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

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According to the United Nations, the world’s population is more than three times larger than it was in the mid-twentieth century. The global human population reached 8.0 billion in mid-November 2022 from an estimated 2.5 billion people in 1950, adding 1 billion people since 2010 and 2 billion since 1998. The world’s population is expected to increase by nearly 2 billion persons in the next 30 years, from the current 8 billion to 9.7 billion in 2050 and could peak at nearly 10.4 billion in the mid-2080s.

By Nandita Bajaj
ST PAUL, Minnesota USA, May 10 2023 (IPS)

India’s population has just reached 1.4 billion people, surpassing China as the world’s most populous nation four years earlier than projected. Spurring this growth is a traditional patriarchal culture in which women’s identity is constrained by the social expectation they bear children.

Across the globe, pronatalist forces undermine women’s autonomy and self-determination. Pronatalism is an underlying driver of the global population growing to 8 billion and counting, with 80 million added each year.

The new UNFPA State of World Population Report is wrong to dismiss “population anxiety” as groundless and assert that “population sizes are neither good nor bad.” Population growth is not good for people or the planet, and anxiety is not an unwarranted response to how it affects us.

Population growth deepens social and economic inequality and has negative impacts on unemployment, housing costs, inflation, infrastructure, resource scarcity, pollution, and well-being. It even fuels resource conflicts and wars.

It’s also one of the key variables determining overall consumption and pollution levels, which are jeopardizing planetary life support systems on which we and Earth’s remaining biodiversity depend.

Population growth is a significant factor in climate change according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Over the past three decades, it has cancelled out most climate gains from renewables and efficiency.

Going forward, population growth will be concentrated in the developing world. Dismissing its environmental impacts betrays an assumption that low-income populations in the Global South will stay that way.

This is false as well as unjust. Across the globe, the middle class is the fastest-growing segment of the population, projected to grow another billion to reach 5 billion by 2030. This will bring better living standards for a billion of today’s poor. But we must recognize that it will also bring more peril to an already overburdened planet.

Beyond its impacts on GHG emissions and the climate, population growth also drives broader “overshoot,” meaning that human demands are exceeding Earth’s regenerative capacity.

Currently, we consume 75 percent more than the Earth can provide sustainably, resulting in unprecedented biodiversity loss and an extinction crisis, dwindling freshwater supplies, ocean acidification, expanding desertification, and resource scarcity.

Much of this damage comes from our global food systems, which are directly tied to population growth, and which have already transformed at least 40 percent of the planet’s ice-free land area. They are the primary threat to 86 percent of endangered species.

Much of agriculture’s negative impact is due to the Green Revolution, which is often invoked to inspire confidence that human ingenuity can solve the problems associated with population growth.

But the Green Revolution has posed wicked problems of its own, including deforestation, damaging soil health and the nutritional content of food, and agrochemical pollution. In the Global South, where these problems are especially acute, it has failed to improve health and well-being.

Similarly, faith in green technology, including the unfounded belief renewable energy will somehow decouple growth from environmental damage, ignores real-world negative impacts which disproportionately affect poor people and frontline communities.

Scaling up massive clean energy infrastructure without working to downsize demand wreaks environmental devastation. So does mining toxic rare earth metals, dirty and dangerous work which is done in slave-like conditions by people in the Global South.

The UNFPA report displays this kind of misplaced faith in technology and human ingenuity. Such faith is rooted in a bias toward endless economic growth, propagated by those who have most benefited from the current economic system and who are already wealthy. It ignores the ecological unraveling of continued human expansionism, and the massive toll it takes on human well-being.

According to the IPCC, the climate crisis will lead to increased death and illness from extreme weather and heat waves, growing agricultural losses, destruction of small island states, debilitating drought, declining freshwater supplies, and escalating losses of marine and terrestrial biodiversity.

Over a billion people are expected to be climate refugees by 2050.

From climate change, violence, and conflict to decreased economic opportunity, population growth’s impacts are felt most acutely by women, whose status in developing countries is already low, and by children, including those yet to be born. UNICEF calls the outlook for a billion children in climate-vulnerable countries “unimaginably dire.”

In a time when no government climate plans are on track to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and we are witnessing a human-driven mass extinction event, dismissing the profound impacts of population growth is shockingly irresponsible.

The UNFPA makes this mistake. It seeks to champion reproductive rights, yet dismisses the importance of population growth, which is driven by patriarchal pronatalist forces that pressure women into obsolete gender roles and abrogate their rights.

Failure to make this connection between rights and growth is the report’s most disappointing aspect.

Population deceleration and human rights go together; we need to advocate both. They are both achievable by the same set of human rights-based policies: universal education, women’s empowerment, children’s rights, and free, state-of-the-art family planning for all.

Truly advancing the causes of human rights and ecological sustainability requires humanity to shrink our population and our economies. It’s our only chance to achieve a high standard of living for all while staying within planetary boundaries.

Nandita Bajaj is the executive director of Population Balance and co-host of The Overpopulation Podcast. She also teaches the first graduate course of its kind: Pronatalism, Overpopulation, and the Planet, through the Institute for Humane Education at Antioch University.

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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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The World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry delegates at Minamata COP-4, on 23 March, 2022, Bali, Indonesia. Credit: Kiara Worth, IISD/ENB (Earth Negotiation Bulletin)

By Charlie Brown
LOME, Togo, Apr 26 2023 (IPS)

The Minamata Convention on Mercury, a stellar success story to date, has been favorably compared to the prototype success story for a treaty on toxins: the Montreal Protocol. Both had a single focused mission; both gained universal support across the globe; both matched technological innovation with environmental science to discard old polluting methods.

But emerging after hidden negotiations with the mercury lobby is a GEF project with UNEP endorsement which ignores, if not outright defies, the will of the Parties. As COP5 approaches, here is the test case on whether Minamata continues to move our small planet toward an end to anthropogenic mercury—or become mired in corporate capture.

For the past decade, the Parties repeatedly rejected the agenda of the dental mercury lobby—the dentists who still cling to the 19th century tooth-unfriendly pollutant amalgam, despite it being 50% mercury and a health risk to their own dental nurses; and the waste industry, whose obvious self-interest is to keep amalgam going into perpetuity to sell their equipment.

Charlie Brown

So, the dental mercury lobby met repeatedly with GEF and UNEP staff in sessions closed to the Parties . . . closed to the Minamata Secretariat . . . closed to the Minamata Bureau . . . closed to the dozens of CSOs who have actively pushed for a treaty to phase out anthropogenic mercury.

Violating their own standards, GEF and UNEP constructed (or allowed without objection) a project that bypasses the Children’s Amendment entirely in favor of trying to redirect the mission of the treaty from use to waste—the very position repeatedly rejected by the Parties since 2013.

Separators do not sell well because they do not and cannot eliminate mercury waste; they only catch the mercury in the dentist office—not the mercury implanted in people—and they require a massive infrastructure to ensure that even that partial waste, from dental offices, is properly disposed of. Only one solution ends mercury waste from amalgam: the switch to mercury-free dentistry.

The #1 beneficiary of this Greenwashing is the world’s only major publicly traded dental products maker expanding sales of amalgam: Southern Dental Industries (SDI) of Melbourne. While its competitors exited or scaled back amalgam—or never made it in the first place—SDI seized their exits as its opportunity to corner the amalgam market.

Just six weeks ago, in a call to its shareholders, SDI’s CEO boasted about its huge increases in amalgam sales, detailed its entry into new markets to sell amalgam, and affirmed her personal goal of ‘maximizing’ amalgam sales! Wriggling into a GEF-UNEP amalgam “reduction” project while increasing amalgam sales, SDI is the sole dental products company in a project partnership role—hence given market access denied to their mercury-free competitors in nations on three continents. Here is a classic case of Corporate Capture!

GEF’s requirement of stakeholder participation at the earliest stage was papered over via a legerdemain: a false claim that the NGOs are participating. Falsely listed as participants are the World Alliance for Mercury-Free Dentistry, Bangladesh-based Environment and Social Development Organization, Germany-based European Network for Environmental Medicine, Philippines-based BAN Toxics, Nepal-based Center for Public Health and Environmental Development, Cameroun-based Centre de Recherche et d’Education pour le Développement, and U.S.-based Consumers for Dental Choice.

Equally troubling, RAP-AL Uruguay, who leads the campaign for mercury-free dentistry for Latin America, is preliminarily assigned to promote separator sales—a goal anathema to its very mission.

UNEP top brass in Nairobi and GEF top brass in Washington need to act:

• First, to determine who on their staffs submitted the plethora of false claims of CSO participation;
• Second, to kill this project, so that the Minamata Convention on Mercury does not become the treaty about corporate capture and greenwashing;
• Third, to use GEF funding to enact the will of the Parties as stated unequivocally in its 2022 Amendment: stop placing mercury fillings, for all time and all regions, in children and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.

IPS UN Bureau

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Excerpt:

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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Technology increasingly sits at the intersection of many aspects of our lives: how we work and learn, how we interact with the people in our lives and the world around us, and how we access and consume the products and services we use every day. Diversity in engineering and technology is critical to ensuring different perspectives are considered when we identify and solve problems with technology and results in more creative solutions. Credit: United Nations

By Padmini Sharma
MILAN, Italy, Apr 10 2023 (IPS)

Excessive reliance on algorithmic management has raised concerns regarding its opaque decision-making mechanisms and implication for workers.

In less than a decade, digital platforms have evolved from a niche market to engulf diverse industries and services across the globe, in developed and developing nations alike.

Defined as online mechanisms that enable exchanging goods, services, or information between different actors, these include the likes of Amazon, eBay, Uber, Deliveroo and Airbnb.

In India, both location-dependent jobs like ride-hailing, food delivery and caregiving to location-independent jobs like crowd work have grown due to the high demand for these services in the market, coupled with huge labour reserves comprising both local and migrant labour forces.

As more than 88 per cent of the total employees in India is engaged in the informal economy, some considered the rise in the platform economy to hold significant potential in addressing existing economic and social disparities.

The term ‘platform economy’ encompasses the growing digital platforms, the models of which are gaining significance over other traditional setups as they offer the possibility to save significantly on structural and labour costs, reduce transaction costs and eliminate barriers.

These have constrained labour force participation across disadvantaged groups and ensure a high degree of autonomy for workers to decide about their workload, work portfolio, time and place of work.

Thus, many workers consider these platforms to extend viable opportunities for earning a living, whether at home or abroad. However, despite these advantages, these platforms have raised concerns over deteriorating working conditions.

Pitfalls of algorithmic management

These platforms depend on algorithmic management to mediate labour relations. In practice this means that algorithms manage labour through certain practices like assigning orders to specific workers, optimising delivery routes, calculating income and incentives, and monitoring and evaluating the performances of workers.

Initially, algorithmic management was seen as a positive development for workers due to its comparison with previous job experiences. Most workers found it to be less stressful, offering them more autonomy and flexibility and above all the belief that the algorithm is more ‘reliable’ in allocating tasks or calculating their income.

Compared to dealing with humans as managers, dealing with apps was a more rewarding experience in the pre-Covid19 era. Undoubtedly, introducing algorithms has its advantages.

When extracting and using massive real-time data, algorithms can execute faster and make more accurate decisions, therefore enhancing workers’ productivity and efficiency while reducing transaction costs.

The use of algorithmic management is seen to have indirect negative implications on the physical and mental health of the workers, which, to meet the targets, are working 14 to 17 hours per day.

Positive as it may seem at first glance, algorithmic management has also introduced certain risks. Although most workers are aware that platforms such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo are strategically leveraging workers’ data to calculate remuneration or assess performances, many workers find it hard to understand the functioning of these apps, in particular the techniques that go into the programming.

This lack of understanding results in doubts about the claimed ‘logical’ and ‘unbiased’ mechanisms of these apps;

‘It does not understand what problems we face on the road […] like when we go to deliver the order to the customer, if there is any problem on the way like a bike accident or anything, then that is not considered […] the company does not understand that […] if I have taken the order, it means I have to deliver it […] and if I am not being able to deliver it, then the app will directly deduct the amount of the order or even its double from the pay-out’, explains a Mumbai delivery worker.

The excessive reliance on algorithmic management has raised concerns regarding these opaque decision-making mechanisms, their implications for workers, their random and inscrutable logic that leaves less room for human comprehension and for workers to contest as well as the high potential for them to propagate existing biases and discrimination.

In addition to this, the use of algorithmic management is also seen to have indirect negative implications on the physical and mental health of the workers, which, to meet the targets, are working 14 to 17 hours per day on average — severely disrupting their work-life balance.

Linking the delivery time to ratings, moreover, makes workers jump traffic signals and ride at high speed, often ignoring the risks associated with such decisions. The assignment of tasks based on several often ‘beyond controllable’ factors by the algorithm increases stress among workers.

These highly controlled unilateral relations with the app are further seen to be disrupting the social relations among the workers which restricts their potential to engage in collective resistance.

Many platform workers are thus moving towards individualistic approaches such as waiting at specific locations or maintaining good terms with the team leaders to make themselves more visible to possibly secure higher orders and income.

Even when some workers are resorting to digital means in uniting, it is not clear whether such mechanisms can contribute towards arousing significant pro-working-class consciousness among the workers.

The challenge of regulating platforms

At the EU level, with multiple cases coming up against algorithmic manipulation and discrimination, and the inaccessibility of data, significant attention is devoted to regulating the rights and interests of platform workers by introducing new governing mechanisms.

As platform workers, with or without support from unions, have brought up several cases against these platforms relating to algorithmic functioning. For example, in Italy, based on the cases filed against app-based delivery platforms, the Courts of Palermo and Courts of Bologna have agreed that the work in these platforms is highly managed via algorithms, the deliveries are assigned based on criteria that are not related to the workers’ preferences or their general interests and that it runs on principles that violate Italian law prohibiting discrimination against employees or self-employed.

The debate in India has mostly centred around including platform workers under the proposed Code on Social Security to ensure more uniform coverage for workers engaged across different platforms.

However, unlike in the European context, the Judiciary in India has not been able to extend recommendations to protect and regulate the interests of the platform or the gig workers. Instead, the debate has mostly centred around including platform workers under the proposed Code on Social Security to ensure more uniform coverage for workers engaged across different platforms.

However, this Code is criticised on several grounds, as it does not solve the main issues concerning workers’ classification and minimum wages and because of its approach to social security, which is still not enough to address existing concerns.

The Code also does not mention any timelines to implement the schemes, thereby adding to the uncertainties of workers. Lastly, the division of powers is also a problem since there is no clear demarcation of responsibilities between the central and state government on labour issues.

A further attempt at regulation in the Motor Vehicles Act of 2020 has sought to place obligations on platforms to maintain transparency over the ‘functioning of the app algorithm’, however, it has not incorporated the ‘right to explanation’, meaning that workers still do not have access to understanding the mechanisms that go into calculating their income, allocating tasks or evaluating their performances.

As workers are coming up with multiple complaints concerning threats to personal data, a lack of transparency, unaccountable algorithmic programming, as well as algorithmic manipulation, there is a strong need to create a more robust governing structure that ensures platform workers greater access to data and to the mechanisms involved in designing their work practices.

Padmini Sharma is a PhD Candidate in Economic Sociology and Labour Studies at the Universita Degli Studi di Milano.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS), published by the Global and European Policy Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.

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A nurse walks into a hospital ward in Janakpur in Dhanusha District in southern Nepal. Credit: UNICEF/Rupadhayay

By Roopa Dhatt and Susannah Schaefer
WASHINGTON DC / NEW YORK, Apr 7 2023 (IPS)

As World Health Worker Week draws to a close on April 7, health organizations from around the world have been celebrating women’s vital role in the health workforce and sharing stories about the enormous value they bring to all areas of health and care.

But platitudes are not enough. It’s time for global health leaders to step up and turn these words into action.

Globally, women make up almost 70% of the global health workforce and 90% of the frontline health workforce, contributing over $3 trillion to global health each year. The health systems in which they work play a significant role in remote and marginalized groups’ access to health, especially in times of crisis. Despite this, the challenges faced by community health workers (CHWs) are frequently overlooked.

CHWs play a critical role in providing care to vulnerable populations, but they are undervalued and accorded lower status in the “informal” workforce. Upwards of six million women are estimated to be either unpaid or grossly underpaid despite working in core health systems roles and just 14% of CHWs in Africa are salaried.

It is unjust that global health systems rely on the labor of unpaid women who are creating social and economic value that is uncounted and unrewarded. Unpaid work reduces women’s economic security and increases their lifetime poverty.

It also weakens health systems. The pandemic has demonstrated the need for strong and resilient health systems, but there can be no global health security while health systems are subsidized by some of the world’s poorest women.

Women health workers continue to make huge sacrifices to work on the frontlines. They went door-to-door educating households on the COVID-19 virus, tracing contacts, and delivering vaccines.

At last year’s World Health Assembly, India’s one million women community health workers known as accredited social health activists (ASHAs) were honored for successfully protecting the health of millions of people during the pandemic.

At the start of the pandemic, however, reports were coming out of India about the unacceptable risk faced by ASHA workers who were being sent into communities without lack of infection controls and facing stigma and abuse as perceived vectors of the virus.

In 2020, they launched widespread street protests and strikes to demand better pay, protection, and working conditions. ASHA workers may have been acknowledged as global health leaders, but they continue to be underpaid with small performance-based honorariums. They are still fighting for a fair and regular salary and the benefits that come with formal sector roles.

Pre-pandemic the World Health Organization (WHO) projected a global shortage of 10 million health workers by 2030, which COVID-19 now has deepened. Health workers lost their lives to the virus and significant numbers are unable to work, affected by ‘long-COVID’. There have been increased reports of violence towards women health workers during the pandemic–from colleagues as well as patients and their families.

In a 2018 report on health policy and system support to optimize CHW programs, one of the primary WHO recommendations included fair remuneration for CHWs, but this is still far from the norm. When CHWs are compensated, it often fails to align with WHO recommendations, which call for financial packages that are commensurate with the demands of the job, the level of complexity, the training required, and the hours worked.

This World Health Workers Week, we come together with our partners to call on global health leaders, governments and policy makers to disrupt the status quo. We believe that every person, regardless of gender, should have access to quality health and care and opportunities to thrive.

We know a fairly-compensated health workforce–alongside training, supervision, and safe working environments–leads to improved productivity, wider access to healthcare, and better patient outcomes.

The gender pay gap in health of 24% is one of the largest of any sector. We are calling on leaders to take measures to close that gap. We stand with our partners in calling for and focusing on transformative change, including gender-equal leadership in global health and a new social contract for women health workers centered on the need for fair and equal pay and safe and decent work.

There is increasing urgency in both high-income and low- and-middle income countries to prioritize changes in guidelines, funding, and policies. After three years of COVID-19, women health workers, who have been the majority in patient-facing roles, are burned out and traumatized.

Understandably, women are leaving the health sector at all levels in a ‘Great Resignation,’ which threatens to deepen the global health worker shortage crisis.

Addressing these injustices is a moral obligation and an economic necessity. Investing in health workers is a win-win proposition and will send a message that we recognize and value them as professionals.

Not only can we restore justice to neglected global health systems, but we can improve the working conditions and pay of health workers, unleashing broader economic benefits.

We would like to send a clear message that as heads of global health organizations we are committed to building stronger health systems and a more equitable world. Achieving true health equity includes quality care for all–including health workers.

Dr Roopa Dhatt is Executive Director and Co-Founder Women in Global Health, a fast- growing women-led movement with 47 chapters worldwide.

Susannah (“Susie”) Schaefer is Executive Vice Chair, President, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Smile Train, the world’s largest cleft-focused organization with a sustainable and local model of supporting surgery and other forms of comprehensive cleft care.

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Midwives Lucie Banionia and Lydie Mawelo help deliver the future at the General Reference Hospital in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the world's fastest-growing countries. Credit: UNFPA/Junior Mayindu

By Maniza Habib
WASHINGTON DC, Mar 28 2023 (IPS)

International family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) are critical to achieving gender equity, but U.S. investment in them is not nearly sufficient to meet the moment.

The Biden-Harris FY2024 budget request proposes to invest $619.43 million for bilateral FP/RH programs plus $57.5 million for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)– a total of $676.8 million. That’s 11% more than Congress appropriated last year, and it’s one of the only proposed funding increases in the global health sector this year, yet it’s still just a fraction of what’s needed.

The fair-share U.S. contribution, i.e. what it would need to contribute proportionately to ensure the all women of reproductive age in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have their modern contraception needs met, is calculated to be $1.736 billion.

Family planning gives people control over their own bodies and futures. At its core, it’s about empowering individuals to make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive lives, including if, when, and how many children to have, and how far apart to space births.

Access to family planning enables women to pursue their education and participate more meaningfully in economic and political life.

These are all necessary components of gender equality. Yet U.S. funding for international FP/RH has stayed flat for a decade while global population, reproductive health needs, and barriers to access have been growing. It is high time for the U.S. to meet its responsibility to help close the gap.

A group of children smile in Ismail Bhand village in Pakistan’s Shaheed Benazirabad district, Sindh province. Credit: UNICEF/Shehzad Noorani

There are 923 million women of reproductive age in LMICs who want to avoid pregnancy. About a quarter of those (218 million) have an unmet need for modern contraception. They want to avoid pregnancy but are not using a modern method. Reasons for this vary from government restrictions on accessing contraceptives to service providers refusing to distribute them to having to travel daunting distances to the nearest clinic.

These hurdles are compounded by gender-based discrimination. For example, stigma surrounding contraceptives and sex make it particularly difficult for young, single women to access services.

Marginalized groups face discriminatory attitudes in clinics, including in the U.S., where members of the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, and Black, indigenous, and other people of color are often denied services and resources to meet their family planning needs.

The world needs much more robust support from the U.S. to overcome these obstacles and pave the way to achieving global gender equality. Due to the lack of sufficient investment to dismantle barriers to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) worldwide, U.S. support for overarching gender equality goals will inevitably be weakened, a new Population Institute report finds.

Some governments are showing they understand this problem and are changing policies accordingly. For example, President Xiomara Castro of Honduras just lifted a 14-year ban on emergency contraception, which will revolutionize access to FP/RH services. Beginning April 1, the provincial government of British Columbia will provide prescription contraception at no charge.

The U.S. has a responsibility to lead on global SRHR but ceded its leadership in recent years and is getting left behind. U.S. bilateral and multilateral FP/RH programs have been under attack, especially in the wake of Trump-era restrictive policies.

The modest increase in FP/RH funding in the current budget proposal shows the Biden-Harris administration recognizes the importance of global SRHR. But it doesn’t reflect the urgency or level of commitment needed.

At the same time, it undercuts SRHR by including the Helms Amendment, an outdated prohibition on using U.S. foreign assistance funding for abortion as a method of family planning. In practice, implementing the Helms Amendment has meant denying abortions even in instances of rape or incest, or in cases where it would save a woman’s life.

Failure to aim at U.S. fair-share levels of FP/RH funding in the latest budget proposal is a missed opportunity. Let’s not miss any more. Global population recently passed the 8 billion mark, and the need is growing.

We can meet the moment by recognizing the fundamental connections between SRHR, gender equality, and sustainable development, and accepting the obligation of the U.S. to lead on achieving them.

Maniza Habib is Research Associate at the Population Institute, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. that supports reproductive health and rights.

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The median ages of populations are expected to continue rising over the coming decades. East Nanjing Road, Shanghai, China. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Mar 27 2023 (IPS)

Yes, lower the retirement ages! That is the key message that workers worldwide are conveying to their governments.

Rather than increasing retirement ages as many governments are now proposing, men and women worldwide want to stop working well before they reach old age, which is approximately 60 years.

After toiling for years in factories, offices, shops, backrooms, vehicles, fields, etc., most workers around the world want to stop working before they reach old age. That desire translates into exiting the labor force and receiving a government pension at approximately age 55 years.

Government officials, economic advisors, business leaders and many others calling for raising retirement ages will no doubt consider lower retirement ages to be preposterous, verging on financial blasphemy and leading to an economy’s doom. Some have argued that lowering retirement ages places an unaffordable and unfair burden on taxpayers.

The number of young women and men available to work is the largest ever. Whereas the proportion of the world’s population between ages 18 to 59 was 52 percent in 1950 and numbered 1.3 billion, that proportion increased to 56 percent in 2022 and numbered 4.5 billion

On the contrary, rather than leading to an economy’s ruination, a retirement age of 55 years may usher in a “retirement renaissance” resulting in untold benefits to societies worldwide.

The renaissance will enhance and extend the quality of life for those in retirement. It is also expected to decrease unemployment rates, lead to increased motivation among younger employees to continue working until retirement, provide businesses with energetic, healthy, well-trained youthful workers as well as foster cross generational interactions, recreation, hobbies and cultural activities.

In addition, the renaissance may contribute to raising low fertility levels by making childcare more readily available. Today two-thirds of the world’s population lives in a country where the fertility rate is below the replacement level of about 2.1 births per woman.

The retirement renaissance will permit retired men and women with adult children to assist with childcare and related activities. With grandparents available for childcare, young working mothers and fathers can be expected to be more favorably disposed to having additional children.

The protests, demonstrations and objections in Asia, Europe, North America and elsewhere reflect the public’s resistance to working until, as they claim, broken-down and close to near death. Large majorities of workers have clearly conveyed their opposition to their respective government proposals requiring people to work well into old age before they are entitled to receive their promised retirement pensions.

The various projected insolvencies of government pension systems, often cited as justification for raising retirement ages to record breaking high levels, are often dismissed by workers and their supporters as irrelevant. The insolvencies, workers contend, are simply financial excuses concocted by government officials and their wealthy supporters, who object to paying their fair share of taxes, to justify their goal of raising retirement ages and cutting pension benefits.

In addition to higher taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, workers argue that governments have plenty of financial resources at their disposal to permit lowering retirement ages and financing pension programs. Some contend that countries could substantially reduce their defense spending and redirect the substantial savings to retirement pension programs.

Admittedly, it is certainly the case that on average people are living longer than in the recent past and the proportions of elderly are increasing. However, those increases in longevity have not been shared equally across populations.

In general, those with high incomes have experienced longevity gains, while low earners have seen little gain in longevity. Moreover, workers contend that living longer should not translate into working longer and receiving reduced retirement pension benefits.

Both men and women spend decades working at jobs that they don’t particularly enjoy and for bosses they loathe. Many would argue that it only seems fair and reasonable to have several decades available to workers permitting them to do what they desire before they eventually face death. People are largely opposed to working until they are tired, bed ridden and unable to enjoy the remaining years of their life.

It is also the case that women on average live several years longer than men. At age 65, for example, at the global level women live close to three years longer than men. Even larger differences in life expectancy at age 65 between women and men are observed in other countries, such as France and Japan at nearly four and five years, respectively (Figure 1).

Source: United Nations.

Taking into account those well documented sex differences in longevity, the retirement age for women could be several years greater than that for men, perhaps 57 and 54 years, respectively. Such a difference between women and men would help to ensure gender equality in the number of retirement years.

In addition, neither men nor women should be forced to work beyond the recommended lower official retirement ages for men and women. Of course, exceptions should be permitted and lower official retirement ages should not bar individuals from working in old age if they choose to do so.

Some heads of state, elected officials, government bureaucrats, investors, business owners, academics, the wealthy, entertainers as well as many others are choosing for personal reasons it appears to work beyond official retirement ages. Some current heads of state, for example, are well beyond the official retirement ages of their respective countries with few of their constituents objecting (Figure 2).

Source: Author’s compilation.

With the world population reaching a record-breaking 8,000,000,000 people, the number of young women and men available to work is the largest ever. Whereas the proportion of the world’s population between ages 18 to 59 was 52 percent in 1950 and numbered 1.3 billion, that proportion increased to 56 percent in 2022 and numbered 4.5 billion.

There’s no denying the fact that the world’s population is older than in the past. Over the past 70 years, the proportion of the world’s population aged 60 years and older has nearly doubled, from 8 percent in 1950 to 14 percent in 2022. However, the increase in the proportion elderly is offset by the decrease in proportion of children below age 18 years from 40 percent in 1950 to 30 percent in 2022 (Figure 3).

Source: United Nations.

Also, some believe that rapidly improving technologies, including robots, androids and artificial intelligence, can complement and broaden a country’s labor supply. Those technologies are expected to offset reductions in the size of the labor force as people retire at around 55 years of age.

Many governments have enacted or are seriously considering raising retirement ages. Increases in today’s retirement ages are viewed by workers as nothing more than pension benefits cuts.

Proposals for raising retirement ages are viewed by workers as relying on faulty actuarial analyses of bankruptcy, dire warnings of pension insolvency and catchy phrases such as “Vivre plus longtemps, travailler plus longtemps” (“live longer, work longer”).

Moreover, conservative government officials in general are resistant to raising taxes on the wealthy and large corporations. However, many of those officials are favorably disposed to raising retirement ages, which would result in reductions in pension benefits. Also, some government officials have rejected calls to return retirement ages back to 60 years.

In sum, in addition to meeting the wishes of billions of working men and women who want to retire well before reaching old age, lower official retirement ages of approximately 57 years for women and 54 years for men may usher in a “retirement renaissance” that could result in untold benefits to societies worldwide.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials”.

The Kenyan capital Nairobi. Credit: UN-Habitat/ /Julius Mwelu

By Gabriel Odima
MINNESOTA, USA, Mar 27 2023 (IPS)

The dark road to democracy began with the manner in which the Kenyan Presidential election of August 2022 was handled. Today, the Church in Kenya is calling for dialogue between the ruling regime and the opposition. The issue here is not about dialogue, but the legitimacy of the President William Ruto. The situation in Kenya reminds me of a similar situation in Rwanda in early 90s.

In 1994, the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation and Africa Council of Churches sent a combined mission to Rwanda. The mission’s findings reported that ” the churches in Rwanda have been discredited by aligning themselves far too much with the former Hutu dominated regime and its tribal politics”.

According to the report, one member of the mission stated, ” In every conversation we had with the government and the church people alike, the point was brought home to us that the church itself stands tainted not by passive indifference but errors of commission as well”. Unfortunately, the church in Kenya today is aligning themselves with the ruling regime.

The Kenyan Tragedy

Seven months after Presidential election in Kenya, every organization, institution and government which had kept silent as if the Kenyan Presidential election were free and fair began to speak. The current crisis in Kenyan could have been prevented.

The attitude adopted by African Union (AU), the international community, governments, international press and human rights organizations after last year’s presidential election made the current situation in Kenya inevitable. In a democracy, except with his own consent, no person shall be hindered in the enjoyment of his or her rights to assemble freely and associate with other persons or to impart ideas.

The Kenyan regime has to come to terms with this realty.

In the 21st century, the forces against the development and sustenance of democracy and the enjoyment of human rights by the citizens of Africa are strong and powerful. A political map of Africa to show states ruled by the gun and states ruled by the ballot, if made, will show only a handful of the latter. Such map will not. however, show the real human tragedy which the gunmen and their supporters and apologists have wrought the African peoples.

In Africa, oppressive regimes, and most of those regimes are illegitimate like the case of Kenya today, is the driving force of conflict. The use of the gun like the current situation in Kenya today is only a short- term remedy and also creates a chain reaction to the problem.

Promoting democracy in Africa does not only serve moral interests of the United States of America but it helps to prevent war, reduce the influx of refugees. Preventing wars in Africa and creating a peaceful democratic society is cheaper than fighting wars.

When General MacArthur conquered Japan, he wrote a new constitution for the people of Japan. This constitution became the pillar of Japanese democracy. The United States and other nations of Western Europe helped Japan build its economy.

Today, Japan is the leading economic power house in Asia. If this worked for Japan, a nation without natural resources, how about Africa with abundant natural resources? General MacArthur did not do it alone, but it took the commitment on part of the Japanese people to rebuild their nation.

In the case of Kenyan’s current crisis, it is important to address the issue Hon. Raila Odinga has raised about the server to bring transparency in the election process. Kenyan people need to address the issue of accountability, corruption and transparency.

The policy makers in Washington should revive an effective policy that will enforce political reforms and curb electoral malpractices across Africa. Overhaul bilateral relationships with individual countries and attached conditions to U.S. foreign aid.

Such conditions should include human rights violations, political reforms, electoral reforms, accountability, good governance and transparency. Washington should emphasize respect of territorial integrity of each nation. No country in Africa should have the power to invade another country for selfish interests. A civilized nation cannot engage in military coups, rebel activities, political assassinations and massive human rights violations.

The United States has a responsibility to promote democracy and good governance across the continent of Africa. For any democracy to develop and mature there should be accountability, transparency and an effective constitution which reflects the will of the people and allows political freedom such as (a) Freedom of speech and expression, which includes freedom of the press and other media. (b) Freedom to assemble and to demonstrate together with others peacefully and unarmed and to petition. (c) Freedom of association which shall include the freedom to form and join associations or unions, including trade unions and political and other civic organizations.

Rev. Gabriel Odima is President & Director of Political Affairs, Africa Center for Peace & Democracy, White Bear Lake, MN 55110 USA
E-mail: africacenterpd@aol.com

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Jehyson Guzmán, the governor of the state of Mérida, in the Venezuelan Andes, delivers a solar panel installation to the rural community of El Anís that will benefit dozens of families. Parliament is preparing, meanwhile, new legislation to try to promote these alternative energies in the country. CREDIT: Government of Mérida

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Mar 21 2023 (IPS)

The installation of solar panels in a remote village in ​​the Andes highlands in late February marked a second incursion by the Venezuelan government into the field of solar energy, previously uncharted territory in this country that for a century was a leading global oil producer.

The governor of the Andean state of Mérida, Jehyson Guzmán, inaugurated the 135 solar panels that will initially serve 17 families in the El Anís village near the town of Lagunillas, 600 kilometers southwest of Caracas, and will later provide electricity to a total of 2,500 people, in neighboring communities as well.

“They’re presenting it as something new, but they probably brought materials from a facility they had in the area around PDVSA (the state-owned oil company), where an industrial-scale project failed and was abandoned,” alternative energy expert Alejandro López-González told IPS."Compared to an average cost of 0.20 dollars per kilowatt-hour in other Latin American countries, in Venezuela people pay 0.002 dollars….and a cultural issue is that Venezuelans are not used to saving energy and many people, between 30 and 40 percent of users, simply do not pay for electricity." -- Luis Ramírez

López-González also pointed out that the government program “Sembrando Luz”, developed by Venezuelan and Cuban engineers, installed close to 2,300 small solar power systems, mainly in rural and indigenous communities, between 2005 and 2012.

Venezuela was then governed by the late Hugo Chávez (1999-2013). During his time in office the country went through a cycle of oil wealth, followed by the collapse of the oil industry and numerous infrastructure and service projects, such as alternative electricity, most of which were abandoned half-complete.

There are also wind farms on the peninsulas of Paraguaná and Guajira, in the northwest – where the trade winds are constant, strong and fast – and adding more than 100 wind turbines could contribute up to 150 Mwh to the local grid in one of the areas hardest-hit by blackouts so far this century.

Wind turbines began to be installed starting in 2006 in Paraguaná and 2011 in La Guajira, and more than 400 million dollars were invested, with the idea of ​​supplying numerous indigenous communities mainly of the Wayúu people.

But the installation of more wind turbines and equipment was delayed, the project fell by the wayside, many materials were stolen to be sold as scrap, and by 2018 the then minister of electric power, Luis Motta, gave it up for lost.

A similar fate befell hundreds of small solar energy projects – in some cases accompanied by wind power – in peasant and indigenous communities, which would have “benefited up to 200,000 people throughout the country but were put out of service due to lack of maintenance and attention,” lamented López-González.

Actually, before “Sembrando luz”, there were specific and especially rural initiatives for solar and wind energy – for example, to dig water wells in the plains of the Orinoco – organized by individuals, universities and some public entities.

The green roof of the postgraduate studies building at the Andrés Bello Catholic University blocks excess heat from some of the classrooms and serves as the basis for the installation of solar panels that provide electricity to various parts of campus. In the background can be seen the poor neighborhood of Antímano, in western Caracas. CREDIT: Humberto Márquez/IPS

The universities’ turn

Now the initiatives are reaching urban areas, among individuals in cities hard-hit by long power cuts, such as the hot city of Maracaibo in the northwest, the country’s oil capital, commercial establishments, health centers, and an exemplary installation in the private Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), in Caracas.

UCAB “decided to incorporate ecology and sustainability into programs, practices, the management of its 32-hectare campus where there are some 5,000 students in various disciplines, as an experiment and contribution to environmental science in the country,” Joaquín Benítez, director of Environmental Sustainability, told IPS.

Thus, since 2019, the roof of the postgraduate studies building has been transformed into a green roof, with an 800-square-meter garden of low-lying succulent plants that store water.

Several classrooms under that roof, where temperatures at 3:00 p.m. local time reached 31 degrees Celsius for most of the year in 2013, now have an average temperature of 25 degrees, Benítez said.

The garden was followed by the installation of 30 solar panels along the edge of the roof, plus a backup wind generator, to support research and study projects, provide energy to part of the building and feed the watering device for the plants.

Enough energy is generated to serve a house for five people, with three bedrooms on two floors, two bathrooms and a small garden, Benítez said.

Solar panels were installed at the private Andrés Bello Catholic University, in the capital of Venezuela. While waiting for large projects, installations like these are gaining ground in homes, farms and businesses, sometimes combined with the use of the national power grid or diesel-fueled plants. CREDIT: UCAB

Learning from failures

But a panel installation in a home, farm or small business, even if it is only complementary to the national electrical grid or used to power only a few appliances, costs from 4,000 dollars up to five times that amount. This is a huge sum in a country where the majority of the population is living in poverty and the monthly minimum wage is less than six dollars.

However, hundreds of private solar power installations have sprung up, often in combination with diesel-fired plants – and also small wind turbines – in areas of the west and the central and eastern plains, with a handful of companies dedicated to installation and maintenance.

The electricity crisis has been part of an economic depression and social and political crisis that has pushed more than seven million Venezuelans to leave the country in the last decade under President Nicolás Maduro, reducing the population to an estimated 28 million inhabitants.

The northwestern oil and ranching state of Zulia alone, covering 63,000 square kilometers and home to five million people, suffered 37,000 power failures last year, according to the Committee of People Affected by Blackouts.

Outages across the country totaled 233,000 last year and 196,000 in 2021. Four years ago, in March 2019, a blackout left almost all of Venezuela, including much of Caracas, without power for between 72 and 100 continuous hours.

The country is supplied by the Guri hydroelectric complex in the southeast, with an installed capacity of 12,000 Mwh in three dams, and which covers two thirds of the national demand. Another 30 percent comes from thermal plants, and the rest from small distributed generation plants.

In total, the country’s installed capacity, which should have reached 34,000 Mwh according to the investments made over decades, barely reaches 24,000 Mwh, since much of the infrastructure is rundown, as are the distribution networks.

The supply deficit would be even worse were it not for the collapse of the economy, as the country’s GDP plunged by up to 80 percent between 2013 and 2021, and demand, which stood at around 19,000 Mwh in 2013, had dropped to 11,000 Mwh in 2019.

The Cecosesola central cooperative health center in the western Venezuelan city of Barquisimeto installed solar panels to power some of its services and raise awareness about the importance of clean energy. Years ago solar installations were made in remote rural areas, but recently they are making their way into cities. CREDIT: Cecosesola

Paying little or nothing

Renewable energy expert Luis Ramírez reminded IPS that electricity in Venezuela, in the hands of the State, is subsidized up to 99 percent.

“Compared to an average cost of 0.20 dollars per kilowatt-hour in other Latin American countries, in Venezuela people pay 0.002 dollars,” said Ramírez, who is also director of the graduate program in quality systems at UCAB.

However, since 2022 the rates for public services, such as water, electricity, cooking gas, gasoline, highway use and garbage collection have begun to rise in different regions of the country.

In addition, “a cultural issue is that Venezuelans are not used to saving energy and many people, between 30 and 40 percent of users, simply do not pay for electricity,” Ramírez explained.

The inhabitants of poor neighborhoods and shantytowns in Caracas and other cities connect themselves to the grid freely, and in small towns in the interior small business establishments often do the same.

This discourages investments in the sector and in particular in renewable energies, which often have higher installation and start-up costs than plants powered by fossil energy.

Pending policies, laws, initiatives and financing to establish solar or wind farms, hydroelectric power generated in the gigantic complex of Lake Guri, which feeds the Caroní River in the southeast of the country, remains the source that sustains two thirds of electricity consumption in Venezuela. CREDIT: Corpoelec

From law to potential

Publications from the Ministry of Electric Power indicate that an additional 500 Mwh are expected to be installed in the west of the country, mainly from renewable energies, but without specifying a timeframe, amounts to be invested or sources of financing.

In the legislature, controlled by the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the drafting of a renewable energy law was proposed since 2021, to stimulate and organize the sector, but the question has not been given priority by parliament or the government.

The experts consulted by IPS agree that the drafts of that law mainly repeat provisions already present in the current Organic Law on Electricity Service, without adding new aspects such as establishing a renewable energy research institute to help develop the industry, Ramírez said.

According to López-González, the fact that the electricity law enacted in 2010 still lacks regulations to specify policies in measures and technical and operational decisions shows the State’s disdain for ensuring compliance and promoting the development of the sector.

He said the new steps such as the small installation in the Andes and the announcements that a new law is being prepared are “an effort to publicize what is nothing more than a residual development, no more than zombies of abandoned projects.”

Venezuela’s solar potential is one of the highest in Latin America, with an average of 5.35 kilowatt hours per square meter per day (5.35 Kwh/m2), close to the highest in Chile (5.75) and Bolivia (5.42), according to studies by the Department of Sciences of the Universitiy de Los Andes, in the southwest of the country.

In the northern coastal region along the Caribbean Sea, the information collected in meteorological stations shows an even greater potential: between 5.8 and 7.3 Kwh/m2.

In the north, where the most populated and industrialized centers of the country are located, the potential of 12,000 Mwh awaits better times, López-González said. “We can have a wind Guri,” he said, making a comparison with the largest of the dams in the southeastern hydroelectric complex.

Venezuela, a leading oil producer for a century, which still has the largest reserves in the world (300 billion barrels, mostly unconventional), also has the potential to belong to the club of countries that are self-sufficient in renewable energy.

But this membership is still just a spot on the distant horizon.

Women in the health and care sector face a larger gender pay gap than in other economic sectors, earning on average of 24 per cent less than peers who are men, according to a joint report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Credit: ILOGENEVA (ILO News)

By Roopa Dhatt and Ebere Okereke
WASHINGTON DC / LONDON, Mar 16 2023 (IPS)

Women health workers are more than two thirds of the health workforce and represent 90% of the world’s frontline health workers, yet hold less than a quarter of senior leadership roles – a situation which is unfair and a significant risk for global health security.

Despite five years of ad hoc commitments, our new report The State of Women and Leadership in Global Health shows few and isolated gains, while overall progress on women’s representation in global health governance has remained largely unchanged.

The report, launched on March 16, assessed global data together with deep dives into country case studies from India, Nigeria and Kenya. It found that women lost significant ground in health leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Women in Global Health study calculated that 85% of 115 national COVID-19 task forces had majority male membership. At global level, during the World Health Organisation’s Executive Board meeting in January 2022 just 6% of government delegations were led by women (down from a high point of 32% in 2020).

It appears that during emergencies like the pandemic, outdated gender stereotypes resurface with men seen as ‘natural leaders’.

A key and disturbing finding in the report was that women belonging to a socially marginalized race, class, caste, age, ability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or with migrant status, face far greater barriers to accessing and retaining formal leadership positions in health.

Without women from diverse backgrounds in decision-making positions, health programs lack insight and professional experience from the women health workers who largely deliver the health systems in their countries.

Expanding the representation of diverse leaders in health is not just a matter of fairness, it also contributes to better decision-making by bringing in a wider range of knowledge, talent and perspectives.

Further, the report shows there is a ‘broken pipeline’ between women working in national health systems and those working in global health. As long as men are the majority of health leaders at national level and systemic bias against women continues, the global health leadership pipeline will continue to funnel more men into positions with global decision-making power.

The issues women face in national health systems are then reproduced at the global level where women are excluded from political processes and marginalized from the most senior appointments.

A deep dive of case studies in India, Nigeria and Kenya confirms that women are held back from health leadership by cultural gender norms, discrimination and ineffectual policies which don’t redress historic inequalities.

The similarities in the barriers faced by women health workers from very different socio-economic and cultural contexts are marked, indicating widespread systemic bias right across the global health workforce.

The consequences of locking women out of leadership represents a moral and justice issue, and also a strategic loss to the health sector. Through the pandemic, we saw how safe maternity and sexual and reproductive health services were deprioritized and removed from essential services in some countries, with catastrophic consequences for women and girls.

We saw women health workers unpaid or underpaid, and we saw dangerous conditions escalate as community health workers were sent to enforce lockdown, do contact tracing or provide services in unsafe conditions with no forethought given to providing security.

The findings of our report show that systemic change goes beyond numbers in gender parity leadership. What is needed is a transformative framework for action involving all genders from institutional, to national and global level.

Recommendations to drive transformative approaches include:

● Men must ‘lean out’ and become visible role models in challenging stereotypes to make way for qualified women
● Normalization of paternity leave to shift gender norms and reduce the burden of care of women
● Governments taking targeted actions to fast track the number of diverse women in health leadership roles through quotas and all-women shortlists, particularly for senior global health leadership roles that have never been held by a woman
● Institutions must be intentional about creating and maintaining a pipeline for women to move into leadership
● Measurable actions such as mentorship, shadowing / pairing and deputizing opportunities should be created and monitored to ensure women are visible for promotion opportunities
● A zero tolerance of discrimination towards pregnancy
● Supported flexible working options for all parents and carers

Investing in women is not only the right thing to do, but it also makes good business sense. When we get it right, we can unlock a “triple gender dividend in health” that includes more resilient health systems, improved economic welfare for families and communities, and progress towards gender equality.

The lessons of the pandemic have taught us much about the value of the health workforce and even more about the value of health workers. They are mostly women. It’s time for them to take their rightful roles in leadership.

Dr Roopa Dhatt is Executive Director and Co-Founder Women in Global Health, Washington, DC and Dr Ebere Okereke is Snr Health Adviser Tony Blair Institute London & incoming CEO Africa Public Health Foundation, Nairobi

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Bad roads in rural Zimbabwe mean the community have to rely on donkey carts and jalopy cars as bus operators are not prepared to travel there. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
MWENEZI, Zimbabwe, Mar 15 2023 (IPS)

From the Masvingo-Beitbridge highway in Zimbabwe at a spot popularly known as Turn-P, the road passing through Neshuro Township has been degraded, disused, and derelict for over two decades, with buses avoiding the route. Now donkey-drawn carts that operate alongside jalopy vehicles have become the new alternative for remote travellers around Mwenezi villages.

The scotch carts have become even more common in areas around Maranda and Mazetese in Mwenezi as villagers switch to them for transport to hospitals and clinics.

Such has become a life for 64-year-old Dennis Masukume of the Mazetese area.

The diabetic patient is forced to use alternative means of transport.

“I board a scotch cart every time I want to travel to Neshuro hospital for my medication, which means I use the scotch cart up to somewhere in Gwamatenga where I then get some private cars that ply the route to Neshuro at nominal fares,” Masukume told IPS.

At Tsungirirai Secondary school and Vinga Primary school in the Mwenezi district, the rare availability of public transport means that even teachers have to cope with scotch carts each time they have to travel to Maranda, where they catch jalopies to the Masvingo-Beitbridge highway on paydays.

In fact, with road infrastructure badly damaged in most rural areas in Zimbabwe, villagers are resorting to olden ways of transport-using scotch carts and walking to reach places where they can access essential services like health care.

The unpaved rural roads have become impassable for buses.

Now, some villagers are capitalizing on the crisis, using their scotch carts to earn a living.

Mwenezi district, located in Masvingo Province, south of the country, has become famed for routes plied by scotch carts.

Entrepreneurs have turned to making easy money from scotch carts. Twenty-four-year-old Clive Nhongo, who resides closer to Manyuchi dam in Mwenezi, said the bad roads had meant good business for him.

“I’m charging a dollar per passenger every trip I make with my scotch cart taking people anywhere around my area, and I can tell you I make about 20 USD daily depending on the number of customers I get, considering that villagers rarely travel here,” Nhongo told IPS.

While many villagers fume at the damaged roads and lack of a proper modern transport system, many, like Nhongo, have something to smile about.

“I provide the alternative transport, and until roads are rehabilitated and buses return on our routes, I might remain in business, which is fine for me,” said Nhongo.

He (Nhongo) has made wooden seats and installed them on his scotch cart to accommodate passengers.

More and more villagers, cornered with transport woes amid derelict roads in villages, are now having to rely on donkey-drawn scotch carts owned by village entrepreneurs like Nhongo.

Public transport operators like 56-year-old Obed Mhishi, based in Masvingo, Zimbabwe’s oldest town, said there was no way he could endure damaging his omnibuses plying routes with defunct roads.

Donkey-drawn carts have taken over.

“It’s not only me shunning the routes the ones in Mwenezi and its villages, but we are many transport operators shunning the routes owing to deplorable roads, and yes, scotch cart operators are capitalizing on that to fill the vacuum. That’s business,” Mhishi told IPS.

Yet even as scotch carts operators cash in on the growing crisis in the Southern African country, local authorities have said donkey-drawn scotch carts have never been regularized to ferry people anywhere in Zimbabwe.

An official working at Mwenezi Rural District Council, who said he was not authorized to speak to the media, said, “scotch carts don’t pay road tax, nor do they have insurance for passengers.”

But for ordinary Zimbabwean villagers in Mwenezi, like 31-year-old Richmore Ndlovhu, with dilapidated roads that have been neglected for years, the scotch carts have become the only way—insurance or not.

Buses that used to reach areas like Mazetese now prefer not to go beyond the Masvingo-Beitbridge highway, where scotch carts and a few jalopy vehicles scramble for passengers alighting from buses. These are the passengers wanting to proceed with their journeys into villages.

Zimbabwe’s rural roads in districts like Mwenezi have remained unpaved for more than four decades after gaining independence from colonial rule.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwean President Emerson Mnangagwa has been on record affirming that his country would become a middle-income state by 2030, just about seven years from now.

Yet for opposition political activists here, like Elvis Mugari of the Citizens Coalition for Change, Mnangagwa may be building castles in the air.

“With corruption in his government and the sustained hatred for the opposition, Mnangagwa won’t achieve a middle-income Zimbabwe. That is impossible,” Mugari told IPS.

Batai Chiwawa, a Zimbabwean development expert, blamed the regime here for taking the whole country backwards.

“Is it not taking the country to the stone age era when villagers now have to use scotch carts as ambulances? Is it not a return to the dark ages when people now have to walk long distances because there is no public transport in their villages? This is embarrassing, deeply embarrassing, when people start using scotch carts as public transport in this day and era,” Chiwawa asked when commenting to IPS.

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Delegates at the Arab and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting to Follow-Up on ICPD25 Commitments: Addressing Youth Empowerment and Gender-Based Violence, held in Jakarta, Indonesia held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Credit: APDA

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 13 2023 (IPS)

Child marriage, gender-based violence (GBV), sexuality education, religion, and tradition came under the spotlight during a conference, Arab and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting to Follow-Up on ICPD25 Commitments: Addressing Youth Empowerment and Gender-Based Violence, held in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Professor Keizo Takemi, MP Japan, Chair of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), reminded delegates that GBV is on the rise in conflict situations, during disasters, and during the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

“Furthermore, children in some countries are at higher risk of child marriage due to economic pressures and school closures caused by the pandemic. Globally, about one in five (21 percent) girls are married before the age of 18. Child marriage not only deprives girls of educational opportunities, but early pregnancy and childbearing also come with a higher risk of complications and death.

Pierre Bou Assi, MP Lebanon, President of the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development (FAPPD), told the delegates it was necessary to acknowledge and confront the issues of GBV in the region. It was clear from a series of case studies from the Arab and Asia Pacific region that while there has been some success, there was plenty of work to do.

Dr Dede Yusuf Macan Effendi, MP for Indonesia and Chair of the Indonesian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (IFPPD), said the country had had some successes – for example, the incidence of GBV dropped from 33 percent in 2016 to 26 percent in 2021. However, many incidents were unreported, and this was considered “the tip of the iceberg.”

Effendi noted the region’s issues – like the high proportion of child marriage and exposure to HIV/Aids.

Dr Hasto Wardoyo, the chairperson of BKKBN, said parliamentarians played a critical role, with various “studies suggesting that the government should take steps such as increasing care capacity and access to services such as health services, social services, developing children’s abilities, opening and equalizing access, strengthening family and social bonds.”

A professor from UIN Jakarta, Dr Nur Rofiah, gave a perspective from Islam and said the religion had a  concept of maslahah or goodness. This recognizes women’s bodily experiences are different from men’s, and it would be important to consider actions that “cause painful experiences for women’s bodies, including gender-based injustice.”

Rofiah emphasized the adverse effects of child marriage for women saying that child brides lost out on their childhood, dropped out of school, experienced domestic violence, often were adversely impacted by divorce, were stigmatized by being widowed, lacked competitiveness in the work environment, very often experienced single parenthood and were susceptible to child marriage.

COVID-19 had impacted the ICPD25 programme of action, especially on health care, with malaria and tuberculosis neglected, as was gender equality, said  Nadimul Haque, an MP in India. The Regional Sexual and Reproductive Health Adviser, UNFPA ASRO Professor Hala Youssef, developed this theme, saying policymakers need to change strategy during this decade of action to 2030 – without which it would be difficult to achieve the goals. She called on delegates to move from the idea of “funding” ICPD goals to “financing” them. Funding was reliant on the government, but financing involved the wider society.

Delegates took a deep look at the pressing issues of child marriage, sexuality education, religion and gender-based violence during the Arab and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting to Follow-Up on ICPD25 Commitments: Addressing Youth Empowerment and Gender-Based Violence meeting held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Credit: APDA

Youssef called on parliamentarians to concentrate on the needs of young people, people with disabilities, universal health coverage, budgetary and financial allocations, social determinants of health, maternal deaths among adolescent girls, strengthening health workforce numbers, and capacity building.

The case study presented by Professor Ashraf Hatem, an MP from Egypt, showed that his country’s Universal Health Insurance (UHI) would soon remove the issue of what he called “catastrophic health expenditure” of the poor. The scheme rolled out in phases, would decrease out-of-pocket expenditure from 62 percent to 32 percent in 2032.

The government was subsidizing about 35 percent of the population. He gave an example of open heart surgery done in a UHI facility that would cost a patient 300 Egyptian pounds or about USD 10.

A grim picture of the social, psychological, economic, and medical burdens resulting from unintended pregnancies in her country was painted by Soukaina Lahmouch, an MP from Morocco. While there had been an improvement in the legal arsenal regarding abortion, marriage, and access to quality health services, much was still to be done. She explained that in Morocco, about 153 newborns are born out of wedlock each day, of which 24 children are abandoned at birth.

About 11,4 percent of pregnant women still received no prenatal care; however, in rural areas, about one-fifth of mothers received no prenatal care, and 13.4 percent gave birth without the assistance of qualified personnel.

“More than half of the women affected by poverty do not seek follow-up during pregnancies,” Lahmouch said, adding that education was a determinant, with almost all women with secondary school education giving birth in a health facility, but those without education more likely to give birth at home.

About 12 percent of women were married under 18, and a recent survey showed that 62.8 percent of women aged between 18 and 64 experienced violence during the year before the survey.

Dr Suhail  Alouini, a former MP of Tunisia, quoted a World Bank study, saying 18 percent of women were married before 18 in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region. While in many countries, the legal minimum age for marriage is set at 18, there were exceptions for the marriage of underage individuals due to court decisions.

Alouini said conflict and displacement increased the risk of GBV, including sexual violence and forced marriages.

“In some conflict-affected areas in the Arab region, the rates of child marriage have increased, and the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in reports of GBV in the Arab region and around the world. The pandemic also disrupted efforts to prevent child marriage as school closures and economic hardships made girls more vulnerable to early marriage.”

He noted that GBV and child marriage requires a comprehensive and multi-sectorial approach focusing on prevention response and political leadership, and ICPD25 recommendations provide a road map for action emphasizing the importance of investing in data and research and engaging a wide range of stakeholders and political leadership. The role of parliamentarians is critical in addressing GBV and child marriage.

Laissa Alamia, MP of Bangsamoro Transition Authority, Philippines, spoke about the situation in the self-governing region and the Philippines.

“One in four Filipino women aged 15 to 49 experienced physical, emotional, and sexual violence by their partner or husband. One in six Filipino girls finds herself married before hitting the age of 18.”

This is the case even though the Philippines is known for its “most vibrant woman’s rights movement and the most comprehensive anti-GBV legal frameworks and mechanisms in the world.”

Bangsamoro region is disproportionately poor, and 62 percent of the women belonged to poor communities; the approximate number of child brides was 88,600 out of a population of 2.46 million women.

He said ethnic minority Muslim women continue to face different forms of discrimination, and the code of Muslim personal laws in the country gives a prescribed age for marriage of 15 for men and 15 or at puberty for females.

Alamia said the Philippines law, which prohibits child marriages, is not universally accepted by all communities and brings up religious freedom debates.

Dr Jetn Sirathranont, MP Thailand, noted in his closing remarks that there was still a long way to go to achieve the ICPD25 programme of action, but he hoped this conference would give an impetus to finding solutions.

Tomoko Fukuda, Regional Director of IPPF ESEAOR, encouraged parliamentarians to continue their work on the ICPD programme of action, despite conflicting priorities.

“So we as the older generation have to be committed to ensuring that the world is a better place for the young people and the children born into this world,” she said.

Anjali Sen, UNFPA Representative in Indonesia, shared a study by Schneider and Hirsch in 2020 that showed that “comprehensive sexuality education meets the characteristics of an effective GBV prevention … comprehensive sexuality education is based on human rights and gender equality.”

She called for it to be implemented, stating that it needed support and involvement from teachers, parents, healthcare providers, young people, and the government. Parliamentarians had a role in ensuring that policy and financial support were available.

Note:. This conference was organized by APDA and FAPPD, hosted by IFPPD and supported by UNFPA and Japan Trust Fund (JTF).

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The WHO working group met to consider 307 amendments proposed by governments to update current regulations. February 2023. Credit: World Health Organization (WHO)

By Ashka Naik and Nicoletta Dentico
GENEVA, Mar 13 2023 (IPS)

As countries recently gathered in Geneva for the fourth round of negotiations on the WHO proposed pandemic treaty or accord, close examination of the current text by civil society experts has revealed significant gaps.

Critical concerns about the underlying vision of the draft text have been highlighted in a public statement led and endorsed by civil society organizations globally. The statement has been shared with the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB4) that is mandated with the pandemic treaty negotiation.

These concerns still stand true. And it is urgent that the INB begins to tackle them before the next round of negotiations are upon us.

First and foremost, our analysis focuses on the fact that several parts of the text rely on voluntary arrangements, and that the binding regime of the text appears discouragingly vague and weak. One such instance relates to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities in pandemic prevention, preparedness and response,” which the draft borrows from the climate instruments.

This notion is extremely important to avoid pandemics, and it cannot be made voluntary, if the world is serious about the goal of reaching systemic capacity to respond to future health crises.

The draft text’s failure to provide safeguards or an accountability framework regarding the role of the corporate sector is another major source of concern. The WHO negotiation places the new UN’s ‘whole of society’ approach – which has been pushed in other negotiating fora – at its core through multistakeholderism, against the backdrop of striking and unfettered geopolitical power asymmetries. The involvement of the private sector in the COVID-19 response has been extremely problematic.

Countries desperately needing a concerted effort to tackle the pandemic were held ransom to the whims of power and profits of both the philanthropic and pharmaceutical industry.

The proposed treaty or accord mustn’t make the same mistakes, and all attempts to bring the corporate sector into the negotiation of any pandemic prevention, preparedness, or response must be strictly regulated at best, and prevented whenever there is a risk of public interest health policies being hijacked for profit.

It is clear that the financing approach outlined in the draft text blatantly ignores that the global financial system has historically prevented low- and middle-income countries from investing in public health.

Tax dodging by corporations, lack of fiscal and policy space for domestic resource mobilization, and crippling national debts are major barriers that prevent many countries from strengthening their public health services and institutions.

In low-income countries, debt has increased from 58% to 65% between 2019 and 2021. Thirty nations in sub-Saharan Africa have seen a debt-to-GDP ratio exceeding 50% just in 2021.

While the current draft misses taking into account the challenges of the global financial architecture, there is a blind spot with no substantive acknowledgement that public health crises are often engendered or exacerbated by a systematic destruction of the planet, at the intersection of the climate and environmental crises, food insecurity, and the mounting inequality crisis enshrined in gender and racial discrimination.

So far, the draft text hardly does justice to the urgency of preventing pathogen spillover at the animal-human interface. A narrow focus on the biomedical approach to dealing with future pandemics, without considering these intrinsic systemic factors, is bound to remain largely insufficient in dealing with any future pandemics.

Way Forward

Governments and various relevant socio-political actors engaged in the WHO diplomatic initiative on the pandemic treaty or accord have different and diverging interests and the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), which has done impressive work to keep pace with the agreed negotiations’ roadmap, has to reckon with these diverse political demands and conflicting pressures.

However, it is clear that to carry out the original intent of the new pandemic treaty or accord, unambiguous wording is needed that conveys a binding character of the agreement. This also means that the multistakeholder model under which the entire process of the treaty is being managed has to be re-examined and re-imagined instead of its current ‘whole of society’ form.

In future, none of the promises made by member states in the WHO pandemic treaty or accord will result in the desired change needed if the robust and reliable compliance mechanisms that enable governments to be held accountable are absent.

These demands are not unique to this treaty, but have similarly been made by civil society in ongoing negotiations in the UN on climate change and in the UN treaty on business and human rights. These were also incorporated into the tobacco control binding policy that the WHO established nearly 20 years ago.

At the same time, public health, public governance, public systems, and public funding must be at the center of the pandemic planning, prevention, and response. It is important to finally recognise that the global financial architecture must be overhauled, especially for low income and developing countries to have sovereign control over their fiscal and policy space, and to resource their public health needs through progressive taxation policies.

It is imperative to understand that the private sector cannot fulfill the current funding gaps and needs no leveraging by international development and financial institutions. Healthcare privatization is not the way to go to face the health challenges of the present and the future.

Lastly, all efforts must be made to make sure that the text creates a deliberate interconnection between the right to health and the right to a healthy environment, now explicitly adopted as a human right by the United Nations, as well as the rights of nature to exist and thrive.

It is about time that this global public health discourse reckons with the reality of populations and the environments from the ground, rather than from the ivory towers of corporate investors and vested policy-making.

Ashka Naik is the Director of Research and Policy at Corporate Accountability, and directs its food program, which focuses on structural determinants of food systems, nutrition, and public health

Nicoletta Dentico leads the Global Health Justice program at Society for International Development and co-chairs the Geneva Global Health Hub (G2H2)

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Children are assessed for malnutrition at an IDP camp in Borno State, Nigeria. Credit: WFP/Arete/Siegfried Modola

By Vidya Diwakar
BRIGHTON, UK, Mar 9 2023 (IPS)

This year marks the halfway point— eight years in and eight years out— of the UN Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty and reduce inequalities.

Yet we are a long way off from these commitments, and multiple crises – now known as ‘polycrisis’ – such as conflict, disaster and extreme poverty are converging on low income and lower-middle income countries, necessitating systemic change in our poverty eradication efforts.

The scale of the challenge before us is undeniable. Poverty has long been concentrated in certain low- and lower middle-income countries that continue to experience conflict and a high number of conflict related fatalities, and high numbers of people affected by disasters from earthquakes, to floods, fires or drought.

These are just two causes of impoverishment and chronic poverty, which often combine with other crises and shocks including ill health.

This isn’t just a concern, however, at the country level. The challenge we are increasingly facing because of polycrisis in many parts of the world is that inequalities within countries are also worsening. The complex and often multi-layered nature of today’s crises means that policymakers need to develop longer term solutions, instead of firefighting crises as they emerge.

Our work at the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) in Afghanistan saw that the pandemic, layered with the transition in power, drought, and heightened economic crises, all combined to drive poverty and a dramatic increase in hunger.

Its consequences were especially worrying for certain groups, not least women and girls, and with intergenerational consequences.

In Nigeria, research points to a confluence of hardships over the years experienced by the poorest populations due to sequenced, interdependent crises. The poorest households pre-pandemic were more likely to experience hunger and sell agricultural and non-agricultural assets to cope during COVID-19 in 2020.

As time went on they were also more likely to pay more than the official price for petrol in 2022 during rampant economic crisis, and to expect drought and delayed rains to negatively affect them financially into 2023.

Yet despite interconnected crises, most governments and international agencies respond to each disaster individually as it arises. This could limit the effectiveness of poverty eradication interventions or create additional sources of risk and vulnerability amidst polycrisis.

For example, the singular focus of many countries responding to COVID-19 often diverted resources from other interventions including peacebuilding operations, thereby allowing new conflict risks to arise.

Working ‘in’ and ‘on’ polycrisis: centring equity and risk

To reach the goal of poverty eradication and reducing extreme inequities, it is critical to respond in a way is sensitive to working in places experiencing polycrisis. This requires at a minimum upholding principles of ‘do no harm’ and being sensitive to local conditions and contexts.

At the same time, we need to find ways of proactively working on polycrisis, by responding to multiple crises simultaneously rather than one at a time. In other words, building on learning from conflict contexts, we need to be working in and on polycrisis in the road to zero poverty.

Many countries worked ‘in’ polycrisis when responding to climate-related disasters during COVID-19. For example, the Bangladesh government adapted its Cyclone Preparedness Plan through various actions including modifying dissemination of messaging through public announcements and digital modalities, and combining early warning messaging with COVID-19 prevention and protection messaging.

Afghanistan disaggregates needs by sector, severity, location, and population groups in its humanitarian needs overview, which when considered holistically can help ensure responses that prioritise benefiting people in poverty.

There are equally important lessons from working ‘on’ polycrisis. The World Food Programme’s operational plan in response to COVID-19 was regularly updated to consider evolving layered crises and support pre-emptive action, scale-up direct food assistance, and reinforce safety nets.

There are also examples we can draw on for reducing poverty from around localised decision making, relying on the knowledge that local communities, women’s rights organisations, and local disaster risk management agencies have about populations in the areas in which they operate.

Flexibility in funding is important in this process to be able to respond to rapidly changing contexts and needs.

Working ‘in’ and ‘on’ polycrisis together necessitates matrix thinking, rebooting and recasting what we know of complexity of intersectionality. While we previously recognised intersecting inequalities primarily by identity markers, such as gender, caste, and socio-economic status, we need to increasingly be aware of how inequalities of people and place converge over time, and how we might centre equity in risk-informed responses.

This requires a fundamental shift from single-issue technocratic approaches to crisis management. For example, though social protection – direct financial assistance for people – was heralded as a key mitigation measure during COVID-19 and in response to recent food and energy price inflation, most cash transfer programmes averaged just four to five months during the pandemic.

Social protection could be adjusted to increasingly target the vulnerable as well as people in poverty, and within those categories the people who have arguably been most disadvantaged by these crises. Recovery programmes by governments and international agencies also need to go on for longer than they typically do to build people’s resilience in times of uncertainty.

Disaster-risk management agencies within government could also consistently integrate conflict considerations in their activities. There are examples of anticipatory action such as early warning systems that draw on local, customary knowledge that could be built on in this process.

Investments in coordination between disaster risk, social protection, and peacebuilding agencies, as well as multilateralism between governments, civil society, and international organisations more broadly are needed to anticipate and adapt to systemic risk.

But this risk-informed development will only get us so far, if equity is not centred alongside risk management. Just as crises are increasingly layered and interdependent, we need to similarly integrate our responses to break the link between polycrisis and poverty.

Vidya Diwakar is Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies and Deputy Director, Chronic Poverty Advisory Network

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Credit: Canva via UNESCO

By Giulia Ribeiro Barao and Bosen Lily Liu
PARIS, Mar 8 2023 (IPS)

In September 2020, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action for women’s rights celebrated its 25th anniversary. It was, however, a bittersweet commemoration, mixing joy for the progress in gender equality achieved since 1995, and the stark realization about the multidimensional gaps awaiting tackling and the new divides brought by the social consequences of COVID-19.

In 2021, UNESCO projected that 11 million girls were at risk of not returning to school after the education interruptions caused by the pandemic. Even though the educational disruption accelerated the way into innovative learning practices, including distance and online education, it was not an equal reality for all social groups, since those already marginalized were also overrepresented in the offline population, including girls and women, and especially those living in poverty and rural communities (ECOSOC, 2021).

In 2020, worldwide, 57 percent of women used the Internet, compared with 62 per cent of men (ECOSOC, 2021). In the least developed countries (LDCs), landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), Africa, and the Arab States, the gender gap in internet use remains more significant.

For instance, in LDCs, only 19 per cent of women are using the internet, which is 12 percentage points lower than men. Similarly, in Africa, 24 per cent of women use the internet compared to 35 per cent of men, while in the Arab States, the Internet usage rate is 56 per cent, compared to 68 per cent of men.

Girls and women who are kept without access to Internet and digital literacy will not benefit from the technological revolution that is currently transforming all areas of life, most centrally the educational sector and the job markets.

Even though innovation and technology for girls and women’s education is undoubtedly a critical topic in the contemporary scenario, we should notice that innovation itself extends beyond the boundaries of the digital world.

To further explore the field of innovation in education, the UNESCO Young People on Transforming Education Project (YPTEP) focuses on innovative learning practices – technological or non-technological tools and techniques – initiated and led by learners themselves for meaningful and transformative engagement in their own educational journeys.

One highlight of the project is on understanding the gender-responsive practices from girls and women.

Girls and women worldwide have long been innovative in fighting gender barriers and creating self-initiative and community strategies to accessing learning even when excluded from Internet access and other forms of innovation.

A female leader who creates a finance course for mothers, while providing turns of collective care for their children, is innovating in education. A girl who creates a book club with her friends to read and debate publications on feminism is innovating in education.

Women in STEM, taking part in research and development groups, although still underrepresented, are innovating in education.

So, here we are – right at the crossroad where education, innovation and gender inequalities meet. Not paying attention to those issues will only aggravate previous gaps, hampering the advancement of all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

To contribute to this debate and pathways for solutions, the UNESCO team of Young People on Transforming Education Project (YPTEP) at UNESCO IESALC hosted a Fireside Chat on “Women and girls, innovation, and higher education” on 6 March 2023 to reunite women and girls from different countries and regions and celebrate their success not only to overcome challenges, but also to become changemakers in the field.

During the chat, we had the opportunity to engage with ten female storytellers who shared their stories on innovative learning and expand our understanding of innovation, creativity, and transformation in education.

Stories approached, in a broader sense, innovative paths in getting access to higher education; innovative learning practices to get through education and achieve learning goals; innovative tools and techniques that have enhanced their experiences as learners both inside and outside the classroom; and studying and working initiatives to design new technology and broader forms of innovation for education.

Participation in the Fireside Chat is also open and expected from all those who wish to share their experiences on innovative learning and higher education. We have organized interactive activities and will have “open chatbox” and “open mic” for anyone who are willing to present yourselves typing and tell your stories live.

References
Global Education Monitoring Report Team & UNESCO. (2021). #HerEducationOurFuture: keeping girls in the picture during and after the COVID-19 crisis; the latest facts on gender equality in education [Programme and meeting document, ED/GEM/MRT/2021/FS/G/1/REV.3]. UNESCO.

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

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 8 2023 (IPS)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Credit: Equality Now, Millicent Kwambai

By S. Mona Sinha
NEW YORK, Mar 8 2023 (IPS)

The internet has a pivotal role to play in empowering women and girls across Africa, but preexisting forms of gender discrimination and marginalization are underpinning a widening digital gender divide.

The root causes preventing millions from getting online need to be urgently addressed, because until we close the technology gap, longstanding gender inequalities will be exacerbated, and new expressions of discrimination will manifest.

More women are coming online, but progress is slow

In a speech to the UN General Assembly for International Women’s Day 2023, UN Secretary General António Guterres spoke about how “centuries of patriarchy, discrimination, and harmful stereotypes have created a huge gender gap in science and technology.”

Warning that “gender equality is growing more distant” and will take 300 years to achieve on the current trajectory, the Secretary General called on governments, civil society, and the private sector to work collectively to bridge the digital gender divide.

ITU estimates that in 2022, 66% of the world’s population used the internet. This is a 24% increase since 2019, with 1.1 billion more people coming online. Despite this substantial uptake, 2.7 billion people remain offline – the majority of whom are female.

According to GSMA’s Mobile Gender Gap Report 2022, mobile phones are the primary way people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) access the internet, accounting for 85% of broadband connections in 2021.

But over 1.7 billion women do not own a mobile phone, and women globally are 14% less likely to have one than men, with the largest disparities in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Worryingly, GSMA found that globally the gender gap in mobile internet use has worsened from 15% in 2020 to 16% in 2021. And although women’s uptake of mobile internet in LMICs continues to grow, adoption has slowed, with just 59 million women coming online in 2021 compared to 110 million the previous year.

This significant shortfall means many women and girls are missing out on the benefits of digital, social, and financial inclusion, and this is especially acute amongst those burdened with intersectional discrimination linked to characteristics like race, caste, religion, poverty, and disability.

Smartphones are key to connectivity

Smartphone ownership offers life-changing connectivity by opening portals to crucial resources, markets, and services for education, healthcare, business, and finance. Providing important and timely information that might otherwise be hard to obtain, handsets are a vehicle for formal and informal learning and enable social and civic networking and participation.

According to the UN, over 90% of jobs worldwide now have a digital component. Digital literacy expands a person’s employment and economic prospects and facilitates greater earning potential. Without digital adoption and use, women have fewer employment opportunities and face additional barriers to workforce participation.

Unequal access to the digital realm is undermining women’s economic independence, financial prospects, and decision-making power. It limits their life chances, increases their risk of gender-based violence and exploitation, and makes it harder to escape abusive situations or obtain justice when rights have been violated.

Barriers to internet access faced by women and girls

For many women and girls in the Global South, low literacy and digital skills are major barriers to phone ownership and use. They are more likely to live in poverty and have less schooling, and this translates into underconfidence in utilizing technology. A Web Foundation study found that women are 1.6 times more likely than men to report a lack of skills as a block to internet use.

Language exclusion is also a challenge. Nine in ten users in Africa have to switch to a second, often European colonial language, to use apps and websites, while over half of the world’s 7,151 languages have no digital footprint – effectively shutting out those who only speak local dialects.

To overcome this, more local language internet services and operating systems are required, alongside video content tailored to women’s contexts and needs.

Another hurdle is money. Global Digital Inclusion Partnership estimates that for 2.5 billion people, buying the cheapest available smartphones would cost over 30% of their monthly income. For many women, this is unaffordable, particularly as they are more likely to have lower earnings.

Mobile data is a burdensome cost, partly because of exorbitant pricing. African countries have some of the world’s most expensive data due to issues such as high taxation in the telecom industry, and unavailability of infrastructure. Coming top on the continent is Equatorial Guinea, where one gigabyte can be a whopping $49.67.

Only half of the 1.1 billion people in the Least Developed Countries have access to electricity – 13% of the global population – and many more face regular disruptions to energy supplies, making it harder to keep devices charged.

Especially in rural and remote locations, reliable and affordable electricity is limited or absent. With over half of Africa’s women living in rural areas, energy scarcity too has a gender dimension.

Strengthening online safety

Harmful social norms in the offline world impede women’s and girls’ access to and experiences of the digital domain. Gender stereotypes and power hierarchies within households can result in males having priority over using digital tools.

Some communities view the internet as posing a risk to the traditional social order, with male family members acting as gatekeepers that control and monitor female access to devices and the internet.

Safety concerns also discourage online engagement, and not without cause. A report by Equality Now found that governments are failing to effectively address an alarming increase in online sexual exploitation and abuse of women and girls because national and international laws are not keeping up with advances in technology and cybercrime, leaving perpetrators unpunished.

Governments need to urgently review and update legislation and policies, and implement comprehensive laws that clearly specify the legal responsibilities that digital service providers have to people using their platforms, and for the content posted on their sites.

Equality Now and Women Leading in AI have launched the Alliance on Universal Digital Rights (AUDRi), a global campaign calling for “the adoption of a universal digital rights framework, rooted in human rights law and underpinned by an intersectional feminist, anti-discrimination analysis.”

AUDRi has produced a set of Digital Principles that articulate how human rights should be applied to the digital sphere, with binding agreements buttressing these rights so that governments and the private sector can be held more accountable.

Strengthening digital inclusion for women and girls in Africa is crucial to upending harmful gender norms and stereotypes, and preventing backsliding on women’s rights. Across the continent, digital technologies must be better harnessed to accelerate progress towards closing the gender equality gap.

To achieve this, state institutions, policy-makers, industry, and civil society have to collaborate to understand and eliminate the root causes hindering women’s and girls’ digital participation, and enact universal legal protections that foster a safe, inclusive, accessible online world for all.

For media inquiries please contact: Tara Carey, Equality Now Global Head of Media, E: tcarey@equalitynow.org; M: +447971556340 (WhatsApp)

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Mahfudha Abdullahi Hajji is the second woman ever to be elected to a non-affirmative action political seat after renowned gender advocate Sophia Abdi made history by being elected Ijara MP, Garissa County, in 2017. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Mar 8 2023 (IPS)

Low literacy levels, a high prevalence of outlawed Female Genital Mutilation, early marriages, forced marriages, low contraceptive usage, multiple births, as well as high maternal, infant and child deaths, define the life of a woman in Kenya’s vast North Eastern region.

Here, women are to be seen and not heard – as life is organized around the all-powerful male-dominated clan and sub-clan system.

But as Kenya marks International Women’s Day, a once-in-a-year opportunity to assess the place of women in their respective countries and communities, Mahfudha Abdullahi Hajji has shown that a male-dominated system in a highly patriarchal society is not impenetrable.

“I vied for the Member of County Assembly (MCA) position in Ademasajida Ward, Wajir County, in 2013 and 2017 on the Orange Democratic Movement, the biggest political party in Kenya, but I was rigged out because I am a woman,” she says.

Hajji says she fell victim to negotiated democracy. A political euphemism for unchallenged leadership where clans negotiate and share political positions long before a single ballot is cast. On the day of the general election, the informal agreement is formalized.

In a region where women are equated to children and are expected to defer to their sons, clans are neither eager to be led by a woman nor front a woman for political leadership. As such, processes to deliver negotiated democracy do not prioritize women’s issues, least of all their inclusion.

“The absence of women in politics means that women are also absent where resources are shared. A woman can set budgetary allocations that are in line with the challenges facing us. Being represented by one of us is very important,” Habiba Mohamed Situpia, a retired teacher in Wajir County, tells IPS.

Abdirashid Jelle, the Sultna of Degodia Council of Elders, speaks of the challenge of women not being able to make decisions about their lives, “and then their lack of participation in politics, and this is dictated by clanism. Women have always been invisible in these clans, and this means we do not expect them to talk where it matters.”

For politically ambitious women like Hajji, as she found out in the last 10 years, there is no happy ending in contesting for a political seat without blessings from leaders of the Council of Elders or Sultnas, as they are all male.

Against this backdrop, women in Wajir County, which alongside Mandera and Garissa Counties constitute the expansive North Eastern region, formed the first-ever Women Council of Elders. The first such council in the entire region to enable them to negotiate with the Sultnas and other religious leaders toward the empowerment of women and girls.

“We first approached the Sultnas to make it very clear that the women’s council was not in competition or opposition to the traditional system. We spoke about how the world is changing, and we needed to change with it. We said that where women are left behind, the entire community lags behind,” Situpia explains.

In the beginning, she says, Sultnas in urban areas were more receptive compared to those in remote rural areas. In the end, the Wajir Woman Council of Elders was formed in 2020.

Kheria Kassim, one of the founding members of Wajir Council of Elders, tells IPS, “there is no resistance towards us because we concern ourselves with issues that hold us back. We want all our children to go to school and have an opportunity to make a living.”

“We are saying that as daughters, wives, and sisters of these Sultnas when we are left behind, the entire community falls behind other communities where women are more empowered.”

A few months before the 2022 general elections, Kassim says Hajji was already been referred to as a ‘mheshimiwa’ – Swahili for an honourable member of parliament.

“The Sultnas had finally agreed to support her. With their blessings, we all knew way before the general elections that she would win the MCA seat, and she did. Something that no woman has ever done in the whole of North Eastern region,” she says.

Hajji is the second woman ever to be elected to a non-affirmative action political seat after renowned gender advocate Sophia Abdi made history by being elected Ijara MP, Garissa County, in 2017.

Additionally, Situpia says the Women’s Council of Elders has made notable steps towards addressing Violence against Women and Girls, rampart in the strongly patriarchal community where the subjugation of women is normalized.

Even in such serious cases of rape or defilement, there is a preference for Maslaah and strong resistance to these cases being heard through formal judicial processes. Maslaah is a male-dominated, male-friendly traditional system akin to a kangaroo court and will, at best, confer a small fine to perpetrators of sexual and gender-based violence.

“Today, it is very rare to find Sultnas dealing with sexual violence cases. We now work closely with Wajir Central police station and police officers in all six sub-counties in Wajir County to ensure that offenders are taken to court. It is also a way to warn potential offenders that they will experience the full force of the law,” Kassim expounds.

More so, a number of women have been absorbed into the male Council of Elders through the endorsement of the Sultnas.

“I belong to the sub-clan of the Degodia Council of Elders in Wajir; we are two women and six men. We sit together and consult as equals. Something that was unheard of before,” says Safi Abdullahi Adan, a senior member of the Women Council of Elders.

She further says that the Wajir Women Council of Elders has opened membership to women outside of the County to include those in Mandera and Garissa, “we share the same culture and religion, same challenges, and there is no winning for Wajir when our sisters are left behind. We do not know how many members we have because we are growing day by day.”

As Hajji settles down in a win that is very much a milestone for other women in the North Eastern region, she represents a new dawn of more girls in school, more women in gainful employment and progressively, increased participation in critical decision-making processes.

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Credit: Kyrgyz Space Program

By Achim Steiner
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 8 2023 (IPS)

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tremendous power of technology and innovation has become clear to the world.
However, it has also increased exclusion, discrimination, and inequalities — especially for women and girls.

On International Women’s Day, we must re-imagine a world whereby innovation and technologies are more intentionally leveraged towards transforming our societies and economies so that resources and power are more equitably distributed.

Women and girls across the globe are anxious for this radical change, and it’s easy to understand why.

There is a growing gender digital divide and a mistaken assumption that the use of digital tools and services will simply increase with universal internet access. 95 per cent of the world’s population has access to a mobile broadband network.

Yet just one-quarter of people in lower-income countries use the internet, with 21 per cent of women in those countries online compared to 32 per cent of men. In tandem, many women and girls — especially women politicians, voters, human rights, and environmental defenders, LGBTIQ+ people, activists, feminist groups, and young women — face widespread forms of violence online, threatening their participation as well as their mental health and wellbeing.

Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator

Digital technology can nurture democracy and human rights by boosting civic engagement and political participation. That includes using behavioural science to help ensure that women can access their property rights in Syria, an effort supported by the UNDP Accelerator Lab there.

Or consider the eMonitor+ platform developed in Tunisia that uses Artificial Intelligence to identify mis/disinformation, hate speech, and violence against women around elections.

Or look to new innovations that are using solar power to capture rainwater and treat it to produce drinking water in Tanzania — allowing women and girls to avoid trekking for kilometres every day to collect water.

At a time when women and girls are denied access to education in countries such as Afghanistan, the STEM4ALL platform coordinated by UNDP and UNICEF aims to increase the representation of women and girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

This network of ‘STEMinists’ plans to expand from 34 countries to a global reach — part of much-need efforts to help ensure that women can lead our new digital societies that will drive forward everything from climate action to the restoration of our natural world.

UNDP is working with key partners like UN Women to support countries to build inclusive digital ecosystems that work for women in all their diversity, guided by our Gender Equality Strategy 2022-2025 and our Digital Strategy 2022-2025.

All of us have a role to play in amplifying women’s voices; women’s participation in public life and access to justice, including through e-governance initiatives.

More efforts are also needed to tackle discrimination and violence against girls with disabilities. And digital finance will be a key means to allow women to gain full control over their finances — perhaps the most powerful means to reduce poverty and advance the Global Goals. In short, women and girls must be an intrinsic part of answering people and planet’s most pressing challenges.

Achim Steiner is Administrator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

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Researchers from different backgrounds and genders at a project meeting in Guimarães, Portugal, during a conference. Credit: UNU-EGOV / Cristina Braga

By Mercy Erhi Makpor
Guimarães, Portugal, Mar 7 2023 (IPS)

The accelerating pace of digitalization has ushered humanity into a whole different era of information and communication. Today, digitalization permeates every aspect of our lives, socio-economically and politically.

People can leverage digital technology to scale up activities to impact their private and public lives. Citizens can access various digital services such as registrations, voting, conducting business and making online transactions, amongst others. Changes have seen digital technologies thrive.

However, this has come with little or no impact on gender, especially on women and girls. Thus, how is gender equality promoted amid this fast pace of digitalization, and how has this impacted digitalization?

There is a great gap in women’s and girls’ adoption of digital technology compared to men’s and boys’. It has been reported that more than 50% of women are offline globally. In the Global South, this is more pronounced as the internet penetration rate for women is 41%, compared to 53% for men.

In 2020, it was found that 393 million women in developing regions do not own mobile phones when compared to 8% globally.

Mercy Erhi Makpor. Credit: UNU-EGOV / Cristina Braga

Some studies show that women are 20% less likely than men to own a digital device. Depending on the ability to access, use and adopt digital technology, digitalization will keep increasing in speed.

More so, as digital technology is proactively embraced, it is essential to facilitate skills, access, affordability, and usage for women and girls. Associated policies for facilitating these processes should propel or bring about change for gender equality and inclusion.

Digital technology can indeed be a concrete tool for the development of policies and programs for women and girls to overcome inequalities. Digitalization can also help to speed up gender policy interventions while at the same time bridging the gender digital divide.

This can be achieved by engaging more women and girls in sectors such as health, education, technology, services, etc. However, in the absence of indicators differentiated by gender, it is difficult to measure impact.

More so, without indicators such as age, income level, and literacy, there is always bound to be little or no impact. Gender equality remains one of the fundamental means of curbing the gender digital divide while digitalization is taking place. It is very significant to the progress of women and girls in a digitalized society.

Currently, taking up initiatives for the promotion of gender equality is one of the ways through which countries strive to close the gender digital divide amid digitalization. For instance, there is a strong call for promoting an educational and knowledge infrastructure scheme in remote rural areas in the Global South.

Countries such as Ghana, Kenya, Botswana, India, Bangladesh, and Nepal are taking the initiative to improve the skills level and usage of women for the reduction of the gender digital divide. For women with small- and medium-scale enterprises, having proper access to financial products and services is of great importance.

Governments and financial institutions are seen to be taking up initiatives to help accelerate access for female entrepreneurs and business owners to tap into financial resources, which in turn leads to a reduction in the digital gender divide and the promotion of gender equality.

Furthermore, women play very vital roles in their families and communities, as they traditionally are the incubators of small start-up businesses. This also promotes gender equality while presenting the possibility of accelerating women’s participation in digital technology, thereby reducing the gender digital divide.

For instance, In Europe and North America, scholars and institutions are calling on policymakers to address the need for the continuous improvement of digitalization and skills for women through innovative technical ideas.

As a functional tool for attaining sustainable development, digitalization is not only central to modern societies; it is a means to unlocking opportunities for social interactions. More so, it is an opportunity for the promotion of gender equality and the reduction of the gender digital divide.

However, due to it not being gender-neutral, gender dimensions that impact women and men must be considered when addressing the gender digital divide. Significantly, access, ownership, and use of digital devices are not gender-neutral; therefore, women tend to face more barriers than men in the accessibility and use of digital technology.

There have to be better opportunities for women to be able to access and take advantage of both socioeconomic and political positions. Also, access to digital devices will help to increase women’s online activities, thereby reducing the gender digital divide and promoting gender equality.

Notably, women must play active roles, get involved, and through gender experts and women’s organizations, come up with policies and service designs to enhance women’s needs, inclusion, and empowerment.

Governments must ensure that the privacy and security of women and girls are protected. They should also safeguard enhanced, affordable, and inclusive service delivery for women, especially those in rural environments.

In summary, engendering digital technology by adopting digitalization policies with gender perspectives is significant not only to women but also to the whole of human development.

Mercy Erhi Makpor is Senior Research Assistant at the United Nations University Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV).
Email: makpor@unu.edu
More info: https://egov.unu.edu/experts/mercy-makpor.html

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Women hold a vital stake in the health of the land, yet they often don't have control over it. Securing women's land rights can help advance the intertwined global goals on gender equality and land restoration.  Credit: United Nations

By Andrea Meza
BONN, Mar 7 2023 (IPS)

When it comes to land, gender inequalities are pervasive. Today, nearly half of the global agricultural workforce is female – yet less than one in five landholders worldwide are women ¹.  

Women’s land rights are essential for their economic empowerment and the sustainable development of rural communities. However, women continue to face significant barriers to accessing and controlling land resources, which limits their ability to participate fully in agricultural production, improve their livelihoods, and contribute to broader economic growth. 

Moreover, the lack of access to land and other productive resources adversely impacts on women’s enjoyment of human rights.

According to a landmark study by UNCCD, gender equality remains unfinished business in every part of the world. For instance, in more than 100 countries today, women cannot inherit their husband’s property under customary, religious, or traditional laws and practices.

Andrea Meza Murillo

Discrimination related to land tenure, credit access, equal pay and decision making often keeps women from playing an active role in sustaining land health. When they do have property rights, women often own smaller plots, and less fertile lands, compared to male landowners.

And when land becomes degraded and water is scarce, rural women are usually the worst affected, often skipping meals in favour of other family members.  

Globally, women already spend a collective 200 million hours every day collecting water. In some countries, a single trip to fetch water can take over an hour. Droughts make the situation even harder—they tend to increase the burden of unpaid care and domestic work shouldered by women and girls. 

But women are not only on the frontline of climate change and land degradation impacts; they can also be major actors in the global efforts to restore the land back to health and boost drought resilience. 

Evidence shows that when women and men have equal land tenure rights, women are more likely to invest in soil conservation and sustainable land management practices. For example, in Ethiopia, land certification and registration undertaken in the early 2000s increased tenure security for women and men and boosted landowners’ likelihood of investing in soil and water conservation measures by 20-30%. 

Gender equality is vital to deliver sustainable, progressive, and meaningful action to advance sustainable land stewardship. The recognition of women’s land and resource rights will accelerate land restoration efforts by opening doors to markets and finance, training and other services, and gender-appropriate sustainable land management tools and technologies.

It will also enable women to step up their contribution to the achievement of climate and biodiversity goals, keeping global temperature increase to 1.5°C and restoring at least 30% of degraded ecosystems by 2030.

Already, women worldwide use traditional knowledge and innovative solutions to address desertification, land degradation and drought. In India, irrigation systems developed by women farmers rely on rainwater harvesting. In Jordan, a plant nursery entirely run by women using state-of-the-art methodologies and protocols is producing high-quality native seedlings for land restoration. 

The UNCCD has a long track record in placing gender equality firmly at the core of its mandate as a vital catalyst of progress. Gender-responsive land restoration is an obvious pathway to reduce poverty, hunger, and malnutrition.

When women are empowered to have a say in decision-making on land matters, entire communities and societies benefit, and these benefits can be passed on to future generations. 

We must urgently change the way both women and land are treated. We must invest more in women as the custodians of healthy land and thriving communities. It’s time for women and girls to be at the forefront of land restoration efforts.

For this, governments must take action to assess and reform legal and regulatory frameworks, promote gender-responsive policies and public services, and support successful programmes that promote women’s rights to land and resources.

Ending discrimination against women in their access to, use of, and control over land and other resources is crucial. In doing so, we can create a more just and sustainable world for all.

Andrea Meza Murillo is Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Prior to joining the Convention, she served as Minister of Energy and Environment for the Government of Costa Rica. She brings over 20 years of expertise in sustainable development, having worked in more than 15 Latin American countries to formulate public policies, participate in international negotiations, and execute climate, conservation and restoration projects.

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Credit: UN Women
 
Gender inequality exacerbates the impact of natural disasters, and the consequences of natural disasters compound gender inequality. States must introduce progressive taxation to finance the expansion of rights such as universal access to health care and education, and strengthen women's resilience to natural hazards, including climate change.

By Magdalena Sepúlveda
GENEVA, Switzerland, Mar 6 2023 (IPS)

She will be called Aya. This is the name that nurses gave to the infant baby pulled from the rubble of a five-story building in Jinderis, northern Syria. A miracle. Beside her, the rescuers found her mother, dead.

She had given birth within hours of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on the night of February 6, 2023. Like her, more than 50,000 people died in the earthquake. As tragic as it is hopeful, this story has moved the international media.

It also reminds us that over 350,000 pregnant women who survived the earthquake now urgently need access to health care, according to the United Nations. And this is only one aspect of women’s vulnerability to natural disasters.

Floods, droughts, earthquakes, and other extreme events are not gender-neutral, especially in developing countries. Evidence shows that women and girls die in greater numbers and have different and uneven levels of resilience and capacity to recover.

Of the 230,000 people killed in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, for example, 70% were women. Because of gender barriers, they often have fewer survival skills: boys are taught to swim or read first. This makes it difficult for them to access early warnings or identify safe shelters.

In addition, it is more difficult for women to escape from danger, since they are most often responsible for children, the elderly, and the sick. Heightened tensions and fear, as well as the loss of income provoked by disasters, drive increased domestic violence against women and girls.

They are also the first victims of sexual violence and exploitation when entire populations are displaced – this was one of the first concerns in Pakistan when more than 8 million people had to leave their homes because of the terrible floods in June-August 2022.

Natural catastrophes negatively impact everyone economically, but women and girls are disproportionately affected. World Bank data show that female farmers suffer much more than male ones in rural areas.

Assigned to domestic tasks, they are more dependent than men on access to natural resources and are, therefore, the first to suffer when these become scarce. In every region, food insecurity is higher among women than men.

In 2020, it was estimated that nearly 60% of the people who go hungry are women and girls, and the gender gap has only increased since then. Their lack of access to bank accounts also means that women’s assets are less protected than men’s.

And, of course, recovery from any crisis builds on societal expectations related to gender roles. Consequently, women bear the brunt of the increased domestic burden after a disaster at the cost of missing out on other income-generating activities.

We know that women spend, on average, 3.2 times more time than men on unpaid care work, and the COVID-19 pandemic – another human-induced natural catastrophe – made evident how unequally unpaid care and domestic work is shared, and how undervalued and underrecognized it is.

This is a major constraint on women’s access to education, an obstacle to their entry into and advancement in the paid labor market, and to their political participation, with serious consequences in terms of social protection, income, and pensions.

Gender inequality exacerbates the impact of natural disasters, and the consequences of natural disasters exacerbate gender inequality. An unacceptable vicious cycle. With the world already facing a growing number of climate-related tragedies, governments must take immediate and long-term action to invest in universal access to health care, water and sanitation, education, social protection, and infrastructure for gender equality and the full enjoyment of women’s human rights.

Even in times of crisis, when state coffers are nearly empty, there are equitable solutions to raise revenues to fund the investments needed to strengthen women’s resilience: to make those who profit from the crises ravaging the planet, including from those natural disasters, pay, as recommended by the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT), of which I am a member alongside, among others, Joseph Stiglitz, Jayati Ghosh, and Thomas Piketty. Instead of implementing austerity programs that devastate the most disadvantaged, states can increase their fiscal space by taxing companies and the super-rich more.

It starts with taxing the super profits made by multinationals, and several countries in Europe and Latin America have already begun to do so. This is particularly true for the pharmaceutical giants that have made a fortune selling vaccines against Covid-19, which they were able to develop due to public subsidies. This is also the case for multinationals in the energy or food sector.

Oxfam estimates that their profits increased by more than two and a half times (256%) in 2022 compared with the 2018–2021 average. For the same reasons, it is urgent to tax the richest, who get away with paying hardly any taxes these days.

One cannot accept that, as Oxfam reminds us, a man like Elon Musk, one of the wealthiest men in history, is taxed at 3.3%, while Aber Christine, a market trader in Uganda who sells rice, is taxed at 40%.

Progressive taxation – making the richest people and multinationals pay their fair share – is one of the most powerful tools for reducing inequality of all kinds. As the world celebrates International Women’s Day, let’s keep in mind that it is impossible to build more resilient societies without fighting for gender equality.

Continuing to ignore it is a political choice, and an even more perilous threat to development than natural disasters themselves.

Magdalena Sepúlveda is the Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and a member of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). From 2008-2014 she was the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights @Magda_Sepul

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Pakistani women peacekeepers in the audience at the National University of Science and Technology in Islamabad, where Secretary-General António Guterres delivered an address on the topic of peacekeeping. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten
 
On the one hand, the special procedures under UN Human Rights focused on women should be re-organized and on the other hand, country level programs supporting women should become more unified. Meanwhile, a new global platform, building on the Generation Equality Forum, could bring these two complementary but vastly different realm of works, together to engage the global public and the leaders.

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Mar 6 2023 (IPS)

If you want to have a good reading on women and young girls’ activism, there is a high chance that you have missed an incredibly interesting report.

Entitled Girls’ and Young Women’s Activism, the publication is a product of the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls, formally a special procedure mechanism within the United Nation Human Rights, officially the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The blueprint offers a real and practical guidance on about how the direct involvement and engagement of women and young girls is essential if governments are serious about achieving gender equality and ends, once for all, any type of gender-based discriminations.

The Working Group is composed by five experts, mostly academician but also practitioners, on women’s rights and despite the low profile, it maintains a real busy annual schedule that makes its work incredibly relevant and valuable.

It does not only meet three times a year for planning and coordination and but also holds a dialogue at the Human Rights Council in June in addition to reporting to the General Assembly in October/November and also participates at the annual March meeting of the Commission on the Status of the Women.

On the top of all these tasks and consider that their commitment with the Working Group proceeds along their official and equally demanding full-time jobs, the members also conduct annual visits to member states to monitor and assess their work to protect women and girls against discrimination.

The problem is that its work does get neither visibility nor recognition.

One of the reasons is that the UN human rights architecture promoting and defending the rights of women is too complex and fragmented and requires a drastic overhaul.

There are too many mechanisms often with an almost overlapping mandates tasked to protect women’s rights, perhaps also a reflection on the inevitable rivalries at the UN and the consequent compromises that are always struck by the member states.

In addition to the Working Group, there is also the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, currently Ms. Reem Alsalem, who started her tenure on August 2021.

Her mandate is stronger and certainly more visible than those of the members of the Working Group even though she operates within UN Human Rights.

Though the former mechanism is focused on fighting discrimination and the latter is instead exclusively aimed at assessing cases of violence against women, you might wonder if it could be more effective and value for money to devise a more united approach, a more effective modality to monitor and defend the rights of women around the world.

Certainly, we cannot discount the fact that we are talking about special procedures mechanisms within the Human Rights Council, an intergovernmental body within the UN that is actually the only forum where the member states of the UN discuss, share and peer reviews their human rights.

The special procedures are important because they uniquely involve top experts in matters of human rights and their contributions provide even more legitimacy to the important work that the UN System is doing to uphold the rights of vulnerable persons around the world.

A possibility to strengthen their work could be to imagine a different “governance” that maximizes their opinions and reviews, even with the possibility to provide full time tenures and adequate resources to support their work and give it the visibility it deserves.

Let’s also bear in mind that in matter of women’s rights, there is also the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women that should be considered as the guardian of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women known as CEDAW.

It is composed by twenty-three experts and one of its main tasks is to “assist States parties in the preparation of initial and subsequent periodic reports” and holding constructive dialogue with them and issue the so called “concluding observations” on what the member states present to show their commitment to CEDAW.

To help with coordination among mechanisms, there is actually, at least on the paper, a very lean and weak coordinating mechanism called Platform of Independent UN and Regional Experts Mechanisms on Elimination of Discrimination and Violence against Women, or EDVAW Platform.

Officially started in 2017, the platform aims to “promote thematic and institutional cooperation between the UN and regional expert mechanisms on the elimination of discrimination and violence against women and girls with the view of accelerating domestication of international and regional standards, achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls”.

The reality is that this mechanism never got traction nor got the mandate to truly coordinate among UN and external, autonomous regional mechanisms outside of the purview of the UN system.

Mentioned earlier, the Commission on the Status of the Women is the oldest of all these mechanisms that, while proved to be indispensable over the last decades to mainstream women rights within the universal human rights agenda, is now outdated.

Till now we have been only focusing on mechanisms to uphold, monitor and protect the rights of women.

We have not yet discussed the “program” side of the equation, the work to prevent violence and discrimination against women and promote their empowerment being done by UN agencies and programs, including UN Women the agency that provides the secretariat of the Commission on the Status of Women.

In this respect, there is also, always within the UN System, the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality or IANWGE, bringing together all the main women focal points of all UN agencies and programs.

Under responsibility of UN Women, the Network appears weak and just a formality though we should assume that at country level, all the work related to women’s empowerment is coordinated under the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (formerly named United Nations Development Assistance Framework).

This is a process that itself could require a further upgrade to truly maximize cooperation and avoidance of overlaps between and among agencies and programs.

It is evident that in both domains, on the one hand, the human rights accountability mechanisms and on the other hand, the actions and programs on the ground to change the status quo, there is need of a much stronger synergy and coordination, something that might be objected by several members of the UN that are unlikely to support anything akin to strengthen mechanisms upholding human rights.

Even the Commission on the Status of Women itself, whose upcoming session will be held between the 6 and17 March, should be re-thought.

With a multiyear thematic plan, the Commission, is a toothless and unnoticed advocacy and knowledge creation institution that each year comes up with a topic up for analysis and discussion.

This year, for example, the focus will be on “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls” while last year’s theme was centered around climate change, environment and disaster prevention.

There are no doubts that it is important to have a global convening forum that brings together the top experts on issues that are so relevant to achieve SDG 5. Yet it is not hard to imagine how a stronger, more coordinated women centered architecture in the UN could achieve and produce more while spending less.

Let’s remind ourselves that the Agenda 2030 and the SDGs brought some institutional innovations in the way the UN operates, primarily the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, that is the major SDGs focused platform promoted by the UN.

Besides its usual gathering in July, this year the Forum will also host another SDG Summit in September, the biggest format to discuss about and review the SDGs at the highest levels of political leadership worldwide.

Yet, while we are referring to a strong advocacy and review mechanism with a considerable amount of convening power, the High-Level Political Forum is simply what it is, a review mechanism of countries’ performances towards accomplishing the SDGs and important vehicle for debating them.

A reform of a stronger UN System that is better positioned to truly achieve SDG 5, should acknowledge an existing deep gulf between promotion and defense of human rights focusing on women (as well other human rights issues) and, on the other end, actions on ground at legislative, judiciary and economic and social levels to change the status quo.

For example, UN Human Rights has no formal role in hosting the High-Level Political Forum that is instead organized by ECOSOC and has a very limited presence at countries level.

A better chance at ensuring that the rights of women are defended while their living conditions improve, could be based on two complementary internal reforms within the UN System: an improvement on how Human Rights operates and a drastic rethinking of how the women focused service, advocacy and delivery-oriented agencies of the UN work.

On the former, the UN Human Rights could undertake, with the aim of giving them more voice and authority, a major reform of its “accountability” mechanisms that rely on the professionalism, integrity and expertise of world class activists, advocates and legal scholars.

The role of the Commission on the Status of the Women should also be reviewed. As per now, its outreach and voice are limited within the development sector and it has become almost irrelevant and unknown to the global public opinion.

On the latter, in terms of programs and initiatives supporting women and their rights around the world, only a true One United Nations approach at country level could do the job with ultimately a much better coordination and one unified “delivery” channel.

Both processes of change and their respective spheres of work, accountability and program, could then be promoted through a united “Global Women” platform that could end up with the same visibility that COP process gained for climate action.

A recently created multi partnership forum could, potentially, become such main vehicle to achieve SDG 5. I am talking of Generation Equality Forum, a joint initiative of Mexico and France that has been facilitated by UN Women.

It holds a great potential to facilitate new collaborations that so far has been convened twice in 2021, first in Mexico City and then in Paris, paving the way for an ambitious global program of action, the Global Acceleration Plan.

The interesting part of it is that the Forum is truly action oriented with its members committing to take action through six sub areas groups, branded as Generation Equality Action Coalitions that include the entire spectrum of areas that would ensure achieving SDG 5.

From gender violence to economic justice, to bodily autonomy and sexual reproductive rights, to climate justice to technology and innovation, to leadership, the coalitions, made up by hundreds of civil society organizations, global foundations and private corporations, can really facilitate partnerships with private sector and civil society, a capacity that the UN System has never mastered.

Can this new and bold attempt to catalyze efforts and investments for the rights of women and girls around the world become the epicenter of a new women focused development architecture?

Can a hybrid vehicle to rally global investments and actions for women help galvanize global attention on their rights and at same time do the job of meeting the targets of SDG 5?

Finally, would a new women focused “governance” of development assistance also force the UN System to change for good its working modalities?

Even if the accountability mechanisms under UN Human Rights would remain formally separated by this process of renewal for women ‘rights, nevertheless the banner of the Generation Equality Forum transformed into a “Global Women” platform could be used to highlight and “empower” their work.

The fact that this year there will be another gathering of the Generation Equality Forum could offer additional new momentum to the initiative though last year only a very low key event celebrated its 1st year anniversary.

Yet it was still an important gathering because it was where the Forum’s first accountability report was unveiled.

In few days from now the Forum will actively participate in the upcoming session of Commission on the Status of Women but with some insights, perhaps, the opposite process should occur.

The Commission and all other women focused mechanisms and programs, at minimum, could become part of a much larger and more institutionalized institution that should also be fully aligned to and possibly become the central pillar for SDG 5 of The High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

We know from the latest Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: the Gender Snapshot 2022 that there is still so much to be done in the field of gender empowerment that urgency and radical thinking should not be discouraged nor set aside.

Rather they should be truly embraced head-on. Meanwhile another great publication on women and young girls’ activism will be read by too few people.

Simone Galimberti is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE and co-initiator of the Good Leadership, Good for You & Good for the Society, both active in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives

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In July 2021, widespread civil unrest spread across KwaZulu Natal and other South African provinces. While it followed the incarceration of former President Jacob Zuma, analysts also attributed it to widespread unemployment and inequality. Credit: Lyse Comins/IPS

By Lyse Comins
DURBAN, Mar 1 2023 (IPS)

South Africa’s almost record level food price inflation, load shedding, rising energy costs, and further fuel and interest rate hike forecast have eroded workers’ disposable incomes and further disadvantaging the poor – leaving analysts predicting that the country was at heightened risk, including civil unrest.

Head of Policy Analysis at the Centre for Risk Analysis, Chris Hattingh, cautioned that the lower fuel price, which the latest Statistics SA data showed last week, had largely contributed to driving annual consumer inflation down from 7,2 percent in December 2022 to 6,9 percent in January, could prove to be only a temporary reprieve. The fuel price index declined by 10.5 percent between December 2022 and January, the data showed.

United Trade Union of SA (UASA) spokesperson Abigail Moyo said the state’s failure to supply food producers and retailers with sufficient water and electricity to run businesses efficiently had fuelled inflation that eroded workers’ disposable income.

“Economically driven financial stress through no fault of their own has been a factor in workers’ lives for years. With items such as maize meal going up 36,5 percent since January last year, onions up 48.7 percent, samp up 29.6 percent, and instant coffee up 26.4 percent, it is clear that difficult times are not nearly over for households,” she said.

Hattingh added: “This inflation relief afforded by the lower fuel price could prove to be temporary. The reopening of the Chinese economy will likely drive international oil prices higher, impacting down the line in the form of higher fuel prices. South Africa is also more exposed to imported inflation. Should the costs and prices of manufactured and consumer goods and inputs increase, this will then drive inflation higher locally.”

“Of great concern regarding pressure on consumers is that the food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation rate was recorded at 13.4 percent (annually) in January. The previous time this reading was so high was April 2009, at 13.6 percent,” he said.

Additionally, the category of bread and cereals recorded the biggest increase of any product group at 21.8 percent, while meat inflation rose from 9.7 percent in December 2022 to 11.2 percent in January.

“A fundamental weakness in the economy – unreliable electricity supply – could likely push prices and inflation higher throughout the year. This will result in more pressure on consumers and businesses and add to the potential for civil unrest,” he said.

He said load shedding was now a priced-in “feature of South African life,” as shown by the Rand weakening to R19 against the US Dollar.

Annual inflation, at 6.9 percent, was also outside the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) target range of 3 – 6 percent.

“With the latest data for January now in, the SARB could continue its rate hiking cycle with another 25 basis points increase at the next meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee,” Hattingh said.

Independent crime and policing expert and a former senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, Dr Johan Burger, warned that signs of potential unrest due to the rising cost of living and disillusionment were visible across the country.

He said most households in the middle and higher income brackets had been forced to cut back on spending due to higher interest rates and the rising prices of basic foods.

“Those of us with a relatively stable income are already finding it increasingly difficult and have to think twice before we buy something, so one can only imagine the pressure people in lower income groups must be feeling,” he said.

“For many, this has been the situation for many years, and it has become worse. Unemployment is at 32,9 percent, and the unofficial unemployment rate is even higher. High levels of unemployment lead to high levels of poverty, creating all sorts of social problems,” he said.

Burger said during the looting in July 2021, much of what was stolen was foodstuffs and goods that could be sold for cash.

“In some cases, people who went out to shop for food were attacked and robbed of their food. Other instances that we see now are when a truck breaks down on the road near a community, and all of a sudden, a flood of people come in and strip it of whatever it’s carrying – whether food or something they can exchange for food,” he said.

Burger said these incidents showed a “general instability” against the backdrop of a weakened criminal justice system that cannot deal effectively with criminals.

“The potential for large-scale disruptions and looting and for large groups of people to come together and engage in popular uprisings could happen. When large groups of people are exposed to extreme levels of property over a long period of time, they build resentment and feel neglected by the state. They feel their needs are not acknowledged, and with this resentment comes a disregard for the state, its laws, and the police, and they feel they have the right to rise up and take what they need,” Burger said.

“And if they rise up in large enough numbers, it will be very difficult for the state to suppress this kind of uprising. The potential for this to happen is very real – it’s almost visible; it’s just beneath the surface,” he said.

Burger said all that was needed to spark unrest was a potential trigger, as had occurred in KwaZulu-Natal with a pro (former president Jacob Zuma campaign ahead of the July 2021 riots.

“The danger is it could spread very quickly because those levels of poverty and deprivation exist in almost all our communities across the nation. In 2008 the Xenophobic riots spread in a question of days, and we saw 69 people killed and many more injured and displaced,” he said.

He warned that localized protests about service delivery had been occurring for years, and if left unattended, these could also get to a point where “resistance will explode.”

“It is growing dissatisfaction with their situation, and many of poor communities see themselves as the neglected part of South Africa. They have not shared in anything promised when democracy came in terms of employment and service, and they go hungry once this happens; there is a division between a part of our population and the institutions that govern us, which is why there is real potential for large scale insurrection,” Burger said.

Head of the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme at the Institute for Security Studies,  Gareth Newham, said rising food security and hunger, with around 60 percent of the population now living in poverty and a large proportion of households facing hunger weekly, created a high level of despair and frustration.

“This challenge has been around some time, and increasing food prices could make that worse,” he said.

However, he said the current causes of most public violence were labor-related disputes and service delivery failures.

“We historically don’t have an issue where food insecurity has been a major driver of public violence, but it doesn’t mean it won’t be. There could arguably be a level of hunger that does lead to it,” he said.

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Credit: UN Trust Fund/Phil Borges
 
The theme for International Women’s Day, 8 March 2023 is, “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. This theme is aligned with the priority theme for the upcoming 67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (6-17 March 2023), “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”.

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 1 2023 (IPS)

New technologies and innovations are reshaping our world and its future, often at a dizzying pace. Yet women and girls continue to be left behind in this burgeoning digital universe. How, then, can we harness these developments to create a better future for all of us?

This year’s International Women’s Day theme, “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality,” seeks to answer exactly that question.

We know that women and girls are less likely than men and boys to use the internet or own a smartphone. In fact, only 54 per cent of women in Asia and the Pacific have digital access, cut off from opportunities to move any digital needles forward.

The root causes are many and varied: deep-rooted discriminatory social norms, increased gender-based violence (including online violence), and the unequal distribution of unpaid care and domestic work. Addressing these impediments to women realizing their full potential requires our joint and immediate attention and response.

One child, one teacher, one pen

When and where women and girls are discouraged from studying and working in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) fields, we let them down. And we have left a whole generation of women and girls behind. We need the talents and voices of women and girls brought to the boardrooms and coding rooms.

Today many innovations in AI, medicine, entertainment, transportation, work and other fields treat men as the standard and ignore women’s physical and social differences – to the detriment of half of the world’s population.

Getting more women into careers in technology starts with breaking down the gender stereotypes that prevent girls from studying STEM subjects. Comprehensive changes to the way STEM subjects are taught and targeted programs to support girls’ learning are needed.

In Viet Nam, the Ministry of Education and Training has updated the country’s National Early Childhood Education curriculum on “de-stereotyping” women and girls and has included gender-sensitive budgeting into the Education Sector Plan. Through changes such as these, governments can foster girls’ enthusiasm for technology, expanding the future digital workforce.

Harnessing technology to support women entrepreneurs

Women entrepreneurs play a key role in developing economies. Supporting them to start and grow businesses through technology will lead to more sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Women have historically struggled to access capital because they are less aware of funding options.

They are less likely to own land or have large savings to offer as collateral and have not been included in traditional financial networks. Technological innovations provide an opportunity to connect women entrepreneurs across the region with new financing models that cater to their particular needs.

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship project has unlocked almost USD 65 million in capital to support women entrepreneurs in several countries.

Through identifying and backing a number of experimental technology-driven business models, the project has supported women-led micro, small and medium enterprises through a range of technology solutions such as payment platforms, online marketplaces, bookkeeping and inventory management.

Enabling women to become drivers of inclusive innovation

If we pair the untapped potential of women and girls to contribute to our common future together with the potential of the innovations of digitalization, science and technologies, we may well have cracked the code to rectifying many of the inequalities and injustices created by generations past.

Women have the know-how to harness technology and innovation. Given equal opportunities, they will flourish and contribute to creative solutions to tackle the world’s multi-faceted challenges.

Women leaders in Asia and the Pacific are already using technology to address inequalities and gender-based violence. Founded by Virginia Tan, Rhea See, and Leanne Robers, She Loves Tech, headquartered in Singapore, runs the world’s largest start-up competition for women and technology and aims to unlock over USD 1 billion in capital by 2030 for women-led businesses.

Safecity is a crowd-mapping platform for people to share experiences of sexual harassment in public spaces and allows communities to identify problems and work towards solutions. The platform was launched by three women, including current leader Elsa Marie D’Silva, in response to incidents of gender-based violence in the region.

“We can all do our part to unleash our world’s enormous untapped talent – starting with filling classrooms, laboratories, and boardrooms with women scientists,” said United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently. Indeed, we need women in leadership roles in all science and technology spaces to accelerate inclusive innovation.

Let’s work together towards our dream of achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. What better way to do so than to use innovations and new technologies to overcome inequalities in the digital age?

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Excerpt:

The National Assembly of Venezuela, overwhelmingly pro-government since most of the opposition boycotted the elections, approved in a first reading a draft law that would make it necessary for NGOs to obtain authorization from the executive branch in order to function. CREDIT: National Assembly

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Feb 27 2023 (IPS)

The Venezuelan parliament, in the hands of the ruling party, is moving towards passing a law to control non-governmental organizations (NGOs) so that, in practice, they could not exist independently.

The new law “not only puts at risk the work of helping victims of human rights violations, but also all the humanitarian and social assistance work carried out by independent organizations,” Rafael Uzcátegui, coordinator of the human rights group Provea, one of the oldest and renowned NGOs in the country, told IPS.

Ali Daniels, a lawyer who is the director of the NGO Access to Justice, was also emphatic when he told IPS that the law “is contradictory and, by design, is made to be breached, since it is impossible to meet the 20 requirements and 12 sub-requirements that it imposes on civil society organizations.”

The bill, entitled the Law for the Control, Regularization, Action and Financing of Non-Governmental and Related Organizations, was approved without dissent at first reading as a whole in the single-chamber legislature on Jan. 24. It must now be debated article by article in order to be passed.

In the current legislature – which has 277 members, many more than the 165 provided for by the 1999 constitution – the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its allies hold 256 seats, and the rest are in the hands of groups that refused to take part in the boycott of the 2020 legislative elections called by the main opposition party.

The memorandum for the draft law states that it is inspired by a similar law passed in Bolivia in 2013, and highlights that NGOs “depend almost exclusively on ‘aid’ from Western governments, which generally goes to countries of geopolitical importance and is linked to an interventionist framework.”

Diosdado Cabello, the number two in the PSUV under President Nicolás Maduro and the president of the National Assembly, said that through NGOs opposition groups “conspire against the country. They are not non-governmental organizations. They do not depend on the Venezuelan state, but on the gringo (US) government; they are instruments of imperialism.”

The new law will “put an end to their easy life,” he said.

The PSUV not only has control over the executive and legislative branches, but also the judiciary, the electoral commission, the public prosecutor’s office, the comptroller’s office and the ombudsman’s office. In addition, it has staunch support from the armed forces.

The main opposition parties have been intervened by the judiciary, several of their leaders are in exile or disqualified from running for office, and press, radio and television outlets that provide anything but officially sanctioned news have practically been driven to extinction.

In addition, there are 270 political prisoners in the country (150 members of the military and 120 civilians), according to the daily registry kept by the human rights NGO Foro Penal.

In this context, different NGOs and the bishops of the Catholic Church stand out as critical and independent voices.

NGO programs to assist the needy with food and medicine in Venezuela, a country in the grip of a severe socioeconomic crisis, would be affected if they must meet the numerous requisites laid out in a draft law, warns a statement signed by more than 400 organizations. CREDIT: Alimenta la Solidaridad

Nearly a month after the bill was approved in first reading, it has not yet been officially presented, and the text that was leaked from parliament is setting off alarm bells among civil society organizations.

More than 400 organizations, including several from abroad such as Amnesty International, Civil Rights Defenders, Transparency International, Poder Ciudadano of Argentina, Chile Transparente and the Center for Rights and Development of Peru, produced a document expressing their alarm and rejection of the draft law.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, who visited Caracas two days after the preliminary approval of the draft law, said that when he talked to the authorities “I reiterated the importance of guaranteeing the civic space, and I called for a broad consultative process on the law.”

Hands tied

NGOs complain that, first of all, the new law will declare illegal any existing non-profit association, organization or foundation that fails to adapt to the new provisions, even though this violates the principle of non-retroactivity.

In addition to entities defined as NGOs, the law will also apply to charitable or educational foundations, chambers or other business associations and even social clubs – in other words, any kind of civil association.

It creates a long list of requirements and requisites, including mandatory registration and constant renewals, “without setting a time limit or clear evaluation criteria, or providing any guarantee of due process in case of denial.”

Daniels also said the new law requires a sworn statement of assets from the members, representatives and workers of each NGO, together with detailed information on how they obtain and use funds.

In addition, the new law states that organizations must not only register, but also must obtain express authorization from the government, which could thus decide which ones can and cannot operate.

The draft law on NGOS will affect programs carried out by foundations such as the Catholic Fe y Alegría, which for years has run a network of schools in rural areas and poor neighborhoods, as well as a network of educational radio stations. CREDIT: Fe y Alegría

In the event that the authorities suspect any irregularity, it must open an investigation, and by doing so it can suspend operations of the organization, by means of a precautionary measure.

NGOs are generically prohibited from carrying out political activities, which makes it possible to accuse them in cases of defense of rights or criticism of the State.

The sanctions for failing to comply with requirements include fines of up to 12,000 dollars, “which in Venezuela’s current crisis no NGO can comply with without closing down,” Daniels said. Criminal action can also be taken against the organizations.

Carlos Ayala Corao, former chair of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said the new law “violates the national and international legal system, and seeks to control society.”

Why now?

According to Uzcátegui, the law is the result of a years-long government policy of confronting NGOs, “in first place because we have been effective in attracting the attention of international mechanisms for the protection of human rights.”

“An investigation by the International Criminal Court, unprecedented in this continent, has been launched into possible crimes against humanity (by Venezuelan authorities), a major blow to Maduro’s international image,” Uzcátegui said.

The ICC is carrying out a preliminary investigation into accusations against the president and other political and military leaders, after complaints brought by families of their alleged responsibility in the death of demonstrators in protests, of opponents or military dissidents in interrogations, torture and other crimes.

Complaints from human rights groups, which are studied in investigations by entities such as the International Criminal Court, could have influenced the decision to draft a new law to prevent “political” aspects in the activities of NGOs. CREDIT: Civilisv

Venezuela experienced massive protests, some bloodily repressed, in 2014, 2017 and 2019, and so far in 2023 there have been dozens of demonstrations by public sector workers and pensioners, since the minimum wage and millions of pensions are equivalent to less than six dollars a month.

The head of Provea added that so far this year there have been dozens of workers’ protests against low wages and tiny pensions, “and the authorities are trying to curb this scenario of conflict with the actors of democratic society.”

He also said the new law could be another chess piece in the intermittent negotiations between the government and the opposition, “as are the political prisoners,” ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.

The consequences

If the law is passed, “it will prevent the work of critical voices, of support for victims of rights violations, but the most terrible consequences will not be experienced by the organizations but by the people who are the beneficiaries of our activities,” Uzcátegui stressed.

Daniels said the draft law does not cover companies such as banks, for example, but it does cover their chambers, which are civil associations, or the entities that run schools or soup kitchens, many of them in the neediest areas, and which have registered and act as foundations.

“This is the case of the community soup kitchens run by Caritas (a Catholic organization), or free medicine banks run by the NGOs Convite and Acción Solidaria, or the network of community schools run by Fe y Alegría (created by the Catholic Jesuit order),” Uzcátegui added.

More than 90 organizations called on Colombian President Gustavo Petro (L), seen at a border meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro on Feb. 16, to lobby for the NGO bill to be scrapped. CREDIT: Presidency of Venezuela

Consequences at an international level are also likely, given that most NGOs turn to international donors to finance their activities, and because various international entities do not act directly in the country but do so through NGOs that have become their local partners.

It will also influence the regional political game by following the path taken by Nicaragua, which has outlawed thousands of organizations, and “we are alerting neighboring countries that the crisis in Venezuela will expand and with it emigration, including activists from NGOs seeking refuge,” said Uzcátegui.

During Maduro’s 10 years in the presidency, marked by an acute economic crisis, with a drop of up to 80 percent of GDP and prolonged hyperinflation, more than seven million Venezuelans – almost a quarter of the population – have left the country, mainly to neighboring nations.

More than 90 organizations presented a letter to Colombian President Gustavo Petro, asking him to intervene by making an effort to get the law dismissed and to help persuade the government not to undermine free association as a human right.

Uzcátegui says final approval of the draft law will drive the United States and Europe to impose harsher sanctions on Venezuela.

Thus, “the hardships of the populace and the conflict will increase, when what we Venezuelans need are spaces for dialogue and understanding,” argued the head of Provea.

A girl reads a story book with lessons on life skills at an ELA club in Uganda. Credit: Uganda/BRAC

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 22 2023 (IPS)

BRAC’s Empowerment and Livelihood Program (ELA) has benefitted tens of thousands of girls, and its recently released report shows an organization willing to adapt to the circumstances to continue to ensure adolescent girls and young women receive meaningful sexual and reproductive health rights support.

The report titled Adolescent Empowerment at a scale: Successes and challenges of an evidence-based approach to young women’s programming in Africa was launched on February 15, 2023, at a BRAC  and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) jointly hosted event. The report was written with the support of the Spotlight Initiative, an UN-led, multi-partner initiative that aims to respond to and eliminate violence against women and girls, with a particular focus on family and intimate partner violence, sexual and gender-based violence, and harmful practices.

The history of BRAC’s Empowerment and Livelihood Program (ELA), which was designed to provide sexual and reproductive health education and livelihood training to adolescent girls and young women, is covered in the report. The program was launched in Uganda in 2006 and has since been implemented in Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Liberia. During the program’s peak from 2013 to 2015, BRAC hosted over 1800 clubs with over 80,000 members.

“The reason that we partnered with BRAC, [and] have partnered with them in the field… is because of the incredible work that they do in this very efficient, kind of way,” said moderator Satvika Chalasani, a Technical Specialist for UNFPA who oversees programs for adolescent girls and ending child marriage.

BRAC’s report Adolescent Empowerment at a scale: Successes and challenges of an evidence-based approach to young women’s programming in Africa talks about its successes and also the need to change programs to ensure their success in a changing society. Credit: BRAC

Chalasani observed that BRAC had gotten to tens of thousands of women on the African continent through their program, Empowerment, and Livelihood for Adolescents, and it was important to learn from their experiences of 15 years in the field.

Willibald Zeck, UNFPA’s Chief of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, also noted BRAC’s record with youth empowerment programs in his opening remarks while adding that demographic changes in certain regions have influenced how such programs must be designed and implemented. It is estimated that over 60% of Africa’s population is under 25.

“As you know, in UNFPA, we really work across the continuum of sexual reproductive health and rights… And we see in certain regions around the globe the new demographics that are showing that there will be more adolescents in the population, but especially on the African continent. Which is a great opportunity in so many ways, but it also brings more challenges.”

Sarah Tofte, a research and policy consultant, and the report’s primary author, presented her findings, breaking down the program’s initial model and implementation and its eventual reset and adaptations.

The report includes findings from academic evaluations conducted by experts, randomized control trials (RCTs) conducted in the regions where ELA programs were hosted, and nearly 100 field interviews with participants and ELA staff.

The findings reveal an overall positive reception and impact on participants and their communities.

Tofte, the co-founder of Understory Consulting, a research and policy consulting firm, noted that the interviewees reported a greater, newfound sense of self through the ELA program, which they connected to making well-informed decisions and contributing productively to the community.

“So based on these positive academic results, and then what I was hearing from field interviews and what participants have been saying over many years, ELA really became a model for other adolescent and youth empowerment programming around the globe, including at the World Bank and at USAID.”

As the report explains, implementation challenges would surface as the program continued. Tofte, the co-founder, noted that while the program’s initial results had been positive, it had slowly ceased to achieve its intended impact.

“By 2017, anecdotal reports had emerged within BRAC about lagging performance of ELA clubs in several countries, including drops in attendance and gaps in the delivery of programming,” she said.

The decline in the program quality and the resulting challenge of sustaining the program over long periods of time also made it difficult to secure funding that would have gone toward addressing the decline. The program had become repetitive for some participants and staff, and issues of deeper community engagement had presented a hurdle for the program’s success.

In 2020, ELA would undergo a “reset” significantly through making fundamental and necessary changes to the curriculum. This would not only update the discussions on reproductive health and livelihood training but would make it more relevant to the economic and social circumstances of the girls they were intended for – while placing more emphasis on providing vocational and livelihood training and financial literacy. Other changes to the curriculum included adjusting the weekly ELA club meetings to optimize engagement and a new graduation model for students to leave the program after one year of completion. The resets were applied at a reduced scale to approximately 140 clubs in the countries where ELA programs were already present.

“Early feedback from this curriculum revamp from the participants suggest that the new curriculum is well received by participants and is driving a positive outcome in attendance and program impact,” Tofte said.

The ELA program adjustments are critical to modernizing the curriculum. What should be of note were the considerations taken to improve community engagement.

“Another big focus of the reset was to deepen community engagement. Prior, a lack of formalized mechanisms for community engagement resulted in some pushback at times from parents of community members who may not have fully bought into the ELA model,” Tofte said. She added that in some cases, the pushback was targeted at the sexual and reproductive health components when the content went against community norms around matters such as child marriage and sexual health.

In response, BRAC, through ELA, has taken measures to establish formal channels with community stakeholders and parents of the participants. By directly engaging with the community’s village elders, religious leaders, and other respected community members, ELA staff members can obtain their support before establishing a program. Formal community leadership committees are also formed, working with ELA staff to ensure smooth operations.

Rudo Kayombo, Regional Director of Africa for BRAC International, pointed out how the findings through field research and the trials were able to be synthesized and focused enough that they could be incorporated into the new program structure, which included paying attention to community members and groups that BRAC did not commonly work with in the past.

“One of the DNAs of BRAC is being able to learn and adapt it quickly,” she said. “…We have now managed to integrate all the lessons into a bigger multicultural program, and some of the key lessons were that they need to support the frontline workers.”

When asked to elaborate, Kayombo added that BRAC would provide technical training and the infrastructure to help monitor and use digital technology. “[Frontline workers] are the heart of delivering the value of the ELA program and all its components.”

Another significant change to the rollout of the new ELA program was the introduction of sexual and reproductive health programs targeted at adolescent boys. Boys were included in the program partly to fill a gap in youth-empowerment programs that had thus far been only directed at adolescent girls and women. Through a series of RCTs conducted in 50 rural communities, trial programs similar to ELA were conducted with boys and young men, targeting them specifically.

“[There was] the need to also incorporate adolescent boys and young men, because that formalizes our commitment to getting community buy-in,” said Kayombo.

Manisha Shah, a professor of public policy at UCLA who worked with BRAC to conduct the randomized trials, elaborated that the rationale was to include boys since they were already involved in the decisions and issues that girls and women had to contend with when it came to their health.

“Unless we get these boys on board with the agenda, it’s going to be really hard to think about how we improve the outcomes related to female sexual reproductive health,” she said.

A follow-up survey conducted in those communities two years after the trial programs ended revealed a decrease in intimate partner violence between 20 percent and 60 percent, with a “significant change in these boys’ attitude around violence” and an overall more positive reception and understanding of sexual and reproductive health.

“This just proves that we also need to be targeting the other side of the coin, which is the boys and the young men,” Shah said.

The event also showcased how other organizations partnered with BRAC through the ELA program, such as other NGOs like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Foundation’s deputy director for women’s empowerment Diva Dhar remarked that it was critical to recognize that adolescents deal with “really important transitions from school to work, to marriage, to financial, economic independence, to employment.”

“[Adolescents] are a very important age group… because that attitudes and norms crystallize at this age and can have long-term implications, including for future generations,” Dhar said.

When looking at women’s economic empowerment, Dhar stated that further causal evidence would be needed to explore the intersections between economic independence and family planning and health outcomes.

For the Gates Foundation, this has involved investing in programs that build up skills and training for girls and women, including non-traditional opportunities that will build empowerment.

The ELA program in Africa is a testament to BRAC’s success as an NGO, given its ability to inspire similarly multifaceted youth-empowerment programs and its model to evolve and improve their work. However, the report makes it clear that this is achievable through the continued support from partners and donors and from fostering community engagement. Only then can the communities’ women and girls be empowered through the knowledge and skills they obtain through the program.

“One of the key findings we are taking from this is that the role of mentors and community assistance are so important,” Kayombo said. “We are creating room for them to engage from an empowered perspective, and building their own agency, to give room for them to engage and build themselves up before they can empower others in the community.”

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Universal Health Care priorities in Pakistan have been boosted by free healthcare insurance for the poor. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Feb 22 2023 (IPS)

A free health insurance initiative started in Pakistan has benefited poor patients, especially women who have outnumbered men in using the cashless health services under the Sehat Card Plus programme.

“The initiative is in line with the ICPD25 Programme of Action, under which 4.5 million people have received free services, with 62 percent of them women. In the last three years, we have been able to cut down maternal mortality rate from 186 deaths per 100,000 live births to 172,” Dr Muhammad Riaz Tanoli, CEO of the Sehat Card Plus (SCP), told IPS.

The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Nairobi in 2019 set a programme of action aimed at empowering women and girls. The SCP aims to ensure Pakistan meets the 2030 deadline for sustainable development goals for universal health and women.

So far, USD 80 million have been spent on treating patients at 1,100 hospitals across the country.

Shaheen Begum, a resident of Peshawar, is thankful to former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who launched the programme and said that her sister had died of delivery-related complication years ago because they didn’t have money to get quality treatment. She was lucky to undergo a caesarean section at one of the city’s top private hospitals on SCP, and she and her newborn baby are in good health.

“Since my first-month of pregnancy, I have been getting diagnostic services free of cost. Two days before delivery, I was admitted because of complications, and doctors performed a caesarean operation,” Begum, 26, a housewife, said.

Pakistanis living abroad with chronic ailments return to the country for treatment. Muhammad Kashif, 55, recently arrived from Malaysia to undergo liver transplant surgery.

Kashif said that the cost of a liver transplant in Malaysia was USD 7,000. Not only was it beyond his reach, but he would have had to call relatives to Malaysia to donate a liver. That would have been impossible, he said in an interview with IPS.

“One of my friends called me and asked to come back and get the surgery free of cost. I came to my native Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in November last year, and next month, my transplant was done at one of the country’s premier hospitals,” he said.

Like Kashif, Mushtari Gul, a Pakistani nurse working in Saudi Arabia, became extremely sick as her kidneys stopped functioning.

“Initially, I received dialysis for two months, but doctors advised renal transplant that wasn’t possible there due to its cost and donor,” she said.

Gul, 51, is one of the 235 people who received free renal transplants under the SCP. She said it wasn’t possible without an insurance scheme because its cost was  USD 6,500, not affordable even by affluent people.

Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) is appreciative of the scheme. “It is an unprecedented programme where the people are able to get services in expensive hospitals. Most patients who couldn’t afford heart surgeries are among the beneficiaries,” PMA’s Secretary, Dr Qaisar Sajjad, told IPS.

PMA has been asking the government to ensure World Health Organization’s aim for Universal Health Coverage is delivered, and this was a step in that direction, Dr Qaisar said.

Public health specialist Dr Fayyaz Shah told IPS that the system has been very good. Unlike the health insurance schemes in developed countries where people deposit annual premiums, here, the government pays the insurance company without charging people.

Before the programme’s launch, the infant mortality rate was 41 per 1,000 live births, which has now come down to 35. Shah elaborated that other health indicators also show improvement as poor people receive timely treatment.

Patients are getting free services for renal and liver transplants and major ailments and procedures, including cancers, surgeries, cardiac diseases, hernia, cataracts, gynaecology, eye, ear, nose and throat and other diseases.

The major beneficiaries are women and children, followed by cancer, heart, dialysis and people with urinary and diabetic problems, he said.

Local gynaecologist Dr Naseem Akhtar terms the programme a blessing for women. Ever since the start of the programme, there has been a drastic decline in mortality among women for pregnancy-related complications.

“Our staff also work harder because they get extra financial incentives from the funds generated from SCP. The patients in hospitals also get free medicines and diagnostic services,” she said.

At the end of every month, we send patients’ details and expenses to the government, and the payment is made within a week. The state-run insurance company is implementing the programme on behalf of the government, which has proved beneficial both for patients and healthcare providers, she said.

A senior nurse, Sania Ali, at a local hospital, said her monthly salary is $200, but she earns $300 additional from the patients undergoing treatment on SCP.

“Our doctors, nurses and paramedical staff want the mechanism to continue as it was a big source of their extra income they received in addition to their fixed salaries,” he said.

“This system has not only helped the poor patients but is also a big source of income for private hospitals. We are extremely busy dealing with patients, and our staff is working round-the-clock to operate on more patients and get more money,” said Dr Shah Raj, a public health physician. She said that each family is entitled to $4,500 per year from the programme. In case of liver and kidney transplants, the patients’ benefits are around $20,000, she said.

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Credit: UNDP Yemen

By Ulrika Modéer and Steve Utterwulghe
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 22 2023 (IPS)

Flexible and predictable funding allows UN agencies to respond promptly and with agility in times of crisis. In countries such as Afghanistan, Yemen, and Ukraine, UNDP implements projects and programmes that help protect livelihoods and enhance the resilience of vulnerable communities.

The UN has estimated that the world will need to spend between US$3 trillion and US$5 trillion annually to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, while the COVID-19 pandemic has already increased that estimate by an additional US$2 trillion annually.

In addition, the highly fragile global economic outlook, impacts of climate change and rising geopolitical tensions, have led to a major deterioration in international public finance, resulting in 51 developing economies being highly indebted, with the spectre of defaults looming on the horizon for over-indebted developing countries.

Considering this dark scenario of compounded crisis, the multilateral system is being called upon to become more fit-for-purpose to support global public goods and overcome global challenges.

It is therefore imperative that institutions such as the UN and International Financial Institutions (IFIs) need to bolster their partnership to provide coordinated, effective, and targeted support to developing countries’ widening needs for SDG financing.

Against this backdrop and in response to the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and UN Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the UN System and IFIs have strived to work more closely together to promote sustainable and innovative financial systems at country level, and to catalyse more private finance.

In 2018, for example, UN Secretary-General António Guterres and former World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim signed a Strategic Partnership Framework, which consolidated their joint commitment to cooperate in helping countries implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

UN agencies have developed financial and non-financial partnerships with IFIs with the aim to support governments to leverage financing, technical expertise, and advocacy from a wider range of sources.

By joining forces, UN agencies and IFIs can use and complement their respective comparative advantages in support of national development priorities and maximize development impact on the ground.

Last week, the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) held its first regular session of the year in New York. It was clear that Member States are keen to see greater engagement with IFIs to deliver on sustainable development results at scale.

As we are gearing towards the SDG Summit, there is a reckoning that we cannot do business as usual. We need all hands on deck to make progress towards 2030.

This call for joint action should also be an opportunity for Member States – usually the same donors funding the UN system and IFIs – to reflect on the global funding architecture of the United Nations Development System (UNDS). The UNDS needs predictable, un-earmarked, and flexible resources to perform its core functions and preserve the core values of multilateralism, universalism, and development effectiveness.

Nevertheless, a report by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation points out that OECD-DAC countries’ funding to the UNDS is more projectized and highly earmarked than the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, or regional development banks.

In this moment of immense global uncertainty, following the UNDP Strategic Plan, UNDP is scaling up its engagement with IFIs to support countries access the capital, technical expertise, and partnerships required to achieve the SDGs.

Since 2017, UNDP has mobilized over US$1.85 billion from IFI partners, both directly through grant contributions and indirectly through government financing to support loan implementation.

In many fragile and conflict-affected states, UN agencies, such as UNDP, stay and deliver, sometimes on behalf of IFIs who cannot always fully operate in these settings. UNDP works in close cooperation with the humanitarian system and across the development, peace, and human rights pillars of the UN system.

Flexible and predictable funding allows UN agencies to respond promptly and with agility in times of crisis. In countries such as Afghanistan, Yemen, and Ukraine, UNDP implements projects and programmes that help protect livelihoods and enhance the resilience of vulnerable communities.

Member States and shareholders of Multilateral Development Banks and other IFIs recognize the synergistic and complementary mandates of many UN agencies and IFIs. The partnership is or should be obvious in areas such as sustainable finance, climate action, crisis and fragility, and poverty alleviation.

But as the world is faced with unprecedented global challenges that require unparalleled levels of partnerships and a strong multilateral system, Member States should enable a deeper engagement between the UNDS and IFIs through robust political commitment backed by a funding architecture befitting a world racing towards 2030.

Ulrika Modeer is UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy, UNDP. Steve Utterwulghe is Director of Public Partnerships, UNDP

Source: UNDP

IPS UN Bureau

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The ageing of populations poses mounting challenges for governments that will require changes in national policy priorities, country institutions and social arrangements. Credit: Maricel Sequeira/IPS

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Feb 21 2023 (IPS)

Fear of population ageing is all over the news media and in government offices of country capitals worldwide. Planet Earth is becoming “planet ageing”.

Population ageing is being described as a demographic time bomb, a humanitarian crisis, a growing burden, a national security threat, ticking towards disaster, a significant risk to global prosperity, a silver tsunami, an unprecedented set of challenges, a problem for young and old.

Government officials, business leaders, economists, healthcare providers, social organizations, political commentators and others are increasingly ringing alarm bells over the menacing demographic ageing of populations.

Adding to those alarm bells is the 2022 Japanese film, Plan 75, presented in May at the annual Cannes Film Festival. That dystopian film describes a government program that encourages senior citizens to be euthanized to remedy the burdens of an aged Japanese society.

More recently, a Yale University assistant professor of economics reportedly suggested that to address Japan’s demographic ageing, elderly Japanese people should commit “mass suicide”. After raising objections in Japan and elsewhere, he subsequently explained that his suggestion was taken out of context. He explained that his remark was intended to address a growing effort to revamp Japan’s age-based hierarchies and make room for younger generations in leadership positions in business and politics.

Demographic ageing coupled with population decline and increased human longevity are forcing governments to address mounting financial issues, especially retirement and healthcare benefits. Many government programs for old age benefits are facing insolvency in the near future

Mainstream media regularly reports that government expenditures on retirement and healthcare benefits for the elderly are outpacing tax revenues. Also, many governments are reportedly struggling to find the money to support retirees. Furthermore, current trends, unless they are reversed, indicate that the growing numbers of elderly people on the planet pose a challenge for governments to provide the needed care for them.

People have taken to the streets to protest government proposals to address population ageing by making changes to benefits and official retirement ages. In France people have taken to the streets to protest the government’s intention to raise the current age of 62 years to receive government benefits.

Similarly in China, retirees and their supporters are protesting government proposed cuts in benefits for the elderly. And fearing public backlash at the voting booth, elected government officials in the United States are bending over backwards in their assurances, retreating from possible program cuts, and promising that they “won’t touch” Social Security or Medicare.

The ageing of populations should not really come as a surprise to government officials and their many economic and political advisors and aides.

For decades demographers and many others have been writing articles, publishing books, giving presentations, and advising government officials and others about the demographic ageing of populations resulting from the continued decline in fertility rates and increased life expectancy.

Nevertheless, despite those considerable efforts and clear communication about population ageing, governments have not been paying enough attention.

Apparently, governments mistakenly came to believe that the demographic realities of population ageing could simply be ignored because those realities were largely academic matters as well as concerns for the distant future. In fact, however, those realities were neither largely academic nor concerns for the distant future.

Over the past half century, the median age of the world’s population has increased to 30 years in 2020 from 20 years in 1970, an increase of 10 years. Many countries have attained median ages in 2020 well above 35 years, such as France at 41 years, South Korea at 43 years, Italy at 46 years and Japan at 48 year.

In addition, many countries have seen their elderly population reach unprecedented levels. In the United States, for example, more than 1 in 6, or 17 percent, were 65 or older in 2020. That percentage is relatively low in comparison to many other developed countries. In Italy and Japan, the proportion 65 years and older is 24 and 29 percent, respectively (Figure 1).

Source: United Nations.

The ageing of populations certainly poses mounting challenges for governments as well for the elderly that will require changes in national policy priorities, country institutions and social arrangements.

Among those challenges are needs for financial aid, caregiving and assistance, medical treatment, healthcare and drugs. Such needs are not only increasingly overwhelming many households, but they are also straining government resources and the capacities of institutions to provide care for the elderly.

In addition to the financial costs, governments are wrestling with major policy issues. Population ageing is competing with national priorities that require financial resources, including defense, economy, employment, education, health care, environment and climate.

Population ageing is also raising vexing questions about the proper role of government and the responsibilities of individuals for their personal wellbeing in old age. Those questions continue to roil government legislatures and heighten concerns about retirement and old age healthcare among their citizens.

Much of the public believes that the government should be primarily responsible to cover the financial costs and provide the needed care and support to the elderly, as has generally been the case over the past decades in many countries.

Others, however, contend that it is not the role of the government to be primarily responsible to provide care and support to the elderly. They argue that the elderly themselves and their families should be primarily responsible for covering the costs and providing the needed care, support and assistance for older persons.

The fear of population ageing is further complicated by population decline. Over the coming years, many countries across the globe are facing declines in the size of their populations due to below replacement fertility rates (Figure 2).

Source: United Nations.

Demographic ageing coupled with population decline and increased human longevity are forcing governments to address mounting financial issues, especially retirement and healthcare benefits. Many government programs for old age benefits are facing insolvency in the near future.

Possible options to address those financial issues include reducing retirement benefits, limiting eligibility, raising the retirement age and increasing taxes. As would be expected, reducing benefits, limiting eligibility and raising retirement ages are unpopular among most of the public. While many are in favor of increased taxes to fund retirement pensions and healthcare for the elderly, businesses and investors are generally opposed to raising taxes.

The consequences of the demographic realities of population ageing are largely unavoidable and need to be addressed. Governments may continue choosing to avoid addressing those consequences. Perhaps they are hoping that if the demographic realities are ignored, they somehow will magically disappear.

Governments need to stop ringing the alarm bells about population ageing. Instead, they need to adapt to the demographic realities of population ageing. In particular, governments need to address the weighty consequences of population ageing by making the admittedly difficult but necessary policy and program decisions regarding official retirement age, pensions benefits, assistance, and healthcare.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials”.

A rural Peruvian woman stands in front of police officers who guard the streets of Lima during the ongoing protests demanding immediate elections to resolve the current political crisis. She is part of the delegations from the country’s southern Andes highlands, one of the rural regions neglected by the overwhelming centralism of Lima and its elites. CREDIT: Walter Hupiú/IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Feb 20 2023 (IPS)

The current political and social upheaval in Peru is not a temporary problem, but has to do with deeply-rooted inequality and social hierarchies, according to historian José Carlos Agüero.

In this South American country, 59 people have died in the two months since Dina Boluarte was named president, 47 directly due to the crackdown on the protests that began on Dec. 7. The 60-year-old president has stood firmly behind the armed forces and the police despite the death toll caused by their actions.

Peru has been a republic for 200 years, but due to the acute Lima-oriented centralism deep-seated problems of inequality and discrimination especially affect rural Amazonian and indigenous Quechua and Aymara populations.

“What a social upheaval can bring are not solutions, but momentum that can help combat the most deadly effects of this combination of factors that is so dangerous to people, which is what matters to me above all,” Agüero said in an interview with IPS.

In 2021, according to the latest official statistics, urban poverty stood at 22 percent and rural poverty at 40 percent, especially high in the country’s highlands and Amazon rainforest. Regions such as Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Puno – some of the centers of the current wave of protests – had the highest levels of poverty, ranging from 37 to 41 percent.

Lima is home to more than 10 million people, nearly a third of the total population of 33 million. The capital receives a large influx of people from the provinces, who flock to the city seeking opportunities that do not exist in their places of origin.

Agüero, 48, is a historian, essayist and writer who won the National Literature Award for non-fiction in 2018. In his work he reflects on the country and its past. He himself is the son of two members of the Maoist armed group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), who were extrajudicially executed in the 1980s.

In his analysis of the causes of what is currently happening in Peru, he mentions various aspects raised by other historians such as cultural and ethnic aspects in relation to how the groups that hold power in the capital have not paid enough attention to the regional dynamics of the country’s Andes highlands, and have underestimated the region’s tradition of protests.

He also cites the crisis shaking the political system of parties and representation, which sociologists and political scientists have been pointing to for more than two decades, without managing to bring about any solution.

And he refers to – and disagrees with – anthropological interpretations by observers who argue that the country is in the grip of a process of indigenous, especially Aymara, people demanding and gaining respect for their rights.

Agüero’s explanations are based on his studies of history and racism, which he says reflect the burden of failing to dismantle the social hierarchy still in place in Peru in the 21st century.

“Reactions break out against the caste-like hierarchical relations periodically, not just now. Outbreaks are ready to occur at any time,” he said, referring to the social protests that have been ongoing since Boluarte was sworn in as president on Dec. 7, after President Pedro Castillo was impeached by Congress.

Castillo, a 53-year-old rural schoolteacher and trade unionist, became president in July 2021, thanks to strong support in rural Peru, with the backing of a far-left party, which later turned its back on him. His government was characterized by poor management and a rejection of politicians and the traditional elites.

The impeachment and imprisonment of Castillo sparked mass demonstrations, especially in the central and southern Andes, by people demanding that early elections be held this year and calling for a citizen consultation on a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the constitution. Boluarte finally agreed to bring elections forward to October 2023, but Congress shelved the bill.

“Overt racist interactions are not the only aspect we can talk about, but also the constant belittling and snubs, which are perhaps the most powerful driving force behind our relations when it comes to the moment of truth, when it is either kill or be killed, or when you have to decide on the distribution of wealth, or the legitimacy of a protest or a political proposal,” said Agüero.

He said that according to this logic, there are people who will be left out of the national pact because they are seen as less worthy or less equal. “All of that has been put back into play to explain what is happening right now,” he said.

Rocío Quispe, a 64-year-old indigenous Quechua woman, worked hard to build her house in the hills of the Santa María neighborhood in the working-class Ate Vitarte district in eastern Lima, after her family fled the highlands department of Ayacucho, the epicenter of poverty that was hard-hit by the 1980-2000 internal armed conflict. In the photo she sits with her six-year-old granddaughter and the family pet. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Coming from a ‘forgotten people’

Rocío Quispe, a Quechua woman from the central Andean department of Ayacucho, one of the areas hardest hit by the internal armed conflict that ravaged Peru between 1980 and 2000, lives in the Santa María neighborhood in the Ate Vitarte district in the east of Lima, one of the most populous with just over 700,000 inhabitants, mainly of middle to low socioeconomic status.

She is 64 years old and lives with her 27-year-old daughter and six-year-old granddaughter in a house that she has built little by little in the hilly area of ​​Santa María on the outskirts of the capital. She does not have a steady job and does what she can, selling food for instance, to get by. She is one of the millions of people from other parts of Peru who have come to Lima in search of a better future.

“We came because of terrorism, we dropped out of school, we left everything behind. So many people were shot dead there, they would come in your house and kill you. First my sister came, then I came and we have worked here without stealing, without harming anyone,” she told IPS.

She said her aim was to live in peace, free of the fear she faced in her home region.
Her family had fields in the rural community of Soccos, where a massacre of 32 women, men, girls and boys was committed by a police unit called Los Sinchis in 1983.

“Many of us from Ayacucho came to Lima to have a life because we felt abandoned,” Quispe said. In the capital she worked hard to buy a piece of land and help her parents, and when she got pregnant her top priority became her daughter’s education.

Like many of her neighbors, Quispe protested in December outside the Barbadillo prison where Castillo was initially detained, accused of staging a coup d’état for trying to dissolve Congress and install an emergency government, ahead of an impeachment vote by legislators.

“Because we are protesting they call us terrorists. But the real terrorists are the people who sell out their homeland, who forget about our people, who from their positions in power accuse us just because we want our children to have a good school, a good education,” she said indignantly.

When she speaks there is strength in her voice: “We are a neglected people from Ayacucho where we grew potatoes, corn, wheat and barley, and for them to call us terrorists makes us very angry. They call us terrorists, they call us stinky ‘serranos’ (hillbillies), cholos (a derogatory term for indigenous or mixed-race people), they call us all sorts of things.”

And she complains that Congress, which she sees as a corrupt center of power, conspired to overthrow Castillo.

“These people who they despise elected a president who was a provincial ‘serrano’ schoolteacher. Maybe he didn’t really know how everything worked, but the lawmakers didn’t leave him alone, until they drove him to desperation,” Quispe said.

The protests continue, although with less intensity. There are roadblocks in regions such as Cuzco, Puno, and Arequipa, while Boluarte began a round of talks with political parties on Feb. 15 to address the crisis.

The measure was seen as a grasping at straws to hold onto the office of president, given the documented reports about a number of killings committed by the security forces during the crackdown, which Boluarte has not condemned.

Historian, essayist and writer José Carlos Agüero is photographed at the presentation of his book Persona (Person), in September 2018 in the north Lima district of Los Olivos. In his critical reflection on the current social outbreak in Peru, he says the elites form a network of privilege that is also racist, neglecting the country’s rural indigenous and mixed-race majority. CREDIT: Courtesy Rossana López

Not one, but many Limas

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics, in Lima 65 percent of the population consider themselves ‘mestizo’ or mixed-race, 19 percent indigenous, eight percent black and five percent white. Nevertheless, racism is a daily feature of life and has turned many people intensely against those who are protesting in their regions or have come to the capital to make themselves heard.

Why don’t the elites recognize that there are many Limas? Although Agüero said he could not give a definitive answer because there are few studies on the elites in Peru, he said he could talk about their behavior and the way they organized in politics.

He believes that it is not a question of ignorance; it is not that they do not understand. “There are highly educated people who have studied in foreign universities and are part of what we call the elite. They have demographic data, surveys, everything necessary to understand that Lima is a very large metropolis, now made up of several different Limas,” the writer added.

“But they rule like elites in other parts of the world. They maintain the conviction that they are privileged. In Peru, it seems to me that they form a network of privilege in a way that is also racist,” he remarked.

Agüero said that this position isolates them but at the same time puts them in a role of paternalistic control.

“What matters most to me is that the distribution of power, real, economic and symbolic, should stop being a matter of privilege and in the control of an elite network that is also racist. For me that is the issue,” he said.

Credit: United Nations

By Amy Shelver and Ian Richards
GENEVA, Switzerland, Feb 7 2023 (IPS)

New UNCTAD software does to digital government what IKEA did to furniture, allowing Bhutan’s government employees to create their own user-friendly services for citizens online.

Tedious government procedures aren’t just a pain for users, they’re a bore for the civil servants who administer them. Sitting behind a counter and stamping forms isn’t exactly a dream job.

This is where technology can help. In 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bhutanese government launched the G2B digital government portal. It’s a ground-breaking piece of software that earned the country recognition as the fastest place in the world to start a new business.

Entrepreneurs simply fill out a form on their mobile phones, and receive all registration documents at no cost, in less than a minute. In 2022, 5,500 Bhutanese, almost 1% of the population, used the service to register a business – 52% of them were women. It’s also a turning point for Bhutan’s public administration and for the world of digital government in general.

The fastest business registration service on Earth wasn’t designed by consultants in India or California but by the very civil servants who had previously administered the time-consuming, paper-only process that required citizens to go from one government office queue to another.

How did this happen?

Keep it simple

It’s all down to the low-code simplicity of the UNCTAD digital government platform, which after some basic training, Bhutan’s civil servants were able to customize themselves to create online services. The coverage of these services is now vast and includes permits to run bus services, authorizations to fly drones and leases for industrial parks.

Over the next two years, the government plans to include all permits, authorizations and procedures related to the country’s economy in the platform. With time it could stretch across all government departments.

“The goal of our technology is to ease friction,” says Frank Grozel, who heads UNCTAD’s digital government platform programme. “Everyone wins from having effective, uncomplicated technology at their fingertips. But this is especially important for civil servants, because it allows them to focus on why they do their job and not necessarily how they do it.”

Better service delivery

Each service is built from the bottom up. Government teams, including civil servants working on the procedure, developers and trainers came together to simplify existing steps, creating shortcuts that help accelerate service delivery.

Employees are guided to understand the process from the user’s point of view, generating empathy and understanding of where the bottlenecks and frustrations can be.

“Whole teams have started to see how the system could be changed, and why elements of the original process could have felt so painful to the end user,” said Bita Mortazavi, UNCTAD’s project manager for the Bhutan initiative.

The impact on staff has been transformative. “We can now focus on service development and select simple services, with large impact, to change entire systems,” said Sonam Lhamo, project lead at Bhutan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Tshering Dorji, a developer, said it changed his perspective in software development. “My imagination improved a lot. I learned how to simplify without coding,” he said.

Another developer, Pema Gyalpo, was pleasantly surprised.

“We can further simplify even the simple things,” he said. “The experience of building this easier system was not about work, but how we’re going to work [in the future]. I’ll be privileged to send ideas which will serve other countries.”

Innovate first, regulate later

Most Bhutanese businesses are small. About 95% of them are cottage enterprises. This reality drove the country’s government to seek ways to help the mountain nation’s micro-enterprises succeed in the quickest, simplest way.

“Our approach is to innovate first, regulate later, so as to reduce entry barriers for new businesses, embrace innovation and allow creativity to flourish,” said Bhutan’s minister of economic affairs, Tengye Lyonpo.

This ethos has delivered results for the country whose unconventional approaches are working for it and its citizens in novel ways.

While Bhutan has been pioneering the flatpack approach to digital government, making services modular and easier to create, thanks to funding from the Netherlands, other countries are set to follow. Colombia, Estonia, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Togo and Tunisia will join the club this year.

Countries already benefiting from the platform include Argentina, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Lesotho and Mali.

Amy Shelver is an expert on digitalization and the creative economy and Ian Richards is an economist at UNCTAD specializing in digital business environments.

IPS UN Bureau

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