in Chile is well known. In 1973, her father, Brig. Gen. Alberto Bachelet Martínez, was locked up and tortured after the Sept. 11 coup ousting President Salvador Allende, aided and abetted by the CIA.

Her father died in prison from a heart attack in 1974; soon after, Bachelet and her mother, Ángela Margarita Jeria Gómez, a famous archeologist, were imprisoned and tortured by the Pinochet regime.

Bachelet and her mother sought and won exile first in Australia and then moved to East Germany, where Bachelet worked on her medical degree, married and had her first child.

She and her family returned to Chile in 1979, where she delved into politics a few years later (and separated from her husband). When she first ran for president, she was a single mother of three children.

That’s not all: besides being a pediatrician, Bachelet is a military specialist, having served as the country’s health minister and then defense minister before winning the presidency in 2006.

Bachelet, who between her presidencies was the first executive director of UN Women, is said to be a shortlisted candidate for the next United Nations high commissioner for human rights, though she would not confirm that status.

In an email interview with Bachelet, who has been traveling since March from Chile to Washington, D.C., to Geneva, India and back to Chile, she answered questions about her immediate post-presidential life, which appears to be just as active — if equally public — as her job running one of South America’s most democratic countries.

When Bachelet left office, she was the last female president standing in the continent.

In the interview, she touches on her new role in the World Health Organization; how her role as the first female defense minister of Chile, from 2002 to 2004, enabled her to garner the respect from that sector that she needed to run the country; how her mother has supported her emotionally throughout her life; what advice Bachelet gives to girls and women in our chaotic times; and whether she prays (she is an agnostic, she answered). — DULCIE LEIMBACH

Q. You’ve just become a private citizen after your recent four-year presidential term ended in mid-March; how does that feel and what is a routine day for you now? Are you based in Santiago, Chile’s capital?

MICHELLE BACHELET: I’ve enjoyed going back to my everyday life! However, I haven’t stayed home resting. I’m based in Santiago, I moved back to my house — I lived in another house during my Presidency — and I’ve also been busy opening up my new foundation, which will serve as a space for dialogue and political reflection, without partisan divisions, and that will take on the challenge of articulating a common project with civil society.

Q: Tell us about your new role as co-chair of the High-Level Steering Group for Every Woman Every Child and chairman of the board of the World Health Organization’s Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health? What do women and girls need the most globally, health-wise? And what is your strategy for attaining these needs? Will it require politicking?

BACHELET: I am very excited about [my] new role in the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. I’ve been working on this issue since the mid-1990s at a national level, and hopefully, will continue to contribute in an international sphere.

The health inequities that prevail all around the world, particularly among women and girls, are not only unjust, they also threaten the advances we have made in the last decades, and they endanger economic growth and social development.

I believe that each country needs to develop an integrated health program for women and girls, strengthening components of the United Nations’ global strategy [Sustainable Development Goals] in early childhood development; the health and well-being of adolescents; the improvement in quality, equity and dignity in health services; and sexual and reproductive rights as a way to empower women and girls worldwide and without leaving anyone behind.

The global strategy establishes ambitious but achievable goals, and I look forward to discussing with states and stakeholders about the required actions needed to ensure that people realize their right to the highest attainable standard of health.

Q. Do you think it helped in your two presidencies that you had been a defense minister of Chile, that you had the trust of the military, especially since you are a woman?

BACHELET: Yes, of course. My family has always been linked to the military world. My father was a general in Chile’s air force and I studied defense issues, focusing on military strategy and Continental defense.

When I was appointed the first woman to occupy the position of Minister of Defense in Chile and in Latin America, my academic and military background was considered an asset and that led to very good relationships with this institution during my time as Minister and during my Presidency.

Q. How did you navigate barriers to your ambitious social and economic agenda in your second term as president of Chile? What personal trait or support did you rely on to deal with barriers in your way?

BACHELET: Since the return of democracy in 1990, Chile has experienced sustained economic growth at an annual average of 5 percent, and became the first South American country to join the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development]. However, this strong growth has not meant the end of inequality in access to health or education.

That is why, when I returned in 2013 to run for my second term, I was determined to carry out the kind of social, economic and political reforms that I believed were necessary to make people’s lives better. In order to do that, we have risked political capital and I believe it was worth it, because we had the courage to put Chile in motion, and with it, we have seen Chile change.

Q. Your mother, Ángela Margarita Jeria Gómez, an archeologist, reportedly lives with you; how has her presence helped you as president? Did she keep your spirits up in such a demanding, round-the-clock role?

BACHELET: Although I am very close with my mother, at 91 years old, she continues to be very independent and does not live with me! She is an inspiring, strong, dignified and resilient companion, but also a very affectionate and supportive presence, especially during the harder parts of being president. I am thankful for her companionship me during these past years.

Q. Chile is a predominately Catholic country; do you practice that religion? Do you use your faith to manage your life and the political obstacles? Do you pray?

BACHELET: Chile is a diverse society with different religious beliefs, cultural backgrounds and socioeconomic realities. I, however, am agnostic and believe in the diversity of opinions and worldviews, respecting people’s freedom of worship. During my government, we protected religious freedom based on equality and respect.

For example, we supported the Chilean Association of Interreligious Dialogue for Human Development, made up of various organizations, including the plurality of religions found in Chile. We also worked on an interreligious code of ethics for dialogue for democratic coexistence. I am certain that the respectful expression of convictions is good for our country, and enriches us as a society.

Q. It’s relatively easy to advise women and girls to persevere in seeking the life they want — in education, work and as a person — but what is the most important thing for women and girls to remember in trying to lead an exemplary life, especially in our chaotic times?

BACHELET: I get asked this question often and my answer is always the same: don’t try to be a superwoman or a super girl, because it will only bring frustrations. Instead, seek the help of someone you can count on. Be assertive but also learn the art of dialogue, learn to communicate. And, of course you should have a sense of humor!

*PassBlue is an independent, women-led digital publication offering in-depth journalism on the US-UN relationship as well as women’s issues, human rights, peacekeeping and other urgent global matters, reported from our base in the UN press corps. Founded in 2011, PassBlue is a project of the New School’s Graduate Program in International Affairs in New York and not tied financially or otherwise to the UN; previously, it was housed at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. PassBlue is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News.

The post ‘Don’t Try to Be a Superwoman’: An Interview With Michelle Bachelet appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Dulcie Leimbach, PassBlue*

The post ‘Don’t Try to Be a Superwoman’: An Interview With Michelle Bachelet appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A demonstration outside the UN in Geneva by the Society for Threatened Peoples.

By Ulrich Delius
GOTTINGEN, Germany, Jun 4 2018 (IPS)

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) are an important partner of the United Nations to implement the UN Charter and to strengthen its values. But in times when authoritarian regimes are increasing their influence in the United Nations, especially human rights groups are coming under pressure in the world organization.

Some authoritarian regimes recently started waging a war on human rights at the UN. They started lobbying to cut funding for human rights monitors of the UNor for senior posts in the world organization dedicated to human rights work. They didn’t stop in deliberately cutting human rights programs.

Nowadays they are using their membership of the NGO Committee of the UN to keep some NGO’s, particularly human rights groups, out of the world organization, or to put them under fire.

The NGO Committee’s antipathy towards independent NGO’s may not be a surprise, because many of its member states are well known for their desperate human rights record.
Sudan, Turkey, Mauritania, Burundi, Pakistan, Russia and China, to cite only a few of these problematic member states, are not famous for their respect of human rights.

Some of these states, like Sudan and China, are members of the Committee since more than 20 years. Others, like Russia, have been on the Committee since decades.

The new world order brings many changes to the UN. The influence of authoritarian states in the world organization continues to grow. Non-governmental organizations must not be silenced just because they draw attention to serious human rights violations.

They only are doing their job in researching and documenting human rights violations around the world. Society for Threatened Peoples is one of hundreds of NGO’s having a consultative status at the United Nations.

Since we got the status 25 years ago, we have been committed to support persecuted ethnic and religious minorities, nationalities and indigenous peoples at the UN. If voices like ours are no longer heard, the UN loses its credibility.

In the last 25 years, some authoritarian states have tried to put pressure on our human rights group to ignore human rights violations. But the intimidations have been increasing in recent time.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrovhas labelled us a “terrorist organization” because we have called for an end of genocidal wars in Chechnya and have urged more protection for the civilian population.

Nowadays China has increased its pressure on our association. Only a few hours before the start of this year’s session of the NGO Committee, the Peoples’ Republic officially has called on the Committee not only to suspend the consultative status of our organization for a limited time but permanently to withdraw the NGO status of our human rights organization because of an alleged violation of UN rules.

After protests by democratic states, China finally withdrew its application during the UN’s May 2018 session of the NGO committee in New York.

China had considered the accreditation of our long-time Uighur member Dolkun Isa at a UN conference in April 2018 as a violation of UN rules and called the human rights activist from Munich a “terrorist.”

This view was opposed in the NGO Committee. Dolkun Isa is a German citizen and one of the most important voices of the Uighurs who face serious human rights violations. Such voices must not be silenced.

As governments worldwide shrink the space of civil society, it’s vital that the UN remain a forum of exchange of views between the civil society and governments and a platform to advocate for human rights.

The civil society is a key element in solving global problems. It should not be excluded from the international dialogue on conflict resolution, the protection of the civilian population in armed conflicts and the respect of human rights and dignity.

We are calling for an international discussion on the growing influence of authoritarian states at the UN. NGOs need more support from democratic states so that it continues to be possible to address human rights violations openly at the UN.

The post Growing Influence of Authoritarian Statesat UN a Threat to NGOs appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Photo Courtesy: ACWADAM

By Dr Himanshu Kulkarni and Uma Aslekar
Jun 4 2018 (IPS)

A growing demand for water implies the need for an improved understanding of our resources, and the ability to manage that demand in an equitable and sustainable way.

Wells, not dams, have been the temples of modern India

India is a groundwater economy. At 260 cubic km per year, our country is the highest user of groundwater in the world–we use 25 percent of all groundwater extracted globally, ahead of USA and China.

When we think of water however, our brains have been programmed to think of large dams and rivers, and not wells. This, despite the fact that India has at least four crore irrigation wells and millions of farmers who use well water in agriculture.

“How can you own the water below your land, when the water in your well has come from underneath someone else’s land and the water from under your land is naturally going to flow underneath your other neighbours’ lands?”
India was not the highest extractor of groundwater in the 1960s and 70s; the Green Revolution changed that. At independence the share of groundwater in agriculture was 35 percent; today it is a startling 70 percent.

 

Looking at water as a common pool resource

People tend to think of groundwater only through an agriculture or urban water supply lens. This however, is just a supply-side perspective that lacks an understanding of what the resource is, and what we need to do to ensure better use of it.

We need to think of groundwater as a common pool resource; the challenge however is that this common pool resource is almost invisible.

In villages, the perception often is, “This is my land and hence the water below it is my water.” But the question we’ve been asking communities to think about is, “How can you own the water below your land, when the water in your well has come from underneath someone else’s land and the water from under your land is naturally going to flow underneath your other neighbours’ lands?”

Once this has been explicitly stated and explained, people are quick to understand it especially if you use science derived from data that has been collected by communities themselves.

But while the science is about hydrogeology and the mapping of water sources, the more important aspect is the application of this science – which is effective only if it involves bringing the resource (aquifers) and communities and villages together in the processes and solutions – what we call Participatory Ground Water Management (PGWM).

 

Photo Courtesy: ACWADAM

 

Thinking about water as a resource and not just a source

The conventional thinking is that check dams—which are essentially percolation tanks–will collect water that will percolate and recharge the groundwater. A common misconception among both the communities as well as organisations working in watershed management is that it is the wells that are being recharged.

But wells are only the sources of water and a mechanism to access water and distribute it according to needs and often, demand. Wells are not the resource; aquifers are the resource. (Aquifers are underground layers of porous and permeable rock capable of storing groundwater and transmitting it to wells and springs.)

If you can identify your aquifer, then you know precisely where to put your recharge structure (or, check dam). So now, instead of four checkdams that you would place in areas where ‘water collects’, you could make do with two accurately positioned check dams where the aquifers are, thereby reducing costs by half while also ensuring optimal recharge.

Usually, once the watershed programme is implemented, no one cares about what happens to the water in the aquifer. Farmers tend to dig deeper, make larger wells with the presumption that unlimited water is now available for the taking. Such actions are not necessarily sustainable.

It is therefore important to move the focus from wells (sources) to aquifers (resources). By changing this lens, the focus then shifts from merely looking at what is going in and coming out to a variety of aspects: How do you balance livelihoods and ecosystem needs, or what happens to economic returns from groundwater and how does the drinking water security get affected when an aquifer depletes.

 

Communities need to have this knowledge

Having understood the theory and implications behind aquifers and ground water, communities and villages have been keen on getting trained in these areas. Imparting these key hydrogeological skills to nonprofits and rural practitioners is therefore key to improving decentralised water management in India.

Over the last 20 years, we at ACWADAM, have trained para workers within communities. These individuals are now able to intelligently design the watersheds, talk to their communities, monitor progress, and ensure better decision making and management of groundwater.

As a result, communities are more aware of the uses of check dams – why they are built in specific locations, what their purpose is, and what that will mean for the village.

Panchayats are also now asking for knowledge and help. They are even willing to pay for the costs incurred, which for us signals just how important this is to the village as a whole.

 

The decisions on water should rest with the people

90 percent of rural India’s drinking water comes from groundwater and 75 per cent of agriculture is groundwater based. In urban India, 50 percent of the water supply is groundwater based.

Given this high dependence on groundwater it is extremely important that we bring democratic processes to groundwater management. When we share our hydrogeology results with communities, we at ACWADAM don’t influence the decisions, we don’t tell them what to do.

We share the results – this is saline and is a larger aquifer; this other one has fresh water and gets used faster. And we give them ‘protocols’ – a menu of possible options to decide upon. We tell the villagers that these are the limitations, and these are the possibilities.

This information serves as a starting point for a dialogue. The community then decides what they should do and what they should avoid.

When communities collect data and you derive knowledge from that data, they will trust the data. And they are more likely to change their behaviour and practices. When you move the decision making and power to the people themselves, change is not as difficult as we make it out to be.

It also then becomes change that is based on scientifically informed decisions; there is seldom total failure from such decisions.

Since it’s about water, there are always power dynamics at play

The science of groundwater is not only about hydrology; it’s sociology, psychology, politics, economics and ecology as well. The power dynamics around sharing are about people as well as the stakes involved–who has how much stake in what. The landless have more stake in ecology, the large farmers have a stake in economics, the small marginal farmers in sociology.

The first step towards getting people to even think about sharing is to have them cooperate in some formal-informal capacity. Unless people and communities cooperate, you can’t protect the resource, you can’t make it sustainable.

 

Photo Courtesy: ACWADAM

 

It therefore needs good governance

Surface water is typically characterised by conflict–who’s getting what water, how much, where is it coming from, do we want to bring it from further and further away. Being above ground and visible, people are quick to fight over it!

With groundwater there is limited conflict; instead, people compete with each other because one can compete endlessly over invisible resources; you can go deeper, and you can have as many water sources as you want on your land.

Our social narratives, infact, are built around groundwater. The woman of the house who manages drinking water and her husband who handles agriculture are often managing water from two different sources for two different activities. Often, these sources tap the same aquifer. Hence, the couple are in tacit competition without being aware that they are; both their needs are met by the same underlying aquifer. So, if you use up too much water for agriculture, then drinking water is a problem and scarcity results. How do you tackle this?

All of this therefore needs good governance and good management. And governance itself is based on science, participation management and institutions in the village. The panchayat, which usually makes these decisions, is therefore critical to the success of this approach. We don’t go and work in an area unless we have formal permission from the panchayat.

 

This approach needs more supporters

Participatory groundwater management needs more support. Corporates often say that it is high hanging fruit – since it is dependent on the annual rain-cycle, it takes a year for the research/hydro-geological study, and only then can any of the actual work start on building check dams or changing usage patterns. The results take time to ‘show’.

Moreover, results are usually in the form of aggregated small changes—drinking water security, improved crop yields and so on–and given the invisible nature of the resource itself, these visible changes are often difficult to perceive. However, such changes are longer lasting, making the effort sustainable and efficient.

It is much easier to invest in the digging of bore wells and building of tanks. But if we as a nation want to ensure that the access to water is adequate, equitable, and sustainable, we must look at both science and community participation for answers, rather than building more and more infrastructure in pursuit of visibility.

This shift is perception will go a long way in changing the way we look at groundwater in India.

 

Dr. Himanshu Kulkarni is the executive director and secretary at Advance Centre for Water Resources Development and Management ACWADAM, Pune. He has been actively involved in the advocacy for stronger programmes on groundwater management in India, through his inputs, more recently as Chairman, Working Group on Sustainable Groundwater Management for India’s 12th Five Year Plan. Groundwater resources have held Himanshu’s interest for nearly 30 years now. He holds a PhD in groundwater (1987), has travelled to the US on a Fulbright Scholarship and to Austria as a UNESCO scholar.

Uma Aslekar is a senior scientist with ACWADAM. She has been working with ACWADAM since 2002. A geographer by education, Ms. Alsekar completed her M.Sc. in Geomorphology from the University of Pune. Earlier on, she worked with the National Commission for SC/ST, Govt. of India as an Investigator, for four years.

 

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

The post The Politics of Groundwater appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

In order to make access to water adequate and equitable, we must shift our focus from water sources to water resources. Both science, and community participation and cooperation, are key to addressing our water woes.

The post The Politics of Groundwater appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By WAM
DUBAI, Jun 3 2018 (WAM)

The UAE Ministry of Energy and Industry, MOEI, and Emirates Wildlife Society in association with WWF, EWS-WWF, today released a joint report highlighting which innovative policies, incentives, and technologies could accelerate the UAE’s progress towards its target of 44 percent renewable energy capacity by 2050.

The report is an output of EWS-WWF’s renewable energy project, which is supported by The Sustainable City.

Entitled ‘Enabling the UAE’s Energy Transition: Top Ten Priority Areas for Renewable Energy Policymakers,’ the report provides decision makers across the UAE with science-based, stakeholder-driven recommendations to achieve the goals of the UAE National Energy Plan 2050. Building on the current efforts of the Ministry of Energy and Industry, the report highlights that it is key for the UAE to continue developing an effective renewable energy policy framework, with a complementary target and strategy for reduction of the country’s carbon emissions.

Renewable energy is a significant part of the solution and we applaud the UAE leadership’s readiness to enable the nation’s energy transition
Laila Mostafa Abdullatif, Director-General, EWS-WWF

Implementing an energy plan guided by the report’s recommendations will contribute to energy security, emissions reductions, economic growth, and job creation. The report has been developed with support from property service solutions provider, Khidmah, which is also an EWS-WWF Platinum Partner of the Sustainable Partnership Programme.

Fatima Al Foora Al Shamsi, Assistant Under-Secretary for Electricity and Future Energy at the Ministry, said, “The UAE’s leadership is committed to renewable energy and, with the UAE National Energy Plan 2050, has provided a visionary strategy that has the potential to unlock a wide range of economic, social and environmental benefits.

The recommendations in this new report highlight innovative pathways for accelerated progress towards our renewable energy target. The proposed measures are both informed by international best practices and rooted in the UAE’s local context, building on our nation’s position as a leading supporter of low-carbon growth.”

Commenting on the report, Laila Mostafa Abdullatif, Director-General of EWS-WWF, said, “Globally, climate change is the defining issue of our time and we need to act while we still have a window of opportunity. Renewable energy is a significant part of the solution and we applaud the UAE leadership’s readiness to enable the nation’s energy transition.”

“There is still a lot of untapped potential for accelerated uptake of renewable energy – from large-scale utility plants down to solar rooftops. We encourage key renewable energy policymakers to work together to develop innovative green finance mechanisms, promote competition amongst emerging technologies, and effectively use and develop electricity networks,” she added.

The MOEI is actively engaging with stakeholders to put some of these recommendations into action through a variety of programmes and initiatives. This includes the Ministry’s strategic partnership with EWS-WWF, which runs until 2020 and was inspired by the Future Energy Lab 2017, where His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, approved and launched the UAE National Energy Plan 2050.

The Sustainable City, by Diamond Developers, represents the voice of the private sector in this report. Its rooftop solar PV installations serve as a case study advancing Net Zero developments in the region. The Sustainable City is a low-carbon residential and mixed-use community in Dubai that aims to become the region’s first operational net zero development – a unique challenge in the harsh climate of the UAE.

Commenting on The Sustainable City’s use of renewable energy in Phase 1, Faris Saeed, the CEO of Diamond Developers, said “With 6.4 MWp of grid-connected solar panels on the rooftops of our villas and parking areas, we are already able to achieve and exceed Net-Zero during winter months. Our experience showcases the role the private sector must play in low-carbon development and how rooftop solar PV is already commercially attractive in the UAE. We are extremely happy with the results so far and look forward to the completion of Phase 2, which will be 100 per cent solar powered using high efficiency modules.”

Jahed Rahman, Managing Director of Khidmah, said, “With the development of a policy framework for increased renewable energy in the UAE, individuals, corporations, and government entities will be able to make an active contribution to turning the country’s energy ambitions into a sustainable reality.”

Abdullatif concluded, “EWS-WWF is committed to supporting the UAE’s progress towards a low-carbon future. With renewable energy, we already have the solutions, now it is a matter of putting them into action”.

The report, Enabling the UAE’s Energy Transition: Top Ten Priority Areas for Renewable Energy Policymakers, represents a stepping-stone and is intended as the beginning of a cascade of events leading to the achievement of the UAE’s energy and sustainability goals.

WAM/Nour Salman

The post Top 10 priority areas for renewable energy policymakers announced appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Volunteers from the Peruvian Institute for the Protection of the Environment Vida clean up the waste washed up by the sea on the coast near Lima. Half of the 6,000 tonnes of marine debris collected by the organisation since 1998, with the support of 200,000 volunteers, is disposable plastic. Credit: Courtesy of Vida

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 3 2018 (IPS)

Although Latin America produces just five percent of the world’s plastic, it imports billions of tons annually for the use of all kinds of products, some of which end up in the sea as garbage.

It thus contributes to this kind of artificial tsunami that threatens the biodiversity of the oceans, where 13 million tons of waste, mostly disposable plastics, are dumped each year at a global level, according to UN Environment – enough to wrap around the Earth four times..

The impact is such that it also affects human health, as this resistant waste enters the food chain, and has led the United Nations to declare “Beat Plastic Pollution” as the theme for this year’s World Environment Day, on Jun. 5."Plastic discarded improperly on beaches, rivers and the sewers ends up in the sea and causes the death of thousands of marine animals every year. Drinking straws, cigarette butts, caps, plastic bags, improperly discarded, represent the highest percentage of environmentally hazardous materials for marine wildlife." -- Marcelo Szpilman

Favoured by a 3,000-km coastline on the Pacific Ocean, with one of the world’s most nutrient-rich waters, Peru was one of the first Latin American countries to join the Clean Seas campaign, launched a year ago by UN Environment.

The global campaign aims to eliminate by 2022 the main sources of marine debris, which can remain in ecosystems for 500 years. There are five identified ‘islands’ of plastic rubbish in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, one of them between Chile and Peru.

“We have witnessed firsthand the serious impacts of different types of waste, including plastic in our seas,” said Ursula Carrascal, project coordinator for the Institute for the Protection of the Environment Vida in Peru.

For 20 years, the organisation has been leading a campaign to clean up beaches and coastlines in this Andean country, involving all sectors of society.

According to Carrascal, the problem is exacerbated when the country suffers additional damage caused by natural disasters, such as the “La Niña” phenomenon that in 2017 caused flooding and the shifting of tons of waste accumulated on river banks.

“Marquez Beach in Callao was literally covered in garbage for three km. Many beaches are now gone, fishing boats and artisanal fishermen are affected by the damage to their nets or engines caused by plastic,” she told IPS from Lima.

The country, according to the Environment Ministry, generates 6.8 million tons of solid waste. Lima and the neighbouring port city of Callao alone generate an estimated three million tons per year. Of that total, 53 percent is organic waste, and in second place comes plastic, accounting for 11 percent, a percentage in line with the world average.

In fact, half of the 6,000 tons of marine debris collected by Vida since 1998, with the support of 200,000 volunteers, is plastic.

“There is a strong concern about the risk in the field of food safety due to the plastic accidentally ingested by fish,” Carrascal said.

The governmental Marine Institute of Peru has been studying the impact of microplastic (less than five mm long) on Peruvian beaches and in the digestive tract of fish for years. A 2017 report found 473 plastic fragments per square metre on a beach in Callao.

The British Ellen MacArthur Foundation, dedicated to promoting the circular economy – based on the reduction of both new materials and waste, to create loops of recycling – warns that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans and reminds us that all marine life eats this waste.

One of the consequences, say scientists at Ghent University in Belgium, is that when you eat fish and seafood, you ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic, a material most commonly derived from petrochemicals, every year.

In Brazil, a country with more than 9,000 km of coastline on the Atlantic Ocean, a marine aquarium was inaugurated in October 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. AquaRío, which promotes environmental education and scientific research for biodiversity conservation, is the institution with which the Clean Seas campaign was launched.

Guanabara bay, a symbol of Río de Janeiro, Brazil which until recently was surrounded by waste, mainly plastic, along its shores, has changed thanks to new awareness among groups like fisherpersons, who are helping to keep it clean. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

“Plastic discarded improperly on beaches, rivers and the sewers ends up in the sea and causes the death of thousands of marine animals every year. Drinking straws, cigarette butts, caps, plastic bags, improperly discarded, represent the highest percentage of environmentally hazardous materials for marine wildlife,” director Marcelo Szpilman told IPS.

“The remains of nets, fishing lines, ropes and plastic bags abandoned in the sea remain in the environment for many years due to their low biodegradability and end up injuring or killing countless animals that end up entangled and die by asphyxiation or starvation,” added the marine biologist.

To raise awareness among children about this silent killing at sea, the aquarium uses the image of mermaids dying from the ingestion of plastic.

This happens in reality in the oceans to fish, birds, seals, turtles and dolphins that confuse floating plastic waste with octopuses, squid, jellyfish and other species that they eat.

“Dolphins have been found with their stomachs full of city trash. Cigarette butts, the most widely collected item in all beach clean-up campaigns, have caused the death of animals that swallow them mistaking them for fish eggs,” Szpilman said.

In addition, he noted, “a plastic bag drifting at sea is easily mistaken for a jellyfish, which is a food for several species of sea turtles, which as a result can die from asphyxiation.

According to experts, in Brazil and other Latin American countries, the problem is combated with isolated initiatives, such as the banning of plastic bags in supermarkets, when what is needed is a broader change in the model of plastic production and consumption.

But some things have started to be done.

In Peru, for example, Vida has coordinated actions with the waste management industry to promote the circular economy model through recycling chains with the waste collected in coastal cleanups throughout the country.

This work has been carried out not only with large industry but also with small and medium-sized enterprises and the National Movement of Recyclers of Peru.

“Greater efforts and investment in recycling technology are needed to solve the plastic problem. In Peru, much of the plastic waste collected, although it could be 100 percent recycled, is not recycled because there are no recycling plants, due to lack of knowledge or lack of adequate technology,” Carrascal said.

In his opinion, “great progress is being made in the separation of waste from primary sources, but this cycle ends when the waste ends again in a landfill.”

The Peruvian model of waste management in the marine ecosystem has been used as a reference point in other countries of the Southeast Pacific, including Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and Panama.

Related Articles

• Saving the Oceans, Saving the Future: Officials Tackle Marine Pollution
• UN Declares War on Ocean Plastic
• World Running Out of Time to Save Oceans

The post Plastic Tsunamis Threaten Coast in Latin America appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This article is part of special IPS coverage for World Environment Day, on June 5, whose theme this year is “Beat Plastic Pollution”.

The post Plastic Tsunamis Threaten Coast in Latin America appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By WAM
DUBAI, Jun 2 2018 (WAM)

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has again invited Dubai’s citizens and residents to benefit from the Shams Dubai smart initiative, following the outstanding success and the great adoption rate the initiative has achieved since its launch.

Shams Dubai encourages DEWA customers to install solar photovoltaic panels on the roofs of their premises to generate electricity from solar power and export any excess to the power grid. This is part of DEWA’s effort to promote Dubai’s sustainable and comprehensive development, and support national efforts to increase reliance on clean energy, protect the environment and our natural resources sustainably, and support further transformation towards a green economy.

Shams Dubai gives Dubai’s residents the opportunity to transform their buildings into sustainable ones, reduce the Emirate’s carbon footprint, and increase the proportion of solar power in Dubai's environmentally-friendly energy mix
“Shams Dubai gives Dubai’s residents the opportunity to transform their buildings into sustainable ones, reduce the Emirate’s carbon footprint, and increase the proportion of solar power in Dubai’s environmentally-friendly energy mix. Through this initiative, community members will promote sustainable development in Dubai and transform the Emirate into a global hub for clean energy and green economy, and support the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050, launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to generate 7% of Dubai’s total power output from clean energy by 2020, 25 percent by 2030 and 75 percent by 2050. This will also support the Smart Dubai initiative launched by His Highness to make Dubai the smartest and happiest city in the world,” said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of DEWA.

“Shams Dubai has been instrumental to the development of the flourishing solar industry in Dubai, and supports the long-term Green Economy for Sustainable Development initiative, to build a green economy in the UAE. Moreover, the project contributes to the UAE Vision 2021, to make the UAE one of the best countries in the world by 2021, and namely to its sustainable environment and infrastructure objectives, through the improvement of air quality and increasing the share of clean energy,” added Al Tayer.

Al Tayer praised the efforts of institutions and individuals who have participated in the Shams Dubai initiative and have already installed photovoltaic panels on 1032 buildings with a total capacity of 43.77 megawatts (MW). This will increase in the future to eventually cover all buildings in the Emirate by 2030.

“DEWA has outlined easy steps to install photovoltaic systems on buildings to generate solar power as part of the Shams Dubai initiative. The installation process starts with the customer contacting one of the solar consultants or contractors accredited by DEWA to study the possibility of installing the solar power system and suggesting the best solution. The consultant or contractor then obtains the necessary approvals from DEWA,” noted Al Tayer.

In addition, DEWA’s Shams Dubai Calculator was launched on DEWA’s website to support customers who want to install solar panels on rooftops, by providing detailed comparisons and additional information with ease, using innovative tools, he added.

To date, DEWA has certified over 446 solar photovoltaic experts, and a total of 96 companies are currently enrolled with DEWA for Shams Dubai: 85 contractors and 11 consultants. The equipment eligibility scheme has attracted interest from 100 manufacturers who have registered so far, and 800 equipments have been made eligible for use by Shams Dubai, such as panels, inverters, and interface protections.

 

WAM/MOHD AAMIR

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Idriss Jazairy is Special Rapporteur on “the Negative Impact of Unilateral Coercive Measures on the Enjoyment of Human Rights to the Syrian Arab Republic”*

By Idriss Jazairy
GENEVA, Jun 1 2018 (IPS)

I have been entrusted by the Human Rights Council with the task of monitoring, reporting and advising on the negative impact on the enjoyment of human rights of unilateral coercive measures.

The United Nations has repeatedly expressed concern that the use of such measures may be contrary to international law, international humanitarian law, the UN Charter and the norms and principles governing peaceful relations among States1.

Idriss Jazairy. Credit: UN Photo

During my visit, I had the honour of being received by Ministers, Deputy Ministers and senior officials of the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Economy and Foreign Trade, Local Administration and Environment, Social Affairs and Labour, Transport, Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Electricity and Health.

I also met with the leadership of the Planning and International Cooperation Commission, the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Chamber of Commerce, and with the Governor of the Central Bank.

I was briefed by staff from civil society, humanitarian organizations and by independent experts. Last but not least, I am also grateful to the numerous diplomatic missions that shared their views with me during my visit. I very much appreciate the briefings I received from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia in Beirut prior to my visit.

The purpose of this mission was to examine to what extent unilateral coercive measures targeting the Syrian Arab Republic impair the full realization of the rights set forth in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments.

I will present my full report to the Human Rights Council in September 2018. My present statement contains my preliminary observations on the outcome of my visit.

I have examined the situation of the Syrian Arab Republic as a target of unilateral coercive measures by a number of source States. I have examined relevant evidence and endeavoured to assess the actual impact of such measures on the Syrian people.

One source country has applied unilateral coercive measures since 1979, and they were strengthened in subsequent years. A larger group of States began applying similar measures in 2011.

The collective measures call for a trade ban on the import and export of multiple goods and services. It also includes international financial transfers. The superimposition of different packages of collective sectoral measures, together with the across-the-board implementation of financial restrictions, are tantamount in their global impact to the imposition of comprehensive restrictions on Syria.

Additional measures targeting individuals by virtue of their alleged relationship with the government have also been applied.

Because of their comprehensive nature, these measures have had a devastating impact on the entire economy and the daily lives of ordinary people. This impact has compounded their suffering resulting from the devastating crisis that has unfolded since 2011.

Singling out the impact of the unilateral coercive measures from that of the crisis is fraught with difficulty, but this does in no way diminish the necessity to take measures to restore their basic human rights as a whole.

It is clear that the sufferings imposed by the unilateral coercive measures have reinforced those that were caused by the conflict.

Indeed, it seems ironic that these measures applied by source States out of a concern for human rights are actually contributing to the worsening of the humanitarian crisis as an unintended consequence.

The dramatic increase in the suffering of the Syrian people

The Syrian economy continues to decline at an alarming rate. Since the application of coercive measures in 2011, and the beginning of the current crisis, the total annual GDP of Syria has fallen by two thirds.

Foreign currency reserves have been depleted, and international financial and other assets remain frozen. In 2010, 45 Syrian Liras were exchanged for one dollar; by 2017 the rate fell to fell to 510 liras per dollar. Inflation has dramatically increased since 2010, reaching a peak of 82.4% in 2013; the cost of food items rose eight-fold during this time.

This combination of factors visited further devastation on the living conditions of the population that were already degraded by the conflict. This has hit the half of working Syrians living on fixed salaries particularly hard.

The unintended consequences of unilateral coercive measures

This damage to the economy has had predictable effects on the ability of Syrians to realize their economic, social and cultural rights. Syria’s human development indicators have all tumbled. There has been a staggering increase in the rate of poverty among ordinary Syrians.

While there was no food insecurity prior to the outbreak of violence, by 2015 32% of Syrians were affected. At the same time unemployment rose went from 8.5% in 2010 to over 48% in 2015.

Banking restrictions

The most pervasive concerns I have heard during my mission relate to the negative effect that comprehensive financial restrictions have had on all aspects of Syrian life. Restrictions on the Central bank, state-owned and even private banks, and transactions in the main international currencies have comprehensively damaged the ability of anyone seeking to operate internationally.

Despite nominally including “humanitarian exemptions” they have proven to be costly, or extremely slow, to access in practice.

The uncertainty around what transactions do, or do not violate the unilateral coercive measures, have created a “chilling effect” on international banks and companies, which as a result are unwilling or unable to do business with Syria.

This has prevented Syrian and international companies, non-governmental actors (including those operating in purely humanitarian fields), and Syrian citizens from engaging in international financial transactions (including for goods which are legal to import), obtaining credit, or for international actors to pay salaries or contractors in Syria.

This has forced Syrians to find alternatives, such as hawala, which result in millions of dollars flowing through high cost financial intermediaries, who are alleged at times to be owned by terrorist organizations.

These channels which are not transparent, cannot be audited, and increase transaction costs remain the only avenue for smaller companies and Syrian civil society actors to operate internationally.

Medical care

Syria practices universal, free health care for all its citizens. Prior to the current crisis, Syria enjoyed some of the highest levels of care in the region. The demands created by the crisis have overwhelmed the system, and created extraordinarily high levels of need.

Despite this, restrictive measures, particularly those related to the banking system, have harmed the ability of Syria to purchase and pay for medicines, equipment, spare parts and software.

While theoretical exemptions exist, in practice international private companies are unwilling to jump the hurdles necessary to ensure they can transact with Syria without being accused of inadvertently violating the restrictive measures.

Migration and ‘brain drain’

While the security situation was a central factor which led to migration flows from Syria, it should be emphasized that the dramatic increase in unemployment, the lack of job opportunities, the closure of factories unable to obtain raw materials or machinery or to export their goods have all contributed to increasing the emigration of Syrians.

Some receiving States have selected skilled migrants, while pressuring the less fortunate to return to Syria. This “brain drain” has harmed the medical and pharmaceutical industries in particular, at the worst possible time for Syria.

The anticipated end of the current conflict will not put an end to the flows of migrants, especially to Europe, in view of the saturation of neighbouring countries.

These flows are likely to continue so long as the Syrian authorities are prevented by unilateral coercive measures from addressing the pressing problems related to their social and economic infrastructure, in particular the restoration of energy and water supplies.

Ban on equipment and spare parts

The ban on the trade in equipment, machinery and spare parts has devastated Syrian industry. Vehicles, including ambulances and fire trucks, as well as agricultural machinery suffer from a lack of spare parts. Failing water pumps gravely affect the water supply and reduce agricultural production.

Power generation plants are failing, and new plants cannot be purchased or maintained, leading to power outages. Complex machinery requiring international technicians for maintenance are failing, damaging medical devices and factory machinery.

Civilian aircraft are no longer able to fly safely, and public transit buses are in woeful condition. Whatever rationale source countries may have for restricting so-called dual use goods, greater effort is needed to ensure that goods that are clearly intended for civilian use are permitted, and that they can be paid for.

Ban on technology

As a result of unilateral coercive measures, Syrians are unable to purchase many technologies, including mobile phones and computers. The global dominance of American software companies, technology companies, and banking and financial software, all of which are banned, has made it difficult to find alternatives. This has paralyzed or disrupted large parts of Syrian institutions.

Education

Shortages of inputs, energy and water supply as well as of teaching material causing delays in the rebuilding of schools have kept 1.8 million children without access to their classrooms.

The ability of Syrians to participate in the international community has been sharply affected. Syrians have been excluded from international educational exchange programs, and the tremendous difficulties involved in obtaining a visa have prevented many from studying or travelling abroad, upgrading their training and skills, or participating in international conferences.

By removing consular services from Syria, countries have forced people including the poorest, to travel to neighbouring countries for such applications, which are also placing onerous restrictions on entry for Syrians.

Conclusion

I am profoundly concerned that unilateral coercive measures are contributing to the ongoing suffering of the Syrian people. Claims that they exist to protect the Syrian population, or to promote a democratic transition, are hard to reconcile with the economic and humanitarian sufferings being caused.

The time has come to ask whether these unintended consequences are now more severe than can be reasonably accepted by democratic States. Whatever their political objectives, there must be more humane means by which these can be achieved in full compliance with international law.

In view of the complexity of the system of unilateral coercive measures in place, there needs to be a multi-stage approach to addressing the dire human rights situation prevailing in Syria.

This would imply a sequenced approach involving addressing the crucial humanitarian needs of the population throughout the whole of Syria, without preconditions, when these touch on issues of life and death. A first stage could include addressing the urgent needs of the food insecure, which represent nearly one third of the population.

The second stage is to translate at the ground level effective measures to fulfil the commitment of source States to meet their obligation to allow humanitarian exemptions, particularly for financial transactions.

Finally, there must be a serious dialogue on reducing unilateral coercive measures, starting with those that have the most egregious effect on the population, along with those that will promote confidence building between the parties, with the ultimate aim of lifting the unilateral coercive measures. I hope that my report and my future work can contribute in this end.

*Based on the end-of-mission statement by the Special Rapporteur,and includes “preliminary observations and recommendations” on Syria.

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Excerpt:

Idriss Jazairy is Special Rapporteur on “the Negative Impact of Unilateral Coercive Measures on the Enjoyment of Human Rights to the Syrian Arab Republic”*

The post Unilateral Coercive Measures have Devastated the Syrian Economy &Ruined Civilian Lives appeared first on Inter Press Service.

“Colosseo band” is a music street-band performing in Rome since years. Credit: Maged Srour / IPS

By Maged Srour
ROME, Jun 1 2018 (IPS)

During the past recent years, the city of Rome has experienced a rise in the presence of musicians in its streets and in particular those playing traditional sounds. It does not take a long time, while walking in the streets of Rome, to see a band playing joyful traditional sounds in Piazza Navona. The group renamed itself “Colosseo Band” but they are all from Eastern Europe. A double bass, violins, guitars and a xylophone: this unique assortment gives rise to an explosion of pleasant sounds that make people dancing in the same square.

“People used to think that traditional and working-class music had no place in urban context and that it was more related to rural areas,” said once Alessandro Portelli, a historian who, together with the musicologist Sara Modigliani created the project “Roma Forestiera” (“Foreigner Rome”). ” A few years ago, Romans started to walk around the city and seeing musicians at almost every corner and they realized that those musicians were not Italians but Nigerians, Romanians and Senegalese: people realized that music had come back to the streets of Rome and those who brought it were foreigners”.

The project “Roma Forestiera” (“Foreigner Rome”) was created in 2010 by the cultural association ‘Circolo Gianni Bosio’ and it is only one of the many other initiatives that want to bring together migrants and Italians through music. The aim of the association is to study and spread the music performed by migrants in Rome and the rest of Italy. The founders of the project –Portelli and Modigliani – went on a tour to the streets, the mosques and the schools of Rome, and they were amazed by the variegated sounds coming from Bangladesh, Senegal, Ecuador, Kurdistan. Today they boast the biggest auditory archive of migrants’ music in Europe.

Thanks to this initiative, the association could also promote the creation of the multi-ethnic chorus “Romolo Balzani”. The latter, promoted by the ‘Iqbal Masih’ school of Rome, gathers adults and minors singers once a week, in the neighbourhood of Torpignattara, one of the most multicultural hubs of Rome. The chorus, founded by Sara Modigliani, today is directed by two migrants women: Roxana Ene from Romania and Sushmita Sultana from Bangladesh.

Two street-musicians playing in the famous square of Piazza Navona, in Rome. Credit: Maged Srour / IPS

Only a few kilometres from there, in the heart of the Esquilino neighbourhood – another crucial melting pot of the city of Rome, known for its high rate of migrants – the association Apollo 11 created in 2002 the “Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio” (OPV, “The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio”).

In a neighbourhood where Italians are definitely a minority group, two Italians – Mario Tronco and Agostino Ferrente – imagined and created this Orchestra. The OPV gathers musicians coming from ten different countries and speaking nine different languages. Together, they transformed their cultural roots in one unique language: music.

The OPV became in the past recent years one of the best examples of positive integration of migrants in the city of Rome. Through a self-managed system of auto-taxation carried out by some citizens, the OPV was able to create jobs and related residency permits for talented musicians from all around the world.

“Music is a world within itself, it is a language we all understand,” said the singer Stevie Wonder once. Amongst the many forms of art, music has always been characterised by contaminations and borrowings between different peoples: it always represented one of the main vehicles for integration among different cultures. Without a doubt, the language of music is universal. Everyone can understand it regardless of the city, country or culture of origin.

However, at the same time, music is also a banner of each country’s identity. Therefore, it should not be a surprise finding Greek people being so proud of their traditional music or Egyptians loving so much to listen to their cheerful melodies in their microbuses and taxis.

This is the real value of music, which contains at the same time individualism and collectivism. It has its unique shape and identity and its own role in our societies. Music represents an individual experience diverse from person to person. On the other hand, music is also a collective experience because ears of people from throughout the world can enjoy it indifferently: melodies are able to unite people in concerts and celebrations or at the angle of a street while listening to a street musician. Therefore, music can be a tool for individual meditation or a tool to bring people together: different facets of the same coin.

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Daryl G. Kimball is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association*

By Daryl G. Kimball
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 1 2018 (IPS)

The global nuclear nonproliferation system has always relied on responsible leadership from the United States and other global powers. The effort to create, extend, and strengthen the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which was opened for signature 50 years ago on July 1, 1968, has succeeded, albeit imperfectly, because most U.S. presidents have made good faith efforts to back up U.S. legal and political commitments on nuclear arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers a speech, “After the Deal: A New Iran Strategy”, at the Heritage Foundation, in Washington, D.C, on May 21, 2018. Credit: [State Department photo/ Public Domain]

Beginning in 2003 when Iran was discovered to have a secret uranium-enrichment program, key European states, along with China, Russia, and later, the United States under President Barack Obama, put enormous effort into negotiating the complex multilateral deal to curtail and contain Iran’s nuclear program and to verifiably block its pathways to nuclear weapons: the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

But now, with his May 8 decision to unilaterally violate the JCPOA, President Donald Trump effectively has ceded the traditional nonproliferation leadership role of the United States, opened the door for Iran to quickly expand its uranium-enrichment capacity, and shaken the foundations of the global nuclear nonproliferation system. Trump’s decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran and any businesses or banks that continue to do business with Iran puts the valuable nonproliferation barriers established by the JCPOA at grave risk.

If the accord is to survive Trump’s reckless actions, EU governments and other responsible states must now try to sustain it without the United States by taking bold steps to ensure that it remains in Iran’s interest not to break out of the JCPOA’s rigorous constraints.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said May 8 that “[a]s long as Iran continues to implement its nuclear[-]related commitments, as it is doing so far, the European Union will remain committed to the continued full and effective implementation of the nuclear deal.

Europe Union states, as well as China and Russia, have little choice but to part ways with the Trump administration on the Iran deal because Trump has rejected reasonable proposals from leaders of the E3 countries (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) to address his concerns and because his new “strategy” to pursue a “better deal” to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran is pure fantasy.

To try to address Trump’s complaints about the JCPOA, the E3 worked in good faith for several months to negotiate a supplemental agreement designed to address concerns about Iran’s behavior that fall outside the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, including its ballistic missile program and its support for radical groups in the Middle East.

That effort failed because Trump stubbornly refused to guarantee to the E3 that if they entered into such an agreement, he would continue to waive nuclear-related sanctions against Iran.

Trump administration officials say they will try to “cajole” the European powers and other states to re-impose even stronger sanctions on Iran to try to compel Iran to come back to the negotiating table to work out a “better” deal for the United States and a more onerous one for Iran.

In the meantime, Trump is demanding that Iran must still meet the JCPOA’s nuclear restrictions and submit to its tough International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring provisions. Such arrogant bullying has no chance of producing a cooperative response from leaders in Tehran or in other capitals.

If European and other powers fail to adequately insulate their financial and business transactions with Iran from U.S. sanctions, Iran could decide to quickly expand its enrichment capacity by putting more machines online and increasing its uranium supply. Asked on May 9 how he would respond to such actions, Trump said, “If they do, there will be very severe consequences.”

Within hours of Trump’s May 8 announcement, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said, “If Iran acquires nuclear capability, we will do everything we can to do the same.”

Incredibly, the Trump administration, which is in the process of negotiating an agreement for civil nuclear cooperation with Riyadh, failed to respond to this alarming threat from the Saudi monarchy to violate its NPT commitments.

Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA is also a body blow to efforts to strengthen the NPT system in the run-up to the pivotal 2020 NPT Review Conference. Statements from U.S. diplomats about how others should advance NPT goals will ring hollow so long as the United States continues to ignore or repudiate its own nonproliferation obligations.

For instance, at the NPT gathering in May, U.S. representatives argued that progress toward a zone free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East suffers from a “lack of trust” and nonproliferation “noncompliance” by states in the region. Unfortunately, U.S. noncompliance with the JCPOA has only exacerbated these challenges.

Trump’s decision on the nuclear deal has transformed the United States from a nonproliferation leader to an NPT rogue state. For now, the future of the hard-won Iran nuclear accord and maybe the NPT as we now know it will depend largely on the leadership of key European leaders and restraint from Iran’s.

*The link to the original article: https://armscontrol.org/act/2018-06/focus/nuclear-nonproliferation-malpractice

The post Nuclear Nonproliferation Malpractice appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Daryl G. Kimball is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association*

The post Nuclear Nonproliferation Malpractice appeared first on Inter Press Service.