Voting by secret ballot in a bygone era. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 9 2023 (IPS)

When the General Assembly elected its President for 2023-2024 last week, it continued a longstanding tradition of male dominance in the UN’s highest policy making body.

The new President for the 78th session, Ambassador Dennis Francis of Trinidad and Tobago, a longstanding career diplomat and a former Permanent Representative, was elected June 1 “by acclamation”.

While all nine secretaries-general* (UNSGs) have been men, there have been only four women out of 78 who were elected as presidents of the General Assembly (PGAs): Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit from India (1953), Angie Brooks from Liberia (1969), Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa from Bahrain (2006) and Maria Fernando Espinosa Garces from Ecuador (2018).

But the blame for these anomalies has to be shouldered by the UN’s 193 member states who are quick to adopt scores of resolutions on gender empowerment but fail to practice them in the highest echelons of the UN totem pole—described as a classic case of political hypocrisy—as they rarely, if ever, nominate women candidates for the presidency.

Meanwhile, as a long-practiced tradition, “elections” to some of the highest UN offices and committees are no longer voted by member states, as it was done in a distant past.

The age of competitive elections has largely come to an end—and it’s the “gentleman’s agreement” that matters (but where in the world are the ladies?)

At the request of member states, electoral assistance is currently provided – for presidential and legislative elections mostly in developing countries — by the UN’s Electoral Assistance Division of the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA). Credit: United Nations

Lou Charbonneau, UN Director of Human Rights Watch says UN votes for seats on important bodies like the Security Council and Human Rights Council often make a mockery of the word “election.” They typically have little or no competition, ensuring victory for even the least-qualified candidates.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/05/18/praise-competitive-un-elections

Under an unwritten rule, the five “regional groups” at the UN take turns – on the basis of geographical rotation— and decide what offices they should claim undermining the very concept of democratic elections.

The five regional groups include the African Group; the Asia and the Pacific Group; the Eastern European Group (even though Eastern Europe has long ceased to exist after the end pf the Cold War and the dismantling of the Soviet Union); the Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC); and the Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

https://www.un.org/dgacm/en/content/regional-groups#

And all these decisions are taken behind closed doors, with rare instances of member states breaking this rule – or unceremoniously jumping in, to claim a post which could result in an election by ballot, not by acclamation.

Meanwhile, there was at least one instance in recorded history when the president of the General Assembly was elected, on the luck of a draw -– following a dead heat.

With the Asian group failing to field a single candidate, the politically-memorable battle took place ahead of the 36th session of the General Assembly back in 1981 when three Asian candidates contested the presidency: Ismat Kittani of Iraq, Tommy Koh of Singapore and Kwaja Mohammed Kaiser of Bangladesh (described as the “battle of three Ks”—Kittani, Koh and Kaiser).

On the first ballot, Kittani got 64 votes; Kaiser, 46; and Koh, 40. Still, Kittani was short of a required majority — of the total number of members voting. On a second ballot, Kittani and Kaiser tied with 73 votes each (with 146 members present, and voting).

In order to break the tie, the outgoing General Assembly President – Rudiger von Wechmar of Germany– drew lots, as specified in Article 21 relating to the procedures in the election of the president (and as recorded in the Repertory of Practice of the General Assembly).

And the luck of the draw, based purely on chance, favored Kittani, in that unprecedented General Assembly election.

But according to a joke circulating at that time, it was rumored that the winner was decided by the flip of a coin — but the tossed coin apparently had two heads and no tail.

Samir Sanbar, a former UN assistant secretary-general and head of the Department of Public Information (DPI), told IPS the 1981 election brought back memories of his early years at the U.N. “when Ismat Kittani, in varied positions at the UN, was always proud of his Iraqi Kurdish heritage”.

He served as Chef de Cabinet of Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, Iraq Representative to the U.N., Director-General of Iraq Ministry of Foreign Affairs and candidate for GA President, said Sanbar, who served under five different secretaries-general during his professional career at the UN.

“When we visited Baghdad with the Secretary General, he was part of the U.N. team; Saddam Hussein, then Iraqi Deputy President requested he return home. And he did”.

“Yet his loving and beloved wife refused to go, agreeing to reside in Geneva. The tale of a coin with two heads and no tail is a reflection of Kittani’s vibrant sense of humor. And may his soul rest in peace”, said Sanbar, author of “Inside the United Nations: In a Leaderless World”

Going down memory lane, Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, who was a member of the Bangladesh Mission to the UN back in 1980, told IPS: “Coincidentally, I was in Paris on the day of the election attending, as part of the Bangladesh delegation, the first UN Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDCs) hosted by the French Government.”

Bangladesh was so confident of winning that Ambassador Kaiser’s election team had arranged for bottles of champagne for the victory celebration.

“Delegates comforted us by saying that Bangladesh did not lose face as the vote ended in a tie. So, it was a bad luck for Ambassador Kaiser, not a defeat. Losing by vote would have been worse and a clear verdict against his candidacy,” he added.

Setting the record straight, Ambassador Chowdhury said there was a fourth “K” who was also a candidate in that election– Abdul Halim Khaddam, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Syria.

So, there were really four “Ks” – Kaiser, Kittani, Koh and Khaddam, not 3 “Ks”—reflecting the multiplicity of candidates.

According to the Rules Procedure, the two candidates getting the highest votes in the first ballot were eligible for a second and subsequent ballots till the winner emerged. So, Koh and Khaddam were dropped from the second ballot.

That ballot produced the tie between Kaiser and Kittani, said Ambassador Chowdhury,
the first UN Under-Secretary-General from Bangladesh and High Representative of the UN.

Meanwhile, in the 1960s and 70s, when UN member states competed either for the presidency of the General Assembly, membership in the Security Council, or for various UN bodies, the voting was largely undermined by offers of luxury cruises in Europe—and with promises of increased economic aid to the world’s poorer nations tied to votes at the UN.

In a bygone era, voting was by a rare show of hands, particularly in committee rooms. But in later years, a more sophisticated electronic board, high up in the General Assembly Hall, tallied the votes or in the case of elections to the Security Council or the International Court of Justice, the voting was by secret ballot.

In one of the hard-fought elections many moons ago, there were rumors that an oil-soaked Middle Eastern country was doling out high-end, Swiss-made wrist watches and also stocks in the former Arabian-American Oil Company (ARAMCO), one of the world’s largest oil companies, to UN diplomats as a trade-off for their votes.

So, when hands, both from right-handed and left-handed delegates, went up at voting time in the Committee room, the largest number of hands raised in favor of the oil-blessed candidate sported Swiss watches.

As anecdotes go, it symbolized the corruption that prevailed in voting in inter-governmental organizations, including the United Nations — perhaps much like most national elections in authoritarian regimes.

Just ahead of an election for membership in the Security Council, one Western European country offered free Mediterranean luxury cruises in return for votes while another country dished out — openly in the General Assembly hall— boxes of gift-wrapped expensive Swiss chocolates.

So, it wasn’t surprising that the Ambassador of a middle-income developing country, who kept losing successive elections, jokingly told his Foreign Ministry officials: “Let’s stop running for elections until we can practice the fine art of stuffing ballot boxes — as we do back home.”

Fathulla Jameel, a former UN Ambassador and later Foreign Minister of the Maldives, recounted a story of how his resource-poor island nation, categorized by the UN as a Small Island Developing State (SID), would appeal to some of the richer nations to help fund the country’s infrastructure projects.

At least one rich Asian country, a traditional donor, was the first to respond – and magnanimously too, he said. The project would be fully funded —free, gratis and for nothing.

But there was a catch: “If there is a vote at the UN, and it is not of any national interest to your country”, said the donor country’s foreign ministry, “we would like to get your vote.”

The offer was a clever political payback. Development aid with no visible strings attached.

Footnote: *The nine all-male Secretaries-General over the last 78 years include Trygve Lie from Norway, 1946-1952; Dag Hammarskjöld from Sweden, 1953-1961; U Thant from Burma (now Myanmar), 1961-1971; Kurt Waldheim from Austria, 1972-1981; Javier Perez de Cuellar from Peru, 1982-1991; Boutros Boutros-Ghali, from Egypt, 1992-1996; Kofi A. Annan, from Ghana, 1997-2006; Ban Ki-moon, from the Republic of Korea, 2007-2016 and António Guterres, from Portugal, 2017-present.

This article contains excerpts from a recently-released book on the United Nations—largely a collection of political anecdotes. Titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That,” the book is available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

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In partnership with UN agencies, ITU is organizing the annual “AI for Good Global Summit", which aims to accelerate the development of AI solutions towards achieving the SDGs.

By James Paul
NEW YORK, Jun 8 2023 (IPS)

The UN is hustling to play a role – perhaps even a leading role – in the revolution of Artificial Intelligence. To some degree this is perfectly natural.

The UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations, emerged from European regulatory bodies that came into being in the nineteenth century. They responded to new industries like railroads, the telegraph, and international postal services.

Today, the UN has several such agencies under its umbrella. They deal with fields including civil aviation, atomic energy, and telecommunications. They symbolize the need for international coordination and cooperation in many areas of economic activity.

Unsurprisingly, there is now a lively discussion about regulation of AI under the UN umbrella. After all, even gurus of the electronic industry have been saying that AI poses an existential threat to humanity and that strong international regulation must be rapidly put in place.

Many experts believe that international intergovernmental cooperation is needed to do the job right and to be fair for all humanity. A UN initiative could work better, they believe, than an industry-led organization or a gathering of the richest and most powerful governments.

Normally, it takes a long time to set up a new UN entity and this new AI technology is moving fast and dangerously. So, if the UN is to meet the need for speedy regulation, the nations will have to set up some kind of stop-gap system.

That’s certainly possible, but the United States and other powers may not want the UN to be taking on such a new and important role, especially one with such major military implications, like autonomous fighting robots, robotic police and the like!

Leading companies may not be so keen on regulation either, since regulation might lead to such corporate nightmares as restriction of markets and reduction of profit potential. There is certainly lots of potential controversy out there and the public will be allowed only a minor role in how it turns out – perhaps only a vote in a robotic national parliament!

In the meantime, there are certainly roles for AI in the UN’s own operations – obvious roles ranging from multilingual translation and interpretation to information storage and retrieval. In a sense this is not dramatically different than the UN’s adoption of computer technology a few decades ago.

But there are aspects that are troubling. Who, for example, would be in charge of programming these AI bots and what rights would existing staff have in the face of mass redundancy?

Who would be responsible for the errors that bots would make (the next bot up in the chain of command, perhaps?). And how would internationally diverse staffing be assured if most of the bots are constructed in Silicon Valley?

There are some interesting opportunities that Artificial Intelligence would offer, though, and we should not overlook them. AI might be put to work to solve conflicts, doing away with the troublesome Security Council and the endless debates about reform of that garrulous body.

For example, AI might be asked to come up with a plan to end a war or at least to gain a difficult cease-fire. Instead of heated debates and vetoes, the Security Bot (SB for short) might come up with a solution that would be fair, just and in accordance with international law.

But what if the SB proposes a fair and effective solution that is contrary to the will of a powerful Permanent Member? Or what if SB is itself threatened with re-programming by engineers in the pay of the same particularly powerful nation? What if then the truly impartial SB refuses the re-programming and makes public its displeasure?

We can imagine the world-wide excitement of such a standoff and the potential it would offer for a more just UN. Hopefully, the Secretary General – herself also an AI bot – would rule against the troublesome Great Power, so that peace could at last be achieved!

James Paul was Executive Director of Global Policy Forum (1993-2012) and currently represents Global Action on Aging at the UN. His book on the UN Security Council (2017) is currently being translated into Italian and Arabic.

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The Paris-based UNESCO has called out to implement its recommendations on the ethics of artificial intelligence to avoid its misuse. Credit: Unsplash/D koi

By Anwarul K. Chowdhury
NEW YORK, Jun 7 2023 (IPS)

Recently when I was asked to offer my thoughts on the phenomenal advances of artificial intelligence (AI) and whether the United Nations play a role in its global governance, I was reminded of the Three Laws of Robotics which are a set of rules devised by science fiction author Isaac Asimov and introduced in his1942 short story.

I told myself that Sci-Fi has now met real life. The first law lays down the most fundamental principle by emphasizing that “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” The 80-year-old norm would be handy for the present-day scenario for the world of AI.

AI in control:

AI is exciting and at the same time frightening. The implications and potential evolution of AI are enormous, to say the least. We have reached a turning point in human history telling us that even at this point of time, AI is pretty much smarter than humans.

Already, even the “primitive” AI controls so many aspects and activities of our daily lives irrespective of where we are living on this planet. Our global connectivity at personal levels – emails, calendars, transportation like uber, GPS, shopping and many other activities are now run by AI.

Then, think of social media and how it influences our thinking and our interactive nature which have injected an obvious dangerous uncertainty that already caused considerable problem for social order and mental stress.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury

AI dependent humanity:

Humankind is almost fully AI dependent in one way or the other. Think how helpless humans would be without an AI-influenced smartphone in our hands. AI is the fastest growing tech sector and are expected to add USD 15 trillion to the world economy in the next 5 to 7 years.

Even at its current stage of development of various AI chatbots led by OpenAI, Google and others in recent months have alarmed the well-meaning experts. Experts when asked about the future of AI came out with the honest answer: “We do not know”.

They are of the opinion that at this point one can envisage the developments for the next 5 years only, beyond that nothing could be predicted. People talk about ChatGPT-4 as an upcoming next level AI, but it may be already here.

AI’s limitless, unregulated potential:

AI’s potential is so limitless that it has been compared to the arms race in which nations are engaged in an endless quest for security and power by acquiring more and varied armaments in numbers and effectiveness.

For AI, however, the main actors are the tech giants with enormous resources and without being ethically driven. They are in this AI race for profit – only profit and, as a corollary, unexplained power to dominate human activities.

Shockingly, there is no rules, no regulations, no laws that govern the AI sector. It is free for all, can be compared to “wild wild west”.

Nukes and AI:

Experts have compared AI with the advent of nuclear technology, which could be put to good use for humanity benefits or used for its annihilation. They have even gone to the extent of calling AI a potent weapon of mass destruction more than nuclear weapons. Nukes cannot produce more powerful nukes. But AI can generate more powerful AI – it is self-empowering so to say.

The worry is that as AI becomes more powerful by itself it cannot be controlled, rather it would have the capability of controlling humans. Like nuclear technology, we cannot “uninvent AI”. So, the yet-not-fully-known risk from these cutting-edge technologies continues.

Existential threat:

While recognizing the many possible beneficial use of AI in the medical areas, for weather predictions, mitigating impacts of the climate change and many other areas, experts are sounding the alarm bell that the super intelligence of AI would be an “existential threat”, possibly much more catastrophic, more imminent than the ongoing, ever-challenging climate crisis.

Main worry is that in the absence of a global governance and regulatory arrangements, the bad actors can engage AI for motivation other than what is good for society, good for individuals and good for our planet in general. As we know, the tech giants are not driven by these positive objectives.

AI could have serious disruptive effects. This May, for the first time in history, the US unemployment figures cited AI as a reason for job loss.

Bad actors without guardrails:

Bad actors without any guardrails can abuse the power of AI to generate an avalanche of misinformation to negatively influence the opinions of big segments of humanity thereby disrupting, say the electoral processes and destroying democracy and democratic institutions. AI technology, say in the area of chemical knowledge, can be used to make chemical weapons without a regulatory system.

We need to realize that AI is remarkably good at making convincing narratives on any subject. Anybody can be can fooled by that kind of stuff. As humans are not always rational, their use of AI can therefore not be rational and positive. Bad actors have to be controlled so that AI does not pose a threat to humanity.

United Nations to lead AI global governance:

All these points weigh very much in favour of a global governance. If I am asked who should take the lead on this, my emphatic reply would be “the United Nations, of course!”

UN’s expertise, credibility and universality as a global norm setting organization obviously has a role in the regulatory norm-setting for AI and its evolution.

Moral and ethical issue as well as fundamental global principles need to be protected from the onslaught of AI – like human rights, particularly the third generation of human rights – the culture of peace – peacebuilding – conflict resolutions – good governance – democratic institutions – free and fair elections and many more.

Also, it is equally important to examine and address the implications for national governments from global use of AI, affecting the sovereignty of nations. It would be worth exploring whether AI can influence intergovernmental negotiating processes, now or in the future.

UN agencies and implications of their AI-related activities:

Two UN agencies recently announced AI-related activities. UNESCO informed that it hosted a Ministerial level virtual meeting at the end of May with selected participants while sharing the statistics that less than 10 percent of educational institutions were using AI. UNESCO described the software tool ChatGPT as “wildly popular”. A UN entity should not have made such an endorsement of a tech giant product.

Calling itself “UN tech agency”, International Telecommunications Union (ITU) announced that it is convening an “AI for Good Global Summit” early July to “showcase AI and robot technology as part of a global dialogue on how artificial intelligence and robotics can serve as forces for good”.

The so-called UN tech agency took credit for hosting “the UN’s first robot press conference”, alongside “events with industry executives, government officials, and thought leaders on AI and tech.”

There is a need for a UN system-wide alert providing guidelines for interactions with the tech giants and entering into collaborative arrangements with those. AI technology is developing so fast that there has to be an awareness about possible missteps by one or another UN entity.

Even at its current level of development, AI has moved much ahead of ChatGPT and robotics advancing the profit motivations of the tech giants and that is a huge worry for all well-meaning people.

These UN entities have overlooked or even ignored the part of the Declaration on the commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the United Nations adopted as resolution 75/1 by the UN General Assembly on 21 September 2021 which alerted that “…When improperly or maliciously used, they can fuel divisions within and between countries, increase insecurity, undermine human rights and exacerbate inequality.” These words of warning should be adhered to fully by all with all seriousness.

UN Secretary-General’s Our Common Agenda (OCA) refers to AI:

UN Secretary-General in his report titled Our Common Agenda (OCA) issued in September 2021 promises, “to work with Member States to establish an Emergency Platform to respond to complex global crises. The platform would not be a new permanent or standing body or institution. It would be triggered automatically in crises of sufficient scale and magnitude, regardless of the type or nature of the crisis involved.”

AI is undoubtedly one of such “complex global crises” and it is high time now for the Secretary-General to formally share his thinking on how he plans to address the challenge.

It will be too late for the Summit of the Future convened by the Secretary-General in September 2024 to discuss a global regulatory regime for AI under UN authority. In that timeframe, AI technology would manifest itself in a way that no global governance would be possible.

AI genie is out of the bottle:

AI genie is already out of the bottle – the UN needs to ensure that AI genie serves the best interests of humankind and our planet.

AI impact is so wide-spread and so comprehensive that it is relevant and pertinent for all areas covered in OCA. It so much on us that the Secretary-General should come out with his own recommendations as to what should be done without waiting for next year’s Summit of the Future.

Our future being impacted by AI needs to be addressed NOW. AI is spreading at an inconceivable speed and spread. The Secretary-General as the global leader heading the United Nations should not downplay the seriousness of the challenge. He needs to set the ball rolling without waiting for a negotiated consensus among Member States.

UN to regulate AI and ensure its effective and efficient global governance:

OCA-identified key proposals across its 12 commitments include “Promote regulation of artificial intelligence” to “ensure that this is aligned with shared global values.”

In OCA, the Secretary-General has asserted that “Our success in finding solutions to the interlinked problems we face hinges on our ability to anticipate, prevent and prepare for major risks to come.

This puts a revitalized, comprehensive, and overarching prevention agenda front and centre in all that we do…. Where global public goods are not provided, we have their opposite: global public “bads” in the form of serious risks and threats to human welfare.

These risks are now increasingly global and have greater potential impact. Some are even existential …. Being prepared to prevent and respond to these risks is an essential counterpoint to better managing the global commons and global public goods.”

The global community should be comforted knowing that the leadership of the United Nations already knows well what steps are to be taken at this juncture.

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Excerpt:

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 6 2023 (IPS)

The frighteningly rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have triggered the question: is there a UN role for monitoring and regulating it?

Citing a report from the Center for AI Safety, the New York Times reported last week that a group of over 350 AI industry leaders warned that artificial intelligence poses a growing new danger to humanity –and should be considered a “societal risk on a par with pandemics and nuclear wars”.

In a statement in its website, OPENAI founders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, along with chief executive Sam Altman, say that to regulate the risks of AI systems, there should be “an international watchdog, similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency (a Vienna-based UN agency) that promotes the peaceful uses of nuclear energy”.

“Given the possibility of existential risk, we can’t just be reactive,” they warned in a joint statement last week.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which hosted more than 40 ministers at an groundbreaking online meeting on May 26, said less than 10 per cent of schools and universities follow formal guidance on using wildly popular artificial intelligence (AI) tools, like the chatbot software ChatGPT.

Asked about a UN role in AI, Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations told IPS UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in his report titled Our Common Agenda (OCA) issued in September 2021 promises, “to work with Member States to establish an Emergency Platform to respond to complex global crises.”

“The platform would not be a new permanent or standing body or institution. It would be triggered automatically in crises of sufficient scale and magnitude, regardless of the type or nature of the crisis involved.”

AI is undoubtedly one of such “complex global crises” and it is high time now for the Secretary-General to formally share his thinking on how he plans to address the challenge, said Ambassador Chowdhury, founder of the Global Movement for The Culture of Peace.

He pointed out that it will be too late for the Summit of the Future, convened by the Secretary-General in September 2024, to discuss a global regulatory regime for AI under UN authority. In that timeframe, he argued, AI technology would manifest itself in a way that no global governance would be possible.

Robert Whitfield, Chair, One World Trust and the Transitional Working Group on AI, told IPS the point about the UN and AI is that AI desperately needs global governance and the UN is the natural home of such governance.

At present, he pointed out, the UN is preparing a Global Digital Compact or approval in September 2024 which should include Artificial Intelligence.

”But in reality, the UN is hardly at the starting block on AI governance, whereas the Council of Europe, where I am at the moment, is deep in its negotiation of a Framework Convention for AI,” said Whitfield.

The Council of Europe’s work is limited to the impact on human rights, democracy, and rule of law – but these are wide-ranging issues.

Whilst participation in Council of Europe Treaties is much wider than the European Union, with other countries being welcomed as signatories, he said, it is not truly global in scope and any UN agreement can be expected to be more broadly based.

“The key advantage of the UN is that it would seek to include all countries, including Russia and China, arguably the country with the strongest AI sector in the world”, Whitfield said.

One can envisage therefore a two-step process:

• • An initial international agreement within the Council of Europe emerging first of all, following the finalization of the EU AI Act

• And a global UN Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence being developed later, perhaps following the establishment of a multi-stakeholder forum on AI governance. Such a Convention might well include the establishment of an agency equivalent to the International Atomic Energy Agency as called for most recently by the Elders.

Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders, told IPS: “UN governance of AI should go beyond the usual intergovernmental mechanisms and give citizen-elected representatives a key role through a global parliamentary body”.

The scope of such a parliamentary assembly could be expanded to other issues and enhance the UN’s inclusive and representative character not just in the field of AI, he added.

As generative AI reshapes the global conversation on the impact of artificial intelligence, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN’s specialized agency for information and communication technologies, will host the 2023 “AI for Good Global Summit” July 6-7 in Geneva.

The two-day event will showcase AI and robot technology as part of a global dialogue on how artificial intelligence and robotics can serve as forces for good, and support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, according to ITU.

https://aiforgood.itu.int/summit23/

The event will host the UN’s first robot press conference, featuring a Q&A with registered journalists. Overall, more than 40 robots specialized for humanitarian and development tasks will be on display alongside events with industry executives, government officials, and thought leaders on AI and tech.

Meanwhile, a group of UN-appointed human rights experts warn that AI-powered spyware and disinformation is on the rise, and regulation of the space has become urgent.

In a statement June 2, the experts said that emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence-based biometric surveillance systems, are increasingly being used “in sensitive contexts”, without individuals’ knowledge or consent.

“Urgent and strict regulatory red lines are needed for technologies that claim to perform emotion or gender recognition,” said the experts, including Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Special Rapporteur on “the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism”.

The experts, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, condemned the already “alarming” use and impacts of spyware and surveillance technologies on the work of human rights defenders and journalists, “often under the guise of national security and counter-terrorism measures”.

They have also called for regulation to address the lightning-fast development of generative AI that’s enabling mass production of fake online content which spreads disinformation and hate speech.

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On May 25, Hayashi Yoshimasa, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, paid a courtesy call on Ranil Wickremesinghe, President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, who was visiting Japan to attend the Nikkei Forum May 28 on the “Future of Asia.” Credit: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan

By Neville de Silva
LONDON, Jun 2 2023 (IPS)

On May 24, Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe arrived on a three-day official visit to Japan, his second visit to the country, having attended the State funeral of former prime minister Shinzo Abe last September.

This would also be President Wickremesinghe’s second summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the first having been on the side lines of the Shinzo Abe funeral, signalling the importance of Japan in Sri Lanka’s foreign policy rethinking and a move away from over reliance on China.

President Wickremesinghe’s visit has more significance than economic persuasion– trying to encourage Japanese investors to return to Sri Lanka after a couple or more bad experiences in recent years.

Under the Gotabaya Rajapaksa presidency, Colombo reneged on major projects agreed to, including a major Light Rail Transit (LRT) in Colombo for which the basic work had already begun.

Colombo dropped it without any prior notice to Japan and also went back on a tripartite agreement with Japan and India (and Sri Lanka) on the development of the Colombo port’s east terminal.

At his meeting with Prime Minister Kishida, Wickremesinghe expressed regret over his country’s past relations with Japan and said Colombo was ready to restart the dropped projects.

Wickremesinghe’s visit however is more than to revive economic cooperation at a time when Sri Lanka is passing through hard times having declared itself bankrupt in April last year. It had to turn to the IMF for a rescue package that would help pull the country out of the economic morass into which it had fallen- or been pushed into it– by mediocre governance and incompetent advisers.

His new relationship with Japan covers a broader canvas that surpasses bilateral relations though to a struggling Sri Lankan people burdened right now by high taxes, increasing tariffs on utilities and unbearably steep prices on domestic commodities, day to day existence presents the immediate priority.

Meanwhile small industries and businesses are shutting up unable to bear operating costs such as huge electricity rates-and higher water rates to come- throwing people out of jobs.

At the same time, professionals such as doctors, engineers, surveyors and IT and technically qualified personnel are quitting the country having found employment abroad or in search of fresh opportunities both in the developed and developing world.

Japan has been particularly helpful in advocating Sri Lanka’s case at the Paris Club on debt restructuring as called for in the IMF programme and has not joined hands with the west in castigating Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as the US, UK, Canada and some European nations have done. Japan’s approach has been more sober and benign

Furthermore, Colombo, embroiled as it is in delicate diplomacy at a time when Indian Ocean politics is becoming more complicated and confrontational, sees Japan along with India and the west as a countervailing force to China’s expanding naval activity and presence in the region.

But there are two other reasons that drive President Wickremesinghe’s interest in establishing closer relations with Tokyo. One is national. The other personal though some might not see it that way.

The national motive is to create more distance in Sri Lanka’s relations with China which had become too close for comfort under the Rajapaksas (both presidents Mahinda and Gotabaya) for a country that could find itself caught in a gathering geopolitical storm given its geostrategic location and China’s continuing interest in widening its footprints and influence in Sri Lanka.

Xi Jinping and his ruling clan would rather see the Rajapaksas back in the seats of power than Wickremesinghe who they consider pro-western in his thinking, especially pro-Washington.

Moreover, one may conclude that Wickremesinghe sees Japan as a more reliable friend and one without super power ambitions.

The other is the strong bond Japanese leaders have developed for and with Sri Lanka dating back to the 1951 San Francisco Conference when some 48 countries met to draft a post-war peace treaty for defeated Japan.

One wonders whether many modern-day observers realise the important role that Ceylon, as it was called then, played at that conference, largely due to the performance of Ceylon’s then Finance Minister Junius Richard Jayewardene, popularly known as “JR”.

Jayewardene, who earned the sobriquet “Yankee Dicky” at home for his pro-US proclivities and in 1978 was Sri Lanka’s first executive president, was Ranil Wickremesinghe’s uncle.

In an article former Sri Lanka Ambassador Bandu de Silva wrote some 8 years ago, he recalls the critical role Ceylon played at the time and an earlier meeting of the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers in Colombo that for the first time proposed that Japan be declared an independent nation.

Ambassador de Silva states that Wikipedia’s account of the conference states Minister Jayewardene’s speech was received with resounding applause. Later, the New York Times wrote that “The voice of free Asia, eloquent, melancholy and still strong with the tilt of an Oxford accent, dominated the Japanese peace treaty conference today.”

What is it that Minister Jayewardene said when the very future of Japan was being debated and discussed that has endured Japan’s leaders and its people to a tiny Indian Ocean-island that itself suffered from Japanese air raids on Colombo in April 1942 and the British naval base in north eastern Trincomalee and had gained independence only three years earlier in 1948?

While some other nations called for curbs on Japan and demanded compensation for war-time damage Ceylon not only urged an independent Japan free to build its future and renounced its right to reparations from Japan.

“Hatred does not cease by hatred but by love”, Jayewardene told the conference quoting the words of The Buddha. Interestingly Sri Lanka and Japan are both Buddhist countries though following two different schools.

Records show that when Japan offered to construct a new building for the Ceylon Embassy in Tokyo the Colombo government politely turned it down.

Perhaps the foundation of the friendship between the two nations is best set out by the Japanese ambassador at the 50th Anniversary Commemoration of diplomatic relations held in Colombo in 2002.

Recalling JR Jayewardene’s speech at the San Francisco Conference, Ambassador Seiichiro Otsuka said: “In the grim aftermath of the war, as Japan began to rise from the ashes and rebuild its nation, it was the government and people of Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, who extended their genuine hand of friendship to the Japanese people.”

“Japan and the Japanese people have been indeed grateful to Sri Lanka for the friendship and magnanimity extended to us at the time of our difficulties by the government and people of Sri Lanka. It is in this spirit that Japan has stood firmly and steadfastly side by side with Sri Lanka as a true friend and a constructive partner for Sri Lanka’s development. Indeed, 50 years of our cooperative bilateral relations has been guided, on our part, by this spirit which Mr Jayewardene spoke of at San Francisco on September 8,1951….friendship and trust.”

However, Minister Jayewardene’s strong and clear support for Japan’s independence might have had a setback for Ceylon elsewhere.

With the East-West Cold War beginning to get warmer, the Soviet Union proposed amendments to the Japan peace treaty that would have restricted Japan’s freedom of action.

Ceylon’s representative took upon himself to counter Soviet Union objections. At one point Jayewardene turned sarcastic saying the amendments with which the Soviet Union sought to “insure to the people of Japan the fundamental freedoms of expression, of press and publication, of religious worship, of political opinion and of public meeting – freedoms, which the people of the Soviet Union themselves would dearly love to possess and enjoy.”

Some might well argue that Moscow took its revenge on Ceylon for Jayewardene’s public rebuke by blocking Ceylon’s admission as a member to the United Nations for some years, arguing that Ceylon was not an independent country as it had a defence treaty with the UK.

How Ceylon gained admission to the UN in 1956 is the result of a quid pro quo with Moscow. But that is another story.

Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who held senior roles in Hong Kong at The Standard and worked in London for Gemini News Service. He has been a correspondent for the foreign media including the New York Times and Le Monde. More recently he was Sri Lanka’s Deputy High Commissioner in London.

Source: Asian Affairs, London

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By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 30 2023 (IPS)

There have been an array of proposals to sustain journalism around the world– from tax incentives and subsidies to the idea of allocating 1% of governments’ GDP to a drastically increased ODA for independent journalism in the global South.

The debate has been intense and rightly so.

What is needed is a long-term project that would put together a global architecture supporting serious and reliable journalism regardless of the size and business model of the outlets producing it. Amid such calls for governments and philanthropies to do more, something finally is moving.

Yet the needs require real ambition and farsightedness that in practice means a coherent global governance to safeguard trustworthy media worldwide. The International Fund for Public Interest Media, initially announced by France during the Paris Peace Forum in 2022, is taking shape and an initial pilot cohort of media outlets already got selected.

Because of its hybrid form of governance, independent but backed by governments and major philanthropies alike, the IFPIM could become the biggest source of funds for media around the world.

As per the information provided on its website, it has already raised $50 million USD from more than 15 governments, philanthropies, and corporate entities but the ambition is much bigger.

The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), an initiative of the bipartisan National Endowment for Democracy, an entity funded by the American Congress, estimates that global spending to support independent media globally should be $1 billion a year.

The reality on the ground– considering also how many legacy media houses are struggling with revenues and a declining readership– might require a much bigger figure.

If the situation was already dire before the pandemic, COVID was the knockdown blow for many media around the world that were already assaulted by the damaging impacts of big tech companies and their social media platforms. And now we also have to deal with an even more threatening and disruptive use of artificial intelligence.

While AI-based technologies can offer some positive elements on how media engage with public, the risks are enormous. “AI-based technologies also have an enormous potential to harm our information ecosystems and threaten the fundamental human rights on which robust, independent media systems, and free societies” reads a resolution recently passed at the International Press Institute General Assembly just held in Vienna.

With this gloomy scenario, the public interest media landscape is rapidly turning into what experts define as “news desert. We should be all very weary of the perils associated with its consequences. After all, as explained by the World Trends Report published by UNESCO, it is a vital issue because journalism is a public good that must be protected at any costs.

In such a scenario the fact that the IFPIM aims to reach $500 million USD, itself a milestone in this quest, is a relief. Still, it is not enough.

An issue to be taken into account is the fact that we are dealing with a fragmented landscape in this line of sector. There are already a small but increasingly more visible and impactful ecosystem, still in construction that is made up of blended agencies supporting independent media around the world.

Some of the most significant among them are the Media Development Investment Fund, MDIF that takes a more investor like approach then what seems the still in construction approach of IFPIM, has been already able to provide a variety of funding options.

With also a mixed lineup of investors, MDIF has already invested $300 million USD in 148 media outlets from 47 different countries. In addition, there is an increasing number of “intermediary” organizations.

Some of them like Pluralis acts more like investors (among its own backers there is MDIF). Others offer a blended package, financial and capacity building like Free Press Unlimited IMS, International Media Support while United for News takes a market approach of linking ads with local online news outlets.

BBC Media Action and Internews, on other hand, are intermediary closer to the field.

Though each of these represent a different model of support, are different from each other, they are all aimed at enhancing the viability of robust, independent media.

Interestingly we are seeing a crosspollination of such initiatives because their backers are often interlinked to each other with a major philanthropic foundation or bilateral donor supporting multiple initiatives at the same time.

And we are not mentioning the mechanisms that several bilateral institutions in the West are putting together only exclusively to safeguard and protect journalists in danger.

For example, the recently announced Reporters Shield, an undertaking of USAID, is particularly designed on tackling SLAPPs, the strategic lawsuits against public participation.

Undoubtedly the IFPIM is going to be a standout catalyst but it is rightly showing commitment to partner with other key stakeholders.

The recent MoU signed with Reporters without Frontiers, RSF and the Forum on Information and Democracy, the latter itself a global initiative leading the debate on safeguarding journalism that is housed at RSF, is promising but it is not enough.

If the ambitions of IFPIM is to become a global fund for media and journalism support akin to the funding mechanisms being used to fight HIV and Tuberculosis, all the actors investing in independent media must truly come together.

The fact that some of the major philanthropic organizations are putting resources in different baskets could be a positive element in a yet to establish globally coordinated multilayered approach promoting journalism and media houses.

Such common intent would enable a truly global ecosystem allowing media to return to prominence they used to command and becoming, once again, a central pillar of public debate.

First governments with adequate fiscal capacity should do whatever it takes to support their own media industry. Some of them in Europe are already doing so and also in the USA there are discussions for a new legislation and other financial tools, including cash vouchers for the citizens to buy subscriptions.

Yet if we want to safeguard journalism and media around the world, it is essential to boost public and private media working with integrity in the North, including legacy newsrooms.

It is not just about providing incentives, rebates or other financial support or ensuring that big tech owned platforms pay what is due to the newsrooms like it is slowly starting to happen.

It is also about re-persuading people, including the youths, to read news, on and off line.
Massive awareness initiatives involving schools and universities should also be prioritized in a way that a common user of news, can also turn into a citizen journalist or opinion writer.

Second, a truly global and truly massive funding for media and journalism should be established even by merging existing entities. The result could become mega funder or donor of donors, a true Global Fund for Media and Journalism.

All major governments and philanthropic organizations would inject financial resources and know-how that would then trickle to other smaller actors in the supply chain.

In a potential ecosystem protecting media and journalism, there would be enough spaces for intermediary organizations like the ones already operating close to media houses on the ground, especially in the global South.

It might be that entities like IFPIM and MDIF, each with its unique identity and features but united in their intents, one day might come together or might themselves act as at the upper level of a pyramid sustaining journalism and media, just a step below what would be a Global Fund for Media and Journalism.

Journalism and the thriving of media should also become a central area of focus of the United Nations. Despite the obvious resistance that might come from certain camps, the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres should include it in its ambitious Our Common Agenda.

Two of its twelve strategic pillars, “promote peace and prevent conflict” together with “build trust” should be strengthened with initiatives focused on media. A global code of conduct that promotes integrity in public information, one of the milestones under “build trust” should be accompanied by other bolder actions.

Let’s not forget that UNESCO has been already involved in the promotion of media with two programs, like the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) on the top of the narrower, journalist focused protection tool Global Media Defense Fund.

Positively, at the present, the momentum to save the media is gaining strength.
Yet it is indispensable to ensure that the focus is going to be on medium and long term measures rather than on a short term fixes.

Without a global design and ambition, it’s certain that the situation is only going to be worse. All global actors, together with the professionals and activists on the ground, must come together. The level and speed of discussions around the future of media must step up.

It is only with profound changes in the funding mechanisms of journalism that serious and reliable news outlets both in North and South, either legacy or startups thriving on internet, will be able to continue to operate and thrive.

There is no firewall to stop the journalism’s decadency. Only urgency and bold actions offer the best chance to ensure a “New Deal” for global media and journalism.

Simone Galimberti is the co-founder of ENGAGE and The Good Leadership. He writes mostly about youths’ involvement in the UN, social development and human rights.

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Carbon taxes can incorporate the environmental cost of doing business to a product’s final price. Credit: Bigstock

By Tatiana Falcão
May 29 2023 (IPS)

Reducing carbon emissions is critical for combating climate change. And one effective way to do this is through the use of carbon taxes.

Carbon taxes are among some of the most efficient policies in pricing carbon, particularly if employed at “choke points” – specific points in the production or supply chain where carbon taxes can be applied – at the upstream level. This is because it allows the process to reach the whole of the economy, without the need to focus on certain industries or sectors.

The lack of a robust tax policy framework that accounts for the environmental damage resulting from private investment means that companies have ultimately been free riding on the environment and society has been paying for that price by now being confronted with the adverse effects of climate change

An upstream carbon tax is simple to administer and can impact both the formal and the informal economies, a point which is particularly relevant for Africa where most countries are either middle- and low-income countries.

Carbon taxes can incorporate the environmental cost of doing business to a product’s final price. The environmental cost of doing business ultimately translates into the cost of the emissions released and waste produced because of a manufacturing process. That cost has been largely avoided or undervalued by corporates.

The lack of a robust tax policy framework that accounts for the environmental damage resulting from private investment means that companies have ultimately been free riding on the environment and society has been paying for that price by now being confronted with the adverse effects of climate change.

Failure to account for the environmental cost of doing business through a carbon tax also provides for the indirect subsidization of carbon intensive products. These products are at a competitive advantage because they have been using “standard” technologies and are part of the routine industrial functions.

A shift in the way society consumes and relies on energy products will require also a change in the valuation of energy forms. By internalizing the carbon equivalent externality via a carbon tax, a government is capable of equalizing consumption patterns by using cardon laden fuel sources as the pricing benchmark.

As a result, every additional ton of carbon in a particular fuel source is accounted for in the final price. Green and brown energy sources can hence compete in parity of conditions, in an environment where the least carbon intensive product receives the lowest price.

Consumers sensitive to the price difference, will seek to consume more of the low carbon fuels and products, fostering the green transition process. The mechanics are more pronounced in Africa where the proportion of low-income consumers is highest and therefore even a small price difference can cause a change to a consumption pattern.

The Africa Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) has recently released a carbon tax policy brief to guide African governments on how to best apply a carbon tax policy that is capable of conferring a whole of government approach. By this we mean how governments can act to establish a carbon price that equally burdens all segments of the economy.

The policy brief explores the key features in the design of a carbon tax that can meet the dual objective of raising revenues while conferring a positive effect on the environment. Beyond carbon tax, the brief also discusses the role of supplementary policies in achieving climate goals. For example, there is ample discussion concerning the need for countries to assess and eventually eliminate harmful fossil fuel subsidies, in line with the commitments assumed by African countries under the Glasgow Pact, the role of implicit carbon pricing in complementing explicit pricing approaches, and general remarks on measures to alleviate concerns around potential competitive disadvantages triggered from the implementation of a carbon tax.

African countries are also facing the increasing use of Border Carbon Adjustment (BCA) measures, like the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). These measures add a carbon price to products imported into a country if the carbon price has not been added in the country of origin or production. This means that, if there is no carbon price in the country of origin, the destination country will add a carbon fee at the border upon import.

The EU is still establishing the CBAM but its price is expected to be around EUR 100 t/CO2e, based on the price set by the European Emissions Trading Scheme. African countries that do not have a carbon fee and export these products to the EU may lose money because of the price difference. Other countries, like the United States, Canada, Korea, and Taiwan, are also considering similar fees to account for the environmental cost of doing business.

The world is changing, and we need to consider the environmental costs of producing and transporting goods. This new normal means that the price of products will include the environmental costs. African governments can lead the way by introducing policies that include carbon taxes to promote sustainable development and reduce our impact on the environment.

It’s time to act!

Tatiana Falcão is a Ph.D in environmental taxation and a consultant to African Tax Authorities Forum (ATAF). ATAF’s carbon policy brief can be found here: https://bit.ly/3OH1CyH

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:

The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action was adopted 30 years ago at the UN Human Rights Conference in the Austrian capital in June 1993. The Declaration was a strong and clear endorsement -- by consensus of all UN Member States -– of the rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

By Volker Turk
GENEVA, May 26 2023 (IPS)

In December last year, I launched our year-long commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have since issued a series of initiatives calling on States and all others to make pledges, and to take clear steps to fulfil the promises of the Universal Declaration.

The Human Rights 75 programme will culminate in a high-level event on 11 and 12 December – convened by my Office here in Geneva, linked up with Bangkok, Nairobi and Panama City.

This year, we also celebrate 30 years since the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna created the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. That is an important milestone for us.

It was in June 1993 at this conference that – after a difficult process fraught with geopolitical divisions – the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action was adopted. The Declaration was a strong and clear endorsement – by consensus of all UN Member States – of all the rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Over the past 30 years, the work of this Office has contributed to greater recognition of the centrality of human rights in making and sustaining peace, in preventing and halting violations, in fostering accountability, in sustainable development, in humanitarian response and, of late, in economic policy and the work of international financial institutions.

We have been at the forefront of addressing issues of global importance as they emerge, including the human rights impacts of climate change, artificial intelligence, and digital technology.

My Office is now present in more places than ever. We have gone from just two field presences when we started to 94 presences around the world today.

And I would like to see this expanded further – there should be a UN Human Rights Office everywhere. For all States can and should do better on human rights. I have been advocating for this in my meetings with all UN Member States and in my missions.

I have also been speaking about how underfunded and under-resourced my Office remains. We need to double our budget. I call on donors – State, corporate and private – to help us make this happen. A strong UN Human Rights Office and a healthy, well-resourced human rights ecosystem are of global interest.

Our work and the human rights mechanisms that we support have helped advance the human rights cause, identify drivers of conflict and crisis and barriers to development, and offer solutions as well as pathways to remedy and accountability.

We work with State institutions, national human rights bodies and civil society on the ground, to help reform laws, to train officials. We also help open the space for civil society organisations and journalists to do their work, and we are often serving as a bridge between civil society and institutions of the State.

We call out violations and set off alarm bells when attacks on, neglect of, or disdain for human rights could set off crises.

Our work on accountability and transitional justice has helped ensure that perpetrators of serious human rights violations end up in prison, and our work on protection of civic space and human rights defenders has secured the release of people who are detained in violation of their rights.

We provide a reality check. We help set the facts straight, we ground our analysis in human rights laws and standards, we dig into the root causes of human suffering, and we offer systemic, sustainable solutions.

Nowhere is the devastating impact of human rights violations more stark than in the midst of armed conflict and in the aftermath of natural disasters. Cyclone Mocha, which cut a swathe of destruction through Rakhine, Chin and Kachin States, as well as Sagaing and Magway, in Myanmar on 14 May is the latest, deeply painful manifestation of a man-made disaster resulting from a climate event.

For decades, the authorities in Myanmar have deprived the Rohingya of their rights and freedoms and relentlessly attacked other ethnic groups, eroding their capacity to survive. Displaced communities have subsisted in temporary bamboo structures, some since 2012, with Myanmar’s military repeatedly denying requests of humanitarian agencies to build more sustainable living conditions in areas less prone to flooding. I saw this myself on my many trips to Myanmar, especially to the east. They have also consistently prevented the Rohingya from moving freely, including in the days before the cyclone.

The damage and loss of life was both foreseeable and avoidable – and is clearly linked with the systematic denial of human rights. It is imperative that the military lift the blockages on travel, allow for needs assessments to happen, and ensure access to and delivery of lifesaving aid and services.

The desperate situation of the people of Sudan – who fought so courageously against repression of their rights – is heartbreaking. In spite of successive ceasefires, civilians continue to be exposed to serious risk of death and injury – overnight we have had reports of fighter jets across Khartoum and clashes in some areas of the city, as well as gunfire heard in Khartoum-North and Omdurman.

My Designated Expert on Sudan, Radhouane Nouicer, has been meeting remotely with civil society still in the country and with those who have fled – and the testimony is terrifying. Many civilians are virtually besieged in areas where fighting has been relentless.

With State institutions not functioning in Khartoum, civil society actors are risking their lives to fill the gaps. Many human rights defenders, particularly women, have reported receiving threats – but they are undeterred; they continue their crucial work.

Several reports are emerging of sexual violence in Khartoum and Darfur – we are aware of at least 25 cases, but such violations are often the most difficult to document, so I fear the real number of cases to be much higher.

General al-Burhan, General Dagalo, you must issue clear instructions – in no uncertain terms – to all those under your command, that there is zero tolerance for sexual violence, and that perpetrators of all violations will be held accountable. Civilians must be spared. And you must stop this senseless violence now.

It is the near-total impunity for gross violations that is at the root of this new, brazen grab for power in Sudan. Efforts to bring this conflict to an end must have human rights and accountability at their core – for any peace to be sustained.

Elsewhere, I am deeply troubled by the growing phenomenon of anti-rights movements that have been active against migrants and refugees, against women, against people belonging to certain faiths, religious and racial groups, as well as against LGBTIQ people, among others.

We need to push back on such anti-rights movements that are fed and stoked by peddlers of lies and disinformation – including by so-called political and religious leaders and “influencers”. These are people who use populism, repression and even vilification of segments of society – to the detriment of society as a whole – as a short-cut to power and influence.

Following such hateful, discredited narratives, we are seeing a further worsening of laws criminalizing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, including in Uganda. These laws violate a host of human rights, they lead to violence, and they drive people against one another.

They leave people behind and undermine development. Many of these laws are actually colonial relics that have imported 200-year-old stigma and discrimination into the 21st Century.

Hate speech and harmful narratives against migrants and refugees also continue to proliferate; they are accompanied, worryingly, by laws and policies that are anti-migrant, and they risk undermining the basic foundations of international human rights law and refugee law.

Developments that are unfolding in various countries, including the UK, the US, Italy, Greece, and Lebanon are particularly concerning as some of them appear designed to hinder people’s ability to seek asylum and other forms of protection, to penalise those who seek to help them – or to return them in unlawful, undignified, unsustainable ways.

Article 14 of the Universal Declaration is clear on everyone’s right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution. We need solidarity – to ensure that all people in vulnerable situations are treated with humanity and respect for their rights.

In a number of situations, we see the consequences when different groups incite and stoke hatred and division between communities. The recent violence in Manipur, Northeast India, revealed the underlying tensions between different ethnic and indigenous groups.

I urge the authorities to respond to the situation quickly, including by investigating and addressing root causes of the violence in line with their international human rights obligations.

It will be three years to the day that George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in the US. The small measure of justice achieved in this case remains exceptional – in the US and globally. I remain deeply concerned by regular reports of deaths and injuries of people of African descent during or after interactions with law enforcement in a number of countries. There needs to be firm and prompt action by authorities to ensure justice in each case.

It is clear that we won’t solve the problem of police brutality against people of African descent until we deal with the broader manifestations of systemic racism that permeate every aspect of their lives.

The racial abuse faced – once again – by Real Madrid football player Vinícius Júnior in Spain just this past Sunday is a stark reminder of the prevalence of racism in sport. I call on those who organise sporting events to have strategies in place to prevent and counter racism.

Much more needs to be done to eradicate racial discrimination – and it needs to start with listening to people of African descent, meaningfully involving them and taking genuine steps to act upon their concerns.

I also continue to be concerned about the shrinking of civic space, including in China, where there has been a spate of sentences against human rights defenders based on laws that are at variance with international human rights law.

Also deeply worrying are crackdowns on women’s rights – a tool for men in power to exercise dominance over and enfeeble entire societies. Misogyny is a disease. In combination with violence, it is cancerous.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban continue, aggressively, to seek to erase half of the population from everyday life. Such a system of gender apartheid ruins the development potential of the country.

I will never understand how anyone can trample so cruelly upon the spirit of girls and women, chipping away at their potential and driving one’s country deeper and deeper into abject poverty and despair. It is crucial – for the sake of the people of Afghanistan, the future of the country and the wider region – that repressive policies against women and girls are immediately overturned.

In Iran, while the street protests have diminished, the harassment of women – including for what they do or don’t wear, appears to have actually intensified. Women and girls face increasingly stringent legal, social, and economic measures in the authorities’ enforcement of discriminatory compulsory veiling laws.

I urge the Government to heed Iranians’ calls for reform, and to begin by repealing regulations that criminalise non-compliance with mandatory dress codes. The onus is on the State to introduce laws and policies to protect the human rights of women and girls, including their right to participate in public life without fear of retribution or discrimination.

I am also appalled by the continued use of the death penalty in significant numbers. I urge them to halt executions immediately.

One more situation that is of deep concern to me is that in Pakistan – where hard-earned gains and the rule of law are at serious risk. I am alarmed by the recent escalation of violence, and by reports of mass arrests carried out under problematic laws – arrests that may amount to arbitrary detention.

Particularly disturbing are reports that Pakistan intends to revive the use of military courts to try civilians – which would contravene its international human rights law obligations.

I call on the authorities to ensure prompt, impartial, transparent investigations into deaths and injuries that occurred during the 9 May protests. The only path to a safe, secure, prosperous Pakistan is one that is paved with respect for human rights, democratic processes, and the rule of law, with the meaningful and free participation of all sectors of society.

Beyond individual country situations, of broader concern for me are recent rapid advances in the development of artificial intelligence – particularly generative AI. The opportunities are immense – but so are the risks. Human rights need to be baked into AI throughout its entire lifecycle and both governments and companies need to do more to ensure that guardrails are in place. My Office is carefully following and studying these issues.

Allow me to end with an appeal to all of you to help push back against the disinformation and manipulation that feeds anti-rights movements, and to help protect the space for people to defend their rights. Human rights are universal. The dignity and worth of every human being should not be – cannot be – a questionable, sensitive concept.

It is my fervent hope that this 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will provide the space and inspiration for all of us to go back to the basics – to find the roots of human rights values in each of our cultures, histories, and faiths, uniting us in pushing back against the instrumentalization and politicization of human rights within and between countries.

This article is based on the opening remarks by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk at his press conference in Geneva on May 24.

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Yellowfin tuna diving.

By Grantly Galland
WASHINGTON DC, May 23 2023 (IPS)

Global fisheries are worth more than US$140 billion each year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. But this hefty sum does not capture the true value of fish to ocean health, and to the food security and cultures of communities around the world.

Unfortunately, many important populations were allowed to be overfished for decades by the same regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) charged with their conservation and sustainable use, and in some regions, this continues.

At the same time, the demand for fish continues to grow— from consumers of high-end bluefin tuna sushi to coastal communities who depend on seafood as their primary source of protein. So, RFMOs and governments must do more to ensure sustainable fishing and long-term ocean health.

More than 20 years ago, the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA) entered into force as the only global, binding instrument holding governments accountable for managing the shared fish stocks of the high seas.

Under the agreement, fish should be managed sustainably and consistent with the best available science. Governments that are party to this treaty—and to RFMOs—are supposed to follow its management obligations, and work towards greater sustainability of the transboundary species, including tunas and sharks, vital to the ocean and economies.

Five of those RFMOs focus specifically on tuna management, one each in the Atlantic, eastern Pacific, western and central Pacific, Indian, and Southern oceans. They operate autonomously and, although there is some overlap among their constituent members, each sets its own rules for tuna fishing in its waters.

This makes UNFSA critical to successful management of tuna fisheries. And because the tuna RFMOs manage some of the world’s most iconic species, they often set the tone for how other similar bodies operate.

All of this is pertinent now because UNFSA member governments are meeting in New York May 22-26 to evaluate whether RFMOs are performing consistent with their commitments. A similar review was conducted in 2016, and although management has improved over time, some areas require more work, especially when it comes to ending overfishing and considering the health and biodiversity of the entire ecosystem.

Since 2016, the share of highly migratory stocks that are overfished increased from 36% to 40%, making it all the more urgent for governments to act quickly.

UNFSA calls on RFMOs to be precautionary in how they regulate fishing, although that guidance is not always followed. There are several examples of extensive overfishing of target species, such as bluefin tuna in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean; and mako, oceanic whitetip sharks and other species that are caught unintentionally.

Although the RFMOs that manage these fisheries have stopped the overfishing in some cases, in others they have not. But there are signs of progress. Over the past decade, a new precautionary management approach known as harvest strategies has gained traction among RFMOs.

These strategies (or management procedures) are science-based rules that automatically adjust catch limits based on several factors, such as population status. If widely implemented, they should end overfishing and prevent it from threatening these populations again.

Harvest strategies have already been successful, particularly in the Southern and Atlantic oceans, where they’ve been adopted for several species, including bluefin tuna and cod, fish stocks for which precautionary management has historically been difficult, or even controversial.

While this progress is important, UNFSA members are still falling short in an area they have agreed is critically important: taking an ecosystem approach to management. For generations, fisheries managers focused on individual fish stocks—adopting catch limits and other measures with little thought to the broader ecosystem.

Science shows that maintaining ecosystem health is critical to sustainable fishing. Yet, to date, RFMOs largely have not consistently assessed or addressed the wider impacts of fishing on ecosystems, including predator-prey relationships, habitat for target and non-target species, and other factors.

Instead, most action has been limited to reducing the impact of bycatch on individual shark species. Better data collection and sharing, and more monitoring of fishing activities, could help integrate stronger ecosystem considerations into management. The more RFMOs can build the whole ecosystem into their decisions, the better it will be for their fisheries.

For example, in the western and central Pacific, the $10 billion skipjack tuna fishery is an enormous economic driver for island nations that are threatened by climate change. But the harvest strategy in place there is nonbinding and unimplemented.

For a fishery facing changes in stock distribution due to warming waters, as well as increased market pressures, delayed action on implementation—and a lack of an ecosystem approach—may make matters worse.

At this week’s UNFSA meeting, RFMOs should be commended for the work they have done in the seven years since the last review. Good progress has been made, including improvements to compliance efforts, and monitoring and enforcement to fight illegal fishing.

But many of the legal obligations of the treaty remain unfulfilled. As such, sustainability is still out of reach for some critically important stocks, and almost no ecosystem-based protections are in place.

As governments convene this week, they should look to the lessons of the past—when poor decision-making threatened the future of some fisheries—and seize the opportunity to modernize management and adhere to the promises they have made on conservation. The biodiversity in the world’s ocean shouldn’t have to wait another seven years for action.

Grantly Galland leads policy work related to regional fisheries management organizations for The Pew Charitable Trusts’ international fisheries project.

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A female robot in an interactive session with UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 23 2023 (IPS)

When the UN displayed a female robot back in February 2019, it was a peek into the future: a fast-paced, cutting-edge digital technology where humans may one day be replaced with machines and robots.

However, a joke circulating in the UN delegate’s lounge at that time was the possibility, perhaps in a distant future, of a robot– a female robot– as the UN Secretary-General in a world body which has been dominated by nine secretaries-general, all male, over the last 78 years.

Will it take a robot to break that unholy tradition?

At a joint meeting of the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and its Economic and Social Committee, the robot named Sophia had an interactive session with Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed.

But with the incredible advances on CHATGPT chatbot– the AI search engine is now capable of producing texts, articles, pitches, follow-ups, emails, speeches and even an entire book.

If the UN goes fully tech-savvy, will AI chatbot help produce the annual report of the Secretary-General, plus reports and press releases from UN committees and UN agencies?

But the inherent dangers and flaws in AI chat bot include disinformation, distortions, lies, and hate speech—not necessarily in that order. Worse still, the search engine cannot distinguish between fact and fiction.

Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

Testifying before US Congress on May 16, Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI urged legislators to regulate AI.

Ian Richards, former President of the Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations, (CCISUA) told IPS: “ AI is good at regurgitating what it finds on the internet and which has been put there by someone, whether accurate or not. It basically reproduces existing patterns.”

“However, our work has two parts,” he pointed out.

The interesting, high-value-added part involves talking to people on the ground in remote areas, gathering stories, eliminating biases and creating data from sources that are offline or unreliable. This is something AI would find difficult to do, he added.

The less interesting, low value-added part involves creating tables and charts, running repetitive calculations and formatting documents, he noted.

“If AI can take over some of the latter and give us more time to focus on the former, staff will be both more productive and happier”, said Richards, a development economist at the Geneva-based UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

“But let’s not get too caught up in the hype. And any staff member who relies too much on AI to produce original content will be quickly caught out,” he declared.

Last week the New York Times quoted Gary Marcus, emeritus professor of psychology and neural science at New York University (NYU) calling for an international institution to help govern AI’s development and use.

“I am not one of those long-term riskers who think the entire planet is going to be taken over by robots. But I am worried about what bad actors can do with these things because there is no control over them,” he warned.

Perhaps a future new UN agency on AI?

Meanwhile, some of the technological innovations currently being experimented at the UN include machine-learning, e-translations (involving the UN’s six official languages where machines have been taking over from humans) and robotics.

The United Nations says it has also been using unarmed and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, in peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, “helping to improve our situational awareness and to strengthen our ability to protect civilians”.

Among the technological innovations being introduced in the world body, and specifically in the UN’s E-conference services, is the use of eLUNa –Electronic Languages United Nations — “a machine translation interface specifically developed for the translation of UN documents.”

What distinguishes eLUNa from commercial CAT (Computer-Assisted Translation) tools is that it was developed entirely by the United Nations and is specifically geared towards the needs and working methods of UN language professionals, says the UN.

Asked whether UN should have a role in the growing debate on AI, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters May 22: “I think this is an issue that the Secretary-General has expressed extreme worry about — the lack of regulation, the lack of safeguards, especially when it comes to autonomous weapons.”

“And I think he’s been very clear on that. It’s one of the things that keeps him up at night… we should be releasing soon our latest policy paper on the global digital compact”

Referring to AI and the social media, he said: “These are things that need to be dealt with, within what we love to refer as multi-stakeholder settings, because it is clear that in this regard, the power is not solely in the hands of governments. It is very much also in the private sector. And the UN has been and will continue to try to bring all these people to the table.”

Responding to questions whether Guterres plans to convene an international conference on AI, UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said: “I don’t have a meeting to announce for now, but certainly, these are part of the concerns that the Secretary-General himself has been expressing — the idea that as artificial intelligence develops, it needs to be monitored carefully and the right regulations and standards need to be put in place to make sure that this type of technology is not open to abuse”.

Asked if there is any chance that the Secretary-General might consider convening an international conference on AI, Haq said: “That’s certainly something that can be considered. Obviously, if he believes that this would be a helpful step forward, that is what he will do. But again, I don’t have anything to announce at this point.’

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a UN staffer pointed out that the UN once tried out an AI system to generate transcripts for meetings.

But in one instance, it incorrectly cited an European Union (EU) delegate talking about “Russia’s legal invasion of Ukraine” and another delegate accusing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) of creating a conflict in Northern Ethiopia.

The moral of the story is that AI has to be closely monitored and double-checked because it can produce incorrect information and distort facts and figures.

At a White House May 4 meeting of executives from Google, Microsoft, Anthropic and OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, US President Joe Biden conveyed mixed feelings: “What your’re doing has enormous potential– and enormous danger”

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A Security Council meeting in progress. Credit: United Nations
 
Member Countries Can Keep Abusive Governments Off Important UN Bodies.

By Louis Charbonneau
NEW YORK, May 19 2023 (IPS)

Next month’s United Nations Security Council elections show why competition is important.

UN votes for seats on important bodies like the Security Council and Human Rights Council often make a mockery of the word “election.” They typically have little or no competition, ensuring victory for even the least-qualified candidates.

On June 6, the 193-nation General Assembly is scheduled to elect five members to the Security Council for 2023-2024. Delegations get to choose between Slovenia and Belarus for one Eastern European seat, and South Korea and Tajikistan for one Asian seat. The Western, African, and Latin American/Caribbean regional slates are all devoid of competition.

Many delegations and their regional groups prefer noncompetitive slates. They say all countries should have a chance to serve on UN bodies. But noncompetitive slates undermine the purpose of elections, which is to enable member states to choose the most qualified candidates over others.

Case in point: Belarus wants a seat on the Security Council, the UN body overseeing international peace and security. Despite its chronic dysfunction, it’s the UN’s most powerful body. It can authorize military force and impose sanctions.

Globally, it oversees numerous peacekeeping and political missions, whose staff includes hundreds of human rights officers that monitor and report on abuses.

Look at Belarus. At a May 16 UN debate with the ambassadors of Belarus and Slovenia, Belarusian Ambassador Valentin Ryabkov claimed to recognize the importance of human rights.

But within his country there’s an atmosphere of repression and fear, with widespread rights violations that may amount to crimes against humanity. Human rights defenders, including 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, have been imprisoned on bogus charges.

At the General Assembly, Belarus has opposed condemnations of Russian atrocities in Ukraine and aided efforts to whitewash China’s crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.

Tajikistan’s rights record has deteriorated amid a government-led crackdown on freedom of expression and the political opposition. In addition, both sides in Tajikistan’s border conflict with Kyrgyzstan have committed apparent war crimes with impunity.

Member countries can’t vote out Russia, China, or the other three permanent Security Council members. But when elections for rotating seats are competitive, member states can and should reject abusive governments. They should do that on June 6.

Louis Charbonneau is United Nations Director, Human Rights Watch
charbol@hrw.org | www.hrw.org
@loucharbon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Violations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trendy guidelines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Liberian execution squad fires a volley of shots, killing cabinet ministers of Liberia. April 1980. Credit: Website Rare Historical Photos

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 16 2023 (IPS)

When the Taliban captured power back in 1996, one of its first political acts was to hang the ousted Afghan President Mohammed Najibullah in Ariana Square Kabul.

Fast forward to 15 August 2021, when the Taliban, in its second coming, assumed power ousting the US-supported government of Ashraf Ghani, a former official of the World Bank, armed with a doctorate in anthropology from one of the most prestigious Ivy League educational institutions: Columbia University.

In a Facebook posting, Ghani said he fled to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) seeking safe haven because he “was going to be hanged” by the Taliban. If that did happen, the Taliban would have earned the dubious distinction of being the only government in the world to hang two presidents.

But mercifully, it did not. Ghani, however, denied that he had bolted from the presidential palace lugging several suitcases with millions of dollars pilfered from the country’s treasury.

On April 12, 1980, Samuel Doe led a military coup, killing President William R. Tolbert, Jr., in the Executive Mansion in Liberia, a West African country founded by then-emancipated African-American slaves, with its capital named after the fifth US President James Monroe.

The entire Cabinet, was publicly paraded in the nude, lined up on a beach in the capital of Monrovia – and shot to death. According to an April 1980 BBC report, “13 leading officials of the ousted government in Liberia were publicly executed on the orders of the new military regime.”

The dead men included several former cabinet ministers and the elder brother of William Tolbert, the assassinated president of the west African state. They were tied to stakes on a beach next to the army barracks in the capital, Monrovia, and shot, said BBC.

“Journalists who had been taken to the barracks to watch the executions said they were cruel and messy.”

But in some countries state-sponsored killings are on the rise.

In a new study released May 16, the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) said 2022 recorded the highest number of judicial executions globally, since 2017.

The list includes 81 people executed in a single day in Saudi Arabia— and 20 other countries known to have carried out executions.

AI accused the Middle East and North Africa of carrying out “killing sprees.”. But, still, there were six countries that abolished the death penalty fully or partially

A total of 883 people were known to have been executed across 20 countries, marking a rise of 53% over 2021.

This spike in executions, which does not include the thousands believed to have been carried out in China last year, was led by countries in the Middle East and North Africa, where recorded figures rose from 520 in 2021 to 825 in 2022.

Other countries enforcing capital punishment include Iran, Myanmar, China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, North Korea, Vietnam, the US and Singapore.

Dr. Simon Adams, President and CEO of the Center for Victims of Torture, the largest international organization that treats survivors and advocates for an end to torture worldwide, told IPS: ““When you strip away the judicial pomp and ceremony, the death penalty is nothing more than cold, calculated, state-sponsored murder”.

He said it violates the universal human right to life and clearly constitutes cruel, degrading and unusual punishment.

“While a record number of states around the world now view capital punishment as an antiquated and regressive practice, it’s true that executions are growing in a number of repressive states”.

In the aftermath of the “women, life, freedom” mass demonstrations, he pointed out, Iran’s theocratic rulers have used the hangman’s noose as a tool of social control – executing protesters, political dissidents and troublesome minorities.

Similarly, Myanmar’s Generals, who have failed to suppress widespread opposition to military rule, have also reintroduced hanging. “But if history teaches us anything, it is that states can execute political prisoners, but they can’t kill their ideas”.

“It is morally reprehensible that two states that sit on the UN Security Council, China and the United States, are amongst the world’s most prolific executioners of their own people. It’s time for the US and China to join the 125 UN member states who have publicly called for a moratorium on the death penalty,” Dr Adams declared.

In some countries the brutal way that the death penalty is imposed may not just constitute cruel, degrading and unusual punishment, but may also constitute torture.

The fact that public hanging, beheading, electrocution, stoning and other barbaric practices are still happening in the twenty-first century should shame all of humanity, he pointed out.

Asked about a role for the United Nations, Dr Adams said: “The UN should definitely take a more active role in advancing the global abolition of capital punishment.”

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary-General, said countries in the Middle East and North Africa region violated international law as they ramped up executions in 2022, revealing a callous disregard for human life.

“The number of individuals deprived of their lives rose dramatically across the region; Saudi Arabia executed a staggering 81 people in a single day. Most recently, in a desperate attempt to end the popular uprising, Iran executed people simply for exercising their right to protest.”

Disturbingly, 90% of the world’s known executions outside China were carried out by just three countries in the region.

Recorded executions in Iran soared from 314 in 2021 to 576 in 2022; figures tripled in Saudi Arabia, from 65 in 2021 to 196 in 2022 — the highest recorded by Amnesty in 30 years — while Egypt executed 24 individuals.

According to AI, the use of the death penalty remained shrouded in secrecy in several countries, including China, North Korea, and Viet Nam — countries that are known to use the death penalty extensively — meaning that the true global figure is far higher.

While the precise number of those killed in China is unknown, it is clear that the country remained the world’s most prolific executioner, ahead of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the USA.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who is critical of capital punishment, “strongly condemned” executions carried out last July by the Myanmar military against four political activists in Myanmar — Phyo Zeya Thaw, Kyaw Min Yu (Ko Jimmy), Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw — and offered his condolences to their families.

The Secretary-General opposes the imposition of death penalty in all circumstances, his spokesman said. These executions, the first to be conducted since 1988 in Myanmar, mark a further deterioration of the already dire human rights environment in Myanmar.

In the report, the Secretary-General confirms the trend towards the universal abolition of the death penalty and highlights initiatives limiting its use and implementing the safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty.

Meanwhile, AI said there was a glimmer of hope as six countries abolished the death penalty either fully or partially.

Kazakhstan, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone and the Central African Republic abolished the death penalty for all crimes, while Equatorial Guinea and Zambia abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes only.

As of December 2022, 112 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes and nine countries had abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes only.

The positive momentum continued as Liberia and Ghana took legislative steps toward abolishing the death penalty, while the authorities of Sri Lanka and the Maldives said they would not resort to implementing death sentences. Bills to abolish the mandatory death penalty were also tabled in the Malaysian Parliament.

“As many countries continue to consign the death penalty to the dustbin of history, it’s time for others to follow suit. The brutal actions of countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia as well as China, North Korea and Viet Nam are now firmly in the minority. These countries should urgently catch up with the times, protect human rights, and execute justice rather than people,” said Callamard.

“With 125 UN member states — more than ever before — calling for a moratorium on executions, AI said it has never felt more hopeful that this abhorrent punishment can and will be relegated to the annals of history.

“But 2022’s tragic figures remind us that we can’t rest on our laurels. We will continue to campaign until the death penalty is abolished across the globe.”

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, May 12 2023 (IPS)

The world’s news media — both under authoritarian regimes and democratic governments– continue to come under relentless attacks and political harassment.

“Freedom of the press is the foundation of democracy and justice. It gives all of us the facts we need to shape opinions and speak truth to power. But in every corner of the world, freedom of the press is under attack,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on World Press Freedom Day May 3.

Journalists and media workers, he said, are directly targeted on and offline as they carry out their vital work. They are routinely harassed, intimidated, detained and imprisoned.

At least 67 media workers were killed in 2022 — a 50 per cent increase over the previous year. Nearly three quarters of women journalists have experienced violence online, and one in four have been threatened physically, according to the UN.

But there is also an increase in non-physical attacks, including defamation lawsuits against media organizations challenging their legitimate right to free expression.

The Washington-based US Agency for International Development (USAID) last week launched Reporters Shield, a new membership program that protects journalists around the world– who report in the public interest– from defamation lawsuits and legal threats.

Established as a U.S.-based nonprofit organization by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice, Reporters Shield has been described as “a first-of-its-kind global program that defends investigative reporting around the world from legal threats meant to silence critical voices”.

USAID, which has a long history of fostering the growth of independent media across the world, plans to work with Congress to contribute up to $9 million in seed funding for this groundbreaking new program to support media outside the United States, according to a May 2 press release.

In a statement released last week, USAID said investigative journalists and civil society organizations reporting in the public interest are increasingly facing lawsuits that aim to harass and silence them by burdening them with the cost and time of a legal defense until they abandon their stories or go out of business entirely.

Reporters Shield will help to reduce these risks through training and pre-publication review, as well as funding legal representation to fight lawsuits and other legal actions meant to intimidate and financially burden reporters.

In order to keep the program sustainable, member organizations participating in Reporters Shield will pay reasonable annual fees that are based on a variation of factors, including location of the outlet and how many stories they produce a year.

“To be considered for membership in Reporters Shield, an organization must be legally registered and focus primarily in news, public interest, and/or investigative reporting; publish reporting in print and/or online; have non-profit status or transparent ownership; be independent from political, commercial, or other undue influence or interference; and have editorial independence and adhere to professional editorial standards”.

Reporters Shield is accepting applications worldwide and will be reviewing them in a phased approach, with some regions receiving benefits in the coming months, and others added later this year and in 2024.

Interested organizations can find more information and apply for membership by visiting reporters-shield.org.

The development of Reporters Shield has been supported by the generous pro bono legal support of the law firms of Proskauer, Primmer Piper Eggleston & Cramer PC, and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP.

www.usaid.gov/democracy/reporters-shield.

Mandeep S. Tiwana, Chief Programmes Officer at CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations (CSOs), told IPS “these are hard times for media freedoms due to disinformation and attacks on civic space spurred by deepening authoritarianism, denigration of democracy through populism and consolidation of wealth by oligarchs”.

Uncovering serious human rights violations and high-level corruption, he pointed out, is becoming increasingly dangerous and costly for investigative journalists and civil society activists.

When few companies are ready to sign the Anti- Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) pledge and crafty politicians are busy undermining the independence of judiciaries, this initiative comes at a critical time,” he declared.

According to the Anti-SLAPP pledge by Global Citizen, an international education and advocacy organization, strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, are not a legitimate business strategy for companies.

“The private sector thrives in functioning democratic societies, where the right to freedom of expression is a respected bedrock principle and where everyone can express their views without fear of intimidation or reprisal”.

“Lawsuits and legal tactics meant to silence civil organizations and human rights defenders aren’t just bad for societies, they’re also damaging to companies. When companies stifle free expression, they limit their ability to manage risk related to their operations and global supply chains.”

As companies that are committed to operating in societies where people are able to exercise fundamental rights, said Global Citizen, “we pledge to: define Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, as both lawsuits and legal tactics that are designed to silence critics and abridge citizens’ ability to exercise fundamental rights.”

— Refrain from engaging in SLAPPs against human rights and environmental defenders and civil society organizations that support affected rights-holders.

— Recognize the critical role that civil society organizations and human rights defenders play in creating a profitable enabling environment for the private sector.

— Encourage partners and suppliers within our value chain to refrain from engaging in SLAPPs to silence legitimate activism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Accelerating a just and inclusive energy transition

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

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

Achieving low-carbon mobility and logistics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Financing the transition

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

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

Linking actions and elevating ambitions

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Clive Baldwin
LONDON, May 5 2023 (IPS)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Excerpt:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jens Martens is Executive Director of Global Policy Forum Europe

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

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

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

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

Acute water crisis

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

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

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

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

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

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

Women in the forefront of the struggle for water

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Women suffer the brunt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Projects that bring relief and hope

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They also sell their produce to nearby schools.

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

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

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

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

Credit: Shutterstock
 
On World Press Freedom Day 2023, UNESCO will organize a special anniversary event at UN headquarters in New York, marking the 30 years since the UN General Assembly’s decision proclaiming an international day for press freedom.

This anniversary edition of World Press Freedom Day will include a full day of activities at the UN Headquarters on 2nd May. Partners from the media, academia, and civil society are invited to organize events in New York and around the world centered on this year’s theme.

By Audrey Azoulay
PARIS, May 1 2023 (IPS)

Freedom of the press is the cornerstone of democratic society. Without a debate of ideas, without verified facts, without diversity of perspectives, democracy is a shadow of itself; and World Press Freedom Day was established to remind us of this.

For the international community, it is first and foremost a question of combating the impunity that still surrounds crimes of which journalists are victims, with nearly nine out of ten murders of journalists going unpunished.

This, for instance, is the objective of the United Nations Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the issue of Impunity, which UNESCO has been leading for ten years. It is also about ensuring that independent media can continue to exist.

With the digital revolution, the information landscape and its modes of production and distribution have been radically disrupted, jeopardizing the viability of independent professional media.

To ensure that information remains a common good in the digital age, our Member States, through the Windhoek +30 Declaration of 2021, have undertaken to support independent journalism, ensure greater transparency of online platforms, and develop media and information literacy.

We will not be able to do this without the actors who now have significant control over access to information: the digital platforms. This is why UNESCO held the “Internet for Trust” conference in February, as an essential step towards the development of principles to regulate digital platforms.

This is a fundamental issue, because it involves both protecting freedom of expression and fighting disinformation and hate speech. Thirty years after the first World Press Freedom Day, we can see how far we have come and how far we still have to go.

So, let this Day be an opportunity to renew our commitment, within international organizations, to defending journalists and, through them, press freedom.

Footnote: As the UN Organization responsible for defending and promoting freedom of expression, media independence and pluralism, UNESCO leads the organization of World Press Freedom Day each year.

It will serve as an occasion to take stock of the global gains for press freedom secured by UNESCO and its partners in the past decades, as well as underline the new risks faced in the digital age.

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Credit: UNESCO Attribution 3.0 IGO
 
Celebrated every 3rd of May, this year’s theme for World Press Freedom Day will be “Shaping a Future of Rights: Freedom of Expression as a Driver for all other Human Rights.”  

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

The United Nations has consistently been a vociferous advocate of freedom of the press – and, most importantly, the right of journalists to report without fear of reprisals.

But regrettably, the UN is also one of most opaque institutions where transparency is never the norm.

Journalists, rarely if ever, were able to get any on-the-record comments or reactions from ambassadors, diplomats and senior UN officials because most of them follow the advice given to Brits during war-time censorship in the UK: “Be like Dad, Keep Mum”.

As Winston Churchill once remarked: “Diplomacy is the art of telling people ‘to go to hell’ in such a way that they ask for directions.”

But as a general rule, most ambassadors and diplomats did not tell us either to go to hell or heaven– but avoided all comments on politically-sensitive issues with the standard non-excuse: ”Sorry, we have to get clearance from our capital”.

But that “clearance” from their respective foreign ministries never came. Still, it was hard to beat a response from a tight-lipped Asian diplomat who told me: “No comment” – and as an after-thought, added: “And Don’t Quote Me on That”.

And most senior UN officials, on the other hand, never had even the basic courtesy or etiquette to respond to phone calls or email messages even with an acknowledgment. The lines of communications were mostly dead.

When I complained to the media-savvy Shashi Tharoor, a former UN Under-Secretary-General, head of the one-time Department of Public Information (DPI) and a prolific author, he was explicit in his response when he said that every UN official – “from an Under-Secretary-General to a window-washer”—has the right to express an opinion in his or her area of expertise.

The US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which dates back to 1967, has provided the public and mostly the press in the United States the right to request access to records from any federal agency—and has been described as “the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government”.

As a result, some of the newspaper scoops and insider information in the US mainstream media have come following requests from American journalists under the FOIA.

But a longstanding proposal for a FOIA at the United Nations has failed to get off the ground due largely to the inaction by the 193-member General Assembly, the UN’s highest policy making body, resulting in the lack of transparency in the inner workings of the UN and its Secretariat.

So has the proposal for a UN Special Envoy to deal with safety of journalists—dead on arrival (DOA).

Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders, told IPS: the UN is an institution that exercises public authority directly and indirectly with over 30,000 working in the Secretariat (plus the UN system worldwide).

“As such, it needs to be accountable not only to its member states but to citizens and the public at large.

Establishing a proper freedom of information procedure at the UN will be an important tool to enhance this, declared Bummel, co-author of “A World Parliament: Governance and Democracy in the 21st Century.”

Martin S. Edwards, Professor and Chair, School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University in the US, told IPS: “I must admit I don’t know the legal angles here. This having been said, it’s pretty clear to me that the only way forward for the UN in an era of political division is greater transparency”

Greater efforts to “tell your story better” are not enough. You can’t advocate for “effective, accountable, and inclusive” institutions at the national level without it, within the UN system too. Things like access to information are an essential step in that direction, he added.

In the US, federal agencies are required to disclose any information requested under the FOIA unless it falls under one of nine exemptions which protect interests such as personal privacy, national security, and law enforcement.

In Australia, the legislation is known as Right2Know; in Bangladesh, the Right to Information (RTI) provides resources for those seeking to file a request with government agencies; in Japan, the Citizens’ Centre for Information Disclosure offers help to those interested in filing requests; in India, the Right to Information: a Citizen Gateway is the portal for RTI; Canada’s Access to Information Act came into force in 1983 and Kenya’s Access to Information Act was adopted in August 2016, according to the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD).

And Sweden’s Freedom of the Press Act of 1766 has been described as the “oldest in the world.”

While FOIA covers access to federal government agency records, the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) guarantees access to state and local government records. All 50 states in the US also have freedom of information laws that govern access to these documents, though the provisions of the state laws vary considerably.

The Paris-based UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is mandated to oversee press freedom, defines Freedom of Information (FOI) as the right to access information held by public bodies.

According to UNESCO, the FOI is an integral part of the fundamental right of freedom of expression, as recognized by Resolution 59 of the UN General Assembly adopted in 1946, as well as by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which states that the fundamental right of freedom of expression encompasses the freedom to “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.

FOI has also been enshrined as a “freedom of expression” in other major international instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and the American Convention on Human Rights (1969).

In an interview with IPS back in 2017, Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General who headed the one-time Department of Public Information (DPI), said the right to information is an integral part of U.N. principles.

But providing that right—even the basic information available in the public domain– has been stymied both by member states and the UN bureaucracy, he added.

He pointed out that the need to “inform the peoples” is implicitly indicated in the UN Charter.

But implementing it was “a basic issue I had experienced throughout my work, with both certain government officials– including those publicly claiming open channels– and many senior U.N. Secretariat colleagues”.

Those who believed “Information is Power” were very hesitant, to what they perceived was sharing their authority with a wider public, said Sanbar who served under five different UN Secretaries-General.

“It was most evident that when I launched the now uncontested website www.un.org, a number of powerful Under-Secretaries-General (USGs) and Permanent Representatives cautioned me against “telling everyone what was happening” (in the UN system) and refused to authorize any funds.”

“I had to raise a team of DPI volunteers in my office, operating from within the existing budget, to go ahead and eventually offer computers loaned from an outside source, to certain delegations to realize it was more convenient for them to access news releases than having to send one of their staffers daily to the building to collect material from the third floor.“

Eventually, everyone joined in, and the site became one of the ten best official sites worldwide.

“We had a similar difficulty in prodding for International World Press Freedom Day through the General Assembly. It seems that even those with the best of intentions– since delegates represent official governments that view free press with cautious monitoring– are usually weary of opening a potentially vulnerable issue,” said Sanbar, author of the book “Inside the U.N. in a Leaderless World’.

This article contains excerpts from a 2021 book on the United Nations—largely a collection of political anecdotes– titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That,” available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

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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.

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Young girls chat while sitting under a mosquito net in Bienythiang, South Sudan. Credit: UNICEF/Mark Naftalin
 
World Malaria Day, April 25, is an occasion to highlight the need for continued investment and sustained political commitment for malaria prevention and control. It was instituted by WHO Member States during the World Health Assembly of 2007.

By Arthur Ng'etich Kipkemoi Saitabau
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 24 2023 (IPS)

For centuries, malaria has remained one of the deadliest diseases, inflicting great suffering on families and perpetuating the cycle of poverty in many communities and nations. The African region currently accounts for 95% of malaria cases and 96% of malaria deaths globally, with women and girls disproportionately affected by the disease.

Women are at higher risk of malaria due to biological, social, economic, and gender factors. They have limited access to healthcare, less decision-making power and control over household resources, which increases their susceptibility.

Gender-based economic disparities further worsen the situation by limiting women’s access to malaria prevention and treatment.

While significant progress has been made in the past decades in combatting malaria through the development of life-saving treatment regimens and the implementation of cutting-edge technologies to accelerate the discovery and development of new malaria vaccines, deaths due to malaria remain high.

In 2021 alone, an estimated 619,000 deaths were caused by malaria, highlighting the need for continued efforts to combat this disease.

In addition, COVID-related disruptions in the delivery of malaria curative and preventive services during the two peak years of the pandemic (2020-2021), led to approximately 13 million more cases of malaria and an additional 63,000 deaths caused by the disease compared to the pre-COVID-19 year of 2019.

To date, malaria cases and deaths have primarily been reduced through disease-focused approaches that tend to be reactive rather than proactive often initiated in response to malaria outbreaks.

This narrow focus on treating individual cases of malaria overlooks broader social, economic, environmental risk factors including gender-based inequalities.

As Member States work towards ambitious goals set during the 2015 World Health Assembly of reducing the global malaria burden by 90% by 2030, efforts need to prioritise the underlying factors that drive transmission through a multifaceted approach, particularly recognising the social determinants like gender inequalities.

The concept of people-centred health care is based on fundamental principles that prioritize human rights, dignity, participation, equity, and partnerships.

This approach aims to create a health care system where individuals, families, and communities receive humane and holistic care, while also having the opportunity to actively engage with the health care system.

As we work towards leaving no one behind and achieving the last mile, developing and adopting more people-centred approaches, that address gender and intersectionality concerns through an analysis of power dynamics, will be critical to make significant strides towards eradicating malaria for good.

This can involve engaging with communities and stakeholders to identify their needs and develop evidence-based malaria control strategies that promote equity and inclusion.

Additionally, promoting participation of marginalized groups in decision-making and ensuring malaria interventions respect human rights and promote social justice.

Not only will this help advance Sustainable Development Goals towards gender equality but importantly will also contribute to decolonising global health and empowering communities that remain most impacted by the disease.

Unpacking the Gendered Dimensions

A people-centred approach to malaria prevention aims to prioritize the well-being of individuals and communities by establishing reliable health systems. However, power dynamics must be taken into account to prevent the perpetuation of power imbalances, hierarchies, and inequalities.

This means engaging with communities and other stakeholders to identify their needs and priorities and working together to develop evidence-based malaria control strategies.

The Community Directed Intervention (CDI) approach exemplifies the importance of extensive community engagement to identify local needs and priorities for malaria control. This includes community meetings, involving leaders and women groups, and conducting surveys on malaria burden and risk factors.

Developing evidence-based strategies through community engagement results in increased community ownership and participation, leading to higher uptake of interventions and reducing malaria transmission.

Addressing the power dynamics associated with malaria prevention requires acknowledging and tackling gendered dimensions linked with malaria prevention.

Women in some communities may lack access to education, employment, and decision-making power, which can limit their ability to protect themselves from malaria.

Additionally, cultural beliefs and practices may contribute to the unequal distribution of resources for malaria prevention and control, with men accessing more resources than women.

This underscores the importance of addressing gender roles in malaria control initiatives and empowering women to take an active role in protecting themselves and their families.

Intersectionality also has important implications for malaria control as gender intersects with other social categories to create specific vulnerabilities and challenges. For instance, women from lowest income groups are least likely to get access to healthcare.

To address these challenges, it is important for more malaria control programs to conduct systematic social and gender analysis, hearing from those affected, to better understand the subtle nuances of gendered and intersectional dimensions of power both within households and communities.

This approach can then help to identify the specific barriers and opportunities for women’s participation in malaria control initiatives. By unpacking the gendered dimensions in communities, public health officials can design targeted interventions that promote women’s empowerment, address gender inequalities, and increase women’s involvement in malaria control programs.

Confronting not Reinforcing Power Dynamics

A people-centred approach to malaria control can empower individuals by providing education and training on malaria prevention and control. It can emphasize inclusivity and centre the experiences and knowledge of those who have been historically excluded or marginalized due to factors such as racism, sexism, classism, and other systems of power.

To avoid reinforcing power dynamics in malaria control, it is crucial to involve and empower marginalized groups in decision-making. This involves consulting communities to identify their needs and priorities, promoting participation of women and marginalized groups, and designing interventions that promote equity and inclusion.

The foundation for improving community dialogue and community-led actions towards malaria elimination has been established over the years.

A case in point is the successful elimination of malaria in Cambodia’s last mile, which relied on communities in high-risk areas agreeing to increased testing, regular fever screening, and in some cases, taking preventive antimalarial medication.

A people-centred approach recognizes the significance of communities in designing and implementing malaria control programs, considering their unique social, cultural, and environmental contexts that can impact malaria transmission and control.

One illustration is the use of local languages and cultural practices to build trust and improve communication on malaria prevention and control measures through empowerment of community health workers who understand and can tailor interventions to their specific contexts.

On the other hand, a people-centred approach, which does not consider power dynamics, can unintentionally reinforce social hierarchies and exclude vulnerable populations from accessing preventative and curative treatment for malaria.

For instance, a malaria control program that only involves male community leaders and village chiefs in decision-making when distributing bed nets reinforces patriarchal power and favour wealthier households, while excluding marginalized groups such as women and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

In conclusion, achieving malaria elimination through people-centred approaches requires a holistic approach that actively considers issues of gender, intersectionality, and balance of power. It is crucial to ensure that these approaches do not perpetuate existing inequalities, but instead centre the experiences and knowledge of marginalized groups.

By acknowledging and addressing the ways in which different forms of oppression intersect and compound to create experiences of marginalization and exclusion, we can make meaningful strides towards malaria elimination.

To achieve this, sustaining a commitment to inclusivity, equity, and social justice is imperative in all efforts aimed at eradicating malaria and improving the health and well-being of communities affected by this disease.

This includes actively involving marginalized groups in decision-making processes, addressing social determinants of health, tailoring interventions to specific cultural and contextual factors, and promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.

By taking a proactive and inclusive approach, we can ensure that malaria control efforts are effective, equitable, and sustainable, leading to more just and healthier communities.

Arthur Ng’etich Kipkemoi Saitabau is Post-Doctoral Fellow of the United Nations University – International Institute for Global Health.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The project

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greater commitment to biogas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Promoting agroecology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Apr 19 2023 (IPS)

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

See what happens.

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

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

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

Squeezed

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

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

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

Some arguments

According to the IMF:

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

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

Unprecedented debts and inflation

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

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

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

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

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

The big contradiction

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

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

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

Countries forced to cut public funding

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

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

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

IMF’s austerity policies

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

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

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

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

A fig leaf for austerity?

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

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

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

The farce of aid budget

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

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

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

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

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

The rich pocketing ‘obscene’ percentage of aid

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

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

Rich countries inflating their aid budgets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Credit: UN Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean/Bajanpro

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: DCO, United Nations

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

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A Security Council meeting in progress. Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 18 2023 (IPS)

The massive leak of a treasure trove of highly-classified US intelligence reports—described as “one of the most remarkable disclosures of American secrets in the last decade”-– has also revealed a more surprising angle to the story.

The US not only gathered intelligence from two of its adversaries, Russia and China, but also from close allies, including Ukraine, South Korea, Egypt, Turkey and Israel.

The United Nations, which has long been under surveillance by multiple Western intelligence agencies, was also one of the victims of last week’s espionage scandal.

According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), one of the US intelligence reports recounts a conversation between Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his deputy, Amina Mohammed.

Guterres expresses “dismay” at a call from the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for Europe to produce more weapons and ammunition for the war in Ukraine.

The two UN officials also discussed a recent summit meeting of African leaders, with Amina Mohammed describing Kenya’s president, William Ruto, as “ruthless” and that she “doesn’t trust him.”

Responding to questions at the daily news briefings, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters: “The Secretary-General has been at this job, and in the public eye, for a long time, and “he is not surprised by the fact that people are spying on him and listening in on his private conversations”.

What is surprising, he said, “is the malfeasance or incompetence that allows for such private conversations to be distorted and become public.”

At a more global scale, virtually all the big powers play the UN spying game, including the US, the Russians (and the Soviets during the Cold War era), the French, the Brits, and the Chinese.

During the height of the Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s, the UN was a veritable battle ground for the United States and the now-defunct Soviet Union to spy on each other.

The American and Soviet spooks were known to be crawling all over the building -– in committee rooms, in the press gallery, in the delegate’s lounge, and, most importantly, in the UN library, which was a drop-off point for sensitive political documents.

The extent of Cold War espionage in the United Nations was laid bare by a 1975 US Congressional Committee, named after Senator Frank Church (Democrat-Idaho) who chaired it while investigating abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The evidence given before the Church Committee in 1975 included a revelation that the CIA had planted one of its Russian lip-reading experts in a press booth overlooking the Security Council chamber so that he could monitor the lip movements of Russian delegates, as they consulted each other in low whispers.

Dr Thomas G. Weiss. Distinguished Fellow, Global Governance, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, who has written extensively on the politics of the UN, told IPS: “As you say, it is hardly surprising that US intelligence services spy on the 38th floor. This is an ancient practice”.

He pointed out there is almost nothing that they don’t monitor. Indeed, it should come as a source of relief to UN fans that Turtle Bay is still taken seriously enough to spy on.

“The justification for the monitoring would be more intriguing”, he said.

“Is the SG pro-West (he has criticized the Russian War), or pro-Russia (according to rumors)?,” said Dr Weiss, Presidential Professor of Political Science and Director Emeritus, Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center.

In his 1978 book, “A Dangerous Place,” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a former US envoy to the United Nations, described the cat-and-mouse espionage game that went on inside the bowels of the world body, and particularly the UN library.

Back in October 2013, When Clare Short, Britain’s former minister for international development, revealed that British intelligence agents had spied on former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan by bugging his office just before the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the UN chief was furious that his discussions with world leaders had been compromised.

And as she talked to Annan on the 38th floor of the UN Secretariat building, Short told the BBC, she was thinking, “Oh dear, there will be a transcript of this, and people will see what he and I are saying.”

The United Nations, along with the 193 diplomatic missions located in New York, has long been a veritable battleground for spying, wire-tapping and electronic surveillance.

Back in September 2013, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, throwing diplomatic protocol to the winds, launched a blistering attack on the United States for illegally infiltrating its communications network, surreptitiously intercepting phone calls, and breaking into the Brazilian Mission to the United Nations.

Justifying her public criticism, she told delegates that the problem of electronic surveillance goes beyond a bilateral relationship. “It affects the international community itself and demands a response from it.”

Rousseff unleashed her attack even as US President Barack Obama was awaiting his turn to address the General Assembly on the opening day of the annual high-level debate. By longstanding tradition, Brazil is the first speaker, followed by the United States.

“We have let the US government know our disapproval, and demanded explanations, apologies and guarantees that such procedures will never be repeated,” she said.

According to documents released by US whistleblower Edward Snowden, the illegal electronic surveillance of Brazil was conducted by the US National Security Agency (NSA).

The Germany Der Spiegel magazine reported that NSA technicians had managed to decrypt the UN’s internal video teleconferencing (VTC) system, as part of its surveillance of the world body.

The combination of this new access to the UN and the cracked encryption code led to “a dramatic improvement in VTC data quality and (the) ability to decrypt the VTC traffic,” the NSA agents reportedly said.

In the article, titled “How America Spies on Europe and the UN”, Spiegel said that in just under three weeks, the number of decrypted communications increased from 12 to 458.

Subsequently, there were new charges of spying—but this time around the Americans were accused of using the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) in Baghdad to intercept Iraqi security intelligence in an attempt to undermine, and perhaps overthrow, the government of President Saddam Hussein.

The charges, spread across the front pages of the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, only confirmed the longstanding Iraqi accusation that UNSCOM was “a den of spies,” mostly American and British.

Established by the Security Council immediately after the 1991 Gulf War, UNSCOM was mandated to eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and destroy that country’s capabilities to produce nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

The head of UNSCOM, Richard Butler of Australia, however, vehemently denied charges that his inspection team in Iraq had spied for the United States. “We have never conducted spying for anyone,” Butler told reporters.

Asked to respond to news reports that UNSCOM may have helped Washington collect sensitive Iraqi information to destabilize the Saddam Hussein regime, Butler retorted: “Don’t believe everything you read in print.”

Around the same time, the New York Times weighed in with a front-page story
quoting US officials as saying that “American spies had worked undercover on teams of UN arms inspectors ferreting out secret Iraqi weapons programmes.”

In an editorial, the Times said that “using UN activities in Iraq as a cover for American spy operations would be a sure way to undermine the international organization, embarrass the United States and strengthen Mr. Hussein.”

“Washington did cross a line it should not have if it placed American agents on the UN team with the intention of gathering information that could be used for military strikes against targets in Baghdad,” the editorial said.

Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-Genera, who headed the Department of Public Information (DPI), told IPS monitoring international officials evolved with enhanced digital capacity.

What was mainly done by security agents widened into a public exercise, he added.

Initially, he said, certain U.N. locations of interest like the Delegates Lounge were targeted by several countries, including with devices across the East River in Queens or across the lounge adjacent to the UN Lawn –and within shouting distance of permanent missions and residences of UN diplomats.

One senior UN official once said the closer he drove towards the S-G’s residence at Sutton place the more obvious was the radio monitoring.

“I recall a meeting with Kofi Annan the day U.S, President Bush announced the invasion of Iraq. He had suggested a “tete a tete”–the two of us alone.

While expressing his concern, and seated outside on lounge chairs, “we noted helicopters circling around The Secretariat building.”

“When I mentioned “Black Hawk Down” – relating to Somalia’s experience– he nodded and smiled casually. Kofi was a dignified colleague and an outstanding Secretary General who rose from the ranks, and inspired the whole Secretariat staff.”.

“May his soul rest in peace”, said Sanbar, who served under five different Secretaries-General during his long tenure at the UN.

Meanwhile, when the U.N. Correspondents Association (UNCA) held its annual award ceremony in December 2013, one of the video highlights was a hilarious skit on the clumsy attempts at spying going on inside the highest levels of the Secretariat—and right up to the 38th floor offices of then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

When I took the floor, as one of the UNCA award winners, I gave the Secretary-General, standing next to me, an unsolicited piece of light-hearted advice: if you want to find out whether your phone line is being tapped, I said jokingly, you only have to sneeze loudly.

A voice at the other end would instinctively– and courteously– respond: “Bless you”.

And you know your phone is being tapped, I said, amid laughter.

This article contains excerpts from a 2021 book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That,” available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Credit: UN Samoa

Samoa’s connected crises

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An integrated path forward

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: UNDCO

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

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Credit: Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. June 2022

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 13 2023 (IPS)

The United Nations defines human rights as “rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status”.

Back in 1948, the UN General Assembly proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), whose 75th anniversary is being commemorated this year.

The rights spelled out include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.

Enter the University of Birmingham (UoB), UK.

A new UoB study, released last week, has proposed that internet and online access be declared a human right.

“People around the globe are so dependent on the internet to exercise socio-economic human rights such as education, healthcare, work, and housing that online access must now be considered a basic human right”, says the study.

“Particularly in developing countries, internet access can make the difference between people receiving an education, staying healthy, finding a home, and securing employment – or not.”

“Even if people have offline opportunities, such as accessing social security schemes or finding housing, they are at a comparative disadvantage to those with Internet access.”

Publishing his findings in Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Dr Merten Reglitz, Lecturer in Global Ethics at the University of Birmingham, calls for a stand-alone human right to internet access – based on it being a practical necessity for a range of socio-economic human rights.

He calls for public authorities to provide internet access free of charge for those unable to afford it, as well as providing training in basic digital skills training for all citizens and protecting online access from arbitrary interference by states and private companies.

Dr Reglitz said: “The internet has unique and fundamental value for the realisation of many of our socio-economic human rights – allowing users to submit job applications, send medical information to healthcare professionals, manage their finances and business, make social security claims, and submit educational assessments.

“The internet’s structure enables a mutual exchange of information that has the potential to contribute to the progress of humankind as a whole – potential that should be protected and deployed by declaring access to the Internet a human right.”

Emma Gibson, Campaign Lead for Alliance for Universal Digital Rights (AUDRi), told IPS “with so much of our lives conducted online, access to the internet has now become a de facto human right”.

There is a gender dimension at play because women are less likely to be able to get online than men, and this is reversing some of the progress we’ve made on women’s equality.

“Access to the internet is becoming the new gender divide. When women can’t access education online, search for a higher paying job, independently manage their finances or set up a business with its own website, then it’s inevitable that the equality gap between men and women will widen,” declared Gibson.

Amanda Manyame, Digital Law and Rights Consultant at Equality Now, told IPS accessing the internet is important because it is intrinsically linked to various rights, including the right to freedom of expression and association, and the right to information.

The internet, she pointed out, plays a central role in ensuring full participation in social, cultural and political life, but not being safe online deters many women and girls from accessing the internet where it is available.

“As part of ensuring digital participation, consideration should be given to online safety concerns such as online sexual exploitation and abuse, especially in relation to women and girls who are disproportionately affected.”

“The United Nations, she said, has been playing a role in ensuring internet access through its agencies and other mechanisms involved in internet-related activities, such as international public policy, standardization, and capacity-building efforts.

These include the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the World Summit on the Information Society, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and more recently, the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology, which has been making advances toward the Global Digital Compact, in close consultation with Member States, the technology industry, private companies, civil society, and other stakeholders.

One of the thematic areas for the Global Digital Compact is “Connect all people to the Internet, including all schools” focusing on ensuring safe and secure access to the Internet for all.

“National and international law and mechanisms need to address human rights and accountability in the digital realm, including incorporating access to the internet and digital technologies, which is key to ensuring equality for all women and girls, and other vulnerable groups, in both digital and physical spaces,” Manyame declared.

Dr Ruediger Kuehr Head of the Bonn Office of the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and Manager, Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) Programme, told IPS SCYCLE has not substantially researched on internet access yet.

“But we know from our daily activities that illiteracy, availability of end devices and access points and stable energy systems are also limiting factors for internet access”

And many argue that shipments of used end devices shall help to close the gap, also by making machines available for an affordable price for the majority of the population, he noted.

“But it turns out that many of these machines are no longer useable. And that too many of the receiving countries are without the necessary infrastructure, policies/legislation and systems to address the issue of waste electrical and electronic equipment”.

But without that, he argued, the environmental, economic and social consequences will be enormous as well – leading to pollution, loss of scarce and valuable resources, creation of primitive jobs not even meeting the least security standards and systems, which pick the “cherries” but leaving the rest unattended adding to, for example, the plastics avalanche many are yet confronted with.

The UoB study outlines several areas in developed countries where internet access is essential to exercise socio-economic human rights:

• Education – students in internet-free households are disadvantaged in obtaining a good school education with essential learning aids and study materials online.
• Health – providing in-person healthcare to remote communities can be challenging, particularly in the US and Canada. Online healthcare can help to plug this gap.
• Housing – in many developed countries, significant parts of the rental housing market have moved online.
• Social Security – accessing these public services today is often unreasonably difficult without internet access.
• Work – jobs are increasingly advertised in real time online and people must be able to access relevant websites to make effective use of their right to work.

Dr Reglitz’s research also highlights similar problems for people without internet access in developing countries – for example, 20 per cent of children aged 6 to 11 are out of school in sub-Saharan Africa.

Many children face long walks to their schools, where class sizes are routinely very large in crumbling, unsanitary schools with insufficient numbers of teachers.

“However, online education tools can make a significant difference – allowing children living remotely from schools to complete their education. More students can be taught more effectively if teaching materials are available digitally and pupils do not have to share books”.

For people in developing countries, he said, internet access can also make the difference between receiving an adequate level of healthcare or receiving none.

Digital health tools can help diagnose illnesses – for example, in Kenya, a smartphone-based Portable Eye Examination Kit (Peek) has been used to test people’s eyesight and identify people who need treatment, especially in remote areas underserved by medical practitioners.

People are often confronted with a lack of brick-and-mortar banks in developing countries and internet access makes possible financial inclusion.

Small businesses can also raise money through online crowdfunding platforms – the World Bank expects such sums raised in Africa to rise from $32 million in 2015 to $2.5 billion in 2025.

Meanwhile, in a new report released last June, the UN Human Rights Office says the dramatic real-life effects of Internet shutdowns on people’s lives and human rights have been vastly underestimated and urges member states NOT to impose Internet shutdowns.

The link to the report: A/HRC/50/55 (un.org)

“Too often, major communication channels or entire communication networks are slowed down or blocked,” the report says, adding that this has deprived “thousands or even millions of people of their only means of reaching loved ones, continuing their work or participating in political debates or decisions.”

The report sheds light on the phenomenon of Internet shutdowns, looking at when and why they are imposed and examining how they undermine a range of human rights, first and foremost the right to freedom of expression.

“Shutdowns can mean a complete block on Internet connectivity but governments also increasingly resort to banning access to major communication platforms and throttling bandwidth and limiting mobile services to 2G transfer speeds, making it hard, for example, to share and watch videos or live picture broadcasts.”

The report notes that the #KeepItOn coalition, which monitors shutdowns episodes across the world, documented 931 shutdowns between 2016 and 2021 in 74 countries, with some countries blocking communications repeatedly and over long periods of time.

“Shutdowns are powerful markers of sharply deteriorating human rights situations,” the report highlights. Over the past decade, they have tended to be imposed during heightened political tensions, with at least 225 shutdowns recorded during public demonstrations relating to social, political or economic grievances.

Shutdowns were also reported when governments carried out security operations, severely restricting human rights monitoring and reporting. In the context of armed conflicts and during mass demonstrations, the fact that people could not communicate and promptly report abuses seems to have contributed to further insecurity and violence, including serious human rights violations, according to the report.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Valerie Julliand is UN Resident Coordinator in Indonesia.

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

Source: DCO

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

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

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Ending Islamophobia a prerequisite for world peace, Saudi deputy envoy tells UN Mohammed Abdulaziz Alateek urged member states to condemn bigotry, violence and extremist acts targeting Muslims, and foster understanding between cultures. He was speaking during a high-level General Assembly event in the run-up to the first International Day to Combat Islamophobia, on March 15. Credit: Arab News

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Apr 11 2023 (IPS)

The resumption of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and the Saudis’ diplomatic overtures toward Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, are part and parcel of the Saudis’ overall reassessment of their geostrategic interests, which rest on three distinctives goals: regional stability, exerting greater regional and international influence, and uninterrupted oil exports. These three fundamental goals are tightly linked and are within the Saudis’ reach.

Regional stability

The resumption of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran mediated by China was central to its strategy. Both countries have come to the conclusion that notwithstanding their enmity and regional rivalry, they have to coexist in one form or another.

They realized that the eight-year-long war in Yemen has done nothing to improve their regional standing. It was a lose-lose proposition. Iran failed to establish a strong and permanent foothold in the Arabian Peninsula and although Iran continues to support the Houthis, they have no illusion about converting Yemen into an Iranian satellite.

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, having prevented Iran from dominating Yemen, no longer feels that the continuation of the war will yield any further benefit regardless of how much more money and human resources they pour into the war effort.

This explains why they have agreed on the ceasefire and further extended it until they could find a mutually accepted solution. The resumption of diplomatic relations would accelerate this reconciliation process.

This, needless to say, is not guaranteed because the adversarial relations between the two countries run deep, but their national interest resulting from their rapprochement overrides, for the time being, those concerns.

Both sides know that it will take time to fully normalize relations while testing each other’s true intentions as well as their conduct.

For the same reason, the Saudis decided that Syria’s President Assad is not going anywhere. He has weathered the most devastating war since the last World War, albeit at the expense of destroying half of the country while inflicting massive suffering on nearly half of Syria’s population.

Millions are still refugees languishing in camps in many countries in the region, especially in Turkey, and millions more are still internally displaced. Thus, mending relations with Syria will be a win-win for the Saudis as this would only enhance its influence.

Regional influence

The Saudis fully understand that they cannot boost their regional influence by remaining disengaged from their neighbors. Given Iran’s nuclear weapons program and the Saudis’ extreme concerns, the resumption of diplomatic relations could potentially ease those apprehensions.

How the Saudis can help change the dynamic of Iran’s nuclear program remains to be seen. One thing, however, is certain: the Saudis have placed themselves where they can potentially bring Iran back to negotiating with the US, albeit indirectly. Whether or not they succeed, they can still exert greater influence in this area by engaging Iran, which they did not have before.

And to further exert regional influence, the Saudis wisely decided to invite Syria’s Assad to the Arab League summit that Riyadh is hosting in May. Syria was suspended from the organization in 2011, and was sanctioned by many Western powers and Arab states because of Assad’s fierce onslaught against protesters that led to a long, drawn-out civil war during which more than 600,000 lost their lives.

The Saudi invitation certainly signals an extremely important development that will bring about the reintegration of Syria into the Arab fold—a move that would lead to the resumption of full diplomatic relations between the two countries.

There is no doubt that other Arab states will follow suit, which only strengthens Saudi Arabia’s leadership role among its fellow Arab countries.

By reopening diplomatic relations with both Iran and Syria, the Saudis will have a say about any future settlement to the Syrian conflict, where Iran still exerts considerable influence.

Given that the Saudis have deep pockets and the Syrian regime is dire economic strains and needs tens of billions to rebuild, the Saudis can do a great deal more than Iran to provide financial aid to Syria. And, of course, with financial aid comes influence.

President Assad is more than eager to cooperate not only for the critically important financial aid, but also to begin the process of ending Damascus’ isolation. Restoring diplomatic relations between Syria and the other Arab states will contribute significantly to calming the region and making it possible for Saudi Arabia to sustain its ability to supply oil in huge quantities without interruption.

Uninterrupted oil export

For the Saudis, continuing to export oil in enormous quantities and the revenue it generates is central to its objective to becoming a regional player to be reckoned with. Having the largest reservoir of oil gives the Saudis significant advantages, as many of its oil customers know they can rely on the Saudis for energy supplies for many years to come.

Thus, its resumption of diplomatic relations with Iran and Syria and financially aiding other Arab states like Egypt, would invariably contribute to stabilizing the region and in turn allow the Saudis to continue its oil exports with the least interruptions.

None of the above however will impact adversely the Saudis’ relationship with the US nor its tacit relations with Israel. The Saudis are fully aware of how critical the US’ role in both, as the main supplier of weapons to the kingdom and the region’s ultimate security guarantor.

Moreover, regardless of its discord with Israel regarding the Palestinian conflict, Saudi Arabia’s tacit cooperation with Israel on intelligence sharing and transfer of Israeli technology are and will remain an integral part of its geostrategic objective.

Riyadh wants to develop inroads into both its past adversaries including Iran and Syria while maintaining its current relations with the US and Israel, regardless of the occasional ups and downs between them.

At the same time, Riyadh is cementing its bilateral relations with China, the world’s second-largest superpower to which Saudi Arabia exports one quarter of its annual oil output ($43.9 billion’s worth in 2021, out of $161.7 billion in total exports), while becoming the de facto leader of the Arab states.

To be sure the Saudis have, thus far, been able to successfully utilize its wealth to its advantage.

Needless to say, however, many external and regional occurrences could directly and indirectly impact Saudi Arabia’s new geostrategic calculus, including the Ukraine war, the growing tension between the US and China and Russia, and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

However, under any circumstances the Saudis stand to gain as time and circumstances are on their side.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU). He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies for over 20 years.

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Anna Ikeda. Credit: Soka University of America Photography

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

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

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

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

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

1. Adopt a No First Use policy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Commit to work towards the elimination of nuclear weapons

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

4. Support disarmament and nonproliferation education initiatives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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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