One of the rainwater harvesting systems installed in rural settlements in eastern El Salvador, in the Central American Dry Corridor. It is based on a system of pipes and gutters, which run from the rooftop to a polyethylene bag in a rectangular hole dug in the yard. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR, May 22 2023 (IPS)

Chronic water shortages make life increasingly difficult for the more than 10.5 million people who live in the Central American Dry Corridor, an arid strip that covers 35 percent of that region.

In the Dry Corridor, the lack of water complicates not only basic hygiene and household activities like bathing, washing clothes or dishes, but also agriculture and food production.

“This is a very difficult place to live, due to the lack of water,” said Marlene Carballo, a 23-year-old Salvadoran farmer from the Jocote Dulce canton, a rural settlement in the Chinameca municipality, in the eastern El Salvador department of San Miguel.

The municipality is one of the 144 in the country that is located in the Dry Corridor, where more than 73 percent of the rural population lives in poverty and 7.1 million suffer from severe food insecurity, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

But poor rural settlements have not stood idly by.

The scarcity of water has prompted community leaders, especially women, who suffer the brunt of the shortage, to organize themselves in rural associations to promote water projects.

In the various villages in Jocote Dulce, rainwater harvesting projects, reforestation and support for the development of small poultry farms have arrived, with the backing of local and international organizations, and funding from European countries.

Rainwater harvesting is based on systems such as the one installed in Carballo’s house: when it rains, the water that falls on the roof runs through a pipe to a huge waterproof bag in the yard, which functions as a catchment tank that can hold up to 80,000 liters.

Other mechanisms also include plastic-lined rectangular-shaped holes dug in the ground.

The harvested water is used to irrigate family gardens, provide water to livestock used in food production such as cows, oxen and horses, and even for aquaculture.

Similar projects have been carried out in the rest of the Central American countries that form part of the Dry Corridor.

In Guatemala, for example, FAO and other organizations have benefited 5,416 families in 80 rural settlements in two departments of the country.

By External Source
May 2 2023 (IPS-Partners)

World Press Freedom Day was inaugurated by the United Nations in 1993.

The 3rd of May will mark its 30th anniversary with the theme of:

“Shaping a Future of Rights: Freedom of expression as a driver for all other human rights”.

The impetus to establish such a day came out of Africa with the Windhoek Declaration of 1991.

Political optimism gripped much of the continent as apartheid unraveled in South Africa.

Namibia shook off colonial rule and Ethiopia’s murderous dictator resigned.

In the decade that followed, independent journalism blossomed globally.

But after the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s, regression began anew.

The Swedish-based V-Dem Institute, which monitors political freedoms globally, says the gains of the past 35 years have been wiped out.

It estimates that 72% of the world’s population – 5.7 billion people – now live in autocracies.

“The decline is most dramatic in the Asia-Pacific region, which is back to levels last recorded in 1978,” it says in its 2023 Democracy Report.

U.S. watchdog Freedom House suggests Global freedom declined for the 17th consecutive year.

85% of the world’s population experienced a decline in press freedom in just the last 5 years.

Mis- and disinformation has contributed to years of declining trust in media worldwide.

News services have been blocked online, journalists illegally spied on, and media sites hacked.

The limits of the U.N. mechanisms to keep journalists safe were clearly on display after the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

But there is still a lot the U.N. can do with its existing authority and structure.

Supportive member states need to invest in strengthening UNESCO’s plan on journalist safety.

They also need to do and say more against those states that ignore or violate human rights.

The key to opening freedom of expression is to move beyond the day itself, and to demand it day after day after day.

 

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By External Source
Apr 26 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 
Join us as we dive into the inspiring story of William Sokimi, a true legend in the Coastal fisheries of the Pacific. For almost 25 years, William has been teaching fishing techniques and safety at sea to fishers across the region, helping to improve their livelihoods and incomes.

In this portrait video, we get an intimate look at William’s life and his secrets to success in the nearshore fisheries. Don’t miss this chance to learn from one of the most respected and experienced fisherman in the region!

By External Source
Apr 25 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 
New European Union regulations mean only “deforestation-free” products can be sold there. Forests cover 31% of the globe’s land surface, with most of the Earth’s biodiversity, and play an essential role in mitigating climate change.

By External Source
Apr 25 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 
 
The UNDP has assisted cocoa farmers from the Peruvian Amazon to ensure the commodities meet European Parliament regulations. The regulation prohibits the placing of products on the market if their production has led to deforestation.

By External Source
Apr 24 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 
Colombia’s government is expanding its educational response to the Venezuelan regional crisis, and its efforts are supported by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), which announced USD 12 million grant. However, the need is great, and ECW estimates financial support of USD 46.4 million is needed for the multi-year resilience response.

By External Source
Apr 12 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, speaks at the Education Cannot Wait (ECW) High-Level Financing Conference in February 2023 in Geneva. The event mobilized a record US$826 million for ECW and the global challenge to support the education of the 222 million girls and boys living in crises, positioning education in emergencies as a top priority on the international agenda.

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By External Source
Apr 1 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 
This is David.

He is becoming an exceptional chess player.

This is Mai.

She loves beaches and the ocean.

This is Kwame.

He is a passionate architect.

The only thing these people have in common…

…is that they all identify as Autistic.

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

They continue to face discrimination and other challenges.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And to become fully integrated as valued members of societies.

Without stigma.

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

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

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

IPS UN Bureau

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By External Source
Mar 14 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 
On Commonwealth Day, a powerful reminder of the values—justice, peace, equality, and inclusion.

It is by respecting and protecting those values that the Commonwealth’s 2.5 billion citizens can help shape a different future for their communities, countries, and the planet.

 

People of the Commonwealth: let’s turn our #ValuesIntoAction in the decade ahead.#CommonwealthDay pic.twitter.com/CtQ1VrIq9P

— Commonwealth Foundation (@commonwealthorg) March 13, 2023

By External Source
Mar 7 2023 (IPS-Partners)

From the earliest days of computing to the present age of virtual reality and artificial intelligence…

…women have made untold contributions to the digital world in which we increasingly live.

Their accomplishments have been made against all odds, in a historically unwelcoming field.

Today, a persistent gender gap in digital access keeps women from unlocking technology’s full potential.

Underrepresentation in STEM education and careers remains a major barrier to their participation in tech design and governance.

According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020, women are still underrepresented in the technology sector.

They make up only 17% of the core technology workforce.

And the pervasive threat of online gender-based violence forces them out of the digital spaces they occupy.

A survey of women journalists from 125 countries found that 73% had suffered online violence in the course of their work.

Exclusion extends in more subtle forms as well:

Women make up only 22% of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) workforce.

And a global analysis of 133 AI systems across industries found that 44.2 per cent demonstrate gender bias.

However, there is some progress being made.

Women’s participation in the technology sector has increased by 10% since 2014.

According to the National Center for Women and Information Technology…

…the number of women in executive positions in the technology sector has increased from 11% in 2012 to 20% in 2019.

There is still a long way to go in terms of achieving gender equality in the technology sector.

International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.

It is a call to action to continue to strive for progress.

This year, let’s celebrate our International Women’s Day theme: “DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality”.

IPS UN Bureau

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By External Source
Feb 23 2023 (IPS-Partners)

 
Interview with Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize winner and UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize laureate, at the UNESCO Global Conference #InternetForTrust. Learn more about the Conference: https://lnkd.in/dEaNBe7e

Keynote address by Maria Ressa at the UNESCO Global Conference “Internet for Trust”

Maria Ressa is co-founder and CEO of Rappler. In October 2021, she was one of two journalists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She was also awarded the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2021. UNESCO is hosting in Paris the “Internet for Trust” conference to discuss a set of draft global guidelines for regulating digital platforms, to improve the reliability of information and protect freedom of expression and human rights.

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By Mario Osava
BOA VISTA, Brazil, Feb 6 2023 (IPS)

Roraima, the northernmost state of Brazil, on the border with Guyana and Venezuela, is undergoing an energy transition that points to the dilemmas and possible solutions for a safe and sustainable supply of electricity in the Amazon rainforest.

As the only state outside the national grid – the National Interconnected Electric System (SIN) – it is dependent on diesel and natural gas thermoelectric plants, which are expensive and polluting sources, that account for 79 percent of Roraima’s electric power.

The financial and environmental cost is exacerbated by the transportation of fossil fuels by truck from Manaus, the capital of the neighboring state of Amazonas, 780 kilometers from Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima.

But the people of Roraima pay one of the lowest prices for electricity in Brazil, thanks to a subsidy paid by consumers in the rest of the country.

These subsidies will cost about 2.3 billion dollars in 2023, benefiting three million people in this country of 214 million people, according to the National Electric Energy Agency regulator.

A fifth of the total goes to Roraima, which from 2001 to 2019 received electricity imported from Venezuela. This meant the state needed less subsidies while it enjoyed a degree of energy security, undermined in recent years by the deterioration of the supplier, the Guri hydroelectric plant, which stopped providing the state with energy two years before the end of the contract.

Fortunately, Roraima has natural gas from deposits in the Amazon, extracted in Silves, 200 kilometers from Manaus, to supply the Jaguatirica II thermoelectric power plant, inaugurated in February 2022, with a capacity of 141 megawatts, two thirds of the state’s demand.

Roraima thus reduced its dependence on diesel, which is more costly and more polluting.

But what several local initiatives are seeking is to replace fossil fuels with clean sources, such as solar, wind and biomass.

This is the path to sustainable energy security, says Ciro Campos, one of the heads of the Roraima Renewable Energy Forum, as a representative of the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA), a pro-indigenous and environmental non-governmental organization.

The city government in Boa Vista, the state capital, home to two thirds of the population of Roraima, has made progress towards that goal. Solar panels cover the roofs of the city government building, municipal markets and a bus terminal, and form roofs over the parking lots of the municipal theater and the Secretariat of Public Services and the Environment.

In addition, a plant with 15,000 solar panels with the capacity to generate 5,000 kilowatts, the limit for so-called distributed generation in Brazil, was built on the outskirts of the city.

In total there are seven plants with a capacity to generate 6,700 kilowatts, in addition to 74 bus stops equipped with solar panels, some of which have been damaged by theft, lamented Thiago Amorim, the secretary of Public Services and the Environment.

In addition to the environmental objective, solar energy allows the municipality to save the equivalent of 960,000 dollars a year, funds that are used for social spending. Boa Vista describes itself as “the capital of early childhood” and has won national and international recognition for its programs for children.

The Renewable Energies Forum and the Roraima Indigenous Council (CIR), which promote clean sources, say the aim is to reduce the consumption of diesel, a fossil fuel transported from afar whose supply is unstable, and to avoid the construction of the Bem Querer hydroelectric plant.

The project, of which there are still no detailed studies, would dam the Branco River, Roraima’s largest water source, to form a 519-square-kilometer reservoir that would even flood part of Boa Vista. It would affect nine indigenous territories directly and others indirectly, said Edinho Macuxi, general coordinator of the CIR.

Bem Querer would have an installed capacity of 650 megawatts, three times Roraima’s total demand. It has awakened interest because it would also supply Manaus, a metropolis of 2.2 million inhabitants that lacks energy security, and could produce more electricity just as the generation of other hydroelectric plants in the Amazon region is declining.

Almost all of Roraima is in the northern hemisphere, and the rainiest season runs from April to September, when water levels run low in the rest of the Amazon region. The state’s hydroelectricity would therefore be complementary to the entire Brazilian portion of the rainforest.

That is why Bem Querer is a project inextricably connected to the construction of the transmission line between Manaus and Boa Vista, already ready to start, which would integrate Roraima with the national grid, enabling it to import or export electricity.

“We can connect, but we reject dependency, we want a safe and autonomous energy model. We will have ten years to find economically and politically viable solutions,” said Ciro Campos.

By External Source
Feb 2 2023 (IPS-Partners)

UN Secretary-General António Guterres is calling on world leaders to support the UN’s global fund for education in emergencies, Education Cannot Wait (ECW), at the upcoming ECW High-Level Financing Conference in Geneva Switzerland, 16 and 17 February 2023.

Around the world, 222 million children and adolescents impacted by conflict, climate change, displacement and other protracted crises are in need of urgent education support.

In his video statement, Guterres called on leaders to support ECW and its strategic partners in realizing 222 million dreams for the world’s most vulnerable children.

The ECW High-Level Financing Conference seeks to mobilize much-needed resources from donors, foundations and high-net-worth individuals to deliver on ECW’s four-year strategic plan, which will mobilize US$1.5 billion in additional resources to reach 20 million children and adolescents caught in some of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The Conference is co-hosted by Switzerland and ECW, in close collaboration with the Governments of Colombia, Germany, Niger, Norway and South Sudan, and will be open to the public as a live-streamed virtual event.

Register today

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The Mayan Train (TM), run by the government’s National Tourism Development Fund (Fonatur), threatens the Mayan Jungle, the second largest in Latin America after the Amazon rainforest. its ecosystems and indigenous communities, as well as underground caves and cenotes - freshwater sinkholes resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater

By Emilio Godoy
PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico, Jan 24 2023 (IPS)

The Mayan Train (TM), run by the government’s National Tourism Development Fund (Fonatur), threatens the Mayan Jungle, the second largest in Latin America after the Amazon rainforest. its ecosystems and indigenous communities, as well as underground caves and cenotes – freshwater sinkholes resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater.

The most ambitious megaproject of the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador involves at least 1,681 hectares and the felling of 300,000 trees, according to the original environmental impact study, with an investment that has so far run up to around 15 billion dollars, 70 percent of the initially planned cost.

The plan is for the TM, with 21 stations and 14 stops on seven routes, to start running at the end of 2023 through 78 municipalities in the southern and southeastern states of Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Yucatán, home to a combined total of 11.1 million people.

In Quintana Roo there are at least 105 flooded caves over 1,500 meters in length and 408 underwater caves. The porous karst soil of the peninsula represents a threat to the megaproject, which has forced the authorities to change the layout.

In addition, between Playa del Carmen and Tulum – 61 km apart in the south of Quintana Roo – there are at least 13 cenotes.

The Mayan Train, which covers four aquifers and 49 bodies of water along its route, includes a station in Playa del Carmen and another in Tulum, in Section 5.

Fabiola Sánchez, an activist with the non-governmental organization Voces Unidas (United Voices) de Puerto Morelos, talks about the potential impact of the railway in the municipality of Puerto Morelos, in Quintana Roo.

The concern of environmentalists stems from the 2020-2030 Urban Development Program, which they accuse of favoring hotel and real estate interests, to the detriment of citizen participation and sustainable planning, and of favoring the creation of the railway.

Deforestation and urban expansion can result in waters with more sediment in the reefs off Puerto Morelos, greater generation of solid and liquid waste, leaching, and more pollution, that would put even more pressure on an ecosystem that is already disturbed by human activities.

The trains will transport thousands of tourists and cargo, such as transgenic soybeans, palm oil and pork, major agricultural products in the region.

The Mexican government promotes the megaproject as an engine for social development that would create jobs, boost tourism beyond the traditional sites and bolster the regional economy.

By Luis Brizuela and Jorge Luis Baños
HAVANA, Jan 11 2023 (IPS)

Félix Morffi supports the energy needs of his home with the help of the sun, in some cases through handcrafted solutions that make the most of an alternative source that is abundant in Cuba, but still used very little.

With two tanks, glass, aluminum sheets, as well as cinderblocks, sand and cement, the 86-year-old retiree created, in 2006, a solar heater that meets his household needs.

“You build it today and tomorrow you have hot water; anyone can do it, and if they have a bit of advice, all the better,” said the retired mid-level machine and tool repair technician who lives in the municipality of Regla, one of the 15 that make up Havana.

He also designed and made a dryer that uses the heat of the sun to dehydrate fruits, spices and tubers, which he assembled mostly with recycled products such as pieces of wood, nylon, acrylic and aluminum sheets.

On the roof of his house, 16 solar panels imported in 2019 provide five kilowatts of power (kWp) and help run his small automotive repair shop where he works on vehicles for state-owned companies and private individuals, an independent enterprise that he set up next to his house.

The innovator believes that despite the economic conditions, with a little ingenuity people can take advantage of the natural elements, because “the sun shines for everyone; the wind is there and costs you nothing, but your wealth is in your brain”

In addition to covering his household needs, he provides the surplus electricity to the national grid, the National Electric Power System (SEN).

Morffi said more training is needed among personnel involved in several processes, and he cited delays of more than a year between the signing of the contract with Unión Eléctrica and the beginning of payments for the energy surpluses provided to the SEN, as well as “inconsistency with respect to the assembly” of the equipment.

Although Cuba has a national policy on renewable energy sources, “there is still a lot of ignorance and very little desire to do things, and do them well. Awareness-raising is needed,” he argued.

The innovator believes that despite the economic conditions, with a little ingenuity people can take advantage of the natural elements, because “the sun shines for everyone; the wind is there and costs you nothing, but your wealth is in your brain.”

In his backyard, a small solar panel keeps the water flowing from a well for his barnyard fowl and an artificial pond holding a variety of ornamental fish as well as tilapia for family consumption.

The construction of a small biodigester, about four cubic meters in size, is also at an advanced stage on his land, aimed at using methane gas from the decomposition of animal manure and crop waste, for cooking.

Morffi, who manages these activities with the backing of several family members, also plans to import three small wind turbines of 0.5 kWp each and a new batch of 4 kWp solar PV panels.

His vision is to turn his house into a space for the production and promotion of renewable energies in Cuba.

To this end, he has the support of the non-governmental Cuban Society for the Promotion of Renewable Energy Sources and Respect for the Environment (Cubasolar), of which Morffi has been a member since 2004.

Since 2014, Cuba has had a Policy for the Development of Renewable Energy Sources and their Efficient Use. And in 2019, Decree Law 345 established regulations to increase the share of renewables in electricity generation and steadily decrease the proportion represented by fossil fuels.

According to studies, this archipelago of more than 110,800 square kilometers with an annual average of 330 sunny days receives an average solar radiation of more than five kilowatts per square meter per day, considered to be a high level that provides enormous potential in terms of energy.

The solar energy program appears to be the most advanced and with the best opportunities for growth. Over the last decade, several solar parks have been built, providing more than 75 percent of the renewable energy produced locally.

But clean sources account for just five percent of the island’s electricity generation, an outlook that the authorities want to radically transform, setting an ambitious goal of 37 percent by 2030.

By External Source
Dec 23 2022 (IPS-Partners)

 

2022 has been an apocalyptic warning of the frailty of our planet…

…and the woeful shortcomings of humankind.

It started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

And it’s ending with famine in Africa.

More than 7.8 million Ukrainians have fled the country.

And the impact of the war has been felt worldwide.

Prices of basic commodities have skyrocketed.

Somalia used to import 90 per cent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

And now it is enduring the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in 40 years.

Women and girls are paying “an unacceptably high price” among affected communities. – UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

2022 is on its way to becoming one of the five hottest years on record.

Agriculture and food security joined the COP27 agenda.

More than 25% of arable soils worldwide are degraded, according to the FAO.

The equivalent of a football pitch of soil is eroded every five seconds.

The planet’s bio-diversity is being devastated as a result.

Still unresolved, however, is which countries will give money and to whom.

Only 1.7% of all climate finance reaches small-scale producers in developing countries.

As little as 8% of overseas aid goes to projects focused primarily on gender equality.

One seismic milestone event happened in late 2022.

The birth of the 8 billionth person was celebrated on November 15.

“We’ve just welcomed the 8 billionth member of the human race on this planet. That’s a wonderful birth of a baby, of course. But we need to understand that the more people there are, the more we put the Earth under heavy pressure,”
– Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

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By Luis Brizuela
CANDELARIA, Cuba, Dec 20 2022 (IPS)

Mayra Rojas is one of a small but growing number of people in Cuba benefiting from the production of biogas, a renewable energy source still little used in a country highly dependent on fossil fuels.

The biodigester in the back of her house in the rural community of Carambola, Candelaria municipality in the province of Artemisa, 80 kilometers west of Havana, brings Rojas the benefits of not using firewood and electricity for cooking, with the consequent reduction in electric bills and cooking time.

It was built in 2011 with the help of her husband Edegni Puche, who worked in the installation of the gas pipes and other aspects.

Rojas and Puche, who raise pigs and grow fruits and vegetables on their small family farm, were advised by specialists from the Cuban Society for the Promotion of Renewable Energy Sources and Respect for the Environment (Cubasolar) and the Movement of Biogas Users (MUB).

Rojas also received materials from the municipal government and the local pig company to build the small-scale Chinese-type fixed-dome biodigester of about six cubic meters in size.

She estimates that the total cost of the project ranged between 500 and 600 dollars at the exchange rate at the time.

Construction costs depend on the size, type and thickness of the material, as well as the characteristics of the site.

However, experts estimate that the average minimum cost for the construction of a small-scale biodigester – which more than covers the cooking needs of a household – currently stands at around 1,000 dollars in a country with an average monthly salary equivalent to 160 dollars at the official exchange rate.

Rojas says that “before, when we cleaned the pens, the manure, urine and waste from the pigs’ food piled up in the open air, in a corner of the yard. It stank and there were a lot of flies.”

The organic matter is now decomposed anaerobically by bacteria, but in a closed, non-polluting environment that provides methane gas as an energy resource, instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.

Thanks to the alternative energy source Rojas can also keep her nails painted and her hair clean for longer.

It also helped her husband and two young children become more involved in household chores, cleaning the yard and taking care of the animals on the family farm, “and created greater awareness of environmental care.”

In addition, biogas technology provides biol and biosol – liquid effluent and sludge, respectively – which are ideal for fertilizing and restoring soils, “as well as watering and keeping plants green,” says Rojas, who has a lush garden where she grows varieties of exotic orchids.

Her biodigester has also proven useful to the community, because when there are blackouts due to tropical cyclones that frequently affect the island, “neighbors have come to heat up water and cook their food,” she adds.

There are an estimated 5,000 biodigesters in Cuba, with the potential to expand the network to 20,000 units, at least the small-scale ones, according to conservative estimates by experts.

More than 90 percent of Cuba’s electricity comes from burning fossil fuels in aging thermoelectric plants and diesel and fuel oil engines, in a nation where a significant percentage of the 3.9 million homes use electric power as the main energy source for cooking and heating water for bathing.

By External Source
Dec 12 2022 (IPS-Partners)

A joint mission to Ethiopia by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), and Norway’s International Development Minister has drawn attention to one of the world’s largest education crises that have left 3.6 million children out of school. The number of out-of-school children has spiked from 3.1 million to 3.6 million, according to UNICEF. However, ECW-funded schools provide children with ‘whole-of-child’ interventions, including school feeding, psychosocial support, teacher training, school materials, accelerated learning, gender transformative approaches, and the construction and rehabilitation of school facilities.

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In 2019, when the President-elect of the European Union (EU) Ursula von der Leyen had presented a list for her soon-to-be European Commission, and on that list was a portfolio called “Protecting the European way of life”, a lot of noise was made questioning what that meant. “Protection” was later changed to the “Promotion” of the European Way of Life. It’s been over three years since this very controversial, much debated and widely criticised portfolio as many continue to question what uniquely is the ‘European way of life’?

Shada Islam

“The European way of life, for many it’s about being christian and about being white. So anyone who doesn’t fall into those categories is seen as not belonging to Europe,” says Shada Islam, Brussels based specialist on European Union affairs.

“There are about 50 million people of colour, European of colour across the European Union, that’s a huge number of people, not just a small minority, and that means, migrants are part of that & refugees are part of that. The narrative of Europe is so out of date and out of touch with the reality of the diverse and multicultural Europe that there is today,” says Islam.

Over the years Europe has seen an increase in securitization of the migration, severe pushback and disturbing patterns of threat, intimidation, violence and humiliation at the borders leading to human rights violations, the closure of borders due to the COVID-19 pandemic, growing Islamophobia, racism and the rise of right-wing in Europe, all leading up to being very strong indicators of the continuously growing anti-immigrant sentiment.

Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine has created one of the biggest refugee crises of the modern times. Just a month into the war, more than 3.7 million Ukrainians fled to neighbouring countries seeking safety, protection and assistance – this is known to be the sixth-largest refugee outflow over the past 60- plus years. While most European countries have displayed an exceptionally generous stance on arriving refugees, unlike the 2015 refugee crisis when the EU called for detaining arriving refugees for up to 18 months.

Islam says while Europe has opened its arms, homes, schools and hospitals to millions of Ukrainian refugees, migration policies continue to remain hardened by European leaders against refugees especially from the Middle East and Africa. “It’s a sense of compassion, empathy and solidarity that we see towards refugees from Ukraine, but why can’t we show that to people fleeing wars, hunger and climate change from other parts of the world? Why are they kept in camps, why are they pushed back from Frontext, our border control. Why can’t they be welcomed with the same sense of compassion and empathy,” Islam says.

Earlier in March, in response to the Ukrainian crisis, the government of Bulgaria took the first steps to welcome Ukrainian refugees. At a time of one of the worst humanitarian catastrophe, this move by Bulgaria was most welcomed by all, however many human rights activists raised questions of discrimination and double standards when Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said, “these are not the refugees we are used to. This is not the usual refugee wave of people with an unclear past. None of the European countries are worried about them,”.

In February 2022, the refugee crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border had worsened with reports of migrants staying in a camp being forced out, pushed back by security forces with water cannons and tear gas.

According to this report in 2021 thousands of people fleeing conflicts in the Middle East and other areas tried to enter the European Union through Lithuania, Latvia and Poland from neighbouring Belarus. The situation at the borders had become critical during the winter months, with hundreds of people stranded for weeks in freezing conditions. According to Polish border guards, 977 attempts to cross the border were recorded in April 2022 and nearly 4280 since the beginning of 2022, far fewer than November 2021 when between 3000 – 4000 migrants had gathered along the border in just a few days. All at a time when the European Union had promised to accept everyone coming from Ukraine.

In Italy, life was tough for asylum seekers, as most were denied refugee status, barred from legal employment and regularly faced discrimination. In the lead-up to the recent elections, there were reports of several violent attacks against asylum seekers and migrants, including the killing of Alika Ogorchukwu, a Nigerian man living in Italy had sent shockwaves across the country and sparked a set of debates on racism.

Earlier in November, the Italian government refused to allow about 250 people to disembark from two non-governmental rescue ships docked in Catania. Human Rights organisations called out the move by the Italian government that gave the directive to the rescue ships to take them back to international waters stating it put people at risk and violated Italy’s human rights obligations.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been quiet vocal about his anti-refugee views and stance, when he refused to take in refugees in 2018 and calling them “Muslim invaders”. His most recent comments said that countries “are no longer nations” if different races mix.

The current refugee crisis clearly highlights what the problem really is – it’s accepting the unavoidable gap between the inclusive logic of universal human rights and Europe’s prerogative to exclude those whom it believes to be outsiders. Despite international laws and obligations, or the very concept of political asylum, “Europe has displayed the arbitrariness of its borders, both internal and external”. Creating a system that others individuals based on colour, race, and religious background, it continues to reinforce the bias towards human lives.

People who flee their country of origin, flee for a reason, either due to armed conflicts, economic distress, war or political instability, and International law guarantees to each person fleeing persecution the right to request asylum in a safe country. Asylum laws differ in each European state because the EU considers immigration law a matter of national sovereignty. Except what we see being used for people fleeing and reaching out to European countries are terms like “invasion”, “flooding” and “besieging”.

Integration and inclusivity is a mind set, a long term process that requires accommodation from all sides. Refugee social integration is also in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16, which includes integration into the economic, health, educational and social context. How Europe tackles its racism, discrimination and asks itself uncomfortable questions, including it’s legacy of colonialism and participation in the Atlantic Slave trade, will take it one step closer to creating a more racially diverse and inclusive Europe – which “lives up to its ideals and values”.

“Europe needs foreign labour, Europe needs the talents of all its citizens, we are going into a recession, an economic slowdown, and we need all hands on the deck. If you are going showing so much discrimination at home, you are hardly in a position as the EU to stand on the global stage and talk about human rights, and the rights of women and ethnic minorities. You are losing your geopolitical influence and edge that you could have in this very complicated world,” says Islam.

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By External Source
Nov 16 2022 (IPS-Partners)

What happens to a country without land?
As rising sea levels threaten to submerge our home, we have made a radical plan for the survival of our nation.
Watch Tuvaluan Minister Simon Kofe’s address at COP27 and visit https://www.tuvalu.tv to find out how you can help.

By External Source
Nov 14 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Adit Adhikary lives in Bangladesh’s southern coast, where land is going underwater, salinity is destroying agriculture and drinking water is scarce. Will conversations at COP27 reflect the needs of his community?

Source: BRAC

By External Source
Nov 14 2022 (IPS-Partners)

Where do people go when their homes are washed away?

In the 12 months since COP26, half of Lokkhi Mondol’s house has gone underwater.

Millions of people in coastal Bangladesh are living on borrowed time, as sea level rises and rivers swallow land.

COP27 must deliver urgent climate action – the world’s future depends on it.

Source: BRAC

By External Source
Nov 14 2022 (IPS-Partners)

As COP27 ramps up, come with BRAC’s ED Asif Saleh to the frontline of the climate crisis in southern Bangladesh – where homes are now going underwater every day.

We need climate action that gets to the ground, now.

Source: BRAC

By Edgardo Ayala
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador, Nov 11 2022 (IPS)

Several community-run water projects powered by solar energy have improved the quality of life of thousands of rural families in areas that were the scene of heavy fighting during El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980s.

The families now have running water, thanks to a collective effort launched when the war ended in 1992, after they returned to their former homes, which they had fled years earlier because of the intense fighting.

The largest of these community water systems driven by solar power is located in the canton of El Zapote, Suchitoto municipality, in the central Salvadoran department of Cuscatlán.

“The first step was to come together and buy this place to drill the well, do tests and build the tank, and we had a lot of help from other organizations that supported us,” Ángela Pineda, president of the Zapote-Platanares Community-Rural Association for Water, Health and the Environment, told IPS.

The association is a “junta de agua” or water board, which are community organizations that bring water to remote areas of El Salvador where the government does not have the capacity to supply it, such as the one installed in the canton of El Zapote.

There are an estimated 2,500 water boards in the country, providing service to 25 percent of the population, or some 1.6 million people. The vast majority of them operate with energy from the national power grid.

But five of the boards, located in the vicinity of Suchitoto, obtained financial support from organizations such as Companion Communities Development Alternatives (CoCoDA), based in Indianapolis, Indiana, for taking a technological leap towards operating with solar energy.

“The advantage is that the systems are powered by clean, renewable energies that do not pollute the environment,” Karilyn Vides, director of operations in El Salvador for the U.S.-based CoCoDA, told IPS.

Four previous projects of this type, supported since 2010 by CoCoDA, were small, with less than 10 solar panels. But the one mounted in the canton of El Zapote was planned to be equipped with 96 panels, when it was conceived in 2021.

It was inaugurated in June 2022, although it had been operating since 2004, with hydropower from the national grid.

This effort benefits more than 2,500 families settled around Suchitoto and on the slopes of Guazapa mountain which during the 12-year civil war was a stronghold of the then guerrilla Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), now a political party that governed the country between 2009 and 2019.

However, when including the four other small solar water projects, plus five that continue to operate with electricity from the national grid, all financially supported by CoCoDA after the end of the war, the total number of beneficiaries climbs to 10,000 people.

El Salvador’s bloody armed conflict left some 75,000 people dead and more than 8,000 missing. between 1980 and 1992.

By External Source
Oct 24 2022 (IPS-Partners)

 
Social media usage has allowed smugglers of wildlife products to expand their network’s reach using Rwanda as a transit route, an investigation by IPS correspondent Aimable Twahirwa shows. Twahirwa reached out to wildlife traffickers using the medium during his investigation of how traders use one of the busiest border crossings, known as “Petite Barrière,” to hide the contraband among other goods.

By External Source
Oct 14 2022 (IPS-Partners)

In 2022, an ongoing pandemic, global conflicts, climate change, rising prices and international tensions…

…are affecting global food security.

But we need to build sustainable access to enough nutritious food.

For everyone – everywhere.

No one should be left behind.

Leave No One Behind
World Food Day
16th October 2022

Enough food is produced today to feed everyone on the planet…

…but millions of people around the world cannot afford a healthy diet.

Ending hunger isn’t only about supply.

The problem is access and availability of nutritious food.

People around the world are suffering the domino effects of challenges that know no borders.

More than 80% of the extreme poor live in rural areas.

Many rely on agriculture and natural resources for their living.

They are usually the hardest hit by natural and man-made disasters…

…and are often marginalized due to their gender, ethnic origin, or status.

In the face of global crises, global solutions are needed more than ever.

A sustainable world is one where everyone counts.

Governments, the private sector, academia, and civil society and individuals need to work together…

…to prioritize the right of all people to food, nutrition, peace and equality.

We must all be the change.

By Alissa Yoon, Alexander John Ham, Alex Yoon, Hyunsang "Sean" Cho, Karuta Yamamoto, Souta Oshiro and Sungjoon Ham
Seoul, Tokyo, Boston, Oct 14 2022 (IPS-Partners)

A group of middle school students living in Asia filmed this video on their campaign to reduce food waste. They learned many lessons: Only take as much food as you can eat; don’t waste, eat ugly fruit and compost. In this production, they spoke to experts about how to ensure that everybody has something nutritious to eat.

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By Elena Seungeun Lee and Julie Hyunsung Lee
SEOUL, Bangkok, Oct 7 2022 (IPS-Partners)

When Elena Seungeun Lee discovered the extent of education inequity, she decided to do something about it. She started a YouTube channel, We Learn to Share, to teach online what she learned at school. We Learn to Share has become a student-led global NGO dedicated to bridging educational gaps, with more than 50 teenage volunteers from 11 countries and 29 high schools, and three universities around the world. We Learn to Share is solely led and run by teenagers who have beautiful sharing minds. This video was produced by Elena and fellow student Hyunsung Julie Lee.

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A view of the new Caucaia landfill, near Fortaleza, capital of the state of Ceará in northeastern Brazil, which receives about 5,000 tons of garbage a day. It already produces biogas, but will do so on a larger scale in a few years. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
FORTALEZA, Brazil, Oct 7 2022 (IPS)

Garbage that has accumulated since 1991 in the two landfills in the municipality of Caucaia has become a biomethane deposit that supplies industrial and commercial companies, thermoelectric plants and homes in Ceará, a state in northeastern Brazil.

The GNR Fortaleza plant extracts biogas from 700 wells installed in the landfills and refines it to obtain what it calls renewable natural gas – which gives the company its name – as opposed to fossil natural gas.

The plant, with a total area of 73 hectares, is located between two open-air landfills that resemble small plateaus in Caucaia, a municipality about 15 kilometers from the state capital Fortaleza, whose outskirts it forms part of, and produces about 100,000 cubic meters of biogas per day.

In addition to the climate benefit of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, biomethane today costs 30 percent less than its fossil equivalent, said Thales Motta, director of GNR Fortaleza as representative of Ecometano, a Rio de Janeiro-based company specializing in the use of biomass gases.

“It is a good business” because its price is adjusted according to national inflation and is not subject to exchange rate fluctuations and international hydrocarbon prices, as is the case with fossil gas, he told IPS.

Ecometano partnered with Marquise Ambiental, a company that manages landfills locally and in other parts of Brazil, to create the GNR in Caucaia.

Another decisive collaboration came from the state-owned Ceará Gas Company (Cegás), which agreed to incorporate biomethane into its natural gas distribution network, right from the start, in 2018, when the new fuel cost 30 percent more than fossil natural gas and faced misgivings about its quality and stability of supply, Motta said.

The agreement allows for the direct injection of biomethane into the Cegás grid and a share of around 15 percent of the consumption of the distributor’s 24,000 customers.

Industry is the main consumer, accounting for 46.26 percent of the total, followed by thermal power plants and motor vehicles. Residential consumption amounts to just 0.73 percent. Cegás prioritizes large consumers.

Ecometano is a pioneer in the production of biomethane from waste. It started in 2014 with a smaller plant, with a capacity for 14,000 cubic meters per day, GNR Dos Arcos, located in São Pedro da Aldeia, a coastal city of 108,000 people 140 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro.

In Caucaia, a municipality of 370,000 people near the coast of Ceará, the new landfill, in operation since 2019, receives 5,000 tons of garbage daily from Greater Fortaleza and its 4.2 million inhabitants.

The old landfill, which opened in 1991 and is now closed, is still the main source of biogas. But production is in continuous decline, unlike the new one, which is growing with the daily influx of garbage brought in by hundreds of trucks.

GNR Fortaleza’s experience has encouraged the dissemination of similar plants in metropolitan regions and large cities, due to the profitability of the business and because reducing methane emissions is key to mitigating the climate crisis.

Methane is at least 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, the gas with the highest emissions, in terms of global warming. The 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) on climate change, held in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2021, set a goal of cutting methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030.

Escaping the flood waters is a family with their livestock. The family was caught in devastating flows in the Taluka Jhudo, District Mirpurkhas. Credit: Research and Development Foundation (RDF)

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Aug 30 2022 (IPS)

The heavy and incessant monsoon downpours across Pakistan in the last two months have triggered floods wreaking havoc across the country, submerging entire villages and vast tracts of land and entrapping people. Anything coming in the way of the relentless water is being destroyed, including roads, bridges, and standing crops.

The Pakistani government has declared a national emergency with more than 30 million without shelter. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 66 districts have officially been declared ‘calamity hit’ by the government of Pakistan – 31 in Balochistan, 23 in Sindh, nine in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and three in Punjab. Many have likened the destruction to the 2010 super floods.

With government resources stretched and communications networks disrupted, flood survivors complain that help is scarce.

Families take refuge on higher ground. Credit Azra Gandehi

Flimsy coverings make keeping dry in the incessant rain an impossible task. Credit Azra Gandehi

Saeeda Khatoon, 28, likened her village of Zakaria Mahesar to the famous 3^rd millennium BC Moenjodaro ruins of the ancient Indus civilization, in her district of Larkana, in Sindh province, after the rains destroyed over 200 houses, some made of mud and straw and others, like hers, of brick. She, along with 11 members of her family, has found temporary shelter on higher ground, on the outskirts of the village, under the open sky, unprotected from the vagaries of the unpredictable monsoon rains.

“The water gushed into our home suddenly, and we rushed out just moments before the roof caved in,” she said, rendering them homeless. With water still waist deep, she said there was no way of retrieving their belongings from under the debris.

The monsoon season hit Pakistan this year in June, earlier than usual. Torrential rains continued well into July, with 181% above average rainfall. The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) said it rained 177.5mm against its normal of 63.1mm, making this July the wettest since 1961.

“July 2022 rainfall was excessively above average over Balochistan (+450%) and Sindh (+307%), both rank as the wettest ever during past 62 years,” said the PMD’s monthly summary. And the rains continue to batter the country well into the end of August, spreading more destruction across the provinces of Punjab, KP, and the mountainous region of Gilgit-Baltistan, after annihilating Balochistan and Sindh.

According to the National Disaster Management Authority, the rains have caused havoc across Pakistan, claiming nearly 1,000 lives and more than 1400 rain-related injuries since June. More than half the casualties are from Balochistan and Sindh province.

Over 3,000 km of road network has been damaged, of which over 2,300 km is in Sindh, making it difficult for the government and non-governmental organizations to reach and rescue. “The whole province is inundated with flood water, and roads are battered; it is difficult to reach and provide relief,” said Inayatullah Ismail, senior manager, coordination at the non-profit Al Khidmat Welfare Society. “We are providing tents to the displaced people and will be setting up kitchens on the highways where people are seeking refuge.”

“Since the last three days, our teams have been distributing cooked food to nearly 30,000 flood victims who have set up makeshift camps around RDF offices,” said Soomro.

“Giving cooked meals is best as it is difficult for the displaced to cook having lost everything,” said Aqsa Iqbal, who volunteers with Serve Humanity Together. She suggested: “All those who are providing cooked food to affectees may also want to add drinking water bottles, packed snacks or biscuits, juices and fruits (dates) as well, so that they could have something that does not get spoiled, and they can consume over the next few days.” She also said most people urgently needed tents, plastic sheets, and medical aid.

Further, she said, rescue and relief workers were finding it difficult to reach people stuck in remote villages, surrounded by stagnant rainwater.

“Many of these people are young volunteers with a lot of zeal but not professionally trained. Wading through water, even shallow, was difficult, and there is always the fear that they could be bitten by snakes or fall in open potholes,” said Iqbal. That is why, she said, it would be best to bring the flood affectees to dry land, where it is easier to provide them with food, water, and medicines.

So far, the NDMA has recorded nearly 680,000 houses affected, of which over 58,000 are in Sindh alone. Up to 19,000 of these homes in Sindh have been destroyed.

A father and son remove their belongings from their flood-damaged home in Taluka, Shujabad, District Mirpurkhas Taluka, Shujabad, District Mirpurkhas. Credit: Research and Development Foundation (RDF)

“I have never seen a greater catastrophe in my life,” said Sindh chief minister Murad Ali Shah after visiting various flood-affected districts of Sindh. He said his government was stretched for funds and had run out of tents and food. Over 10 million people in Sindh have been rendered homeless.

The government of Sindh has formally reached out to NGOs requesting help with rescue and relief work.

Despite being surrounded by water, the women from the Taluka Jhudo region have to walk for miles to access clean water for their families and cooking. Credit: Research and Development Foundation (RDF)

Rani Malukhani, a social activist from Khuda Baksh Marri, a village in Sanghar district, said they were starving and sitting on the roadside with nothing to protect them from the lashing rain. “Where is the government; where are the NGOs?” she said over a WhatsApp video phone call, showing how her community was sitting stranded on the roadside.

“Our homes and standing crops have been destroyed,” she cried in distress.

“There are close to 700 people in this village, and all are sitting on both sides of the 2-3 km long road under the sky,” confirmed Azra Gandehi, who works with the NGO, Research and Development Foundation (RDF). She was visiting the village for a preliminary survey and assessment of the damage so she could return with assistance. “The water is chest deep, and all had to evacuate along with their livestock.”

In the neighbouring Mirpur Khas district, things are no better. Motan Bheel, 52, and her five children and two goats, belonging to Jhudo village, had to wade through waist-deep water to reach the safety of the bank of Puraan (a sub-drain that collects saline water, agricultural effluent, and floodwater to the Arabian Sea). “There is water all around us, but not a drop to drink,” she said. “We have not received any help from the government, NGOs or philanthropists.”

Irfan Hussain, working with RDF and helping the district government in Mirpur Khas with rescue work, explained: “They have to walk nearly three kilometres to fetch water, but because they don’t have enough vessels to carry water and big containers to store, they have to keep going back and forth.”

Bheel said her 14-year-old was running a high fever for the last two days and fears it may be malaria. “There is nowhere to go to seek help, and I don’t have the money,” she said.

Hussain said she and half the villagers (from 250 households) staying on either side of the bank urgently need tents, mosquito nets and healthcare to fight malaria, diarrhoea, and scabies.

The government has turned schools and factories into relief camps, but Gandehi, who visited some, found them “too crowded”.

Indus Resource Centre, an NGO, has been running 17 schools, managing five government schools and 25 non-formal post-primary centres, in Khairpur district, for the last 22 years. Sadiqa Salahuddin, heading IRC, sent an appeal for help. She said ten IRC schools, including five government schools, have been turned into camps housing nearly 7,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs), and the number was increasing daily.

Contemplating his losses, a man stands in front of his house in Taluka Sanghar, District Sangha. He is among the millions displaced by the floods. Credit: Research and Development Foundation (RDF)

The Larkana district administration has set up around 290 camps where around 28,500 people have been shifted. But people are unhappy with the lack of facilities saying they spend sleepless nights “owing to the huge swarm of mosquitos”. The government has registered nearly 184,061 people in camps set up in 117 districts across the country.

The RDF is also helping the livestock department vaccinate animals to reduce the threat of an outbreak of diseases.

Over 17,600 animals were vaccinated and 8,000 dewormed in the last two days in Tando Allahyar, Matiari, Mipur Khas, Thatta and Tharparkar districts during the floods,” said Ashfaque Soomro, executive director of RDF. “The campaign will continue, and we will increase our outreach in ten other districts.”

The government has launched an international appeal for relief and rehabilitation. The European Union announced €350,000 as crucial humanitarian assistance focusing on addressing the urgent needs of the hardest-hit districts of Jhal Magsi and Lasbela in Balochistan.

Prime Minister Sheh­baz Sharif also appealed to the nation for Rs 80 billion needed for carrying out relief work in addition to “hundreds of billions of rupees” to rehabilitate the victims.

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The confluence of the waters with the distinct colors of the pollution of each one: darker waters reflect the urban sewage of the Arrudas River, while brown reflects erosion coming from the upper Velhas River, a natural effect or product of mining visible in the city of Belo Horizonte, in southern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil, Jul 27 2022 (IPS)

Torrential water in the streets and none coming out of the taps are two disasters that plague Brazil’s metropolises, especially those located along the upper stretches of rivers, such as Belo Horizonte, capital of the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

Floods have become routine, fuelled by the hilly topography, paved-over streams and land-surface impermeabilization in this city of 2.5 million people.

In January and February, as happens every year, torrential rains flooded the roads and swept away cars, furniture, sometimes people, and flooded houses on the valley bottoms, where the streams used to flow freely but are now buried and running in culverts under streets and avenues.

The drinking water supply has remained steady overall, but in 2015 and 2021 the city was on the verge of water rationing due to droughts that began in the previous year. However, some neighborhoods have complained about dry water taps.

About 70 percent of the water consumed in Belo Horizonte comes from the Velhas River basin, whose headwaters are some 100 kilometers south of the city. The supply depends on rainfall upstream and there are no reservoirs to accumulate water.

That is why caring for the headwaters of the rivers and streams, located in the surroundings of Ouro Preto, a historical city that was at the center of Brazil’s 18th century gold rush, and of neighboring Itabirito, is vital for Belo Horizonte.

These cities are still involved in mining, although the industry there is now dominated by iron ore. They are part of the so-called Iron Quadrangle, made up of 25 municipalities that account for the production of almost half of Brazil’s iron ore.

Iron ore mining, in addition to consuming abundant water and polluting rivers, poses a threat of major environmental and human disasters. Two tailings dams collapsed in the Quadrangle, in Mariana in 2015 and in Brumadinho in 2019, killing 19 and 270 people, respectively.

In Brumadinho, the toxic mudflow reached the Paraopeba River, which supplied 15 percent of the inhabitants of Belo Horizonte. Fortunately, three reservoirs on tributaries of the Paraopeba that were not affected are the source of water for most of the metropolitan region, comprising 34 municipalities with a total combined population of six million.

Frederico Leite, Itabirito’s environmental secretary, and his deputy Julio Carvalho, a forestry engineer, in addition to negotiating environmental measures with the mining companies, have been working on cleaning up the Itabirito River, which crosses the city, and on creating a number of small catchments disseminated around the countryside aimed at reducing erosion and retaining water in the soil.

These micro-catchments are “barraginhas” or wide pits dug on gently sloping land to slow down the runoff of rainwater that causes erosion, and “caixas secas,” smaller but deeper pits dug next to roads to collect runoff that damages roadways and clogs up streams with sediment.

Sedimentation is a major problem in the Velhas River, reducing the depth of the river and the quality of its earth-colored waters.

In Ouro Preto, Ronald Guerra, a former secretary of the environment who is an activist in the basin committees, proposes the construction of a succession of small dams to retain water and revitalize forests.

In Belo Horizonte, the battle is against floodwaters and sewage that pollute the watercourses.

“The goal is to once again be able to swim, fish and play in the Onça River by 2025,” like people did 70 years ago, dreams Itamar de Paula Santos, a community leader in the Ribeiro de Abreu neighborhood, one of the most affected by the river’s floods, since it is located on its lowest stretch.

The construction of riverside linear parks and the resettling of residents in nearby areas safe from floods are among the actions that united the city government and community leaders such as Santos and, in other neighborhoods, Maria José Zeferino and Paulo de Freitas. In addition to the environmental benefits, the parks are recreational areas and allow people healthy access to the river.

Apolo Heringer, a physician and university professor, has been fighting since the 1990s to “renaturalize” the Velhas River basin. To this end, he created the Manuelzão Project, a university project inspired by a well-known local literary character.

Its strategy is to concentrate efforts on a 30-kilometer stretch of the Arrudas and Onça streams, which cross Belo Horizonte, and the Velhas River between the mouths of the two streams.

Eighty percent of the urban pollution in the basin is concentrated there and eliminating it would allow “bringing back the fish and swimming” in the 800 kilometers of its waters.

By External Source
Jul 15 2022 (IPS-Partners)

This virtual event was hosted by BRAC, the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the UN, and the Permanent Mission of Rwanda to the UN on the sidelines of the 2022 UN High Level Political Forum.

This webinar reflects on BRAC’s role in generating development lessons in the Global South and Bangladesh’s remarkable progress towards meeting the UN SDGs. The panel will discuss SDGs 1: No Poverty; 4: Quality Education, 5: Gender Equality, and 17: Partnerships for the Goals. We hope this event will also promote the need for continued global cooperation in order to achieve the UN SDGs, especially in the midst of compounding global crises.

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted lives all over the world. According to this report, gender is emerging as a significant factor in the social, economic and health effects of Covid-19. Women have been hit much harder socially and economically than men. The greatest and most persistent gender gap was seen in employment and uncompensated labour, with 26% of women reporting loss of work compared with 20% of men globally in September 2021.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

UNESCO has projected almost 11 million girls might not return to school due to Covid-19’s unprecedented education disruption. This alarming number not only threatens “decades of progress made towards gender equality, but also puts girls around the world at risk of adolescent pregnancy, early and forced marriage and violence,” states this report. As almost 90% of the world’s countries have shut their schools in efforts to slow the transmission, this study estimates that 20 million more secondary school-aged girls could be out of school after the crisis has passed.

“The world has changed, and these changes are impacting women. Poverty has deepened, the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women are under attack, climate change is upon us, and changes in technology are also disproportionately impacting women. The world is facing a gender divide,” says Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Chair of the Board at Women Deliver and former United Nations (UN) Under Secretary General and Executive Director of UN Women in an exclusive interview given to IPS News.

The impact of Covid-19 pandemic has threatened to reverse decades of progress made towards gender equality. Mlambo-Ngcuka says, in the last decade the world was heading in the right direction including addressing extreme poverty, but now things have changed.

“The pandemic has hit women disproportionately and young women, women are now facing food insecurity in a significant way, and of course we’ve seen that the conflicts have not ended, they have escalated. We have the war in Ukraine, and as you may know any situation that creates a humanitarian crisis, women are always likely to be the ones that pay the price more than men bearing arms. Women and children tend to be affected much more and then of course an increase in gender-based violence in trafficking of women,” says Mlambo-Ngcuka.

Women have faced compounding burdens from being over-represented working in health systems, to facing increased risks of violence, exploitation, abuse or harassment during times of crisis and quarantine. Women have been at the forefront of the battle against the pandemic as they make up almost 70% of the healthcare workforce, exposing them to greater risk of infection, while they are under-represented in leadership and decision-making processes in the healthcare sector.

This crisis and its subsequent shutdown response resulted in dramatic increase in unpaid emotional and care burden on women and families, women were already doing most of the world’s unpaid care work prior to the onset of the pandemic, only to have it increased since 2020.

Worldwide, women lost more than 65 million jobs in 2020 alone, resulting in an estimated US$800 billion loss of income, an estimate which doesn’t even include wages lost by the millions of women working in the informal economy – domestic workers, market vendors and garment workers – who have been sent home or whose hours have been drastically cut. COVID-19 has dealt a striking blow to recent gains for women in the workforce.

“Honestly, my heart goes out to our young people today just because of the difficulties we are facing. I do want to challenge older people like myself to really open the space through collaborations and co-creations with younger people, their involvement and engagement should not be token, but real.

“It’s important for us to mobilize allies from the other side so that it is not always women who are knocking on doors, there must be someone inside who is trying to open the door for you. Working with men and pushing an agenda for men to stand for gender equality is also very important. I go back to emphasizing on the need to have policies, we always must open a door for more people to come in and be empowered,” says Mlambo-Ngcuka.

However, one area where women stood out was where data supported the fact that countries led by women handled Covid-19 much better than their male counterparts. Countries with female leaders tend to have lower Covid-19 death rates and better economic performance, but the number of countries with women in executive government positions continues to remain low. As of 1 September 2021, there are only 26 women serving as Heads of State or government in 24 countries.

Whether it is balanced political participation, leadership roles in organizations or power-sharing between women and men, Mlambo-Ngcuka believes the answer lies in setting targets, quotas and policies for effective participation and representation of women.

“We need to have mechanisms for accountability towards those who are responsible for implementing these measures, and we also need women themselves to continue making demands, we must balance what happens in boardrooms policy-wise and outside through those who are carrying black cards.

“It’s hard to talk about progress but you cannot deny that there are more women leaders than before, that’s for sure there are more women in the labour force, more girls in schools, but our best is not good enough, there is still much more for us to do,” says Mlambo-Ngcuka.

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Afghan women. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Jun 17 2022 (IPS)

Gynophobia is defined as an intense and irrational fear of women or hatred of women, it may be characterized as a form of specific phobias, which involves a fear that is centered on a specific trigger or situation, which in the case of gynophobia is women.

After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, in August 2021, the Taliban completed their shockingly rapid and forced advance across Afghanistan by capturing Kabul on 15th August. What followed this takeover has since then been a series of human rights violations, humanitarian catastrophe, roll back on women’s rights and media freedom – the foremost achievements of the post-2001 reconstruction effort. The country has also been enduring a deadly humanitarian crisis, with malnutrition spiking across the country with 95 percent of households experiencing insufficient food consumption and food insecurity, according to this report. The number of malnourished children in Afghanistan has more than doubled since August with some dying before they can reach hospitals.

According to this report, 9 million people are close to being afflicted by famine in Afghanistan, millions have gone months without a steady income. Afghanistan’s economic crisis has loomed for years; the result of poverty, conflict and drought. This, combined with a sudden drop-off in international aid, has made it more tough for Afghans to survive, adding to this list is illicit opium trade and the worrying drug addiction, an ongoing challenge for the country.

However the priority for the Taliban was not saving the economy and the country from these disasters, instead under the cloak of religion, it didn’t take too long for the fundamentalist group to focus and display its misogynistic gynophobia towards the women and girls in the country, as it was expected. What Taliban fears, yet again, Afghan girls attending school beyond 6th grade, a decision directly affecting 1.1 million secondary school girls, depriving them of a future.

Taliban officials have also announced women and girls would be expected to stay home and if they were to venture out, they would have to cover in all-encompassing loose clothing that only reveals their eyes, making it one of the harshest controls on women’s lives in Afghanistan since it seized power in August last year. They fear women journalists so much, they ordered all female newscasters to cover their faces while on air.

International rights groups, Human Rights Watch says the list of Taliban violations of the rights of women and girls is long and growing. Amongst many that have been listed, include appointment of an all-male cabinet, abolition of the ministry of Women’s Affairs and replacing it with the Ministry of Vice and Virtue. Banning secondary education for girls, banning women from all jobs, blocking women from traveling long distances or leaving the country alone. “They issued new rules for how women must dress and behave. They enforce these rules through violence,” it stated in this report.

Women in Afghanistan since last August have been fighting back, through protests demanding the right to work and to go to school.

Sara Wahedi

“We know what is happening is terrifying, it’s unjust, it’s inhumane, what is the international community going to do to facilitate accountability measures now,” says Wahedi.

In 2021, Wahedi was named one of the Next Generation leaders by TIME Magazine, her mobile app, Ehtesab, crowd-sources verified reports of bombings, shootings, roadblocks and city-service issues, helping residents of Kabul to stay safe. As a young tech entrepreneur, Wahedi says she is amongst the few who got her education and the freedom to do what she wanted, as the times were different

“I feel incredibly guilty, I think most Afghan women who are out of Afghanistan, who were able to pursue education to the highest level feel a crippling sense of anxiety and guilt. Education is ingrained in our psyche right from the time we are born from our parents, but for our country it was also different because we have seen war, we have seen instability, it is even more pertinent to get out of this life, all Afghan girls, they know this and to have it taken away from them so violently, it’s obviously affected their mental health, and I feel an inexplicable level of guilt to be in this position,” Wahedi says.

Women and girls have continued to bear the brunt of restrictions under the Taliban and their imposed doctrine, as seen in the past. The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (UNHCR) in this report said, “What we are witnessing today in Afghanistan is the institutionalized, systematic oppression of women.”

In this interview given to CNN, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Afghanistan’s acting Interior Minister and Taliban’s co-deputy leader since 2016 said, “We keep naughty women at home.” After being pressed to clarify his comments, he said: “By saying naughty women, it was a joke referring to those naughty women who are controlled by some other side to bring the current government into question.”

With the Taliban coming into power, there is no doubt that the women in Afghanistan will continue to face an uncertain future and in order to avert the irreversible damage being done to the female population, international communities and organizations must not just condemn the Taliban, but also hold them accountable and speak up on behalf of Afghan women, before they are all forced into invisibility. Whatever little progress was made by women in Afghanistan, the Taliban have through their rules and policies reversed them, pushing women towards invisibility and exacerbated inequalities against women. What they fear – women being educated, being seen, having an identity, agency, work, job, rights, freedom and their ability to hold them accountable. The realities of life under the Taliban control, whatever the timeline may be, remains the same.

Sania Farooqui is a New Delhi based journalist, filmmaker and host of The Sania Farooqui Show where she regularly speaks to women who have made significant contributions to bring about socio economic changes globally. She writes and reports regularly for IPS news wire.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, Jun 8 2022 (IPS)

It has been over 100 days since Russia first invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, turning the country into a slaughterhouse. The United Nations (UN) in this report says that, as of 1 June, 2022, more than 6.9 million refugees have left Ukraine and 2.1 million have returned, while eight million people are displaced inside Ukraine itself. War in Ukraine has caused the fastest growing refugee crisis since World War II.

In a statement, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the conflict which began in February has since then taken thousands of lives, caused untold destruction, displaced millions of people, resulted in unacceptable violation of human rights and is inflaming a three-dimensional global – food, energy and finance – that is pummeling the most vulnerable people, countries and economies.

Maria Dmytriyeva

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who are choosing to stay and fight back are demonstrating unity and resilience and say they are ready for the resistance. Maria Dmytriyeva, a long-time women’s rights activist and national gender expert with Democracy Development Center, an NGO based out of Ukraine is one amongst them who chose to stay back, has been working on the ground aiding civilians since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

In an interview given to IPS News Dmytriyeva says that areas that were affected directly by the hostilities that have been liberated by the Ukrainian army are now rapidly rebuilding. “Local people and visiting builders are cleaning up the street, debris, mines and restoring infrastructure, where there are no Russians, life goes on.”

“We do have major problems with fuel as Russians deliberately destroyed our petroleum hosting areas, so transportation is a problem. We don’t have food scarcity; the problem is how to deliver it into areas controlled by Russians or heavily bombarded by Russians,” Dmytriyeva said.

Human rights organizations have been watching the impact of the war in Ukraine on women and children. The Rapid Gender Analysis, put together by UN Women and CARE International says that 90% of those fleeing Ukraine and 60% of those displaced are women – both which comes with increased safety risks, gender-based violence, poor hygiene, lack of basic supplies and safety concerns in shelters or across borders.

“I have visited three border checkpoints, in Romania, Moldova and Slovakia, we don’t enough information about what to do once anyone crosses the borders – how to manage your passport, how to find the right people, which shelter to go to and how to stay safe,” says Ella Lamakh, a social policy expert and Head of Democracy Development Center in Ukraine who too stayed back in Ukraine to help women and children impacted by the war.

Ella Lamakh

“There are a lot of women and children crossing these borders, and when I asked them where they are going, their reply is – ‘oh we are just going across the border, we will ask some volunteer, or we will figure it out’. While I am thankful for all the help these women are getting, there are a lot of posters on the walls across the border or at these checkpoints, but nobody has the time or mind to stop and read any of them. What would be useful for these women is if they are given information, handed over to them in the form of posters or booklets,” Lamakh says.

As of 3 June, the Human Rights Monitoring Team of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had received reports of 124 alleged acts of conflict-related sexual violence across Ukraine.

“Allegations of sexual violence by Russian troops in Ukraine are mounting. A national hotline on domestic violence, human trafficking and gender-based discrimination has been set up, and has received multiple shocking reports ranging from gang rape, to coercion, where loved ones are forced to watch an act of sexual violence committed against a partner of a child” stated this report.

The United Nations has warned that the war in Ukraine has also helped stoke a global food crisis, and “what could follow would be malnutrition, mass hunger and famine, in a crisis that could last for years, urging Russia to release Ukrainian grain exports.”

Before the war began in February, Ukraine exported 4.5m tonnes of agricultural produce per month through its ports – 12% of the planet’s wheat, 15% of its corn and half of its sunflower oil. As Russian warships cut off the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and others, the supply has been gravely impacted.

More than a month into Russia’s invasion, the Ukrainian military fared better than expected, where Russia has numerical superiority with 900,000 active personnel in its armed forces, and 2 million in reserve, Ukraine has 196,000 and 900,000 reservists, stated this report. Ukraine managed to bring the asymmetric power of pervasive inexpensive commercial technology, especially citizen-empowering social networks and crowdsourcing. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy through his various appeals managed to tap into its western allies demanding weapons and sanctions to fight back.

Several countries have reached out to help Ukraine by sending military aid to Kyiv. The United States will be sending Ukraine advanced rocket systems and munitions as part of a new $700 million package of military equipment, “promised only after direct assurance by Ukraine’s leader that they would not use it against targets within Russian territory.”

Britain is to supply long-range rocket artillery to Ukraine, UK will be sending a handful of tracked M270 multiple launch rocket systems. Spain is to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles and Leopard battle tanks in a step up of its military support.

In its latest attempt to punish Russia, the European Union, along with countries such as the UK and the US have introduced a series of measures to weaken key areas of the Russian economy, such as its energy and financial sectors. The EU has imposed a ban on all imports of oil from Russia that are brought in by sea. The US is banning all Russian oil and gas imports, and the UK will phase out Russian oil imports by the end of 2022. Germany has put on hold the final approval of Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia. These western sanctions on Russia are like none the world has seen.

Only time will tell what Russia’s overestimation of its own capabilities and underestimation of the capacity of Ukraine to fight back will result in, but history is a proof that ‘wars of aggression’ have not always ended well for aggressor states, and as seen in Ukraine, it’s already united western allies, rallied Ukrainians against common enemy and united them with a sense of purpose and collective sacrifice, keeping them going stronger for the last 100 days. Ukraine is showing the world how to fight back.

Sania Farooqui is a New Delhi based journalist, filmmaker and host of The Sania Farooqui Show where she regularly speaks to women who have made significant contributions to bring about socio economic changes globally. She writes and reports regularly for IPS news wire.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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