The International Court of Justice orders Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent further bloodshed in Gaza in line with Genocide Convention obligations. The Court also calls for the immediate release of all hostages. The order was read by the Judge Joan E Donoghue, President of the Court. Credit: UN
by Cecilia Russell (johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 26 (IPS) – The International Court of Justice today told Israel to take all measures to prevent a genocide in the Gaza Strip.
The order with provisional measures was read by Judge Joan E Donoghue, President of the Court, which ordered the State of Israel to adhere to an order to prevent a further deterioration of the humanitarian crisis experienced by the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
Donoghue told the court that the facts and circumstances were sufficient to conclude that some of the “rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection were plausible.
The ICJ, which is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, delivered its order in the case submitted by South Africa in the case concerning the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip.
“The court is not called upon for purposes of its decision on the request for the indication of provisional measures to establish the existence of breaches of obligations under the Genocide Convention, but to determine whether the circumstances require the indication of provisional measures for the protection of rights under that instrument,” she explained.
Quoting from UN General Assembly Resolution 96 of December 11, 1946, she said genocide shocks “the conscience of mankind.”
Before going through the list of provisional measures, she quoted high-profile members of the United Nations, including its Secretary General, António Guterres, who warned the Security Council on December 6, 2023, that health care in Gaza was collapsing.
“Nowhere is safe in Gaza, amid constant bombardment by the Israel Defense Forces and without shelter or the essentials to survive. I expect public order to break to completely break down soon, due to the desperate conditions rendering even limited humanitarian assistance impossible.”
He then went on to warn that the situation could get worse, “including epidemic diseases and increased pressure for mass displacement into neighboring countries. We are facing a severe risk of the collapse of the humanitarian system. The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe, with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole.”
Donoghue told the court that it considers the rights in question in the proceeding plausible.
“The court considers that the plausible rights in question in this proceeding, namely, the right of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article Three of the Genocide Convention and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligation under the convention, are of such a nature that prejudiced them and was “capable of causing irreparable harm.”
She pointed out that the provisional measures didn’t have to match those South Africa requested.
In terms of the order:
Israel must, in accordance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article 2 of the Convention, which deals with the destruction of a group in whole or in part. This includes killing groups of members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. It was also prevented from imposing measures that were intended to prevent births within the group. Article 2
The court further considered that Israel must ensure, with immediate effect, that its military forces do not commit any of the acts designed to destroy a group, and the State of Israel must take measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to the members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip.
The court ordered Israel to take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Israel must also take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Articles 2 and 3 of the Genocide Convention against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip.
Israel must submit a report to the court on all measures taken to give effect to the order within one month of the order. “The report so provided shall then be communicated to South Africa.
“The court reaffirms the decision given in the present proceedings and in no way prejudges the question of the jurisdiction of the court to deal with the merits of the case or any questions related to the admissibility of the application or to the merits themselves.”
She added that the court was gravely concerned about the fate of the hostages abducted during the attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, and held since then by Hamas and other armed groups, and called for their immediate and unconditional release.
The International Court of Justice in the Hague heard the South Africa versus Israel case earlier this month. Credit: ICJ
by Cecilia Russell (johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 26 (IPS) – The International Court of Justice will deliver it’s order for provisional measures submitted by South Africa in the case of South Africa versus Israel today.
South Africa argued that the scale of destruction resulting from the bombardment of Gaza and the deliberate restriction of food, water, medicines, and electricity demonstrated that the government of Israel and its military were intent on destroying Palestinians as a group.
The case was argued on January 10 and 11, 2024, and today’s decision is only likely to deal with jurisdiction and the provisional measures that South Africa asked the court to impose.
The provisional measures include:
that military operations are immediately ceased;
that the State of Israel take reasonable measures within its power to prevent genocide, including desisting from actions that could bring about physical destruction;
rescind orders of restrictions and prohibitions to prevent forced displacement and ensure access to humanitarian assistance, including access to adequate fuel, shelter, clothes, hygiene, sanitation and medical supplies;
avoid public incitement;
ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts and
submit a report to the court on all measures taken to give effect to the order.
South Africa argued that the scale of destruction resulting from the bombardment of Gaza and the deliberate restriction of food, water, medicines, and electricity demonstrated that the government of Israel and its military were intent on destroying Palestinians as a group.
Israel disputed this, saying that the country had a right to defend itself in the face of the October 7 massacre in Israel. It was argued that South Africa brought a fundamentally flawed case.
A view of the International Court of Justice where South Africa has launched a case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. Credit: UN Photo/ICJ-CIJ/Frank van Beek. Courtesy of the ICJ.
by Cecilia Russell (johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, Jan 12 (IPS) – Israel disputed both South Africa’s jurisdiction and the provisional measures that it demanded the International Court of Justice impose on the State of Israel to prevent genocide.
Israel’s co-agent, Tal Becker, said in his opening address that Jewish people’s experience of the Holocaust meant that it was among “among the first states to ratify the Genocide Convention, without reservation, and to incorporate its provisions in its domestic legislation. For some, the promise of ‘never again for all people’ is a slogan. For Israel, it is the highest moral obligation.”
He then accused the South African government of bringing a fundamentally flawed case, which would in effect deny the country’s right to defend itself.
“The applicant has now sought to invoke this term (genocide) in the context of Israel’s conduct in a war it did not start and did not want. A war in which Israel is defending itself against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organizations whose brutality knows no bounds.”
Giving details of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which he said was “the largest calculated mass murder of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust,” he accused South Africa of trying to “weaponize the term genocide against Israel,” delegitimizing the country and its right to defend itself.
“What proceeded under the cover of thousands of rockets fired indiscriminately into Israel? Was the wholesale massacre, mutilation, rape, and abduction of as many citizens as the terrorists could find before Israel’s forces repelled them openly, displaying elation. They tortured children in front of parents and parents in front of children. Burned people, including infants alive, systematically raped and mutilated scores of women, men, and children. All told, some 1200 people were butchered that day, more than 5500 names, and some 240 hostages abducted, including infants, entire families, persons with disabilities, and Holocaust survivors, some of whom have since been executed, many of whom have been tortured, sexually abused, and stabbed in captivity.”
Becker said the applicant is essentially asking the court to substitute the “lens of armed conflict between a state and a lawless terrorist organization with the lens of a so-called genocide of a state against a civilian population” and that Israel’s action against Hamas was legitimate defense of the country.
Members of the Delegation of Israel Credit: UN Photo/ICJ-CIJ/Frank van Beek. Courtesy of the ICJ.
Professor Malcolm Shaw argued that the applicants right to approach the court was premature as there was no dispute between the countries.
He argued that Israel had responded to the applicant on December 27, 2023, “in good faith,” and had attempted to hand deliver notes, but the South African Department of International Relations rejected them because it was a public holiday and instructed them to try again on January 2, 2024.
However, before the notes could be delivered, South Africa launched the court application on December 29, 2023.
Shaw also said statements relied on by South Africa to show intent to commit genocide were not grounded in the policy frameworks of Israel.
He argued that the Prime Minister, during ministerial committees, issued directives “time and again” on methods to prevent a humanitarian disaster, which included looking at solutions to ensure a supply of water, food, and medicine and the construction of field hospitals.
“The remarks or actions of a soldier do not and cannot reflect policy,” Shaw told the court, saying it’s response included statements from, for example, the Minister of Defense on October 29, which made it clear that the country was fighting Hamas and not the people of Gaza, and from the President declaring that the country was operating militarily according to international law.
These decisions show that Israel lacked “genocidal intent” and said its actions were contrary to the South African argument inherent in the rights of any state to defend itself, which is “embedded in customary international law and enshrined in the UN Charter.”
Galit Raguan, Director of the International Justice Division, Ministry of Justice of the State of Israel, told the court that it was “astounding that in yesterday’s hearing, Hamas was mentioned only in passing and only in reference to the October 7 massacre in Israel. Listening to the presentation by the applicant, it was as if Israel were operating in Gaza against no armed adversary. But the same Hamas that carried out the October 7 attacks in Israel is the governing authority in Gaza. And the same Hamas has built a military strategy founded on embedding its assets and operatives among the civilian population.”
She said urban warfare will always result in tragic deaths, harm, and damage.
Using the example of the blast at al-Ahli Arab Hospital, which was blamed on the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), it was in fact independently confirmed as the result of a failed launch from within Gaza.
“South Africa does not consider the sheer extent to which Hamas uses ostensibly civilian structures for military purposes. Houses, schools, mosques, facilities, and shelters are all abused for military purposes by Hamas, including as rocket launching sites. Hundreds of kilometers of tunnels dug by Hamas under populated areas in Gaza often cause structures above to collapse,” she told the court.
Raguan also disputed South Africa’s version of Israel’s efforts to mitigate civilian harm.
“Here, the applicant tells not just a partial story but a false one. For example, the application presents Israel’s call to civilians to evacuate areas of intensive hostilities ‘as an act calculated to bring about its physical destruction.’ This is a particularly egregious allegation that is completely disconnected from the governing legal framework of international humanitarian law.”
Instead of 24 hours, as South Africa alleges, “the IDF urged civilians to evacuate to southern Gaza for over three weeks before it started its ground operation. Three weeks that provided Hamas with advanced knowledge of where and when the IDF would be operating.”
Raguan asked the court: “Would Israel work continuously with international organizations and states, even reaching out to them on its own initiative, to find solutions to these challenges if it were seeking to destroy the population? Israel’s efforts to mitigate the ravages of this war on civilians are the very opposite of the intent to destroy them.”
Dr Omri Sender elaborated on the humanitarian efforts, saying that more aid was reaching Gaza than before the war.
“The accurate average number for trucks specifically carrying food is 70 trucks a day before the war and 109 trucks a day over the last two weeks… Access to water has also been a priority. As with food supplies, there is no restriction on the amount of water that may enter Gaza. Israel continues to supply its own water to Gaza through two pipelines.”
Christopher Staker, a British barrister representing Israel, questioned whether “provisional measures require a state to refrain from exercising a plausible right to defend itself.”
The court, he argued, needed to take into account that Hamas was considered a terrorist organization by Israel and other countries, and secondly, it committed a large-scale terrorist attack on Israeli territory, so the country had a right to defend itself. The country was also taking steps to alleviate the humanitarian situation.
Staker also argued that the provisional measures would not constrain Hamas.
“This would deprive Israel of the ability to contend with this security threat against it. More rockets could be fired into its territory, more of its citizens could be taken hostage, raped, and tortured, and further atrocities could be conducted from across the Gaza border.”
The court’s president, Judge Joan Donoghue, closed proceedings and said the decision of the court would be communicated as soon as possible.
Blinne Ni Ghralaigh KC makes her arguments as the Israeli legal team listen intently. Credit: Cecilia Russell/IPS
by Cecilia Russell (johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBurg, Jan 11 (IPS) – Far from the mayhem, destruction, and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the South African government argued in the International Court of Justice in the Hague that it had an obligation and a right to bring a case to halt a genocide by the Israeli government and its military.
The top legal team, composed of both South African and international human rights lawyers, spent over two and a half hours arguing that it had an obligation as a signatory to the Genocide Convention to bring this case and that the court had an obligation to accede to the provisional measures included in the application, which include an immediate suspension of its military operations against Gaza and the prevention of acts of genocide against Palestinian people.
Professor Vaughan Lowe KC summarized the arguments heard throughout the day succinctly, saying:
“South Africa believes that the publicly available evidence of the scale of the destruction resulting from the bombardment of Gaza and the deliberate restriction of food, water, medicines, or electricity available to the population of Gaza demonstrates that the Government of Israel, not Jewish people or Israeli citizens, the government of Israel, and its military are intent on destroying the Palestinians in Gaza as a group and are doing nothing to prevent or punish the actions of others who support that aim.
“And I repeat, the point is not simply that Israel is acting disproportionately. The point is that the prohibition on genocide is an absolute, peremptory rule of law. Nothing can ever justify genocide,” he told the court.
“This is not a moment for the court to sit back and be silent.”
The preceding arguments included the reasons the court should act—and act urgently.
Blinne Ni Ghralaigh KC argued that if the bombardment continued, there would be irreparable harm to the Palestinian people, where entire multigenerational families would be obliterated.
She referred to what she termed a “terrible new acronym” that emerged from the Israeli action.
“WCNSF—wounded child, no surviving family.”
Ghralaigh argued there was no merit in the argument of Israel that it was not responsible for the humanitarian crisis; she told the court that humanitarian workers stretching as far back as the Killing Fields of Cambodia had not seen a humanitarian crisis so utterly unprecedented that they had “not the words to describe it.”
She also accused the international community of erring in their duty to prevent genocide.
“Now, notwithstanding the genocide conventions and recognition of the need to rid the world of the odious scourge of genocide, the international community has repeatedly failed. It failed the people of Rwanda. It had failed the Bosnian people and the Rohingya, prompting this court to take action,” Ghralaigh argued, saying it failed again by ignoring the early warnings and the grave risk of genocide to the Palestinian people.
“The international community continues to fail the Palestinian people, despite the overt, dehumanizing genocidal rhetoric by Israeli government and military officials, matched by the Israeli army’s actions on the ground—despite the horror of the genocide against the Palestinian people being live streamed from Gaza to our mobile phones, computers, and television screens—the first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time.”
Professor Max Du Plessis argued that South Africa had jurisdiction to bring this matter to court. Quoting the court’s findings in the case filed by The Gambia against Myanmar in 2019, he said: “All the States’ parties to the Genocide Convention have a common interest in ensuring that acts of genocide are prevented.”
This court action should not have come as a surprise. Professor John Dugard explained that the South African application followed a long series of diplomatic efforts to express concern about the Israeli action in Palestine.
“South Africa has a long history of close relations with Israel. For this reason, it did not bring the dispute immediately to the attention of the court. It was harder as Israel responded to the terrible atrocities committed against his people on the 7th of October with an attack on Gaza that resulted in the indiscriminate killing of innocent Palestinian civilians, most of whom were women and children,” Dugard told the court. “The South African government repeatedly voiced its concerns in the Security Council and in public statements that Israel’s actions had become genocidal.”
Adila Hassim, an attorney, gave a detailed account of the effects of the bombardment on the civilian population when she informed the court that Israeli forces had killed 23,210 Palestinians during the continuous attacks over the previous three months, with 70% of them thought to be women and children. Some 7,000 Palestinians are still missing, presumed dead under the rubble.
“Palestinians in Gaza are subjected to relentless bombing, wherever they go. They are killed in their homes, in places where they seek shelter, in hospitals, in schools, in mosques, in churches, and as they try to find food and water for their families. They have been killed if they failed to evacuate in the places to which they have fled, and even while they attempted to flee along Israeli-declared safe routes,” Hassim said.
Showing photographs of mass graves, she told the court: “More than 1,800 Palestinian families in Gaza have lost multiple family members, and hundreds of multi-generational families have been wiped out with no remaining survivors. Mothers, fathers, children, siblings, grandparents, aunts, and cousins are often all killed together. This killing is nothing short of the destruction of Palestinian life. It is inflicted deliberately. No one is spared. Not even newborn babies.”
Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi said the genocidal rhetoric was nurtured at the highest level of the state.
“There is an extraordinary feature in this case that Israel’s political leaders, military commanders, and persons holding official positions have systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent,” he said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public address when he declared war on Gaza, where he warned of an unprecedented price to be paid by the enemy.
On October 28, Ngcukayitobi said Netanyahu referred to the people of Gaza as the Amalekites, a biblical reference to the retaliatory destruction of a people, men and women, children and infants with their cattle and sheep, camels, and donkeys, considered the enemies of the Israelites.
The language of genocide had not stopped there, as the Palestinian people were often referred to as “human animals.”
Other high-level politicians also made comments that confirmed the country’s genocide intent.
Israel’s Energy and Infrastructure Minister, MK Israel Katz, called for the denial of water and fuel: “As this is what will happen to a people of children: kill us and slaughter us.”
Ngcukaitobi said there was no ambiguity. “It means to create conditions of death for the Palestinian people in Gaza to die a slow death because of starvation and dehydration, or to die quickly because of a bomb attack or snipers.”
South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola told the court this was brought in the spirit of Nelson Mandela’s humanity, and the country unequivocally condemned the targeting of civilians by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in the taking of hostages on October 7, 2023.
Vusi Madonsela, SA Ambassador to the Netherlands, read the provisional measures that the South African government requests the court consider, including responding to the application as a matter of urgency. Among others, these include:
that military operations are immediately ceased;
that the State of Israel take reasonable measures within its power to prevent genocide, including desisting from actions that could bring about physical destruction;
rescind orders of restrictions and prohibitions to prevent forced displacement and ensure access to humanitarian assistance, including access to adequate fuel, shelter, clothes, hygiene, sanitation and medical supplies;
avoid public incitement;
ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts and
submit a report to the court on all measures taken to give effect to the order.
The #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign is a compelling and poignant campaign developed in collaboration with ECW Global Champion, Somaya Faruqi. CREDIT: ECW
by Cecilia Russell (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Aug 14 (IPS) – Two years ago, the then 19-year-old Somaya Faruqi and the Afghan Robotic Team travelled from Herat City to Kabul, the heart of Afghanistan—the Taliban had taken over Herat city, cutting off electricity and internet. The all-girls team’s great passion for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) had driven them to Kabul to rehearse for a competition.
“After three days, I woke up, looked outside the window, and saw the Taliban in the streets. I was very shocked and could not believe it. I never imagined that the Taliban could take over Kabul. There were thousands and thousands of people trying to flee the country, and after three days of trying, we flew to Qatar with the help of the Qatari government. I wondered what would become of my sister and classmates who were left behind,” Faruqi tells IPS.
It did not take long for the de facto authority to unveil their plans. Two years down the line, the Taliban has waged a gender war and women and girls are on the receiving end. The Taliban edict has banned adolescent girls from the classrooms. After year six, they are to stay at home, says Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW)—the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.
Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW)—the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, says the ban on girl’s and women’s education has the effect of forcing them to live once again in the shadows. CREDIT: ECW
“Afghan girls are banned from accessing secondary and tertiary education because of their gender, and this is the most ruthless form of discrimination. They cannot understand why they are not allowed to attend school like their brothers. Their pathway to education has been cut, and they are in pain, suffering and (often) struggling with suicidal thoughts. We must stand in solidarity with them, for in the words of Martin Luther King Jr, injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Their distress should shake us to the core,” Sherif tells IPS.
She says that the situation in Afghanistan is one of the worst in the world. To elevate Afghan girls’ voices on the global stage, ECW has launched the #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign. A compelling, poignant campaign developed in collaboration with Faruqi, who is an ECW Global Champion.
Faruqi finished her 12th grade in Qatar, from where she applied to college and received a scholarship from the Qatar Fund for Development to pursue engineering studies in the United States. Her astounding progress and brilliance are a testament to the devasting blow being dealt to millions of Afghan girls.
“The situation in Afghanistan gets worse from one day to the next. Women and girls are prisoners in their own homes, in their own country. They cannot leave their homes without a male guardian- a father, brother or relative. They have been denied the freedom to pursue any interest outside their home, and they sit around with nothing to do. Through this campaign, I want the world to know that there is a country today where girls are denied fundamental human rights, forced out of school and into marriages,” Faruqi explains.
The campaign is to be launched on August 15, the second anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. is in Gordon Brown—UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of ECW’s High-Level Steering Group on the eve of the launch, stressed the need for the international community must hear this poignant call from the heart of Afghan girls and young women.
Faruqi affirms the need to hear from those inside Afghanistan, at the very heart of the ongoing injustice, to hear how their lives have been turned upside down and how a fragile future now hangs in the balance if the global community remains silent.
Sherif says the situation is particularly horrific because girls are simply not being left behind in the education system due to conflict or climate disaster; an official ban is keeping them out of school. As a firm fist pushes millions of girls out of school, the immediate impact is a rolling back of time to a place where women lived in the shadows. This devastating decree means that 50 percent of the population is not able to access education.
“This is not reflective of Islam. The foundation of Islam is learning. The first word in the Quran is read. It does not advocate for girls not to go to school. The ban is unacceptable,” she emphasizes.
The campaign uses moving images by a young Afghan female artist and determined testimonies from Afghan girls. It features a series of equally inspiring, heart-wrenching and determined testimonies from Afghan girls whose lives have been abruptly upended by the ban preventing them to pursue their education and dreams.
Their powerful words are conveyed together with striking illustrations depicting both the profound despair experienced by these Afghan girls and young women, along with their incredible resilience and strength in the face of this unacceptable ban on their education.
ECW invites partners and the wider public to stand in solidarity with Afghan girls by posting messages from Afghan girls across social media every day—from 15 August, the date when the de facto Taliban authorities came into power in Afghanistan 2021, until 18 September, which marks the start of the official ban on school for adolescent girls.
Sherif says the campaign is in line with sustainable development goal 4 and will run through the UN General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit from 18-19 September at the UN General Assembly in New York. The Summit aims to mark the beginning of a new phase of accelerated progress towards the SDGs with high-level political guidance on transformative and accelerated actions leading up to 2030 – progress that cannot be achieved with Afghan girls left behind.
“ECW, through our in-country partners, has invested in formal and non-formal education in Afghanistan since 2014. More than 70 percent of the Afghan population is in dire humanitarian need. It is a country on the brink of collapse in terms of people’s well-being. We are therefore calling for urgent funding to continue to fund community-based education through our grassroots organizations. We should never stop supporting Afghanistan; people are suffering,” Sherif emphasizes.
ECW has been supporting education programmes in Afghanistan since 2017. The ECW-supported extended Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) in Afghanistan supports more than 250,000 children and adolescents across some of the most remote and underserved areas of the country. The programme delivers community-based education, organised at the local level with support from local communities, and is critical to keep education going. Girls account for over half of all the children and adolescents reached by the MYRP.
The replanting of palm oil plants aimed at producing better trees through good agricultural practices. The UNDP’s Good Growth Partnership (GGP) in Indonesia included several projects under one umbrella. Credit: ILO/Fauzan Azhima
by Cecilia Russell (johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 27 (IPS) – Smallholder farmers are critical to the success of Indonesia’s efforts to address deforestation and climate change. Creating an understanding and supporting this group, internally and abroad, is a crucial objective for those working towards reducing deforestation and promoting good farming practices, especially as smallholders often work hand-to-mouth and are vulnerable to perpetuating unsustainable farming practices.
Musim Mas, a large palm oil corporation involved in sustainable production, says smallholders “hold approximately 40 percent of Indonesia’s oil palm plantations and are a significant group in the palm oil supply chain. This represents 4.2 million hectares in Indonesia, roughly the size of Denmark. According to the Palm Oil Agribusiness Strategic Policy Initiative (PASPI), smallholders are set to manage 60 percent of Indonesia’s oil palm plantations by 2030.”
Since last year a new World Bank-led programme, the Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR), incorporates the United Nations Development Programme Good Growth Partnership (GGP). It will continue to be involved in the success of palm oil production and smallholders’ support—crucial, especially as a study showed that the “sector lifted around 2.6 million rural Indonesians from poverty this century,” with knock-on development successes including improved rural infrastructure.
Over the past five years, GGP conducted focused training with about 3,000 smallholder farmers, says UNDP’s GGP Global Project Manager, Pascale Bonzom:
“The idea was to pilot some public-private partnerships for training, new ways of getting the producers to adopt these agricultural practices so that we could learn from these pilots and scale them up through farmer support system strategies,” Bonzom says.
Farmer organizations speaking to IPS explained how they, too, support smallholder farmers.
Amanah, an independent smallholder association of about 500 independent smallholders in Ukui, Riau province, was the first group to receive Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) certification as part of a joint programme, right before the start of GGP, between the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture, UNDP, and Asian Agri. This followed training in good agricultural practices, land mapping, high carbon stock (HCS), and high conservation value (HCV) methodologies to identify forest areas for protection.
“The majority of independent smallholders in Indonesia do not have the capacity to implement best practices in the palm oil field. Consequently, it is important to provide assistance and training on good agricultural practices in the field on a regular and ongoing basis,” Amanah commented, adding that the training included preparing land for planting sustainably and using certified seeds, fertilizer, and good harvesting practices.
A producer organization, SPKS, said it was working with farmers to implement sustainable practices. It established a smallholders’ database and assisted them with ISPO and Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certifications.
Jointly with High Conservation Value Resource Network (HCVRN), it created a toolkit for independent smallholders on zero deforestation. This has already been implemented in four villages in two districts.
“At this stage, SPKS and HCVRN are designing benefits and incentives for independent smallholders who already protect their forest area (along) with the indigenous people,” SPKS said, adding that it expected that these initiatives could be used and adopted by those facing EU regulations.
SPKS sees the new EU deforestation legislation as a concern and an opportunity, especially as the union has shown a commitment to supporting independent small farmers—including financial support to prepare for readiness to comply with the regulations, including geolocation, capacity building, and fair price mechanisms.
Amanah also pointed to the EU regulations, which incentivize independent smallholders to adhere to the certification process.
“As required by EU law, the EU is also tasked with implementing programs and assistance at the upstream level as well as serving as an incentive for independent smallholders who already adhere to the certification process. The independent smallholder will be encouraged by this incentive to use sustainable best practices. Financing may be used as an incentive. The independent smallholders will be encouraged by this incentive to use sustainable best practices,” the organization told IPS.
SPKS would like to see final EU regulations include a requirement for companies importing palm oil into the EU to guarantee a direct supply chain from at least 30 percent of independent smallholders based on a fair partnership.
“In the draft EU regulations, it is not yet clear whether the due diligence is based on deforestation-related risk-based analysis. Indonesia is often considered a country with a high deforestation rate, and palm oil is perceived to be a factor in deforestation. Considering this, we hope the EU will consider smallholder farmers by ensuring that EU regulations do not further burden them by issuing Technical Guidelines specifically designed for smallholder farmers.”
In April 2023, the European Parliament passed the law introducing rigorous, wide-ranging requirements on commodities such as palm oil. The UNDP is now researching how it should step up its assistance to producers to meet the criteria.
Setara Jambi, an organization dedicated to education and capacity building for oil palm smallholders for sustainable agricultural management, says that while they are concerned about the EU regulations, small farmers have “many limitations, which are different from companies that already have adequate institutions.
“This concern will not arise if there is a strong commitment from both government and companies (buyers of smallholder fresh fruit bunches) to assist smallholders in preparing and implementing sustainable palm oil management.”
The next five years with FOLUR will face significant challenges. There is a need to ensure that the National Action Plan moves to the next level because it is going to expire at the end of 2024. It will require updating and expanding.
Traceability and Deforestation
In Indonesia, there are 26 provinces and 225 districts that produce palm oil. And at the time of writing, eight provinces and nine districts have developed their own versions of the pilot Sustainable Palm Oil Action Plan and developed their own provincial or district-level Sustainable Palm Oil Action Plans.
There is a lot to do, including supporting the Indonesian government’s multi-stakeholder process, capacity building for the private sector, supporting an enabling environment for all, and working with financial institutions to make investment decisions aligned with deforestation commitments.
The biggest issue is to get the smallholder farmers on board. Because they live a life of survival, often they are vulnerable to “short-termism.”
On the positive side, the FOLUR initiative has the government’s backing. At the launch in Jakarta last year, Musdhalifah Machmud, Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, said that the implementation of the FOLUR Project was expected to be able to create a value chain sustainability model for rice, oil palm, coffee, and cocoa through sustainable land use and “comprehensively by paying attention to biodiversity conservation, climate change, restoration, and land degradation.”
At that launch workshop in Jakarta, the World Bank’s Christopher Brett, FOLUR co-leader, noted: “Healthy and sustainable value chains offer social benefits and generate profits without putting undue stress on the environment.”
Bonzom agrees: “At the end of the day, they (smallholders) will need to see the benefits—better market terms, better prices, better, more secure contracts—that’s what is attractive for them.”
Delegates at the Youth Empowerment: Education, Employment and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights forum held in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. Credit: APDA
by Cecilia Russell (johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
JOHANNESBURG, Mar 08 (IPS) – With more than 600 million youth aged between 18 and 24 in the Asia and Pacific region, putting their issues front and center is crucial. Speakers at a recent forum, Youth Empowerment: Education, Employment and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, held in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia, agreed that policy development and implementation should be youth-centered.
Professor Keizo Takemi, MP (Japan) and Chair of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), reminded parliamentarians of the work ahead when he noted in his opening address that while youth were “innovative thanks to global digitalization, half are unemployed or underemployed. Therefore parliamentarians have a vital role to play.”
The extent of the challenges emerged during the discussions. Raoul Danniel A Manuel, MP Philippines, said teenage pregnancy was higher in rural areas than urban, and there was also an education differential.
“The rate is 32 percent among teenagers without education, 14% among teenagers with primary education, and 5% among teenagers with a secondary education,” Manuel said, noting that the Philippines was the only country in Southeast Asia where the teenage pregnancy rate is increasing in girls aged 10 to 14.
“It is important to raise awareness among young people so that they know how to take care of themselves before they marry. We also need to continue to strengthen services, especially user-friendly services, by focusing on vulnerable groups and young women who do not go to school because this group is at a very high risk of pregnancy, and pregnancy can be risky.”
Lisa Chesters, MP (Australia), reminded conference delegates that “comprehensive sexual education has a positive impact on young people. It has been credited with delaying sexual debut can reduce unwanted pregnancies and STDs.”
Benefits included preventing intimate partner violence, developing healthy relationships, and preventing sexual abuse.
Australia learned after an online petition went viral in 2021 the extent to which students had been subjected to sexual harassment at schools. Following this, ministers for education throughout the country agreed on sexual education at school.
Chesters said it was crucial to include comprehensive, well-planned engagement of young people at the center of any advertising and social media campaigns.
The discussion also centered around employment. Felix Weidenkaff, the Youth Employment Expert for the ILO’s regional office for Asia and the Pacific, told the conference that while digitalization was a key strategy to increase youth employment, it wasn’t a one-off. Aspects lawmakers should consider would include TVET and skill development (including understanding the needs of those with disability), infrastructure, connectivity, and equipment to create an inclusive system.
Delegates at the Youth Empowerment: Education, Employment and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights forum held in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. Credit: APDA
Sophea Khun, Country Program Coordinator of UN Women, said changing gender norms required comprehensive and sustained strategies that engage multiple stakeholders at all levels: households, communities, institutions, and governments.
Girls and young women needed to be given the opportunity for training in STEM (science, technology, and mathematics) to close the digital divide.
“In addition, harmful social norms that contribute to controlling women and girls’ access to communications and technology also need to be tackled,” Khun said.
Hun Many, MP (Cambodia) and Chair of the Commission, reiterated in his closing remarks that to create a more elaborate and innovative policy, “youth need to be able to be part of the decision-making process and the discussions.”
Ahead of the conference, IPS interviewed Cambodian MP Lork Kheng, chair of the commission on public health, social works, vocational training, and women’s affairs. Here are excerpts from the interview.
Lork Kheng, Cambodian MP and chair of the commission on public health, social works, vocational training, and women’s affairs.
IPS: A tremendous amount of work is to be done to improve SRHR for all and youth-friendly services. How can young MPs play an enhanced role in developing policy, ensuring services are adequately financed and delivered to the communities where required?
LK: With regards to the role of Parliament, we can oversee the implementation of policies related to education, the provision of safe counseling on sexual and reproductive health, family planning, abortion, HIV/AIDS prevention and care, and local monitoring of child marriages, which are challenges for our Asia-Pacific region. In addition, the National Assembly always provides opportunities for development partners to contribute ideas and proposals for consideration through close cooperation in organizing educational forums and disseminating discussions and exchanges at national and sub-national levels (in their constituencies). We can establish effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and coverage of the actual implementation of practitioners and service providers and the effectiveness of policies to ensure that they are providing the anticipated outcomes. Working with think tanks and civil society organizations to conduct research, assessment, and evaluation that informs policymaking and improves service delivery from all stakeholders’ perspectives.
Another important role is to communicate directly with the people and sub-national authorities in the constituencies where they are based. Young MPs and MPs often use the forum to meet and visit local administrations, etc., to mainstream the information and raise awareness of the importance of youth and family life planning, as well as to share good local and global political experiences and best practices that can be implemented within the existing framework of national and sub-national policies to stakeholders, especially local authorities who work directly with the youth.
In particular, in overseeing the financing, every year, MPs actively participate in the discussion of the draft budget law, in which the whole House closely monitors the progress and changes in the budget allocation according to each program. Furthermore, MPs also provide feedback to the executive branch during the initial consultation phase until the full house passes the draft budget. In this regard, the review of budget allocations for youth health care, such as increased attention to the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, tobacco control, food safety and diet in general, and sexual issues in particular, has been addressed frequently and has been noted and considered by the relevant ministries as well as the Government.
The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications has prioritized students who pass the upper secondary national examination with good grades to study digital skills with the support of a student loan that must be repaid when they get a job. This is to strengthen human resources with digital capabilities.
IPS: While Asia and the Pacific are home to more than 60% of the world’s youth aged between 15 and 24, the COVID-19 pandemic acted to disadvantage youth in poorer and rural communities, especially where schooling was interrupted, and children did not have access to the technologies for remote learning. How can youth MPs ensure that those children (who may even now be young adults) are given the opportunities to complete their education? Secondly, how should policy, infrastructure, and finance be directed at children still disadvantaged by a lack of technology?
LK: We all truly recognize that the COVID-19 pandemic is an extraordinary challenge that has plagued all socio-economic sectors, requiring the Government and authorities to respond with unusual means in these difficult circumstances. In developing countries like Cambodia, when schools were closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in its early stages, we did not have the right digital infrastructure for teaching and learning. Students in rural areas and those considered to be disadvantaged groups were the ones who faced barriers to accessing education at that stage. But if we look at the immediate solution of the Head of the Royal Government of Cambodia, we can measure the outcome of solving the challenges with this decision. The Government quickly rolled out vaccinations, especially prioritizing vaccinations for front-line medical workers and educators. That ensured that these two environments gained immunity as soon as possible so that students could return to class quickly with a high sense of security.
IPS: Youth are considered a vital resource for the country’s economic development, but they face high unemployment. What are young MPs working on to ensure that youth can get decent jobs and support young entrepreneurs? What are the policy directions needed to foster youth employment?
LK: Specifically in Cambodia, the unemployment rate for youth may be slightly lower than 14 percent. Nevertheless, youth are also facing other major challenges, such as skill mismatches with the job markets and vulnerabilities of international labor migration, which are the major concerns of the Parliament and the Government. As Cambodia is riding high on development in all areas, the labor market has expanded, especially in areas that benefit youth. In response to such demands, the Government has paid close attention to education and vocational training by prioritizing promoting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to encourage young people to acquire high-demand skills.
In this new academic year, the Government has encouraged youth to pursue vocational skills at the primary and secondary levels by giving monthly allowance to approximately 1.5 million students, in addition to their free tuition.
To support the promotion of young entrepreneurship, we have also established a number of mechanisms – both under state supervision and public-private partnerships – that have created entrepreneurship and incubation centers. In particular, during the COVID-19 pandemic, these mechanisms also played an important role in providing much-needed assistance to those businesses through loans and free training to the entrepreneurs so that they could utilize the technology for their businesses against the backdrop of a changing lifestyle in the new normal.
Note: Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), and the Japan Trust Fund supported the hybrid conference.
Maldives Minister for Gender, Family, and Social Services, Aishath Mohamed Didi, in her keynote address said her island country faced unique development challenges and is vulnerable to economic shocks and climate change.
by Cecilia Russell (johannesburg)
Inter Press Service
Johannesburg, Oct 18 (IPS) – An aging population needn’t be a burden, experts told Parliamentarians at a conference co-hosted by UNFPA Asia Pacific Regional Office and the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA).
Two National Transfer Account (NTA) experts told the session that with good planning and policy, it was possible to change the trajectory so that those in retirement were not only reliant on the state.
NTAs provide a coherent accounting framework of economic flows from one age group or generation to another.
UNFPA’s short video outlined the impact of an aging population in Thailand. Currently, adults take care of three elders and two children, but with the aging population in 2025, this will increase to four elders and three children, but by 2035, the number of dependents will increase to six elders and three children.
Professor Sang-Hyop Lee of the East-West Center and the University of Hawaii, succinctly in an “elevator pitch,” explained his interests in population. These included “looking at how a changing population structure affects society and economy, current and future,” and “what public policies could be pursued to influence the outcome.”
Lee said that using NTA tools with disaggregated data, including consumption (both private and public sector) and other variables like income and savings, could assist with policy development.
By 2080, he said, the whole Asia Pacific region would have an aging population – and public policy could change the outcomes by including evidence and knowledge-based policy to influence labor patterns of the female, youth, and elderly labor force; increasing productivity through effective education, health investments, training and finally to improve the work-to-retirement transition.
Eduardo Klein, Regional Representative of HelpAge International, who chaired the session, commented that the key takeaway was that the NTAs were a crucial tool for developing strategies to adapt to population aging.
In her keynote address, Maldives Minister for Gender, Family, and Social Services, Aishath Mohamed Didi, said that her country, which was a small island state the country, faced “unique development challenges and is vulnerable to economic shocks and climate change.”
The population is about 500 000 people, 70% of whom are Maldivians and the rest foreigners; 64% are working age, and more than 37% are under 25; those 65 and older account for 3.4% of the population.
“The Maldives entered the window of opportunity in 2010 when the majority of the population was working, and it’s estimated that the democratic transition will be completed by 2030,” Didi said. “Due to a rapid fertility decline and increased life expectancy, it’s estimated it will become an aging population by 2030.”
She outlined various policy changes in the Maldives, including addressing the investment in children, which was lower than in other economies with similar fertility or development levels. The country had included free basic education from ages four to 16 and also spent US$ 30 million supporting 15,000 students to achieve their first degrees. This has been expanded to include zero-interest rate loans. In the past two to three years, the Maldives had spent over US$ 64 million to support about 2000 students studying abroad in 31 countries. Other efforts to improve education included investing in technical and vocational education and providing skill development opportunities for youth, including apprenticeship programmes, particularly in the outer regions away from the capital or the central areas.
Didi said the Maldives depended highly on tourism, but foreign workers (primarily men) comprised 60% of the workforce. Women only play a small role in the industry and hold the most informal sector jobs.
“Young people are required to become skilled and equipped to compete with foreign workers in the domestic economy,” Didi said, adding that the demographic dividend transition was expected to create both opportunities and challenges. “The aggregate public spending on healthcare and other social protection needs to grow by more than 2 percent per year until 2050 to maintain the same level of service enjoyed by the population in 2022 – even with per capita benefits, the government’s budget needs to grow substantially.”
Klein noted that Didi’s overview showed how the Maldives was in the demographic dividend and was investing in the future and that investment had a “return in improved health and a better educated, more productive, more engaged, and a healthier population living in a harmonious society.”
Rikiya Matsukura, Associate Professor at Nihon University, noted that opportunities arose with planning and strategic policymaking. While an aging population was “inevitable” and “wasn’t curable,” policymakers played a crucial role in changing the trajectory.
Matsukura outlined four demographic dividends: The first demographic was achieved through the expansion of the workforce. The second demographic dividend is achieved through investing in human capital – leading to higher productivity. The third demographic dividend, which he termed the “longevity dividend” or “silver dividend,” was achieved through investing in longevity and longer working life. Finally, the fourth dividend would be achieved by investing in education, especially in the STEM fields.
While people aged 55 to 70 may not be working, if they are healthy, they could work, Matsukura said, that this could create an additional workforce.
“In the case of Japan, the income generated by additional elderly workers could correspond to 3.2 to 6 percent of Japan’s real GDP,” he noted.
This elderly workforce could be assisted by technology – artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics and the economy could grow by 35% if technology could make housework easier.
Lee noted that there was no easy answer but what was required was short and long-term planning which took into account crises. This aging population issue will not go away.
Klein too, noted said future planning was complex. For example, India (among other countries) had invested in education, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, children could not attend school for two years, which would have consequences for the future workforce. Climate change, in addition to aging, would need to be planned for in Bangladesh.
During the discussion, parliamentarians were concerned about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr Jetn Sirathranont, an MP from Thailand, noted that policymakers needed to use the NTA tools, but post-pandemic, every country, including Thailand, was experiencing a situation where there was “less income and less revenue but high expenses.”
Sirathranont asked how one could apply NTA tools in these circumstances.
While Klein quipped that this was a million-dollar question, Lee said what was required was short and long-term planning which took into account crises like the pandemic. However, he noted, “this aging population issue will not go away.”
Richard Mbaria makes a point at his potato in Kapsita village of Nakuru County, Kenya. The farmer has increased his production per acre thanks to training by a CARP+ project implemented in the area by Egerton University. Credit: Maina Waruru/IPS
by Cecilia Russell (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
Nairobi, Oct 11 (IPS) – World Food Day is celebrated on October 16, 2022, with the theme Leave NO ONE behind. During this week IPS will look at features that showcase better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life.Until a few years ago, Kenyan potato farmer Richard Mbaria used to harvest just four tonnes of the crop from an acre of land thanks to poor quality seeds, combined with an attack on the crop by pests and diseases.
The middle-aged farmer would select seeds from his previous harvest, picking the smallest tubers that could not fetch good prices in the market. This was the practice every other smallholder farmer in his Kapsita village in Elburgon, Nakuru County in Kenya’s Rift Valley region and beyond would do too. The reason is that many rarely afford certified seeds, and those who could were unaware of the importance of using approved seeds.
“That was then and today, but today I get an average of nearly 8 tonnes of the produce from an acre of land and want to improve the harvests to 10 to 12 tonnes from the same land in the near future,” Mbaria proudly discloses.
The father of four did not transform his farming miraculously. He has been trained in better management of crops and also on the selection and preservation of healthy planting seeds, which he is now selling to local farmers.
Even more radical transformation has happened to his farming. He’s now on the journey to becoming qualified to produce certified tissue culture planting material, thanks to the training he has received from Egerton University’s Enhancing Access to High Quality Seed Potato for Improved Productivity and Income of Smallholder Farmers in Nakuru County (HQSPIPI), implemented under the Community Action Research Programme (CARP+).
Tissue culture is the cultivation of plant tissues or organs in specially formulated nutrient solution in a lab or a controlled environment using mainly sprouts or tissue-like leaves, which are grown in a medium with nutrients and disease-killing chemicals. This way, an entire plant is regenerated from a single tissue.
This is done in a controlled environment – usually in a lab or a greenhouse to produce plantlets, also known as apical root cuttings and mini tubers (tiny-sized potato seeds), but which are clean and free of disease, explains Professor Anthony Kibe, Associate Professor of Agronomy at Egerton University.
When transplanted in the field, the result is seed potatoes which can be sold to farmers for high productivity and at relatively affordable prices.
The resulting plantlet or its small tubers at the bottom of the roots can be transplanted in the fields. The crop is usually high-yield and also free of disease when properly managed.
“Tissue culture (also known as in vitro culture) offers an excellent way for the rapid propagation of seed potato offering high yielding disease-free planting material using hydroponics or aeroponics technologies,” says Kibe.
The technique, he says, is critical in the production of disease-free and high-yielding fruits and vegetables and is widely used in bananas in East Africa. In potatoes, it is mainly practiced by large commercial farms, seed companies, and government research institutions due to the costs and complexity for an ordinary farmer.
The implication is that certified seeds are relatively expensive and out of reach of most of the nearly 1 million smallholder farmers engaged in potato farming in Kenya.
The programme is one of the activities under Transforming African Agricultural Universities to meaningfully contribute to Africa’s growth and development (TAGDev), an initiative by Uganda-based Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation.
One of its aims is to train farmers to plant quality seeds, test their soils, effectively manage diseases and pests, among others, for increased productivity, and organize them in marketing cooperatives for higher incomes, explains Kibe.
“About ten years ago, the average yield for potatoes per hectare in Kenya was 22.5 tonnes; today, it has dropped to around seven tonnes a hectare due to, among others, the transmission of diseases through seeds,” he adds.
It is a concern that his farmers’ outreach project has been addressing by offering free advice, addressing the major constraints to the production of the critical food crop.
“One way of addressing the problem is by training a number of farmers to become producers of disease-free seeds for sale to their colleagues for increased yields and higher income,” he says. Sadly, he notes, only about 2% of Kenyan farmers who grow potatoes use certified seeds, compromising yields.
“This is in stark contrast with leading world producers such as the Netherlands producer, where 99% of farmers use certified seeds,” Kibe explains.
In Kenya, average yields are around 10 tonnes per hectare, while the crop’s potential is as high as 30 tonnes for the size. The lack of quality disease-free seeds of improved varieties is a major cause of this yield gap. This is in contrast to countries like Egypt and South Africa, where yields stand at 40 tonnes per hectare, he told IPS.
“The planting material many farmers use each season for a new crop is produced, stored, and traded by farmers without regulation,” says Kibe.
Farmers select the seeds from their previous harvest. Part of the challenge is that only a few privately-owned farms and a handful of state-owned seed enterprises produce certified seed potatoes.
Where new varieties have been produced and propagated under the technology, yields have been as high as 30 tons per hectare.
Potato, he notes, has been a low-priority food crop in Kenya’s research agricultural research system, despite its importance as a staple food and its potential contribution to the country’s food security.
Under his project, nearly 5,000 farmers have been reached and trained on good husbandry for higher yields since 2017.
Of the three roles bestowed on universities – teaching, research, and outreach, the latter has been the least applied, with universities doing research with the expectation that the extension arms in government would do the knowledge transfer, says Anthony Egeru, who heads TAGDeV project at RUFORUM.
“However, the universities need to have visibility and prove relevant to communities in which they operate and assert their roles as facilitators of development,” he says.
Under the initiative, farmers such as Mbaria are reached by the universities and benefit from the knowledge in their possession, which largely remains stored in journal publications. On their side, universities fulfill their obligation of giving back to society.
While hydroponics is a technology out of reach of many growers, it is essential for the fast multiplication of seeds, according to Michael Cherutich, a potato expert at Kenya’s Agriculture Development Corporation.
The seed producers, including the state corporation, can hardly meet the demand for certified seeds. One way of ensuring affordability has many seed producers in the villages in potato farming areas.
