Dr Paul Kinoti at the JKUAT snail farm, where he is researching the potential of snail slime cough syrup. Credit: Wilson Odhiambo/IPS

By Wilson Odhiambo
NAIROBI, May 29 2023 (IPS)

Snails and slime are usually followed by the thought ‘EEW!’ from most people … some might even scream at seeing a snail near them.

For Dr Paul Kinoti, however, these slimy creatures could earn him international recognition because his research on snails landed his institution, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), a Ksh. 127 million (USD 1 million) grant.

The grant, awarded by the Cherasco Institute of Snail Breeding, Italy, is expected to fund a two-phase research project to produce cough syrup meant for children under five.

As a lecturer at JKUAT’s Horticulture and Food Security department, Kinoti has specialized in non-conventional farming systems for over a decade.

Non-conventional farming is a system that employs modified/unique farming methods in crop and animal production. Kinoti has been researching insects and worms (vermiculture), concentrating on how they add value to supplement crop and livestock production.

According to Kinoti, snails are already associated with a wide variety of products, including animal feeds, skin care products, pharmaceuticals, and fertilizer.

“My research focuses on unique farming methods that farmers are not used to, including rearing insects and worms as a source of livestock feed and fertilizer for plants. I keep black soldier flies and worms which are a major source of proteins for livestock, especially for poultry and fish,” Kinoti explained to IPS.

And as a food security specialist, one of his goals is to encourage people to include snails in their diet, given that it is rich in proteins and iron.

“Lack of awareness is the main reason why Kenyans do not see snails as a source of food for themselves, and getting them to accept it will be a difficult task. This is why we are using a simpler approach by encouraging farmers to take up snail farming to get used to the idea of having snails around them,” he told IPS.

Across the globe, majorly in Asia, parts of Europe, and West Africa, snails are a known delicacy.

The snail products are currently being manufactured within JKUAT, where, through training, they have engaged local farmers to supply them with snail slime (mucin). The institution offers these farmers short, three-day courses on how to rear snails and extract their slime, which they later sell to the institution for profit.

“We are grateful to the institution for opening our minds to an opportunity that has become quite lucrative. Most of the people in Kiambu County are either full-time farmers or have a piece of land somewhere that they have put aside for farming activities, making this a good source of extra income. Snail farming is new to us. Most would never even have considered practicing it due to the culture that we have grown up with,” said Antony Njoroge, one of the local farmers who now farms snails.

During his PhD studies in Austria, Kinoti was introduced to snail farming by his host, a snail farmer.

“When I came back, I realized that snail farming was still alien to Kenya, and rather than just focus on rearing the snails, I decided to research their value addition for farming. It is from this that I was able to come up with different products such as fertilizer, animal feeds, and skin care products,” Kinoti told IPS. The products have been certified by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) and are already in the market.

The idea for the cough syrup did not come about until 2019, when Kinoti conducted field research on snails in Kumasi, Ghana. His visit happened to be during the flu season, where he was surprised at the strange concoctions that parents were using as remedy for their children who were coughing.

“I noticed that rather than being given ginger or lemon tea that most of us are used to when someone gets the flu, their parents were collecting snail slime and mixing it with some bit of honey which they gave the children as a remedy,” Kinoti explained to IPS. This idea stuck in my mind, and when I came back, I decided to do more research on it.

The project’s first phase, which is meant to take two years, will involve identifying the best snail species for production and research on snail slime while encouraging farmers to breed them. The second phase will be manufacturing and producing the cough syrup once it has been approved by the Kenya Food and Drug Authority (KFDA).

The snail species commonly used for slime production is the African giant land snail (Achatina Fulica), which produces up to 4 milliliters of slime per snail. It takes about 250 of these giant snails to make a liter of slime, extracted once weekly.

The Achatina Fulica is native to East Africa, where its origin can be traced to Kenya and Tanzania. Across the globe, it is regarded as an invasive species due to its ability to produce colonies from a single female. It feeds in large quantities and is a carrier for plant pathogens, making it a pest to farmers when it invades their farms. It has spread across the globe through exportation to Europe and Asia as a delicacy, being bought into those areas as a pet or by accidental transportation when it latches on to something.

The project involves a number of experts (mainly within the university) from different departments to help oversee its success. These experts include animal scientists, food scientists, health scientists, and other technical staff who help run the snail farm.

It also works in conjunction with other major institutions such as the Kenya National Museum, whose work is to help them identify the best type of snails for slime production, and the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), which is the main stakeholder and body that provides them with the license they need to carry out snail farming in Kenya.

As a conservation measure, the snails are not supposed to be harmed during the slime extraction, which makes it a delicate process that involves using citric acid, and the extraction is only done once a week.

Once successful, the cough syrup is expected to help lower the cost of importation since everything will be manufactured locally, thus helping save a lot of money. The farmers are also excited that they no longer have to rely on expensive fertilizer and animal feeds from the government, which has always made their input expensive while giving them little returns.

As a delicacy, snails are primarily spotted in high-end hotels that are mostly visited by foreigners and tourists.

“Growing up, the one memory I had about snails from my biology lessons was that they caused bilharzia, which made me dislike them. Today, I am one of the suppliers of snail meat to some big hotels in Nairobi and Mombasa,” says Brian Wandera, a local businessman from Nairobi. “It is amazing what knowledge can do.”

“I buy the snails from the farmers in Kiambu and sell them to the hotels at a profit. Locally, Kenyans are yet to adopt snail meat as a source of food,” he added.

The grant is also expected to help empower women and the youth by providing them with employment opportunities through training on snail farming, according to Kinoti, an investment of Ksh. 20,000 (USD 190) can earn a snail farmer between Ksh. 50,000 (USD 450) and 100,000 (USD 950) monthly once the snails start to produce their slime, usually at four months. The slime is categorized into three grades which are sold at different prices.

“We buy the slime from the farmers at a fee of Ksh. 1200 (USD 11) per liter for grade A slime, Ksh. 850 (USD 8) per liter for grade B slime and Ksh. 650 (USD 6) for grade C slime,” Kinoti concluded.

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Cocoa farmers in Padre Abad in Ucayali, Peru, benefitted from UNDP support to produce sustainable cocoa. Credit: UNDP

By Alison Kentish
NEW YORK, Apr 26 2023 (IPS)

In 2015, just over 30 cocoa farmers from Padre Abad in Ucayali, a province in the lush and ecologically diverse Peruvian Amazon, formed an alliance to tackle long-standing concerns such as soil quality, access to markets, fair prices for their produce and a growing number of illegal plantations. The result was the Colpa de Loros Cooperative, and from the start, the goal was to produce the finest quality, export-ready cocoa.

Membership would grow to over 500 partners covering 200 hectares of land today.

For almost four years, the cooperative’s small producers worked tirelessly on the transition of the area from traditional but environmentally taxing cocoa harvesting to growing premium cocoa that could meet export demand in the chocolate industry. This was no easy feat, as fine-flavor cocoa production demanded significant investment in technical training for members, initiatives to monitor deforestation, and data systems to ensure cocoa traceability, production, and sales. On the education side, it demanded a change from centuries-long cocoa farming practices to the principles of agroecology.

Then in April 2023, as the farmers worked to meet demanding international certifications, the European Parliament passed a new law introducing rigorous, wide-ranging requirements on commodities such as palm oil, soy, beef, and cocoa. Now the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is researching how it should step up its assistance to producers to meet the new criteria.

New EU Requirements

Colpa de Loros sells 100 percent of its cocoa to a European buyer, the French company Kaoka. When word of the new European regulations hit, the cooperative had already achieved organic production and fair-trade certification. It had also attained ‘fair for life’ certification, a Kaoka-led initiative.

Attaining these credentials meant that members had been working on a blueprint for environmentally friendly agriculture systems. However, for Peru, the world’s third largest cocoa supplier to Europe, the new regulations triggered frenetic action to maintain contracts with buyers and protect the almost 100,000 small producers who depend on cocoa exports to sustain their households.

“The law affects not only Colpa de Loros, but all producers,’ said Ernesto Parra, Manager of Colpa de Loros Cooperative.

“We already have laws which require analysis of pesticides, which makes costs higher. To ensure compliance with this rule, they implement measures like regular audits. Every grain must be free of contamination. There are organizations bigger than Colpa that are experiencing difficulties to respond, and no actions have been taken by the government to support them,” he said.

The European Commission has now also introduced new forest conservation and restoration rules. The Commission said the deforestation regulation would promote EU consumption of deforestation-free supply chain products, encourage international cooperation to tackle forest degradation, reroute finance to aid sustainable land-use practices, and support the collection and availability of quality data on forests and commodity supply chains.

Parra says this commitment to the environment complements the cooperative’s core values.

“The cooperative aligns with this green pact signed by all actors in Europe to not buy chocolate from deforested areas or involving child or forced work. They not only promote the protection of the environment, but reforestation, land protection, recycling programmes, and biogas from cacao liquid. We agree that cocoa can’t come from deforested areas or make new plantations in protected areas.”

While the cooperative is firm in its environmental consciousness, Parra says the investment is needed in educational activities and technical support for rural farmers who are struggling to accept the realities of land degradation and climate change.

“Some of them are still burning forests. Organizations need to convince the base of producers and farmers to change. Not only their partners but all people in the communities. Incentives can help. For example, I can be carbon neutral, but I’m going to have a higher cost, and if the market does not recognize it, if I don’t have an incentive, the standard will be difficult to maintain. Our cooperative gives its own incentives: those who commit to the organic certification receive fertilizer produced by Colpa de Loros to increase production.

“It is a start, but this is not enough. The state or the market needs to offer incentives as well.”

UNDP Support – and Good Growth Partnership Scoping

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been working with the world’s commodity-producing countries to put sustainability at the center of supply chains.

For the past five years, its Good Growth Partnership (GGP), based on the tenets of the Sustainable Development Goals and funded by the Global Environment Facility, has struck a balance between livelihoods and environmental protection—prioritizing people and the planet.

From Brazil to Indonesia, the GGP has embraced an Integrated Approach, working with producers, traders, policymakers, financial institutions, and multinational corporations to build sustainability in soy, beef, and palm oil supply chains.

Peru has so far not been covered by GGP but is being scoped for possible assistance under a next phase of the programme.

In the meantime, the UN agency has been supporting Peru to achieve sustainable commodity production- a target that remains crucial in the face of the new EU regulation.

“The control and monitoring of all production processes had to be doubled, and UNDP is vital here. With its finance, the technical department was strengthened, agricultural technology was incorporated, and members received capacity building in sustainability and food security,” said Parra.

Each member of Colpa de Loros is responsible for 3-4 hectares of land. The GEF-financed Sustainable Productive Landscapes (SPL) in the Peruvian Amazon project, led by the Ministry of Environment with technical assistance from UNDP, has been supporting projects that enhance food production while protecting water and land resources.

“The organization’s cocoa is not conventional cocoa. It is a fine aroma cocoa. So, producers needed equipment for special analysis. Then all information needed to be organized in a digital platform. UNDP helped in these areas,’ he added.

“The GEF-financed SPL project provided US$150,000 to complement the work of the organization with maps, digital platforms, and traceability. As there is no global system of traceability, Colpa is using its own, which is expensive.”

Action Plans

The UN organization, working closely with the Ministry of Agriculture, has also been assisting the Government and industry partners to develop and implement national action plans for the cocoa and coffee sectors. The Peruvian National Plan for Cocoa and Chocolate was unveiled in November 2022. It breaks down divisions between production, demand, and finance issues in agriculture. It also contains clear strategies to increase sustainability based on science, technology, and tradition.

The plan complements the values of UNDP and represents a win for both farmers and the environment.

“It is important to recognize that many Peruvian farmers’ cooperatives and companies, regardless of the EU regulation, are concerned about the potential impacts of their production systems on the environment, and they are increasingly conscious of the impacts that climate change is having on their production systems,” said James Leslie, Technical Advisor Ecosystems and Climate Change at UNDP Peru.

“Now, the concern is the feasibility of complying with the EU regulation and in the timeframe required. This concern is directly related to the fact that the EU markets are important for Peruvian agricultural products, particularly coffee, and cocoa. There is a concern that with the new EU regulation, there can be restricted or more challenging access to the market.”

The UNDP official says meeting stringent sustainable production requirements comes at a hefty cost to owners of small and medium-sized farms.

“There is not necessarily a price premium for their products due to certification,” he said. Incentives are a key factor in GGP’s work in encouraging farmers to adopt sustainable practices.

“It’s important also to recognize that there is a difference within the farmer population. Some farmers are organized and are part of cooperatives. For example, roughly 20 percent of cocoa and coffee farmers are organized in some way, which means that 80 per cent are not. Those unorganized farmers are less likely to be certified, and they are less likely to be accessing stable markets that provide some price guarantee.”

According to the UNDP, Peru ranks 9 in the world’s top ten cocoa producers and tops the world in organic cocoa production. The majority of farmers are small-scale and medium scale. Leslie says many of these farmers are either living in poverty or vulnerable to falling below the poverty line.

“Add to that additional restrictions and costs in order to access markets, and it poses a risk for these farmers—for their wellbeing and livelihoods,” he said.

The Future of Sustainable Agriculture

Looking ahead, Leslie says access to traceability systems is important. The farmers will need to prove that their production has met the EU requirements.

He says the Government will also need to expand technical assistance, increase investment in science and technology, including the purchase of climate change-resistant crop varieties, and ensure that farmers can receive finance aligned with the EU regulation’s sustainability criteria.

Clear land use policies will also be needed to delineate land that is appropriate for agriculture and particular types of crops. Areas that must be regenerated should be clearly marked, along with those that should be conserved, such as watersheds and zones of high biodiversity value.

For Colpa de Loros, Parra says the goal must be to strike a balance between sustainable land use and livelihoods.

“For deforestation, there is a big relation to poverty. The majority of the time a producer cuts down a tree, it’s because of need.”

He says the challenge is to create a supply chain that is sustainable, competitive, and inclusive – a goal that is attainable with adequate support and buy-in from every link in the value chain.

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Delegates at the UN observance of International Women’s Day, under the theme “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.” Credit: Naureen Hossain/IPS

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 10 2023 (IPS)

Promoting gender equality in technology and digital spaces is at the core of the UN’s observance of International Women’s Day (IWD) as UN senior officials call on the world to take concrete action against ingrained gender biases.

The United Nations and UN Women hosted their observance of IWD under the theme “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality,” with a special celebration of women and girls in the STEM fields. This year’s theme aligns with digital transformation and innovation for educating women and girls currently being discussed at the 67^th Commission of the Status of Women (CSW).

The event was hosted by journalist and WABC-TV anchor Sabe Baderinwa, who remarked on the theme’s significance by reminding attendees that “access to and control over technology is crucial for women’s economic and social empowerment.”

The event touched on the significance of promoting gender equality in the digital space through the meaningful ways technology and innovation can empower women and girls when given the opportunity. It also notably dissected the barriers preventing complete gender parity in this sector. Put simply, women and girls have historically been underrepresented in the STEM fields and are prevented from unlocking the full potential of technology.

At present, nearly 37 percent of women do not have access to the internet, meaning that they neither have access to resources nor are able to acquire useful digital skills. Those women and girls who do use technology and occupy digital spaces are at greater risk of being subject to online harassment and violence, and misogynistic attitudes.

The gender disparity in online spaces is also evident in the ways that online harassment has targeted women and girls in these spaces and has even pushed them off these platforms. Within the tech industry, women make up less than a third of the workforce, with even fewer of them in leadership positions.

This was pointed out by several of the speakers present at the event, including President of the General Assembly Csaba Kőrösi in his opening remarks.

“As it stands, far too many women and girls still cannot access the opportunities offered by technology… Women are twenty-seven times more likely than men to face online harassment and hate speech. Only one in four reports [these incidents], and nearly nine in ten limit their online activity because of it, reinforcing the digital divide.”

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that technology can lift women and girls up in “a myriad of ways” through access to education and healthcare or entrepreneurship. But the full promise of technology can only be realized when the systematic barriers have been confronted. This starts with including more women in leadership roles in the tech sector.

“Without women’s leadership, the Silicon Valleys of this world don’t disrupt the patriarchy; they simply digitize sexism and perpetuate inequalities. And without women’s leadership, tomorrow’s products will have gender equality built into their code.”

In his own statement at the event, the Secretary-General’s Chef de Cabinet Earle Courtney Rattray brought attention to how the disparity in technology access is more prominent in developing countries, including the Least Developed Countries.

“Nowhere is this more evident than in LDCs,” he said. “According to the International Telecommunications Union, about two-thirds of the LDC population remains offline, and the gap between these countries and the rest of the world in the [sheer number] of people losing access to the internet has increased from 27% in 2011 to 30% last year.”

“The inclusion of women and girls as prominent key players in digital evolution for current and future generations gives the opportunity to address the most critical development and humanitarian challenges,” Chair of the 67^th Commission on the Status of Women Mathu Joyini said in her statement.

UN-Women Executive Director Sima Bahous reminded those in attendance of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), particularly SDG5, which calls for gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. “It is no coincidence that today, as SDG5 is off-track, so are the SDGs as a whole. We live in a world of interconnected crises. At the heart of every crisis, we see inequality multiplied. We now have a new form of poverty. Digital poverty is growing and intensely gendered.”

In her statement, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Doreen Bogdan-Martin shared stories of young women and girls who used technology to improve the quality of life in their communities through their own innovations, remarking on how their examples “reminds us that technology is not a luxury, but a necessity.”

“We have the foundation because all countries agree on the need to achieve universal connectivity, and they agree on the need for sustainable digital transformation,” she said. “We also have the momentum, the Partner2Connect Digital Coalition led by the ITU, together with many UN partners, has mobilized in one year over $17 billion USD for digital gender equality. We also have the unique opportunity… all of us today together, to ensure that gender equality happens in our lifetime and not in 300 years.”

During a panel discussion moderated by Baderinwa, the current state of technology and innovation was further explored, with particular attention paid to the involvement that would be needed from multiple stakeholders to achieve gender parity.

As journalist and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Marion Reimers remarked, when it comes to the safety of women and girls, attention should be given to the systems that perpetuate harassment online, including in the case of women journalists.

“We are so far behind because it feels like there is no help because this is a new landscape, and it has created so many new necessities that we need to catch up real quick,” she said. “When you take into account that 75% of women journalists are victims of online harassment, this is directly intertwined with how we speak about problems in the public sphere… with how the voices of women are taken into account.”

“If we want to succeed, we must have meaningful participation and involvement from civil society,” said Marie Bjerre, Minister for Digital Government and Gender Equality in Denmark. She also added that governments’ involvement should include introducing legislation that would place more protections online, citing Denmark’s own examples in passing laws that target online grooming and the distribution of intimate images.

Director of Strategic Initiatives at Pollicy, Dr Irene Mwendwa, spoke from the perspective of policymakers and researchers in the field and the transformative power that technology can have for local government women leaders in Africa. “Once they understand the power of technology and data, when they go into the council, when they go into cabinet and parliament, they will be able to debate better. When they debate better over the legal frameworks, the policies coming out of our countries into our communities will be inclusive to both women’s and men’s needs, pertaining to ICT.”

Finally, the perspective and contributions of young people as those most involved and present in online spaces must also be encouraged, especially young women. UNICEF Youth Advocate Gitanjali Rao remarked on the opportunity to “harness the ingenuity that youth bring to the plate.”

“Now is the time to maximize creativity. We should be taking these opportunities to look at the ways in which we can support girls, especially by digitizing content online and honestly supporting them in every way possible, whether that’s through the work they’re doing or making sure that they’re safe online as well,” she said.

The speakers and panelists called for multiple measures to be taken that could address the systemic gaps and inequalities that women and girls face with technology. These measures include broadening access to technology to reach more people, investing in digital skills-based learning for women and girls to effectively make use of technology and learning, and breaking down the gender biases and binaries that make digital spaces unsafe for certain groups, especially through gender-based violence facilitated through technology.

This also means promoting more women into leadership and decision-making roles in the tech sector and beyond, where there are able to directly influence policy and legislation. As technology continues to be ubiquitous in our daily lives, a gender-responsive approach will be crucial to future innovations.

“Without decisive action, the digital gender divide will become the new face of widening social and economic inequalities,” Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said in a video statement at the end of the event.
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Delegates at the Youth Empowerment: Education, Employment and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights forum held in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. Credit: APDA

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 8 2023 (IPS)

With more than 600 million youth aged between 18 and 24 in the Asia and Pacific region, putting their issues front and center is crucial. Speakers at a recent forum, Youth Empowerment: Education, Employment and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, held in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia, agreed that policy development and implementation should be youth-centered.

Professor Keizo Takemi, MP (Japan) and Chair of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), reminded parliamentarians of the work ahead when he noted in his opening address that while youth were “innovative thanks to global digitalization, half are unemployed or underemployed. Therefore parliamentarians have a vital role to play.”

The extent of the challenges emerged during the discussions. Raoul Danniel A Manuel, MP Philippines, said teenage pregnancy was higher in rural areas than urban, and there was also an education differential.

“The rate is 32 percent among teenagers without education, 14% among teenagers with primary education, and 5% among teenagers with a secondary education,” Manuel said, noting that the Philippines was the only country in Southeast Asia where the teenage pregnancy rate is increasing in girls aged 10 to 14.

“It is important to raise awareness among young people so that they know how to take care of themselves before they marry. We also need to continue to strengthen services, especially user-friendly services, by focusing on vulnerable groups and young women who do not go to school because this group is at a very high risk of pregnancy, and pregnancy can be risky.”

Lisa Chesters, MP (Australia), reminded conference delegates that “comprehensive sexual education has a positive impact on young people. It has been credited with delaying sexual debut can reduce unwanted pregnancies and STDs.”

Benefits included preventing intimate partner violence, developing healthy relationships, and preventing sexual abuse.

Australia learned after an online petition went viral in 2021 the extent to which students had been subjected to sexual harassment at schools. Following this, ministers for education throughout the country agreed on sexual education at school.

Chesters said it was crucial to include comprehensive, well-planned engagement of young people at the center of any advertising and social media campaigns.

The discussion also centered around employment. Felix Weidenkaff, the Youth Employment Expert for the ILO’s regional office for Asia and the Pacific, told the conference that while digitalization was a key strategy to increase youth employment, it wasn’t a one-off. Aspects lawmakers should consider would include TVET and skill development (including understanding the needs of those with disability), infrastructure, connectivity, and equipment to create an inclusive system.

Delegates at the Youth Empowerment: Education, Employment and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights forum held in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. Credit: APDA

Sophea Khun, Country Program Coordinator of UN Women, said changing gender norms required comprehensive and sustained strategies that engage multiple stakeholders at all levels: households, communities, institutions, and governments.

Girls and young women needed to be given the opportunity for training in STEM (science, technology, and mathematics) to close the digital divide.

“In addition, harmful social norms that contribute to controlling women and girls’ access to communications and technology also need to be tackled,” Khun said.

Hun Many, MP (Cambodia) and Chair of the Commission, reiterated in his closing remarks that to create a more elaborate and innovative policy, “youth need to be able to be part of the decision-making process and the discussions.”

Ahead of the conference, IPS interviewed Cambodian MP Lork Kheng, chair of the commission on public health, social works, vocational training, and women’s affairs. Here are excerpts from the interview.

Lork Kheng, Cambodian MP and chair of the commission on public health, social works, vocational training, and women’s affairs.

IPS:  A tremendous amount of work is to be done to improve SRHR for all and youth-friendly services. How can young MPs play an enhanced role in developing policy, ensuring services are adequately financed and delivered to the communities where required?

LK: With regards to the role of Parliament, we can oversee the implementation of policies related to education, the provision of safe counseling on sexual and reproductive health, family planning, abortion, HIV/AIDS prevention and care, and local monitoring of child marriages, which are challenges for our Asia-Pacific region. In addition, the National Assembly always provides opportunities for development partners to contribute ideas and proposals for consideration through close cooperation in organizing educational forums and disseminating discussions and exchanges at national and sub-national levels (in their constituencies). We can establish effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and coverage of the actual implementation of practitioners and service providers and the effectiveness of policies to ensure that they are providing the anticipated outcomes. Working with think tanks and civil society organizations to conduct research, assessment, and evaluation that informs policymaking and improves service delivery from all stakeholders’ perspectives.

Another important role is to communicate directly with the people and sub-national authorities in the constituencies where they are based. Young MPs and MPs often use the forum to meet and visit local administrations, etc., to mainstream the information and raise awareness of the importance of youth and family life planning, as well as to share good local and global political experiences and best practices that can be implemented within the existing framework of national and sub-national policies to stakeholders, especially local authorities who work directly with the youth.

In particular, in overseeing the financing, every year, MPs actively participate in the discussion of the draft budget law, in which the whole House closely monitors the progress and changes in the budget allocation according to each program. Furthermore, MPs also provide feedback to the executive branch during the initial consultation phase until the full house passes the draft budget. In this regard, the review of budget allocations for youth health care, such as increased attention to the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, tobacco control, food safety and diet in general, and sexual issues in particular, has been addressed frequently and has been noted and considered by the relevant ministries as well as the Government.

The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications has prioritized students who pass the upper secondary national examination with good grades to study digital skills with the support of a student loan that must be repaid when they get a job. This is to strengthen human resources with digital capabilities.

IPS: While Asia and the Pacific are home to more than 60% of the world’s youth aged between 15 and 24, the COVID-19 pandemic acted to disadvantage youth in poorer and rural communities, especially where schooling was interrupted, and children did not have access to the technologies for remote learning. How can youth MPs ensure that those children (who may even now be young adults) are given the opportunities to complete their education? Secondly, how should policy, infrastructure, and finance be directed at children still disadvantaged by a lack of technology?

LK: We all truly recognize that the COVID-19 pandemic is an extraordinary challenge that has plagued all socio-economic sectors, requiring the Government and authorities to respond with unusual means in these difficult circumstances. In developing countries like Cambodia, when schools were closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in its early stages, we did not have the right digital infrastructure for teaching and learning. Students in rural areas and those considered to be disadvantaged groups were the ones who faced barriers to accessing education at that stage. But if we look at the immediate solution of the Head of the Royal Government of Cambodia, we can measure the outcome of solving the challenges with this decision. The Government quickly rolled out vaccinations, especially prioritizing vaccinations for front-line medical workers and educators. That ensured that these two environments gained immunity as soon as possible so that students could return to class quickly with a high sense of security.

IPS: Youth are considered a vital resource for the country’s economic development, but they face high unemployment. What are young MPs working on to ensure that youth can get decent jobs and support young entrepreneurs? What are the policy directions needed to foster youth employment?

LK: Specifically in Cambodia, the unemployment rate for youth may be slightly lower than 14 percent. Nevertheless, youth are also facing other major challenges, such as skill mismatches with the job markets and vulnerabilities of international labor migration, which are the major concerns of the Parliament and the Government. As Cambodia is riding high on development in all areas, the labor market has expanded, especially in areas that benefit youth. In response to such demands, the Government has paid close attention to education and vocational training by prioritizing promoting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to encourage young people to acquire high-demand skills.

In this new academic year, the Government has encouraged youth to pursue vocational skills at the primary and secondary levels by giving monthly allowance to approximately 1.5 million students, in addition to their free tuition.

To support the promotion of young entrepreneurship, we have also established a number of mechanisms – both under state supervision and public-private partnerships – that have created entrepreneurship and incubation centers. In particular, during the COVID-19 pandemic, these mechanisms also played an important role in providing much-needed assistance to those businesses through loans and free training to the entrepreneurs so that they could utilize the technology for their businesses against the backdrop of a changing lifestyle in the new normal.

Note: Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), and the Japan Trust Fund supported the hybrid conference.

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A cell phone gives rural women access to financial services, training, networks, and, importantly, information and knowledge. Credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan (CCAFS)

By Nicoline de Haan
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 6 2023 (IPS)

While 100 million people worldwide are using the AI chatbot ChatGPT to get ahead on homework and try out for top jobs at Google, more than 370 million women in developing countries lack the services of a simple cell phone.

The world may be witnessing a quantum leap in the digital revolution, but cell phones and mobile internet would give these women enough of a foothold to access unprecedented opportunities to improve their incomes, nutrition and health.

For rural women and girls in low-income countries who rely on small-scale agriculture, ICT can unlock financial services, training and networks, and, importantly, information and knowledge. Without these core technologies, women are farming with one hand tied behind their backs, making up just a quarter of registered users of agricultural applications in Africa.

The potential of digital technology to transform farming and agriculture in countries across the Global South is increasingly compelling. Producers in sub-Saharan Africa who adopted online services were found to increase their incomes by up to 40 per cent while new forecasting and early warning systems can also help farmers stay ahead of climate shocks. Digital innovations are therefore an essential component of agricultural research strategies to strengthen food and economic security around the world.

Nicoline de Haan

Women in sub-Saharan Africa are 15 per cent less likely to own a cell phone and more than 40 per cent less likely to use mobile internet than are men. Yet when women were given cell phones, SIM cards and time charge cards in one study in Tunisia, 75 per cent said they benefitted either through better connectivity to agricultural information, such as veterinary advice, or greater levels of communication.

Meanwhile, a project to provide app-based drone delivery of livestock vaccines is set to allow women in Ghana to overcome gender norms that dictate men farmers liaise with men veterinarians, and better care for their chickens and goats.

But to ensure that women get maximum benefit, both the technology and the training to use it must be optimized to account for different needs and contexts – and this needs ongoing investment into gender-responsive agricultural research.

While cell phones and SMS have increased the reach of agricultural information services, disproportionate levels of illiteracy among women require innovative forms of delivery to be impactful. For example, developing interactive voice response (IVR) technology and voice messages in local languages can allow women to receive the same valuable information in a format that acknowledges gendered differences in education levels.

Similarly, complementary technologies ensure that greater access translates into greater benefit. Using radio programming in combination with SMS, and avoiding gendered greetings such as “dear brother farmer”, can improve both women’s access to and capacity to leverage information.

Perhaps the greatest barrier when it comes to closing the digital gender divide are the norms that continue to limit women’s access to technology, and the slow social and cultural acceptance of women making use of digital tools in agriculture.

One approach is to support efforts to work with the gatekeepers of technology within the community, whether fathers, clerics or elders, to encourage behaviour change. Another promising tactic is for governments and research partners to develop community-based opportunities for women to access and act upon information technologies collectively.

Radio Listeners Clubs in Rwanda were found to help remove the significant disparities in awareness, access and use of climate information that usually exist between women and men smallholder farmers. The greatest improvements in income and social standing as a result were among women.

Digital innovations can themselves play a part in deconstructing gender norms. #BintiShujaaz (“Heroine Girl”), a social media campaign launched in Tanzania, used posts, videos, comics and two online panel discussions to showcase positive examples of young women in the chicken business. The campaign reached 4.4 million young Tanzanians, with more than 500,000 engagements, to help improve the perception of women in the poultry business.

Access to information through digital technologies can be a powerful leveller and a critical weapon in the arsenal. And when it comes to gender inequality, it can generate multiple benefits, not only for women but for their families, communities and economies.

It is vital that governments, development partners and agricultural research institutes do everything they can to ensure women not only have access to the information and knowledge they need but are empowered to use it in their best interests.

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Mariyeti Mpala (56) runs a thriving vegetable garden on a former dumpsite and its proceeds assist the community in creating incomes of their own. Credit: Ignatius Banda/IPS

By Ignatius Banda
Jan 10 2023 (IPS)

It’s a typical story in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city. With the failure to provide services such as refuse collection by the local municipality, township residents dump garbage wherever they fancy, and with time, dumpsites become “official.”

For 56-year-old Mariyeti Mpala, however, a community dumpsite on land that belonged to the local municipality a stone’s throw away from her residence presented an opportunity to turn what had become an accepted eyesore into a thriving greening project.

She purchased the land in 2006, and it is here on a section of the former dumpsite where she has grown indigenous wild fruit trees at the one-hectare piece of land and runs a thriving vegetable garden.

She rotates planting tomatoes, peas, cabbages, onions and lettuce, with aquaculture being the latest addition to her project.

“I have put up three thousand bream fishlings,” Mpala said as she explained her long-term ambitions for the local community.

“I decided to apply for this piece of land as it was clear no one imagined the land was of any use as it was being used as a dump site,” Mpala told IPS.

While she may not be aware of it, Mpala’s project fits snugly into the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Green Cities initiative, which among other things, “focuses on improving the urban environment, ensuring access to a healthy environment and healthy diets from sustainable agri-food systems, increasing availability of green spaces through urban and peri-urban forestry.”

“Urban agriculture is, therefore, an important part of the urban economy contributing significantly to urban food and nutrition security as the produce is less subject to market fluctuations,” said Kevin Mazorodze, FAO spokesperson.

And now, as more and more people in the country require food assistance, Mpala’s project comes as a relief for members of her community.

“I especially cater for the elderly who have no source of income and cannot fend for themselves,” Mpala told IPS.

“I sell some of the produce at low cost to those elderly women who buy in bulk so they can sell at a markup, so they raise funds for their own private needs,” she said.

FAO’s Green Cities Initiative seeks to promote more such activities, said Mazorodze.

“Urban and peri-urban agriculture is one of the key pillars of the initiative through which FAO intends to foster sustainable and climate-resilient practices and technologies to improve local food production,” Mazorodze told IPS.

Mpala sunk a borehole powered by solar energy in a country where abundant sunlight has been touted to promote clean energy.

Her work has not gone unappreciated by locals.

“She is a hard worker and has always looked out for us old people,” said Agnes Nyoni, a 70-something-year-old granny who lives not far from Mpala’s green project.

“I first knew her a few years ago when she collected our names to register for food parcels that included mealie meal, cooking oil and beans,” Nyoni told IPS.

Mpala’s work has also reached city offices, with the local councillor lauding her contribution towards uplifting the lives of the poor and food insecure.

“We actually need more of such initiatives being done by Mrs. Mpala as she is uplifting the lives of our people,” said Tinevimbo Maphosa, the local councilman.

“I understand she has also set up a fisheries project which I see as a sign of her community-building commitments. People need to be productive and stop complaining all the time about the situation in the country, and Mrs. Mpala’s work is part of what we need to see happening in our communities,” Maphosa told IPS.

The city already has numerous community gardens dotted across the city, with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) supporting the municipality through the Green Cities Network.

The food she grows is organic, Mpala says, and local nutritionists believe at a time, food is becoming more expensive, and where people now eat whatever is available, consumers need healthier diets.

“Food grown in such nutrition gardens as that run by Mrs. Mpala is encouraged because it is fresh straight from the garden, and the elderly people she caters for certainly need healthier diets,” said Mavis Bhebhe, a government hospital nutritionist.

“What is required is to encourage such initiatives to spread the variety of the food they grow so that consumers get the most out of locally grown foods,” Bhebhe told IPS.

These sentiments come at a time when humanitarian agencies have raised concerns about levels of malnutrition across Africa as some parts of the continent battle acute food shortages.

In a country such as Zimbabwe, where formal jobs come far in between, homegrown initiatives such as the Dingindawo Gardens offer hope for young people seeking opportunities to take idle time off their hands, Maphosa believes.

“There is too much crime and drug abuse here, and with more projects from individuals like Mrs. Mpala, we could solve the community’s many problems,” Maphosa told IPS.
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Women students and workers travel free from harassment in the BRT buses, which reserves seats for them in the conservative region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Jan 4 2023 (IPS)

A bus rapid transport (BRT) system in Peshawar is benefiting female students and working women by providing a safe journey – something women passengers could not take for granted on regular public transport.

“Prior to the launch of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, girls faced enormous hardships in reaching colleges and universities, but now, we don’t have any issue in getting to our respective institutions in a timely manner,” Javeria Khan, 21, a student at the University of Peshawar, told IPS.

She said that two of her elder sisters had left education after completion of secondary school because of a lack of proper transportation services.

“Now, there is a sea-change as far transportation is concerned; thanks to BRT through, we reach home on time without any hindrance,” Javeria, a student at the Department of Chemistry, said.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of Pakistan’s four provinces, is considered conservative where most women cover their faces while venturing out in public and avoid traveling with men in buses; the new service has proved a blessing for the female population living in the capital city of Peshawar.

There is a 27 km long corridor with as many stations to facilitate about 400,000 people every day, including 20 percent women.

BRT launched in April 2020, fleet contains a fleet of 150 air-conditioned buses imported from China, which charge people USD 0.24 from the first to the last station, and the fare is only USD 0.09 for a single stop.

“We have allocated 25 seats to women in each bus, so they don’t face any harassment. The buses go along the main road, which provides a service to the general public as well as the students,” Umair Khan, spokesman for BRT, told IPS.

Before the BRT, there were complaints of harassment and high fares charged by private buses, which deterred the women from traveling, he said. “Now, women have separate compartments with security measures in place to ensure the safe journey of all the commuters.”

In February 2022, the BRT received Gold Standard Award for transforming transport through its clean technology buses and promoting non-motorized traffic. A month before, it received the certificate of International Sustainable Award from the International Transport Organization, while UN Women has also honored the BRT for providing a safe traveling facility to women.

Transport Ticketing Global, UK presented the award to BRT for easing the lives of a large segment of society using innovative solutions, Khan said.

A local resident, Palwasha Bibi, 30, told IPS that she thinks that the BRT has been constructed to assist women workers.

“It was a Herculean task to get a seat in a private bus before the BRT. Even if one was lucky to get a seat, the fares were high, and the drivers were reluctant to drive fast as they waited for more people to embark on the bus to earn more money,” Bibi, who works in a garment factory in Peshawar’s industrial Estate, said.

More often than not, my colleagues and I encountered pay cuts for arriving late at the factory, she said. “Now, we reach 15 minutes before duty time because the BRT has a strict timing schedule. It stops at every station for 20 seconds only,” Bibi said.

BRT is also helping the common people.

Muhammad Zaheer, 31, a salesman at a grocery shop, said that he had been using a motorbike to reach the outlet, which cost him more money and time.

“Many times, I also faced minor accidents due to huge rush on the road, but now the BRT has a signal-free route with no chance of accidents, and the cost is very low,” he said.

Our manager is very happy that I get to the shop early than my duty time, and the same is true for over a dozen of my co-workers, Zaheer, father of three, said.

Naureena Shah a female student at the Islamia College Peshawar, said the BRT had been a blessing for her.

“My parents have asked me to stop education because every day we encountered problems, but the BRT has helped me to continue my studies because I arrive at the college and get back home well on time,” she said. My parents are no longer opposing my studies because they also use BRT for shopping and so on, she said.

Now, I will get medical education to serve patients, she said.

Nasreen Hamid, a schoolteacher, is all praise for BRT services.

“It has benefitted me in two ways. I use the service for going to duty and getting back home and also for going to market,” she said.

Spogmay Khan (17), a second-year student at the Jinnah College for Women, said that all her class fellows were praising former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who started the service in the city.

She said most of the students who were dropped off by fathers or brothers at the college were now traveling alone because the buses were safe.

“The main road remains flooded with vehicles, making it difficult to attend classes with punctuality, but the BRT route is smooth, and no traffic jams, due to which we enjoy traveling in the buses,” she said.

Khan said that it has really improved women’s education and the credit goes to former Prime Minister Imran Khan. “Many of our classmates wouldn’t have been able to take admission because of the messy traffic and worn-out buses, but the BRT has solved this issue, once and for all,” she said

BRT’s spokesman Umair Khan said they had started feeder routes to ensure passengers can use the facility near their homes. The feeder buses use the roads, and the passengers take these buses after disembarking from the buses on (BRT) corridors.

“About 20 percent of the BRT’s 4000 employees are females,” he said.
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Wind and solar energy are behind a major project to transport electricity from Egypt to Greece. Credit: Hisham Allam/IPS

By Hisham Allam
Cairo, Dec 1 2022 (IPS)

As Europe braces for an unusual winter due to a global energy crisis, Greece is embarking on one of Europe’s most ambitious energy projects by connecting its electricity grid to Egypt’s.

An underwater cable will transport 3,000 MW of electricity to power up to 450,000 households from northern Egypt to Attica in Greece.

In October, the two countries agreed to construct the Mediterranean’s first undersea cable to transport electricity generated by solar and wind energy in North Africa to Europe. The project’s total length is 1373 kilometres.

The Copelouzos Group is in charge of the project, and its executives met with Egyptian leaders in October to speed up the process.

The agreement comes at a time when Greece, Cyprus, and Israel want to invest $900 million in constructing a line connecting Europe and Asia that will be the longest and deepest energy cable across the Mediterranean.

At a ceremony in Athens, Greek Energy Minister Costas Skrickas and his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Shaker signed a memorandum of understanding on the project.

“This connection benefits Greece, Egypt, and the European Union,” Skrickas said.

He explained that the project would help to build an energy hub in the eastern Mediterranean and improve the region’s energy security.

Besides boosting the share of renewable energy sources in the energy mix and lowering greenhouse gas emissions in the energy sector, the project is anticipated to enable the export of renewable energy from Egypt to Greece in periods of high renewable energy generation and vice versa.

According to Dr Ayman Hamza, spokesman for the Ministry of Electricity, the Egyptian-Greek electrical connectivity project has significant technical, economic, environmental, and social benefits. The project aims to establish a robust interconnection network in the Eastern Mediterranean to increase the security and dependability of energy supplies, as well as to assist in the event of transmission network breakdowns, interruptions, and emergencies, and to raise the level of security of electrical supplies.

The project, scheduled to start in 2028, is a significant component of the two nations’ ongoing strategic relations and cooperation. It will speed up the development of the energy corridor by increasing the supply of electricity to Egypt and Greece while balancing energy demand, encouraging responses to the challenges of climate change, and reducing emissions, all of which will contribute to the corridor’s continued growth, Hamza told IPS.

“We have 16 memorandums of understanding related to green hydrogen,” he explained, adding that “there is a great demand from investors to invest in renewable energy, whether the sun or wind.”

“On the margins of the COP27 climate conference, it is expected that extremely major agreements on the level of green hydrogen and others, with great experience, will be signed,” Hamza elaborated.

The possibility of Egypt increasing its reliance on renewable energy, he continued, is made possible by a large number of investors pouring money into solar and wind energy. He stated that Egypt would become a regional renewable energy hub.

Egypt has electrical interconnection lines with Libya and Sudan, and we are collaborating with other African organizations to take significant steps to connect Africa and Europe through electrical interconnection. Because Africa is a major energy source, this will benefit both continents, the spokesperson continued.

According to Dr Farouk Al-Hakim, Secretary-General of the Egyptian Society of Electrical Engineers, Egypt’s export of electricity indicates a surplus, which generates a significant economic return, strengthens Egypt’s political position, and transforms Egypt into a regional energy hub, in addition to the numerous job opportunities created in operation and maintenance.

Al-Hakim told IPS that Egypt has a significant surplus due to the installation of three enormous power stations in the past several years in the administrative capital, Burullus, and Beni Suef, as well as solar plants, including the Benban facility, which is the biggest in Africa and the Middle East.

The electrical connection currently offers many benefits, he continued, particularly given that Europe, like most other nations worldwide, is experiencing an energy crisis due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Therefore, it is a good idea to start with two nations that have shared a history with Egypt, such as Greece and Cyprus, he added.

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Constance Okollet Achom, chair and founder of Osukuru United Women Network (OWN), an organization fighting against domestic violence using climate change solutions in Uganda, during an exclusive interview with IPS at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

By Aimable Twahirwa
SHARM EL SHEIKH, Nov 23 2022 (IPS)

Constance Okollet Achom, a Ugandan woman from Tororo, a rural village located in Eastern Uganda, has helped several dozens of her peers affected by domestic violence to address the issue by equipping victims with skillsets to manufacture eco-friendly biofuels from agro-forestry waste.

“There have been a growing number of women in my village who experienced intimate partner violence. But they have always accepted to continue bearing the brunt of suffering because of their inability to deal with their finances,” Okollet, who is the chair and founder of Osukuru United Women Network, told IPS. 

With the increasing levels of domestic violence in rural Uganda, Okollet is now championing using climate change solutions to curb its occurrence in this East African nation.

The latest estimates by the World Bank indicate that 51% of African women report that being beaten by their husbands is justified if they burn or refuse to prepare food. Yet acceptance is not uniform across countries. The report shows that the phenomenon appears deeply ingrained in some societies, with a 77% acceptance rate in Uganda.

Okollet’s organization currently empowers and educates women on how climate change affects their village resources. Most importantly, it provides resources for entrepreneurship and counseling to women affected by domestic violence and advocates for their emancipation by empowering them to be self-reliant by becoming green entrepreneurs.

With 2,000 members engaged in various climate solutions, including carbon farming, clean energies, and tree planting, the tradition of abuse has slowly started to fade in rural Uganda as many women who used to depend financially on their husbands have taken bold steps in investing in green projects.

“It has traditionally been regarded as shameful for the male members of a family if a female member works outside of the home and earns a living,” Okollet told IPS on the sidelines of the just concluded global climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

To amplify support for women to build climate resilience, the African Development Bank organized the session held during COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh under the theme, “Gender-sensitive and climate just finance mechanisms.”

The panelists said facilities tailored to supporting women, who are helping to build climate resilience, must be visible, simple, and easily accessible.

During the session, the former Irish president and an influential figure in global climate diplomacy, Mary Robinson, pointed out there is not currently an appropriately dedicated climate fund or a permanent climate fund to support women entrepreneurs in combating climate change.

Robinson gave the example of some women-led projects in Uganda which could do ten times more if they had access to targeted climate resources. “They had no prospects of getting the money that could be available for their sector – they didn’t even know who was getting the money or where it was going,” she told delegates.

So far, the bank has earmarked funding for ten capacity-building projects focusing on gender and climate through the Africa Climate Change Fund.

According to Kevin Kariuki, the bank’s Vice President Vice for Power, Energy, Climate, and Green Growth, the new funding mechanism has committed $100 million in loans to public and private sector projects to address gender and climate issues across the continent.

Apart from the new funding scheme launched on the sidelines of COP27, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), and the French Development Agency (AFD) in partnership with the Egyptian government also launched the Gender Equality in Climate Action Accelerator.

It is expected that the accelerator will support private sector companies improve the gender responsiveness of their corporate climate governance.

According to the officials, the initiative will help African governments promote gender-sensitive climate sector policies, thereby accelerating their green transition to meet Paris Agreement targets, the UNFCCC’s gender action plan, and key Sustainable Development Goals.

In the meanwhile, Okollet also said that in collaboration with local administrative authorities in her remote rural village in Uganda, she has already trained several hundred women on how to develop green projects so that they become financially independent and confident to face whatever difficulties they may face in life – including domestic violence.

According to her, most rural women in Uganda must wait for their husbands to decide on land management and access, leaving many women underemployed and without any control over productive resources and services.

“These income-generating projects from green initiatives are helping the majority of these women to develop self-sufficiency in their families and stand on their feet,” she said.
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Shymoli Boiragi is a beneficiary of the rainwater harvesting scheme. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
KHULNA, Bangladesh, Sep 23 2022 (IPS)

Like many other women in Bangladesh’s salinity-prone coastal region, Lalita Roy had to travel a long distance every day to collect drinking water as there was no fresh water source nearby her locality.

“In the past, there was a scarcity of drinking water. I had to travel one to two kilometers distance each day to bring water,” Roy, a resident of Bajua Union under Dakope Upazila in Khulna, told IPS.

She had to collect water standing in a queue; one water pitcher was not enough to meet her daily household demand.

“We require two pitchers of drinking water per day. I had to spend two hours each day collecting water. So, there were various problems. I had health complications, and I was unable to do household work for lack of time,” she said.

After getting a rainwater harvesting plant from the Gender-Responsive Coastal Adaptation (GCA) Project, which is being implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Roy is now collecting drinking water using the rainwater harvesting plant, which makes her life easier.

“I am getting the facilities, and now I can give two more hours to my family… that’s why I benefited,” she added.

Shymoli Boiragi, another beneficiary of Shaheber Abad village under Dakope Upazila, said women in her locality suffered a lot in collecting drinking water in the past because they had to walk one to three kilometers every day to collect water.

“We lost both time and household work. After getting rainwater harvesting plants, we benefited. Now we need not go a long distance to collect water so that we can do more household work,” Boiragi said.

Shymoli revealed that coastal people suffered from various health problems caused by consuming saline water and spent money on collecting the water too.

“But now we are conserving rainwater during the ongoing monsoon and will drink it for the rest of the year,” she added.

THE ROLE OF PANI APAS

With support from the project, rainwater harvesting plants were installed at about 13,300 households under 39 union parishads in Khunla and Satkhira. One pani apa (water sister) has been deployed in every union from the beneficiaries.

Roy, now deployed as a pani apa, said the GCA project conducted a survey on the households needing water plants and selected her as a pani apa for two wards.

“As a pani apa, I have been given various tools. I go to every household two times per month. I clean up their water tanks (rainwater plants) and repair those, if necessary,” he added.

Roy said she provides services for 80 households having rainwater harvesting plants, and if they have any problem with their water tanks, she goes to their houses to repair plants.

“I go to 67 households, which have water plants, one to two times per month to provide maintenance services. If they call me over the cellphone, I also go to their houses,” said Ullashini Roy, another pani apa from Shaheber Abad village.

She said a household gives her Taka 20 per month for her maintenance services while she gets Taka 1,340 (US$ 15) from 67 households, which helps her with family expenses.

Ashoke Kumar Adhikary, regional project manager of the GCA, said it supported installing rainwater harvesting plants at 13,300 households. Each plant will store 2,000 liters of rainwater in each tank for the dry season.

The water plants need maintenance, which is why the project has employed pani apas for each union parishad (ward or council). They work at a community level on maintenance.

“They provide some services, and we call them pani apas. The work of pani apas is to go to every household and provide the services,” Adhikary said.

He said the pani apas get Taka 20 from every household per month for providing their services, and if they need to replace taps or filters of the water plants, they replace those.

The pani apas charge for the replacements of equipment of the water plants, he added.

NO WATER TO DRINK

The coastal belt of Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable areas to climate change as it is hit hard by cyclones, floods, and storm surges every year, destroying its freshwater sources. The freshwater aquifer is also being affected by salinity due to rising sea levels.

Ullashini Roy said freshwater was unavailable in the coastal region, and people drinking water was scarce.

“The water you are looking at is saline. The underground water is also salty. The people of the region cannot use saline water for drinking and household purposes,” Adhikary said.

Ahmmed Zulfiqar Rahaman, hydrologist and climate change expert at Dhaka-based think-tank Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS), said if the sea level rises by 50 centimeters by 2050, the surface salinity will reach Gopalganj and Jhalokati districts – 50 km inside the mainland from the coastal belt, accelerating drinking water crisis there.

PUBLIC HEALTH AT RISK

According to a 2019 study, people consuming saline water suffer from various physical problems, including acidity, stomach problems, skin diseases, psychological problems, and hypertension.

It is even being blamed for early marriages because salinity gradually changes girls’ skin color from light to gray.

“There is no sweet water around us. After drinking saline water, we suffered from various waterborne diseases like diarrhea and cholera,” Ullashini said.

Hypertension and high blood pressure are common among coastal people. The study also showed people feel psychological stress caused by having to constantly collect fresh water.

Shymoli said when the stored drinking water runs out in any family; the family members get worried because it’s not easy to collect in the coastal region.

SOLUTIONS TO SALINITY

Rahaman said river water flows rapidly decline in Bangladesh during the dry season, but a solution needs to be found for the coastal area.

The hydrologist suggested a possible solution is building more freshwater reservoirs in the coastal region through proper management of ponds at a community level.

Rahaman said low-cost rainwater harvesting technology should be transferred to the community level so that coastal people can reserve rainwater during the monsoon and use this during the dry season.

He added that the government should provide subsidies for desalinization plants since desalinizing salt water is costly.

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Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT (ABC) are using artificial intelligence to help eradicate Banana Bunchy Top Disease (BBTD). The disease threatens the livelihoods of farmers and impacts food security. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

By Aimable Twahirwa
KIGALI, Aug 5 2022 (IPS)

A group of scientists involved in finding solutions to minimize the impact of a devastating banana virus in Burundi have developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool for monitoring the disease.

United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) research shows that the Banana Bunchy Top Disease (BBTD), caused by the Banana Bunchy Top Virus (BBTV), is endemic in many banana-producing countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The virus was first reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the 1950s and has become invasive and spread into 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The disease has been reported in Angola, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zambia. The latest findings, however, show that BBTD is currently a major threat to banana cultivation and a threat to over 100 million people for whom the banana is a staple food.

The AI development team, led jointly by Dr Guy Blomme and his colleague Dr Michael Gomez Selvaraj from the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT (ABC), tested the detection of banana plants and their major diseases through aerial images and machine learning methods.

This project aimed to develop an AI-based banana disease and pest detection system using a Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) to support banana farmers.

A graphic shows the impact of Banana Bunchy Top Disease (BBTD). Credit: Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT (ABC)

While farmers struggle to defend their crops from pests, scientists from ABC have created an easy-to-use tool to detect banana pests and diseases.

The tool, which has proven to provide a 90 percent success in detection in some countries, such as the DRC and Uganda, is an important step towards creating a satellite-powered, globally connected network to control disease and pest outbreaks, say the researchers.

During the testing phase, in collaboration with a team from the national agricultural research organization of Burundi – ISABU, two sites where the banana bunchy top disease is endemic in Cibitoke Province were compared with an area free of the disease in Gitega Province (Central).

Cibitoke Province is BBTD endemic and lies in a frontier zone bordering Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Performance and validation metrics were also computed to measure the accuracy of different models in automated disease detection methods by applying state-of-the-art deep learning techniques to detect visible banana disease and pest symptoms on different parts of the plant.

Researchers set out the reasons detecting disease in bananas is so vital.

“In East and Central Africa, it is a substantial dietary component, accounting for over 50% of daily total food intake in parts of Uganda and Rwanda.”

Bananas are also the dominant crop in Burundi. The surface area under cultivation is estimated at 200,000 to 300,000 ha, representing 20 to 30% of the agricultural land.

Data from Burundi’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock indicate food security and nutrition continue to worsen, with 21 percent of the population food insecure. They say this could be exacerbated by various plant diseases such as BBTD.

While banana is crucial to people’s food security and livelihoods, experts also argue that BBTD could potentially have a devastating economic and social impact on the continent.

“Based on the fact that when BBTD comes in, it is initially a very cryptic disease and does not display spectacular symptoms,” Bonaventure Omondi, a CGIAR researcher who collaborated on this project and who works on related banana diseases and seed systems projects, told IPS in an interview. While it was crucial to stop the disease early, it was also challenging, which is why the AI solution was vital.

Agriculture experts say that the East African Highlands is the zone of secondary diversity of a type of bananas called the AAA-EA types. These bananas are genetically close to the dessert banana types but have been selected for use as beer, cooking, and dessert bananas.

Banana cultivation in Burundi is grouped into three different categories. Banana for beer/wine in which juice is extracted and fermented accounts for around 77 percent of the national production by volume. Fourteen percent of bananas are grown for cooking, and finally, about five percent are dessert bananas which are ripened and directly consumed.

With recent advances in machine learning, researchers were convinced that new disease diagnosis based on automated image recognition was technically feasible.

“Minimizing the effects of disease threats and keeping a matrix mixed landscaped of banana and non-banana canopy is a key step in managing a large number of diseases and pests,” Omondi said.

As an example of how this emerging technology works, researchers focus on data sets depicted on banana crops with disease symptoms and established algorithms to help identify plantations where the disease is present.

Prosper Ntirampeba, a banana grower from Cibitoke Province in north-western Burundi, told IPS that he harvested fewer bunches of bananas in the latest season because of BBTD that spread through his farmlands.

“We have been forced to uproot infected plants since this disease reached our main production area. This resulted in a huge extra cost burden,” he said.

In another case, with the detection of BBTD, agricultural officials under instruction from researchers advised farmers to remove all infected ‘mats’ where several hectares of diseased plants had been destroyed. This is the key to eliminating the disease in Busoni, a remote rural village in Northern Burundi.

Although some farmers often resist uprooting their banana plants, Ntirampeba said it was vital to eliminating the disease.

“The disease is likely threatening livelihoods of most farmers who are dependent on the crop,” he told IPS.

Currently, other novel disease surveillance methods are also being developed by ABC researchers in Burundi, including drone-based surveillance to determine local disease risk and delimit recovery areas.

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Edward Mukiibi first worked the fields as punishment. Now he is a firm believer that the slow food movement can save the planet. He was recently named as the President of Slow Food International. Credit: Slow Food International

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Aug 2 2022 (IPS)

Edward Mukiibi was forced to do agriculture at school as punishment for misbehaviour.

Instead of hating the punishment, he loved it, especially when he realised farming was the future of good food, health and wealth.

Mukiibi is a farmer and social entrepreneur from Uganda on a mission to prove that sustainable farming is the foundation of all fortune and a solution to overcoming hunger, unemployment, and biodiversity loss. He is an advocate for food production based on using local resources,   knowledge and traditions to promote diverse farming systems.

Mukiibi is a member of Slow Food International, a global movement advocating for local food production and traditional cooking.

In July 2022, Mukiibi (36) was named as the new President of Slow Food International at its 8th International Congress in Pollenzo, Italy.

“I feel good and happy about this appointment and also happy on behalf of Slow Food, which is a strong international food movement that has become more established not only in the founding continent of Europe but across the world, which is why it was now possible for the network for finding more able and enthusiastic leaders like me,” Mukiibi told IPS during an online interview.

Founded in 1986 by Carlo Petrini, Slow Food International works to cultivate a worldwide network of local communities and activists who defend cultural and biological diversity. They promote food education and the transfer of traditional knowledge and skills.

Convinced of the untapped potential of farming and the need to make agriculture attractive for the youth, Mukiibi founded the Developing Innovations in School Cultivation (DISC). The project works with students and communities to cultivate a positive attitude in young people towards agriculture and locally produced food.

Citing that 70 percent of the population in Africa is below the age of 40, Mukiibi said Africa has a large young generation that can be involved in agriculture. Mukiibi deplored the practice in schools where farming was used as a punishment in the same manner prisons have young offenders working on large-scale farms to provide labour as part of corporal punishment.

“This prevents many young people from loving agriculture and food production,” said Mukiibi. “I am a victim of this kind of practice. When I was in school, I always wanted to change this by working with schools in a participatory way and introducing children to farming in a more interest-oriented manner.”

Mukiibi has also championed the development of Slow Food Gardens, a global project that has created thousands of green spaces to preserve African food biodiversity and help communities access nutritious food. Mukiibi has created gardens in more than 1000 schools in Uganda.

“Slow Food gives you a 360-degree view of food systems because it covers everything that transforms the way we grow, eat, market, process and save food,” said Mukiibi, explaining that slow food is a movement and philosophy about clean, good and fair food.

Interview excerpts:

The slow food movement promotes biodiversity on the land and our plates. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

IPS: What is slow food? Is it the opposite of fast food?

Edward Mukiibi: The concept of slow food carries more of a responsibility than just literal meaning and the direct opposite of fast food. It carries more sense when combined with our philosophy of good, clean, and fair food for everyone. The concept means being responsible in everything we do when it comes to food, agriculture, and the planet. In being responsible for your food choices, you need to eat food and produce food that is good for the environment and good for the culture and the traditions of the people that safeguard it.

Another aspect of slow food is fairness. We need to ensure fairness when it comes to transactions. Openness and transparency when it comes to negotiations and working deals between the producers and consumers but also a declaration of information and the true identity of the producers of the food we eat. Sometimes people are not fair, especially big food chains, when they sell food produced by small-scale producers but brand it as their own production. We also need to ensure justice for smallholder farmers, justice for indigenous people and justice for the environment.

Slow Food is also a movement of actors and activists. We are a movement that involves everyone who thinks we need to urgently slow down climate change and the destruction food production is bringing to this planet. We need to slow down on policies that are against environmental equilibrium.

IPS: Is clean, good and fair food achievable, and are slow fooders meeting this goal?

Historically there have been a lot of ruthless, careless food production activities and cruel ways of production to the environment and to the people who are going to eat the food. A good, clean, and fair food system exists and is achievable. With all the challenges we are seeing, the conflicts, climate crisis and food insecurity created by the global food system can be reversed if everyone understands the concept of slow food, whose goal is to solve global challenges using local actions and activities done by the local communities.

We have many examples. So many communities in 160 countries are taking positive actions to regenerate the planet … It is not too late to regenerate the planet and rethink how food is produced, how food is handled and how food is consumed.

IPS: Climate change is impacting our food production. How do you see the Slow Food movement addressing this?

EM: Slow Food is promoting regenerative approaches to food production, including promoting agri-ecology, building traditional farming systems based on agroforestry, and preserving and protecting local food biodiversity and fragile ecosystems.

We are not only talking about climate change by going out to conferences. We are taking action through the thousands of communities taking practical work to promote agroecology, permaculture and traditional farming systems. In Africa, we count 3 500 agro-ecological gardens that have been created and managed in schools.

IPS: You mention Slow food in biodiversity protection. How and why?

EM: We have the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity because we are concerned about the rate at which we are losing biodiversity not only in the field but also biodiversity on our plates which makes our nutrition and diets dependent on a few highly controlled products.

We are working with cooks to bring back biodiversity on the plate. It is not enough to talk. We have to bring back what we are losing on the table and open the discussion from the dinner table about the wealth we are losing.

Slow Food has worked to create community value chains in different communities to protect food products at the risk of extinction. It means sharing knowledge about these products and that the community sits together to devise ways to protect and promote these food products.

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Farmers in Bangladesh would welcome an early warning system that does not rely on smartphones. Authorities and devising an SMS service after devastating floods killed many people and destroyed harvests. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS

By Rafiqul Islam
DHAKA, Aug 1 2022 (IPS)

Ziaur Rahman, a farmer of Pakuar Char under Sariakandi Upazila in Bogura, cultivated jute on a newly emerged river island (char) in the Brahmaputra River, but this year’s flood washed away his crop.

“Flood is very common in the char areas during the monsoon. Despite that, I sowed jute seeds on the char. This year, the flood hit our locality too early, damaging my jute field,” he said.

Ziaur said his jute field was almost mature and could have been harvested within a couple of weeks, but the sudden deluge damaged it.

“I did not get flood forecast in time, and that was why I failed to harvest jutes, incurring a heavy loss this year,” he said.

Like Zillur, many farmers lost their crops to the devastating flood that swept Bangladesh’s northeast and northwestern regions in June this year.

According to Bangladesh Agriculture Minister Dr Abdur Razzaque, floods damaged Aus (a type of rice) paddies of around 56,000 hectares across the country this year.

The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC) under Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) issues daily flood bulletins and warnings, but the people living in remote and vulnerable areas hardly benefit because they do not have the proper technology.

Under the digital flood forecasting and warning system introduced in 2021, the FFWC issues flood warnings to the people living in flood-prone areas through ‘Google push notifications’ three days to three hours before a flood hits.

To receive flood warnings, people need an android mobile phone. The notifications are sent to these devices through a Google alert between three days and three hours before the onset of a flood, depending on the system’s predictive capacity.

BWDB, in collaboration with tech-giant Google and Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, developed the system, which is now functional in the 55 districts of the country.

Sarder Udoy Raihan, an FFWC sub-divisional engineer, said the BWBD has available data on floods and sends those to Google.

Google improved flood mapping using its topographical data and sends ‘push flood notifications’ to those living in flood-prone areas.

While this system has been helpful, many people living in remote chars and flood-prone areas do not have access to smartphones and the internet, so they don’t receive digital flood warnings.

BWDB has decided to launch a toll-free SMS service containing flood-related messages and information, said officials at BWDB.

The BWDB, a2i, Google, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have already started a collaboration to reach the flood warnings and information at the doorsteps of the people living in the country’s flood-prone areas through toll-free mobile SMS service. This will enable them to take measures to protect their properties before a flood hits.

FFWC executive engineer Arifuzzaman Bhuyan said talks continue with the stakeholders concerned, including Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), to introduce the SMS service.

“Introduction of the SMS flood alert service depends on the BTRC as there is an issue of cost involvement,” he said, hoping that the BWDB would be able to launch the SMS service in the next season.

Once the toll-free SMS service is introduced, mobile phone users living in flood zones will be identified using their cellphone tower ping, and SMS will be sent to them containing information on the rise or fall of river water level, severity of flood and details of the nearest shelter.

Raihan said it would be possible to send around 36 million SMS per year through mobile phone operators if flood warnings could be sent to people through SMS.

Sardar Mohammad Shah-Newaz, a former director of Flood Division at Dhaka-based think tank, Institute of Water Modelling (IWM), said if the flood forecast were not appropriately disseminated to those living in flood-prone areas, it wouldn’t help.

“Almost all people of the country use mobile phones. If the flood warnings could reach the people living in flood-prone zones through toll-free mobile SMS, they would be able to take precautionary measures to save their properties and minimise their loss and damage to this end,” he said.

Suggesting automation of the flood forecasting system in Bangladesh, Shah-Newaz said the BWDB could introduce the SMS service, and it should launch the service as soon as possible.

Deluge is a common phenomenon in Bangladesh. During every monsoon, flood hits different parts of the country, causing a huge loss of lives and assets.

Due to heavy precipitation upstream in India’s northeast states, Bangladesh experienced devastating floods in its northwestern districts and Sylhet division, leaving millions of people stranded and triggering a humanitarian crisis.

According to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), the death toll from this year’s floods has reached 123 in the country. The total deaths were recorded from May 17 to July 17 in 2022.

Of the total deceased, 69 people died in Sylhet, while 41 in Mymensingh, 12 in Rangpur and one in Dhaka.

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Thanks to the Technical University of Kenya (TUK), fishers on Lake Victoria may soon have a drone keeping an eye on them and making sure they do not fall victim to border conflicts. Credit: TUK

By Wilson Odhiambo
Nairobi, Jul 14 2022 (IPS)

It is exactly two years since George Omuodo’s brutal confrontation with fishers from Uganda, an encounter that left him hospitalized with a broken arm and bruised ribs. After listening to his ordeal, one wonders where he gets the courage to go back to the lake every day.

“I have to feed my family,” Omuodo tells IPS.

Omuodo is a 28-year-old fisher from Homabay county, a place famously known for its fishing activities with its large harbor and string of fishing boats lined up along the shores of Lake Victoria.

George Omuodo, who relies on fishing on Lake Victoria, had a violent confrontation with fishers from Uganda. Now a pilot project using a drone to keep fishers from border conflicts could assist in keeping him safe. Credit: Wilson Odhiambo/IPS

Omuodo and most of his friends rely on fishing, a source of food and income for their families. The only problem with this humble lifestyle is that it suddenly turned risky.

Border conflicts have been a perennial problem for local authorities on Lake Victoria for a long time, which has seen some fishermen lose their lives as they participate in their trade. The infamous Migingo Island is one example of border conflict that has seen many Kenyan fishers suffer at the hands of Ugandan authorities. The fishermen complained of being harassed by the border patrols, some of whom forced them to give up their equipment, catch, and even freedom due to trespassing rules.

“The area around Migingo is good for fishing and is what drives us there. However, the Ugandan government believes that Migingo Island is their territory and that all the fish around the area belong to them. Their border patrol and fishermen have been harassing us,” Omuodo lamented.

“Since this is our only source of livelihood, we have no choice but to constantly risk our lives just to earn a living for ourselves,” he said.

Omuodo and his friends may finally have someone to watch over them as they go about their business.

Thanks to the Technical University of Kenya (TUK), fishers on Lake Victoria may soon have a drone keeping an eye on them and making sure they do not fall victim to border conflicts.

In 2018, TUK embarked on a project that saw them develop their nanosatellite dubbed “TUKSat-1,” which was aimed at monitoring security on Lake Victoria, including helping local authorities in rescue operations.

According to TUK, the satellite works by relaying coordinates, including pictorial views, to the relevant personnel, thus aiding in tracking water vessels and people who go missing on the lake.

TUKSat-1 aims to mitigate this problem by sounding an alarm whenever a Kenyan vessel drifts too close to a Kenya-Tanzania or Kenya-Uganda border.

Professor Paul Baki, the project’s lead investigator, said the nanosatellite program was a joint effort that involved disciplines from various schools such as mechanical and process engineering, surveying and geospatial technologies, aerospace, and aeronautical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering as well as physics and earth sciences. Credit: TUK

Professor Paul Baki, the project’s lead investigator, told IPS that the nanosatellite program was a joint effort that involved disciplines from various schools such as Mechanical and process engineering, surveying and geospatial technologies, aerospace and aeronautical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering as well as physics and earth sciences.

“The TUKSat-1 program was initiated at the University in 2018 and involved collaborations between TUK and other institutions abroad,” Baki told IPS. “We were able to get funding from the Kenya Space Agency in 2020 and built the 1U nanosatellite (10cm³ in volume) between October 2020 to October 2021,” he added.

Baki said that the parts used to build the satellite were bought locally, and all the work was done in TUK’s physics laboratory.

Space exploration is not alien to Kenya, as NASA once launched a satellite from the San Marco launch site, Malindi, in 1970. Despite the satellite (dubbed Small Astronomical Satellite 1, SAS-1) not being Kenyan-owned, it did bear the Kenyan slogan “UHURU,” and the launch was a historic moment for a country that had just gained its independence. The satellite was also the first of its kind dedicated to X-ray astronomy.

Fast forward five decades later, where the University of Nairobi was able to build the first Kenyan-owned satellite (1st Kenyan University Nanosatellite-Precursor Flight) 1KUNS – PF, which was launched from the international space station in the United States.

The CubeSat, assembled by University of Nairobi (UON) engineering students in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), was launched into the international space station on May 11, 2018. Its purpose was to carry out technological tests while recording details about the earth.

The UON got its funding, worth Ksh.120 million (about US$ 1miillion), from the joint space program between JAXA and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) in 2016.

However, unlike the 1KUNS-PF, which currently floats around in space, the TUKSat-1 was launched on a drone and is meant to demonstrate the technology in preparation for more technical launches.

“Space technology and exploration will soon influence our economy and livelihood,” said Seth Odhiambo Nyawacha, a Geomatics Application Expert at Locate IT Limited. It is time Africa started producing the minds needed for technological advancements.

Nyawacha explained that Africa quickly became a consumer of space-based technology and products, which called for investments from stakeholders, especially in education and training about space technology and its exploration.

“With the development of the African Space Agency, soon to be hosted in Egypt, the continent will require home-based technicians and engineers to propel our satellites to space, ranging from communication satellites, weather forecast satellites in the wake of climate change, among other satellite types,” Nyawacha told IPS. He applauded the effort by JAXA and UNOOSA to help fund and train engineers in Sub-Saharan Africa.

A 2021 Kenyan-Spaceport report said that Kenya’s position on the equator made it a suitable center for rocket launches, and Marsabit was chosen as the site for setting up a spaceport.

The Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and Moi University are other Kenyan institutions interested in space exploration.

“Kenya has shown great potential in space technology, and we should use this opportunity to set up a small-scale domestic space industry. As a country, we need to tap into the bright minds in our universities and help them propel Kenya into the frontiers of space technology,” Baki added.

Omuodo doesn’t understand much about satellites but welcomes any measure that would help them ply their trade in peace.

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