Credit: WHO

By Mary Assunta
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jun 9 2023 (IPS)

The second session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution (INC-2), held in Paris, France, from May 29 to June 02, 2023, concluded with optimism and the prospect of ending plastics pollution. Over 700 delegates from 169 Member States agreed to prepare a zero draft of agreement ahead of the third session in November this year.

Among the more important and interesting debates, health advocates attending the negotiations reported that it was essential to discuss “how to categorize the thousands of types of plastics, chemical precursors and products in a way that allows for a coherent approach to ending plastic pollution.

Some favoured focusing on the chemical precursors, eliminating the most toxic and polluting ones,” while others acknowledged that not every type of plastic could be recycled or reinvented, and certain plastics like cigarette filters need to disappear for good.

Leonce Sessou, speaking on behalf of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), Corporate Accountability (CA), African Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA), and other members of the Stop Tobacco Pollution Alliance (STPA), urged Member States to align the future legally binding instrument on plastics with the public health objective of ending the tobacco epidemic, to which most have already committed via the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

Tobacco control groups, for example, called for the elimination of cigarette filters. They drew attention to the fact that cigarette butts are some of the most prevalent forms of plastic pollution on the planet and harm land and marine ecosystems.

They reminded delegates to align with human rights and health treaties, particularly the WHO FCTC, and make the tobacco industry pay for its pollution and legacy waste. The WHO FCTC health treaty seeks to reduce the supply and demand for tobacco and protect health policies by keeping the tobacco industry out of policy meetings.

According to a WHO report which called for a ban on cigarette filters, about 4.5 trillion discarded filters (butts) from the almost six trillion cigarettes consumed globally find their way into the environment annually.

They are the top waste item collected from coastlines and urban settings. Cigarette filters are small enough to be ingested by marine animals, and when these plastic filters break down, they release thousands of microplastic particles.

Microplastics have been detected in commercial seafood, other food items, drinking water, and human tissue; this contamination is a threat to food safety and security.

Research shows cigarette butts are a source of microplastic contamination that creates chemical pollution (due to the toxic chemicals found in tobacco products) that leach into the environment. Cigarette butt leachates are found to harm various forms of aquatic organisms, including key food sources for fish and shellfish.

Experts agree that banning cigarette filters is the best solution to this plastic and toxic waste problem. Clean-ups, anti-littering legislation, and redesigning filters for recyclability or biodegradability have not worked and are not viable solutions.

Government committees from Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark have recently called for a ban on filters and recommended the same for the rest of the European Union Member States.

For at least five decades, the tobacco industry has known that cigarette filters provide no health benefits; instead, they make cigarettes burn hotter, deliver more nicotine, and increase addiction.

Yet they have misled smokers into thinking filters make cigarettes “safer.” As awareness around smoking increased, the tobacco industry made advertisements for filtered cigarettes more appealing to pacify smokers’ concerns.

Advocates participating in the INC-2 reported a lot of misunderstandings related to cigarette filters that are yet to be addressed. In its blog on day 5 of the negotiations, ASH stated, “Many people, not just people who smoke, assume filters make cigarettes safer rather than more dangerous.”

Numerous countries already have a national policy banning single-use plastics such as plastic bags, straws, and cotton buds but have inadvertently not included cigarette filters. However, advocates speaking to government delegates found widespread support for a ban on cigarette filters.

As the possibility of a cigarette filter ban gathers momentum, the tobacco industry’s public relations (PR) machinery is already in motion implementing beach cleans-ups and cigarette butt collection activities through its corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs across the globe.

Before the third session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution (INC-3) resumes in Nairobi in November, governments must remember that the tobacco industry is not a stakeholder but a polluter that must be held liable for the myriad harms it has caused as well as continues to cause to human health and the environment.

Over 100 non-governmental health organizations of the STPA, along with other environmental groups such as Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Ecowaste Coalition, Break Free From Plastic (BFFP), Ban Toxics (Philippines), Our Sea of East Asia Network (OSEAN), Development Indian Ocean Network, Earthday.org (Earth Day Network), Green Africa Youth Organization, Vietnam Zero Waste Alliance, and Boomerang Alliance have called for the elimination of cigarette filters.

Mary Assunta is Senior Policy Advisor, Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA)

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Thembeni Mkingofa, a woman living with HIV, visits the PMTCT section of the Makhume District Hospital, Zimbabwe. She has three children - 14, 10 and 2 who are all HIV negative. This is her fourth pregnancy. Her husband is also on HIV treatment. Here she is pictured with her two-year-old daughter, Hilda Chakiryizira. 5 November 2019. Credit: UNAIDS/C. Matonhodze

By Winnie Byanyima and Sir Michael Marmot
BRASILIA, Brazil, Jun 5 2023 (IPS)

The COVID-19 crisis has shone a light on the danger of pandemics; social crises have shone a light on the danger of inequalities. And the reality is that outbreaks become the pandemics they do because of inequality. The good news is that both can be overcome – if they are confronted as one.

Scientific and medical breakthroughs in the treatment and prevention of HIV should have brought us to the point of ending AIDS. Tragically, however, although the number of new HIV infections is falling fast in many countries, it is still rising in dozens of countries and the goal of ending AIDS by 2030 is in danger.

The reason: economic and social inequalities within countries and between them increase people’s risk of acquiring disease and block access to life-saving services.

Letting inequality grow is driving pandemics and prolonging emergencies that drain economies and health systems. This makes all of us vulnerable to the next pandemic, while placing entire countries and communities of people in harm’s way.

In too much of the world we see policy approaches which leave inequalities to widen, and even, in some cases, deliberately exacerbate inequalities.

On a global level when wealthy countries quickly invest billions in their own medical and social response, while leaving other countries so burdened by debt they have no fiscal space to do so, that undermines the world’s capacity to fight AIDS and pandemics.

During COVID-19 while wealthy countries poured in billions to protect their economies, reduce economic and social hardship and fight the pandemic, almost half of all developing countries cut health spending and about 70% cut spending on education.

Shanenire Ndiweni, has a consultation to receive pre-exposure prophylaxis at the Centre for Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Research Zimbabwe (CeSHHAR Zimbabwe) clinic, Mutare, Zimbabwe, 6 November 2019. Credit: UNAIDS/C. Matonhodze

Viruses do not respect borders, so when the vaccines, drugs, and tests intended to stop those viruses go to powerful countries in excess, while other countries have little or nothing and are held back from producing medicines themselves, that perpetuates pandemics everywhere.

Similarly, social and economic conditions that perpetuate pandemics in low- and middle-income countries present a global threat. Much as with COVID-19 the same has happened with the MPox virus.

In recent years twice as many people have died of MPox in the Democratic Republic of Congo as the entire rest of the world combined but, as of today, zero vaccines for MPox had been delivered to the DRC.

Social and legal determinants that make people vulnerable to pandemics must be tackled. Globally almost 5,000 young women and girls become infected with HIV every week. Dismantling barriers to sexual and reproductive health and rights services, investing in girls’ education, and combating gender-based violence to remove gender inequity is key to ending the AIDS pandemic and protecting women’s health.

Laws that criminalize and marginalize LGBT communities, sex workers and people who use drugs weaken public health approaches and prolong pandemics such as HIV. In sub-Saharan African countries where same sex relations are criminalized, HIV prevalence is five times higher among gay men and men who have sex with men than in countries where same sex relations are not criminalized.

Even within countries that are making substantial progress against HIV, advances may not be shared equally. Here in Brazil for example, HIV infections are falling dramatically among the white population as access to treatment is widened and new prevention tools such as PrEP are rolled out.

That shows what can be achieved; but HIV infections among the black population in Brazil are still on the rise. A similar story runs in the United States where gay white people are more likely to have access to good health care than gay black people.

We emphasize that it is not only access to health care that perpetuates these inequalities, but the social determinants that increase the risk of infection.

To overcome inequalities in accessing essential services, communities must be empowered to demand their rights. The AIDS movement is one of the best examples of how groups of people experiencing intersecting inequalities can unite to overcome them, leading to millions of lives being saved.

Successive Commissions on Social Determinants of Health have brought together evidence on how the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age are powerful influences on health equity.

To bring together these two strands of knowledge over the coming months we will be convening global experts from academia, government, civil society, international development and the creative arts to build a Global Council to advance evidence-based solutions to the inequalities which drive AIDS and other pandemics.

The council will unite experts from disparate fields of economics, epidemiology, law, and politics and will include ministers, mayors, and former heads of state, researchers and clinicians, health security experts, community leaders and human rights activists.

The work of the Global Council will harness essential evidence for policymakers. It will elevate political attention to the need for action. Most crucially, it will help equip the advocacy of the frontline communities fighting for their lives, with what they need to shift policies and power.

Appropriately, the Global Council is launching in Brazil. Whilst Brazil has exemplified the challenges of intersecting inequalities, Brazil’s social movements have been pioneers in confronting them, and Brazil’s new government under President Lula has committed to tackle inequalities in Brazil and worldwide.

To fight tomorrow’s pandemics, we need inequality-busting approaches to today’s pandemics. The world’s leaders now face a clear choice: stand by whilst the dangers mount or come together to tackle inequalities for a world that is not only fairer, but safer too.

Winnie Byanyima is the Executive Director of UNAIDS and an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. Before joining UNAIDS, she served as Executive Director of Oxfam International, a confederation of 20 civil society organizations working in more than 90 countries worldwide, empowering people to create a future that is secure, just and free from poverty.

They will launch the Global Council on Inequalities, HIV and pandemics in Brazil on June 5. The authors are founder members of the Global Council on Inequality, AIDS and Pandemics and are in Brazil for its announcement.

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Fake or substandard antimalarial medicines kill as many as 267,000 sub-Saharan Africans every year. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Jun 2 2023 (IPS)

There is a tangled trafficking web that has been woven across the Sahel, which spans almost 6.000 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, and is home to more than 300 million people in 10 countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal.

This is how several international specialised bodies, mainly the United Nations, depict the aggravated situation in this already highly fragile African region, which the UN describes as a region in crisis, as those living there are prey to “chronic insecurity, climate shocks, conflict, coups, and the rise of criminal and terrorist networks.”

The Sahel criminal web deals with an unimaginable range of ‘commodities’, from chilli peppers and fake medicine, to fuel, gold, and guns, through humans and more which are being trafficked via millennia-old trade routes crisscrossing the Sahel, according to a 20 May 2023 report.

The US-led military intervention

Security has long been an issue in the region, “but the situation markedly degraded in 2011, following the NATO-led military intervention in Libya, which led to the ongoing destabilisation of the country,” explains the United Nations.

On 19 March 2011, a US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization coalition (31 Western member-countries) launched a military intervention in Libya, with coordinated naval and air forces attacks mainly by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Canada, among others.

Substandard or fake medicines, like contraband baby cough syrup, are killing almost half a million sub-Saharan Africans every year, according to a threat assessment report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

Since then the big oil producer Libya has been the stage of growing instability and chaos, let alone a hub of human trafficking, smuggling and slavery.

Humans, weapons, oil…

Such “ensuing chaos, and porous borders stymied efforts to stem illicit flows, and traffickers transporting looted Libyan firearms rode into the Sahel on the coattails of insurgency and the spread of terrorism,” reports the UN.

Fuel is another commodity trafficked by the main players – terrorist groups, criminal networks, and local militias.

“Armed groups now control swathes of Libya, which has become a trafficking hub.”

In fact, in addition to massive human trafficking and migrant smuggling, markets across the Sahel can be found openly selling a wide range of contraband goods, from fake medicines to AK-style assault rifles.

… And medicines that kill

A UN News series exploring the fight against trafficking in the Sahel, on 27 May 2023 focussed on the illegal trade in substandard and fake medicines.

“From ineffective hand sanitiser to fake antimalarial pills, an illicit trade that grew during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is being meticulously dismantled by the UN and partner countries in Africa’s Sahel region.”

Substandard or fake medicines, like contraband baby cough syrup, are killing almost half a million sub-Saharan Africans every year, according to a threat assessment report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Trafficking medication is often deadly; in just one case, 70 Gambian children died in 2022 after ingesting smuggled cough syrup.

Desperate demand

According to the UN, health care is scarce in the region, which has among the world’s highest incidences of malaria and where infectious diseases are one of the leading causes of death.

“This disparity between the supply of and demand for medical care is at least partly filled by medicines supplied from the illegal market to treat self-diagnosed diseases or symptoms,” the report says.

It further explains that street markets and unauthorised sellers, especially in rural or conflict-affected areas, are sometimes the only sources of medicines and pharmaceutical products.

Fatal results

The study shows that the cost of the illegal medicine trade is high, in terms of health care and human lives.

“Fake or substandard antimalarial medicines kill as many as 267,000 sub-Saharan Africans every year. Nearly 170,000 sub-Saharan African children die every year from unauthorised antibiotics used to treat severe pneumonia.”

In the summer of 2022, 70 Gambian babies and young children died from kidney failure after ingesting cough syrup spooned out by their caregivers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a global alert that four tainted paediatric products had originated in India, as local health authorities continue to investigate how this tragedy unfolded.

Caring for people who have used falsified or substandard medical products for malaria treatment in sub-Saharan Africa costs up to 44.7 million US dollars every year, according to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates.

Corruption

Corruption is one of the main reasons the trade is allowed to flourish.

About 40% of substandard and falsified medical products reported in Sahelian countries between 2013 and 2021 land in the regulated supply chain, the report showed.

“Products diverted from the legal supply chain typically come from such exporting nations as Belgium, China, France, and India. Some end up on pharmacy shelves.”

The perpetrators

“The perpetrators are employees of pharmaceutical companies, public officials, law enforcement officers, health agency workers and street vendors, all motivated by potential financial gain,” the report found.

Traffickers are finding ever more sophisticated routes, from working with pharmacists to taking their crimes online, according to a UNODC research brief on the issue.

While terrorist groups and non-State armed groups are commonly associated with trafficking in medical products in the Sahel, this mainly revolves around consuming medicines or levying “taxes” on shipments in areas under their control.

Far beyond the Sahel and Africa

Fighting organised crime is a central pillar in the wider battle to deal with the security crisis in the region, which UN Secretary-General, António Guterres says, poses a global threat.

“If nothing is done, the effects of terrorism, violent extremism, and organised crime will be felt far beyond the [Sahel] region and the African continent,” Guterres already warned in 2022.

Apart from repeated proposals for action and solution, evidence shows that very little has been done, if anything, to halt those merchants of death. Who benefits from such a horrid destabilisation of 10 African countries which already rank among the poorest ones on Earth?

While poor maternal outcomes among Black women in the U.S. is not new, improving it is imperative. U.S. policymakers can look to sub-Saharan Africa for guidance on reversing this trend. Credit: Ernest Ankomah/IPS

By Ifeanyi Nsofor
ABUJA, Jun 2 2023 (IPS)

New research shows that Black mothers in the United States disproportionately live in counties with higher maternal vulnerability and face greater risk of preterm death for the fetus, greater risk of low birth weight for a baby, and a higher number of maternal deaths.

While poor maternal outcomes among Black women in the U.S. is not new, improving it is imperative. U.S. policymakers can look to sub-Saharan Africa for guidance on reversing this trend.

The problem of poor maternal health for Black women in the U.S. is dire. Too many Black women die during pregnancy and childbirth due to preventable causes. For instance, the 2020 maternal mortality data rates released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control showed overwhelming maternal deaths among Black women compared to other women over a 3-year period (2018 – 2020).

The 2020 maternal mortality data rates released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control showed overwhelming maternal deaths among Black women compared to other women over a 3-year period (2018 - 2020). To put it in context, maternal deaths among Black women in the U.S. is worse than African countries like Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.

To put it in context, maternal deaths among Black women in the U.S. is worse than African countries like Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.

Further, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, maternal and infant health disparities are symptoms of broader underlying social and economic inequities that are rooted in racism and discrimination.

In a previous piece, I wrote about the way that institutionalized racism is keeping Black Americans sick. Therefore, healthcare providers and policymakers across the U.S. must ensure respectful maternity care for all women during pregnancy, childbirth and afterwards.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights says respectful maternity care“encompasses respect for women’s basic human rights, including recognition of and support for women’s autonomy, dignity, feelings, choices, and preferences, such as choice of companionship wherever possible”.

Unfortunately, there is overwhelming evidence that Black American women face disrespect and profound indignity during pregnancy and childbirth. Tennis player and businesswoman Serena Williams almost died due to blood clots after giving birth because her nurse refused to listen to her cry for help. That clot could have led to a stroke. Her doctor eventually listened to her, and this saved her. If one of the most influential and most powerful women can have such a near-death experience, what is the fate of other Black American women who are not as privileged? Respectful maternity care is a way to ensure equity irrespective of class and race.

These are three lessons American policymakers can learn from successful maternal health projects across countries in sub-Saharan Africa as they try to save Black American lives.

First, is the continuum of care – prevention of postpartum hemorrhage project, implemented by Pathfinder International in Nigeria. It was a novel project that deployed several evidence-based interventions to prevent excessive bleeding after childbirth across the country.

These included the use of misoprostol to ensure adequate uterine contraction after the delivery of the baby; use of a plastic sheet with a pouch for blood loss estimation and active management of the third stage of labor to ensure the placenta is properly separated after the baby is delivered. These interventions led to a reduction in women who bled excessively after childbirth and improved the overall survival of women in participating health facilities.

For example, a new study on the efficacy of the plastic sheet carried out in 80 hospitals across 4 African countries, showed a reduction in the number of women experiencing severe bleeding by 60%.

A second example is the maternal nutrition program, implemented by Garden Health International in Rwanda. Adequate nutrition during pregnancy is imperative for the wellbeing of the unborn child.

The first 1000 days of life are even more crucial. Through the Maternal Nutrition curriculum, pregnant women are encouraged to attend antenatal classes at least four times in health facilities where they are educated on how to address the factors that can contribute to malnutrition. Women are taught how to prepare a balanced meal, the importance of hygiene and food safety in preventing malnutrition, the importance of the timely introduction of breastfeeding and complementary feeding, and postnatal care.

For instance, through the “one pot, one hour” cooking initiative, families are taught to use readily available foods to prepare nutritious meals is a core component of this program. Its success led to its adoption by the Rwandan Ministry of Health and it was implemented by 44,000 community health workers across the country.

A last example is the Kangaroo Mother Care for very low birth weight infants in South Africa. Very low birth weight infants are prone to hypothermia – a significant and potentially dangerous drop in body temperature.

According to the WHO, Kangaroo Mother Care involves infants being carried, usually by the mother, with skin-to-skin contact. If the mother is unable to fulfill the role, the father or other members of the family can take on the responsibility of skin-to-skin contact and provide warmth for the infant. A study of Kangaroo mother care of 981 very low birth weight infants admitted at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital over a six-year period showed increased weight gain, lower rates of complications of prematurity and low overall mortality.

A multi-country study by the World Health Organization showed that in Ethiopia, government leadership; an understanding by health workers that kangaroo mother care is the standard of care; and acceptance of the practice from women and families helped improve the implementation of kangaroo mother care.

Institutionalized racism over many decades has put Black Americans in the most vulnerable counties in the U.S. Health policymakers, healthcare providers, donors, non-profit organisations and all stakeholders involved in maternal healthcare in the U.S. must implement interventions that are shown to save lives. The African continent is a great place to look.

Dr. Ifeanyi M. Nsofor, MBBS, MCommH (Liverpool) is Senior New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute, Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at George Washington University, 2006 Ford Foundation International Fellow

Grow Food, not Tobacco. Credit: PAHO
 
On May 31, the World Health Organization (WHO) and public health institutions celebrated “World No Tobacco Day” (WNTD). This year’s theme was: “We need food, not tobacco”. WNTD was created by WHO Member States in 1987 to raise awareness about the harmful effects of tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 1 2023 (IPS)

The US has some of the strictest laws against smoking in public, including a 1997 executive order which bans smoking in all government federal buildings.

But still, the tobacco industry and its allies do not rest, says Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, Director of the Washington-based Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

Currently, they “spread a lot of misleading information that promotes, especially among young people, the use of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products”, he said, on the eve of World No Tobacco Day May 31.

According to PAHO, while the percentage of the population using tobacco in the Americas declined from 28% to 16.3% between 2000 and 2020, novel products and misleading information from the tobacco industry, especially targeting young people, threaten to undo those gains.

“Although eight countries in the region have banned the marketing of e-cigarettes and four of heated tobacco products, we are concerned that 14 countries have not yet taken any regulatory action in this regard,” he pointed out.

According to the latest statistics from PAHO, tobacco-use kills one million people per year in the Americas, one every 34 seconds.

In addition, 15% of cardiovascular disease deaths, 24% deaths from cancer and 45% of deaths from chronic respiratory diseases are attributable to tobacco use. In the region, 11% of young people use tobacco.

E-cigarettes are the most common form of electronic nicotine delivery. Their emissions contain nicotine and other toxic substances that are harmful to both users and those exposed to them.

To address the growing health threat posed by these products, the PAHO Director has called on countries to implement policies to prevent their use, especially among young people, as they can become the gateway to regular tobacco consumption.

Mary Assunta, Senior Policy Advisor, Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance, told IPS about 40 countries in the world have banned e-cigarettes while 70 countries which allow them have instituted restrictions on sales. For example, 36 countries regulate the amount (concentration/volume) of nicotine in e-liquids.

She said New Zealand, the Philippines and England, where e-cigarettes are sold more as recreational products, are facing a big problem with teenage vapers.

The Australian government has just announced a slew of strong measures to strictly regulate e-cigarettes after misinformation on the health effects of vaping helped hook children and young people.

E-cigarettes are meant to be sold by prescription only in Australia, said Assunta.

Yolonda Richardson, Executive Vice President of the Washington-based, Global Programs of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said this World No Tobacco Day, the WHO is calling for action against the tobacco industry’s human and environmental toll.

“Harming human and environmental health is pivotal to the business model of multinational tobacco companies like Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco. Millions of people die every year due to Big Tobacco’s profit-over-people model”.

She said low- and middle-income countries increasingly feel this burden, with 80 percent of tobacco-related deaths from diseases such as cancer, lung disease and heart disease projected to be in such countries by 2030. And the tobacco industry traps farmers with unsustainable crops and appropriates arable land to grow tobacco used for deadly products.

On this year’s World No Tobacco Day, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids joins the WHO in calling on governments to stand up to the tobacco industry’s exploitative practices and the devastating impacts of its deadly products.

One in 10 adult deaths around the globe are due to tobacco use. By holding the industry accountable and through the implementation of proven tobacco control measures, we have the power to protect future generations from tobacco-related death and disease, she noted.

“It is critical that governments act with urgency to address tobacco’s burden by passing the proven tobacco control interventions contained in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,” said Richardson.

Without urgent action, tobacco use will kill one billion people this century, lock tobacco farmers into a lifetime of poverty, and cause continued harm to the environment, she declared.

The United Nations which banned smoking in its 38-storyed Secretariat building in New York, back in 2016, says smoking is one of the biggest public health threats in the world today, killing millions of people from lung cancer, heart disease and other diseases.

All delegates, staffers and visitors to UN Headquarters are reminded of the strict no smoking policy mandated by the General Assembly in its resolution A/RES/63/8 and stipulated in ST/SGB/2003/9.　

A designated exterior smoking area is available in the South Garden and signs showing the shortest route from the Secretariat lobby and the General Assembly and Conference Building main areas have been posted.　

Since the entry into force of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2005, says PAHO, the region has made great strides in tobacco prevention and control. Currently, 96% of the population in 35 countries in the region is protected by at least one of the six recommended tobacco control measures.

In 2020, South America became the first 100% smoke-free sub-region – where there is a total ban on smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces, and on public transport.

Mexico also adopted the 100% smoke-free environment policy by the end of 2021 and banned all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. As a result, 63% of the population of the Americas – or more than 600 million people – are now protected from exposure to tobacco smoke.

In addition, in 2022, Paraguay ratified the Protocol to Eliminate the Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, which will boost regional efforts in this area.

“These achievements allow us to be confident that the region of the Americas will reach the target of a 30% reduction in the prevalence of tobacco use in those over 15 years of age by 2025, established in the WHO’s Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases,” Dr. Barbosa said.

But to expedite progress, the PAHO Director considered it “urgent to accelerate efforts to implement key measures that have fallen behind, including tax increases, a total ban on the advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco-products, and the adoption of mechanisms to manage conflicts of interest.”

LINKS:
• World No Tobacco Day – May 31, 2023
• WHO urges governments to stop subsidizing life-threatening tobacco crops
• Tobacco Control – PAHO
• Tobacco: E-cigarettes
• WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
• Report on Tobacco Control in the Region of the Americas 2022 (In Spanish)

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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.”

Credit: UNDP South Sudan

By Diana Gutierrez
UNITED NATIONS, May 31 2023 (IPS)

A few weeks ago we celebrated the Girls in ICT Day and I am wondering how can we keep moving the digital equality needle so that more women out of the 259 million that are disconnected today can log in and become creators and not only beneficiaries in the digital economy?

Digital technologies have permeated virtually every essential aspect of our lives. From the news we hear first thing in the morning, to school homework and connecting with our friends and family.

In just a matter of days after its launch Chat GPT had more than one million visitors and now is attracting close to 100 million users monthly. A few weeks ago, a group of industry leaders wrote an open letter to put a temporary halt to AI development for at least six months. They argue that AI technologies should be deployed under strict regulatory frameworks, be public and verifiable, just as medicines and vaccines are developed and released.

Undoubtedly AI and machine learning are a double edged-sword.

On the one hand, these technologies can help combat climate change. Agronovate in Nigeria designed a smart storage device which keeps fruits and vegetables fresh. In Morocco, Atlan Space is using AI to pilot drones collecting data and conducting surveillance missions to track environmental crimes. While in the Sahel region herders are using AI and satellite data to feed livestock with a pastoral surveillance system.

AI is also fighting the backlash against gender equality.

UNDP is using AI-based algorithms in Uruguay, the Philippines, Uganda and Colombia, to track social media, monitor gender hate speech and send signals to governments and civil society organizations.

It’s to protect women’s rights defenders, women politicians and women journalists who are increasingly experiencing cyberbullying and other forms of digital violence including doxing, trolling and flaming.

But AI has also a dark side that can deepen inequalities and cause harm, most notably for women. Women are increasingly exposed and entrapped by AI that produces deep fakes or digital images and audio that are artificially altered or manipulated by AI and deep learning to make someone do or say something they did not actually do or say.

Consequences can be devastating. In early March hundreds of sexual deepfake ads flooded Facebook and Instagram using Emma Watson’s face, a British actor and women’s rights advocate.

It is undeniable that gender biases are reproduced by AI technologies whose algorithms are trained by biased programmers shaped by discriminatory social norms, and this can have adverse results for example when women apply to credits that are awarded with AI-based credit scoring applications, or when they apply to a job that is typically done by men.

For better or for worse AI will shape the future of our world and we have not only to harness its power, but also to make sure we protect the furthest behind from potential adverse effects.

Here are some clues to achieve it.

First, we need robust legislative and regulatory frameworks capable of holding big tech companies accountable.

Second, tech companies need to further commit to addressing hate speech and gendered violence and keeping their platforms safe for everyone. Globally, 38 percent of women – that is close to one in four – have experienced online violence. The statistics are appalling and big tech companies, including Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft, need to be more responsible and accountable.

Third, the design of digital products including AI-based algorithms and the way they are trained must be gender equal by design and be guided by digital ethics principles. Technologies should be designed with users and address privacy and security, ensuring all people, but especially women and gender-based marginalized populations to be protected in digital spaces.

And fourth, we need more diversity in the tech industry. Big technology companies are making slow, but steady progress in increasing women’s participation not only across the career ladder, but also in technical roles. Large global technology firms, on average, reached nearly 33 percent overall female representation in their workforces and 25 percent in technical roles in 2022. Still a long way to go.

Digital innovation can be truly a game changer in our modern world and there’s so much female potential and talent out there to flip the script. Young innovators are already helping to redraw the future of AI with solutions that are addressing today’s most pressing problems.

UNDP firmly believes that women tech founders’ tailored support, dedicated acceleration programmes and increased access to capital is needed now more than ever. So we’re supporting thousands of women across the globe with flagship programmes such as the Arab Women Innovators Programme or the BOOST Women Innovators Programme in Europe and Central Asia.

Look at some of the most amazing stories of young women innovators supported by UNDP that are spearheading the field of AI for good.

Samar Hamdy (Egypt), co-founder of DevisionX and developer of Tuba.ai, a platform to label, train data and deploy AI-based applications with zero code; Mariam Torosyan (Armenia), CEO and founder of SafeYou, a mobile application designed to reduce gender-based violence through safety and community functions; Sara Saeed (Pakistan) CEO and co-founder of Sehat Kahani, a telehealth platform that connects a network of predominantly female health professionals to patients using a telemedicine application that allows real time and instant chat/audio/video doctor consultation, e-diagnostics, e-pharmacy, and health counselling; or Salua García (Colombia), co-founder of Symplifica, a tech startup with a mobile app that facilitates the formalization of domestic workers.

Let’s keep supporting girls in ICT, those young innovators that are redrawing the future of AI and bringing digital equality closer.

Diana Gutierrez is Manager UNDP Global Programme on Business for Gender Equality and Global Lead of Gender & Digital.

Source UNDP

IPS UN Bureau

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The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has now reported on the “Staggering’ rise in climate emergencies in the last 20 years.’ Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Baher Kamal
ROME, May 29 2023 (IPS)

Please stop repeating all this softened wording, such as climate change, climate-related hazards, climate crisis, or extreme weather events… And just call it what it really is: climate carnage.

Indeed, several scientific findings, released ahead of the 2023 World Environment Day (5 June), staggeringly indicate that the world-spread climate carnage is predicted to hit all-time records.

See: global temperatures are set to break records during the next five years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on 17 May 2023 alerted.

Warmest year ever

“There is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period, will be the warmest on record.”

It was baffling that nations were continuing knowingly to sow the seeds of our own destruction, despite the science and evidence that we are turning our only home into an uninhabitable hell for millions of people

Mami Mizutori, UNDRR chief

The world-leading meteorological body then informs that such a rise is fuelled by heat-trapping greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Niño weather pattern.

El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern associated with the warming of the ocean surface temperatures in the Central and Eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. It occurs on average every two to seven years, and episodes usually last nine to 12 months.

El Niño steers weather patterns around the world, WMO further explains, “can aggravate extreme weather events,” and its events are typically associated with increased rainfall in parts of southern South America, the Southern United States, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia.

“This year is already predicted to be hotter than 2022 and the fifth or sixth hottest year on record. 2024 could be even hotter as the impact of the weather phenomenon sets in.”

‘Staggering rise…’

Mind you: This WMO report is just an update that would be logically expected. Indeed, it actually adds to earlier reiterated findings about the worse to come.

For instance, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) has now reported on the “Staggering’ rise in climate emergencies in the last 20 years.’

According to its report, there has already been an 80% increase in the number of people affected by disasters since 2015.

Out of control

“However, many of the lessons from past disasters have been ignored.”

The consequences are that now a steadily increasing number of people are being affected by larger, ever more complex and more expensive disasters because decision-makers are failing to put people first and prevent risks from becoming disasters.

“Many of these disasters are climate-related, and in light of the latest warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), countries are likely to face even worse disasters if global temperatures continue to rise.”

“Brutally unequal”

The impacts are “brutally unequal,” with developing countries hit the hardest, as highlighted by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

Its report multi-country review points to the rapid accumulation of risk that is building up, intersecting with the risks of breaching planetary boundaries, biodiversity and ecosystem limits – which is spiralling out of control.

Not so new, anyway. Indeed the UNDRR chief, Mami Mizutori, reminded already at the end of 2020 that the international community pledged in Paris in 2015 to reduce global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

‘Uninhabitable hell…’

However, she added, “It was “baffling” that nations were continuing knowingly “to sow the seeds of our own destruction, despite the science and evidence that we are turning our only home into an uninhabitable hell for millions of people”.

One doesn’t have to look hard to find examples of how disasters are becoming worse, said Mami Mizutori. “The sad fact is that many of these disasters are preventable because they are caused by human decisions.”

The point is that already a year ago, the UNDRR warned that “by deliberately ignoring risk, the World is bankrolling its own destruction.”

But this should not be surprising: many fingers have been pointing to the responsibility of the short-sighted politicians, who are too often influenced by the powerful money-making business, that they end up turning a blind eye on such mass destruction.

Drought, heat “100 times more likely”

On 5 May 2023, the World Meteorological Organization reported that climate ‘change’ made both the devastating drought in the Horn of Africa and the record April temperatures in the Western Mediterranean at least 100 times more likely.

Regarding the Horn of Africa, it said that the drought was made much more severe because of the low rainfall and increased evaporation caused by higher temperatures in a world which is now nearly 1.2°C warmer than pre-industrial times.

Mediterranean heatwave

In late April, parts of Southwestern Europe and North Africa experienced a massive heatwave that brought extremely high temperatures never previously recorded in the region at this time of the year, with temperatures reaching 36.9 – 41 °C in the four countries.

“The event broke temperature records by a large margin, against the backdrop of an intense drought.”

“The intense heat wave came on top of a preexisting multi-year drought, exacerbating the lack of water in Western Mediterranean regions and threatening the 2023 crop yield.”

Spreading everywhere

Across the world, climate change has made heat waves more common, longer and hotter, reports WMO based on researchers’ analysis that looked at the average of the maximum temperature for three consecutive days in April across southern Spain and Portugal, most of Morocco and the northwest part of Algeria.

Crops under threat

As other analyses of extreme heat in Europe have found, “extreme temperatures are increasing faster in the region than climate models have predicted,” said the researchers.

Until overall greenhouse gas emissions are halted, global temperatures will continue to increase and events like these will become more frequent and severe.

“The intense heat wave came on top of a preexisting multi-year drought, exacerbating the lack of water in Western Mediterranean regions and threatening the 2023 crop yield.”

And the carnage goes on

In short, the ongoing climate carnage is expected to move from the worst to the worst.

And anyway, the term ‘carnage’ should not sound at all new.

Indeed, it was already spelt out by the United Nations’ top chief, António Guterres, in September 2022, following his field visit to the vast Pakistan’s regions impacted by unprecedented devastating floods.

The people of Pakistan are the victims of “a grim calculus of climate injustice”, said Guterres, reminding that while the country was responsible for less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is paying a “supersized price for man-made climate change”.

The UN chief stated that he saw in those regions “a level of climate carnage beyond imagination.”

By the way, do you expect that the coming COP28 in Dubai (November 30th-December 12th, 2023) will come out with anything different from the usual ‘politically correct,” “radical chic” statements?

Young women from the Brazilian state of Bahia attend an informational campaign which also hands out menstrual hygiene products. Poverty and the lack of adequate information on this subject affect millions of girls, adolescents and adult women. CREDIT: Government of Bahia

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, May 26 2023 (IPS)

Menstrual hygiene management is elusive for millions of poor women and girls in Latin America, who suffer because their living conditions make it difficult or impossible for them to access resources and services that could make menstruation a simple normal part of life.

“When my period comes, I miss class for three or four days. My family can’t afford to buy the sanitary napkins that my sister and I need. We use cloths for the blood, although they give me an uncomfortable rash,” says Omaira*, a 15-year-old high school student.

From her low-income neighborhood of Brisas del Sur, in Ciudad Guayana, 500 kilometers southeast of Caracas, she speaks to IPS by phone: “We can’t buy pills to relieve our pain either. And my period is irregular, it doesn’t come every month, but there are no medical services here for me to go and treat that.”

In Venezuela, “one in four women does not have menstrual hygiene products and they improvise unhygienic alternatives, such as old clothes, cloths, cardboard or toilet paper to make pads that function as sanitary napkins,” activist Natasha Saturno, with the Solidarity Action NGO, tells IPS.

“The big problem with these improvised products is that they can cause, at best, discomfort and embarrassment, and at worst, infections that compromise their health,” says Saturno, director of enforceability of rights at the NGO that conducts health assistance and documentation programs and surveys.

Campaigns that adult and young women have carried out in Mexico and Colombia demanding the right to menstrual health managed to get the authorities to eliminate the value added tax on essential feminine hygiene products. CREDIT: Nora Hinojo/UN Mexico

Universal problem, comprehensive approach

Is this a local, focalized problem? Not at all: “On any given day, more than 300 million women worldwide are menstruating.  In total, an estimated 500 million lack access to menstrual products and adequate facilities for menstrual hygiene management (MHM),” states a World Bank study.

“Today more than ever we need to bring visibility to the situation of women and girls who do not have access to and education about menstrual hygiene. Communication makes the difference,” said Hugo González, representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Peru.

UNFPA says there is broad agreement on what girls and women need for good menstrual health, and argues that comprehensive approaches that combine education with infrastructure and with products and efforts to combat stigma are most successful in achieving good menstrual health and hygiene.

The essential elements are: safe, acceptable, and reliable supplies to manage menstruation; privacy for changing the materials; safe and private washing facilities; and information to make appropriate decisions.

UNFPA’s theme this year for international Menstrual Hygiene Day, which is celebrated every May 28, is “Making menstruation a normal fact of life by 2030”, the target date for compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the international community at the United Nations.

United Nations Population Fund workers prepare packages of menstrual hygiene items for women from poor communities in Central America. The cost of some of these products makes them unaffordable for many families. CREDIT: UNFPA

The pink tax

Nine out of 31 countries in the region consider menstrual hygiene products essential, which makes them exempt from value added tax or reduced VAT, according to the study “Sexist Taxes in Latin America” ​​by Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

After a “Tax-free Menstruation” campaign, in 2018 Colombia became the first country in the Americas to eliminate VAT – 16 percent – on menstrual hygiene products. Its neighbor Venezuela still charges 16 percent VAT, and Argentina, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay charge VAT between 18 and 22 percent on such products.

Colombia was joined by Ecuador, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico – where street demonstrations were held against charging VAT on menstrual products – Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Other countries have reduced VAT, such as Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay and Peru, while in Brazil VAT differs between states and averages 7 percent.

The so-called “pink tax” obviously affects the price of menstrual hygiene products such as disposable and reusable sanitary pads and menstrual cups, which becomes especially burdensome in countries with high inflation and depreciated currencies, such as Argentina and Venezuela.

According to the average price of the cheapest brands, ten disposable sanitary pads can cost just under a dollar in Mexico, 1.50 dollar in Argentina or Brazil, 1.60 dollar in Colombia, Peru or Venezuela, and almost two dollars in Costa Rica.

“It’s an important problem,” Saturno points out, “in a country like Venezuela, where the majority of the population lives in poverty and the minimum wage – although it has been increased with some stipends – is still just five dollars a month.”

Adult women, young women and girls participate in a session to share information and experiences organized by the Colombian association Menstruating Princesses, which emphasizes the importance of education to combat taboos and make menstruation a normal, stress-free experience. CREDIT: Menstruating Princesses

Hostile environment, scarce education

“If you often can’t buy sanitary pads, that’s the smallest problem. The worst thing is the shame you feel if you go to work and the cloth fails to keep your clothes free of blood, or if you catch an infection,” Nancy *, who at the age of 45 has been an informal sector worker in numerous occupations and trades in Caracas, told IPS.“Poverty causes women and adolescent girls to miss days of secondary school or work because they do not have the supplies they need when they menstruate. It becomes a vicious circle, because their academic or work performance is affected, hindering their chances of developing their full potential and earning a better income.” -- Natasha Saturno

The mother of four young people lives in Gramoven, a poor neighborhood in the northwest of the capital. Her two unmarried daughters, ages 18 and 22, have had experiences similar to Nancy’s on their way to school, in the neighborhood, on the bus, and on the subway.

“The thing is, the period is not seen as something natural, boys and men see it as something dirty, at work they sometimes do not understand that if you are in pain you have to stay at home,” said Nancy. “And when you work for yourself, you have to go out no matter what, because if you don’t go out, no money comes in.”

Saturno says that “poverty causes women and adolescent girls to miss days of secondary school or work because they do not have the supplies they need when they menstruate.”

“It becomes a vicious circle, because their academic or work performance is affected, hindering their chances of developing their full potential and earning a better income,” she adds.

But the problem “goes far beyond materials, it does not end just because someone obtains the products; it includes education and decent working conditions for women,” psychologist Carolina Ramírez, who runs the educational NGO Menstruating Princesses in the Colombian city of Medellín, tells IPS.

For this reason, “we do not use the term ‘menstrual poverty’ and speak instead of menstrual dignity, vindicating the need for society, schools, workplaces and States to promote education about menstruation and combat illiteracy in that area,” says Ramírez.

To illustrate, she mentions the widespread rejection of using tampons and cups “because of the old taboo that the vulva shouldn’t be touched, that the vagina shouldn’t be looked at,” in addition to the fact that many areas and communities in Latin American countries not only lack spaces or tools to sterilize products but often do not have clean water.

A concern raised by both Saturno and Ramírez is the great vulnerability of migrant women in the region – which has received a flood of six million people from Venezuela over the last 10 years, for example – in terms of menstrual and general health, as well as safety.

Another worrying issue is women in most Latin American prisons, which are unable to provide adequate menstrual hygiene, since they do not have access to disposable products or the possibility to sterilize reusable supplies.

Throughout the region, “greater efforts are required to break down taboos that violate fundamental rights to health, education, work, and freedom of movement, so that menstruation can be a stress-free human experience,” Ramírez says.

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the interviewees.

Excerpt:

By Kirsten Stade
ST PAUL, Minnesota, USA, May 25 2023 (IPS)

A new study estimates that global heating will push billions of people outside the comfortable range of temperature and weather in which we have evolved.

While coverage of the study notes that rapid emissions cuts could greatly reduce the number of people forced to live amid unprecedented extremes, it fails to mention the obvious: that reducing our population would have the same effect.

Not long ago, the idea that human population growth drives both human suffering and environmental decline was considered common sense. That changed in the 1990s in the wake of several egregious population control programs, ranging from China’s one-child policy to forced sterilizations in China, India, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere.

Today, the mere mention of population growth in connection with environmental protection or human well-being gets demonized as “neo-Malthusian” or “eugenicist” – notwithstanding the fact that the vast majority of efforts to lower fertility, whether to alleviate poverty or to reduce pressure on resources, have been rights-based and voluntary.

What is most troubling about this mischaracterization is that it deflects attention from the enormous violations of reproductive rights that occur in the name of increasing reproduction.

Pronatalism — the social pressures, religious doctrine, and government policies designed to induce people to have more children – has long been the most prevalent form of reproductive coercion.

Impressed upon people by family members, religious leaders, and politicians pursuing racist, nationalist, military, and/or economic agendas, pronatalism shows up through abortion bans and alarmist messaging that promotes childbirth for certain ethnic groups. The common thread is treating people as reproductive vessels for external agendas.

Over 218 million women worldwide who want to avoid pregnancy have an unmet need for contraception. This troubling reality is the result of both simple unavailability of contraceptives, and of deep-seated pronatalist attitudes–often held by husbands and other family members- that make it impossible for women to use them.

When women are expected to produce large families regardless of their own wants, pronatalism not only denies their reproductive autonomy; it also worsens poverty and damages the environment. A new study by the Swedish Research Council debunks the stubborn misconception that population growth has a negligible effect on climate change since it’s concentrated in low-consumption countries.

In fact, the study finds, population growth is the biggest driver of carbon emissions and is canceling out emissions reductions made through renewables and efficiency. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), population growth is one of the “strongest drivers of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in the last decade.”

Population growth and resultant agricultural expansion drive water scarcity, soil depletion, deforestation, land degradation, and damage to ecosystems that humans depend on. The connection between population growth and environmental impacts is clear, yet frequently denied, and this denial has real consequences.

Since addressing population growth fell out of favor in the 1990s, international funding for family planning declined 35 percent and falls far short of meeting global need.

Population denialism is reminiscent of climate denialism in its disregard for science and its failure to acknowledge the suffering of millions. Population deniers invoke Malthus and Margaret Sanger to invalidate population concerns by associating them with infamous sources, while ignoring unimpeachable ones like the IPCC.

While Malthus’ doomism and Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb failed to foresee new agricultural technologies that averted the famine and population crash they predicted, population denialists make the opposite mistake.

They adhere to a cornucopian faith that technology will magically solve our problems, and assume that new low-carbon energy sources and unproven interventions like carbon capture will fix everything.

They won’t.

In fact green tech raises serious environmental and social problems of its own. Solar and wind energy and the infrastructure for transmitting the power they generate requires far more land area than fossil fuel plants, with consequences for wildlife and its habitat. Lithium-ion batteries in electric cars and e-bikes use cobalt mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by low-wage workers subjected to toxic dumping and en masse displacement.

Population deniers are rightly concerned with equitable development of the world’s impoverished regions, but development will mean more emissions, more water use, more habitat destruction.

If current trends continue, the global middle class is projected to reach 5 billion by 2030. To enable all people to attain a reasonable standard of living without further straining natural systems, we must make access to family planning for all people a matter of urgent international concern.

The good news is that doing so reaps rewards not only for the planet but for human well-being. In every culture where fertility rates have declined, even staggering government investment in pronatalist incentives is insufficient to compel women to go back to the high birth rates they have left behind – an indication that women have a latent wish for low fertility.

This suggests that the path forward lies in acknowledging both the human and environmental toll of high birth rates and resultant population growth, and giving women the universal, free access to contraceptives and abortion care that will enable them to realize their reproductive wishes.

Kirsten Stade is a conservation biologist and communications manager of the NGO Population Balance

IPS UN Bureau

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Manou Gounou, a volunteer trainer for food security, stands with a moringa plant at Gbegourou Epicenter in Benin in 2021. The moringa plant is highly nutritious and The Hunger Project is a strong advocate for its use in communities throughout Africa.

By Elodie Iko
PORTO-NOVO, Benin, May 24 2023 (IPS)

This upcoming weekend, on May 28, we are commemorating World Hunger Day. The day serves as a reminder that more than 800 million people around the world are living with hunger and malnutrition. That number is staggering, but there is hope.

World Hunger Day also celebrates the fact that hunger can end. We can create sustainable food systems, to ensure that everyone has access to nutritious and affordable food, both now and in the future.

I see it every day in my role as the Country Director of The Hunger Project-Benin.
So, what does it take? In my experience, the single greatest change that a community can make to end hunger and improve nutrition is a shift in mindset around gender equality.

In Benin, in West Africa, the government has put in place many policies to improve access to drinking water and sanitation, improve healthcare and increase access to nutritious food.

Yet high child mortality and morbidity rates reveal the existence of important underlying factors that catalyze malnutrition, but are generally minimized in policymaking. One of these factors is gender inequality.

When looking at the distribution of resources and responsibilities in the household, particularly between men and women, the negative influence of gender inequality on household nutrition becomes quite evident.

In our patriarchal society, men are seen as the heads of households. They have the social responsibility of making resources available to the household to provide meals. It is expected that women then use these resources to ensure household nutrition.

In today’s world, where the price of food and agriculture inputs has skyrocketed, feeding a family is becoming challenging for many. It is often falling to women to find extra sources of income to guarantee their family has food, though many face barriers like a lack of education, lack of resources and little time due to household tasks, like childcare, fetching water, and tending to livestock.

Though she may be the one closing the gap and ensuring the family has food on the table, in the service of the meal, both in quantity and in quality, priority is given to men. Women usually ensure that others have eaten first.

They then eat what is left, which often does not meet their daily nutritional needs, particularly for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding. Undernutrition and hidden hunger have specific consequences for the health and safety of women and girls, as they increase the risk of life-threatening complications during pregnancy and childbirth, weaken their immunity to infections, and reduce their learning potential. This is how malnutrition becomes multi-generational.

These are the challenges we face in our work to end hunger. They are deeply entrenched societal norms but they can change.

At The Hunger Project, we work with women and men, girls and boys to identify these mindsets and shift them. A proven way to overcome many systematic barriers to a woman’s success has been increased participation by women in local, regional and national legislation as empowered change agents.

So, we work with women to take on leadership roles in the community and raise their voices in public settings to demand change and accountability. Over 38,600 women and 28,000 men in 22 communities in Benin have undergone training in Women’s Empowerment.

Over 3,000 community leaders (about 50/50 women to men) have been trained to conduct THP’s Women’s Empowerment workshops in their communities, guaranteeing that the work to shift mindsets can continue even after The Hunger Project leaves a community.

We also facilitate women’s entrepreneurship and literacy courses, so that women have the agency and confidence to start and manage a business. Since 2008, over 32,500 women have gone through THP training on income generation in Benin. Through these trainings, women are able to increase their incomes to purchase nutritious foods for themselves and their families.

We are working with these local leaders to re-envision the local food system to make it work for the millions of women living with chronic hunger and malnutrition, so that they can break the cycle of malnutrition among women and girls.

This includes working with communities to plant diverse household gardens with nutritious staple foods, investments in infrastructure to process these foods adequately to preserve their nutritional value, and strong local distribution channels that ensure availability of nutritious foods throughout the year.

Women are key to ending hunger and breaking the cycle of malnutrition. To do so, they need an enabling environment around them and a belief in themselves that they can create a future for themselves and their families.

Elodie Iko became the Country Manager for The Hunger Project-Benin, in 2022. She has over 15 years of professional experience in the field of development and management of projects and human resources, with a specific focus on gender and women’s empowerment. Elodie joins the team having worked for Plan International Benin as a Gender and Inclusion Advisor. Prior to that, Elodie worked for The Hunger Project-Benin from 2013 to 2020, first as a gender program officer, then adding inclusive finance, the coordination of the ‘’Her Choice’’ program against child marriage and ”leadership and governance in the epicenters of THP-Benin” program to her responsibilities. Her creativity and collaboration on these and other projects have worked to improve the status and position of women/girls, and thereby, strengthen gender inclusion and equality across Benin.

Founded in 1977, The Hunger Project is a global non-profit organization whose mission is to end hunger and poverty by pioneering sustainable, community-led, women-centered strategies and advocating for their widespread adoption in countries throughout the globe. The Hunger Project is active in 23 countries, with global headquarters based in New York City.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But poor rural settlements have not stood idly by.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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Credit: UNESCO

By Yasmine Hamdar, Keyzom Ngodun Massally and Gayan Peiris
UNITED NATIONS, May 16 2023 (IPS)

From ChatGPT to deepfakes, the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) has recently been making headlines. But beyond the buzz, there are real benefits it holds for advancing development priorities.

Assessing countries’ AI readiness as one of the first steps towards adoption can help mitigate potential risks.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to benefit society in manifold ways. From using predictive analytics for disaster risk reduction to leveraging translation software to break down language barriers, AI is already impacting our daily lives.

Yet, there are also negative implications, especially if proactive steps are not taken to ensure its responsible and ethical development and use.

Through an AI Readiness Assessment, UNDP is making sure countries are equipped with valuable insights on design and implementation as they progress on their AI journey.

The intersection between AI, data and people

AI-powered tools on the market are often touted based on their benefits – not their shortcomings. However, as seen with the latest example of ChatGPT, questions around responsible and ethical use become important.

As highlighted in UNDP’s Digital Strategy, by design, technology must be centred on people. Digital transformation, including AI innovations, must be intentionally inclusive and rights-based to yield meaningful societal impact.

For instance, whilst governments can leverage AI to improve public service delivery, consideration must be given to various layers of inclusion to ensure everyone can benefit equally.

AI models rely on data to function. The quality of data that gets fed into a model determines the quality of its outputs – a classic representation of the ‘garbage in, garbage out’ axiom.

In fact, the lack of quality data may even exacerbate bias and discrimination, particularly against vulnerable groups – pushing them further behind.

Therefore, the degree of accuracy, relevance, and representativeness of a data set will impact the reliability and trustworthiness of results and insights the data is informing.

Digital public infrastructure, as an interoperable network of digital systems working together, is important for enabling timely and reliable data flows. This is pertinent, for instance, in responding to crises, when access to accurate and up-to-date information is needed to inform responsive programming and decision-making.

Without such digital infrastructure, data flows may be disrupted, or the data available may be inaccurate or incomplete.

Supporting countries on their AI journey

There is strong interest amongst UN Member States in adopting AI-powered technologies to improve people’s lives by providing better services.

But as the benefits and risks of these technologies are uncovered, the need for an ethical data and AI governance framework, improved capacities and knowledge has become equally relevant.

The ‘Joint Facility’ is an initiative launched by UNDP and ITU to enhance governments’ digital capacity development, including in harnessing AI responsibly.

UNDP is assisting countries such as Kenya, Mauritania, Moldova and Senegal in developing data governance frameworks to promote the use of data for evidence-based decision making.

Also under development is a ‘Data to Policy Navigator’ that is being created by UNDP and the BMZ’s Data4Policy Initiative. The Navigator is designed to provide decision-makers with the knowledge they need to integrate new data sources into policy-development processes. No advanced or prior knowledge of data science is needed.

UNDP, along with UNESCO and ITU, is also part of a United Nations Inter-Agency Working Group on AI, where the goal is to share collective learnings and best practices for other countries’ benefit.

The group has developed recommendations on AI Ethical Standards, which include key aspects of international and human rights regulations around the right to privacy, fairness and non-discrimination, and data responsibility.

Countries are at different stages of their AI journey, and careful assessment is needed to determine the appropriate digital infrastructure, governance and enabling community that may be required based on their unique needs and capabilities.

To this end, UNDP, along with Oxford Insights, designed an AI Readiness Assessment as a first step that can help countries better understand their current level of preparedness and what they may need moving forward as they seek to adopt responsible, ethical and sustainable AI systems.

The AI Readiness Assessment

The AI Readiness Assessment comprises a comprehensive set of tools that allow governments to get an overview of the AI landscape and assess their level of AI readiness across various sectors.

The framework is focused on the dual roles of governments as 1) facilitators of technological advancement and 2) users of AI in the public sector. Critically, this assessment also prioritizes ethical considerations surrounding AI use.

The assessment highlights key elements necessary for the development and implementation of ethical AI, including policies, infrastructure and skills.

These aspects are important for countries to consider as AI-powered technologies are implemented at population scale to help meet national priorities and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

The assessment employs a qualitative approach, utilizing surveys, key informant interviews, and workshops with civil servants to gain a more in-depth understanding of the AI ecosystem in a country.

In doing so, it offers governments valuable insights and recommendations on how to go about effective and ethical implementation of AI regulatory approaches, including how AI ethics and values may be integrated into existing frameworks.

Importantly, the assessment is a UN tool that is globally applicable and available for use, particularly for governments at any stage of their AI journey.

Staying ahead

UNDP is committed to the ethical and responsible use of AI. To avoid shortcomings, an AI system should be built with transparency, fairness, responsibility and privacy by default.

More AI-powered innovations are expected to emerge in years to come, and it is critical that we take proactive measures to ensure that their potential benefits and risks are evaluated through a people-centred approach.

Like ChatGPT, efficiency of a digital tool does not necessarily mean its design and functions are ethical and responsible. Having a framework to thoroughly assess the benefits and risks is key.

As these innovations evolve, so must governments’ mindset on AI. The AI Readiness Assessment is part of an effort to promote a proactive governance approach to digital development to ensure countries are informed, prepared and staying ahead when it comes to AI.

Yasmine Hamdar is AI Policy Specialist, UNDP Chief Digital Office;
Keyzom Ngodup Massally is Head of Digital Programming, UNDP Chief Digital Office;
Gayan Peiris, Head of Data and Technology, UNDP Chief Digital Office

To learn more about the AI Readiness Assessment, please contact us at digital.support@undp.org.

The authors would like to thank Dwayne Carruthers, Communications Specialist, for his support.

Source: UN Development Programme (UNDP)

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Participants in the 11th Global South-South Development Expo 2022. Credit: ESCAP / Louise Lavaud

By Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, May 15 2023 (IPS)

Asia is the fastest growing and most dynamic region of the world according to a recent IMF Report; “Recovery Unabated Amid Uncertainty”. ¹

Asia and the Pacific will contribute around 70 percent of global growth this year as expansion accelerates after Covid-19 supply chain disruptions, with ongoing geopolitical turmoil and war in Europe, as well as, various hybrid over the horizon cyber and kinetic attacks targeting Indian Ocean ports and shipping.

Global economic expansion would be significantly powered by the BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, as well as the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), group that includes Indonesia.

A series of Exogenous Economic Shocks over the past four years, from terror attacks to Covid-19, and ‘climate catastrophe’ policy-mistakes, such as an overnight switch to organic fertilizer, temporarily set back the rise of these ‘emerging economies’ of the Global South on the world stage.

They are now increasingly set to lead a rebound in a Multipolar ‘Asian 21st Century’ as Euro-American hegemony wanes.

Asian Giants, China and India, have huge populations, domestic markets, resources and the civilizational weight to lead global expansion. In the West, growth is poised to decelerate as rising interest rates, trillion-dollar deficits and military budgets weigh, with Inflation high, and banking strains in the United States and Europe.

Asia Pacific growth would increase to 4.6 percent despite the somber backdrop of war and economic weakness elsewhere in the world according to the IMF report.

Strategic Sri Lanka, which staged its first sovereign Default, loosing economic policy autonomy to the Washington Twins (IMF and World Bank), ironically on the eve of 75 years of Independence, clearly needs to look to Asia and the BRICS as Cold War and Colonialism once again roil the Indian Ocean World with nuclear submarines and military bases popping up a dime a dozen these days.

Four new US bases in the Philippines were announce just last month. The country after all is a bell weather for more than fifty other Global South countries caught in post-Covid-19 Eurobond debt traps, and the Washington Twins (World Bank and IMF) ‘bailout business’.

BRICS back on Track as Empires Rise and Fall

The BRICS was strengthened with the return of President Lula da Silva to the helm in Brazil in January. These powerhouse economies are increasingly trading in their own national currencies, promoting a trend to de-dollarization that has gathered steam in the context of US debt of $ 31 trillion and sanctions on Russia last year.

The search is on for alternatives to the US dollar as the global reserve currency as the BRICS economies had outstripped the traditional economic heavyweights – the G-7.

The New Development Bank (NDB) or BRICS bank which is a multilateral development bank established by the BRICS in 2014 to finance infrastructure and sustainable development projects in the developing world is expanding at this time with Iran and Saudi Arabia set to join amid a recent China brokered peace deal to stabilize Yemen and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The NDB launched with $50 billion in seed money as an alternative to the IMF and WB. Additionally, a liquidity mechanism called the Contingent Reserve Arrangement to support members struggling with payments was created. In 2021, Egypt the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay and Bangladesh took up shares and membership of NDB while Egypt, Algeria, and Argentina, as well as, Mexico and Nigeria are in the pipeline. ²

Nineteen countries including Indonesia had expressed an interest in joining the BRICS group of nations as it prepares to hold an annual summit in June in South Africa, which is now struck by sabotage and power-cuts

De-dollarize to decolonize

Saudi Arabia’s petro-dollar linked oil reserves had stabilized the US dollar as the Global Reserve currency for decades, but this is changing with talk of the Petro Yuan and related geopolitical developments. In the wake of the Iran-Saudi peace agreement, Syria rejoined the Arab League after a 12-year long US led regime change operation failed against Bashar al Assad.

These movements perhaps explain some of the new Cold War proxy wars and turmoil in MENA and South Asia–from Sudan, to Palestine/Israel, to Afghanistan and Pakistan as the Euro-American empire wanes at this time.

Remarkably Argentina, South America’s 2nd largest economy after Brazil, seeking alternatives to the IMF has applied for membership of the NDB. Argentina, victim of the Monroe doctrine for decades is on its 22nd IMF bailout and 9th default, as Buenos Aires was again rocked by anti-IMF protests last month.

The NDB along with the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), increasingly constitute a Global South alternative to the Washington Consensus and colonial Club de Paris dominated Bretton Woods International development and finance architecture.

Bankrupt by what metric? Beyond The myth of TINA to the IMF

Sri Lanka as an Asian country would best leverage the Asian 21st Century and the NDB, but Colombo’s Washington-backed Ranil Rajapakse regime that is responsible for the country’s first sovereign default had promoted two myths, that “Sri Lanka is Bankrupt” and “there is no alternative” (TINA) to the IMF agenda, of austerity and a Firesale of strategic assets!

Last year upon assuming office the President promised Famine and 15-hour power cuts, in a psychological operation to spread fear, and prepare the people for an IMF Firesale and the country’s asset stripping.

However, the famine and 15-hour power cuts did not materialize also given plentiful monsoon rains for hydro-power generation as the weather gods miffed the Cold War gods.

The question is: by what metric and on whose Data was the strategic county that sits on major energy, trade and undersea data cable routes deemed ‘bankrupt’? As one of South Asia’s (SAARC) wealthiest countries in terms of GDP per capita with the best social and human development indicators, Former US Ass. Secretary of South and Central Asia Alice G. Wells termed the lush and fertile tropical island, blessed with two monsoons and extensive marine and mineral resources “valuable real estate”! Others have called it an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier.’

Whether a shortage of exorbitantly privileged US dollars is adequate to measure the ‘wealth of nations’ also given America’s 31 trillion debt is not a rhetorical or philosophical question to elicit yet another theory of value.

Rather, it flags here the failure by the Washington Consensus to make an elementary distinction between ‘illiquidity’ and ‘insolvency’ in determining the purported bankruptcy of Global South countries caught in the World Bank’s Middle Income Country (MIC) trap, to enable a Firesale of strategic assets. Does this not rather reflect great moral and intellectual bankruptcy?

Re-Orient to de-colonize in a Multipolar World

As the Asian 21st Century becomes a reality in a multipolar world where the BRICS economies have overtaken the traditional G-7 countries as the world’s engine of growth, Sri Lanka caught in a Eurobond US dollar denominated debt trap clearly needs to ReOrient as German sociologist and world systems theorist Andre Gunder Frank wrote in his acclaimed book; “ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age” (1998).

Much of Frank’s analysis finds resonance in a more recent book by Kishore Mahbubani, Former President of the United Nations Security Council, titled the Asian 21st Century.

In the context, Sri Lanka would best ban further borrowing on Eurobond markets, and engage bi-lateral lenders India and China to join hand with NDB, also to renew its Independence and sovereignty in its 75th year, and ensure calibrated exit from US dollar denominated Eurobond debt bondage.

Other countries may aid Sri Lanka’s, but only if the county leads in the search for alternatives to the IMF’s bankruptcy narratives– as Dr. Yanis Varoufakis, former Finance Minister of Greece who has extensive experience with IMF debt negotiations had noted.

Debt trapped countries the Global South and humanity are clearly at a turning point in an age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data mining, deep fakes, and drone surveillance by those with the technologies for global governance and control of populations.

Hence, following Elon Musk, Warren Buffet recently warned that ‘AI is a nuclear bomb’. As a genuinely multipolar world re-emerges after two hundred years of Euro-American hegemony, on the cusp of another World War, it is up to debt-trapped countries of the Global South to promote multi-polarity and respect for genuine cultural diversity.

Dr Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake is a Cultural Anthropologist with expertise in international development and political economic analysis. She was a member of the International Steering Group of the North-South Institute project “Southern Perspectives on Reform of the International Development Architecture.’ She had authored and co-edited several books, the most recent being “Multi-religiosity in Contemporary Sri Lanka: Innovation, Shared Spaces, Contestation’ Routledge (2022).

¹ https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/REO/APAC/Issues/2023/04/11/regional-economic-outlook-for-asia-and-pacific-april-2023
² https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm_y3w7x1qk
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-24/brics-draws-membership-requests-from-19-nations-before-summit#xj4y7vzkg

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Somalia. Fatun (12 months) has her Mid-upper arm circumference measured at the WFP funded malnutrition clinic in Kabasa, Dolow. Credit: WFP/Samantha Reinders

By Paul Virgo
ROME, May 14 2023 (IPS)

While King Charles III’s coronation in Britain was hogging much of the international media’s attention at the start of this month, it was easy not to notice another story that deserved at least as many headlines.

According to the latest Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), the number of people experiencing acute hunger, meaning their food insecurity is so bad it is an immediate threat to their lives or livelihoods, rose to around 258 million people in 58 countries and territories in 2022.

That was an increase from 193 million people in 53 countries and territories in 2021 and it means that the number of people requiring urgent food, nutrition and livelihood assistance has increased for the fourth consecutive year.

More than a quarter of a billion people faced acute food insecurity in 2022 – a year that saw the number of people facing food crises rise by a third in just 12 months - James Belgrave, United Nations World Food Programme

It is important to stress here that we are not talking about the number of people around the world who are hungry – a figure that is far higher. Every July the United Nations gives an estimate of the number of people experiencing chronic hunger, meaning they do not have access to sufficient food to meet their energy needs for a normal, active lifestyle, in The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report and last year’s, referring to 2021, put the figure at 821 million.

The GRFC report, on the other hand, regards only the most serious forms of hunger.

It said that people in seven countries experienced the worst level of acute hunger, Phase 5, at some point during 2022, meaning they faced starvation or destitution. More than half of those people were in Somalia (57%), while such extreme circumstances also occurred in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.

The report said that around 35 million people experienced the next-most-severe level of acute hunger (emergency level, Phase 4) in 39 countries, with more than half of those located in just four – Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Yemen.

The rest of the acute-hunger sufferers were Phase 3, crisis level.

The 258 million figure is the highest in the history of the report and the situation is getting even worse this year

“More than a quarter of a billion people faced acute food insecurity in 2022 – a year that saw the number of people facing food crises rise by a third in just 12 months,” James Belgrave, a spokesperson for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), which is part of the Global Network Against Food Crises (GNAFC) that publishes the GRFC report, told IPS.

“And if we look at how 2023 has gone so far, we see that a staggering 345 million people are facing high levels of food insecurity in 79 of the countries where WFP works.

“This represents an increase of almost 200 million since pre-pandemic levels of early 2020, highlighting just how rapidly the situation has worsened.

“As the World Food Programme marks its 60th anniversary in 2023, we find ourselves in the midst of the greatest and most complex food security crisis in modern times”.

Indeed, the GRFC report has only been published for seven years but it has already documented a big increase in the number of people suffering the worst forms of hunger in that time. The number of people experiencing Phase 3 hunger or above was less than half its current level, at 105 million, in 2016.

In 30 of the 42 main food-crisis situations analysed in the report, over 35 million children under five years of age were suffering from wasting or acute malnutrition, with 9.2 million of them had severe wasting, the most life-threatening form of undernutrition and a major contributor to increased child mortality

Although some of the growth in the severe-hunger figure in the latest GRFC report reflects an increase in the populations of the countries analysed, the fact that the proportion of people in those countries experiencing acute food insecurity increased to 22.7% in 2022, from 21.3% in 2021, demonstrates that the situation is getting significantly worse regardless of demographic factors.

The report said that the main drivers of acute food insecurity and malnutrition were economic shocks, conflict and extreme weather events, which are increasing because of the climate crisis.

It said economic shocks were the biggest drivers last year, although the lines between these factors are blurred as all three affect each other, with climate change feeding conflict, for example, and conflict leading to economic shocks.

In 2022, the economic fallout of the СOVID-19 pandemic and the ripple effects of the war in Ukraine were major drivers of hunger, particularly in the world’s poorest countries, mainly due to their high dependency on imports of food and agricultural inputs.

The central problem is that much of the world’s population is vulnerable to such extremal shocks, in part because efforts to bolster the resilience of poor small-holder farmers in rural areas and fight food insecurity have proven insufficient.

The report says nations and the international community should focus on more effective humanitarian assistance, including anticipatory actions and shock-responsive safety nets, and scale up investments to tackle the root causes of food crises and child malnutrition, making agrifood systems more sustainable, resilient and inclusive.

“The global fight against hunger is going backwards, and today the world is facing a food crisis of unprecedented proportions, the largest in modern history,” Belgrave said.

“Millions of people are at risk of worsening hunger unless action is taken now to respond together – and at scale – to the drivers of this crisis.

“Life is getting harder each day for the world’s most vulnerable and hard-won development gains are being eroded.

“WFP is facing a triple challenge – the number of acutely hungry people continues to increase at a pace that funding is unlikely to match and the cost of delivering food assistance is at an unprecedented high because food and fuel prices have increased.

“In countries like Somalia, which have been on the brink of famine, the international community, working with government and partners, has shown what it takes to pull people back.

“But it is not sufficient to just keep people alive, we need to go further, and this can only be achieved by addressing the underlying causes of hunger and focusing on banishing famine forever.

“We must work on two fronts: saving those whose lives are at risk while providing a foundation for communities to grow their resilience and meet their own food needs”.

The argan tree forest constitutes a vital fodder reserve for all herds even in periods of drought. All parts of the argan tree are edible and very appreciated: leaves, fruits and the undergrowth are a meal of choice especially for the most daring goats that do not hesitate to climb the branches. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Baher Kamal
ROME, May 12 2023 (IPS)

A much needed break amidst so many alarming news, with a brief story of a tree, a bottle of liquid gold, and a wedding gift.

It is useless to remind you that all trees are wonderful living beings, with an amazing vital system to drain water through their roots, and breathe through their leaves to bring this water to their trunk, branches and leaves.

All of them are sources of most of the oxygen on Earth while absorbing harmful greenhouse gases. Their roots greatly contribute to fixing the land, thus reducing the risk of further degradation and desertification. Let alone purifying the air.

This particular tree

Among them, one is special: the Argan tree.

A native species of the sub-Saharan, Southwest region of Morocco, where it grows in arid and semi-arid areas, this tree is the defining species of a woodland ecosystem, also known as Arganeraie, which is rich in endemic flora.

The argan tree used to grow throughout North Africa, but currently, it only grows in southwestern Morocco. It is estimated to be the second most abundant tree in Moroccan forests, with over 20 million trees living in the region.

The argan tree is one of the world’s wild plants, which are used by an estimated 3.5 to 5.8 billion people, with one billion humans depending on them for their livelihoods and food security.

Furthermore, wild plants offer great economic and nutritional benefits for these communities and for societies around the world. In fact, between 2000 and 2020, the global trade value of medicinal and aromatic plants alone increased by more than 75%, as reported by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

In spite of that, two in five of the world’s plant species are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss, sustainable use and climate change.

Hidden in plain sight

Here is the case of just one of these wild plant species hidden in plain sight:

Argan can be found in cosmetics, food and pharmaceuticals. Mostly used as an oil, its anti-ageing properties are popular for cosmetics, and its demand in the food industry has turned it into the most expensive edible oil in the world, FAO adds.

Under the burning sun

Now see what the UN further tells about its importance on the occasion of this year’s International Day of Argania:

• It withstands temperatures of up to 50° Celsius.
• It is a bastion against desertification, it can reach 10 metres in height and can live for 200 years.
• Its woodlands provide forest products, fruits and fodder.
• Its leaves and fruits are edible and highly appreciated, as is the undergrowth, and constitute a vital fodder reserve for all herds, even in periods of drought.
• It is used as fuelwood for cooking and heating.
• And also as medicines and cosmetics.

A mainstay of indigenous Berbers

For centuries, the argan tree has been a mainstay of the Berber and Arab-origin indigenous rural communities, which developed a specific culture and identity, sharing their traditional knowledge and skills through non-formal education, particularly the knowledge associated with the traditional production of argan oil by women, the world body explains.

The argan-based agro-forestry-pastoral system uses only locally adapted species and pastoralism activities and relies on traditional water management provided by the Matifiya – a rainwater reservoir carved into the rock, hence contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation, and to the conservation of biodiversity.

The ‘liquid gold’

But there is more: the world-renowned argan oil, which is extracted from the seeds and has multiple applications, especially in traditional and complementary medicine and in the culinary and cosmetic industries.

In addition, argan oil is given as a wedding gift and it is used extensively in the preparation of festive dishes.

The fruit of the argan tree is a green to light yellow berry in the centre of which is an almond made up of several seeds gorged with oil. It takes about 150 kg of fruit to produce 3 litres of argan oil.

The Argan Women

Indeed, it is said that, since the 13th century, the Berber women of North Africa have been making argan oil for culinary and cosmetic purposes.

The International Day of Argania further explains that the fruits are hand-picked and dried in the sun, then pulped, grinding, sorting, milling and mixing. Its nuts are crushed and its almonds crushed to filter the oil.

Women lead the entire extraction process through knowledge transmitted from one generation to the next. In fact, rural women and, to a lesser extent, men living in the reserve practice traditional methods to extract argan oil from the fruit of the tree.

“Traditional know-how specific to the extraction of the oil and its multiple uses is systematically transmitted by ‘argan women’, who teach their daughters from a young age to put it into practice.”

What else would you expect from a tree?

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 UN in The Gambia is supporting initiatives to bridge the gender disparity gap in STEM through raising awareness and capacity-building support to women-owned businesses.
 
Fatou Juka Darbor setting up her machine to print some 3D products photo. CREDIT: Royal Academy of Engineering Africa Prize

By Abdoulie Badjie
BANJUL, The Gambia, May 11 2023 (IPS)

In the heart of The Gambia, an intrepid young woman called Fatou Juka Darbor is blazing a trail for women fuelled by her fiery passion for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

Her remarkable journey led her to co-found the country’s first and only 3D printing company – Make 3D Company Limited – in 2019, breaking boundaries and inspiring future generations.

Fascinated by machines from a young age, Juka was determined to uncover their inner workings, taking apart radios and calculators with unbridled curiosity.

“I always wanted to know what makes things work,” she says.

Fatou Juka Darbor

Her unwavering dedication made her the only woman in her mechanical engineering class at the Gambia Technical Training Institute.

Reflecting on this journey, she says: “My experiences of the stigma attached to being ‘the woman’ in a male-dominated space made me realize how lucky I was to have parents that supported my decision to pursue sciences.”

Juka’s determination culminated in a prestigious role as a mechanical engineer at the Gambia National Petroleum Company.

Her ambitions, however, continued to soar. In 2019, she partnered with Silvestr Tkáč, a tech enthusiast, to create Make 3D Company Limited, introducing the revolutionary world of 3D printing to The Gambia.

“The fact that a young woman like me is co-running this business and growing it so quickly shows how capable Gambian women are if given the chance and the support,” Juka says.

Her company has been a catalyst for change, improving the lives of Gambians. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, her Make 3D Company Limited collaborated with the Gambian Medical Research Council Unit (MRCG) to create protective equipment for frontline healthcare workers.

This innovative approach garnered partnerships with the United Nations through the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), manufacturing over 8,000 face shields for the country’s primary referral hospital.

Additionally, Juka’s company has developed prosthetic limb prototypes, offering affordable solutions and newfound hope to those who have lost their limbs due to accidents, diseases, or conflicts.

Juka’s steadfast commitment and resolve have garnered her numerous accolades, solidifying her status as a pioneer in her field.

Her message to young girls is unequivocal: “I hope I inspire young girls in Dumbutou and Basse to believe that they can be anything they dream of being. No career is specifically meant for men only. You can be whatever you want to be if you believe in yourself, even if no one does.”

The UN in The Gambia is supporting initiatives to bridge the gender disparity gap in STEM. Through events such as the ‘UN Women and Girls in Science Day,’ the UN raises awareness about the obstacles women and girls face in STEM and offers capacity-building support to women-owned businesses.

Juka’s uplifting tale of courage and resilience amidst adversity is a potent reminder that, given the right opportunities and support, women can excel in STEM fields and leave a lasting, positive impact on their communities.

Abdoulie Badjie is the Programmes Communications and Advocacy Officer in the UN RCO in The Gambia, while George Lwanda is the Head of UN RCO in The Gambia.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

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Parliamentarians attending the Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development Toward the 2023 G7 Hiroshima Summit. Credit: APDA

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, May 9 2023 (IPS)

Parliamentarians from more than 30 countries agreed to send a strong message to the G7 Hiroshima Summit in Japan later this year, focusing on human security and support of vulnerable communities, including women, girls, youth, aging people, migrants, and indigenous people, among others.

The wide-ranging declaration also called on governments to support active political and economic participation for women and girls, enhancing and implementing legislation that addresses gender-based violence (GBV) and eradicating harmful practices like child, early, and forced marriages. During discussions and in the declaration, a clear message emerged that budgetary requirements for Universal Health Care (UHC) should be prioritized and the exceptional work done by health workers during the pandemic be recognized.

In his keynote address, Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida Fumio reminded delegates that Covid-19 had exposed the “fragility of the global health architecture and underscored the need for UHC.”

Kishida said that the central vision of the G7 Hiroshima Summit was to emphasize the importance of addressing human security – through building global health architecture, including the “governance for prevention, preparedness, and response to public health crises, including finance. We believe it is important for the G7 to actively and constructively contribute to efforts to improve international governance, secure sustainable financing and strengthen international norms.”

Apart from contributing to resilient, equitable, and sustainable UHC, health innovation was needed to promote a “more effective global ecosystem to enable rapid research and development and equitable access to infectious disease crisis medicines … and to support aging society,” Kishida said.

Former Prime Minister of Japan Fukuda Yasuo, Chair of APDA, and Honorary Chair of JPFP said this conference and its declaration would follow in a tradition of delivering strong messages to the G7 that improving reproductive health was crucial to the development and the future of a planet which now had 8 million people living on it.

“International Community is becoming increasingly confrontational and divided, and there is the emergence of a national leader who is threatening the use of nuclear weapons. No nuclear weapons have been used in the nearly 80 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We must work together to prevent the use of nuclear weapons, which can take many precious lives and people’s daily lives. In this instance, I would like you to search for the path toward appeasement and not division. We must keep all channels of dialogue open so as to ease tension,” Fukuda asked of the conference.

While calling on parliamentarians to work together to address challenges, Fukuda also expressed concern about the widening inequities caused by Covid-19 and climate change and noted: “This network of parliamentarians on population and development has been a vital resource for parliamentarians who share the same concern for not only their own countries but for the entire planet and future generations.”

Kamikawa Yoko, MP Japan, Chair of JPFP, said that with a world population of 8 billion, it was essential to “realize a society where no one is left behind … and Japan would share its experiences of being on the frontlines of an aging society with declining birth rates. “We are living in an aging society … and given these challenges in Japan, we will try to share with you our experience and lessons through our diplomacy while trying to deepen our discussions and exchanges to seek solutions.”

Japan’s Foreign Affairs Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa said it was essential for all to cooperate during the “Anthropocene era, when human activities have promised to have a major impact on the global environment, global issues that transcend national borders, such as climate change, and the spread of infectious diseases, including Covid-19 are becoming more and more prevalent.”

He reminded the delegates that at the center of Japan’s economic growth post World War II was mainly through health promotion and employment policies.

Delegates of the Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development Toward the 2023 G7 Hiroshima Summit agreed to send a strong message on human security to the Summit. Credit: APDA

Director of the Division for Communications and Strategic Partnerships of UNFPA, Ian McFarlane, said it was not about the “numbers of people but the rights of the people that matter. It’s not about whether we are too many or too few, but whether women and girls can decide if, when, and how many children to have.”

A recent UNFPA report indicated that nearly half of the women across the globe could not exercise their rights and choices, their bodily autonomy, and expressed hope that policies in the future continue to focus on humanity and universal human rights.

Despite being close to the 30th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), the conference heard that much still needed to be done regarding women’s rights.

New Zealand MP and co-chair of AFPPD Standing Committee on Gender Equality and Women Empowerment, Angela Warren-Clark, reminded the audience that women still only held 26 percent of parliamentarian seats globally. While women make up 70 percent of the workforce in the health sector, only 25 percent have senior leadership positions.

“It is women in this pandemic who bore the increased burden of unpaid work at home as schools were closed, and it is girls and the poorest families who were taken out of school and forced into early marriages … We believe that if women had an equal say in decision-making during the pandemic, some of these mistakes would have been avoided.”

Baroness Elizabeth Barker, MP from the United Kingdom, told parliamentarians their role was to ensure that “no person on earth, from the head of G7 country to a poor person in a village, can say that they do not know what gender equality is. And they do not know what gender violence is.”

Barker suggested they use international standards, like the Istanbul Convention on Violence Against Women, to compare countries. “And you know that if your country doesn’t come out very well, they really don’t like it.”

She pointed to two successes in the UK, including stopping virginity testing and tackling the practice of forced marriages. She also warned the delegates that there was a right-wing campaign aimed at destroying human rights gained, and they chose different battlegrounds. The overturning of abortion rights in the United States in the Roe vs. Wade case was an example, as was the anti-LGBTQ legislation in Uganda.

Hassan Omar, MP from Djibouti, gave a host of achievements in his country, including ensuring that women occupy 25 percent roles in politics and the state administration and the growing literacy of women numbers in his country.

Risa Hontiveros, MP Philippines, painted a bleak picture of the impact of Covid in her country.

Hontiveros said GBV increased during Covid and extended to the digital space.

“The Internet has become a breeding ground for predators and cyber criminals to prey on children, especially young women, and girls. The online sexual abuse and exploitation of children … has become so prevalent in the Philippines that we have been tagged as the global hotspot.”

In a desperate attempt to provide for their families, even parents produced “exploitative material of their own children and sold them online to pedophiles abroad.”

To address these, she filed a gender-responsive and inclusive Emergency Management Act bill, which seeks to address the gender-differentiated needs of women and girls, because they were “disproportionately affected in times of emergencies.”

Former MP from Afghanistan Khadija Elham’s testimony united many in the conference and even resulted in proposals from the floor to include a condemnation of the Taliban’s women’s policies.

Elham said GBV had increased since the Taliban took over – women were forced to wear a burqa in public, they were not allowed to work, and those who wish to “learn science or (get an) education are forced to continue their studies and hidden places like basements.”

If their secret schools are exposed, they face torture and imprisonment. During the last two months, 260 people, including 50 women, were publicly whipped – a clear violation of their human rights. Women’s representation in political life has been banned, and women are no longer allowed to work in NGOs – and it has been “550 days since women could attend high schools and universities.”

She called on the international community, the United Nations, to pressure the Taliban to restore women’s work and education rights.

Nakayama Maho, Director of the Peacebuilding Program at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, announced new research on factors contributing to men’s propensity to GBV. The research found that the higher a man’s educational attainment, the lower the level of violence. There were also lower levels of violence with “positive” masculinity – such as a man being employed, married, and capable of protecting his family. Men who experienced violence during times of conflict tended to support violence to instill discipline, or protect women and communities.

Dr Roopa Dhatt, Executive Director of Women in Global Health, summed up this critical session by saying, “Equal leadership for women in all fields is a game changer, particularly in politics and health.”

Japan’s Health, Labour and Welfare Minister, Kato Katsunobu, noted during his closing address that the G7 countries “share the recognition that investment in people is not an expense, but an investment… and as you invest in people you can create a virtuous cycle between workers well-being and social and economic activities.”

He said Japan had a lot to offer concerning aging populations.

“Japan has been promoting the establishment of a comprehensive community-based care system so that people can continue to live in their own way in their own neighborhood until the end of their lives and is in the position to provide knowledge to the G7 countries and other countries who will be facing (an aging population) in the future.”

Dr Alvaro Bermejo, Director-General of IPPF, commended the conference and said he was “thankful” that the conference declaration would tell G7 governments to set an example. “Marginalized and excluded populations are at the heart of human security and can only be achieved in solidarity, and that message from this conference is clear.”

Professor Takemi Keizo, MP Japan, Chair of AFPPD, summed up the proceeding by saying that parliamentarians as representatives of the electorate were vital to creating a “positive momentum in this global community and overcoming so many difficult issues.”

Takemi elaborated on some issues facing the world now, including climate change and military conflicts, but as parliamentarians, there was the opportunity to “build up the new basis of the global governance, which can be very beneficial.”

NOTE: Global Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development Toward the 2023 G7 Hiroshima Summit was organized by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), and the Japan Parliamentarians Federation for Population (JPFP).

It was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (MOFA), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Japan Trust Fund (JTF), and Keidanren-Japan Business Federation in cooperation with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).

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Carbon emission is one of the major causes for climate change. Countries should accelerate their effort to achieve carbon neutrality. Credit: Pixabay / Peggychoucair
 
Heads of State, ministers, senior government officials and other key stakeholders will convene in Bangkok from 15 to 19 May at the 79th session of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) to explore policy options and foster ambitious climate action towards net-zero pathways. Ahead of the 79th session, ESCAP will also launch its theme study The Race to Net Zero: Accelerating Climate Action in Asia and the Pacific. The study sets out the transformations that are needed for the region to transition to a net-zero carbon future in support of sustainable development. It provides an outline of the regional context of climate change and identifies policies and actions that could be taken in various sectors of the economy to support the global climate agenda.

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, May 9 2023 (IPS)

The latest synthesis report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes for grim reading: Every fraction of a degree of warming comes with escalated threats, from deadly heatwaves to severe hurricanes and droughts, affecting all economies and communities.

It is a reality that the people of Asia and the Pacific know only too well. “The worst April heatwaves in Asian history” last month was just a taste of the worsening climate impacts we will continue to face in the years to come.

Our latest report highlights that the sea level is creeping up in parts of the region at a slightly higher rate than the global mean, leaving low-lying atolls at existential threat. Annual socioeconomic loss due to climate change is mounting and likely to double in the worst-case climate scenario.

Inequity is yet another threat as climate change sweeps across the region. Asia and the Pacific already accounts for more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions and the share is growing.

But there is another picture of hope in our region: 39 countries have committed to carbon neutrality and net zero between 2050 and 2060. The cost of renewable energy is falling almost everywhere, with installed capacity growing more than three-fold in the past decade.

Electric vehicles are entering the market en masse as countries such as China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Thailand have made electric mobility a priority.

This momentum needs to accelerate like a bullet train. Because nothing short of a breakthrough in hard-to-abate sectors will give us a good chance of stopping catastrophic global warming.

Accelerating a just and inclusive energy transition

The recent energy crisis has kicked renewable energy into a new phase of even faster growth thanks to its energy security benefits. There is opportunity now to leverage this momentum and turn it into a revolutionary moment.

Cross-border electricity grids can be the game changer. ESCAP has simulated different scenarios for grid connectivity and scaling up renewables. It shows that a green power corridor, cross-border power grid integration utilizing renewables, can help to remove the last hurdles of the transition. We are working with countries to chart a path to improved regional power grid connectivity through cooperation.

Achieving low-carbon mobility and logistics

The exceptional growth of electric vehicles has proved that electric mobility is a smart investment. And it is one that will help stave off carbon dioxide emissions from transport, which has stubbornly increased almost by 2 per cent annually the past two decades.

Through the Regional Cooperation Mechanism on Low Carbon Transport, we are working with the public and private sector to lock in the changeover to low-carbon mobility, clean energy technologies and logistics.

This is complemented by peer learning and experience sharing under the Asia-Pacific Initiative on Electric Mobility to accelerate the penetration of electric vehicles and upgrading public transport fleets.

Building low-carbon industries through climate-smart trade and investment

The net zero transition is not complete without decarbonizing the industrial sector. The region accounts for nearly three quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions in manufacturing and construction.

Binding climate considerations in regional trade agreements can be a powerful tool. While climate-related provisions have entered regional trade agreements involving Asian and Pacific economies, they offer few concrete and binding commitments. To unlock further benefits, they will need to be broader in scope, deeper in stringency and more precise in obligations.

As foreign investment goes green, it should also go where it is needed the most. It has not been the case for any of the least developed countries and small island developing States in the region.

Financing the transition

The transition can be only possible by investing in low- and zero-emission technologies and industries. Current domestic and international financial flows fall well short of the needed amount.

The issuance of green, social and sustainability bonds is rapidly growing, reaching $210 billion in 2021 but were dominated by developed and a few developing countries. Both public and private financial institutions need to be incentivized to invest in new green technologies and make the uptake of such technologies less risky.

Linking actions and elevating ambitions

The code red to go green is ever so clear. Every government needs to raise their stake in this crisis. Every business needs to transform. Every individual needs to act. A journey to net zero should accelerate with a fresh look at our shared purpose.

At ESCAP, we are working to bring together the pieces and build the missing links at the regional level to support the net-zero transition work at the national level. The upcoming Commission session will bring countries together for the first time in an intergovernmental setting – to identify common accelerators for climate action and to chart a more ambitious pathway.

This is the start of an arduous journey that requires cooperation, understanding and determination. And I believe we have what it takes to get there together.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

https://www.unescap.org/news/accelerating-climate-action-forefront-upcoming-regional-un-assembly for more information of the CS79 meeting.

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Rosemone Bertin, who lives in Port Louis, Mauritius, is one of the many Chagossians who were deported from their homeland in the 1960s and 1970s. Credit: Human Rights Watch

By Clive Baldwin
LONDON, May 5 2023 (IPS)

In 2022, Charles III became king not just of the United Kingdom, but of 14 other states, and Head of the Commonwealth. He now heads a monarchy that is starting to face questions about its role in British imperial atrocities, such as slavery, and, as he has said, concerning which  it is time to “acknowledge the wrongs that have shaped our past.”

There is an ongoing, colonial crime that he could acknowledge, help rectify and apologise for today. That crime is the forced displacement of the entire Chagossian people from their homeland in the Indian Ocean by the UK and US governments in the 1960s and 70s. This  colonial crime continues to this day as the UK government still prevents the Chagossians from returning home.

The Chagossians are an Indigenous people, the descendants of enslaved people and indentured labourers, who lived, under British colonial rule, on the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean until the 1960s. The US government decided it wanted the largest island, Diego Garcia, to build a military base, and wanted it without people

It is a crime in which the monarchy has played a significant role. Queen Elizabeth II issued, on behalf of the UK government, the Orders that have forced the Chagossians to remain in exile and that remain  in force. A British court said  in 2019 that the orders “extinguished” the legal rights of the Chagossians in UK law, including their right to return.

The Chagossians are an Indigenous people, the descendants of enslaved people and indentured labourers, who lived, under British colonial rule, on the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean until the 1960s. The US government decided it wanted the largest island, Diego Garcia, to build a military base, and wanted it without people. After secret US-UK deals, the UK kept control of Chagos as its last colony in Africa, even as Mauritius, which had administered Chagos, obtained independence.

Over a period of years, the UK and US forced the entire population of all the islands to leave, through deception, force, and threats including rounding up and killing people’s dogs. Senior UK officials wrote about the Chagossians in blatantly racist and disparaging terms, such as calling them ‘Man Fridays’, treating them as a people who didn’t matter. The Chagossians were left to live in abject poverty in Mauritius and Seychelles; some have since moved to the UK.

Chagossians described to Human Rights Watch, in our recent report, the misery of their forced exile, which  left them without adequate food or homes for years. Many Chagossians have died without ever being able to return to their homeland.  We found that the abuses against the Chagossians amount to crimes against humanity – forced displacement, the prevention of their return home, and persecution on the grounds of race and ethnicity.

The UK monarchy has been involved in this colonial crime, especially through the use of “Orders-in-Council,” an arcane method in which the monarchy issues an order, with legal effect, on behalf of the government through the Privy Council, the centuries-old body of advisers to the monarch. Issuing Orders-in-Council through the monarch has been a convenient way for the government to bypass parliament.

The UK has used such Orders against the Chagossians. The orders were used in 2004, after Chagossians had won a stunning legal victory against the UK government, quashing earlier orders used to keep them in exile. Robin Cook, the UK foreign minister at the time of the court ruling, acknowledged the wrongs done to the Chagossians and for a brief moment it appeared they would be able to return home. Although the US had built its military base on part of Diego Garcia, the rest of that island and the other islands were empty.

But the UK and US decided that they would block Chagossians return to any island, on dubious grounds of security and cost. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government used Queen Elizabeth II and the Privy Council to do this. In 2004 Elizabeth II issued the orders, still in force today, that legally prevent Chagossians from returning to all the islands. Meanwhile US military and civilian personnel along with UK officials live on Diego Garcia and people can visit Chagos on luxury yachts.  The arcane colonial orders continue to have a very real and negative impact on the lives of thousands of people.

And yet, the Chagossians never gave up their struggle. This June marks the 50^th anniversary of the final deportation of the Chagossians. But also, extraordinarily, the UK and Mauritius governments have recently begun negotiations on the future of Chagos, although, so far, without meaningful consultation with the Chagossians themselves. Any settlement on the future of the islands needs to be focused on the rights of Chagossians, above all their right to reparations from the UK and US, including the right to return.  Reparations for such abuses also mean a guarantee that such crimes could never again take place.

And this is where King Charles can play a key role. He could mark his coronation on May 6  by issuing a full and complete apology for the crimes against humanity committed against the Chagossians, and acknowledging the monarchy’s role. As many Chagossians have urged, he should call for them to receive full reparations, including the right to return to live in their homeland, after meaningful consultations with them. And he should guarantee that never again will the monarchy be used to take away fundamental rights from a people or be used in crimes against humanity, especially through the misuse of Orders-in-Council.

For Charles, who has spoken to the Commonwealth of his sorrow at the “suffering of so many” in history, such action would show how he can help right the wrongs of the monarchy’s past and present.

Excerpt:

Indigenous women gather before an equality forum in Mexico City, Mexico. Credit: UN Women/Paola Garcia
 
Inter-State wars, terrorism, divided collective security, and peacekeeping limitations remain the same challenges facing multilateralism as when the UN was founded 76 years ago, Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council December 2022.

By Jens Martens
BONN, Germany, May 5 2023 (IPS)

The world is in permanent crisis mode. In addition to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, the war in Ukraine and other violent conflicts, a worldwide cost of living crisis and an intensified debt crisis in more and more countries of the global South are affecting large parts of humanity.

Scientists are now even warning of the risk of a global polycrisis, “a single, macro-crisis of interconnected, runaway failures of Earth’s vital natural and social systems that irreversibly degrades humanity’s prospects”.

Human rights, and especially women’s rights, are under attack in many countries. Nationalism, sometimes coupled with increasing authoritarianism, has been on the rise worldwide. Rich countries of the global North continue to practice inhumane migration policies toward refugees.

At the same time, they pursue self-serving and short-sighted “my country first” policies, whether in hoarding vaccines and subsidizing their domestic pharmaceutical industries, or in the race for global natural gas reserves. This has undermined multilateral solutions and lead to a growing atmosphere of mistrust between countries.

“Trust is in short supply”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the Security Council in August 2022. Consequently, Member States defined one of the main purposes of the Summit of the Future in September 2024 to be “restoring trust among Member States”.

António Guterres had proposed to hold such a Summit of the Future, which he described as “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reinvigorate global action, recommit to fundamental principles, and further develop the frameworks of multilateralism so they are fit for the future”.

The Summit offers an opportunity, at least in theory, to respond to the current crises with far-reaching political agreements and institutional reforms. However, this presupposes that the governments do not limit themselves to symbolic action and voluntary commitments but take binding decisions – also and above all on the provision of (financial) resources for their implementation.

In this context, the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) remains absolutely valid. Without such decisions, it will hardly be possible to regain trust between countries.

The G77 emphasized in a statement on 20 April 2023, “since the Summit of the Future is meant to turbo-charge the SDGs, it must address comprehensively the issue of Means of Implementation for the 2030 Agenda, which includes, but is not limited to, financing, technology transfer and capacity building.”

Of course, it would be naive to believe that the risk of a global polycrisis could be overcome with a single summit meeting. But the series of upcoming global summits, from the SDG Summit 2023 and the Summit of the Future 2024 to the 4th Financing for Development Conference and the second World Social Summit 2025, can certainly contribute to shaping the political discourse on the question of which structural changes are necessary to respond to the global crises and to foster multilateral cooperation based on solidarity.

Our new report Spotlight on Global Multilateralism aims to contribute to this process. It offers critical analyses and presents recommendations for strengthening democratic multilateral structures and policies.

The report covers a broad range of issue areas, from peace and common security, reforms of the global financial architecture, calls for a New Social Contract and inclusive digital future, to the rights of future generations, and the transformation of education systems.

The report also identifies some of the built-in deficiencies and weaknesses of current multilateral structures and approaches. This applies, inter alia, to concepts of corporate-influenced multistakeholderism, for instance in the area of digital cooperation.

On the other hand, the report explores alternatives to purely intergovernmental multilateralism, such as the increased role of local and regional governments and their workers and trade unions at the international level.

Seventy-five years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a key challenge is to create mechanisms to ensure that human rights – as well as the rights of future generations and the rights of nature – are no longer subordinated to the vested interests of powerful economic elites in multilateral decision-making.

Timid steps and the constant repetition of the agreed language of the past will not be enough. More fundamental and systemic changes in policies, governance and mindsets are necessary to regain trust and to foster multilateral cooperation based on solidarity and international law.

Jens Martens is Executive Director of Global Policy Forum Europe

IPS UN Bureau

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Seoin Yang (left) and Rosanna Claudia Luzarraga. Credit: Paul Virgo/IPS

By Paul Virgo
ROME, May 3 2023 (IPS)

When pupils from the Chadwick International School went on an exchange trip to their math teacher’s homeland the Philippines they were faced with a mystery. The kids from their twin school were warm, friendly and fun hosts.

But when lunch time came around, instead of sitting down with their South Korean guests and joining them to eat, they would stay away and watch from a distance.

It seemed uncharacteristic – almost rude.

The programme is a model for solidarity that can easily be replicated by other institutions. The first step is always the hardest. In the beginning it all seems so intimidating, People say solutions have to be innovative. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they don’t - Even the simplest solutions can work the best

Coming from prosperous families, it did not immediately dawn on the visitors that their hosts were foregoing lunch not out of impoliteness, but because of poverty.

“That was an utter shock to us. They couldn’t afford food,” Seoin Yang, a high-school student at the Chadwick International School in the Korean city of Songdo, near Seoul, told IPS.

“As sixth graders and as people who had never witnessed such situations in real life, we couldn’t really say anything or do anything.

“Our temporary solution was to not eat and give our food to them. But that wasn’t really a solution”.

It would have been easy for the group to put this ‘shock’ behind them once they returned home and concentrate on their busy lives of study, hobbies, sports and social activities, like most teens.

Instead, they decided to try to do something that would make a difference, launching a programme to provide their new Filipino friends with breakfast and lunch at their school in Labo, in the province of Camarines Norte.

It is not easy to set up a programme in the Philippines from South Korea and they ran into a host of difficulties.

But they managed to get the project off the ground, raising money and working with the school in the Philippines, with volunteer teachers and parents doing the cooking.

“We started off by serving 50 students and the response was really positive because a lot of the students had had to drop out of school because they couldn’t afford food,” said Yang.

“But then they could continue with school. We also used a local market for the food so that we helped the local economy and the local farmers there”.

They raised the money by doing things like selling snacks during school events, applying for grants and getting private-sector partners on board.

In the second year they helped build a school kitchen and subsequently expanded the programme to more schools.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic made adjustments necessary.

“When COVID hit and the students stopped going to school, we decided to modify our programme and provide a food packet for them, still incorporating the local economy, still putting in all the nutritious food, but in a packet,” said Yang.

“The parents could come to school every week on a Monday to pick up these packets,

“They shared the food with their families and so we not only fed the students but the families too”.

The cost-of-living crisis had an impact too. Indeed, after five years the programme had to be suspended for a period due to soaring prices.

Image provided by Chadwick School

But the group recently managed to get it going again, raising money to provide meals for 155 students in three different schools. A Chadwick party is going back to the Philippines this month.

The programme might be relatively small-scale but it has made a big difference to the young people who have benefitted from it.

Last year 32 students who had been having school meals thanks to the programme since grade seven graduated from high school.

Five of them got scholarships and are now studying engineering at university.

“We believe that we are not just solving hunger (for the pupils we help), we are also trying to solve education, health and wellbeing issues,” said Yang.

“Often children have to work with their family to earn money if they are poor, rather than staying at school. As children don’t have a lot of skills, the only job they can do is labouring, which doesn’t pay them a lot.

“It’s just like a cycle. They can’t go to school if they don’t have food, so they have to give up on their education, which means the poverty continues”.

Rosanna Claudia Luzarraga, the math teacher who first took the students to the Philippines, said she is “honoured” to have the kids who launched the programme.

But she also stresses that the South Korean kids have been enriched by it too, building skills, making friendships and learning to appreciate what they have.

“We go to the Philippines every year and, during that time, there is a consultation, we call it a student congress, so the student leaders there meet the South Korean students and they discuss what is good about the programme and what we can improve,” Luzarraga told IPS.

“Part of it is shadowing. So they follow one of the recipients at home, they see their house, and walk with them.

“In one case we walked 14 km because the kids went home and it was seven kilometres going home and seven kilometres going back.

“You develop empathy for someone. They are learning from the other students. It’s not just a case of us doling out aid.

“It’s not simply giving. It’s always two way.

“From what I have seen from my students and from the students in the Philippines, there’s a connection.

“You take care of each other. They are building relationships and this is the most important thing”.

Both Yang and Luzarraga think the programme is a model for solidarity that can easily be replicated by other institutions.

“The first step is always the hardest. In the beginning it all seems so intimidating,” Yang said.

“People say solutions have to be innovative. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they don’t.

“Even the simplest solutions can work the best.

“For us it was that the students couldn’t afford food and we provided them with food.

“That was our solution. It wasn’t innovative at all but it had a huge impact on the students.

“So just think simple and go for it”.

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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An aerial photograph of a busy roundabout in Lusaka Zambia. Credit: UNRSF.

By Nneka Henry
GENEVA, Apr 27 2023 (IPS)

Crises may be a centuries-old phenomenon, but so too is human resilience.

The high number of road deaths and life-changing injuries in the global south is a crisis that affects millions of people every year. In 2018 alone – the year that the UN Road Safety Fund was established – 1.3 million people died on the world’s roads, and another 50 million were injured or disabled.

Recognizing the world’s state of increasing complexities, the Fund has been meeting the global road safety challenge head-on. It has done this through a coordinated and multi-faceted approach that addresses the underlying cause of unsafe roads whilst also addressing interconnections with other global development crises

These numbers are even more sobering against the backdrop of multiple global crises that range from the coronavirus pandemic to the climate emergency, the cost of living crisis to geopolitical conflicts. As daunting as the mounting crises facing the world may be, the millions of lives and livelihoods lost to road crashes has made the Fund as resolute as ever to continue to mobilize and coordinate effective responses to very real road safety needs.

Recognizing the world’s state of increasing complexities, the Fund has been meeting the global road safety challenge head-on. It has done this through a coordinated and multi-faceted approach that addresses the underlying cause of unsafe roads whilst also addressing interconnections with other global development crises.

As the only United Nations body solely dedicated to channelling resources and expertise to tackling the root cause of the crisis, preventing further loss of life is, and will always be, our ultimate goal.

How could it not be – considering that road traffic crashes take the lives of around 3,700 people each day; the equivalent of losing a large cruise ship of passengers at maximum capacity. Through annual Calls for Proposals, the Fund coordinates and finances projects that help ensure road safety is treated as the significant public health issue that it is.

In Brazil, our project partner, the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, worked with the Department of Transport to correct and improve speed control operations including with the use of portable equipment on all of the Pará State highways. The project resulted in a doubling breathalyzer tests to over 78,000 carried out in 2022 and contributed to decreasing the rate of traffic deaths by a third, down from 6.13 per 10,000 vehicles in 2021 to 4.13 in 2022.

Underpinning the Fund’s ability to effectively address the road safety crisis is our comparative advantage of encouraging international collaboration and cooperation through pooled financial resources and technical knowledge. The more financial and technical partners that participate in the Fund the more comprehensive our response has been, spanning road safety-related legislation, enforcement, education, use of technology and implementation of international regulations and standards.

In the case of West Africa – led by our project partners the UN Environment Programme and UN Economic Commission for Europe – the Fund collaborated on an initiative with the UN Economic Commission for Africa, FIA, and the International Motor Vehicles Inspection Committee.

This has supported the 15 ECOWAS members states to adopt and roll out a regionally-harmonized vehicle directive and technical inspection system, which sets a common standard to safeguard the safety and environmental-friendliness of used vehicles on West African roads. It is now helping to decrease the number of vehicles involved in fatal crashes due to technical defects by 50%, saving thousands of lives.

Nneka Henry, Head of UN Road Safety Fund

Key to strengthening the Fund’s global outreach and engagement is our commitment to communicate clearly and effectively with the public, stakeholders, and decision-makers to ensure that everyone is up-to-date and engaged in the response efforts.

In addition to project planning information sessions which encourage knowledge exchange, and building synergies and complementary financing opportunities before projects are finalized; the Fund also delivers three main flagship events. These include the virtual Open Day for project partners to share project results, the launch of the Annual Impact Report, which takes place on the margins of the International Transport Forum Summit, and the Highlights Country Visit for stakeholders to deep dive into projects that the Fund is supporting.

As global citizens we are all facing a crossroads of crises. The Fund’s response has been to invest in supporting interconnections with other development priorities as a way to build resilience and preparedness for future crises.

Mindful of economic crises, the Fund’s investment in safe transport and road infrastructure is vital. This is what we have been doing in support of the Tanzanian government – with project partners the International Road Assessment Programme, International Road Federation and the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

This initiative has been helping to reduce traffic crashes that place a heavy additional economic burden on families, governments and employers – spanning medical expenses, lost income, and reduced productivity – all of which costs the global economy US$ 1.85 trillion each year.

Low- and middle-income countries devote considerable public personnel and other resources to the treatment and rehabilitation of people injured in road crashes. There is, therefore, a compelling need to reduce the road crash burden on national healthcare systems freeing up critical resources to address other pressing health issues.

Considering ongoing health crises, the Fund is investing in effective post-crash responses – a focus area for the 2023 Call for Proposals and an issue we address in countries like Bangladesh and Azerbaijan, which suffer high rates of road casualties.

Mitigating the effects of climate change, the Fund also invests in cleaner ways of moving safely, including through the Reclaiming the Streets project across Africa to prioritize safe walking and cycling lanes for pedestrians and cyclists who also happen to be our most vulnerable road users.

During these years of polycrises, the Fund has relied on the global solutions approach to rise to the global road safety challenge. And, this month, as the Fund celebrates five years, I challenge more nations, companies and individuals to invest in the only global response comprehensively addressing the root causes of poor national road safety systems across the world. Join us in our sustained effort and rise to meet the serious and interconnected challenges that is the global road safety crisis today.

Excerpt:

In Cuba, UNDP has supported the government in integrating ecosystem-based adaptation in coastal planning. Credit: UNDP Cuba

By Srilata Kammila
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 25 2023 (IPS)

Several years ago, on a visit to a village in rural Zimbabwe, I met a small group of women with a story to share.

Having participated in a UNDP-supported adaptation project – including drought-resistant seeds and education in climate-smart agricultural practices – the women had significantly increased the productiveness of their home gardens.

However, what really caught my attention was how the women, seeing an opportunity to help one another and scale up their returns, had set up a peer group to pool their savings and invest on a revolving basis in each other’s other livelihood ventures (some agricultural, some not).

In this way, they had essentially created an enterprising model to build on and sustain the investments of the project. Local innovations such as this are key to meeting the challenges of the climate crisis.

The innovations we need span technologies, practices, business models and behavioural changes. These innovations are to be found at all levels, from national research institutions in the world’s biggest cities to small villages, like the one I visited in Zimbabwe.

At UNDP, we are focused on scaling up and accelerating innovative adaptation approaches that have been proven to be effective. Many of the 220 projects we have implemented around the world since 2008 have broken, and are breaking, ground in numerous ways.

In Thailand, for instance, UNDP is supporting the government in transforming agricultural practices by harnessing the power of the Internet of Things. In Mongolia, we are collaborating with herders to track livestock products from source to end to ensure sustainability. In Cuba, we have supported the government in integrating ecosystem-based adaptation with inter-sector coastal planning.

Supported by the Adaptation Fund and European Union, and in partnership with the UN Environment Programme and the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN), the Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator (AFCIA) aims to foster more innovation at the local level.

The AFCIA funding window, managed by UNDP, was launched in 2021 and supports communities that are already responding to climate stresses in innovative ways.

Through the learnings from AFCIA, we aim to share lessons learned and best practices through an open platform called the Adaptation Innovation Marketplace, in which the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), Global Resilience Partnership, Climate-KIC, UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), and Least Developed Countries Universities Consortium on Climate Change (LUCCC) are also founding members and key partners.

At UNDP, we are focused on scaling up and accelerating innovative adaptation approaches that have been proven to be effective.

With the first round of US$2.2 million grant funding, the programme is supporting 22 organizations in 19 countries to foster and accelerate their adaptation ideas.

The programme aims to develop more than 10 scalable innovative adaptation solutions, benefiting more than 175,000 people (at least 30 percent women), and supporting 2,200 hectares of land with restoration or regenerative agriculture.

Based on the progress reports from local partners, we are already seeing some impressive and scalable adaptation innovations.

For example, in Brazil, we are supporting a local partner to improve food security and protect the local ecosystem for indigenous people by introducing and expanding the production of acai berries. 115 hectares of land are now certified under sustainable agroforestry management, with 27 tonnes of acai berries processed and sold.

In Cambodia, 40 women are growing and selling crickets as an alternative food source, earning $2,600 for the first tonne of cricket farmed, a more adaptive product due to existing and future climate trends and one with year-round availability.

In Uganda, we are supporting a local partner that is teaching communities aquaponics technology through an innovative lease-to-own model to promote aquaponics and horticulture-related production. 2,600 aquaponic kits have been leased, and this local partner is now targeting an expansion plan of reaching $21 million of the local vegetable and fish market.

A second cohort of grantees is about to be announced, and we hope to provide another $2.5 million to local organizations across the globe, including approximately 10 micro grants of $60,000 and 13 small grants of $125,000.

Working with partners such as ICCCAD and the Global Resilience Partnership has allowed us to showcase the work of these AFCIA grantees and replicate their innovations in a broader network of networks.

For instance, at last month’s Global Gobeshona Conference, we had the opportunity to learn from four local organizations – from the first cohort of grantees from the Innovation Small Grant Aggregator Platform (ISGAP) Programme – that are implementing solutions to build the resilience of women, youth, refugees and Indigenous communities in India, the Philippines, Uganda and in the Sahel (West Africa).

These examples are instructive. By identifying successful innovation solutions, and then scaling up and replicating them in other parts of a country or region, governments can save valuable time and money.

By establishing or accelerating pilot projects and carefully monitoring their results, insights and best practices can be fed into policy processes, helping to scale up successful approaches.

Working together with partners, I am confident we will empower local communities and stakeholders to innovate and adapt, finding more solutions for resilience building.

We look forward to working with our current partners, and new ones, to scale the impact.

Srilata Kammila is Head of Climate Change Adaptation, UNDP

Source: UN Development Programme (UNDP)

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Credit: UNDP Bangladesh

By Nuzhat Fatima
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Apr 21 2023 (IPS)

The world is becoming increasingly coexistent with crises. A pandemic, the Ukraine-Russia war, and cost-of-living crisis are only a few of the ordeals we’ve seen in just the last two years.

As is characteristic of such crisis settings, those already marginalized are further pushed back, augmenting existing barriers to accessing services, resources and opportunities.

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals centered around leaving no-one behind become all the more difficult to achieve.

Crisis settings are now leading to a worrying trend where those not categorically marginalized are becoming increasingly vulnerable. The World Bank estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic pushed 71-100 million people into extreme poverty, giving rise to the “new poor”, those above the poverty line pre-pandemic who fell below the marker during it.

Against this backdrop, identifying vulnerabilities for development assistance becomes an exponentially more difficult – yet necessary process.

In Bangladesh, around 20 percent of the population was below the poverty line before 2020. This figure has increased substantially since, and is becoming a phenomenon less temporary than expected. In accurately identifying the vulnerabilities of such groups, conventional, income-centred measures of poverty may fall short.

Policy measures must therefore be dispensed using tools that can effectively deal with a range of vulnerabilities, beyond income.

One is the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which captures deprivations in non-monetary dimensions of wellbeing, utilizing a range of indicators in calculating poverty levels for a particular population. Poverty levels are then represented by an MPI score. The higher the figure, the greater the level of poverty.

To see whether multidimensional approaches to addressing vulnerability could potentially be more helpful during crises the Research Facility at the UNDP Bangladesh country office analyzed data from its “Livelihoods Improvement of Urban Poor Communities” (LIUPC) project.

This is a poverty reduction programme covering four million urban poor in 19 Bangladeshi cities, and employs the MPI metric to identify deprivation levels of potential beneficiaries. Conditional cash grants are provided to help eligible MPI-poor households start a business or expand an existing one.

These households also received COVID-19 relief in the form of cash, food, or preventive materials as unconditional support, separate from grants intrinsically part of the project.

A study presented in a recent UNDP Development Futures Series brief compared the before-and-during COVID MPI figures of the beneficiary group with two other household categories – MPI-poor non-grantee households, and vulnerable MPI non-poor households. The detailed methodology and results of the study can be seen here.

Some of the findings from the study were intuitive, business grants disbursed by the project generally helped poor households reduce their multidimensional poverty levels, despite the pandemic.

Far more interesting however were the rather less intuitive policy insights from the analysis:

Consider vulnerable non-poor groups in development programming.

The study’s findings corroborated the emergence of the “new poor”. Households with MPI scores not high enough to be eligible for grants (but still vulnerable, just below the MPI poverty threshold) experienced on average an increase in their multidimensional poverty levels during the pandemic.

People in these categories usually remain outside the purview of emergency policy measures, having not met eligibility requirements of being “poor” under normal circumstances. As such, their vulnerabilities remain unaddressed and are exacerbated during crises.

Cash support helps vulnerable groups during crises.

Findings suggest that the improvement in MPI levels was concentrated amongst the poor groups, including non-grant receivers, while the vulnerable group, who did not receive grants, saw poverty levels deteriorating.

The latter group barely received cash support even in the form of COVID-19 relief, unlike the poor groups. This suggests that in crisis situations, households that receive unconditional cash support may be able to use it to improve living conditions in the immediate term, including households that are not the neediest judging solely by MPI score, but are still vulnerable and at-risk during crises.

Context-specific MPI can complement income-based poverty measures.

Increases or decreases in a household’s MPI score may obscure changes in households with specific vulnerabilities, such as members with disabilities, members belonging to a particular age group, or geographical and regional characteristics.

Despite an overall decline in MPI scores amongst poor households who received grants, the improvement in multidimensional poverty was not reflected for grantee households with disabled members.

Thus, the use of a uniform MPI metric in programming, irrespective of variations in local contexts, also risks overlooking specific needs of vulnerable communities.

Understanding multidimensional poverty would greatly benefit from dynamic data.

The study used static data which cannot account for real-time changes occurring after collection. In this case, if the data had been dynamic and could be updated during the pandemic, the project may have been able to identify beneficiaries and discern the nature of relief needed more appropriately.

Nuzhat Fatima is a Research assistant at UNDP Bangladesh.

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Credit: Shutterstock

By Martin Labbé
GENEVA, Switzerland, Apr 20 2023 (IPS)

As 2022 came to a close, ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, became the fastest-growing app in history, reaching an estimated 123 million users less than three months after its launch.

It is the most prominent specimen of AI-tools that generate content such as text, pictures, and software code. The International Trade Centre (ITC) reflects on what this could mean for the international trade development sphere.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is not new for those using Siri, Cortana and other (virtual) personal assistants. Algorithms powered through massive data have also been determining how we get from A to B when we use a ride-hailing app, whether in a car in Manila or on a “boda boda” in Kampala.

Likewise, AI can screen job applicants in asynchronous video interviews. Cancer diagnosis research, automatic dental prosthetic design and medical image analysis are other examples of how AI is being used in the healthcare sector.

However, the natural language processing functionality of ChatGPT allows us to have a human-like conversation with AI.

This next generation chatbot has the potential to become an alternative to traditional search engines, hence the urge of other big tech companies like Google to launch their own chatbots in 2023 to keep up with the times – and profit.

In the meantime, for many of us, ChatGPT has become a tool we use daily – for research and support in content development. According to Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, which is said to have recently invested more than $10 billion in OpenAI (the scaleup behind ChatGPT), this marks the emergence of a “symbiotic relationship between humans and machines”.

Whether this will be a choice rather than a necessity remains to be seen.

AI is capital intensive both because of the massive amounts of data and the computer power required, which means it will be difficult to see global challengers emerge outside of the OECD.

Software companies in Africa venturing in this field, for instance Baamtu in Senegal, are struggling to access the required data despite their expertise. Data has become the new oil.

Back in 2019, our colleagues at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) spotted the exponential growth of AI in related patent applications since 2012, mainly originating in the United States and China. Now, the rest of the world is trying to catch up.

You can count on impact at scale across the board: from government, business, civil society to education, healthcare and financial services.

Smart digital technologies are already widely used in agriculture in high-income countries. For instance, AI is being used in robotic milking systems in places such as Braz, Austria, to decide which cow should be milked when, with little supervision from the farmer.

In low-income countries, on the other hand, AI is mainly limited to small-scale smart farming and satellite imagery processing at the level of smallholder farming. But looking around, we can anticipate future uses, if an appropriate business model can be found.

The concept of “dark factories”, where industrial robots produce under remote human supervision, is not yet widespread. What will happen to the three million workers in the Bangladeshi ready-made garment industry assembling $5 t-shirts, with a monthly $70 salary, when the current equipment is ready for renewal?

Moreover, service jobs automation is around the corner – even in tech. AI is already sourcing code in code libraries at the request of software developers who use it to increase their productivity. Is this happening at the expense of junior software developers?

Other service sectors will be affected: in Senegal, chatbots are being used instead of customer care operators as clients and investors alike want to reduce costs.

In the Philippines, some of its 1.2 million business-process-management jobs – to a large extent customer care for global clients – could be replaced through robotic process automation.

This technology automates repetitive and routine tasks, allowing businesses to streamline their operations, reduce errors, and increase efficiency.

Beyond the business process management industry, generative AI is also likely to take entry-level gigs from game artists, people who create content for video games, or graphic designers, who often operate on a freelance basis.

If we look at the above under Schumpeter’s Creative Destruction theory, new jobs that don’t exist yet will replace the ones that will be made obsolete. In this context, continuous learning, re- and upskilling will be essential for blue- and white-collar workers.

AI will impact our trade-related technical assistance. AI will accelerate how we analyse trade data analysis. AI will also help us improve the learner experience in ITC’s SME Trade Academy, which is already experimenting with tools such as Synthesia to produce videos with human-like avatars in multiple languages and accents.

We need to help our beneficiaries leverage this technology as well, for instance the tailor in Burundi who is using ChatGPT to draft marketing materials like brochures and website content.

How we deliver our technical assistance and in which languages will also change to the benefit of our clients: text-to-speech in multiple languages can make our trade information accessible to farmers who speak a different language from the one the information was published in and who prefer to dial in rather than to read online.

All the above will not happen overnight, but nevertheless, we need to start preparing for it.

Martin Labbé is Tech Sector Development Coordinator and NTF V programme manager @ International Trade Centre.

Founded in 1964, the International Trade Centre is a multilateral agency which has a joint mandate with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations through the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

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The IMF has made some encouraging improvements in paying attention to social protection, health, and education, but it needs to do much more to avoid, in its own words, “repeating past mistakes”, says new report. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Apr 19 2023 (IPS)

As many as 45 African countries –out of the Continent’s 54 nations–, all of them grouped in what is known as Sub-Saharan Africa, have now been further squeezed to their bones, as funding shrinks to lowest ever levels, and as a portion of the so-called aid goes back to the pockets of rich donor countries.

See what happens.

In its April 2023 World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) talks about a rocky recovery. In its reporting on that, it lowers global economic growth outlook as ‘fog thickens.’

“Donors have turned their aid pledges into a farce. Not only have they undelivered more than 193 billion dollars, but they also funnelled nearly 30 billion dollars into their own pockets by mislabeling what counts as aid"

It says that the road to global economic recovery is “getting rocky.’ And that while inflation is slowly falling, economic growth remains ‘historically low,’ and that the financial risks have risen.

Squeezed

Well. In its April Outlook, the IMF devotes a chapter to Sub-Saharan Africa, titled “The Big Funding Squeeze”.

It says that growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to slow to 3.6 percent as a “big funding squeeze”, tied to “the drying up of aid and access to private finance,” hits the region in this second consecutive year of an aggregate decline.

If no measures are taken, “this shortage of funding may force countries to reduce fiscal resources for critical development like health, education, and infrastructure, holding the region back from developing its true potential.”

Some arguments

According to the IMF:

• Public debt and inflation are at levels not seen in decades, with double-digit inflation present in half of countries—eroding household purchasing power and striking at the most vulnerable.
• The rapid tightening of global monetary policy has raised borrowing costs for Sub-Saharan countries both on domestic and international markets.
• All Sub-Saharan African frontier markets have been cut off from market access since spring 2022.
• The US dollar effective exchange rate reached a 20-year high last year, increasing the burden of dollar-denominated debt service payments. Interest payments as a share of revenue have doubled for the average SSA country over the past decade.
• With shrinking aid budgets and reduced inflows from partners, this is leading to a big funding squeeze for the region.

The giant monetary body says that the lack of financing affects a region that is already struggling with elevated macroeconomic imbalances.

Unprecedented debts and inflation

In a previous article: The Poor, Squeezed by 10 Trillion Dollars in External Debts, IPS reported on the external debt of the world’s low and middle-income countries, which at the end of 2021 totalled 9 trillion US dollars, more than double the amount a decade ago.

Such debts are expected to increase by an additional 1.1 trillion US dollars in 2023, thus totalling 10.1 trillion US dollars.

Now, the IMF reports that “public debt and inflation are at levels not seen in decades, with double-digit inflation present in about half of the countries—eroding household purchasing power and striking at the most vulnerable.”

In short, “Sub-Saharan Africa stands to lose the most in a severely fragmented world and stresses the need for building resilience.”

Like many other major international bodies, the IMF indirectly blames African Governments for non adopting the “right” policies and encourages further investments in the region, while some insist that the way out is digitalisation, robotisation, etcetera.

The big contradiction

Here, a question arises: are all IMF and other monetary-oriented bodies’ recommendations and ‘altruistic’ advice the solution to the deepening collapse of a whole continent, home to around 1,4 billion human beings?

Not really, or at least not necessarily. A global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice, grounded in the commitment to the universality of human rights: Oxfam, on 13 April 2023 said that multilateral lender’s role in helping to insulate people in low- and middle-income countries from economic crises is “incoherent and inadequate.”

For example, “for every $1 the IMF encourages a set of poor countries to spend on public goods, it has told them to cut four times more through austerity measures.”

Countries forced to cut public funding

Then the global civil society movement explains that an important IMF initiative to shore up poor people in the Global South from the worst effects of its own austerity measures and the global economic crisis “is in tatters.”

New analysis by Oxfam finds that the IMF’s “Social Spending Floors” targets designed to help borrowing governments protect minimum levels of social spending— are proving largely powerless against its own austerity policies that instead force countries to cut public funding.

“The IMF’s ‘Social Spending Floors’ encouraged raising inflation-adjusted social spending by about $1 billion over the second year of its loan programs compared to the first year, across the 13 countries that participated where data is available.”

IMF’s austerity policies

By comparison, the IMF’s austerity drive has required most of those same governments to rip away over $5 billion worth of state spending over the same period, warns Oxfam.

“This suggests the IMF was four times more effective in getting governments to cut their budgets than it is in guaranteeing minimum social investments,” said incoming Oxfam International interim Executive Director, Amitabh Behar.

“This is deeply worrying and disappointing, given that the IMF had itself urged countries to build back better after the pandemic by investing in social protection, health and education,” Behar said.

“Among the 2 billion people who are suffering most from the effects of austerity cuts and social spending squeezes, we know it is women who always bear the brunt.”

A fig leaf for austerity?

In its new report “IMF Social Spending Floors. A Fig Leaf for Austerity?,” Oxfam analysed these components in all IMF loan programs agreed with 17 low- and middle-income countries in 2020 and 2021.

Oxfam’s report: “The Assault of Austerity” found inconsistencies between countries. There is no standard or transparent way of tracking progress and many of the minimum targets were inadequate.

The IMF has made some encouraging improvements in paying attention to social protection, health, and education, the report goes on, but it needs to do much more to avoid, in its own words, “repeating past mistakes”.

The farce of aid budget

In another report titled “Obscene amount of aid is going back into the pockets of rich countries,” Oxfam informed that on 12 April 2023 the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. (OECD DAC) published its preliminary figures on the amount of development aid for 2022.

According to the OECD report, in 2022, official development assistance (ODA) by member countries of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) amounted to USD 204.0 billion.

This total included USD 201.4 billion in the form of grants, loans to sovereign entities, debt relief and contributions to multilateral institutions (calculated on a grant-equivalent basis); USD 0.8 billion to development-oriented private sector instrument (PSI) vehicles and USD 1.7 billion in the form of net loans and equities to private companies operating in ODA-eligible countries (calculated on a cash flow basis), it adds.

Total ODA in 2022 rose by 13.6% in real terms compared to 2021, says the OECD.

“This was the fourth consecutive year ODA surpassed its record levels, and one of the highest growth rates recorded in the history of ODA…”

The rich pocketing ‘obscene’ percentage of aid

In response, Marc Cohen, Oxfam’s aid expert, said: “In 2022, rich countries pocketed an obscene 14.4 percent of aid. They robbed the world’s poorest people of a much-needed lifeline in a time of multiple crises.

“Donors have turned their aid pledges into a farce. Not only have they undelivered more than 193 billion dollars, but they also funnelled nearly 30 billion dollars into their own pockets by mislabeling what counts as aid”.

Rich countries inflating their aid budgets

“They continue to inflate their aid budgets by including vaccine donations, the costs of hosting refugees, and by profiting off development aid loans. It is time for a system with teeth to hold them to account and make sure aid goes to the poorest people in the poorest countries.”

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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Palm Trees line the beach along the coast of Comoros.

By Kingsley Ighobor
MORONI, Comoros, Apr 13 2023 (IPS)

In February 2023, the Union of Comoros ratified the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Later that month, the country’s President Azali Assoumani took over as Chairperson of the African Union.

In this interview with Africa Renewal’s Kingsley Ighobor, the UN Resident Coordinator in Comoros François Batalingaya explains the UN support for the country during the ratification process and highlights investment opportunities in the country.

These are excerpts from the interview:

Q: Comoros recently ratified the AfCFTA. What kind of support did the UN provide the national authorities in ensuring a successful ratification process?

A: As you know, President Azali Assoumani was one of the first African leaders to sign the African Continental Free Trade Agreement in Kigali in 2018. So, Comoros was always there with a high-level political will.

Two fishermen set out for the days catch off the coast of Comoros in the Indian Ocean.

However, there were some concerns about a potential loss of customs revenue, which represents between 40 per cent and 50 per cent of the total government revenue. Not all the Members of Parliament or senior government officials were convinced that the AfCFTA is a good idea.

Comoros’ main trading partners are in (Asia) and the Middle East, not the African mainland. For example, India and Pakistan. As well as China and Brazil. We import most of our chicken from Brazil.

Q: Now, what did the UN do?

A: First, the UN organized local and national consultations. Under the leadership of the Regional Economic Commission, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), there were workshops on the three islands [that make up Comoros] to discuss the AfCFTA’s opportunities.

We had the consultation workshop in the capital Moroni, attended by President Assoumani, the Speaker of Parliament Moustadroine Abdou, governors, cabinet ministers, MPs, the private sector and others.

Kingsley Ighobor. Africa Renewal

Third, high-level advocacy was my role as the UN Resident Coordinator: to encourage the political leadership to ratify the agreement.

Comoros has significant untapped potential or business opportunities. For example, the tourism industry could be further developed. Looking at the tourism industry in the region, Comoros is the only country whose tourism industry is still not well developed. Neighbouring Seychelles and Madagascar receive between 400,000 and 500,000 tourists per year.

Q: How did you allay fears about loss of customs revenues?

A: When you look at what Comoros imports and where it gets customs revenues from, these are not goods that will be affected much by the AfCFTA. Most imported products are from Middle Eastern countries, India and China. But basic foodstuffs come from Tanzania, Mozambique, Kenya, and other African mainland countries. Importation of these foodstuffs will not significantly affect customs revenue.

Francois Xavier Batalingaya. UN Resident Coordinator in Comoros

Q: What are some made-in-Comoros products the country could potentially export to the larger African market?

A: These are essential oils like ylang-ylang of which Comoros is the number one producer in the world; we have spices that are beloved in places like India; we have vanilla and cloves.

We need to create value chains around these products and export to countries like Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti and others. Comoros needs to access these markets.

Q: Now that the Agreement is ratified, what next?

A: As I said, Comoros is heavily dependent on imports. Therefore, the AfCFTA must be an engine of economic growth, sustainable development and, importantly, poverty reduction.

We need to mobilize the private sector to take full advantage of new trading opportunities on the continent. We need to support the industrialisation of Comoros—facilitate trade and promote foreign direct investment.

For example, with funding from the European Union, the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and the International Trade Centre (ITC) are implementing a project to support production, industrialisation and free trade in Comoros. That’s a good initiative.

Another initiative is the digitalisation of the customs process, and that’s with the support of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The AfCFTA is an instrument for strengthening social inclusion; therefore, we must ensure that women and youth are involved in these discussions and can take full advantage of trading opportunities in Africa.

Q: An issue much talked about is a lack of awareness among some African traders regarding how they can benefit from AfCFTA. What is the situation with the private sector in Comoros?

A: What we have done is talk to the leaders of the private sector. We need to continue to engage them and at a lower level. The sensitization has to continue. Having ratified the Agreement, we need to raise awareness so they know how they could benefit from it.

Q: What other key development activities is the UN undertaking in Comoros that are impacting the lives of ordinary citizens?

A: Well, let me tell you this: in July 2021, the UN (21 UN agencies, funds and programmes) and the government signed a new generation Cooperation Framework, a five-year initiative—from 2022 to 2026—divided into four pillars: the planet, prosperity, people and peace.

On the planet, we want to strengthen resilience to climate change, natural disasters and other humanitarian crises. Of course, with sustainable integration and management of marine ecosystems. At the AU Summit, the Head of State said it is a priority for Africa, and it would be a priority for us over the next five years.

The other pillar is prosperity. Basically, we need to create a competitive and inclusive economy and partner with the private sector using a sustainable development approach that focuses on sectors with high potential, such as the blue and the digital economy.

Then we need to invest in people. We need to make better use of opportunities and foster inclusive and equitable, gender-sensitive development, providing high-quality nutrition, education and social protection, and the protection of the survivors of sexual and gender violence.

The last pillar is peace. Social cohesion is a priority for us. Human rights, gender equality and democracy are important. That’s why the elections next year are critical. We need to have public institutions that are more inclusive, efficient and accountable to the citizens.

We are committed to accompanying the government to achieve emerging market status and the SDGs.

These are essential oils like ylang-ylang of which Comoros is the number one producer in the world; we have spices that are beloved in places like India; we have vanilla and cloves. We need to create value chains around these products and export to countries like Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti and others. Comoros needs to access these markets

Q: Comoros is an island state, meaning there could be climate change challenges. What are these challenges?

A: A good example is Cyclone Kenneth that hit Comoros four years ago and destroyed schools and hospitals. We are still feeling the impact. In addition to the cyclones, rising waters are also a major concern.

We have a water access problem. We have an active volcano called Karthala, which could erupt any time. That’s why we are always in preparedness and disaster management mode.

Q: There are also great opportunities, I guess. What do you tell anyone intending to explore investment opportunities in Comoros?

A: Comoros has significant untapped potential or business opportunities. For example, the tourism industry could be further developed. Looking at the tourism industry in the region, Comoros is the only country whose tourism industry is still not well developed. Neighbouring Seychelles and Madagascar receive between 400,000 and 500,000 tourists per year.

Comoros, before the pandemic, received only about 45,000 tourists per year, mostly Comorians from the diaspora. If I were to invest in Comoros, I would invest in hotels. We need quality hotels.

Comoros now chairs the AU, and it needs quality infrastructure for high-level conferences.Comoros is a welcoming society. I hope other people can come and enjoy that welcoming culture. And the weather is great. So, please, come over!

Q: What are young Comorians doing in terms of innovation?

A: Young Comorians like to join their brother and sisters in especially Marseille, France. The youth are attracted to migration. The good thing is that the girls in Comoros are going to school at a higher rate than the boys, which is not the same in the African mainland. That’s quite encouraging. Girls are attracted to disciplines such as law and administration and less to vocational training. So, we need to get them interested in vocational training too.

Q: What is being done to address this imbalance?

A: Youth employment is a priority for the government and for us as the UN. We are working with the International Labour Organization to invest in youth employment. Every single one of us [UN entities] has a youth mandate. Again, I will not forget the women.

Finally, let me say that Comoros is one of the countries that needs support, particularly investments.

The GDP per capita in Comoros is approximately $1,500. About 20 per cent of Comorians live in extreme poverty. We have more to do to achieve the SDGs. The country needs the UN and foreign direct investors. Let’s work together to support them.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations

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UN Resident Coordinator in Indonesia Valerie Julliand plants trees in Bogor, West Java. Credit: UN Indonesia

By Valerie Julliand
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Apr 12 2023 (IPS)

As Ramadan continues through next week, the world’s 2 billion Muslims will focus on the core values of the holy month: helping the poor and committing oneself to the service of others.

These are values that are at the heart of many religions – and also are core values of the United Nations. The UN, including here in Indonesia, works to serve those less fortunate, under the motto to Leave No One Behind.

Committing oneself to the service of others includes future generations. Taking care of our planet to make sure it remains habitable and can support life on earth as we know it for those who come after us is one of our key responsibilities.

“Future generations” refers to people who will come after us, those who are not yet born. More than 10 billion people are projected to be born before the end of this century alone, predominantly in countries that are currently low- or middle-income.

As the global population is expected to grow, we need to ensure that sufficient resources remain available to them. The lives of the future generations, and their ability to effectively enjoy human rights and meet their needs are strongly determined by today’s actions.

Do we over-exploit the resources of the planet or do we only take as much as we really need and use resources sustainably, bearing in mind the generations to come?

At a time when millions of Indonesians are going to gather for iftar with friends and family evening after evening, let us pause for a moment to think not only about those who have passed away but also about those not yet with us.

As the UN Secretary General’s Our Common Agenda policy brief “To think and act for future generations”, released last week, makes it abundantly clear, stopping climate change and pollution ARE our prime tasks when it comes to serving those not yet born. And the world is failing in these tasks – and needs to do more, much more.

Another UN report, released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just last week, points out that we are currently on track to a global warming of 2.8 degrees above pre-industrial levels. That is much above the Paris Agreement’s goal to keep global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius. Countries have made commitments to reduce emissions but are not fulfilling them.

Indonesia is among the few countries that heeded the call to strengthen their Paris Agreement commitments last year. In November, the government announced a new set of targets, with more ambitious climate change mitigation goals than before, including a commitment to generate over a third of the country’s energy from renewables as early as 2030.

The UN in Indonesia supports the government in its plans to meet climate commitments and balance the needs of current and future generations through development that is sustainable. We advise the government on climate financing.

We support PLN in modernizing its Java-Madura-Bali power grid, so that it can take in more electricity from intermittent renewable sources like solar and wind. We support Transjakarta in its plans to convert its 10,000-strong bus fleet to electric buses.

Late last year, the government, the UN and development partners signed the National Blue Agenda Actions Partnership in support of Indonesia’s plans to create a more sustainable ocean-based economy.

Eight UN agencies and several donors work in tandem with the government to ensure that the sea can provide livelihoods to coastal communities not only today but also tomorrow.

A sustainable blue economy is vital for Indonesia as it helps boost revenues from ocean-based activities while conserving marine biodiversity and the health of the ocean through the restoration, sustainable use and protection of marine ecosystems.

The world needs more partnerships like this, so that we can safeguard the planet for those who are not yet born. A UN General Assembly resolution adopted last September calls for a Summit of the Future in 2024, where world leaders are expected to agree on multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow, strengthening global governance for both present and future generations.

May the values embodied by Ramadan—peace, compassion and generosity—prevail during this holy month, and throughout the year, and the years, decades and centuries to come.

Valerie Julliand is UN Resident Coordinator in Indonesia.

This article was originally published as an oped in the Jakarta Post.

Source: DCO

The Development Coordination Office (DCO) manages and oversees the Resident Coordinator system and serves as secretariat of the UN Sustainable Development Group. Its objective is to support the capacity, effectiveness and efficiency of Resident Coordinators and the UN development system as a whole in support of national efforts for sustainable development.

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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Anna Ikeda. Credit: Soka University of America Photography

By Anna Ikeda
NEW YORK, Apr 10 2023 (IPS)

The current war in Ukraine has shown that nuclear deterrence is deeply flawed. It relies on the assumption of “rational actors” in power and credibility of threats, which we know are far from reality, especially in times of conflicts.

Beyond their potential use, nuclear weapons continue to threaten us through their mere presence. For instance, resources spent on those weapons hinder the advancement towards achieving the SDGs and building the post-pandemic world. Therefore, they tangibly affect other priority areas to be addressed at the G7 summit.

Thus, this year’s G7 summit presents an opportunity to seriously rethink our understanding of security and international peace.

The 2022 SGI Peace Proposal, authored by our international president Daisaku Ikeda, urges that we must “detoxify” ourselves from current nuclear-dependent security doctrines. Based on this, I offer some recommendations on controlling nuclear weapons:

1. Adopt a No First Use policy

To reduce current tensions and create a way toward resolving the Ukraine crisis, the nuclear-weapon states must urgently initiate action to reduce nuclear risks. With nuclear arsenals in a continuing state of high alert, there is a considerably heightened risk of unintentional nuclear weapon use.

For this reason, SGI has renewed its commitment to advocate for the principle of No First Use to be universalized as the security policy of all states possessing nuclear weapons as well as nuclear-dependent states.

We believe that adopting the doctrine of No First Use by nuclear-armed states would significantly stabilize the global security climate and help create a much needed space for bilateral and multilateral dialogue toward ending the conflict.

A No First Use policy would also operationalize the recent statement by the G20 leaders that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible, as well as the statement by the P-5 countries in January 2022 that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Certainly, such declaratory policy must be accompanied by changes in actual postures and policies, such as taking all nuclear forces off hair-triggered alert, in order to build mutual trust.

Overall, No First Use would be a critical step toward reducing the role of nuclear weapons in national security and serve as an impetus to advance nuclear disarmament. We therefore urge G7 leaders to seize the opportunity to discuss and announce strategies of risk reduction, de-escalation, and disarmament, particularly by declaring the policy of No First Use.

2. Engage productively in multilateral disarmament discussions and take bold leadership

It is critically important that G7 leaders take bold leadership and renew their commitment to fulfill obligations for disarmament stipulated under Article VI of the NPT.

Equally important would be to further explore the complementarity between the NPT and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). We especially hope Japan will fulfill its commitment as a bridge-builder by engaging productively in the TPNW discussions, recognizing that, despite divergent approaches, all countries share grave concerns about the potential use of nuclear weapons.

We strongly urge G7 countries to work cooperatively with the TPNW States Parties by committing to attend meetings of states parties to the treaty in the future.

3. Commit to work towards the elimination of nuclear weapons

It is often said that a world without nuclear weapons is the “ultimate goal.” However, we have to be sure this goal is achieved before nuclear weapons destroy our world. There have been some calls by experts to set the year 2045 as the absolute deadline for the elimination of nuclear weapons. At the Hiroshima Summit, G7 leaders could possibly agree on setting such a timeline and determine to begin negotiations accordingly.

4. Support disarmament and nonproliferation education initiatives

Lastly, we call on G7 leaders to demonstrate their support for educational initiatives at every level. We strongly hope that they set an example by visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and meeting the atomic bomb survivors, to directly hear from them, and learn from their experiences.

To shift the current security paradigm, we must transform the way people think about peace and security, and challenge the dominant narrative that nuclear weapons keep us safe. We need to raise the public’s awareness that the surest way to avoid a nuclear war is by eliminating these catastrophic weapons.

A 2009 nuclear abolition proposal by the SGI president states that, if we are to put the era of nuclear terror behind us, we must confront the ways of thinking that justify nuclear weapons; the readiness to annihilate others when they are seen as a threat or as a hindrance to the realization of our objectives.

For this reason, we ask for the G7 leaders’ commitment to make available the opportunity for everyone, especially but not limited to young people, to learn about the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons.

We welcome Prime Minister Kishida’s initiative for the Hiroshima Action Plan, and establishing a “Youth Leader Fund for a world without nuclear weapons.” We hope Japan will exercise its leadership to affirm that the purpose of such initiatives is not to provide only the education about disarmament, but education for disarmament.

To close, the current tensions and uncertainties in the global security climate elevates, not undermines, the value and role of dialogue and diplomacy. Forums like the G7 and the United Nations serve more important functions than ever.

Anna Ikeda is representative to the United Nations of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), and the program coordinator for disarmament of the SGI Office for UN Affairs, where her work focuses on nuclear abolition and stopping killer robots. This is a slightly shortened transcript of her paper presented to the conference on ‘Advancing Security and Sustainability at the G7 Hiroshima Summit‘ at Soka University, Tokyo on March 29, 2023.

IPS UN Bureau

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