While Africa has made a negligible contribution to climate change and is responsible for two to three percent of global emissions, it’s highly vulnerable. The debate on how to compensate and support Africa continues. Now there is a suggestion that the Loss and Damage fund may not be the route to go to ensure Africa and other vulnerable nations are compensated. This photo shows the flooded offices of the Kenya Wildlife Services following the swelling of Lake Baringo. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
BONN, Jun 7 2023 (IPS)

The Climate Change envoy to the President of Kenya has asked Kenya’s and, by extension Africa’s negotiators at the ongoing climate conference in Bonn, Germany, not to put much emphasis on financing the Loss and Damage kitty but instead calls for fairness and equity.

“Loss and damage remain an important issue; we hope it will be operationalized in Dubai, but whatever amount that may go to the kitty will not take us anywhere as a global community,” Ali Mohamed, who advises the President on matters climate change told Kenya’s delegation in Bonn, shortly after President William Ruto demanded that COP28 be the last round of global negotiations on climate change.

The Loss and Damage funding is an agreement reached during the 27th round of climate negotiations in Egypt to support vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters that include cyclones, floods, severe droughts, landslides, and heat waves, among others.

During the opening ceremony of the UN Habitat Assembly in Nairobi, Ruto said that it is possible to stop the conversation and the negotiation between North and the South because “climate change is not a North/South problem, it is not about fossil fuel versus green energy problem, it is a problem that we could sort out all of us if we came together,” he said. Ruto is the current Chair of the Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSCC).

According to Ruto, it is possible (for African negotiators) to agree on a framework that will bring everybody on board for the continent to go to COP28 with a clear mind on what should be done and how Africa and the global South can work with the global North, not as adversaries, but as partners to resolve the climate crisis and present an opportunity to have a win-win outcome that has no finger pointing.

In Bonn, Mohamed, who is also the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, told Kenya’s negotiators that, as Africans, there is a need to raise voices and call for a new global architecture and a new way of doing things.

He gave an example of the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) during the period of COVID-19, where Europe, which has a population of 500 million people, received over 40 percent, while the entire African continent, with a population of 1.2 billion people received a paltry five percent of the total funds.

“This kind of unfairness is what President Ruto wants to take forward and say it is no longer tenable in the new world order,” said Mohamed, who is vying to become the next Chair of the Africa Group of Negotiators (AGN) for the next three years.

The SDR is an interest-bearing international reserve asset that supplements other reserve assets of member countries. Rather than a currency, it is a claim on the freely useable currencies of International Monetary Fund (IMF) members.

He also gave an example of the Berlin Wall, which fell in 1989, and suddenly in just six months, a new financial architecture was formed for Europe.

He pointed out that since the ratification of the Paris Agreement, the world has been meeting every year to talk about the $100 billion which developed countries committed to collectively mobilize per year by 2020 for climate action in developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, but the funds have remained a mirage.

“What Africa is pushing for is investment through available, accessible, and adequate financing at affordable costs. We borrow at an interest of 15 percent on a currency that is not ours, while other countries in the North borrow at 2 percent,” said Mohamed.

The AGN Chair, Ephraim Mwepya Shitima, declined to comment on Kenya’s new position, saying that it was beyond his powers to do so. “I am not in a position to comment on whatever has been said by a member of the CAHOSCC,” he told IPS in Bonn.

However, during the opening plenary, Shitima called on developed countries to deliver to restore trust in the UNFCCC process. “The Green Climate Fund replenishment is in October, and this is an opportunity for developed countries to show the world that they are willing to do their part to address climate change and support climate action in developing countries,” he told global delegates in Bonn.

He also welcomed the work program on just transition pathways. “We are of the view that it will advance the implementation of climate action and strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change in the context of sustainable development. The Subsidiary conference here should agree on the work program’s elements, scope, and modalities to be adopted at COP28,” he said.

The Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) conference, which is going down in Bonn, is the link between the scientific information provided by expert sources such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the one hand and the policy-oriented needs of the COP on the other hand. The outcome is therefore used to set the agenda for the subsequent COP based on scientific evidence.

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By External Source
Jun 7 2023 (IPS-Partners)

Mireia Villar Forner is the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Colombia. Ms. Villar Forner brings more than 25 years of experience, which she acquired within the United Nations and externally, to the position. At the United Nations, she most recently served as Resident Coordinator in Uruguay, where she led the work of the United Nations development system to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. She also held senior positions at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), including that of Resident Representative in Uruguay, Deputy Resident Representative in Bolivia and Deputy Resident Representative in Iraq during the country’s political transition. She also served at the UNDP Liaison Office in Brussels, where she played a key role in strengthening the partnership between the Organization and the European Union. Before that, she worked as the focal point for Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as the Arab States, in UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, after an assignment as Head of the Programme Section of the Electricity Network Rehabilitation Programme in Northern Iraq. She started her career with the United Nations at UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Arab States. Prior to joining the Organization, Ms. Villar Forner worked in the financial sector in Spain. She holds a master’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University in the USA, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Barcelona in Spain.

ECW: Colombia faces one of the most long-standing and complex crises in Latin America. In such a context, why is it important for aid stakeholders to support the education sector in the framework of the Government’s Total Peace agenda?

Mireia Villar Forner: There are three main reasons for aid stakeholders to support the education sector in the framework of the Government’s “Total Peace” agenda.

First, the government’s vision is one where education and “Total Peace” are seen as a single and indivisible priority. Further, in line with the Multi-Year Resilience Programme concept, close coordination with government is the pathway to guarantee focus and ensure sustainability.

Second, the Colombian armed conflict is one of the most significant triggers for the education crisis that the country has experienced. Education in emergencies and its strengthening requires both responses in crisis in conflict-affected areas, while also promoting long-term peace and development actions bridging the humanitarian-peace-development nexus.

Third, the armed conflict is a reality that runs through significant portions of the country, especially affecting vulnerable populations, including Venezuelans, who end up experiencing double and triple affectation.

ECW: ECW investments support UN, civil society, and local community partners to jointly deliver holistic education programmes to girls and boys affected by the multiple crises. How do you see these funding investments supporting the government’s vision for education and inclusion?

Mireia Villar Forner: Over the past two decades, Colombian governments have been aware and explicitly addressed the need for education in emergencies as a way of spearheading inclusion in conflict-affected and excluded regions. The role of civil society and local communities in driving initiatives aligns well with government efforts to empower those most disenfranchised and develop their capacities to be part of solutions. This commitment results also in an understanding of the importance of working with ECW, from a perspective both of resources and enhancing local capacity, as well as in finding inspiration in international experiences to address the education of girls and boys in crisis situations.

Against this backdrop, the link between addressing crisis impacts and local or “territorial” development processes is paramount. Colombia’s educational system is decentralized, which implies that sub-national governments have a fundamental role in coordinating and guaranteeing education services at the local level. Developing their capacity is crucial. Since Colombia does not have a national curriculum, there are disparities regarding educational responses in crisis settings, especially on a human mobility scenario. Carrying out actions that strengthen the role of local actors as part of the ECW framework becomes an opportunity to bridge these complexities and empower local actors.

ECW: The UN system in Colombia works with the Government and partners to strengthen complementarity and coherence between emergency relief, development and peacebuilding efforts – the ‘triple-nexus.’ In the education sector, how can we best engage partners across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus and enhance coordinated actions?

Mireia Villar Forner: We feel the best way to engage partners across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus is through localization. As we engage in emergency relief, we need to plan for and transition into developing capacity of local stakeholders, ensure integrated support to the design and implementation of their education programs and ensure these are anchored in robust national policies and capacities.

Our dream is to have complementary national structural responses led by national and local governments and implemented by different NGOs, along with evidence-based strategies that address and prevent new crises and their impacts on those most vulnerable in a sustainable way.

ECW: The LEGO Foundation is ECW’s largest private sector donor, with approximately US$64 million in contributions to date. How important is private sector funding to education in crisis situations in places like Colombia and which synergies do you see between these two sectors?

Mireia Villar Forner: The resources allocated for the education sector, including early learning, are not enough when compared to the needs of the children, adolescents and their families affected by emergencies. Health, nutrition and WASH are prioritized when a crisis occurs. Education, however, often ends up being a secondary issue – missing the window to deliver a more comprehensive response to children and adolescents. Governments often recognize the importance of strengthening the education of girls and boys in crisis situations, but they do not have the resources or the capacity to deliver a high-quality response. The support of the LEGO Foundation and other private sector organizations is therefore paramount to bridge this gap.

More importantly, perhaps, than the financial support, is that the fact that private sector is increasingly involved in designing and implementing solutions to humanitarian needs and development gaps.

The LEGO Foundation is a good example of how companies are building social impacts into their business models in different ways, including advocating for relevant matters that most of the time remain unfunded, such us early childhood development, early learning through play and parenting. The LEGO Foundation has been key in enhancing political development on this during emergencies and triggering key discussions on a more long-term and developmental arena.

ECW: You are now co-chairing the Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) Steering Committee with the Ministry of Education in Colombia. Could you please share your vision and your goals for the successful delivery of quality education to crisis-affected children in Colombia through joint programming and coordination via the MYRP?

Mireia Villar Forner: The formulation of the MYRP requires consensus on what it means to deliver quality education for girls and boys affected by crisis situations, and the strategies and initiatives towards this end. The MYRP must start from the needs felt and identified from the different levels, including and most important: the communities affected by the crisis at local level. It must be a response that, in turn, considers the experience accumulated by the different actors who have worked in these contexts and the evidence-based solutions. Colombia’s new MYRP must have cost-effective strategies that have already been proven when tackling the challenges prioritized by the Government and communities. On the other hand, it needs to consider sustainability over time, installing and strengthening local and national stakeholders. Sustainability must consider that Colombia is a multi-layer emergency country, and that over time children must be attended, this consideration is imperative when analyzing the impact of this innovative and joint programming process that the MYRP represents.

To achieve sustainability, it is necessary to generate a collaborative scenario, within a dialogue and assertive listening – dynamics that should be promoted based on the guidelines given by the MYRP Steering Committee and guaranteed through follow-up. Likewise, the Committee must serve as a compass in navigating the technical aspects of the strategies and initiatives for which it is chosen, to guarantee pertinence, coherence and effectiveness.

ECW: Why is learning recovery, with a focus on foundational learning in Colombia, important for sustainable development and security across Latin America, and across the world?

Mireia Villar Forner: A recent analysis by UNICEF, UNESCO and the World Bank estimates that in Latin America and the Caribbean, four out of five 10-year-olds cannot read a simple text. A worrying reality that may be even more shocking for rural areas, due to traditionally wider gaps on learning outcomes of children. Thinking of generations that fail to acquire fundamental learning in the expected times is to speak of a major obstacle to continuing learning throughout their educational trajectories – affecting the rest of their lives and the definition of their future, as well as sustainable development and security of the region.

The difficulty with foundational learning was a reality in Latin America even before the pandemic and was aggravated by long school closures. We are at a point where we can act and make a difference – if policies and strategies are promoted to ensure learning recovery with a proper socio-emotional support, and guarantee that children learn to read by the age of 10, so that they can afterwards read to learn.

ECW: Our readers know that “readers are leaders” and that reading skills are key to every child’s education. What are the three books that have most influenced you personally and/or professionally, and why would you recommend them to others?

Mireia Villar Forner: Some of the most formative books for me have been the ones that opened the gateway to a lifetime of reading. Momo by Michael Ende, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, and all Roald Dahl’s classics were the ones that I really enjoyed as a child and brought me to others.

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Her hands loaded with crates, Susan Quintanilla, a union leader of agro-export workers in the department of Ica in southwestern Peru, gets ready to collect different vegetables and fruits for foreign markets. She has witnessed many injustices, saying the companies “made you feel like they were doing you a favor by giving you work, they wanted you to keep your head down." CREDIT: Courtesy of Susan Quintanilla

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, May 31 2023 (IPS)

Peru’s agro-export industry is growing steadily and reached record levels in 2022. But this has not had a favorable impact on human development in this South American country, where high levels of inequality, poverty, childhood anemia and malnutrition persist, as well as complaints about the poor quality of employment in the sector.

Exports of agricultural products such as blueberries, grapes, tangerines, artichokes and asparagus generated 9.8 billion dollars in revenue in 2022 – 12 percent higher than the 2021 total, as reported in February by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism.“The increase in revenue from agricultural exports has not brought human development: anemia and tuberculosis are at worrying levels and now dengue fever is skyrocketing.” -- Rosario Huallanca

Agricultural exports represent four percent of GDP in this Andean nation, where mining and fishing are the main economic activities.

“The increase in revenue from agricultural exports has not brought human development: anemia and tuberculosis are at worrying levels and now dengue fever is skyrocketing,” Rosario Huallanca, a representative of the non-governmental Ica Human Rights Commission (Codeh Ica), which has worked for 41 years in that department of southwestern Peru, told IPS.

Ica and two other departments along the country’s Pacific coast, La Libertad and Piura, are leaders in the sector, accounting for nearly 50 percent of agricultural exports in this country of 33 million people, which despite this boom remains plagued by inequality, reflected by high levels of poverty and informality and precariousness in employment.

Monetary poverty affected 27.5 percent of the country’s 33 million inhabitants in 2022, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics. This is a seven percentage point increase over the pre-pandemic period. The number of poor people was estimated at 9,184,000 last year, 600,000 more than in 2021.

Ica, which has a total of 850,765 inhabitants, is one of the departments with the lowest monetary poverty rates, five percent, because it has full employment, largely due to the agro-export boom of the last two decades.

Huallanca said the number of agro-export companies is estimated at 320, with a total of 120,000 employees, who come from different parts of the country.

What stands out, she said, is that 70 percent of the total number of workers in the sector are women, who are valued for their fine motor skills in handling fruits and vegetables.

Although a portion of the workers of some companies are in the informal sector, there are no clear numbers, the expert pointed out.

But there are alarming figures available: more than six percent of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, and anemia affects 33 percent of children between six and 35 months of age.

“With the type of job we have, we cannot take our children to their growth checkups, we can’t miss work because they don’t pay you if you don’t show up, we cry in silence because of our anxiety,” 42-year-old Yanina Huamán, who has worked in the agro-export sector for 20 years to support her three children, told IPS.

The two oldest are in middle and higher education and her youngest is still in primary school. “I am both mother and father to my children. With my work I am giving them an education and I have manged to secure a home of my own, but it’s precarious, the bedrooms don’t have roofs yet, for example,” she said.

Huamán is secretary for women’s affairs in the union of the company where she works, a position she was appointed to in November 2022. From that post, she hopes to help bring about improvements in access to healthcare for female workers, who either postpone going to the doctor when they need to, or receive poor medical attention in the social security health system “where they only give us pills.”

Ica currently has the highest number of deaths from dengue fever, a viral disease that led the government of Dina Boluarte to declare a 90-day health emergency in 13 of the country’s 24 departments a couple of weeks ago.

Not only that, it has the history of being the department with the highest level of deaths from Covid-19: 901 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, exceeding the national average of 630 per 100,000. “The health system here does not work,” trade unionist Huamán said bluntly.

Yanina Huamán, a worker in the agro-export sector in the department of Ica in southwestern Peru, explains at a meeting in Lima the problems that affect labor rights in the sector, particularly for women who make up 70 percent of the workers. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Working conditions more difficult for women

The lack of quality employment and the deficient recognition of labor rights, exacerbated by the pandemic, prompted a strike in November 2020 that began in Ica and spread to the northern coastal area of ​​La Libertad and Piura.

Their demands included a minimum living wage of 70 soles (19 dollars) a day, social benefits such as compensation and raises for length of service, and recognition of the right to form unions.

Grouped together in the recently created Ica Workers’ Union Agro-exports Struggle Committee, which represents casual and seasonal workers, they went to Congress in Lima to demand changes in the current legislation.

Susan Quintanilla, 39, originally from the central Andean department of Ayacucho, is the general secretary of the union. She arrived in Ica in 2014 after separating from her husband. She came with her two children, a girl and a boy, for whom she hoped for a future with better opportunities.

After working as a harvester in the fields, and cleaning and packing fruit at the plant, she decided to work on a piecework basis, because that way she could earn more and save up for times when the companies needed less labor.

“It was incredibly hard,” she told IPS. “I would leave home at 10 in the morning and leave work at three or four in the wee hours of the next morning to be there to get my kids ready for school. I was 29 or 30 years old, I was young, but I saw older women with pain in their bodies, their arms and their feet due to the postures we had at work, but they continued because they had no other option.

“I saw many injustices in the agro-export companies,” she added. “They made you feel that they were doing you a favor by giving you work, they wanted you to keep your head down, they shouted at and humiliated people, they made them feel miserable. I protested, raised my voice, and they didn’t fire me because I was a high performance worker and they needed me. The situation has changed a little because of our struggles, but it hasn’t come for free.”

The late 2020 protests led to the approval on Dec. 31 of that year of Law No. 31110 on agricultural labor and incentives for the agricultural and irrigation sector, aimed at guaranteeing the rights of workers in the agro-export and agroindustrial sectors.

But in Quintanilla’s view, the law discriminates against non-permanent workers who make up the largest part of the workforce in the sector, since the preferential right to hiring established in the fourth article of the law is not respected.

“Nor have they recognized the differentiated payment of our social benefits and they include them in the daily wage that is calculated at 54 soles (a little more than 14 dollars): it’s not fair,” she complained.

At the same time, she stressed that the agro-export work is harder on women because they are the ones responsible for raising their children. “We live in a sexist society that burdens us with all of the care work,” Quintanilla said.

She also explained that because several of the companies are so far away, it takes workers longer to get to work, which means they are away from home for up to twelve hours a day. “We go to work with the anxiety that we are leaving our children at risk of the dangers of life, we cannot be with them as we would like, which damages us emotionally.”

Added to this, she said, are the terrible working conditions, such as the fact that the toilets are far from the areas where they work, as much as three blocks away, or in unsanitary conditions, which leads women to avoid using them, to the detriment of their health.

Workers sort avocados for export in Peru. Agro-exports account for four percent of the country’s GDP, but the prosperity of the sector has not translated into better human development for its workers, and diseases such as anemia and tuberculosis are alarmingly prevalent in agroindustrial areas. CREDIT: Comexperu

Agro-export companies and human rights

Huallanca said that Codeh Ica was promoting the creation of a space of diverse stakeholders so that the National Business and Human Rights Plan, a public policy aimed at ensuring that economic activities improve people’s quality of life, is fulfilled in the department. Five unions from Ica and the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Tourism participate in this initiative.

“We have made an enormous effort and we hope that on Jun. 16 it will be formally created by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, the governing body for this policy,” she said.

In the meantime, she added, “we have helped bring together women involved in the agro-export sector, who have developed a rights agenda that has been given shape in this multi-stakeholder space and we hope it will be taken into account.”

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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Jaggery making on a sugarcane farm in Mandla. Small-scale farmers in India are benefitting from a scheme where they are able to diversify their farms and get support through Farmer Producer Organisations. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

By Rina Mukherji
MANDLA, JHARGRAM & AHMEDNAGAR, INDIA, May 26 2023 (IPS)

Until a decade ago, marginal farmers Gangotri Chandrol and Sunitabai lacked livelihood options in the post-monsoon season.

With farm holdings of just 2-6 acres in Katangatola village in the tribal-majority Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, they could only grow wheat, paddy, and sugarcane in the wet season for a living.

“Our earnings depended on price fluctuations in the market and the little paddy and wheat procured by the government.”

But now, they can sell their produce at higher than the prevailing market price to their farmers’ collective set up by Ekgaon Technologies, using existing women’s microfinance self-help groups (SHGs).

Furthermore, value-added products like flavoured jaggery obtained from sugarcane ensure a good income.  Farmers like Gangotri and Sunitabai, who were organised into clusters, and trained to form collective bargaining as buyers of agricultural inputs and suppliers of produce, are better off as a result.

While agriculture is India’s primary employment source, agricultural productivity has remained low. This is because the average size of an agricultural plot is less than 2 hectares (4.942 acres) (as per 2001 figures), with a quarter of rural holdings as low as 0.4 hectares (0.988 acres).

Furthermore, poverty and illiteracy make it difficult for most farmers to apply modern scientific inputs to enhance yield. Climate change has further added to the problem, with erratic weather, unseasonal rains, and frequent storms taking their toll on standing crops.

Realising this, India’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) developed its Producer Organisation Promoting Institution (POPI) scheme in 2015. This saw several Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) flourish around 2015, and farmers were inducted into registered companies, holding a certain number of shares, each priced at a nominal sum.

Women farmers in West Bengal buying inputs for their Farmer Producer Organisation. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

Ekgaon and its mission in Mandla

Once a single crop with migration-prone villages, Mandla district has seen a facelift ever since Ekgaon Technologies brought together its rural women and organised them into a Farmer Producers Organisation (FPO). Encouraged to buy seeds and fertilizer to distribute within their organisation, the women emerged as small-time entrepreneurs.

Traditionally, paddy cultivators, the farmers here, were trained to move to multi-cropping using natural organic farming methods. Local farmers now grow a mix of paddy, wheat, lentils (Masur), pigeon pea (arhar/tur), green gram (mung), and sugarcane on their marginal farms, using improved techniques and inexpensive homemade organic fertilizers.

Vidhi Patel, a widow and marginal farmer with a one-acre farm, tells IPS, “We were using 40 kg of seeds on our one-acre farm to grow paddy, besides spending on urea, which cost us upwards of Rs 1000. Under the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method, we now use only 25 kg of seeds, which has halved costs.”

Gangotri Chandrol, Sunitabai Chandrol, and Devki Uikey have not just learned to make optimum use of their marginal 2-6 acre farms to grow a variety of traditional crops such as wheat, paddy, sugarcane pigeon pea, masur (lentils), mung (green legumes), and millets, but have now ventured into cash crops like arrowroot, flaxseed, nigerseed, and marigold, which fetch them good returns.

Similarly, Laxmibai and Devki Uikey of the neighbouring Khari village grow sugarcane on one acre of their 3-acre farm and paddy, wheat, marigold and beetroot on the rest.  Besides operating as a small-time entrepreneur, selling agricultural inputs to other members of her FPO, Devki Uikey made organic yellow and maroon colours for the Holi (spring) festival out of beetroot and marigold with some other members of her collective.

“We procured 25 kg of marigold at Rs 40 per 250 g and 10 kg of beetroot at Rs 160 per kg. After making and selling the colours, we earned Rs 2300-Rs 2500 per member,” Devki Uikey told IPS

Besides selling premium varieties of rice such as Chindi Kapur and Jeera Shankar that are native to Mandla but not available elsewhere, Ekgaon has developed value-added products such as millet-ginger-raisin nutribars, millet noodles, amla ( gooseberry) candy, which it markets alongside ( collected) forest products like medicinal herbs, beeswax, and honey, on its e-commerce platform.

Since sugarcane is a major crop in the district and jaggery-making is an important enterprise, Ekgaon has developed ginger and tulsi (basil) flavoured jaggery cubes to brew flavoured tea.  Being part of the FPO has other benefits too. Farmers can access government funds for rainwater harvesters and borewells easily.

A tie-up with Rajdhani Besan, which markets gram flour, helped farmers who cultivate gram, while a tie-up with Lays saw the entire produce of white peas bought over in bulk for (Lays) chips and wafers. The FPO is also grading and procuring wheat for the government, earning the women farmers a small sum.

Consequently, marginal farmers who earned around Rs 50,000 (USD 608) per acre in the past are easily making Rs 3,00,000  (USD 3647) per acre now. Migration has stopped in most villages, and the literacy level has improved.

PRADAN’s initiatives in Jhargram and Bankura

Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN) has also converted existing women’s microfinance self-help groups (SHGs) into FPOs in the resource-poor, tribal-majority Bankura and Jhargram districts of West Bengal.

Despite good monsoon rains, water scarcity is the norm in these paddy-growing districts, owing to rocky terrain. Of late, erratic rains have made matters worse, spurring out migration. To withstand the vagaries of the weather, the women farmer-shareholders of the Amon Mahila Chashi Producers Company Limited (Amon Women Farmers Producers Company Limited) and other FPOs now grow hardy, traditional paddy varieties using homemade organic fertilizers.

Sumita Mahato, whose family lives off a one-bigha (0.625 acres) farm, and  Swarnaprabha Mahato, whose three-bigha (1.875 acres) farm must provide for an eight-member family, told IPS: “Chemical fertilizers cost Rs 5000 per 0.625 acres, while homemade organic fertilizer costs us only Rs 80-90 for the same per bigha.”

It has helped them get organic certification for their produce, comprising traditional rice varieties like Malliphul, Satthiya  (red rice), and Kalabhat (black rice), earning them Rs 35 per kg (as against  Rs 12 per kg that rice grown with chemical inputs).  Rainwater harvesters accessed as members of the FPO, under the state government’s scheme for the region, have helped, too, increasing productivity from 25-30 quintals per acre to 40-45 quintals per acre.

As multi-cropping is impossible here owing to limited moisture in the rocky soil, the farmers grow turmeric as a cash crop on the village commons. In Jhargram, Sonajhuri (Acacia auriculiformis) and Cashew are grown for timber and nuts, while in Bankura, farms along the Kankabati River grow watermelons for collective profit.

Traditionally, women in these regions made plates from sal (Shorea robusta) leaves collected from the jungles. They now process and mould plates for urban markets using moulding machines, selling them with their other products online on IndiaMart, earning ample profits to lead well-settled lives.

Watermelon crop in Bankura. Credit: Rina Mukherji/IPS

WOTR’s Efforts in Maharashtra

In Parner taluka (sub-division) of Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, the community-led Ankur Farmer Producers Organisation (FPO), facilitated by the Watershed Trust (WOTR), comprises 762 farmer-shareholders from the villages of Hiwrekorda, Bhangadevadi, and Dawalpuri, with farm holdings of 3-15 acres range, who supplement their incomes through dairy farming.

Being a rain-shadow, the drought-prone region with limited water resources, farming was always rainfed here, with large tracts of land lying barren.

Once Ankur was formed, the farmers could avail of Rs 80 lakh from the State Government (of Maharashtra) contributing the rest to lay a 7.5 km pipeline to bring water from the Kalu river and fill up a lined farm pond, and set up a pump-house for collective benefit.

This enabled them to bring 100 acres of farmland under cultivation to grow onions, marigolds, chrysanthemums, and other crops for the market. Their rainfed single-crop lands also grow two crops with the additional moisture available.

The farmers have opted for organic inputs like vermicompost, which they prepare and sell, both within and outside their FPO, although, as farmers Somnath Palwe and Chandrakant Gawde say, “Our members use both organic and improved seeds, as per preference.”

From growing a single crop of bajra (pearl millet), jowar (sorghum), and pulses, the farmers now grow maize, green gram, marigold, chrysanthemum, and onions, besides cauliflower and tomato. Incomes have grown from as low as Rs 50,000 ( USD 61) for an acre of cultivable land to as high as Rs 5 00,000 (USD 731).

Ankur sells its products online to Ninjacart and offline-in wholesale markets. In both cases, the sale is direct and without middlemen. Farmer Ashok Phalke, tells me. “Onions used to fetch us Rs 10 per kg, while the market price was Rs 12 per kg. We would lose Rs 2 per kg. Now that we sell directly in markets as a group, we earn more. The same goes for tomatoes and flowers.”

Besides promoting organic farming, the FPOs stress natural multi-cropping methods to control pests, such as growing horse gram in combination with maize or sorghum. This attracts birds, which, in turn, help control harmful pests naturally. Kitchen gardens are encouraged as they counter nutritional deficiencies in farming families.

Government Encouragement of FPOs

The Indian government intends to set up 10,000 FPOs all over India for Rs 6865 crore. Under this scheme, FPOs are to receive financial assistance of up to Rs 18 lakh for three years, with each farmer-member being eligible for an equity grant and credit guarantee facility. However, not all existing FPOs have been co-opted into the government scheme.

Since millets are hardy and impervious to erratic weather patterns, the government has been pushing for their cultivation in regions where they were traditionally grown. But the government’s dictum of “one District, one Product” has invited criticism, especially from grassroots organisations, who see multi-cropping as the only guarantor against natural disasters such as hailstorms and cyclones.

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Adel Mansour takes his WFP food basket home on a cart in Abyan, Yemen. Credit: WFP/Ahmed Altaf

By Max Lawson
LONDON, May 22 2023 (IPS)

“G7 countries have failed the Global South here in Hiroshima. They failed to cancel debts, and they failed to find what is really required to end the huge increase in hunger worldwide. They can find untold billions to fight the war but can’t even provide half of what is needed by the UN for the most critical humanitarian crises.”

Hunger and debt

“If the G7 really want closer ties to the developing countries and greater backing for the war in Ukraine, then asking Global South leaders to fly across the world for a couple of hours is not going to cut it. They need to cancel debts and do what it takes to end hunger.

“Countries of the Global South are being crippled by a food and debt crisis of huge proportions. Hunger has increased faster than it has in decades, and all over the world. In East Africa two people are dying every minute from hunger. Countries are paying over $200 million a day to the G7 and their bankers, money they could spend feeding their people instead.

“The money they say they will provide for the world’s rapidly growing humanitarian crises is not even half of what the UN is asking for, and it is not clear what, if anything, is new or additional —and the G7 have a terrible track record on double counting and inflating figures each year.

“These food and debt crises are direct knock-on effects of the Ukraine war. If the G7 want support from the Global South, they need to be seen to take action on these issues —they must cancel debts and force private banks to participate in debt cancellation, and they must massively increase funding to end hunger and famine across the world.”

Adak Nyuol Bol stands outside her farm which has been submerged by floodwaters. South Sudan is on the frontlines of the climate crisis and currently experiencing a fourth consecutive year of flooding. Credit: World Food Programme (WFP)

Climate Change

“The G7 owes the Global South $8.7 trillion for the devastating losses and damages their excessive carbon emissions have caused. In the G7 Hiroshima communique they said they recognized that there is a new Loss and Damage fund, but they failed to commit a single cent.

“It is good they continue to recognize the need to meet 1.5 degrees, and stay committed to this despite the energy crisis driven by the war in Ukraine, but they try to blame everyone else —they are far off track themselves to contribute their fair share of what is needed to meet this target and they should have been on track years ago.

“They confirm their commitment to end public funding for fossil energy, they maintain their loophole on new fossil gas, using the war as an excuse. This means they have continued to wriggle out of their commitment to not publicly fund new fossil fuels, making a mockery of their fine statements. The G7 must stop using fossil fuels immediately —the planet is on fire.”

Health

“The G7 had hundreds of fine words on preparing for the next pandemic, but yet failed to make the critical commitment —that never again would the G7 let Big Pharma profiteering and intellectual property rights lead to millions dying unnecessarily, unable to access vaccines. Given a 27 percent chance of a new pandemic within in a decade, this omission is chilling.”

More on debt, food and hunger

“Over half of all debt payments from the Global South are going to the G7 or to private banks based in G7 countries, notably New York and London. Over $230 million dollars a day is flowing into the G7.

Countries are bankrupt, spending far more on debt than on healthcare or food for their people. Debt payments have increased sharply as countries in the Global South borrow in dollars, so rising interest rates are supersizing the payments they must make.

“The G7 saying they support clauses to temporarily suspend debt payments for those countries hit by climate disasters is a positive step and a tribute to Barbados and Prime Minister Mia Mottley for fighting for this. They need to go further and cancel debts for all the nations that need it, a growing number daily.

Money is flooding from the Global South into the G7 economies —that is the wrong direction.”

Max Lawson is Oxfam International’s Head of Inequality Policy.

Footnote: The UNOCHA’s current total requirement for humanitarian crises is nearly $56 billion. The G7 communique says they will commit to providing over $21 billion to address the worsening humanitarian crises this year (paragraph 16).

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Carrying the Mayan flag, members of the Colibrí Collective lead a march against the Mayan Train in the city of Valladolid, in the southern Mexican state of Yucatán, in May 2023. The construction of the Mexican government’s most important megaproject has drawn criticism from affected communities due to its environmental, social and cultural effects. CREDIT: Arturo Contreras / Pie de Página

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, May 18 2023 (IPS)

Mexico’s development banks have violated their own socio-environmental standards while granting loans for the construction of the Mayan Train (TM), the flagship project of the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The National Bank of Public Works and Services (Banobras), the Nacional Financiera (Nafin) bank and the Foreign Commerce Bank (Bancomext) allocated at least 564 million dollars to the railway line since 2021, according to the yearbooks and statements of the three state entities.

Banobras, which finances infrastructure and public services, granted 480.83 million dollars for the project in the Yucatan peninsula; Nafin, which extends loans and guarantees to public and private works, allocated 81 million; and Bancomext, which provides financing to export and import companies and other strategic sectors, granted 2.91 million.

Bancomext and Banobras did not evaluate the credit, while Nafin classified the information as “confidential”, even though it involves public funds, according to each institution’s response to IPS’ requests for public information.“(The banks) are committing internal violations of their own provisions in the granting of credits, in order to give loans to projects that are not environmentally viable and that do not respect the local communities.” -- Gustavo Alanís

The three institutions have environmental and social risk management systems that include lists of activities that are to be excluded from financing.

In the case of Bancomext and Nafin, these rules are mandatory during the credit granting process, while Banobras explains that its objective is to verify that the loans evaluated are compatible with the bank’s environmental and social commitments.

Bancomext prohibits 19 types of financing; Banobras, 17; and Nafin, 18. The three institutions all veto “production or activities that place in jeopardy lands that are owned by indigenous peoples or have been claimed by adjudication, without the full documented consent of said peoples.”

Likewise, Banobras and Nafin must not support “projects that imply violations of national and international conventions and treaties regarding the indigenous population and native peoples.”

The three entities already had information to evaluate the railway project, since the Superior Audit of the Federation, the state comptroller, had already pointed to shortcomings in the indigenous consultation process and in the assessment of social risks, in the 2019 Report on the Results of the Superior Audit of the Public Account.

The total cost of the TM has already exceeded 15 billion dollars, 70 percent above what was initially planned, mostly borne by the government’s National Fund for Tourism Promotion (Fonatur), responsible for the megaproject.

Mexico’s three state development banks are partially financing the Mayan Train, for which they have failed to comply with the due process of the evaluation of socio-environmental risks that are part of their regulations. The photo shows the clearing of part of the route of one of the branches of the railway line in the municipality of Playa del Carmen, in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, in March 2022. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Violations

Angel Sulub, a Mayan indigenous member of the U kúuchil k Ch’i’ibalo’on Community Center, criticized the policies applied and the disrespect for the safeguards regulated by the state financial entities themselves.

“This shows us, once again, that there is a violation of our right to life, and there has not been at any moment in the process, from planning to execution, a will to respect the rights of the peoples,” he told IPS from the Felipe Carrillo Port, in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, where one of the TM stations will be located.

Sulub, who is also a poet, described the consultation as a “sham”. “Respect for the consultation was violated in all cases, an adequate consultation was not carried out. They did not comply with the minimum information, it was not a prior consultation, nor was it culturally appropriate,” he argued.

In December 2019, the government National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) organized a consultation with indigenous groups in the region that the Mexican office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights questioned for non-compliance with international standards.

Official data indicates that some 17 million native people live in Mexico, belonging to 69 different peoples and representing 13 percent of the total population.

INPI initially anticipated a population of 1.5 million indigenous people to consult about the TM in 1,331 communities. But that total was reduced to 1.32 million, with no official explanation for the 12 percent decrease. The population in the project’s area of ​​influence totaled 3.57 million in 2019, according to the Superior Audit report.

The conduct of the three financial institutions reflects the level of compliance with the president’s plans, as has happened with other state agencies that have refused to create hurdles for the railway, work on which began in 2020 and which will have seven routes.

The Mayan Train, run by Fonatur and backed by public funds, will stretch some 1,500 kilometers through 78 municipalities in the states of Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatán, within the peninsula, as well as the neighboring states of Chiapas and Tabasco. It will have 21 stations and 14 other stops.

The Yucatan peninsula is home to the second largest jungle in Latin America, after the Amazon, and is notable for its fragile biodiversity. In this territory, furthermore, to speak of the population is to speak of the Mayans, because in a high number of municipalities they are a majority and 44 percent of the total are Mayan-speaking.

The government promotes the megaproject, whose locomotives will transport thousands of tourists and cargo, such as transgenic soybeans, palm oil and pork – key economic activities in the area – as an engine for socioeconomic development in the southeast of the country.

It argues that it will create jobs, boost tourism beyond the traditional attractions and energize the regional economy, which has sparked polarizing controversies between its supporters and critics.

The railway faces complaints of deforestation, pollution, environmental damage and human rights violations, but these have not managed to stop the project from going forward.

In November 2022, López Obrador, who wants at all costs for the locomotives to start running in December of this year, classified the TM as a “priority project” through a presidential decree, which facilitates the issuing of environmental permits.

Gustavo Alanís, executive director of the non-governmental Mexican Center for Environmental Law, questioned the way the development banks are proceeding.

“They are committing internal violations of their own provisions in the granting of credits, in order to give loans to projects that are not environmentally viable and that do not respect the local communities. They are not complying with their own internal guidelines and requirements regarding the environment and indigenous peoples in the granting of credits,” he told IPS.

Groups opposed to the Mayan Train protest along a segment of the megaproject in the municipality of Carrillo Puerto, in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, on May 3. CREDIT: Arturo Contreras / Pie de Página

Trendy guidelines

In the last decade, socio-environmental standards have gained relevance for the promotion of sustainable works and their consequent financing that respects ecosystems and the rights of affected communities, such as those located along the railway.

Although the three Mexican development banks have such guidelines, they have not joined the largest global initiatives in this field.

None of them form part of the Equator Principles, a set of 10 criteria established in 2003 and adopted by 138 financial institutions from 38 countries, and which define their environmental, social and corporate governance.

Nor are they part of the Principles for Responsible Banking, of the United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative, announced in 2019 and which have already been adopted by 324 financial and insurance institutions from more than 50 nations.

These standards address the impact of projects; sustainable client and user practices; consultation and participation of stakeholders; governance and institutional culture; as well as transparency and corporate responsibility.

Of the three Mexican development banks, only Banobras has a mechanism for complaints, which has not received any about its loans, including the railway project.

In this regard, Sulub questioned the different ways to guarantee indigenous rights in this and other large infrastructure projects.

“The legal fight against the railway and other megaprojects has shown us in recent years that, as peoples, we do not have effective access to justice either, even though we have clearly demonstrated violations of our rights. Although it is a good thing that companies and banks have these guidelines and that they comply with them, we do not have effective mechanisms for enforcement,” he complained.

In Sulub’s words, this leads to a breaching of the power of indigenous people to decide on their own ways of life, since the government does not abide by judicial decisions, which in his view is further evidence of an exclusionary political system.

For his part, Alanís warned of the banks’ complicity in the damage reported and the consequent risk of legal liability if the alleged irregularities are not resolved.

“If not, they must pay the consequences and hold accountable those who do not follow internal policies. The international banks have inspection panels, to receive complaints when the bank does not follow its own policies,” he stated.

Nosintu Mcimeli and Bonelwa Nogemane of the Abanebhongo People with Disability (APD) started with an agroecological project to improve food security in South Africa’s Eastern Cape (left). A soup kitchen feeds the village children (right). Credit: ADP

By Fawzia Moodley
JOHANNESBURG, May 11 2023 (IPS)

In the deep rural village of Jekezi in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, most young and able-bodied people have fled the area, leaving behind people with disabilities, the elderly, and children.

It’s in villages like this one that the stark statistics of one in five South Africans being so food insecure they beg to feed themselves and their families could be a reality.

The village instead supports its fragile community through an agroecological project, Abanebhongo People with Disability (APD), co-founded in 2020 by Nosintu Mcimeli as an example of food sovereignty in action.

Food security in South Africa, the second wealthiest country by GDP, is low. According to 2019 data, Statistics SA says at least 10 million people didn’t have enough food or money to buy food.

Impacts on Physical Development, Mental Health

The impacts of this are devastating; hunger not only impacts physical development but also people’s mental health. Siphiwe Dlamini, writing in The Conversation, recently reported on a study that found that those who could not afford proper nutrition resorted to eating less, borrowing, using credit, and begging for food on the streets, which was the most harmful coping strategy for mental health.

“We found that over 20% (1 in 5) of the South African households were food insecure. But the prevalence varied widely across the provinces. The Eastern Cape province was the most affected (32% of households there were food insecure). We also confirmed that food access in South Africa largely depends on socioeconomic status. People who are uneducated, the unemployed, and those receiving a low monthly income are the most severely affected by inadequate food access,” wrote Dlamini, a lecturer School of Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand.

The situation in the region is also dire, with a UN World Food Programme (WFP) report in 2020 revealing that 45 million people were severely food insecure in the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

South Africa has long been afflicted with widespread hunger, but the onset of Covid, an ailing economy, climate change, fuel and food price increases, interest hikes, and the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war has deepened the food crisis.

However, Vishwas Satgar of the SA Food Sovereignty Campaign (SAFSC) says even before Covid, the number of hungry people was close to 14 million – and “women shoulder the burden of the high food prices, sharing limited food, skipping meals, and holding families together.”

The irony, Satgar says, is that the country can feed all its people.

“We produce enough food, but it’s essentially for export. The stark paradox in the commercial food system is that it is just another commodity; most people can’t feed themselves. The poor eat unhealthy (cheaper) food, and we have an obesity problem.”

Satgar says a change of strategies is needed to feed the poor.

“Despite overwhelming research proving that small-scale farmers feed the world, many people have the perception that large-scale industrial farms are the ultimate source of food. South Africa, with an expanded unemployment rate of 46.46 percent (start of 2022), cannot afford to lose more farm workers. Agroecological farming can transform the rural and urban economy with localised farming practices that absorb many unskilled and semi-skilled people,” he says.

The SAFSC, the Climate Justice Charter Movement, and the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre (COPAC) are building a new food system to avert a catastrophe.

Food Sovereignty 

“We call this the food sovereignty system, which is democratically organised and controlled by small-scale farmers, gardeners, informal traders, small-scale fishers, communities, and consumers.

That’s where Mcimeli comes in. She tells IPS her activism journey began after she left a company that worked with people with disabilities in Cape Town. She contracted polio as a baby because her domestic worker mother could not take her for immunisation. “I have a disability in my right thigh and leg.”

She was working as an informal trader when she was given the opportunity from SADC, “which was releasing millions of rand to train SA women for activism in any kind of project.”

Mcimeli was one of 80 women trained in 2012 and 2013.

“In 2014, I was transferred to Copac for activist schooling. That’s when I met Vish (Satgar). I then decided to come to the Eastern Cape to plough back my activism skills.”

It was here that she co-founded the APD, and it has become an example of food sovereignty in action in Jekezi in the Eastern Cape.

Mcimeli says the ADP started an agriculture project.

“Because in rural areas there is communal land, it’s free, so we formed groups to start communal gardens. Then I realised that there are people who are bedridden, so I started enviro gardens in nearby villages. At the moment, we have 24 of these, and they are working.”

She works with four young women but wants to include more young people in the projects.

A donation of a water tank and a borehole brought a promise of fresh ‘forever’ water to the village of Jekezi. Credit: ADP

Forever Water—Free and Healthy

During the hard lockdown, the ADP got a big water tank from the local municipality and started a soup kitchen.

“We got donations of masks and sanitisers and food from Shoprite. Then a colleague of mine organised radio interviews for me, and a company that provides boreholes heard me asking for more water tanks. They said they had a lifetime solution and sponsored a community borehole. It was installed free of charge in a local schoolyard. It’s forever water—free and healthy and available for everyone, not just our projects”.

One of ADP’s beneficiaries, Bonelwa Nogemane, says: “I have a family of seven including a disabled four-year-old; we are often hungry because the food is too expensive. I joined the ADP to help my family and community to grow our own food.”

While the ADP is making a small dent, the problem is much bigger, and activists warn that unless a solution is found to the hunger crisis, South Africa is in danger of producing a lost generation of intellectually and physically stunted future leaders.

A study published in BMC Public Health on the link between food insecurity and mental health in the US during Covid found that: “Food insecurity is associated with a 257% higher risk of anxiety and a 253% higher risk of depression. Losing a job during the pandemic is associated with a 32% increase in risk for anxiety and a 27% increase in risk for depression.”

Campaign to Save Children from ‘Slow Violence of Malnutrition’

Marcus Solomon of the Children’s Resource Centre, which has launched a campaign to save SA’s children from the “slow violence of malnutrition”, says: “The consequences of this are dire for the affected children, with an estimated four million children in SA having stunted growth because of malnutrition and another 10 million going hungry every day.”

Activist Shanaaz Viljoen from Cape Town says: “My personal experience on a grassroots level is rather heartbreaking. The children we work with are always hungry due to the situation in their homes.”

In addition to an alternate food system, Trade Union Federation Cosatu, the SASFC, Copac, and others believe introducing a Basic Income Grant will go a long way towards addressing the hunger crisis in the country.

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The Toledo Bioenergy Center, in southern Brazil, is under construction, but its biodigesters are already operating with manure and the carcasses of disease-free dead animals from 16 pig farms. The goal is to generate one megawatt of power and for pig farmers to participate in the production of biogas without having to invest in their own plants, so their waste is biodigested and turned into fertilizer, instead of polluting rivers and the soil. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario Osava
TOLEDO, Brazil , May 8 2023 (IPS)

It is the “best energy,” according to its producers, but biogas from livestock waste still lacks an organized market that would allow it to take off and realize its potential in Brazil, the world’s largest meat exporter.

“There is a lack of steady consumers,” said Cícero Bley Junior, who has been a pioneer in the promotion of biogas in the west of the southern state of Paraná, since he served as superintendent of Renewable Energies at Itaipu Binacional (2004-2016).

Itaipu, a gigantic hydroelectric plant shared by Brazil and Paraguay on the Paraná River which forms part of the border between the two countries, encourages nearby pig farmers to take advantage of manure to produce biogas, avoiding its disposal in the rivers that flow into the reservoir, whose contamination affects electricity generation in the long run.“The animal protein chain must also see itself as a generator of energy, just as the sugarcane sector defines itself as a sugar and energy industry since it began producing ethanol (a biogas) almost 50 years ago.” -- Cícero Bley

The companies that form part of the animal protein chain, in general the meat industry that purchases animals ready for slaughter and offers breeding sows and technical assistance to livestock producers, should also buy biogas and its biomethane derivative from the breeders, Bley said.

“The animal protein chain must also see itself as a generator of energy, just as the sugarcane sector defines itself as a sugar and energy industry since it began producing ethanol (a biogas) almost 50 years ago,” he told IPS.

But the companies do not do so: none of them are affiliated with the Brazilian Biogas Association (Abiogás), he lamented. The dairy industry could greatly reduce the cost of picking up milk from farms if it replaced diesel with biomethane in its trucks, he said, to illustrate.

If no such decision is taken, there will be no large investments in gas-fired engines either, which can use natural gas or biomethane, also called renewable natural gas.

In addition to the environmental benefits, such as the reduction in water pollution and the decarbonization of energy, biogas offers economic advantages by making use of manure that was previously considered waste and converting it into biofertilizer.

It also drives a new equipment industry and local development by decentralizing energy and fertilizer production.

“It’s the best energy, for sure,” said Anelio Thomazzoni, a pig farmer from Vargeão, a small municipality of 3,500 inhabitants in the west of the state of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil. His farm has a 600-kilowatt biogas power plant and a 1-megawatt solar power plant.

“The correct use of crop waste, as fertilizer after biodigestion, made it possible for me to reduce by 100 percent the purchase of potassium chloride and phosphorus,” formerly essential fertilizers, he told IPS by phone from his town.

A visitor in Toledo examines the external controls of the mixer, an essential piece of equipment in the production of biogas and whose absence or mishandling can affect the operation. The complexity of biodigestion, compared to photovoltaic solar energy, is a factor that is slowing down the expected progress of biogas in Brazil, despite its multiple benefits in energy, environmental and economic terms. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Frustrated potential

Brazil today produces only 0.5 percent of the biogas that could result from agricultural, livestock and industrial waste, urban garbage and sewage, estimated Bley, who founded the International Center for Renewable Energies-Biogás (CIBiogás) in 2013.

Brazil would have the potential to replace 70 percent of the diesel it consumes if it allocated all the biogas to the production of biomethane, according to Abiogás. In terms of electricity, it could reach almost 40 percent, but today it is limited to 353 megawatts – around 0.0018 percent of the total – according to the government’s National Electric Power Agency.

In global terms, Brazil is only ninth in biogas electricity generation, accounting for 2.1 percent of the global total, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

The sugarcane sector joined the effort five years ago in promoting biogas, with larger plants for power generation or biomethane refining in the southern state of São Paulo. New initiatives are attempting to accelerate the development of this energy market in the southern region of Brazil, which concentrates two-thirds of the national production of pork.

Residues from the production of sugar and ethanol from cane represent 48 percent of Brazil’s biogas potential, followed by the animal protein chain, which accounts for 32.2 percent, estimates Abiogás. The rest comes from agricultural waste and sewage.

This large pre-treatment tank uses pig carcasses, an abundant material that is still little employed in the production of biogas, which the Toledo Bioenergy Plant in southern Brazil will process to reach a generation capacity of one megawatt, playing a sanitary role at the same time. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Innovative initiatives

The Bioenergy Plant under construction by CIBiogás, a nonprofit technology and innovation institution in Toledo, a city of 156,000 people in western Paraná, seeks to “validate a possible business model,” explained Juliana Somer, a construction engineer who is operations manager at the Center.

Pig farmers provide the “substrate” and receive back a part of the “digestate”, as the manure converted into a better fertilizer is called, without the gases that make up the biogas, extracted in the biodigestion process. With that they fertilize their land.

To generate electricity, biogas must have at least 55 percent methane. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is another component, making up about 40 percent. Hydrogen sulfide must be removed to prevent corrosion of the equipment.

“The objectives are environmental, social, energy-related and the dissemination of technologies,” said Rafael Niclevicz, environmental engineer at CIBiogás. To that end, an area of ​​high pig farm density was chosen, with about 120,000 hogs in five square kilometers.

The manure is collected daily, 70 percent by trucks and the pig farmers themselves, and the rest by pipelines from the nearest farms. Currently, 16 pig farmers, whose herds total about 40,000 animals, supply the plant, which also collects carcasses of disease-free dead pigs.

“The model makes sense for pig farmers who do not want to invest in facilities to produce biogas on their own. It solves the problem of waste disposal and there are socio-environmental benefits for everyone,” said Somer.

This Enerdimbo truck is powered by biomethane and is used to collect manure from 40 pig producers that feeds the company’s large biodigesters in southern Brazil. Solar power is added to biogas to provide 2.5 megawatts of energy, enough to supply 5,000 medium-sized households. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

The plant is a joint project between the municipal government, which ceded the land, and Itaipu Binacional, which provided funding. The goal is an installed capacity of one megawatt.

In Ouro Verde, 22 kilometers from Toledo, a similar plant, Enerdinbo, receives the “substrate” from 40 farms within a radius of 15 kilometers, where more than 100,000 pigs are raised, for a total generation capacity of two megawatts, to which are added 500 kilowatts from a solar plant.

It is enough to provide electricity to 5,000 households, estimates EDB Energía do Brasil, the company that offers businesses and residential consumers the possibility of reducing their electricity bills by 10 percent by joining the cooperative that benefits from the electricity generated by Enerdinbo.

The business of EDB, created by businesspeople in Cascavel, 60 kilometers from Ouro Verde, is to implement small renewable energy plants to distribute the benefits of distributed generation among members of the cooperative, with the investment by the consumers themselves to save on energy costs.

Enerdinbo and the Toledo Bioenergy Plant seek to expand biogas by avoiding the difficulty for pig farmers and other small farmers or ranchers to invest in the energy business.

A view of one of the three large biodigesters of Enerdimbo, a plant of the EDB Energía do Brasil company that distributes the benefits of distributed electricity generation to numerous members of the cooperative, whose power bills are thus reduced by 10 percent. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS

Demand from animal protein producers

“Small and medium-sized rural producers are true heroes who face various risks when deciding, in isolation, to implement a waste treatment project generated in the animal protein chain for the production of biogas on their properties,” said a manifesto from the producers and bioenergy specialists.

The document, released at the South Brazilian Biogas and Biomethane Forum on Apr. 18 in Foz do Iguaçu, in the far west of Paraná, calls for greater support from the public sector and from companies that link biogas production and the meat industry, for their “strategic value for Brazil’s energy transition.”

Only 333 animal waste biogas plants are suppliers to the national electricity grid, that is, 0.005 percent of Brazil’s 6.5 million livestock farms, the document stressed.

Aftermath of Hurricane Matthew in Haiti. Often, women and girls face greater health and safety risks as water and sanitation systems become compromised; and take on increased domestic and care work as resources disappear. Credit: UN MINUSTAH/Logan Abassi

By Ayesha Khan, Éliane Ubalijoro and Yuriko Backes
KARACHI, Pakistan / NAIROBI, Kenya / LUXEMBOURG CITY, Luxembourg, May 3 2023 (IPS)

The finance sector’s role in the current global crises – notably climate, biodiversity, and food security – is significant.

Polluting activities and environmentally-destructive practices for short-term economic gains have catapulted us to our current untenable situation. We’re ‘sawing off the branch we’re sitting on’ by sacrificing life-giving ecosystem services for profit, and that branch is sagging and splitting under our weight.

As we lurch from one climate crisis to another, leaving millions of the most vulnerable – particularly women and other marginalised identities – scrambling to survive large-scale flooding, extreme temperatures, and scorching heatwaves that decimate lives and livelihoods, we must radically reframe how we define success.

Finance can powerfully drive the change we seek. Significant commitments have been made, such as the pledges to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 made by tens of thousands of businesses and institutions through the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s Race to Zero campaign; the food industry’s zero deforestation pledge at this year’s UNFCCC Climate Change Conference (COP27); new finance-related targets in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)’s new Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to increase financing for nature and biodiversity; advances in the EU sustainable finance taxonomy; and emerging initiatives like Business for Nature.

The sustainable financing gap remains formidable: finance flows to Nature-based solutions (NbS) are currently less than half of what is needed by 2025 – and only a third of what is needed by 2030 – to limit climate change to below 1.5 degrees centigrade, halt biodiversity loss and achieve land degradation neutrality.

There is a particularly critical need to build up financing – and action – for biodiversity, as one of our most valuable natural capital assets which is crucial in addressing the challenges we face.

Meanwhile, nature-negative flows are estimated to exceed nature-based solutions by three to seven times. In the past six years, investments in the fossil fuel industry have continued at a steady pace, as has funding of projects leading to deforestation – such as livestock farming in the Brazilian Amazon in a largely unrestricted way.

Moreover, despite wealthy nations pledging USD 100 billion annually for climate mitigation and adaptation, less than 3% of adaptation funding has reached the countries in the Global South that need it the most.

This leaves the world out of balance. As 600 million smallholder farmers, who feed much of the developing world, struggle to respond to the most recent drought, flooding, or extreme weather event, huge numbers of the already-vulnerable become increasingly food-insecure, and can fall into irreversible poverty traps. We need to do better.

To turn this around, governments and multilateral institutions play an important role. But while governments currently provide about 83% of Nature-based solutions financing, a significant boost from this sector is unlikely given the confluence of crises taking its attention.

So, the pressure is also on the private sector to step up efforts –requiring increased investment in sustainable supply chains, paying properly for ecosystem services, and reducing or dropping nature-negative activities. Over 400 private sector companies asked to be regulated at COP15, and this goodwill must be harnessed.

We must also consider how to deploy the hoped-for influx of financing. We know Indigenous Peoples and local communities play key roles as ‘stewards’ of many of Earth’s landscapes. But between 2010 and 2020, they received less than 5% of development aid for environmental protection, and under 1% for climate mitigation and adaptation.

Channelling sustainable finance to these communities – especially women – can simultaneously spur community development, empower women, and nourish ecosystems. We must design instruments that are better-positioned to attract private capital towards efficient financing, including by using blended finance models to layer risk-taking development capital and grant instruments with more commercially-oriented funds.

There are so many sustainable, scalable solutions that already exist across Africa, Latin America and Asia and there comes a time to harness them. Let’s bridge the gaps between investors and community-led projects and build the resources of our landscapes’ stewards – in all their guises – to tend to our planet’s precious remaining species, ecosystems, and carbon sinks.

The time is now. Let’s meet the moment together.

Ayesha Khan is Regional Managing Director at Acumen, Pakistan. Éliane Ubalijoro is incoming CEO of the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF). Yuriko Backes is Luxembourg’s Minister of Finance. They are three of the 16 Women Restoring the Earth 2023 and spoke at the Global Landscapes Forum’s 6th Investment Case Symposium to drive sustainable land-use investments in the Global South.

IPS UN Bureau

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A rainwater harvesting system was installed in the home of Marlene Carballo, in the town of Jocote Dulce in eastern El Salvador, in the Central American Dry Corridor, in November 2022. The system, with pipes and gutters running from the roof to a polyethylene bag, will start operating in May of this year, at the beginning of Central America’s rainy season. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
CHINAMECA, El Salvador, May 2 2023 (IPS)

“This is a very difficult place to live, because of the lack of water,” said Salvadoran farmer Marlene Carballo, as she cooked corn tortillas for lunch for her family, on a scorching day.

Carballo, 23, lives in the Jocote Dulce canton, a remote rural settlement in the municipality of Chinameca, in the eastern Salvadoran department of San Miguel, a region located in what is known as the Central American Dry Corridor."The husbands go to work in the fields, and as women we stay at home, trying to manage the water supply; only we know if there is enough for bathing or cooking.” -- Santa Gumersinda Crespo

Acute water crisis

This municipality is one of the 144 in the country that is located in the Dry Corridor, which covers 35 percent of Central America and is home to more than 10.5 million people and where over 73 percent of the rural population lives in poverty and 7.1 million people suffer from severe food insecurity, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Food security is particularly threatened because the rains are not always constant, which creates major difficulties for agriculture.

“My grandfather has a water tank, and when he has enough, he gives us water, but when he doesn’t, we’re in trouble,” said the young woman.

When that happens, they have to buy water, which is not only the case in these remote rural Salvadoran areas, but in the rest of the Central American region where water is scarce, as is almost always the case in the Dry Corridor, which stretches north to south across parts of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

When IPS visited several villages in the Jocote Dulce canton in late April, the acute water shortage was evident, since all homes had one or more plastic tanks to store water and many were empty.

A rainwater harvesting system was installed in the home of Marlene Carballo, in the town of Jocote Dulce in eastern El Salvador, in the Central American Dry Corridor, in November 2022. The system, with pipes and gutters running from the roof to a polyethylene bag, will start operating in May of this year, at the beginning of Central America’s rainy season. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Women in the forefront of the struggle for water

The persistent water shortage has led rural women in Central America to organize in recent years in community associations to promote projects that help alleviate the scarcity.

In the villages of Jocote Dulce, rainwater harvesting projects, reforestation and the creation of small poultry farms have the support of local and international organizations and financing from European countries.

In some cases, depending on the project and the country, rainwater harvesting is designed only for domestic tasks at home, while in others it includes irrigation of family gardens or providing water for livestock such as cows and chickens.

In other parts of the country and the rest of Central America, institutions such as FAO have developed water collection systems that in some cases have a filtering mechanism, which makes it potable.

In El Salvador, FAO has been behind the installation of 1,373 of these systems.

Carballo said she and her family are looking forward to the start of the May to November rainy season, to see their new rainwater harvesting system work for the first time.

Through gutters and pipes, the rainwater will run from the roof to a huge polyethylene bag in the yard, which serves as a catchment tank.

Gumersinda Crespo (R) and her daughter Marcela stand next to the kitchen of their house in the Jocote Dulce canton in eastern El Salvador, an area with a chronic water crisis because it is located in the Central American Dry Corridor, where the shortage of rainfall makes life complicated. Almost every household in this remote location has various plastic containers and tanks to capture rain. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

“When the bag fills up, we’ll be so happy because we’ll have plenty of water,” she said, as she cooked corn tortillas in her “comal”, a clay or metal cylinder used to cook this staple of the Central American diet.

Women suffer the brunt

The harsh burden of water scarcity falls disproportionately on rural women, as national and international reports have shown.

In this sexist society, women are expected to stay at home, in charge of the domestic chores, which include securing water for the family.

“The husbands go to work in the fields, and as women we stay at home, trying to manage the water supply; only we know if there is enough for bathing or cooking,” Santa Gumersinda Crespo told IPS.

Crespo, 48, was feeding her cow and goat in her backyard when IPS visited her. In the yard there was a black plastic-covered tank where the family collects water during the rainy season.

“Without water we are nothing,” Crespo said. “In the past, we used to go to the water hole. It was really hard, sometimes we left at 7:00 at night and came back at 1:00 in the morning,” she said.

Marta Moreira is one of the community leaders who has worked the hardest to ensure that in Jocote Dulce, a remote rural settlement in eastern El Salvador, programs are helping supply water and strengthen food security. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

In Guatemala, Gloria Díaz also says it is women who bear the brunt of water scarcity in rural families.

“We are the ones who used to go out to look for water and who faced mistreatment and violence when we tried to fill our jugs in the rivers or springs,” Díaz told IPS by telephone from the Sector Plan del Jocote in the Maraxcó Community, in the southeastern Guatemalan municipality and department of Chiquimula.

In that area of ​​the Dry Corridor, water is the most precious asset.

“It’s been difficult, because drinking water is brought to us from 28 kilometers away and we can only fill our containers for two hours a month,” she said.

Almost all of the homes in the villages located around Chinameca, in the Salvadoran department of San Miguel, have several water storage tanks, given the scarcity of water in that area, which forms part of the Central American Dry Corridor. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Projects that bring relief and hope

Climate forecasts are not at all hopeful for the remainder of 2023.

The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate phenomenon is likely to occur, which would bring droughts and loss of crops, as it has before.

“When the weather is good, we sow and harvest, and when it is not, we plant less, to see how winter (the rainy season) will shape up; we don’t plant everything or we would lose it all,” Salvadoran farmer Marta Moreira, also from Jocote Dulce, told IPS.

Most people in these rural regions depend on subsistence farming, especially corn and beans.

Moreira added that last year her family, made up of herself, her husband and their son, lost most of the corn and bean harvest due to the weather.

In Central America climate change has led to longer than usual periods of drought and to excessive rainfall.

A farmer gets ready to fill a jug at one of the water taps located in the Jocote Dulce canton, in the eastern Salvadoran department of San Miguel, where water is always scarce. The community taps are padlocked, so that only people with permission can use them. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

In October 2022, Tropical Storm Julia destroyed 8,000 hectares of corn and bean crops in El Salvador, causing losses of around 17 million dollars.

Given this history of climatic effects, rural families and groups, led mostly by women, have received the support of national and international organizations to carry out projects to alleviate these impacts.

For example, around 100 families from the Jocote Dulce canton benefited in 2010 from a water project financially supported by Luxembourg, to install a dozen community water taps.

Programs for the construction of catchment tanks have also been carried out there, such as the one that supplies water to Crespo’s family.

In addition to using the water for household chores, the family gives it to their cow, which provides them with milk every day, and Crespo also makes cheese.

The water collected in the pond “lasts us for almost five months, but if we use it more, only about three or four months,” she said, as she brought more fodder to the family cow.

If she has any milk left over, she sells a couple of liters, she said, bringing in income that is hard to come by in this remote area reached by steep dirt tracks that are dusty in summer and muddy in the rainy season.

Other families benefited from home poultry farm and fruit tree planting programs.

Drinking water is provided by the community taps, but the water crisis makes it difficult to supply everyone in this rural settlement.

Yamilet Henríquez, 35, shows the reservoir set up outside her home in eastern El Salvador. Water is increasingly scarce in this area of ​​the ecoregion known as the Central American Dry Corridor, and things could become more complicated if the forecasts are right about the looming arrival of the El Niño climate phenomenon, which will bring droughts and damage to crops. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Only 80 percent of rural households in El Salvador have access to piped water, according to official figures.

“The water runs for only three days, then for two days the pipes dry up, and that’s how things go, over and over,” said Moreira, who also has a small tank, whose water is not drinkable.

When the rains fail and the reserves run out, families have to buy water from people who bring it in barrels in their pick-up trucks, from Chinameca, about 30 minutes away by car. Each barrel, which costs them about three dollars, contains some 100 liters of water.

The same is true in the Sector Plan del Jocote in Chiquimula, Guatemala, where Díaz lives, and in neighboring communities. “People who can afford it buy it and those who can’t, don’t,” she said.

Díaz added that families in the area are happy with the rainwater harvesting programs, which make it possible for them to irrigate the collectively farmed gardens, and produce vegetables that are important to their diet.

They also sell their produce to nearby schools.

“We grow vegetables and sell them to the school, that has helped us a lot,” she said.

There are 19 water harvesting systems, each with a capacity of 17,000 liters of water, which is enough to irrigate the gardens for two months. They also have a community tank.

These programs, which have been promoted by FAO and other organizations, with the support of the Guatemalan government, have benefited 5,416 families in 80 settlements in two Guatemalan departments.

However, access to potable drinking water remains a serious problem for the more than eight rural settlements in the Sector Plan del Jocote and the 28,714 families that live there.

A farmer from a women-run vegetable cooperative grows cabbages in Sierra Leone. Credit: FAO/Sebastian Liste

By Danielle Nierenberg and Emily Payne
BALTIMORE, Maryland / DENVER, Colorado, May 1 2023 (IPS)

Studies consistently show that women have lower rates of agricultural productivity compared to men in the region, but it’s not because they’re less efficient farmers.

Women in sub-Saharan Africa often lead food storage, handling, stocking, processing, and marketing in addition to other household tasks and childcare. Yet they severely lack the resources they need to produce food.

A 2019 United Nations policy brief reports that giving women equal access to agricultural inputs is critical to closing this gender gap in productivity while also raising crop production.

And last year, the 17th Tanzania Economic Update showed that bridging the gap could lift about 80,000 Tanzanians out of poverty every year and boost annual gross domestic product growth by 0.86 percent.

This makes a clear economic case for investing in women, but public policies frequently overlook gender-specific needs and equality issues. Instead, organizations across the region have been stepping up to help break down the barriers that have traditionally held sub-Saharan African women back.

The West and Central Africa Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF), Africa’s largest sub-regional research organization, runs a database of gender-sensitive technologies, ones that are low-cost and labor-saving for women across the region.

It also developed a series of initiatives to provide training in seed production, distribution, storage, and planting techniques for women. These programs are specifically designed with women’s needs and preferences in mind, such as prioritizing drought resistance or early maturity in crops.

This is an important shift. While we’re seeing an increasing number of exciting technologies and innovations tackling the food systems’ biggest challenges, unless these technologies are gender-sensitive—meaning they address the unique needs and challenges faced by women farmers—they will not be effective.

But empowering women means more than just facilitating access to technologies. Women must also be supported to lead the discoveries, inventions, and research of the future.

The West Africa Agriculture Productivity Program (WAAPP), a sub-regional initiative launched by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) with the financial support of the World Bank and collaboration with CORAF, has specifically targeted initiatives for women farmers as well as women researchers.

Since 2008, 3 out of every 10 researchers trained under the WAAPP have been women.

And in just the past few years, more exciting networks are emerging to support women leading agriculture: In 2019, the African Women in Agribusiness Network launched to promote women’s leadership in African agribusiness. In 2020, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) launched the Women in Agribusiness Investment Network to help bridge the gender financing gap.

And in 2021, the African Women in Seed program was created to support women’s participation in the seed sector through training, mentorship, and networking opportunities for women seed entrepreneurs.

Empowering women in the food system is not simply a matter of social justice and equality; sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford to leave women behind.

Nearly a third of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is undernourished. Meanwhile, it’s one of the fastest-growing populations in the world, expected to double by 2050 and dramatically increase demand.

Women are the backbone of communities and the food system at large in sub-Saharan Africa, and the region’s future economic development and environmental sustainability depend on them. While women are now playing a more active role in the food system, we need more women in leadership at all levels.

Rwanda’s female-led parliament, one of the highest proportions of women parliamentarians in the world, has been instrumental in not only advancing women’s rights but promoting economic development and improving governance. We need more of this.

With the resources, recognition, and support they need and deserve, women will lead the region to a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient future.

Sub-Saharan Africa can achieve the transformation it so critically needs, but only if we support women in the food system now.

Danielle Nierenberg is President, Food Tank; Emily Payne is Food Tank researcher.

IPS UN Bureau

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Palau’s Marine Spatial Plan will provide a framework for managing ocean and coastal resources. Credit: SPC

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Apr 28 2023 (IPS)

Growing up in Palau in the western Pacific Ocean, Surangel Whipps Jr. played on the reefs and spearfished on an island teeming with birds, giant clams, fish, and turtles.

Today that has all changed as a result of growing sea level rise. Half of the turtle eggs nesting on beaches are not surviving because they are laid in the tidal zone and swallowed by the sea.

During the United Nations Ocean Conference in Portugal in June 2022, Whipps Jr., the President of Palau, emphasized the interconnectedness of the fate of the turtles, their homes, culture, and people, drawing global attention to the dire impact of climate change on this island nation that relies heavily on the ocean for its livelihood.

Protecting Palau’s Marine Treasures

The Pacific Ocean is the lifeblood of Palau, supporting its social, cultural, and economic development. Palau is an archipelago of over 576 islands in the western tropical Pacific Ocean. Its rich marine biota includes approximately 400 species of hard corals, 300 species of soft corals, 1400 species of reef fishes, and the world’s most isolated colony of dugongs and Micronesia’s only saltwater crocodiles.

Worried that the island would have no future under the sea, Palau has launched an ambitious Marine Spatial Plan (MSP) initiative for its marine ecosystems that are vulnerable to climate change and impacted by human activities such as tourism, fishing, aquaculture, and shipping. It will provide a framework for managing ocean and coastal resources in a way that balances economic, social, and environmental objectives. It also aims to minimize conflicts between different users of the ocean and coastal areas and promotes their sustainable use.

Marino-O-Te-Au Wichman, a fisheries scientist with the Pacific Community (SPC) and a member of the Palau MSP Steering Committee, explains that the initiative is particularly important for Palau due to the country’s dependence on the marine ecosystem for food security, livelihoods, and cultural identity.

“We recognize the critical role that MSP plays in the development of maritime sectors with high potential for sustaining jobs and economic growth,” Wichman said, emphasizing that SPC was committed to supporting country-driven MSP processes with the best scientific advice and capacity development support.

“The MSP can help balance ecological and economic considerations in the management of marine resources, ensuring that these resources are used in a sustainable way.  Some of the key ecological considerations that MSP can help address include the conservation of biodiversity, restoration of habitats, and the management of invasive species. While on the economic front, MSP can help promote the sustainable use of marine resources: and promote low-impact economic activities such as ecotourism,” Wichman observed.

Climate Informed Decision Making

As climate change continues to impact ocean conditions, the redistribution of marine ecosystem services and benefits will affect maritime activities and societal value chains. Mainstreaming climate change into MSP can improve preparedness and response while also reducing the vulnerability of marine ecosystems.

Palau’s rich marine biota includes approximately 400 species of hard corals, 300 species of soft corals, 1400 species of reef fishes, and the world’s most isolated colony of dugongs and Micronesia’s only saltwater crocodiles. Credit: SPC

“MSP can inform policy making in Pacific Island countries in several ways to support sustainable development, particularly in the face of climate change impacts. The MSP initiative launched by Palau encompasses a Climate Resilient Marine Spatial Planning project that is grounded in the most reliable scientific data, including climate change scenarios and climate risk models,” said Wichman, noting that the plan can help identify areas that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise, ocean acidification, movement of key tuna stocks and increased storm intensity.

Increasing the knowledge base on the impacts of a changing climate is necessary for policymakers to ensure the protection of ecologically important areas and the implementation of sustainable development strategies. This includes building strong evidence that takes into account the potential spatial relocation of uses in MSP, the knowledge of conservation priority species and keystone ecosystem components, and their inclusion in sectoral analyses to promote sustainability and resilience.

Although progress has been made in understanding the impacts of climate change and its effects on marine ecosystems, there is still a need for thorough scientific research to guide management decisions.

“At SPC, we are dedicated to supporting countries in advancing their knowledge of ocean science. Our joint efforts have paid off, as Palau has made significant strides in improving their understanding of the ocean and safeguarding its well-being. Through the Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science (PCCOS), Palau and other Pacific countries are given support to continue promoting predictive and sustainable ocean practices in the region,” explained Pierre-Yves Charpentier, Project Management Advisor for the Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science.

A Long-Term Commitment To Protect the Ocean  

In 2015, Palau voted to establish the Palau National Marine Sanctuary, one of the world’s largest marine protected areas, with a planned five-year phase-in. On January 1, 2020, Palau fully protected 80% of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), prohibiting all forms of extractive activities, including mining and all types of fishing.

A Palauan legend is told of a fisherman from the village of Ngerchemai. One day the fisherman went out fishing in his canoe and came upon a large turtle and hastily jumped into the water after it. Surfacing for a breath, the fisherman realized his canoe wasn’t anchored and was drifting away. He then looked at the turtle, and it was swimming away. He could not decide which one he should pursue. In doing so, he lost both the canoe and the turtle.

Unlike the fisherman, Palau cannot afford to be indecisive about protecting its marine treasures, Whipps Jr. said: “Ensuring the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development is our collective responsibility.”

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A group of drivers push a car at the end of a long line to refuel in Havana. The Cuban authorities say the fundamental cause of the shortage of diesel and gasoline has to do with breaches of contracts by suppliers. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Luis Brizuela
HAVANA, Apr 27 2023 (IPS)

Long lines of vehicles outside of gas stations reflect the acute shortage of diesel and gasoline in Cuba, which has had negative impacts on an economy that is highly dependent on fuel imports and has only a small proportion of renewable sources in its energy mix.

“They don’t sell you enough fuel at the gas stations and the line barely creeps forward because there are also many irregularities and corruption. It’s exhausting,” said engineer Rolando Estupiñán, who was driving an old Soviet Union-made Lada. When he spoke to IPS in Havana, he was still a long way from the pumps at the station and had given up hope of working that day.

Lisbet Brito, an accountant living in the Cuban capital, lamented in a conversation with IPS that “the public buses take a long time. Private cars (that act as taxis) are making shorter trips and charging more. Nobody can afford this. It’s very difficult to get to work or school, or to a medical or any other kind of appointment.”

Brito said another fear “is that food prices will rise further or supplies will decrease, if the shortage of oil makes it difficult to supply the markets.”

External and internal factors, including the fuel shortage, contribute to low levels of agricultural production, which is insufficient to meet the demand of the 11.1 million inhabitants of this Caribbean island nation.

The outlook is made even more complex by the macroeconomic imbalances, marked by partial dollarization, high inflation and depreciation of wages, salaries and pensions which have strangled household budgets.

Asiel Ramos, who uses his vehicle as a private taxi in this city of 2.2 million people, justified the increase in his rates “because the cost of a liter of diesel skyrocketed” on the black market, where it ranges from a little more than a dollar to three dollars, in sharp contrast to the average monthly salary of around 35 dollars.

“I pay taxes and I have to keep the car running so my children and wife can eat. I can’t spend days stocking up on fuel, and when it’s over, go back again. If I buy ‘on the left‘ (a euphemism for buying on the black market) I have to raise my prices,” Ramos told IPS.

To get around, most Cubans depend on the public transport system, based mainly on buses, which are less expensive than private taxis. But the chronic deficit of equipment, spare parts, lubricants and other inputs, added to the fuel shortage, means service is irregular, the most visible expression of which is the packed bus stops.

A group of people try to board a minibus on a central avenue in Havana. Public transport in Cuba faces a chronic deficit of equipment, spare parts, lubricants and other inputs, which, added to fuel shortages, means service is irregular and bus stops are crowded. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Measures

The fuel shortage drove the authorities to announce on the night of Apr. 25 the cancellation of the traditional parades for May 1, International Workers’ Day, and other activities such as political rallies or workplace, community or municipal events, as a rationing and austerity measure, and to declare that only essential transportation would be available.

In the capital, instead of the workers’ march through the José Marti Plaza de la Revolución, a rally was called for May 1 along the Havana Malecón or seaside boulevard, which expects some 120,000 people coming on foot from five of the 15 Havana municipalities.

On Apr. 17, the Minister of Energy and Mines Vicente de la O Levy said on television that the fundamental cause of the shortage of diesel and gasoline is related to breaches of contracts by suppliers.

He said the U.S. embargo “makes it very difficult to obtain ships to transport the fuel, to seek financing and to meet the normal requirements of these contracts.”

In November, during President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s tour of Algeria, Russia, Turkey and China, agreements were signed with some of these countries for the stable supply of hydrocarbons, power generation and the modernization of thermoelectric plants.

Venezuela and Russia appear to be the country’s main energy suppliers.

On Apr. 23, the general director of the state company Unión Cuba Petróleo (Cupet), Néstor Pérez, told national media outlets that “one of the closest suppliers despite having innumerable production limitations… has guaranteed the supply of some products (refinable crude and derivatives) that somewhat alleviate the existing situation, but do not cover all the demands of the economy and the population.”

Presumably Pérez was referring to Venezuela, although he did not specifically say so, because that country has been the largest supplier of hydrocarbons this century, although due to its own internal crisis its exports to Cuba have clearly declined.

De la O Levy noted that, based on negotiations with international suppliers, an improvement is expected in May, although the availability of fuel will not reach the levels seen in 2017 or 2018, when the country was in a more favorable situation.

The priorities in the use of the reserves are the health and funeral services, public transportation and transport of merchandise, as well as the potato harvest, the official said.

The government of Havana, which as a province encompasses the 15 municipalities that make up the capital, limited the sale of diesel to 100 liters per vehicle and 40 liters of gasoline. In the remaining 14 provinces, rationing measures were also ordered.

Several universities postponed the entry of scholarship students until the first week of May, and announced online classes and consultations.

Sales of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) are also affected, used by more than 1.7 million consumers, although the next arrival of a ship with the product should bring back stability to the service, according to officials.

Two men shine a mobile phone flashlight while fixing a car during a blackout in Havana. Breakages and repairs in some of the country’s thermoelectric plants lead to power shortages that trigger blackouts that last several hours in some parts of the country. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Electricity generation deficit

This situation coincides with breaks and repairs in some of the 20 thermoelectric generation plants, which have operated for an average of more than 30 years.

These plants process, for the most part, heavy national crude oil, with a sulfur content between seven and 18 degrees API, which requires more frequent repair cycles that are sometimes postponed due to a lack of financing.

Around 95 percent of the electricity generated in Cuba comes from fossil sources.

This country consumes some 8.3 million tons of fuel per year, of which almost 40 percent is nationally produced.

President Díaz-Canel explained on Apr. 14 that due to the number of thermoelectric blocks under repair “we have had to depend more on distributed generation that basically consumes diesel” in the country’s 168 municipalities.

The generation deficits cause blackouts, although of a lesser magnitude than the 10 to 12-hour a day cuts that for a large part of 2022 affected different parts of the country and sparked demonstrations and pot-banging protests in poor neighborhoods of several municipalities.

The rest of the electricity generation comes from gas accompanying national oil, and floating units rented to Turkey, while renewable energy sources account for only five percent of the total.

The current energy situation is occurring as summer looms, when temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius increase the use of fans and air conditioners, while a majority of the 3.9 million homes in Cuba depend on electricity for cooking food.

Members of the Electric Motorcycle Club gather in Havana for recreational activities. Customs measures have facilitated the importation of electric vehicles which reduce carbon emissions. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Promoting renewable sources

“We must further promote renewable sources and stimulate a change from fuel-guzzling, polluting vehicles that are more than half a century old to more modern and efficient ones,” computer scientist Alexis Rodríguez told IPS from the eastern city of Holguin, where he lives.

The transformation of the national energy mix is ​​considered by the government a matter of national security, and as part of its plans it aims for 37 percent of electricity to come from clean energy by 2030.

Since 2014, Cuba has had a policy for the prospective development of renewable energy sources and their efficient use, and in 2019 Decree Law 345 established regulations to increase the proportion of renewables in electricity generation and gradually decrease the share of fossil fuels.

Such a significant transformation will require investments of some six billion dollars, authorities in the sector estimate, which constitutes a challenge for a country whose main sources of revenue are dwindling, and which has pending a restart of interest payments on its debt to international creditors.

“It is also important to encourage the use of bicycles and electric vehicles, but they must be sold at reasonable prices, on credit as well, with guarantees of spare parts and the improvement of infrastructure,” Rodríguez added.

In addition to hybrid buses, a hundred light electric vehicles have been added to the capital’s public transport system that contribute to citizen micromobility and to reducing carbon emissions.

In recent years, the customs agency made provisions more flexible for citizens and companies to import solar panels. Although official data are not available, the measure has not had a significant influence.

Measures for the import and assembly on the island of bicycles, motorcycles and three and four-wheel electric vehicles – more than half a million of which circulate in Cuba – also bolster the mobility of people and families.

However, the high prices and sales only in hard currencies curb the expansion and use of more environmentally-friendly vehicles. Another hurdle is the dependence on the national power grid to recharge the batteries and the absence of service stations for electric vehicles.

The replanting of palm oil plants aimed at producing better trees through good agricultural practices. The UNDP’s Good Growth Partnership (GGP) in Indonesia included several projects under one umbrella. Credit: ILO/Fauzan Azhima

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 27 2023 (IPS)

Smallholder farmers are critical to the success of Indonesia’s efforts to address deforestation and climate change. Creating an understanding and supporting this group, internally and abroad, is a crucial objective for those working towards reducing deforestation and promoting good farming practices, especially as smallholders often work hand-to-mouth and are vulnerable to perpetuating unsustainable farming practices.

Musim Mas, a large palm oil corporation involved in sustainable production, says smallholders “hold approximately 40 percent of Indonesia’s oil palm plantations and are a significant group in the palm oil supply chain. This represents 4.2 million hectares in Indonesia, roughly the size of Denmark. According to the Palm Oil Agribusiness Strategic Policy Initiative (PASPI), smallholders are set to manage 60 percent of Indonesia’s oil palm plantations by 2030.” 

Since last year a new World Bank-led programme, the Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR), incorporates the United Nations Development Programme Good Growth Partnership (GGP). It will continue to be involved in the success of palm oil production and smallholders’ support—crucial, especially as a study showed that the “sector lifted around 2.6 million rural Indonesians from poverty this century,” with knock-on development successes including improved rural infrastructure.

Over the past five years, GGP conducted focused training with about 3,000 smallholder farmers, says UNDP’s GGP Global Project Manager, Pascale Bonzom:

“The idea was to pilot some public-private partnerships for training, new ways of getting the producers to adopt these agricultural practices so that we could learn from these pilots and scale them up through farmer support system strategies,” Bonzom says.

Farmer organizations speaking to IPS explained how they, too, support smallholder farmers.

Amanah, an independent smallholder association of about 500 independent smallholders in Ukui, Riau province, was the first group to receive Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) certification as part of a joint programme, right before the start of GGP, between the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture, UNDP, and Asian Agri. This followed training in good agricultural practices, land mapping, high carbon stock (HCS), and high conservation value (HCV) methodologies to identify forest areas for protection.

“The majority of independent smallholders in Indonesia do not have the capacity to implement best practices in the palm oil field. Consequently, it is important to provide assistance and training on good agricultural practices in the field on a regular and ongoing basis,” Amanah commented, adding that the training included preparing land for planting sustainably and using certified seeds, fertilizer, and good harvesting practices.

A producer organization, SPKS, said it was working with farmers to implement sustainable practices. It established a smallholders’ database and assisted them with ISPO and Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certifications.

Jointly with High Conservation Value Resource Network (HCVRN), it created a toolkit for independent smallholders on zero deforestation. This has already been implemented in four villages in two districts.

“At this stage, SPKS and HCVRN are designing benefits and incentives for independent smallholders who already protect their forest area (along) with the indigenous people,” SPKS said, adding that it expected that these initiatives could be used and adopted by those facing EU regulations.

SPKS sees the new EU deforestation legislation as a concern and an opportunity, especially as the union has shown a commitment to supporting independent small farmers—including financial support to prepare for readiness to comply with the regulations, including geolocation, capacity building, and fair price mechanisms.

Amanah also pointed to the EU regulations, which incentivize independent smallholders to adhere to the certification process.

“As required by EU law, the EU is also tasked with implementing programs and assistance at the upstream level as well as serving as an incentive for independent smallholders who already adhere to the certification process. The independent smallholder will be encouraged by this incentive to use sustainable best practices. Financing may be used as an incentive. The independent smallholders will be encouraged by this incentive to use sustainable best practices,” the organization told IPS.

SPKS would like to see final EU regulations include a requirement for companies importing palm oil into the EU to guarantee a direct supply chain from at least 30 percent of independent smallholders based on a fair partnership.

“In the draft EU regulations, it is not yet clear whether the due diligence is based on deforestation-related risk-based analysis. Indonesia is often considered a country with a high deforestation rate, and palm oil is perceived to be a factor in deforestation. Considering this, we hope the EU will consider smallholder farmers by ensuring that EU regulations do not further burden them by issuing Technical Guidelines specifically designed for smallholder farmers.”

In April 2023, the European Parliament passed the law introducing rigorous, wide-ranging requirements on commodities such as palm oil. UNDP is looking into how it can tailor its support to producing countries with compliance of this and other similar current and future regulations.

Setara Jambi, an organization dedicated to education and capacity building for oil palm smallholders for sustainable agricultural management, says that while they are concerned about the EU regulations, small farmers have “many limitations, which are different from companies that already have adequate institutions.

“This concern will not arise if there is a strong commitment from both government and companies (buyers of smallholder fresh fruit bunches) to assist smallholders in preparing and implementing sustainable palm oil management.”

The next five years with FOLUR will face significant challenges. There is a need to ensure that the National Action Plan moves to the next level because it is going to expire at the end of 2024. It will require updating and expanding.

In Indonesia, there are 26 provinces and 225 districts that produce palm oil. And at the time of writing, eight provinces and nine districts have developed their own versions of the pilot Sustainable Palm Oil Action Plan and developed their own provincial or district-level Sustainable Palm Oil Action Plans.

There is a lot to do, including supporting the Indonesian government’s multi-stakeholder process, capacity building for the private sector, supporting an enabling environment for all, and working with financial institutions to make investment decisions aligned with deforestation commitments.

The biggest issue is to get the smallholder farmers on board. Because they live a life of survival, often they are vulnerable to “short-termism.”

On the positive side, the FOLUR initiative has the government’s backing. At the launch in Jakarta last year, Musdhalifah Machmud, Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, said that the implementation of the FOLUR Project was expected to be able to create a value chain sustainability model for rice, oil palm, coffee, and cocoa through sustainable land use and “comprehensively by paying attention to biodiversity conservation, climate change, restoration, and land degradation.”

At that launch workshop in Jakarta, the World Bank’s Christopher Brett, FOLUR co-leader, noted: “Healthy and sustainable value chains offer social benefits and generate profits without putting undue stress on the environment.”

Bonzom agrees: “At the end of the day, they (smallholders) will need to see the benefits—better market terms, better prices, better, more secure contracts—that’s what is attractive for them.”

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A harvester checks the ripeness of oil palm fresh fruit. The UNDP’s Good Growth Partnership has worked with all sectors of the palm oil supply chain to reduce deforestation. Credit: ILO/Fauzan Azhima

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 27 2023 (IPS)

Indonesia finds itself in a delicate balancing act of uplifting people from poverty, managing climate change and biodiversity, and satisfying an increasingly demanding international market for sustainable farming practices—and at the pivot of this complexity is the management of its palm oil sector.

As the UNDP-led Good Growth Partnership (GGP) joins a new World Bank-led project with similar objectives—the Food Systems, Land Use, and Restoration (FOLUR) Impact Programme, it acknowledges that the government of Indonesia has made considerable advancements in improving the sustainability of the industry and the value chain over the past five years with GGP support.

The GGP, using a multi-stakeholder approach, included several projects under one programmatic umbrella, linking production, demand, responsible sourcing, traceability, and transparency, with supporting financial institutions and investors in relation to reducing deforestation from land use change. The project aimed to connect all components of the supply chain—which, in the case of Indonesian palm oil, represents 4.5 percent of the country’s GDP and 60 percent of global exports.

Late in 2022, Trase, in its report From Risk Hotspots to Sustainability Sweet Spots, confirmed Indonesia had reversed its deforestation trends in 2018-2020; deforestation for palm oil was 45,285 hectares per year—only 18 percent of its peak in 2008-2012. The improvement is attributed to strengthened law enforcement, moratoria, certification of palm oil plantations, and implementation of corporate zero-deforestation commitments.

“Importantly, deforestation has fallen during a period of continued expansion of palm oil production. Although the decline in deforestation has been linked to a drop in the market value of crude palm oil, the recent spike in palm oil prices has not yet been accompanied by a boom in palm-driven deforestation—a cause for cautious optimism,” Robert Heilmayr and Jason Benedict commented on Trase’s website.

However, CDP Palm Oil Report 2022 notes that while companies are adopting a wider range of actions to end deforestation, these “actions are not yet robust enough to end commodity-driven deforestation in the palm oil value chain.”

CDP says while 86 percent of companies implemented no-deforestation policies, only 22 percent have public and comprehensive policies: “Traceability systems have been implemented by 87 percent of companies, but only 25 percent have the capacity to scale these to over 90 percent of their production/consumption back to at least the municipality or equivalent.”

One major challenge is the inclusion of smallholders in the supply chains—and while 44 percent of companies work with smallholders to reduce or remove forest degradation, less than a third support “good agricultural practices and provide financial or technical assistance to help them achieve this.”

It is precisely these challenges the GGP confronted in Indonesia.

“Systemic change in commodity supply chains is one of the essential transformations that must occur this decade to mitigate the combined threats of catastrophic climate change, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity and to achieve resilience for humanity globally,” GGP says in its assessment report, Reducing Deforestation from Commodity Supply Chains.

These deforestation commitments are not new and followed the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), adopted in 2014, which called for the end of forest loss and the restoration of 350 million hectares of degraded landscapes and forestlands by 2030. Then came the Paris Climate Agreement, which in terms of its Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) agreements, was crucial for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries. More commitments flowed after the 2015/2016 fires, which were blamed on slash-and-burn agricultural practices, exacerbated by a dry El Niño; the fires raged for months, leading to deaths, respiratory tract infections, and cost, according to the World Bank, 16 billion US dollars.

The fires were also thought to cause a global rise in emissions and put wildlife, including the endangered orangutan population, at risk. Indonesia is a place where companies have been making commitments for some time, but implementing them with both direct and indirect suppliers is not easy.

Recognizing this challenge, the GGP supported the “improvement of sustainable production and land use policies and increased farmers’ capacities to shift to sustainable practices. At the same time, it has increased supply chain transparency and consumer demand for sustainable palm oil and built the awareness of financial institutions to invest sustainably and screen out deforesters in their portfolio.”

The GGP supported Indonesia’s National Action Plan—which is now being implemented at sub-national provincial, and district levels, too.

The action plan, along with Indonesia’s Enhanced Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), recognizes the country’s climate change vulnerabilities, especially in the low-lying areas throughout the archipelago and its position in the so-called ring of fires. The Enhanced NDC has set ambitious deforestation and rehabilitation targets, including peat land restoration of 2 million hectares and rehabilitation of degraded land of 12 million hectares by 2030.

Despite good results, stress ratcheted up for the industry as a new European Union policy now excludes sourcing palm oil or produce from areas deforested and degraded after December 31, 2020.

The new regulation will require companies to prove their bona fides through recognized traceability techniques. The sector is still working out its detailed response to the requirements, which some see as a unilateral EU move that does not respect the rights of the producing countries.

While the EU is a small market for Indonesia compared with the domestic, Chinese, and Indian markets, the regulations put additional pressure on an industry still strongly associated with small-scale farmers. It is also likely that other large markets will eventually align themselves with these regulations.

Even before the regulations became an issue, the GGP involved itself in communication campaigns to sensitize the public to sustainable certification, from the Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO)to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) standards.

The communication campaigns worked to create awareness about sustainability issues among consumers, but also with large retailers (including one called Super Indo) to place RSPO-certified palm oil products on their shelves.

It’s critical to get all players in the supply chain on board, which is where multi-stakeholder tactics work effectively; the GGP believes that this multi-faceted approach is crucial to influencing companies.

“You influence companies through government policies, through the market, but you also influence them through the financial institutions,” says UNDP’s GGP Global Project Manager, Pascale Bonzom. “If the financial institutions that fund these downstream companies require them to show that they have no deforestation commitments, and they are implementing them with results, then they (the companies) are going to have to do something about it.”

Elaborating on the strategy, she said GGP and its partner World Wildlife Fund (WWF) worked at a regional level on building capacity in financial institutions to understand the impacts of their investments.

Now a scorecard is available—to equip and influence the investors to make better decisions and to use this kind of Environmental, Social, and Governance factors (ESG) screening for deforestation.

See Part 2: Smallholders Key to Indonesian Deforestation Successes

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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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Excerpt:

José Luis Márquez, Yaisema Fabelo and their son Yadir stand around a table holding fruits harvested from their Los Tres Hermanos agroecological farm, in Martí, a municipality in northwestern Cuba. The family of farmers values ​​the final products of biogas technology, rich in nutrients suitable for fertilizing and restoring the soil. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Luis Brizuela
MARTÍ, Cuba , Apr 20 2023 (IPS)

The first five biomethane-fuelled buses in the Cuban municipality of Martí will not only be a milestone in the country but will also represent a solution to the serious problem of transportation, while reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and bolstering local development.

Yaisema Fabelo, a librarian at the local prep school, told IPS that “the buses will boost the quality of life of the residents” of the municipality located in the north of the western province of Matanzas, about 200 kilometers east of Havana.

Fabelo, who is also a farmer from the Los Tres Hermanos agroecological farm, stressed that using biogas on an industrial scale and on individual farms “to produce electricity, cook food and obtain biofertilizers for organic crops” will benefit the 22,000 inhabitants of the municipality and surrounding areas.

The Martí I and nearby Martí II covered lagoon biodigesters will produce around 1,800 and 3,600 cubic meters of biogas per day, respectively, when they come into operation. They will connect through two separate gas pipelines with a biomethane plant where the fuel will be obtained for a group of buses. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

The project

Turning pig manure and crop waste into biomethane and biogas is the focus of the project “Global Action for Climate Change in Cuba: Municipality of Martí, towards a carbon-neutral sustainable development model.”

The project, carried out by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Ministry of Economy and Planning with 5.5 million dollars in financing disbursed by the European Union, began to be implemented in 2020 and is to be completed in 2024.“[We want] to demonstrate that the biodigesters are economically feasible for Cuba, that connected with large pig farms they can be used to generate electricity and contribute to the economy." -- Anober Aguilar

“The main problem that Martí has ​​in the case of greenhouse gases is waste, responsible for 57 percent of our emissions,” explained Sobeida Reyes, director of territorial development for the town.

In an interview with IPS, the official pointed out that with the project and as part of the local development strategy, the aim is to gradually contribute to decarbonization with the use of renewable energy sources and incorporate biogas to biomethane conversion technology.

Biogas is composed mainly of methane and carbon dioxide, obtained in biodigesters from the decomposition of organic residues such as agricultural or livestock waste by bacteria, through anaerobic digestion, without oxygen.

Biomethane, also known as a renewable gas, is derived from a treatment process that removes carbon dioxide, moisture, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, among other impurities from biogas, which brings its composition closer to that of fossil natural gas and favors its use to generate electricity and heat and to fuel vehicles.

The plan is to strengthen the public transport system through “16 buses powered by biomethane, the first five of which are to be tested in February 2024, after a bidding process outlined in the project that will facilitate their importation,” Reyes said.

“There is a commitment that these buses will be driven by women,” she added.

The future biomethane plant, which has already been awarded in tender, will provide, according to the plan, about 150 cubic meters per hour of gas suitable for bottling.

It will depend on the Martí I and Martí II covered lagoon biodigesters, which will be the largest in the country and will produce around 1,800 and 3,600 cubic meters of biogas per day, respectively, when they come into operation.

These, in turn, will each be fed by a pig breeding center belonging to the Matanzas Pork Company.

A third of the 14 kilometers of gas pipelines that will connect both biodigesters to the biomethane plant have already been put in place.

The generator is also being installed, while the lagoon is being filled with water to check its operation. The last thing needed is to put in place the membrane that will cover it.

This part is expected to be operational in February of next year, as well as the biomethane plant, so that the first five buses can then be tested, according to the established timeframe.

With the help of an electricity generator, the Martí I biodigester is to provide 100 kilowatts per hour, equivalent to the approximate consumption of 80 to 100 homes. The Martí II will provide even more.

A poster shows what the Martí I covered lagoon biodigester will look like. For Anober Aguilar, a specialist at the Indio Hatuey Pastures and Forages Experimental Station, responsible for the technological assembly, the construction of this type of biodigesters is economically feasible in Cuba. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Greater commitment to biogas

A potent greenhouse gas, methane has 80 times the climate-warming power of carbon dioxide, studies show.

Scientists argue that proper management of methane resulting from the decomposition of agricultural waste and livestock manure helps to mitigate water and soil pollution and to combat climate change.

Its extraction and energy use, especially in rural and semi-urban settings, can be a cost-effective solution to reduce the consumption of electricity based on fossil sources. In Cuba there are an estimated 5,000 small-scale (up to 24 cubic meters per day) biodigesters.

In this country of 11.1 million inhabitants, a significant percentage of the 3.9 million households use electricity as the main source of energy for cooking and heating water for bathing.

Renewable energy sources account for only five percent of the national energy mix.

In the case of biogas, “the main obstacle to its expansion is the availability of manure, as there is a low number of pigs and cattle, due to problems with feed and animal nutrition,” Anober Aguilar, an expert with the Indio Hatuey Pasture and Forage Experimental Station, located in Perico, another municipality of Matanzas, told IPS.

This scientific research center for technological management and innovation in the field of livestock production is in charge of the technological assembly of the biodigesters of the covered lagoon in Martí.

In the context of an economic crisis that has lasted for three decades, exacerbated by the tightening of the U.S, embargo, the COVID pandemic, and failed or delayed economic reforms, Cuba has limited imports of animal feed due to the shortage of foreign currency.

Furthermore, insufficient harvests do not guarantee abundant raw material to produce feed, while the scarcity of construction materials and their high cost make it impossible for many farmers to undertake the construction of a biodigester.

Conservative estimates by experts suggest that there is potential to expand the network of biodigesters on the island to up to 20,000 units, at least small-scale ones.

“If we look at the cost of the investment in the short term, it is more feasible to focus on wind or solar energy, because setting up a biodigester requires more financing, more time and specialized personnel,” explained Aguilar.

But seen at a distance of 10 to 15 years, “the investment evens out, because the potential of photovoltaic cells declines, repairs are made difficult by the rapid changes in technology, or the blades of the windmills deteriorate, in addition to the fact that both are more vulnerable to tropical cyclones,” the expert said.

“As long as they have raw material, biodigesters produce 24 hours a day,” he added.

He specified that one of the objectives of the project is “to demonstrate that the biodigesters are economically feasible for Cuba, that connected with large pig farms they can be used to generate electricity and contribute to the economy.”

Ministerial Order 395 of April 2021, of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, stipulated that each of the 168 Cuban municipalities must have a development program and strategy regarding biogas, and coordinate their management and implementation with those of their respective province.

Electrical technician Reinaldo Álvarez shows the electric generator located in the Martí I covered lagoon biodigester, in northwestern Cuba, which will provide about 100 kilowatt hours, equivalent to the electricity consumption of 80 to 100 homes. The nearby Martí II biodigester will produce even more. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Promoting agroecology

Martí’s development strategy includes projects to prepare preserves, spices and dehydrated foods with the help of the sun, a biomass gasifier for drying rice and generating electricity, the production of cooking oil, thermal baths, exploiting natural asphalt deposits, and social works, among others.

Reyes reported that 28 farms in the municipality have biodigesters, and that in 12 of them, as part of the project, “a module was delivered that includes a refrigerator, a stove, a rice cooker and a lamp, which use biogas.”

Another urgent objective is to foment agroecology and move towards local self-sufficiency in food, including animal feed.

“In the current harvest we had a yield per hectare of 19 tons of organic potatoes. As with the other crops, we only used biological products, of which more than 80 percent were produced by us,” farmer José Luis Márquez explained to IPS.

The 13-hectare Los Tres Hermanos agroecological teaching farm, dedicated to growing a variety of crops and small livestock using sustainable techniques, was granted in usufruct by the government, forms part of the Ciro Redondo credit and services cooperative, and has been managed by Márquez since 2018, together with his wife Yaisema Fabelo and their son Yadir.

A nationally manufactured PVC (polyvinyl chloride) tubular biodigester is also installed on the farm, with a volume of forty cubic meters.

“Due to the pandemic and the shortage of manure, it is not producing. We want to once again encourage pig and rabbit farming, recycle solid waste and convert it into organic fertilizer for crops and household chores,” said Márquez.

Biogas technology provides biol and biosol, liquid effluent and sludge, respectively, rich in nutrients to fertilize and restore the soil.

The farm is visited by students from different levels of education, up to prep school, who through workshops given by Márquez and Fabelo, learn about good agroecological practices “and the positive impact on the economy, people’s health and the environment,” Fabelo said.

The Maipo River on its way from the Andes mountain range to the valley of the same name is surrounded by numerous small towns that depend on tourism, receiving thousands of visitors every weekend. There are restaurants, campgrounds and high-altitude sports facilities. The water comes down from the top of the mountain range and is used by the company Aguas Andinas to supply the Chilean capital. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Apr 19 2023 (IPS)

Good management of the 101 hydrographic basins which run from the Andes mountain range to the Pacific Ocean is key to solving the severe water crisis that threatens the people of Chile and their main productive activities.

This vulnerability extends to the economy. Since 1990 Chile has gradually become wealthier, but along with the growth in GDP, water consumption has also expanded.

Roberto Pizarro, a professor of hydrology at the universities of Chile and Talca, told IPS that this “is an unsustainable equation from the point of view of hydrological engineering because water is a finite resource.”"This decade we have half the water we had in the previous decade. Farmers are seeing their production decline and are losing arable land. Small farmers are hit harder because they have a more difficult time surviving the disaster. Large farmers can dig wells or apply for loans, but small farmers put everything on the line during the growing season.” -- Rodrigo Riveros

According to Pizarro, “there are threats hanging over this process. From a production point of view, Chile’s GDP depends to a large extent on water. According to figures from the presidential delegation of water resources of the second administration of Michelle Bachelet (2014-2018), at least 60 percent of our GDP depends on water.”

This South American country, the longest and narrowest in the world, with a population of 19.6 million people, depends on the production and export of copper, wood, agricultural and sea products, as well as a growing tourism industry. All of which require large quantities of water.

And water is increasingly scarce due to overuse, excessive granting of water rights by the government, and climate change that has led to a decline in rainfall and snow.

To make matters worse, since 1981, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), water use rights have been privatized in perpetuity, separated from land tenure, and can even be traded or sold. This makes it difficult for the branches of government to control water and is a key point in the current debate on constitutional reform in Chile.

Ecologist Sara Larraín maintains that the water crisis “has its origin in the historical overexploitation of surface and groundwater by the productive sectors and in the generalized degradation of the basins by mining, agro-industry and hydroelectric generation. And the wood pulp industry further compounded the problem.”

Larraín, executive director of the Sustainable Chile organization, adds that the crisis was aggravated by a drought that has lasted for more than a decade.

“There is a drastic decline in rainfall (of 25 percent) as a result of climate change, reduction of the snow surface and increase in temperatures that leads to greater evaporation,” she told IPS.

The small town of El Volcán has just over a hundred inhabitants, 80 kilometers from Santiago and 1,400 meters above sea level, in the Andes foothills. Local residents are witnessing a sharp decrease in snowfall that now rarely exceeds 30 centimeters in the area, a drastic reduction compared to a few years ago. CREDIT: Arturo Allende Peñaloza/IPS

First-hand witnesses

The main hydrographic basin of the 101 that hold the surface and underground water in Chile’s 756,102 square kilometers of territory is the Maipo River basin, since it supplies the Greater Santiago region, home to 7.1 million people.

In this basin, in the town of El Volcán, part of the San José de Maipo municipality on the outskirts of Santiago, on the eastern border with Argentina, lives Francisco Rojo, 62, a wrangler of pack animals at heart, who farms and also works in a small mine.

“The (inactive) San José volcano has no snow on it anymore, no more glaciers. In the 1990s I worked near the sluices of the Volcán water intake and there was a surplus of over 40 meters of water. In 2003 the snow was 12 to 14 meters high. Today it’s barely two meters high,” Rojo told IPS.

“The climate has been changing. It does not rain or snow, but the temperatures drop. The mornings and evenings are freezing and in the daytime it’s hot,” he added.

Rojo gets his water supply from a nearby spring. And using hoses, he is responsible for distributing water to 22 families, only for consumption, not for irrigation.

“We cut off the water at night so there is enough in the tanks the next day. Eight years ago we had a surplus of water. Now we have had to reduce the size of the hoses from two inches to one inch,” he explained.

“We were used to a meter of snow. Now I’m glad when 40 centimeters fall. It rarely rains and the rains are always late,” he said, describing another clear effect of climate change.

Agronomist Rodrigo Riveros, manager of one of the water monitoring boards for the Aconcagua River in the Valparaíso region in central Chile, told IPS that the historical average at the Chacabuquito rainfall station, at the headwaters of the river, is 40 or 50 cubic meters, a level that has never been surpassed in 12 years.

“This decade we have half the water we had in the previous decade,” he said.

“Farmers are seeing their production decline and are losing arable land. Small farmers are hit harder because they have a more difficult time surviving the disaster. Large farmers can dig wells or apply for loans, but small farmers put everything on the line during the growing season,” he said.

Large, medium and small users participate in the Aconcagua water board, 80 percent of whom are small farmers with less than 10 hectares. But they coexist with large water users such as the Anglo American mining company, the state-owned copper company Codelco and Esval, the region’s sanitation and drinking water distribution company.

“The decrease in rainfall is the main problem,” said Riveros..”The level of snow dropped a lot because the snow line rose – the altitude where it starts to snow. And the heavy rains increased flooding. Warm rain also falls in October or November (in the southern hemisphere springtime), melting the snow, and the water flows violently, carrying a lot of sediment and damaging infrastructure.

“It used to snow a lot more. Now three meters fall and we celebrate. In that same place, 10 meters used to fall, and the snow would pile up as a kind of reserve, even until the following year,” he said.

In Chile, the water boards were created by the Water Code and bring together natural and legal persons together with user associations. Their purpose is the administration, distribution, use and conservation of riverbeds and the surrounding water basins.

Many residents of El Volcán, in the foothills of the Andes mountains, lack drinking water and have built  tanks to collect water from a nearby spring. They have also reduced the diameter of their hoses to a minimum because the flow of water is steadily shrinking, only providing a supply for domestic use and not enough to irrigate their crops and trees. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Enormous economic impact

Larraín cited figures from the National Emergency Office of the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security and from regional governments that reveal that State spending on renting tanker trucks in the last decade (2010-2020) was equivalent to 277.5 million dollars in 196 of the total of 346 municipalities that depend on this method of providing drinking water.

“The population served in its essential needs is approximately half a million people, almost all of them from the rural sector and shantytowns and slums,” said Larraín.

According to the environmentalist, Chile has not taken actions to mitigate the drought.

“Although the challenge is structural and requires a substantial change in water management and the protection of sources, the official discourse insists on the construction of dams, canals and aqueducts, even though the reservoirs are not filled due to lack of rainfall and there is no availability in the regions from which water is to be extracted and diverted,” she said.

She added that the mining industry is advancing in desalination to reduce its dependence on the water basins, “although there is still no specific regulation for the industry, which would prevent the impacts of seawater suction and brine deposits.”

Larraín acknowledged that the last two governments established sectoral and inter-ministerial water boards, but said that coordination between users and State entities did not improve, nor did it improve among government agencies themselves.

“Each sector faces the shortage on its own terms and we lack a national plan for water security, even though this is the biggest problem Chile faces in the context of the impacts of climate change,” the environmental expert asserted.

Chile’s Colina hot springs, in the open air in the middle of the Andes mountains and just 17 kilometers from the border with Argentina, in the east of the country, can now be visited almost year-round. In the past, it was impossible to go up in the southern hemisphere winter because the route was cut off by constant rain and snow storms. CREDIT: Arturo Allende Peñaloza/IPS

Government action

The Ministry of the Environment admits that “there is still an important debt in terms of access to drinking water and sanitation for the rural population.”

“There is also a lack of governance that would make it possible to integrate the different stakeholders in each area for them to take part in water decisions and planning,” the ministry responded to questions from IPS.

In addition, it recognized that it is necessary to “continue to advance in integrated planning instruments that coordinate public and private initiatives.

“We coordinated the Inter-Ministerial Committee for a Just Water Transition which has the mandate to outline a short, medium and long-term roadmap in this matter, which is such a major priority for the country,” the ministry stated.

The committee, it explained, “assumed the challenge of the water crisis and worked on the coordination of immediate actions, which make it possible to face the risk of water and energy rationing, the need for rural drinking water, water for small-scale agriculture and productive activities, as well as ecosystem preservation.”

The ministry also reported that it is drafting regulatory frameworks to authorize and promote the efficiency of water use and reuse.

Furthermore, it stressed that the Framework Law on Climate Change, passed in June 2022, created Strategic Plans for Water Resources in Basins to “identify problems related to water resources and propose actions to address the effects of climate change.”

The government of Gabriel Boric, in office since March 2022, is also promoting a law on the use of gray water for agricultural irrigation, with a focus on small-scale agriculture and the installation of 16 Pilot Basin Councils to achieve, with the participation and coordination of the different stakeholders, “an integrated management of water resources.”

UN Resident Coordinator Didier Trebucq visits a National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) warehouse in the immediate aftermath of the volcanic eruption in 2021. Credit: UN Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean/Bajanpro

By Didier Trebucq
KINGSTOWN, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines, Apr 19 2023 (IPS)

On the morning of 9th of April 2021, the La Soufrière Volcano on the main island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines erupted -filling the sky with ash and transforming the lives, livelihoods and landscape of this small Southern Caribbean nation.

The effects of the eruption were immediate. More than 22,000 people were displaced from their homes, buildings including schools and businesses were damaged, livestock was destroyed and almost an entire population was cut off from clean drinking water and other basic necessities for five months.

In total the damage amounted to more than $ 234 million; the impact of which was felt well beyond the main island to communities across the archipelago.

Two years later, the ash from La Soufrière has settled, but the aftermath of the eruption continues to shape ordinary life and the development trajectory of this Small Island Developing State.

For our UN country team in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, it also changed the way we work in the face of increasingly frequent crises. Reflecting on the response and recovery efforts since, there are many lessons to be learned:

Faced with the unprecedented scale of disruption, the response of our UN team in the Multi-country office for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, was swift and comprehensive.

Within less than 24 hours, a team including myself and the heads of WFP and UNICEF, disaster management experts and other emergency teams were deployed to support the initial humanitarian response.

Soon after, I joined the Prime Minister in launching a UN Global Funding Appeal to raise the funds to support the Government meet the basic needs of over 100, 000 people.

Thanks to the $1 million immediately released from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and funding from other donors, we were able to launch lifesaving response efforts with a focus on WASH, health, food security, education, health, logistics, protection, and shelter.

At the same time as these emergency interventions, we developed a Country Implementation Plan; which aligned emergency response with long-term recovery and development planning, including job creation and inclusive growth.

By taking this holistic approach, St. Vincent and the Grenadines was able to address early recovery and rehabilitation as well as prepare for social and economic shocks in the future.

The eruption of La Soufrière Volcano not only demonstrated the risks of living in a hazard prone region like the Southern Caribbean, but also laid bare the complex set of vulnerabilities common to many Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

From its small size, remote location, undiversified economy and exposure to climate-related shocks, St. Vincent and the Grenadines faced a specific set of structural challenges which made the impact of the eruption all the more acute. At the time of the disaster, the country was also dealing with the ongoing effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the health sector and tourism industry, and was responding to a concurrent dengue outbreak.

Understanding the nature of these vulnerabilities and how they relate to one another was key to designing an effective UN response. As part of these efforts, UN agencies with a presence in the country expanded and adapted their services quickly to provide tailored assistance.

PAHO and WHO for example, were able to expand their programmes to ensure access to quality health services in the immediate aftermath of the volcanic eruption while continuing to support the country respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to this, we also set up a specific coordination structure to facilitate joint needs assessments and collective response strategies to tackle issues together.

Credit: UN Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean/Bajanpro

From social protection to livelihoods to education, we recognized that community resilience was key to St. Vincent and the Grenadines being more prepared to bounce back from future shocks.

Following the eruption, we worked with the Government to expand the Social Protection System, including supplying 1400 households with cash transfers which were linked to social empowerment programmes.

A post-disaster needs assessment undertaken by our UN team and partners also helped us better understand the social and economic impacts of the eruption on communities across the islands.

From this, we were able to design specific, people focused interventions to help strengthen agriculture value chains, digitize national statistics, and provide focused support to the education system.

Two years on, our roadmap towards a people-centered, resilient recovery is still ongoing. On the issue of food security for example, a Joint UN Programme implemented by FAO and WFP is working to build resilient livelihoods among farmers, fishers and vulnerable households by linking social protection to agriculture through data, information system and the adoption of more inclusive risk management practices.

Two years after the devastating volcanic eruption, communities across St. Vincent and the Grenadines are continuing to rebuild their lives and move steadily towards a resilient, long-term recovery.

Just as it up-ended livelihoods, the eruption also forced us to adapt the way we work and put the need for stronger community resilience and disaster risk management into sharp focus.

For St. Vincent and the Grenadines, like other Small Island Developing States, implementing these adaptations will become more important as the threat of shocks and climate related crises grow.

Although we don’t know what crises lie ahead, together with communities and partners across St. Vincent and the Grenadines, our UN country team is ready for them.

Didier Trebucq is Resident Coordinator for the Multi-Country Office in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, with editorial support from DCO.

Source: DCO, United Nations

DCO is based in New York, with regional teams in Addis Ababa, Amman, Bangkok, Istanbul and Panama, supporting 130 Resident Coordinators and 132 Resident Coordinator’s offices covering 162 countries and territories.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Apr 18 2023 (IPS)

The Future We Want was the groundbreaking outcome of the Rio+20 Summit, the summit, held in 2012, where the idea of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was first conceptualized.

Amid the unfolding of several global crises, where geopolitics mixes with structural unbalances that are putting at risk the long-term viability of planet Earth, isn’t really high time we got serious about our future?

Can the SDGs be turned not just in a tool for global pressure and advocacy but also a planning tool that involves, mobilizes and empower the people? There is still so much to be done and the levels of urgency can’t be greater.

According to the recently released Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report 2023, “the region will miss all or most of the targets of every goal unless efforts are accelerated between now and 2030”.Can localizing the SDGs in the Asia Pacific region and also elsewhere, change the status quo?

In theory, localizing the goals can make a huge difference but we need to ensure that such process means the truly involvement and engagement of the citizens.

A recent online workshop tried to assess where we stand following the Rio+20 Summit whose ultimate scope was, twenty years after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, to relaunch humanity’s commitment towards a different model of development.

One of the key points that emerged in the event, which also saw the participation of Paula Caballero, one of key architects of the SDGs, is the fact that these goals still remain a powerful but mostly unleveraged tool for change.

While it is essential to mobilize more funding for their implementation, the Secretary General is rightly pushing with the idea of an SDG Stimulus— a missed goal to see the SDGs as a tool to radically re-think the way governance works.

The best intentions and the many, often overlapping efforts now at play in terms of localizing the SDGs, do not even aim at such scope of ambition. At the best, localizing the SDGs is about planning local actions rather than new ways of governance.

Moreover, the UN is struggling to come up with anything effective at operational level. For example, the Local 2030 Platform remains still an unfinished job despite its ambitious objectives.

A December 2021 analysis about ways to strengthen it, authored by the Stockholm Environment Institute, did indeed confirm the need to an all-encompassing platform that brings the SDGs closer to the people.

Still, there is so much to be done to ensure that Local2030 Platform can become a catalyst for change. Unfortunately, we are still far from a global mechanism capable of turning the goals in a such a way that the people can use them as a tool of participation and genuine deliberation. The scattered, fragmented and often ineffectual way the UN System works certainly does not help the cause.

A similar initiative, the SDG Acceleration Actions, is supposed to be an accelerator of SDG implementation that is “voluntarily undertaken by governments and any other non-state actors – individually or in partnership”.

In the Asia Pacific region, we can find also a new partnership, ESCAP-ADB-UNDP Asia-Pacific SDG Partnership mostly focused on research creation and knowledge delivery.

As important as they are, such initiatives lack linkages and risk becoming not only overlapping but also a duplication to each other. Could local bodies do the job and truly democratize the SDGs?

Such entities, both local and regional governments (LRGs) have a huge role. For example, the United Cities and Local Governments, a powerful advocacy group based in Barcelona, is undoubtedly breaking ground in this direction.

With now a much user-friendly web site and with a new catchy messaging, UCLG is a global force pushing strong towards empowering local governments and cities so that they can truly take the lead in matter of localizing the SDGs. UCLG also runs the most updated database on local efforts to implement the SDGs, the Global Observatory on Local Democracy and Decentralization or GOLD.

For example there are the “Voluntary Subnational Reviews (VSRs), considered as “country-wide, bottom-up subnational reporting processes that provide both comprehensive and in-depth analyses of the corresponding national environments for SDG localization”.

In addition, the Voluntary Local Reviews could be even more impactful tools as they assess how municipalities, small and big alike, are implementing the SDGs. In Japan, the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, IGES, is doing a great deal of work to also track the implementation of the SDGs locally with its online Voluntary Local Review Lab.

Still there is a disconnection among all these initiatives despite the fact that UCLG has been championing the Global Task Force of Local and Regional Governments. As an attempt at bringing together a myriad of like-minded groups run by mayors and local governments around the world, it is a praiseworthy undertaking.

While it is essential to create coherence and better synergies between what the UN is trying to do and the actions taken by mayors and governors globally in the area of SDGs localization. But it is not enough. There is even one bigger and more worrying disconnection.

Even if local authorities are truly given the resources and powers to shape the conversation about the implementation of the SDGs and back it up with actions on the grounds, we are at risk of forgetting those who should be truly at the center of the debate: the people.

Localizing the SDGs should mean truly giving the people the voice and the agency to express their opinions and ideas rather than become an exclusive fiefdom of local politicians.

Finding ways to truly allowing and enabling people to take central stage in implementing the SDGs implies a rethinking of old assumptions where local officials, elected or not, have the sole prerogative of the decision making. This is fundamentally a question of reinventing local governance and make it work for and by the people.

But it is easier saying it than doing it!

It is a real conundrum because, if it is certainly possible to come up with symbolic initiatives, all tainted by forms of fake empowerment, a totally different thing is to devise new forms of genuine bottom up, inclusive governance indispensable to achieve the SDGs.

The Global Platform in its Vision 2045 refers to genuine and better democracy practices leading the planning of local governments.What are they going to do to translate these words into real deeds?

There are other ways to involve people in the global discussions but they are just tokenistic. For example, UNESCAP recently organized in Bangkok its 10th Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD).

It is an important event and the regional commission has been striving to be more inclusive and each year the summit also counts with a People’s Forum and even a Youth Forum. The problem is that, while integral part of the discussions, they are officially considered just as “associated and pre- events”.

Changing the protocol and the way the UN works is not easy but why should we keep holding such important engagements as just nice “add-ons”?

Even with the release of comprehensive Call to Action by the youths of the region before the APFSD summit, what real difference are their opinions and voice making? As simplistic as it sounds, much more should be done in making these conclaves really inclusive even though the real game won’t happen in these fora but at grassroots levels.

It is there where the challenge of localizing the SDGs must be won. It is where citizens really need to be listened to and where their power should be exercised.

In imaging the future, we really want, is to put citizens at the center of it. And it is high time we truly democratized the SDGs. After all, there is no, better form of localizing them.

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

The opinions expressed in this article are personal.

IPS UN Bureau

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Martín Pineda (R) is in charge of a four-hectare community farm on the outskirts of San José Villanueva, in southern El Salvador. He says no government has focused on food sovereignty in the past 30 years. He and other farmers, like his co-worker Miguel Ángel García (L), complain that they lack technical support to produce food efficiently. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN JOSÉ VILLANUEVA, El Salvador, Apr 18 2023 (IPS)

Sitting under the shade of a tree, Salvadoran farmer Martín Pineda looked desperate, and perhaps angry, as he said that governments of different stripes have come and gone in El Salvador while agriculture remains in the dumps.

“I think this shows contempt for farmers,” Pineda told IPS, frowning.

Pineda is in charge of a four-hectare community farm worked by 12 families near San José Villanueva, in the department of La Libertad in the south of El Salvador.

Pineda’s hopelessness turned into concern when he commented on the risks that the agricultural sector faces from climatic phenomena that hit crops almost every year.“It is sad that we have to import beans, when we have the capacity to produce them, if we just had government support.” -- Martín Pineda

This risk increases when considering reports that the El Niño Southern Oscillation (Enso) climate phenomenon is expected to appear in 2023, which would mean new droughts and loss of crops.

“Last year we lost a good part of the bean crop,” said Pineda, 70. He explained that of the four hectares they plant they lost 2.7 hectares, and the same thing happened with the corn.

In October 2022, Tropical Storm Julia devastated 8,000 hectares of corn and bean crops in the country, leading to losses of around 17 million dollars.

The backdrop is the rise in the cost of inputs for production, due to international factors, such as Russia’s war with Ukraine. In addition, in El Salvador there have been unjustified price increases because just three companies monopolize the import market for the inputs required by farmers, adding to their difficulties.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned in a report published in 2023 that in 2020, factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climatic phenomena, and structural aspects like poverty and violence, exposed the Salvadoran population to even greater risks.

The FAO report said that since 36 percent of vulnerable Salvadorans depend on agriculture for a living, “it is essential to provide affected households with the necessary means to rehabilitate their productive assets and resume production activities.”

However, this course is not being followed in the agricultural sector.

According to official figures, in this small Central American country of 6.7 million people, 22.8 percent of households are living in poverty, a proportion that rises to 24.8 percent in rural areas, of which 5.2 percent are in extreme poverty and 19.6 percent in relative poverty.

Given the difficulties in growing crops under the current conditions, the 12 families who collectively work a farm in the surroundings of San José Villanueva, in southern El Salvador, have turned to the production of chickens and eggs. They presently have 1,400 laying hens. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Agriculture is not recovering

El Salvador has failed to jumpstart its agricultural sector for at least three decades. It is one of the most deficient nations in several categories of food, such as vegetables.

It is estimated that the production of vegetables in El Salvador barely covers 10 percent of domestic demand, while the remaining 90 percent are imported from neighboring countries, such as Guatemala.

But what is most worrying is that the country is also deficient in Central American staples such as corn and beans, although the shortfall occurs especially when climatic events hit hard, whether excess or lack of rain.

When that happens, El Salvador must import beans from neighboring countries, such as Nicaragua, although if those nations face drops in production, this country must look for them elsewhere and at higher prices.

For example, in 2015 El Salvador had to import around 1.5 million kg of beans from Ethiopia.

“It is sad that we have to import beans, when we have the capacity to produce them, if we just had government support,” Pineda complained.

He said that over the last 30 years, neither left-wing nor right-wing governments have had the political will to provide agriculture with decisive support, and that it appears that the focus is on promoting imports.

“There is no well-defined government policy,” said Pineda. “For example, we have the land, but we do not have the inputs, or ongoing technical advice.”

He was talking about the lack of a clear policy in the last 30 years, including the four governments, between 1989 and 2009, of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), the two administrations of the ex-guerrilla Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), from 2009 to 2019, and the almost four years of the administration of Nayib Bukele, in office since June 2019.

“This government has followed the same pattern, of not showing strong support,” he argued.

To illustrate, the farmer pointed to the need for an irrigation system on the San José Villanueva farm, which would not be difficult to achieve, since there is a river nearby with sufficient flow.

But when the farm has requested technical support for an irrigation system, it has consistently received the same negative response from governments.

“We have no machinery here, no irrigation system, although we have a river nearby,” said Pineda. “We have two wells, but at this time of year they dry up, and we have to buy water.”

“How can we produce food efficiently in these conditions?” he asked.

A group of young people who created the Micelio Suburbano organization are promoting agroecological gardens in residential areas of San Salvador, like this one in the Zacamil neighborhood on the north side of the Salvadoran capital. The aim is to encourage families in the area to grow some of the food they need in their daily diet. CREDIT: Micelio Suburbano

Bukele follows the same blueprint

Academics agree that the collapse of the agricultural sector was influenced by the 1980-1992 civil war, which left some 75,000 dead and 8,000 disappeared.

But that doesn’t explain everything.

Neighboring countries, such as Guatemala and Nicaragua, also suffered civil wars, and are more self-sufficient in food production.

When the ARENA neoliberal party took power in El Salvador in 1989, the agriculture sector was abandoned by policy-makers.

This was accentuated in the second ARENA administration (1994-1999), when the growth of the textile maquilas or export assembly plants was bolstered as a source of employment, and the government focused even less on development in the countryside.

Decades later, the country still hasn’t found a clear direction for getting agriculture on track, Luis Treminio, president of the Salvadoran Chamber of Small and Medium Agricultural Producers, told IPS.
.
The chamber is made up of 15 agricultural organizations and in total brings together some 15,000 farmers. An estimated 400,000 people in the country are dedicated to agriculture.

Treminio said that a plan promoted by the Bukele government to reactivate the agricultural sector, announced with great fanfare in June 2021, did not come to fruition because the 1.2 billion dollars in funding needed was not found in the international financial market.

This was due to a lack of confidence on the part of the multilateral lenders, he added.

Treminio said the government lacks vision and priorities, since national income is allocated to unfeasible projects, such as the millions of dollars spent to buy bitcoins, which have been legal tender in El Salvador since September 2021.

“The problem is that the government does not prioritize food sovereignty,” he said, but instead focuses on food security – that is, providing food regardless of whether the country produces it or not, and much of which is actually imported.

One illustration of the government’s chaotic agricultural policy is the fact
that there have already been four ministers of agriculture, in less than four years of government.

Treminio said El Salvador’s farmers are not opposed to imports, but argued that they must complement what the country does not produce.

“We are not against imports, but they have to be regulated,” he added.

He said that what often happens is that, under the justification of shortages of grains or other products, more is imported than what is actually needed to cover national demand, driving prices way down for local farmers.

“For example, in dairy there is a 40 percent deficit in consumption, and 120 percent imports are authorized,” he said.

Yellow plum tomatoes are part of the harvest of the Micelio Suburbano collective, which takes advantage of green spaces in urban areas in the north of San Salvador to plant gardens and encourage families to start growing some of their food. CREDIT: Micelio Suburbano

Growing food in the city

Given the scarcity and high costs of food, small initiatives have begun to emerge to promote gardens, even in urban areas, taking advantage of all available spaces.

One of these efforts, which are new in the country, is fostered by Micelio Suburbano, a group made up of a dozen young people and adolescents who are trying to show that part of the food consumption can be met by growing vegetables and fruit in open spaces in urban areas.

“It’s kind of a utopia to think that in our homes we can grow our own crops of aromatic herbs, tomatoes, etc.,” Nuria Mejía, an architect by profession with a passion for spreading the idea of urban agriculture, told IPS.

The group set up its first garden in 2022 in a working-class area of apartment buildings known as Zacamil, on the north side of San Salvador.

In small spaces that were once green areas in the apartment complex, they have planted three gardens, where they grow on a small scale tomatoes, radishes, eggplant and various kinds of aromatic herbs.

The aim is for people to see what can be achieved and to get involved.

“People see the radishes we are growing and ask us for seeds,” Mejía said.

Ain Beni Mathar Integrated Combined Cycle Thermo-Solar Power Plant, Morocco. Credit: Dana Smillie / World Bank. Photo ID: DS-MA111 World Bank

By Navid Hanif
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 17 2023 (IPS)

The world is at a crossroads. This week, the United Nations Secretary-General, government ministers and senior leaders are gathered in New York at the ECOSOC Financing for Development Forum. (scheduled to take place April17-20).

This follows the recent World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings of heads of international financial institutions leaders, finance ministers, and other leaders. These discussions are a timely chance to decide on urgent action to address the global crises we face.

Among others, the war in Ukraine, the resultant food and energy crisis, the effects of COVID-19, climate change impacts and rising global interest rates – all have contributed to increased hunger and poverty.

Many hard-hit developing countries have slow growth, high inflation, and unsustainable debt, which undermine development prospects and prevent them from investing in health, education, infrastructure, and the energy transition.

We recently released the Financing for Sustainable Development Report 2023: Financing Sustainable Transformation, the 8th report from the Inter-Agency Task Force on Financing for Development.

Given the scale and number of crises, it won’t be a surprise to learn that financing needs for the Sustainable Development Goals are growing. Unfortunately, development financing is not keeping pace.

Navid Hanif

Faced with food and energy shocks, there may be a temptation to concentrate resources on urgent short-term problems. But FSDR 2023 emphasizes that delaying long-term investment in sustainable transformations would put the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and climate targets out of reach and further exacerbate financing challenges down the line.

The Financing for Sustainable Development Report 2023 calls for: (i) a new generation of sustainable industrial policies to chart national green transformations; (ii) immediate international action to scale up development cooperation and SDG investments to support this investment boost, the SDGs, and climate action; and (iii) reforms to the international financial architecture that are needed to support this boost in investment, and to make the system more equitable and fit for purpose.

The possibilities of green industrialization

There is hope.

We have seen in recent years a sharp and swift uptake in new technology and in the transition to green solutions. Energy transition investments rose to US$1.11 trillion in 2022, surpassing fossil fuel system investments for the first time. The green economy became the fifth largest industrial sector, totalling US $7.2 trillion in 2021.

A new green industrial age is not only possible, but it can be the breakthrough needed to bring the SDGs back on track. Industrialization has historically been an engine for progress. Sustainable industrialization—which would include low-carbon transitions—can lead to growth, job creation, technological advancement, and lay the foundation for poverty reduction and enhanced resilience. Industrialization must also be made equitable and sustainable, aligned with the SDGs, and deliver climate action.

Unfortunately, most developing countries are not yet able to benefit from the new technological advances. Many, especially least developed countries, have insufficient resources to invest in the needed transformations, including green energy and sustainable agriculture. Developing countries cannot make the necessary progress on their own, though their advancement would benefit all countries.

An SDG investment push

The international community must scale up investment to support sustainable transformations, the SDGs, and climate action. The push for greater investment is in line with the UN Secretary-General’s call for an SDG Stimulus, aimed at scaling up affordable long-term financing for countries in need by at least US$500 billion a year.

The SDG Stimulus calls on the World Bank and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) to massively expand lending and offer it on better terms. Development banks can do this through both increased capital bases and better leveraging of existing paid-in capital.

This includes urgently rechanneling special drawing rights through the MDBs, which can then leverage the impact by borrowing on capital markets, building on the model developed by the African Development Bank.

Debt challenges faced by developing countries are among the obstacles to progress. Already, about 60% of poorer countries are in or at a high risk of debt distress, twice the level from 2015. The international community must work together to urgently develop an improved multilateral debt relief initiative.

Reforms to the international financial architecture

Fixing the debt architecture is just one element of needed architecture reforms. The international financial architecture system, which guides how global funds are invested, is in a state of flux, with multiple reform processes taking place simultaneously.

We are undergoing the biggest rethink of our international systems since the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. But unlike Bretton Woods, which was done as one under the UN umbrella, the current multiple reform processes are piecemeal, fragmented, and lack inter-institutional coherence.

From debt architecture to international tax norms, to trade rules, to revamping investment agreements, the reform processes must aim for a coherent international system that takes the Sustainable Development Goals and climate action fully into account. We must have targeted action to make the architecture fit for purpose to serve the needs of the world, and developing countries in particular.

Failure is not an option

Given current trends, 574 million people – nearly 7% of the world’s population – will still be living in extreme poverty in 2030. Without urgent and scaled up action on sustainable development financing, the prospects for achieving the SDGs grow dimmer.

In fact, the already great gulf between developed and developing countries could widen to become a permanent sustainable development divide. It will take deliberate and coordinated action to ensure that reforms serve the needs of developing countries – and thus help deliver the SDGs. But it must be done.

There must be a recognition that we all share a common future as we share a common earth. With global financial assets of almost $500 trillion, there is no shortage of money. The world has the means: all that is lacking is the will.

Navid Hanif is a United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, and Acting Director, Financing for Sustainable Development Office, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. He is also the UN sous Sherpa to the G20 finance and main tracks.

The 2023 Financing for Sustainable Development Report: Financing Sustainable Transformations is a joint product of the Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development, which is comprised of more than 60 United Nations Agencies and international organizations.

The Financing for Sustainable Development Office of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs serves as the substantive editor and coordinator of the Task Force, in close cooperation the World Bank Group, the IMF, World Trade Organization, UNCTAD, UNDP and UNIDO. The Task Force was mandated by the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and is chaired by Mr. Li Junhua, United Nations Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs.

A copy of the report is available at https://developmentfinance.un.org/fsdr2023.

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Only 55 percent of people across the Pacific Islands have access to basic drinking water and just 30 percent have sanitation services – the lowest rate in the world. Photo Credit: UN Samoa

By Simona Marinescu
APIA, Samoa, Apr 14 2023 (IPS)

Water is life. No other definition captures quite so aptly what this essential element means for our lives, livelihoods and the natural environment.

Although it is considered both a renewable and a non-renewable resource, water is becoming scarce and is expected to reach a critical point by 2040.

Out of the total volume of water present on earth, 97.5% is saline- coming from the seas and oceans, while only 2.5% is freshwater, of which only 0.3% is present in liquid form on the surface, including in rivers, lakes, swamps, reservoirs, creeks, and streams.

Due to irresponsible usage, including pollution from agriculture and the construction of dams, liquid freshwater on the surface of the earth is rapidly diminishing. We are the only known planet to have consistent, stable bodies of liquid water on its surface, yet we are not doing enough to preserve and provide access to all people everywhere to this critical source of life.

According to the 2021 UN Water report, in 2020, around 2 billion people (26% of the global population) lacked safely managed drinking water services and around 3.6 billion people lacked safely managed sanitation.

Some 2.3 billion people live in countries facing water stress of whom 733 million are in high and critically water-scarce environments.

Credit: UN Samoa

Samoa’s connected crises

In Samoa and other Pacific Small Island Developing States, access to clean water represents a huge challenge. Although these islands enjoy abundant rainfall – 2 to 4 times the average global annual precipitation, poor waste management systems and lack of adequate infrastructure means that the availability of clean water is severely limited.

Only 55 percent of people across the Pacific Islands have access to basic drinking water, and just 30 percent have sanitation services—the lowest rate in the world.

According to a joint study by the National University of Samoa, the Ministry of Natural Resources and other partners, water sources tested contained a high concentration of minerals, toxic pesticides, microplastics and bacteria such as e-coli, which increases the rate of water-borne diseases and poses significant health risks.

For our UN country team in Samoa, improving water quality is a central, cross-cutting priority which not only protects communities and helps prevent disease, but also feeds into our broader efforts to address the Triple Planetary Crisis of climate disruption, nature loss and pollution.

The use of the Triple Planetary Crisis framework provides a valuable basis for the measurement of losses and damages which countries like Samoa experience due to climate change and pollution including deterioration of water ecosystem services.

With this in mind, we have engaged extensively with communities and partners across Samoa over the past six months to develop the Vai O Le Ola (Water of Life) Report.

Launched ahead of the UN Water Conference in New York (22-24 March), the report draws on insights from these consultations to set out a response to the Triple Planetary Crisis and propose integrated approaches of restoring the quality and resilience of Samoa’s water system.

An integrated path forward

From rivers, mangrove swamps, lakes, wetlands, territorial waters, and the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) – water represents a major part of the environment system which supports the livelihoods for over 200,000 people in Samoa and also forms a significant part of Samoan cultural identity. Improving the quality of this critical source of life must begin with the integration of all relevant policies and strategies on climate change, ocean management, socio-economic development, waste management, and biodiversity conservation into one overarching framework.

Targeted interventions including the Vai O Le Ola Trust Fund and Knowledge Crowdsourcing Platform, and programmes on Innovative Climate and Nature Financing, Social Entrepreneurship for Climate Resilience, Community Access to Clean Energy, Zero Plastic Waste, are central to the Triple Planetary Crisis Response Plan in Samoa and across the Pacific.

Nature-based Watershed Management is another key initiative outlined in the Vai O Le Ola report which will support agro-forestry, reforestation and invasive species management, flood management and biodiversity conservation linked to water systems.

On the legislative side as well, new opportunities to strengthen environmental protection and conservation are emerging. Last year, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution recognizing for the first-time access to a clean, safe, and sustainable environment including water as a fundamental human right.

With the adoption of this resolution, global attention on the legal rights of ecosystems and natural resources has significantly increased.

In 2022, Ecuador was the first country in the world to recognize and implement the “rights of nature” followed by Colombia which established legal personality for the Atrato River in recognition of the biocultural rights of indigenous communities.

In Samoa, the National Human Rights Institution is already discussing how the right to a clean, safe and sustainable environment will be operationalized into law.

As an ‘ocean state’, water is a defining feature of Samoa’s national wealth and people’s way of living – known as ‘Fa’a Samoa.’ To find long lasting solutions to water scarcity and pollution across Samoa and other Pacific Islands, we must therefore look not only towards science, technology and innovation, but also to the centuries of wisdom and experience of the communities who live here.

We must recognize that for the people of Samoa, as Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa explains below, their waters are a source of life as well as a source of beauty.

Simona Marinescu, PhD, is UN Resident Coordinator in Samoa, Cook Island, Nieu, and Tokelau. Editorial support by UNDCO.

Source: UNDCO

DCO is based in New York, with regional teams in Addis Ababa, Amman, Bangkok, Istanbul and Panama, supporting 130 Resident Coordinators and 132 Resident Coordinator’s offices covering 162 countries and territories.

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Shweta S Banerjee, Country Lead for India, and Syed M Hashemi, Country Advisor for India at BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative, joined members of the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society, including CEO Rahul Kumar, to sign the MoU in Patna, India. Credit: BRAC UPGI

By IPS Correspondent
PATNA, India, Apr 10 2023 (IPS)

Under the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society, Bihar’s government announced the development of a new Program for Immersion and Learning Exchange (ILE) to be headquartered in Patna.

The Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society, locally known as JEEVIKA, is the implementing agency of Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana (SJY), a government-led poverty alleviation program in Bihar that has reached over 150,000 households as of early 2023 and is still expanding.

SJY aims to boost the human capital of people living in extreme poverty and the most excluded households through the Graduation approach, an evidence-based, multifaceted, sequenced set of interventions that includes support of consumption, livelihoods, savings, and training. A rigorous study of Graduation in West Bengal by Nobel Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo demonstrates that Graduation provides people with the resources and skills needed to break the poverty trap.

“This a new beginning,” said Rahul Kumar, CEO of JEEVIKA. “JEEVIKA will function as an Immersion and Learning Centre for delegates outside state and country to understand our Graduation Program.”

Drawing on vast experience in supporting the design, delivery, and evaluation of Graduation programs worldwide for more than 20 years, BRAC International will serve as a technical partner for the ILE.

“BRAC International is honored to partner with the Bihar state government to launch an Immersion and Learning Exchange program at JEEVIKA so many more can learn from the Government of Bihar’s experience building inclusive livelihoods for marginalized women,” said Gregory Chen, Managing Director of BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI), a flagship program of BRAC International.

Rahul Kumar, CEO of Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society, signs an MoU with BRAC International to facilitate South-South knowledge sharing around the Graduation approach through a new Program for Immersion and Learning Exchange.

Since 2002, BRAC’s Graduation program in Bangladesh has reached more than 2.1 million households (approximately 9 million people) and supported the expansion of Graduation in 16 additional countries through direct implementation, technical assistance, and advisory services for implementing partners and governments. BRAC is committed to further advancing the expansion of Graduation by scaling it through governments across Africa and Asia to achieve maximum impact.

Learning and knowledge exchange has played a critical role in supporting adaptation and expansion efforts of the Graduation approach for various poverty contexts since it was pioneered in 2002. To date, more than 100 organizations in nearly 50 countries have adopted Graduation, according to the World Bank’s Partnership for Economic Inclusion.

Through immersion visits and learning exchange facilitated by JEEVIKA’s ILE, insights around the design, implementation, and evaluation of Graduation will be more accessible to other state governments in India and national governments throughout the Global South looking to enhance existing poverty alleviation efforts and enable millions more people around the world to escape the poverty trap.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Producing enough for daily sustenance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agroecology to strengthen Andean knowledge

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don’t give up in the face of adversity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Puente Madera community, in the municipality of San Blas Atempa in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, is opposed to the sale of land to an industrial park in that town, one of the 10 projects in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Interoceanic Corridor, as demonstrated at a February 2022 protest. CREDIT: APIIDTT

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Mar 28 2023 (IPS)

In March 2021, the community assembly of the municipality of San Blas Atempa, in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, approved the sale of 360 hectares for the creation of an industrial park. But part of the community opposed the initiative due to irregularities, such as the falsification of signatures of supposed attendees, including those of people who had already died.

The facility is one of 10 planned within the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Interoceanic Corridor (CIIT), which in turn is part of the Program for the Development of the Tehuantepec Isthmus that the Mexican government has been implementing since 2019 with the aim of developing the south and southeast of this country of 1,964,375 square kilometers and almost 130 million inhabitants."It is the replica of the maquiladora model, jobs that exploit workers and cheap labor. There are legitimate concerns, like water, and what kind of industries will be installed. The isthmus is not an industrial zone.”
-- Geocomunes

Mario Quintero, a member of the Assembly of Indigenous Peoples of the Isthmus in Defense of Land and Territory (APIIDTT), said the plan is plagued by “land grabbing, exploitation, dispossession, and displacement of peoples.”

“It is a large-scale geopolitical project in a geostrategic region. The system is corrupt. The way this is being carried out is obscene. The government agrees to the lease, but then says it is going to expropriate,” the activist told IPS from the municipality of Juchitán, in Oaxaca, some 480 kilometers south of Mexico City.

The 200-km wide isthmus is the narrowest area in Mexico between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, in the Gulf of Mexico, which has a large indigenous population and is abundant in biodiversity, hydrocarbons and minerals.

In addition to the 10 industrial sites of 360 hectares each in size, called “Development Poles for Well-being” and focused on exports, the CIIT includes the renovation of the ports of Salina Cruz, on the Pacific Ocean in Oaxaca, and Coatzacoalcos in the state of Veracruz.

It also includes the reconstruction of the Tehuantepec Isthmus Railroad, which links Chiapas, in the state of the same name, with Dos Bocas, in Tabasco.

In addition, it involves the upgrade of the Salina Cruz and Minatitlán refineries, in the state of Veracruz, the laying of a gas pipeline and the construction of a gas liquefaction plant off the coast of Salina Cruz.

But this industrial model is criticized for the few benefits it brings the host communities and the fact that the largest economic benefits go to exporters, and due to its environmental impacts. For example, the municipality of Coatzacoalcos is one of the most polluted in the country.

The non-governmental organization Geocomunes, dedicated to building maps for the defense of common goods, provided IPS with a list of effects such as the pollution of rivers and aquifers, as well as poor working conditions.

“Except for the promise of jobs, it’s business as usual. It is the replica of the maquiladora model, jobs that exploit workers and cheap labor,” the organization said. “There are legitimate concerns, like water, and what kind of industries will be installed. The isthmus is not an industrial zone, it implies a change in the traditional economy. It’s important to look at what kind of employment it will bring. Construction means precarious employment.”

The organization also anticipates that the industries will not arrive as soon as promised, since industrial production does not only consist of the installation of companies.

The Interoceanic Corridor seeks to connect both coasts of Mexico, the Pacific and the Atlantic, through highways and a refurbished railway, to promote industrial development in the south-southeast of the country and foment exports. CREDIT: Fonadin

Appetite for exports

Mexico, the second largest economy in Latin America, is home to more than 500 industrial parks on more than 51,000 hectares, which swell the automotive, electronic, food and beverage, metallurgical, medical, textile and aerospace industries.

Altogether, more than 3,700 companies generate some three million jobs in these industrial parks.

The trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – ​​in force between 1994 and 2020, when it was replaced by the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) – fomented the installation of export assembly plants or maquilas.

They mainly set up shop in northern Mexico, the area closest to the United States, drawn by tax benefits, lower wages and more lax environmental regulations than in their nations of origin.

The northern state of Nuevo León and the central states of Mexico and Guanajuato are home to the largest number of maquilas.

But the socioeconomic conditions in these places have not improved, as demonstrated by the available statistics.

Figures from the government’s National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval) indicate that poverty and extreme poverty increased in Nuevo León, home to some 150 industrial poles, between 2018 and 2020.

Overall poverty rose from 1.07 million people to 1.34 million (from 19.24 percent to 24.3 percent of the population) while extreme poverty climbed from 40,000 to 124,000 people (0.7 percent to 2.1 percent).

In Nuevo León, one of the states with the highest levels of income per person and social development in the country, home to 5.78 million people, the unemployment rate stood at 3.57 percent in 2022, and 35.8 of the workforce was in the informal sector of the economy.

In the state of Mexico, adjacent to Mexico City and home to 113 industrial facilities, poverty grew from 7.04 million to 8.34 million people (from 41.8 percent to 48.9 percent of the population), while extreme poverty rose from 783,000 to 1.4 million people (from 4.7 percent to 8.2 percent).

The state of Mexico, population 17 million, had 4.46 percent unemployment in 2022 while 56.8 percent of the workforce was in the informal sector.

The results are similar in other states where industrial parks have been built.

In contrast, in the southern state of Oaxaca, poverty and extreme poverty declined, from 2.75 million to 2.58 million people (from 64.3 percent to 61.7 percent) and from 868,000 to 860,000 (from 21.7 percent to 20.6 percent), respectively.

Oaxaca, which so far has only one industrial pole, is home to 4.13 million people, with an unemployment rate of 1.28 percent in 2022 and 81 percent of the labor force in the informal sector.

The Interoceanic Corridor is part of the Program for the Development of the Tehuantepec Isthmus, covers the southern state of Oaxaca and the southeastern state of Veracruz, and has drawn opposition from local communities who consider it an imposition by the government and a threat to their culture and territory. The photo shows a Mar. 21, 2023 protest against the megaprojects, outside the United States Embassy. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

More hydrocarbons

The Program for the Development of the Tehuantepec Isthmus covers 46 municipalities in Oaxaca and 33 in Veracruz, forming an area where 11 of the country’s 69 indigenous peoples live, totaling 17 million native people.

The Corridor revives a set of similar projects that then President Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000) proposed in 1996 but which never were carried out. Now President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in office since December 2018, is recycling them.

The CIIT budget, under the Ministry of the Navy, grew from 162 million dollars in the first year, 2020, to 203 million in 2021 and to more than double that, 529 million, in 2022. But in 2023 it has shrunk to 374 million.

The Corridor divides the 10 projected industrial poles equally between Oaxaca and Veracruz. On Mar. 21 López Obrador announced that the tender for four locations in Oaxaca would be held in early April.

The Tehuantepec isthmus is a region already impacted by the presence of other infrastructure, such as 29 wind farms, most of them private. That installed capacity, plus new wind and solar fields, will fuel the new industrial facilities.

The Mexican government also projects the laying of a 270-km gas pipeline with a transport capacity of 500 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), between the towns of Jáltipan and Salina Cruz.

The pipeline will complement the 247-km Jáltipan-Salina Cruz gas pipeline that has been operating since 2014 and transports 90 Mmcf/d.

The new pipeline, at a cost of 434 million dollars, will carry 430 MMcf/d to the planned liquefaction plant near Salina Cruz and between 50 and 70 MMcf/d to the industrial parks.

The Federal Electricity Commission, responsible for the project, calculates that it will supply gas to 470 plants and 30 industrial parks.

The communities are fighting it and will seek to build autonomy through local self-management projects, according to Quintero.

“The project is not going to improve the lives of the communities, just as the railroad in the 20th century or the hydroelectric plants failed to do, or the refinery (in Salina Cruz) or the wind farms, because their promises translate into belts of marginalization,” said the activist. “Development and benefits for whom?”

Geocomunes doubts the promise of development. “The land, the water, basic things that are at risk. Who will bear the costs? What is the government going to demand?”

Jean Claude Muhire, Rwanda Program Director of BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative, a flagship program at BRAC International, and Samuel Dusengiyumva, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local Government sign the MoU in Kigali, Rwanda. Credit BRAC UPGI.

By Joyce Chimbi
KIGALI, Mar 21 2023 (IPS)

Last week, BRAC International signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Rwanda under the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC) to support efforts to empower people in extreme poverty to develop sustainable livelihoods and break the poverty trap long term. This is part of the Government’s broader efforts to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.

“I am delighted to see the Government of Rwanda take a leadership role in addressing extreme poverty,” said Greg Chen, Managing Director of BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI), a flagship program at BRAC International.

The four essentials of the Graduation approach and initial outcomes. Credit: BRAC UPGI.

The MoU was signed on Tuesday, March 14, 2023, by Jean Claude Muhire, Rwanda Program Director of BRAC UPGI, and Samuel Dusengiyumva, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local Government.

BRAC International is a leading nonprofit organization with a mission to empower people and communities in poverty, illiteracy, disease, and social injustice, touching the lives of more than 100 million people in the last five decades. And now seeks to touch even more lives in the land of a thousand hills through this partnership.

“We are happy to serve as a partner in advancing the Government of Rwanda’s new National Strategy for Sustainable Graduation (NSSG) and to accelerate the reduction of poverty and extreme poverty,” said Muhire.

The MoU positions BRAC International as a key partner in advancing the Government of Rwanda’s new National Strategy for Sustainable Graduation (NSSG), recently approved by Cabinet in November 2022 to accelerate the reduction of poverty and extreme poverty in Rwanda and contribute to the achievement of the targets set out in the National Strategy for Transformation, 2017 to 2024.

“We are committed to combating extreme poverty by scaling the multifaceted, evidence-based Graduation approach through governments across Africa and Asia and reaching millions more people,” Chen said.

Similar to BRAC’s Graduation approach, which was established in Bangladesh in 2002, the NSSG defines Graduation as a two-year program for households to benefit from inclusive livelihood development programs, multifaceted interventions, access to shock-responsive social protection services, and market access that creates an enabling environment for households to “graduate” out of extreme poverty.

To date, BRAC’s Graduation program has reached more than 2.1 million people in Bangladesh alone and supported the expansion of Graduation in 16 additional countries, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Guinea, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zambia.

Leveraging 20 years of experience implementing, testing, and iterating the Graduation approach, BRAC International is extending support in the design, delivery as well as evaluation of the Graduation program to Rwanda, supporting the Ministry of Local Government in critical areas.

Areas such as providing technical capacity and expertise in the implementation of the Graduation strategy and making available necessary communication, advocacy, and technical resources to ensure smooth implementation of the Graduation strategy.

Equally important, collaborating with the Ministry will ensure the scale-up of an inclusive, holistic Graduation strategy that includes all Graduation essentials. In all, efforts will focus on the four essential components identified as fundamental to implementing Graduation successfully.

These essential components include meeting participants’ day-to-day needs such as nutrition and healthcare, providing training and assets for income generation, financial literacy and savings support, and social empowerment through community engagement and life skills training – all facilitated through coaching that calls for regular interactions with participants. Rigorous research by Nobel Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo proves that the combination of support and resources provided through this multifaceted approach is critical for long-term impact.

Overall, the Graduation approach is grounded in the conviction that people living in vulnerable situations can be agents of change if they are empowered with the tools, skills, and hope they need to change their lives.

Perhaps with such people-centered efforts to scale an evidence-based approach, Rwanda could become known for more than its scenic beauty and clean capital city. It could also make history by becoming one of the first countries on the continent to establish a sustainable path out of extreme poverty by 2030.

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Jehyson Guzmán, the governor of the state of Mérida, in the Venezuelan Andes, delivers a solar panel installation to the rural community of El Anís that will benefit dozens of families. Parliament is preparing, meanwhile, new legislation to try to promote these alternative energies in the country. CREDIT: Government of Mérida

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Mar 21 2023 (IPS)

The installation of solar panels in a remote village in ​​the Andes highlands in late February marked a second incursion by the Venezuelan government into the field of solar energy, previously uncharted territory in this country that for a century was a leading global oil producer.

The governor of the Andean state of Mérida, Jehyson Guzmán, inaugurated the 135 solar panels that will initially serve 17 families in the El Anís village near the town of Lagunillas, 600 kilometers southwest of Caracas, and will later provide electricity to a total of 2,500 people, in neighboring communities as well.

“They’re presenting it as something new, but they probably brought materials from a facility they had in the area around PDVSA (the state-owned oil company), where an industrial-scale project failed and was abandoned,” alternative energy expert Alejandro López-González told IPS."Compared to an average cost of 0.20 dollars per kilowatt-hour in other Latin American countries, in Venezuela people pay 0.002 dollars….and a cultural issue is that Venezuelans are not used to saving energy and many people, between 30 and 40 percent of users, simply do not pay for electricity." -- Luis Ramírez

López-González also pointed out that the government program “Sembrando Luz”, developed by Venezuelan and Cuban engineers, installed close to 2,300 small solar power systems, mainly in rural and indigenous communities, between 2005 and 2012.

Venezuela was then governed by the late Hugo Chávez (1999-2013). During his time in office the country went through a cycle of oil wealth, followed by the collapse of the oil industry and numerous infrastructure and service projects, such as alternative electricity, most of which were abandoned half-complete.

There are also wind farms on the peninsulas of Paraguaná and Guajira, in the northwest – where the trade winds are constant, strong and fast – and adding more than 100 wind turbines could contribute up to 150 Mwh to the local grid in one of the areas hardest-hit by blackouts so far this century.

Wind turbines began to be installed starting in 2006 in Paraguaná and 2011 in La Guajira, and more than 400 million dollars were invested, with the idea of ​​supplying numerous indigenous communities mainly of the Wayúu people.

But the installation of more wind turbines and equipment was delayed, the project fell by the wayside, many materials were stolen to be sold as scrap, and by 2018 the then minister of electric power, Luis Motta, gave it up for lost.

A similar fate befell hundreds of small solar energy projects – in some cases accompanied by wind power – in peasant and indigenous communities, which would have “benefited up to 200,000 people throughout the country but were put out of service due to lack of maintenance and attention,” lamented López-González.

Actually, before “Sembrando luz”, there were specific and especially rural initiatives for solar and wind energy – for example, to dig water wells in the plains of the Orinoco – organized by individuals, universities and some public entities.

The green roof of the postgraduate studies building at the Andrés Bello Catholic University blocks excess heat from some of the classrooms and serves as the basis for the installation of solar panels that provide electricity to various parts of campus. In the background can be seen the poor neighborhood of Antímano, in western Caracas. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

The universities’ turn

Now the initiatives are reaching urban areas, among individuals in cities hard-hit by long power cuts, such as the hot city of Maracaibo in the northwest, the country’s oil capital, commercial establishments, health centers, and an exemplary installation in the private Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), in Caracas.

UCAB “decided to incorporate ecology and sustainability into programs, practices, the management of its 32-hectare campus where there are some 5,000 students in various disciplines, as an experiment and contribution to environmental science in the country,” Joaquín Benítez, director of Environmental Sustainability, told IPS.

Thus, since 2019, the roof of the postgraduate studies building has been transformed into a green roof, with an 800-square-meter garden of low-lying succulent plants that store water.

Several classrooms under that roof, where temperatures at 3:00 p.m. local time reached 31 degrees Celsius for most of the year in 2013, now have an average temperature of 25 degrees, Benítez said.

The garden was followed by the installation of 30 solar panels along the edge of the roof, plus a backup wind generator, to support research and study projects, provide energy to part of the building and feed the watering device for the plants.

Enough energy is generated to serve a house for five people, with three bedrooms on two floors, two bathrooms and a small garden, Benítez said.

Solar panels were installed at the private Andrés Bello Catholic University, in the capital of Venezuela. While waiting for large projects, installations like these are gaining ground in homes, farms and businesses, sometimes combined with the use of the national power grid or diesel-fueled plants. CREDIT: UCAB

Learning from failures

But a panel installation in a home, farm or small business, even if it is only complementary to the national electrical grid or used to power only a few appliances, costs from 4,000 dollars up to five times that amount. This is a huge sum in a country where the majority of the population is living in poverty and the monthly minimum wage is less than six dollars.

However, hundreds of private solar power installations have sprung up, often in combination with diesel-fired plants – and also small wind turbines – in areas of the west and the central and eastern plains, with a handful of companies dedicated to installation and maintenance.

The electricity crisis has been part of an economic depression and social and political crisis that has pushed more than seven million Venezuelans to leave the country in the last decade under President Nicolás Maduro, reducing the population to an estimated 28 million inhabitants.

The northwestern oil and ranching state of Zulia alone, covering 63,000 square kilometers and home to five million people, suffered 37,000 power failures last year, according to the Committee of People Affected by Blackouts.

Outages across the country totaled 233,000 last year and 196,000 in 2021. Four years ago, in March 2019, a blackout left almost all of Venezuela, including much of Caracas, without power for between 72 and 100 continuous hours.

The country is supplied by the Guri hydroelectric complex in the southeast, with an installed capacity of 12,000 Mwh in three dams, and which covers two thirds of the national demand. Another 30 percent comes from thermal plants, and the rest from small distributed generation plants.

In total, the country’s installed capacity, which should have reached 34,000 Mwh according to the investments made over decades, barely reaches 24,000 Mwh, since much of the infrastructure is rundown, as are the distribution networks.

The supply deficit would be even worse were it not for the collapse of the economy, as the country’s GDP plunged by up to 80 percent between 2013 and 2021, and demand, which stood at around 19,000 Mwh in 2013, had dropped to 11,000 Mwh in 2019.

The Cecosesola central cooperative health center in the western Venezuelan city of Barquisimeto installed solar panels to power some of its services and raise awareness about the importance of clean energy. Years ago solar installations were made in remote rural areas, but recently they are making their way into cities. CREDIT: Cecosesola

Paying little or nothing

Renewable energy expert Luis Ramírez reminded IPS that electricity in Venezuela, in the hands of the State, is subsidized up to 99 percent.

“Compared to an average cost of 0.20 dollars per kilowatt-hour in other Latin American countries, in Venezuela people pay 0.002 dollars,” said Ramírez, who is also director of the graduate program in quality systems at UCAB.

However, since 2022 the rates for public services, such as water, electricity, cooking gas, gasoline, highway use and garbage collection have begun to rise in different regions of the country.

In addition, “a cultural issue is that Venezuelans are not used to saving energy and many people, between 30 and 40 percent of users, simply do not pay for electricity,” Ramírez explained.

The inhabitants of poor neighborhoods and shantytowns in Caracas and other cities connect themselves to the grid freely, and in small towns in the interior small business establishments often do the same.

This discourages investments in the sector and in particular in renewable energies, which often have higher installation and start-up costs than plants powered by fossil energy.

Pending policies, laws, initiatives and financing to establish solar or wind farms, hydroelectric power generated in the gigantic complex of Lake Guri, which feeds the Caroní River in the southeast of the country, remains the source that sustains two thirds of electricity consumption in Venezuela. CREDIT: Corpoelec

From law to potential

Publications from the Ministry of Electric Power indicate that an additional 500 Mwh are expected to be installed in the west of the country, mainly from renewable energies, but without specifying a timeframe, amounts to be invested or sources of financing.

In the legislature, controlled by the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the drafting of a renewable energy law was proposed since 2021, to stimulate and organize the sector, but the question has not been given priority by parliament or the government.

The experts consulted by IPS agree that the drafts of that law mainly repeat provisions already present in the current Organic Law on Electricity Service, without adding new aspects such as establishing a renewable energy research institute to help develop the industry, Ramírez said.

According to López-González, the fact that the electricity law enacted in 2010 still lacks regulations to specify policies in measures and technical and operational decisions shows the State’s disdain for ensuring compliance and promoting the development of the sector.

He said the new steps such as the small installation in the Andes and the announcements that a new law is being prepared are “an effort to publicize what is nothing more than a residual development, no more than zombies of abandoned projects.”

Venezuela’s solar potential is one of the highest in Latin America, with an average of 5.35 kilowatt hours per square meter per day (5.35 Kwh/m2), close to the highest in Chile (5.75) and Bolivia (5.42), according to studies by the Department of Sciences of the Universitiy de Los Andes, in the southwest of the country.

In the northern coastal region along the Caribbean Sea, the information collected in meteorological stations shows an even greater potential: between 5.8 and 7.3 Kwh/m2.

In the north, where the most populated and industrialized centers of the country are located, the potential of 12,000 Mwh awaits better times, López-González said. “We can have a wind Guri,” he said, making a comparison with the largest of the dams in the southeastern hydroelectric complex.

Venezuela, a leading oil producer for a century, which still has the largest reserves in the world (300 billion barrels, mostly unconventional), also has the potential to belong to the club of countries that are self-sufficient in renewable energy.

But this membership is still just a spot on the distant horizon.

Delegates at the Arab and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting to Follow-Up on ICPD25 Commitments: Addressing Youth Empowerment and Gender-Based Violence, held in Jakarta, Indonesia held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Credit: APDA

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 13 2023 (IPS)

Child marriage, gender-based violence (GBV), sexuality education, religion, and tradition came under the spotlight during a conference, Arab and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting to Follow-Up on ICPD25 Commitments: Addressing Youth Empowerment and Gender-Based Violence, held in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Professor Keizo Takemi, MP Japan, Chair of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), reminded delegates that GBV is on the rise in conflict situations, during disasters, and during the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

“Furthermore, children in some countries are at higher risk of child marriage due to economic pressures and school closures caused by the pandemic. Globally, about one in five (21 percent) girls are married before the age of 18. Child marriage not only deprives girls of educational opportunities, but early pregnancy and childbearing also come with a higher risk of complications and death.

Pierre Bou Assi, MP Lebanon, President of the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development (FAPPD), told the delegates it was necessary to acknowledge and confront the issues of GBV in the region. It was clear from a series of case studies from the Arab and Asia Pacific region that while there has been some success, there was plenty of work to do.

Dr Dede Yusuf Macan Effendi, MP for Indonesia and Chair of the Indonesian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (IFPPD), said the country had had some successes – for example, the incidence of GBV dropped from 33 percent in 2016 to 26 percent in 2021. However, many incidents were unreported, and this was considered “the tip of the iceberg.”

Effendi noted the region’s issues – like the high proportion of child marriage and exposure to HIV/Aids.

Dr Hasto Wardoyo, the chairperson of BKKBN, said parliamentarians played a critical role, with various “studies suggesting that the government should take steps such as increasing care capacity and access to services such as health services, social services, developing children’s abilities, opening and equalizing access, strengthening family and social bonds.”

A professor from UIN Jakarta, Dr Nur Rofiah, gave a perspective from Islam and said the religion had a  concept of maslahah or goodness. This recognizes women’s bodily experiences are different from men’s, and it would be important to consider actions that “cause painful experiences for women’s bodies, including gender-based injustice.”

Rofiah emphasized the adverse effects of child marriage for women saying that child brides lost out on their childhood, dropped out of school, experienced domestic violence, often were adversely impacted by divorce, were stigmatized by being widowed, lacked competitiveness in the work environment, very often experienced single parenthood and were susceptible to child marriage.

COVID-19 had impacted the ICPD25 programme of action, especially on health care, with malaria and tuberculosis neglected, as was gender equality, said  Nadimul Haque, an MP in India. The Regional Sexual and Reproductive Health Adviser, UNFPA ASRO Professor Hala Youssef, developed this theme, saying policymakers need to change strategy during this decade of action to 2030 – without which it would be difficult to achieve the goals. She called on delegates to move from the idea of “funding” ICPD goals to “financing” them. Funding was reliant on the government, but financing involved the wider society.

Delegates took a deep look at the pressing issues of child marriage, sexuality education, religion and gender-based violence during the Arab and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting to Follow-Up on ICPD25 Commitments: Addressing Youth Empowerment and Gender-Based Violence meeting held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Credit: APDA

Youssef called on parliamentarians to concentrate on the needs of young people, people with disabilities, universal health coverage, budgetary and financial allocations, social determinants of health, maternal deaths among adolescent girls, strengthening health workforce numbers, and capacity building.

The case study presented by Professor Ashraf Hatem, an MP from Egypt, showed that his country’s Universal Health Insurance (UHI) would soon remove the issue of what he called “catastrophic health expenditure” of the poor. The scheme rolled out in phases, would decrease out-of-pocket expenditure from 62 percent to 32 percent in 2032.

The government was subsidizing about 35 percent of the population. He gave an example of open heart surgery done in a UHI facility that would cost a patient 300 Egyptian pounds or about USD 10.

A grim picture of the social, psychological, economic, and medical burdens resulting from unintended pregnancies in her country was painted by Soukaina Lahmouch, an MP from Morocco. While there had been an improvement in the legal arsenal regarding abortion, marriage, and access to quality health services, much was still to be done. She explained that in Morocco, about 153 newborns are born out of wedlock each day, of which 24 children are abandoned at birth.

About 11,4 percent of pregnant women still received no prenatal care; however, in rural areas, about one-fifth of mothers received no prenatal care, and 13.4 percent gave birth without the assistance of qualified personnel.

“More than half of the women affected by poverty do not seek follow-up during pregnancies,” Lahmouch said, adding that education was a determinant, with almost all women with secondary school education giving birth in a health facility, but those without education more likely to give birth at home.

About 12 percent of women were married under 18, and a recent survey showed that 62.8 percent of women aged between 18 and 64 experienced violence during the year before the survey.

Dr Suhail  Alouini, a former MP of Tunisia, quoted a World Bank study, saying 18 percent of women were married before 18 in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region. While in many countries, the legal minimum age for marriage is set at 18, there were exceptions for the marriage of underage individuals due to court decisions.

Alouini said conflict and displacement increased the risk of GBV, including sexual violence and forced marriages.

“In some conflict-affected areas in the Arab region, the rates of child marriage have increased, and the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in reports of GBV in the Arab region and around the world. The pandemic also disrupted efforts to prevent child marriage as school closures and economic hardships made girls more vulnerable to early marriage.”

He noted that GBV and child marriage requires a comprehensive and multi-sectorial approach focusing on prevention response and political leadership, and ICPD25 recommendations provide a road map for action emphasizing the importance of investing in data and research and engaging a wide range of stakeholders and political leadership. The role of parliamentarians is critical in addressing GBV and child marriage.

Laissa Alamia, MP of Bangsamoro Transition Authority, Philippines, spoke about the situation in the self-governing region and the Philippines.

“One in four Filipino women aged 15 to 49 experienced physical, emotional, and sexual violence by their partner or husband. One in six Filipino girls finds herself married before hitting the age of 18.”

This is the case even though the Philippines is known for its “most vibrant woman’s rights movement and the most comprehensive anti-GBV legal frameworks and mechanisms in the world.”

Bangsamoro region is disproportionately poor, and 62 percent of the women belonged to poor communities; the approximate number of child brides was 88,600 out of a population of 2.46 million women.

He said ethnic minority Muslim women continue to face different forms of discrimination, and the code of Muslim personal laws in the country gives a prescribed age for marriage of 15 for men and 15 or at puberty for females.

Alamia said the Philippines law, which prohibits child marriages, is not universally accepted by all communities and brings up religious freedom debates.

Dr Jetn Sirathranont, MP Thailand, noted in his closing remarks that there was still a long way to go to achieve the ICPD25 programme of action, but he hoped this conference would give an impetus to finding solutions.

Tomoko Fukuda, Regional Director of IPPF ESEAOR, encouraged parliamentarians to continue their work on the ICPD programme of action, despite conflicting priorities.

“So we as the older generation have to be committed to ensuring that the world is a better place for the young people and the children born into this world,” she said.

Anjali Sen, UNFPA Representative in Indonesia, shared a study by Schneider and Hirsch in 2020 that showed that “comprehensive sexuality education meets the characteristics of an effective GBV prevention … comprehensive sexuality education is based on human rights and gender equality.”

She called for it to be implemented, stating that it needed support and involvement from teachers, parents, healthcare providers, young people, and the government. Parliamentarians had a role in ensuring that policy and financial support were available.

Note:. This conference was organized by APDA and FAPPD, hosted by IFPPD and supported by UNFPA and Japan Trust Fund (JTF).

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Mangroves in Tai O, Hong Kong. Coastal wetland protection and restoration is an example of the kind of multifunctional solution that is needed to address multiple global crises together. Credit: Chunyip Wong / iStock

By Paula Harrison, Pamela McElwee and David Obura
BONN, Mar 2 2023 (IPS)

When global crises are interlinked, they overlap and compound each other. In such cases, the most effective solutions are those that work at the nexus of all these challenges.

In September, almost every Government on Earth will gather at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York to take stock at the halfway mark of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of what has been achieved and what remains to be done.

Despite some progress, global development efforts have been hamstrung by unprecedented environmental, social and economic crises, in particular biodiversity loss and climate change, compounded of course by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tackling these interlinked challenges separately risks creating situations even more damaging to people and communities around the world, and exacerbates the already high risk of not meeting the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

This is especially true because the myriad drivers of risk and damage affect many different sectors at once, across scales from local to global, and can result in negative impacts being compounded. For example, when demands for food and timber combine with the effects of pollution and climate change, they can decimate already degraded ecosystems, driving species to extinction and severely reducing nature’s contributions to people.

The global food system offers another example of this negative spiral of interlocking crises – where food that is produced unsustainably leads to water overconsumption and waste, pollution, increased health risks and loss of biodiversity. It also leads to excessive greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change.

Yet policies often treat each of these global threats in isolation, resulting in separate, uncoordinated actions that typically address only one of the root causes and fail to take advantage of the many potential solution synergies. In the worst cases, actions taken on one challenge directly undermine those needed to tackle another because they fail to account for trade-offs, resulting in unintended consequences, or the impacts being externalised, as someone else’s problem.

This is why almost 140 Governments turned to the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) – requesting IPBES to undertake a major multiyear assessment of the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health in the context of the rapidly-changing climate. This ‘Nexus Assessment’ is among the most complex and important expert assessments ever undertaken – crossing key biophysical domains of climate and biodiversity and elements central to human wellbeing like food, water and health. It will also address how interactions are affected by energy, pollution, conflict and other socio-political challenges.

To fully address this ‘nexus’, the assessment is considering interactions across scales, geographic regions and ecosystems. It also covers past, present and future trends in these interlinkages. And, most importantly, it will offer concrete options for responses to the crises that address the interactions of risk and damage jointly and equitably – providing a vital set of possible solutions for the more sustainable future we want for people and our planet.

One example of the mutifunctional solutions that will be explored is nature-based solutions – such as coastal wetland protection and restoration. When coastal wetland ecosystems are healthy – whether conserved or where necessary, restored – they are a refuge and habitat for biodiversity, improving fish stocks for greater food security and contributing to improve human health and wellbeing. They can also sequester carbon, helping to mitigate climate change, and protect adjacent communities and settlements from flooding and sea level rise.

To develop and implement these kinds of multi-functional solutions, responses for dealing with the major global crises need to be better coordinated, integrated, and made more synergistic across sectors, both public and private. Decision-makers at all levels need better evidence and knowledge to implement such solutions.

Work on the nexus assessment began in 2021 – with the final report expected to be considered and adopted by IPBES member States in 2024. A majority of the 170 expert authors and review editors from around the world are meeting in March in the Kruger National Park in South Africa to further strengthen the draft report, responding to the many thousands of comments received during a first external review period.

The assessment will also include evidence and expertise contributed by indigenous peoples and local communities – whose rich and varied direct experiences and knowledge systems that consider humans and nature as an interconnected whole have embodied a nexus approach for generations.

The Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the recently-agreed Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework provide the roadmaps for tackling the climate and biodiversity crises. The IPBES nexus assessment will offer policymakers a practical guide to bridge the vital interlinkages across the two challenges, to other relevant frameworks, and link to the sustainable development agenda.

For more information about IPBES or about the ongoing progress on the nexus assessment, go to www.ipbes.net or follow @ipbes on social media.

Prof. Paula Harrison is a Principal Natural Capital Scientist and Professor of Land and Water Modelling at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, United Kingdom.

Dr. David Obura is a Founding Director of CORDIO (Coastal Oceans Research and Development – Indian Ocean) East Africa, Kenya.

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A family take shelter on the roof of their small house. Due to climate change, incessant rainfall has flooded nearby houses. The photo was taken from Jatrapur Union in Kurigram District. Credit: Muhammad Amdad Hossain/Climate Visuals

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Feb 15 2023 (IPS)

As the effects of climate change escalate and natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and droughts become more frequent and severe, threatening lives and livelihoods, humanity is losing the climate battle.

A sharp decline in the variety and the number of both wild animals and species, severe food insecurities, high levels of malnutrition, disappearing streams, springs, and rivers in some areas, and dangerous rises in sea levels that threaten island nations are alerting the world to a climate-driven catastrophe.

Yet even as the world stares at unprecedented climate disasters, experts such as Hafez Ghanem caution that existing international institutions are not delivering on climate change mitigation and finance and are now calling for renewed efforts through the establishment of a Green Bank.

Hafez Ghanem says the creation of a Green Bank to solely address climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts is long overdue.

Ghanem, former regional Vice President of the World Bank Group and a current nonresident senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution, Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, and Distinguished Fellow at the Paris School of Economics tells IPS that “the creation of a Green Bank as a new international institution to solely address climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts is long overdue.”

“Everybody is looking at how to finance investments in climate change. The estimate is that USD 2 trillion is needed every year for countries in the global South alone to address climate change.”

Today’s development assistance, he says, is about USD 200 billion per year, “so we need to multiply that figure 10-fold and only use the funds for climate change and forget about critical social sectors such as health and education.”

Choosing the climate agenda over critical social sectors or vice-versa is a lose-lose situation because they are both matters of life and death. This has led world leaders to a critical crossroads.

To meet the climate financing gaps, Ghanem says many of the developed countries are asking existing multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank, to reform and invest more in climate change.

Ghanem says reforms within existing institutions will not work and recommends a different approach: the establishment of a singular international institution that concerns itself solely with climate-related matters. An institution that would be a repository for global knowledge on climate change and advice governments on climate policies.

He says a Green Bank would also develop green projects across the Global South and support their financing and implementation. As currently constituted, multilateral development banks are yet to open up space for Global South to be heard at the same level as those in the North.

At the World Bank, for instance, he says, the voting power is such that the G7 countries control 39.8 percent of the World Bank while other donors control another 14.9 percent.

“Despite the World Bank conducting most of its business in Africa, the largest ten African countries control only about 3.5 percent of its voting power. A development bank that is controlled by its borrowers is not a good idea; neither is a development bank where beneficiaries feel that they don’t have enough voice,” he expounds.

A waterfall is on the verge of drying out. High temperatures and prolonged droughts are blamed on the devastating impact of climate change. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Ghanem further emphasizes that the absence of the private sector will continue to curtail efforts to raise much-needed funds. “I believe that the Green Bank should be a public-private partnership where private corporations, foundations, and civil society organizations are invited to participate in its capital together with sovereign states.   I am calling for a tripartite approach where countries of the Global South have the same voice, same voting rights as those in the Global North and the private sector.”

The need to attract much-needed funds from the private sector cannot be over-emphasized, he says as it is now, “there is no voice from the private sector because the owners of, say, the World Bank and the African Development Bank are all sovereign states.”

The Green Bank would, therefore, primarily support private green investments through equity contributions, loans, and guarantees at the national, regional, or global level. The new institution would also free existing multilateral banks to direct scarce resources to social and development assistance.

This would significantly boost progress toward the delivery of critical social sectors services such as health and education, particularly in poorer, more vulnerable nations such as those classified as Least Developed Countries.

As such, the proposed Green Bank will not be in competition or opposition to existing multilateral banks but an instrument to partner with other institutions and complement their projects.

“Climate change is an external threat facing all of humanity, and all of humanity needs to unite to face it. But a major share of humanity and particularly the Global South lacks the necessary resources,” he says.

“There are many international meetings and summits at which resources are pledged, but the pledges are for much less than what is needed to deal with climate change. Moreover, not all pledges materialize as actual commitments and disbursements.”

As governments in the Global North face tighter budget constraints and competing interests, limiting their ability to provide much-needed finance for climate projects in the South even as climate catastrophes increase, Ghanem says a new approach in the form of a Green Bank that is a private, public partnership would be an important contribution to the solution.  You can read his full policy brief on the subject here.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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The world’s Least Developed Countries are in a race against time to deliver Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
UNITED NATIONS & NAIROBI, Feb 6 2023 (IPS)

It is a race against time to form a new global partnership to secure a better future for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable nations by 2030 in line with the UN’s SDGs. All 46 countries classified as Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are pressed for time in a bid to deliver critical development goals.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the biggest regional presence within the LDCs group. Countries in other regions include Afghanistan, Haiti and Bangladesh. All battling a common enemy and in dire, urgent need of a concerted global push to accelerate social, economic and environmental development.

With the  Istanbul Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries  (IPoA) implementation period completed, a new conference is being held in two parts. The first part of the Fifth UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) led to the adoption of the Doha Programme of Action (DPoA) in New York on March 17, 2022.

Sheikha Alya Ahmed S. Al-Thani. Credit: Twitter

The Permanent Representative of Qatar to the UN, Sheikha Alya Ahmed S. Al-Thani, told IPS that the second part of the conference will be held in Doha, Qatar, on March 5-9, 2023 and is “a unique opportunity for the LDCs, development partners, major groups, and other stakeholders to come together and build momentum for effective implementation of the Doha Programme of Action (2021-2030) and to make concrete commitments that will strengthen global and inclusive partnerships to meet the special needs of the LDCs.”

She further stressed that the conference is “a key moment for the international community to advance true development and recovery that works for all people and all countries and, therefore, reinvigorate global solidarity towards the LDCs. The State of Qatar has a proven track record of responding to the needs and challenges of the LDCs, and it will spare no effort to ensure the success of the Fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries.”

With an estimated combined population of 880 million people, translating to 12 percent of the world population, these countries are suffocating under severe structural impediments to growth. At varying levels, all 46 countries are characterized by issues such as poorly developed institutions, low saving rates, low literacy and school enrollment rates.

“I have heard it again and again that – to leave no one behind, we must start with that furthest behind – and for this aspiration to become a reality, the Doha Programme of Action for LDCs offers an excellent package. We all need to work together, to implement this programme of action – the LDCs, their partners and or friends and the UN system,” Rabab Fatima, UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the LDCs, LLDCs (Landlocked Developing Countries) and SIDs (Small Island Developing States) told IPS.

Rabab Fatima, UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the LDCs, LLDCs (Landlocked Developing Countries) and SIDs (Small Island Developing States). Credit: UN

LDC5 is, therefore, a critical once-in-a-decade opportunity to accelerate sustainable development in the places where international assistance is needed the most – and to tap the full potential of the least developed countries, helping them make progress on the road to prosperity.

As such, world leaders will gather with the private sector, civil society, parliamentarians, and young people to advance new ideas, raise new pledges of support, and spur delivery on agreed commitments, through the Doha Programme of Action. It is expected that leaders will also adopt a new Doha declaration.

“The Doha Programme of Action provides a blueprint for LDCs to overcome the impacts of ongoing global crises, to build sustainable and inclusive recovery from the pandemic, and to build resilience against future shocks – to get us back on track on the 2030 Agenda. This can only be fulfilled by strengthening our partnerships through South-South and Triangular cooperation,” Csaba Kőrösi, President of the UN General Assembly, told IPS.

DPoA is defined by six key focus areas, including investing in people, eradicating poverty and building capacity, supporting structural transformation as a driver of prosperity, enhancing international trade and regional integration, leveraging the power of science, technology and innovation, tackling climate change, COVID-19 and building resilience as well as mobilizing international partnerships for sustainable graduation.

Csaba Kőrösi, President of the UN General Assembly. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

It is firmly believed that the full implementation of DPoA will help the LDCs to address the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as well as the resulting negative socio-economic impacts, return to a pathway to achieve the SDGs, address climate change challenges, and makes strides towards sustainable and irreversible graduation.

Therefore, during the second part of the conference in Doha, it is expected that specific initiatives and concrete deliverables will be announced that will address LDC-specific challenges. Gathered leaders will undertake a comprehensive appraisal of the implementation of the Istanbul PoA.

Leaders will also mobilize additional international support measures and action in favour of LDCs and agree on a renewed partnership between LDCs and their development partners to overcome structural challenges, eradicate poverty, achieve internationally agreed development goals and enable graduation from the LDC category.

The heart of the conference is hence the recognition that global recovery is heavily dependent on extending much-needed support to LCDs. And that bold investments across all key sectors – particularly health, education and social protection systems – must be alive to the special development needs of the poorest, most vulnerable nations.

In all, the Office of the High Representative for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (OHRLLS) is the UN’s focal point for LDC5 Conference preparations.

The High Representative for Least Developed Countries will be the Secretary-General of the Conference. OHRLLS and the LDC Group have expressed their gratitude for Qatar, Turkey and Finland’s generous support to LDC5 preparations and welcome the contribution of all stakeholders for the success of the conference. – Additional Reporting: Naureen Hossain

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A wind energy generation plant located in Loiyangalani in northwestern Kenya. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By External Source
WASHINGTON DC, Jan 31 2023 (IPS)

Meeting our climate change goals will require massive investments in clean energy projects, in both advanced economies and across the Global South.  But financing projects in the latter group of countries requires an increase in foreign capital inflows that will be constrained by currency exchange rate risk. Creating an innovative Exchange Rate Coverage Facility can help to overcome this constraint.

Over the coming two decades, annual energy emissions across the Global South (not counting China) are currently projected to grow by 5 Gt.  Analysis by the International Energy Agency, the World Economic Forum and the World Bank shows that reversing this dynamic so as to meet the climate goals of the Paris Agreement, while also supporting the development needs of these countries, will require a four- to seven-fold increase in clean energy investments by 2030 from the current level of $150 billion.

If this currency risk cannot be overcome, it will be impossible to mobilize the level of foreign capital inflows that developing countries require to grow their energy systems with a low-emissions trajectory. This poses risks for both rich and poorer countries in the global effort to lower greenhouse gas emissions

Significantly, most of the needed clean energy projects provide domestic-oriented services (such as power from solar or wind power plants, public transit systems, building efficiency retrofit campaigns, electric vehicle charging stations). These generate local currency revenues.

Although much of the funding for these projects will come from domestic resources, the sheer magnitude of the required investment will necessitate significant amounts of foreign capital, potentially $180 billion or more per year by 2030.

Exchange rate risk (i.e., the potential that the local currency devalues relative to the foreign currency loan or other investment) is a major impediment to mobilizing large foreign capital flows for these projects (albeit, not the only one).

This risk translates into many problematic impacts. Notably, it increases the cost of capital, raises the financial liabilities of domestic stakeholders as their local currency depreciates, and, perhaps most significantly, constrains the level of foreign investment.

While currency hedging and other options exist (including specialized programs for developing countries), they can be expensive and are lacking for many Global South currencies, particularly at the long tenors, low cost and large scale required to support many clean energy investments.

If this currency risk cannot be overcome, it will be impossible to mobilize the level of foreign capital inflows that developing countries require to grow their energy systems with a low-emissions trajectory. This poses risks for both rich and poorer countries in the global effort to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

What to do to address this impediment? We propose an Exchange Rate Coverage Facility (ERCF), a blended-finance vehicle that would be funded by a combination of host country stakeholders, multilateral/bilateral development and climate agencies, and climate-engaged international capital.

The ERCF would be established as an offshore facility to absorb currency exchange risk on its balance sheet. It would issue guarantees protecting international lenders against this risk (see figure 1), while in parallel helping to insulate domestic sponsors from it. The Facility would pay any and all shortfalls between the value of contracted local currency (LC) payments and foreign currency (FC) debt repayments if the local currency (LC)depreciates relative to pre-defined  exchange rate .

Figure 1: Clean Energy Exchange Rate Coverage Facility Model

Under our proposed financing structure, the Facility would be a “blended finance” vehicle funded by the following :

(i) carbon credits generated by the clean energy project that are assigned to the Facility, which would cover “first loss”;

(ii) multilateral development banks (including guarantees counter-guaranteed by host countries), development finance institutions and other development/climate agencies, providing funding for defined subsequent losses; and

(iii) international capital, including philanthropies, sovereign wealth funds, and interested private institutions, covering “third loss”.

A fuller description of this facility is set out in the report: “Scaling Clean Energy Through Climate Finance Innovation: Structure of an Exchange Rate Coverage Facility for Developing Countries.”

Figure 2: The “Ladder” of Coverage for Local Currency Depreciation in the ERCF

The Facility could generate multiple benefits:

(i) catalyzing additional foreign financing for clean energy projects in developing countries;

(ii) lowering exposure of local project stakeholders to currency exchange rate shifts, thereby reducing prospect of tariff increases if the LC depreciates;

(iii) reducing the cost of foreign financing to clean energy projects;

(iv) facilitating scalability of coverage;

(v) supporting the growth of carbon credits projects and markets;

(vi) enabling funders to leverage financial impact through blended-finance structure; and

(vii) flexibility to include specialized windows (e.g., country-specific programs, including under the Just Energy Transition Partnerships being discussed with South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam and others).

To mobilize international capital flows in the magnitude required to achieve the dual objectives of sustained development and low emissions, there is a need for new financial tools.

The proposed blended-finance ERCF is being incubated as a solution to address currency exchange risk as part of the initiative on Mobilizing Investments for Clean Energy in Emerging Economies. Its proponents welcome interested organizations and individual experts to join forces on the implementation of a pilot Facility to facilitate increased funding for the global clean energy transition.

Authors: Philippe Benoit, Adjunct Senior Research Scholar, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University; Jonathan Elkind, Senior Research Scholar, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University; Justine Roche, Energy Initiative Lead, World Economic Forum

This piece was first published by the World Economic Forum

As the year 2022 drew to an end, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) warned, “Developing countries face ‘impossible trade-off’ on debt”, that spiralling debt in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) has compromised their chances of sustainable development.

Anis Chowdhury

Debt on the rise
Debt build-up accelerated in the wake of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis (GFC). The World Bank’s, Global Waves of Debt reveals that total (public & private; domestic & external) debt in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) reached an all-time high of around 170% of GDP ($55 trillion) – more than double the 2010 figure – by 2018, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Total debt in low-income countries (LICs), after a steep fall from the peak of around 120% of GDP in the mid-1990s to around 48% ($137 billion) in 2010, increased to 67% of GDP ($270 billion) in 2018.

Pandemic debt
The COVID-19 pandemic greatly lengthened the list of EMDEs in debt distress as rich nations and institutions dominated by them, e.g., the World Bank, failed to provide any meaningful debt reliefs or increase financial support to adequately respond to the health and economic crises.

The World Bank’s chief economist advised, “First fight the war [pandemic], then figure out how to pay for it”. The IMF’s managing director counselled, “Please spend, spend as much as you can. But keep the receipts”.

The World Bank’s International Debt Statistics 2022 reveals that the external debt stock of LMICs in 2021 rose to $9.3 trillion (an increase of 7.8% compared to 2020) – more than double a decade ago in 2010. For many countries, the increase was by double digit percentages.

Riskier debt
Over the past decade, the composition of debt has changed significantly, with the share of external debt owed to private creditors increasing sharply. At the end of 2021, LMICs owed 61% of their public and publicly guaranteed external debt to private creditors—an increase of 15 percentage points from 2010.

The private creditors charge higher interest rates, and offer little or no scope for restructuring or refinancing at favourable terms, as they maximise profit. The private creditors also usually offer credits for shorter duration, while development financing needs are for longer-terms.

Failed aid promises
Development needs of developing countries have increased many-folds, especially for meeting internationally agreed development goals, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and now Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The LMICs’ estimated aggregate investment needs are $1.5–$2.7 trillion per year—equivalent to 4.5–8.2% of annual GDP— between 2015 and 2030 to just meet infrastructure-related SDGs. But the rich nations spectacularly failed to honour their promises of finance made at the 2015 UN conference on financing for development (FfD) in Addis Ababa.

In fact, they failed all their past aid promises, e.g., to provide 0.7% of their gross national income (GNI) as aid, a promise made over half a century ago. While aid hardly reached half the promised percentage of GNI, it in fact declined from the peak of around 0.55% of GNI in the early 1960s to around 0.34% in recent years. Oxfam estimated 50 years of unkept promises meant rich nations owed $5.7 trillion to poor countries by 2020!

At their 2005 Gleneagles Summit, G7 leaders pledged to double their aid by 2010, earmarking $50 billion yearly for Africa. But actual aid delivery has been woefully short. G7 and other rich OECD countries also broke their 2009 pledge to give $100 billion annually in climate finance until 2020.

Promoting private finance
Meanwhile institutions dominated by rich nations – the World Bank and OECD, in particular – promoted private financing of development. The World Bank, the IMF and multilateral regional development banks, e.g. Asian Development Bank jointly released From billions to trillions, just before the 2015 FfD conference.

The document optimistically but misleadingly advised governments to “de-risk” development projects for enticing trillions of dollars of private capital in public private partnerships (PPPs). While de-risking effectively meant governments bearing financial risks, or socialise private investors’ loss, PPPs are found to have dubious impacts on SDGs, especially poverty reduction and enhancing equity.

Meanwhile the OECD donors advocated “blended finance” (BF) to use aid money to leverage, again trillions of dollars of private capital. But as The Economist noted, BF is struggling to grow, stuck since 2014 “at about $20 billion a year…far off the goal of $100 billion set by the UN in 2015”, despite suspected double counting. Like PPPs, BF has effectively transferred risk from the private to the public sector. On average, the public sector has borne 57% of the costs of BF investments, including 73% in LICs.

Collateral damage
In the wake of the GFC the rich countries followed so-called unconventional monetary policies that kept interest rates exceptionally low – in some cases at zero – for a decade. This saw capital flowing from rich countries to EMDEs in search for higher returns, as exceptionally low interest rates enticed EMDE governments and businesses.

The opportunity to borrow at low rates also made the EMDE governments lazy in their domestic revenue mobilisation efforts. Such policy complacency was rewarded by the donor community, especially the World Bank, through its now discredited Doing Business Report, encouraging a harmful race to the bottom tax competition among countries to cut corporate and other direct taxations. The World Bank and IMF also advised to remove or lower easier to collect indirect taxes, e.g., excise duties in exchange for regressive and difficult to implement goods & services or value-added tax in poorer countries.

Bleeding revenues
Meanwhile transnational corporations (TNCs) continue to avoid and evade paying taxes using creating accounting, aided by tax havens, mostly situated in rich nations’ territories. Developing countries lost approximately $7.8 trillion in illicit financial flows from 2004 to 2013, mostly through TNCs’ transfer mispricing, or the fraudulent mis-invoicing of trade in cross-border tax-related transactions.

African countries received $161.6 billion in 2015, primarily through loans, personal remittances and aid. But, $203 billion was extracted, mainly through TNCs repatriating profits and illegally moving money out of the continent.

International tax rules are designed by the rich nations. They continue to oppose developing countries’ demand for an inclusive international tax regime under the auspices of the UN.

Perfect storm
Global supply-demand mis-matches due to the pandemic, the Ukraine war and sanctions are a perfect recipe for a perfect storm. The advanced countries’ inflation fight is causing adverse spill-over on developing countries.

Higher interest rates have slowed the world economy, and triggered capital outflows from developing countries, depreciating their currencies, besides lowering export earnings. Together, these are causing devastating debt crises in many developing countries, similar to what happened in the 1980s.

In October 2022, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report estimated that 54 countries, accounting for more than half of the world’s poorest people, needed immediate debt relief to avoid even more extreme poverty and give them a chance of dealing with climate change.

Rich nations fail again
As pandemic debt distress became obvious, the G20 countries devised the so-called Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) for 75 poorest countries, supposedly to provide some modest relief between May and December 2020. DSSI does not cancel debt, but only delays re-payments, to be paid fully later with the interest cost accumulating – thus effectively “kicks the can down the road”. As the private lenders refused to join the G20’s initiative, unsurprisingly only 3 countries expressed interest in DSSI. Moreover, the G20 initiative does not address debt problems facing MICs, many of which also face debt servicing, including repayment issues.

Although the IMF acted innovatively at the start of the pandemic debt distress with debt service cancellation for 25 eligible LICs (estimated at $213.5 million), the World Bank’s Chief refused to supplement, let alone complement the IMF’s debt service cancellation for the most vulnerable LICs. Nonetheless, the Bank’s President hypocritically advocates debt relief as “critical”. He wants to have the cake and eat it too; apparently wanting to increase lending, but without sacrificing the institution’s AAA credit rating.

China debt trap diplomacy?
Meanwhile the rich nations accuse China of “debt trap diplomacy” that China is deliberately pushing loans to poorer countries for geopolitical and economic advantages. Less than 20% of LICs external debt is owed to China as against more than 50% to the commercial lenders.

Most Chinese loans are concessional, and China has provided more debt relief than any other country, bilaterally negotiating around $10.8 billion of relief since the onset of the pandemic.

Unsurprisingly, independent studies debunked the Western accusation. And China has emerged as a major source of development finance for poorer countries. A recent IMF study concluded, “Beijing’s foreign assistance has had a positive impact on economic and social outcomes in recipient countries”.

Damaging trade-off
Rising debt servicing in the face of higher import costs, falling export revenues and declining remittances, are forcing developing countries to a damaging trade-off. They are forced to service external debt owed to rich nations and international financiers at the cost of development.

For many African nations, the increased cost of debt repayments is the equivalent of public health spending in the continent, according to the UNCTAD. But, “No country should be forced to choose between paying back debts or providing health care”.

IPS UN Bureau

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