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  • Fundraising in Africa: How Looking Inward Makes the Difference

    Fundraising in Africa: How Looking Inward Makes the Difference

    The longstanding methods of fundraising by African NGOs are shaped by unique challenges, often rooted in economic, political, and cultural factors as well as vestiges of colonialism.
    • Opinion by Angela Umoru David, Tafadzwa Munyaka (new york / washington dc)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK / WASHINGTON DC, Dec 19 (IPS) – Across Africa, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) bearing different monikers such as community-based organisations (CBOs), civil society organisations (CSOs) and nonprofits have long borne the duty of designing and implementing developmental interventions to address varying challenges.

    The World Association of Non-governmental Organizations (WANGO) lists 4912 of such entities operating in the Continent, which is safe to say is only a fraction of the true number since many may not be registered on that platform. These non-state actors often rely on the goodwill of volunteers, individual donors, local grant-making bodies, international philanthropy and humanitarian aid to fund and facilitate their operations.

    As lofty as their mission or magnanimous as their benefactors might be, the sheer number begs the question of how sustainable their funding methods truly are.

    As practitioners in the African development space, we have observed over the years that the longstanding methods of fundraising by African NGOs are shaped by unique challenges, often rooted in economic, political, and cultural factors as well as vestiges of colonialism. These factors breed an over-reliance on funding from outside the continent, mainly from Western donor countries and international development organisations.

    Overview of the Current Funding Landscape

    Philanthropy and humanitarian aid from the Global North constitute a large chunk of the funding that African NGOs depend on each year. More often than not, such funding comes with ‘strings attached’ like specifying the issues that the local organisations should focus on, the proportion of the funding that should go to areas of concern and rigorous reporting demands.

    It is quite common for funding to be unceremoniously withdrawn when an organisation is termed non-compliant to donor requirements.

    “The global flow of aid resources hinders the effectiveness and sustainability of local NGOs, as well as their ability to scale and build capacity”, writes Carlos Mureithi, Kenyan journalist. In addition, funding is usually routed through larger international non-profits while local ones only serve as ‘implementing partners’.

    With such intermediaries in the picture, local NGOs are forced to work within the confines of their funding partner’s stipulations. While there have been recent calls for localisation and shifting agency to Africa-based organisations, the reverberations are yet to be felt across the NGO landscape in Africa.

    Similarly, smaller nonprofit organisations are completely cut off from international funding because they lack the social credibility and popularity. This creates a cycle where only the most ‘visible’ local non-profits continually receive funding. The ‘invisible’ nonprofits are inadvertently dependent on local grant-making bodies (which are often implementing partners of international funders), individual donors in the communities they serve, self-funding and crowdfunding platforms.

    A classic scenario is a case in the South-Eastern part of Zimbabwe. A particular district had been grappling with pervasive issues of child marriages, an alarming rate of teen pregnancies, and school dropouts. In 2019, this plight of vulnerable youths caught the attention of a UN agency who reached out to offer a helping hand.

    However, there were differences of opinion on what the agency was willing to support and what the District termed to be the true need. Historically, the District had been marked by severe economic challenges stemming from periods of political instability and other socio-economic issues.

    These challenges had created poverty and youth restiveness that left communities to grapple with the effects presenting themselves as students dropping out, child marriages and teen pregnancies exacerbated by inadequacies in healthcare and poor education systems. To the District leadership, tackling these effects was most urgent but the international donor agency wanted to fund birth registrations instead, which according to District records, were already at a 95% coverage and success rate.

    While birth registration is crucial, the highlighted issues called for a more comprehensive and holistic approach. Therefore, local needs, while pressing, may be overshadowed by the specific preferences and guidelines set by external funders.

    Of a truth, the historical dependence on external funding has been both a blessing and a curse. While it provides necessary resources, it sometimes restricts the flexibility of communities to address their challenges autonomously and radically.

    Why the Existing Fundraising Model is not Sustainable

    1 – Agenda-setting: The landscape of international funding for community development is often a double-edged sword. While financial support from international donors can be a lifeline for communities facing various drawbacks, the attached conditions for such funding sometimes lead to clashes of values.

    This poses a significant problem to the existing model of fundraising, as communities may find themselves at a crossroads between meeting immediate needs through the funding provided and adhering to their core values and principles. The model also perpetuates an imbalance of power between international donors and local communities.

    The power dynamics can hinder genuine, bi-lateral collaboration and may result in decisions that prioritise the donor’s interests over the community’s needs. The Big Brother syndrome is real. Furthermore, like in the story above, international donors may have specific agendas driven by global concerns, political leanings or their organisational mandates. These may not always align with the grassroots objectives of communities. For example, a donor might prioritise teaching people their rights, while the community seeks expansion of its immunisation program.

    2 – Poverty: The fundraising status quo does little to transform systems, creates an over-dependence on foreign aid and perpetuates a cycle of poverty. On the flipside, small NGOs who are not on the radar of foreign donors rely on individual giving or are self-funded and this means that the resources only trickle in.

    This limits the impact of projects and forces the staff to live on the barest minimum. In Nigeria, an ongoing jab at development workers is that the NGO staff’s standard of living is so below par that they should also be beneficiaries of their own projects (especially in livelihood and economic empowerment projects).

    This is due to the high poverty and unemployment rates in most African cities. Even though the Continent has a long and rich history of local organising, most community members simply cannot afford to spare the little they have for altruistic purposes.

    In the same vein, the high poverty levels breeds discontent towards the government and does not inspire many Africans to support the initiatives of local NGOs. It is a widespread notion that the citizens are already doing too much by spearheading the provision of basic amenities like electricity, pipe-borne water and roads. Therefore, the questions are, “Why should we keep doing so much? Why are NGOs forced to do the work that the government should be doing?” This high poverty rate and disillusionment often stops people from donating to NGOs around them.

    How Can We Improve Fundraising in Africa?

    Nonprofit fundraising in Africa has been marred by economic disparities, external dependencies, and changing political landscapes. In the pursuit of sustainable development, we propose a shift that makes us look inwards at diaspora investments, local organising, and planned giving (including endowments) to provide African NGOs with the tools to navigate the historical challenges while securing long-term financial stability.

    1 – Planned giving: Also known as legacy or deferred giving, it is a unique and strategic approach to fundraising that focuses on securing long-term financial support for NGOs. It comprises several key components including bequests, charitable gift annuities, life insurance, or retirement plans.

    Unlike traditional donations, planned giving involves arrangements made during a donor’s lifetime that will take effect at a future date. This form of philanthropy allows individuals to leave a lasting legacy, ensuring that their contributions continue to support a cause dear to their hearts even beyond their lifetime.

    The well-heeled in our African communities can be encouraged to seriously consider planned giving as not only a strategic avenue for them as donors to create a lasting impact on the causes they care about but to leave a meaningful legacy that reflects their values and commitment to positive change.

    We recognize that planned giving decisions are highly personal and influenced by individual circumstances. Nonetheless, in the dynamic landscape of African fundraising, securing sustainable funding is a perpetual challenge.

    Planned giving, with its focus on long-term philanthropy, presents an impactful solution for these nonprofits if they began creating educative campaigns to draw attention to this form of philanthropy. We believe that this piece also creates an opportunity for the well-to-do to explore this possibility.

    In the same vein, another beacon of financial stability and long-term sustainability for NGOs in Africa are endowments. An endowment in the context of nonprofit fundraising refers to a dedicated fund established by an organisation, typically through donations or other financial contributions, with the intention of maintaining and growing the principal amount over time.

    In the context of the African Union Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want and achieving the mantra ‘African solutions to African problems’, endowments offer a strategic avenue for securing a reliable source of income, fostering autonomy and resilience. Endowments, just like planned giving initiatives, offer opportunities for sustained funding, allowing organisations to plan for the future and achieve lasting impact.

    The continent boasts of a large array of individuals who have the capacity to provide endowments to causes that align with their interests. In an age of social status and obscene wealth being flaunted on social media, we ask, “How might this wealth be harnessed for long-term benefits in addressing community challenges?”

    The continent also boasts of a large diaspora community that can be invited to partner with local organisations through endowments in service of pressing social and community needs.

    2 – Diaspora investment: The United Nations reports that in 2022 diaspora remittances reached $100 billion, surpassing funds received through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Official Development Assistance (ODA).

    This whopping sum is largely due to high poverty levels in the continent that compels family members who live abroad to send money back home but it shows two things– the resources collectively owned by Africans in the diaspora can make a huge difference and a strong culture of giving back already exists, so it could be structured and leveraged for a greater good.

    We acknowledge that diaspora remittances are private (sent directly by immigrants to their families in Africa for personal/family use) but it still presents an exciting possibility of sustainable fundraising for local NGOs.

    A Nigerian non-profit, Jela’s Development Initiatives employs this tactic through personal connections to Nigerians living abroad, and requests for recurring donations of $20 or £20, depending on the donor’s country of residence.

    In Zimbabwe, Sisonke ZW Family Trust has some of their board members who live in the diaspora contributing varying amounts monthly with a minimum of $100 to support the organisation’s activities. While these have not yet yielded large scale results, with targeted campaigns and narrative change on giving, diaspora investment presents a unique way of channelling resources directly to the organisations that need them the most.

    3 – Local organising: By nature, Africans are largely communal and this has resulted in many community members banding together to address societal injustice and developing local solutions.

    This trait is one that can be organised and explored to fundraise for local non-profits. For example, in North-Central Nigeria, Vaccine Network for Disease Control mobilises female small business owners to ‘adopt’ a primary healthcare centre, where she makes a donation towards the facility, takes on responsibility to support the monitoring of that facility and holds it accountable in its service delivery.

    The donations are not cumbersome to the women and it creates a local networked system of accountability and ownership. A similar initiative exists in Zimbabwe where the Citizen Initiative saw the construction of classroom blocks and ablution facilities in rural areas with citizens financing the projects.

    These examples show that local organising works, even if it is on a small scale. However, if more grassroot NGOs adopted this methodology, involving community members in the identification of problems and design of local solutions, they would be more than willing to co-execute and monitor the success of such initiatives towards desired outcomes.

    Too often, local NGOs are more concerned with catching the attention of the international funders that they neglect the advantage Africans have as a communal society and the power within that to secure lasting change.

    Conclusion

    Addressing the existing fundraising system in Africa and its linked challenges requires a multifaceted approach. By empowering local organisations, promoting cultural sensitivity, and advocating for supportive policies, we can pave the way for sustainable development that originates from within communities themselves.

    While international funding undoubtedly plays a crucial role in community development and we are not advocating for throwing the baby with the bath water, we maintain that addressing the clash of values and power imbalance is paramount for the success and sustainability of projects.

    We also recognize the effort of pan-African philanthropic organisations like the African Visionary Fund to democratise the funding space and abide by game-changing principles like multi-year funding and institutional capacity development but one organisation is definitely not enough to serve the needs of the Continent.

    Such visionary approaches need to be duplicated by other indigenous philanthropic organisations. Thus, it is through collaborative efforts that we can build a more resilient and self-reliant future for Africa’s community-based initiatives. Ultimately, it is time to look inward and restructure how we give. The time is now.

    Angela Umoru-David is a creative social impact advocate whose experience cuts across journalism, program design and corporate/development communications, and aims to capture a plurality of views that positively influence the African narrative.

    Tafadzwa Munyaka is a nonprofit/social change professional with crosscutting expertise in fundraising, program management, and child rights advocacy.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • IFAD’s Record-Breaking Pledges: Lifeline for Rural Communities Cornered by Climate, Hunger

    IFAD’s Record-Breaking Pledges: Lifeline for Rural Communities Cornered by Climate, Hunger

    Research associate, Tania Eulalia Martínez Cruz from Oaxaca, Mexico shows how intercropping assists communities remain self-sufficient. Credit: Conrado Perez/IPS
    • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
    • Inter Press Service

    NAIROBI, Dec 15 (IPS) – The world is not on track to end hunger and poverty as a future of growing food insecurity and climate challenges beckon. Small-scale farmers are the backbone of food production, producing one-third of the world’s food and up to 70 percent of the food consumed in Africa and Asia, yet they are often cut off from the services they need to pull themselves out of poverty and food insecurity.

    As small-scale farmers and communities in rural areas—where 80 percent of the world’s poorest live—edge even closer to the epicenter of climate-induced disasters, there is an urgent need for world leaders to increase funding to provide much-needed tools for rural communities to adapt to and mitigate these challenges.

    To address these challenges, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) received record-breaking pledges in support of its largest replenishment ever, putting the organization on track to positively impact the lives of millions of rural people across the globe.

    “This is a clear sign of the confidence member states have in IFAD and the importance they place on our ability to deliver results and impact through targeted investments that transform agriculture, rural economies, and food systems. They understand that investing in rural people and small-scale producers, who produce one-third of the world’s food and up to 70 percent of the food in low- and middle-income countries, is the only path to a food-secure future,” said Alvaro Lario, President of IFAD, following the pledging session in Paris.

    IFAD is on track to receive a record replenishment as contributions increase substantially from both big and smaller nations. Photo: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    IFAD is on track to receive a record replenishment as contributions increase substantially from both big and smaller nations. Photo: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

    The fourth replenishment session, which Angola and France hosted in Paris, saw an increase in pledges. IFAD is both a UN organization and an International Financial Institution (IFI), working in remote rural areas where poverty and hunger are at their deepest, so that rural populations are not left behind and are equipped to lift themselves out of poverty.

    A replenishment session is the process by which IFAD mobilizes its core resources—an exercise in accountability by which IFAD reports to its Member States on its strategy, reform, and performance, usually at the mid-term of the previous replenishment period.

    To date, 48 Member States have pledged USD 1.076 billion to replenish their core resources. Ten countries have increased by more than 50 percent from their previous contribution, and 31 countries have committed to their highest contribution ever, marking a record level of financing achieved for IFAD’s 2025–2027 programme of work.

    IFAD launched its 13th replenishment in February 2023, calling for increased investments in small-scale farmers and rural people across developing countries. Every three years, member states replenish IFAD’s resources. The consultation culminated in a pledging session in Paris. Fundraising will then continue in 2024. Typically, over 100 countries contribute to IFAD’s replenishments, making it the most widely supported of all the major IFI replenishments.

    “I am humbled by the positive momentum from today’s session and confident that IFAD’s ambitious call to mobilize USD 2 billion in new funding to support a USD 10 billion programme of work impacting over 100 million rural people will be achieved in the coming months,” said Lario.

    To address today’s complex challenges facing rural communities, IFAD urged world leaders to increase rural investments. IFAD’s Member States have demonstrated their record-breaking support and IFAD’s pivotal role in revitalizing the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development Goals through investing in rural people.

    “We rely on IFAD to ensure the resilience we seek to build, taking into account climate change and all other factors that hinder our development,” said Carmen do Sacramento Neto, Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Angola, at the opening of the session.

    “There has been an improvement in the living conditions of rural and fishing populations where the IFAD project was implemented, and it has had a significant impact. We announce that Angola will maintain its contribution and increase it in the coming years as a clear sign of our commitment.”

    “With four in five of the world’s poorest people living in rural areas, the road to a prosperous, resilient, and food-secure future runs through rural communities. As multiple crises converge, rural people need us to invest in them more than ever before. As countries scramble to respond to unforeseen crises, development budgets are stretched, making the right investments is urgent and critical.”

    Eunice Mwape is 26 and the mother of four children. She used to travel far to garden because there was not enough water near her village of Shatubi. Now thanks to an IFAD sponsored project E-SLIP, Eunice has water close to her house. Credit: IFAD
    Eunice Mwape is 26 and the mother of four children. She used to travel far to the garden because there was not enough water near her village of Shatubi. Now, thanks to the IFAD-sponsored project E-SLIP, Eunice has water close to her house. Credit: IFAD

    Collaborating with member states, IFAD invests in rural development and across food systems to help small-scale farmers produce more food in greater variety, access markets, apply new technologies, and adapt to climate change. IFAD ensures that member state contributions reach those who need them the most, with 45 percent of total concessional financing going to low-income countries and at least 30 percent of core resources dedicated to fragile situations.

    Pledging funds towards SDGs 1 and 2 today means spending less on development tomorrow. For every USD 1 spent on resilience, it now saves up to USD 10 in emergency aid in the future, not to mention avoiding hardship for millions of people the world over. IFAD’s work achieves measurable impact.

    Between 2019 and 2021, IFAD’s investments improved the incomes of 77.4 million rural people, while 62 million rural people increased their production, and 64 million rural people improved their access to markets, enabling them to sell their production.

    Additionally, thanks to improved agricultural practices, access to technical assistance and credit, as well as the diversification of their income sources, IFAD assisted 38 million people in building their resilience, which is a measure of their capacity to recover from climatic and non-climatic shocks.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Rich Nations, IMF Deepen World Stagnation

    Rich Nations, IMF Deepen World Stagnation

    • Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
    • Inter Press Service

    KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec 13 (IPS) – With the US Fed raising interest rates, the world economy is slowing as debt distress spreads across the global South, increasing poverty worldwide to pre-pandemic levels, with the poorest countries faring worst.

    Extreme poverty continues to be high and is now worse than before the pandemic in low-income countries (LICs) and among those affected by fragility, violence and conflict. The promise of eradicating poverty worldwide by 2030 has become unachievable.

    Jomo Kwame SundaramThe Bretton Woods institutions’ (BWIs) annual meetings in Marrakech in October were only the second-ever in Africa. But the rich nations-dominated BWIs failed yet again to rise to the challenges of our times, setting Africa and the global South even further back.

    Instead of fostering cooperation to address the causes and effects of the contemporary catastrophe, neither the International Monetary Fund nor the World Bank governors could agree on joint communiques due to the greater politicisation of multilateral fora.

    Indebtedness immobilises governments
    Indebtedness and restrictive creditor rules prevent governments from spending more counter-cyclically to overcome the many contractionary tendencies of recent times, besides preventing them from addressing looming social and environmental crises.

    The G20’s largest twenty economies have urged strengthening “multilateral coordination by official bilateral and private creditors … to address the deteriorating debt situation and facilitate coordinated debt treatment for debt-distressed countries”.

    But its Common Framework to restructure debt has been roundly criticised by civil society, think tanks and even the World Bank on many grounds, including the paltry concessional credit relief offered to a few of the very poorest countries.

    In contrast, the G24 caucus of developing countries at the BWIs has emphasised the need for “durable debt resolution measures while collaborating on resolving the structural issues leading to such vulnerabilities.”

    But all those advocating purported solutions are not even trying to ensure fiscal space and public spending capacity for counter-cyclical efforts, let alone achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and national development objectives.

    Surcharges
    The IMF currently imposes additional charges on countries that do not quickly clear their debts to the Fund. Besides the usual fees and interest, borrowing countries paid over $4 billion in such surcharges in 2020-22, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Surcharges will cost debt-distressed countries about $7.9 billion over six years. The G24 has emphasised that surcharges are pro-cyclical and regressive, especially with monetary tightening.

    Governments have undertaken contractionary policies and cut imports for lack of foreign exchange. This deepens the problems of heavily indebted poor countries who cannot but count on the Fund for relief and solutions.

    At Marrakech, the governing International Monetary and Financial Committee decided to “consider a review of surcharge policies”. The G24 called for “a suspension of surcharges while the review – which we hope will lead to substantial permanent reduction or complete elimination – is being conducted.”

    Rich nations have been divided over surcharges. With Ukraine now among the top surcharge payers, following civil society criticisms, the Biden administration’s refusal to review surcharges in 2022 was heavily criticised by the US Congress.

    Deepening austerity
    IMF fiscal austerity measures of the 1980s returned with a vengeance after the 2008 global financial crisis, and then again during the Covid-19 pandemic from 2020. Most Fund loans require cutting the public sector wage bill (PSWB), the budget line to pay employees.

    Most wage earners in many LICs, including nurses, teachers and other social service workers, work for the state, directly or indirectly. Although much needed, these employees have been more likely to be targeted by such budget cuts.

    PSWB cuts may involve hiring or wage freezes, or limiting, or even cutting wages. These inevitably undermine government capacities and services. Fiscal consolidation has also involved raising more indirect, consumption taxes, and tax exemptions, e.g., for essential goods such as food.

    In 38 countries with over a billion people, loan conditionalities during 2020-22, the three years of the Covid-19 pandemic, meant regressive tax reforms and public spending cuts. PSWB and fuel or electricity subsidy cuts are also common demands worsening economic contractions.

    Austerity bound to fail
    But the IMF’s own research suggests such austerity policies are generally ineffective in reducing debt, their ostensible purpose. The April 2023 IMF World Economic Outlook acknowledged austerity programmes and fiscal consolidations “do not reduce debt ratios, on average”. Yet, its Fiscal Monitor still demands “fiscal tightening” of most developing countries.

    The new IMF-World Bank debt sustainability framework sets the LICs’ external debt-to-GDP ratio limit at 30% or 40%. It insists debt-distressed economies must have lower ratios than ‘strong’ countries, effectively further penalising the weak and vulnerable.

    Instead of enabling consistently counter-cyclical macroeconomic frameworks, the IMF’s current short-termist approach is mainly preoccupied with annual, or worse, quarterly balances, mimicking corporate reporting practices.

    Such short-termism further limits fiscal space, effectively preventing or deterring public sector investments requiring longer-term macroeconomic frameworks to realise benefits. This discourages ‘patient’ medium- to long-term investments required for national economic planning and transformation, essential for sustainable development.

    Restrictive debt and fiscal targets have meant even less public investment. This is typically required of borrowing countries as a credit conditionality. Annual IMF Article IV consultations cause other countries to also accept similar constraints to avoid Fund disapproval.

    While a few better-off economies enjoy full employment, most countries face further economic contraction, not least due to interest rate hikes led by the US Fed and their many effects. Instead of being part of the problem, the IMF should be part of the solution.

    IPS UN Bureau


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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • What Is the Cost of Phasing Out Fossil Fuels in Latin America?

    What Is the Cost of Phasing Out Fossil Fuels in Latin America?

    Colombian President Gustavo Petro presented his environmental plans at COP28 in Dubai and added his country to the small group of nations that support the negotiation of a binding treaty to prevent the proliferation of fossil fuels, despite his country being an oil producer. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
    • by Emilio Godoy (dubai)
    • Inter Press Service

    DUBAI, Dec 12 (IPS) – One of the most heated debates at the annual climate summit coming to a conclusion in this United Arab Emirates city revolved around the phrasing of the final declaration, regarding the “phase-out” or “phase-down” of fossil fuels within a given time frame.

    This is an essential calculation on the decommissioning of refineries, pipelines, power plants and other infrastructure that, in some cases, have been in operation for years, as discussed at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

    Experts who talked to IPS at the summit agreed on the magnitude of the bill, which for some Latin American nations could be unaffordable.

    Fernanda Carvalho of Brazil, global leader for Energy and Climate Policy at the non-governmental World Wildlife Fund (WWF), referred to the amount without specifying a figure.

    “Financial support will be needed. There must be a differentiated approach, differentiated timing, and developed countries must come up with the resources,” the expert, who was present at COP28, held at Expo City on the outskirts of Dubai, told IPS.

    COP28 engaged in an acrimonious debate between phase-out and phase-down, with a definite date, of oil, gas and coal, which has already anticipated a disappointing end in Dubai, that in line with the tradition at these summits extended its negotiations one more day, to conclude on Wednesday, Dec. 13.

    The “phase-down” concept has been in the climate-energy jargon for years, but it really took off at the 2021 COP26 in the Scottish city of Glasgow, whose Climate Pact alludes to the reduction of coal still being produced and the elimination of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.

    Throughout the climate summits since 1995, developing countries have insisted on differentiated measures for them, in accordance with their own situation, the need for financing from developed nations and the transfer of technology, especially energy alternatives.

    Enrique Maurtúa of Argentina, senior diplomacy advisor to the Independent Global Stocktake (iGST) – an umbrella data and advocacy initiative – said they hoped for a political signal to determine regulations or market measures regarding a phase-down or phase-out.

    “If a target date is not set, there is no signal. If you set a phase-out for 2050, that is a pathway for the transition. With a deadline, the market can react. And then each country must evaluate its specific context,” the expert told IPS in the COP28 Green Zone, which hosted civil society organizations at the summit.

    Available scientific knowledge indicates that the majority of proven hydrocarbon reserves must remain unextracted by 2030 to keep the planetary temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, the threshold agreed in the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement to avoid massive disasters.

    On Sunday, Dec. 10 the non-governmental Climate Action Network (CAN) delivered at COP28 a dishonorable mention to the United States for its role in Israel's carnage in Gaza, in the traditional Fossil of the Day award for “doing the most to achieve the least” in terms of progress on climate change at the summits. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
    On Sunday, Dec. 10 the non-governmental Climate Action Network (CAN) delivered at COP28 a dishonorable mention to the United States for its role in Israel’s carnage in Gaza, in the traditional Fossil of the Day award for “doing the most to achieve the least” in terms of progress on climate change at the summits. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

    Failed attempts

    In the Latin American region there are unsuccessful precedents of fossil fuel phase-outs.

    In 2007, the then president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa (2007-2017), launched the Yasuní-Ishpingo Tambococha Tiputini initiative, which sought the care of the Yasuní National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest, in exchange for funds from governments, foundations, companies and individuals of about 3.6 billion dollars by 2024 to leave the oil in the ground.

    The aim was to leave 846 million barrels of oil untouched underground. But a special fund created by Ecuador and the United Nations Environment Fund only raised 13 million dollars, according to the Ecuadorian government. So Correa decided to cancel the initiative in 2013, at a time when renewable energies had not yet really taken off.

    In a referendum held in August, Ecuadorians decided to halt oil extraction in a block in Yasuní that would provide 57,000 barrels per day in 2022 – the same result sought by Correa, but without foreign funds.

    The result of the referendum is to be implemented within a year, although the position of the government of the current president, banana tycoon Daniel Noboa, who took office on Nov. 23, is still unclear.

    Meanwhile, in Colombia, President Gustavo Petro has put the brakes on new oil and coal exploration contracts, a promise from his 2022 election campaign.

    In addition, the president announced on Dec. 2 in Dubai that his country was joining nine other nations that are promoting the formal initiation of the negotiation of a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    Colombia will thus become the first Latin American nation and the largest oil and coal producer to join the initiative that first emerged in 2015 when several Pacific Island leaders and NGOs raised the urgent need for an international mechanism to phase out fossil fuels.

    For the undertaking of a just energy transition to cleaner fuels, Petro estimates an initial bill of 14 billion dollars, to come from governments of the developed North, multilateral organizations and international funds.

    The latest summit of hope for the climate kicked off on Nov. 30 in this Arab city under the slogan “Unite. Act. Deliver” – the least successful in the history of COPs since the first one, held in Berlin in 1995.

    The hopes included commitments and voluntary declarations on renewable energy and energy efficiency; agriculture, food and climate; health and climate; climate finance; refrigeration; and just transitions with a gender focus.

    In addition, there were financial pledges of some 86 billion dollars, without specifying whether it is all new money, to be allocated to these issues.

    Like many countries, the host of COP28, the United Arab Emirates, has had a pavilion in the so-called Green Zone, which hosts non-governmental organizations, companies and other institutions. The Emirati government bet a lot on the climate summit to deliver results, but without directly targeting the fossil fuels on which its economy depends. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
    Like many countries, the host of COP28, the United Arab Emirates, has had a pavilion in the so-called Green Zone, which hosts non-governmental organizations, companies and other institutions. The Emirati government bet a lot on the climate summit to deliver results, but without directly targeting the fossil fuels on which its economy depends. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

    Billions

    Given the production and exploration plans of the main hydrocarbon producing countries in the region, the magnitude of the challenge in the medium and long term is enormous.

    In October, Brazil, the largest economy in the region and the 11th largest in the world, extracted 3.543 billion barrels of oil and 152 million cubic meters (m3) of gas per day.

    This represented approximately two percent of the domestic economy that month.

    Mexico, the region’s second largest economy, extracted 1.64 million barrels and 4.971 billion m3 of gas per day in October, equivalent to 52 million dollars in revenues.

    Meanwhile, Colombia produced 780,487 barrels of oil in the first eight months of 2023 and 1,568 cubic feet per day of gas, equivalent to 12 percent of public revenues.

    “We have to think about decarbonization measures. We want Latin America to be a clean energy powerhouse,” said Carvalho.

    As of September, Brazil’s state-owned oil giant Petrobras was working on obtaining 9.571 billion barrels of oil equivalent, according to the Global Oil & Gas Exit List produced by the German non-governmental organization Urgewald.

    This represents an excess of 94 percent above the limit set by the 2015 Paris Agreement to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius.

    Meanwhile, Mexico’s state-owned oil company Pemex is producing 1.444 billion barrels of oil equivalent, 56 percent above the threshold set by the Paris Agreement.

    Finally, the public company Ecopetrol, mostly owned by the Colombian state, is working to obtain 447 million barrels, 98 percent above the Paris Agreement limit, according to Urgewald.

    In addition, the cost of action against the climate crisis is far from affordable for any Latin American nation.

    For example, Mexico estimated that the implementation of 35 measures, including in the power, gas and oil generation sector, would cost 137 billion dollars in 2030, but the benefits would total 295 billion dollars.

    But Maurtúa says the budget question is only relative. “There is a lot of public money with which many things can be done,” complemented by international resources, he argued.

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  • Global Civil Society Launches Manifesto for Ethical AI

    Global Civil Society Launches Manifesto for Ethical AI

    • Opinion by Bibbi Abruzzini, Nina Sangma (new delhi, india)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW DELHI, India, Dec 06 (IPS) – We, a global coalition of over 50 civil society and human rights organizations from over 30 countries have co-developed the “Civil Society Manifesto for Ethical AI”, a groundbreaking initiative aiming to steer AI policies towards safeguarding rights and deconolonising AI discourse. We question, and we are not the only ones: whose voices, ideas and values matter in AI ?

    “If Silicon Valley was a country it would probably be the richest in the world. So how genuinely committed is Big Tech and AI to funding and fostering human rights over profits? The barebones truth is that if democracy was profitable, human rights lawyers and defenders including techtivists from civil society organizations wouldn’t be sitting around multistakeholder engagement tables demanding accountability from Big Tech and AI. How invested are they in real social impact centred on rights despite glaring evidence to the contrary?,” asks Nina Sangma, of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact, a regional organization founded in 1992 by Indigenous Peoples’ movements with over 40 members across 14 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

    We are currently at a critical juncture where most countries lack a comprehensive AI policy or regulatory framework. The sudden reliance on AI and other digital technologies has introduced new – and often “invisible” – vulnerabilities, and we have just seen the tip of the iceberg, literally melting from the effects of climate change.

    Some things we have already seen though: AI is still a product of historical data representing inequities and inequalities. A study analyzing 100+ AI-generated images using Midjourney’s diffusion models revealed consistent biases, including depicting older men for specialized jobs, binary gender representations, featuring urban settings regardless of location, and generating images predominantly reinforcing “ageism, sexism and classism”, with a bias toward a Western perspective.

    Data sources continue to be “toxic”. AI tools learn from vast amounts of training data, often consisting of billions of inputs scraped from the internet. This data risks to perpetuate harmful stereotypes and often contains toxic content like pornography, misogyny, violence, and bigotry. Furthermore, researchers found bias in up to 38.6% of ‘facts’ used by AI.

    Despite increased awareness, the discourse surrounding AI, like the technology itself, has predominantly been shaped by “Western, whiteness, and wealth”. The discrimination that we see today is the result of a cocktail of “things gone wrong” – ranging from discriminatory hiring practices based on gender and race, to the prevalence of algorithms biases.

    “Biases are not a coincidence. Artificial intelligence is a machine that draws conclusions from data based on statistical models, therefore, the first thing it eliminates is variations. And in the social sphere that means not giving visibility to the margins,” declares Judith Membrives i Llorens, head of digital policies at Lafede.cat – Organitzacions per la Justícia Global.

    “AI development isn’t the sole concern here. The real issue stems from keeping citizens in the dark, restricting civic freedoms and the prevalence of polarisation and prejudice on several dimensions of our societies. This results in unequal access, prevalent discrimination, and a lack of transparency in technological processes and beyond. Despite acknowledging the potential and power of these technologies, it is clear that many are still excluded and left at the margins due to systemic flaws. Without addressing this, the global development of AI and other emerging technologies won’t be inclusive. Failure to act now and to create spaces of discussion for new visions to emerge, will mean these technologies continue to reflect and exacerbate these disparities,” says Mavalow Christelle Kalhoule, civil society leader in Burkina Faso and across the Sahel region, and Chair of the global civil society network Forus.

    The Civil Society Manifesto for Ethical AI asks, what are the potential pitfalls of using current AI systems to inform future decisions, particularly in terms of reinforcing prevailing disparities?

    Today, as EU policymakers are expected to close a political agreement for the AI Act, we ask, do international standards for regulating machine learning include the voice of the people? With the Manifesto we explore, challenge, disrupt, and reimagine the underlying assumptions within this discourse but also to broaden the discussion to incorporate communities beyond the traditional “experts.” Nothing about us, without us.

    “We want Artificial Intelligence, but created by and for everyone, not only for a few,” adds Judith Membrives i Llorens.

    From the “Internet of Cows” to the impact of AI on workers’ rights and on civic space, developed by over 50 civil society organisations, the Manifesto includes 17 case studies on their experiences, visions and stories around AI. With each story, we want to weave a different path to build new visions on AI systems that expand rather than restrict freedoms worldwide.

    “The current development of AI is by no means an inevitable path. It is shaped by Big Tech companies because we let them. It is time for the civil society to stand up for their data rights,” says Camilla Lohenoja, of SASK, the workers’ rights organisation of the trade unions of Finland.

    “Focusing on ethical and transparent technology also means giving equal attention to the fairness and inclusivity of its design and decision-making processes. The integrity of AI is shaped as much by its development as by its application,” says Hanna Pishchyk of the youth group Digital Grassroots.

    Ultimately, the Manifesto aims to trigger a global – and not just sectorial and Western-dominated dialogue – on AI development and application.

    Civil society is here not just as a mere token in multistakeholder spaces, we bring forward what others often dismiss, and we actively participate worldwide in shaping a technological future that embraces inclusivity, accountability, and ethical advancements.

    Bibbi Abruzzini, Forus and Nina Sangma, Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP)

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  • Electrifying Cooking: Decarbonizing Africa’s Electricity Grid Towards Net Zero

    Electrifying Cooking: Decarbonizing Africa’s Electricity Grid Towards Net Zero

    In Africa, the average amount of time spent collecting firewood is 2.1 hours, which robs women and girls of hundreds of hours every year. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    • by Joyce Chimbi (dubai)
    • Inter Press Service

    DUBAI, Dec 05 (IPS) – Across the African continent, many first-born children in poor and vulnerable households do not go to school as they spend their school days collecting biomass fuel. The regional average of the amount of time spent collecting firewood is 2.1 hours, robbing women and girls in particular of hundreds of hours in a year and crippling their capacities to engage in learning and productive activities.

    “I was one of those children that arrived to school late every day or not at all. I grew up in Limuru, Central Kenya, near the Kinare Forest. Every day, I would rush to the forest first thing in the morning to collect the firewood needed to prepare porridge and then dash to the neighbor’s house to borrow fire,” Njambi Muigai, a climate activist and COP28 delegate, told IPS.

    “I would carry a dry firewood and light it up at the neighbor’s fireplace and rush back home with the burning firewood to light our cooking place. In the evening, I would repeat the same routine. Discussions around climate, clean energy, and women’s empowerment must find space in such high-level forums if there is to be any meaningful progress towards net zero.”

    Muigai was speaking on the sidelines of a session dubbed ‘Electrifying Cooking: A Just Journey Toward Net Zero’ at the ongoing COP28 Summit in Dubai, UAE. As climate change increasingly becomes the most pressing issue facing humankind today, countries are urged to pursue ambitious climate actions towards net zero—the cutting of greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible, with any remaining emissions re-absorbed from the atmosphere by ecosystems such as oceans and forests.

    Scientific evidence shows that to avert a climate catastrophe, already signaled by an increase in climate-induced disasters such as fatal floods and crippling droughts, global temperature increase needs to be limited to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

    UN’s research shows that currently, the Earth is already about 1.1°C warmer than it was in the late 1800s, and emissions continue to rise. To keep global warming to no more than 1.5°C, as called for in the Paris Agreement,  emissions need to be reduced by 45 percent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.

    Speaking during the event, COP28 CEO Adnan Z Amin, who also served as the founding Director General of the International Renewable Energy Agency, made a strong case for electrifying cooking and its place in accelerating climate action towards net zero.

    “One of the major priorities for COP28 is in the broad area of energy, and within that, to increase access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all by 2030. This represents an important strategy in our efforts to reach our global net-zero goal. Evidence shows that one of the most reliable paths to reaching the goal is based on electrification without decreasing the use of renewable energy,” he said.

    He stressed that despite progress made towards access to electricity over the last decade, improved access to modern cooking remains overlooked. Nearly a billion people, or 940 million, in Sub-Saharan Africa lack access to clean cooking fuels and technologies. The rampant use of biomass for cooking has negative consequences for health, gender, climate, and the environment.

    A clean cooking report shows that in sub-Saharan Africa, a staggering 29 countries have access to clean cooking at a rate below 20 percent, with half of the nearly one billion people without access to clean cooking concentrated in five countries such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda.

    Indoor air pollution from biomass is one of the top 10 risks for the global burden of diseases, according to the World Health Organization. Household air pollution is responsible for an estimated 3.8 million premature deaths globally.

    “This is a problem in Asia and Latin America, but the numbers are particularly concerning in Africa. Four of the five families in Africa use primitive cooking stoves made of wood. A woman spends up to four hours a day collecting firewood, and she is robbed of her time. WHO says half a million women die prematurely due to respiratory diseases caused by primitive cooking. The women cook while pregnant, which affects health in the womb, and they cook with babies on their backs, causing lung problems for the babies,” said Dr Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency.

    “Europe is a neighbor of Africa; in my culture and in many of our cultures, neighbors help each other in times of trouble. I cannot believe that these numbers are unfolding in front of our eyes. This, to me, is the most important gender issue, a big injustice that can easily be solved.”

    “Not only are half a million women dying prematurely in Africa alone from biomass pollution as they walk long distances in search of firewood, but they also have to cross borders and contested territories, placing them in harm’s way.

    “If half a million people were dying per year in war, we know what we would do, and this is happening every single year. For me, coming from the global south and being an African woman, it is even more depressing because it is as if the world is saying that because they are dying in Africa, it is not as important as if they were dying in another part of the world. There are all these social aspects that determine how we move forward.”

    Nigeria’s Damilola Ogunbiyi, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General Chief Executive Officer for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair UN-Energy, Sustainable Energy for All, said that “if half a million people were dying in a war, we would know what to do, and this is happening every single year.”

    Observing that coming from the global south and being “an African woman, it is even more depressing because it is as if the world is saying that it is not as important as if they were dying in another part of the world. There are all these social aspects that determine how we move forward.”

    She spoke about prevailing misconceptions about the source of harmful emissions. An analysis of Nigeria shows that despite the 45 gigawatts of diesel and petrol generated, the biggest emissions are actually from the cooking sector. Stressing that clean cooking is as important, if not more important than electrification, as it buys women time to engage productively in society, lifts people out of poverty, and accelerates the growth of a country’s GDP.

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  • A Climate Scientist’s View of COP 28

    A Climate Scientist’s View of COP 28

    Research team in the Arctic. Professor Tjernström is standing on the left.
    • Opinion by Jan Lundius (stockholm, sweden)
    • Inter Press Service

    STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Dec 04 (IPS) – This year’s UN Climate Change Conference is taking place in Dubai from 30 November to 12 December. The so-called COP summits are organised every year and constitute a means for the global community to agree on ways to address the climate crisis, such as limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, supporting vulnerable communities to adapt to the effects of climate change, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

    More than 70,000 delegates are attending the COP28 in Dubai. Main delegates are the 47 representatives of the member states (called Parties), which constitute the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Business leaders, young people, climate scientists, Indigenous Peoples, journalists, and various other experts and stakeholders are also among the participants. Officially, COP 28 stands for the 28th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC.

    UNFCCC was established in 1992 to combat “dangerous human interference with the climate system”, in part by limiting the greenhouse gas emissions that compromise Earth’s entire ecosystem, a prerequisite for human existence. Among other items on its agenda COP 28 will address progress made in accordance with the Paris Agreement of 2015, when 195 Parties of the UNFCCC agreed to keep the rise of global temperature to well below 2 °C (3.6 °F), compared to pre-industrial levels, and preferably limit the increase to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F).

    To gain a scientific perspective of the meaning and influence of COP28, IPS asked Professor Tjernström about his views on climate change and what he assumes might be done to amend it. Michael Tjernström is since 2001 professor of Meteorology at Stockholm University. He has spent several periods at institutions such as CIRES, The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and The Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), all in Boulder, Colorado, USA. Professor Tjernström’s main research interests concern climate change in the Arctic. He has participated in several scientific expeditions to Arctic areas and is since 2011 a member of the International Arctic Science Committee.

    Michael Tjernström

    IPS: Professor Tjernström, can the outcomes of COP28 drastically affect current climate changes?

    Michael Tjernström: The COPs are a necessary and essential factor when it comes to addressing climate change. A COP summit might be likened to a regular check-up visit to the dentist. It can be painful, but is necessary for good dental hygiene. The dentist might find that your teeth are in a very bad state and to save them, urgent measures have to be taken – caries has to be amended, maybe a bad tooth has to be extracted, dental bridges inserted, etc . The point is that the dentist is an expert and you have to trust him. However, the decision to save your teeth is all yours. In a similar fashion the COPs intend to amend already present damages to the climate, determine their causes and try to prevent a negative development. But it is up to the members to act.

    IPS: How do you perceive the UN’s role in this endeavour?

    Michael Tjernström: There is absolutely no other global organization other than the UN which would be able to organize and be in charge of such a process. No other national, international, political or private, organisation would be able to establish a global consensus and general awareness, as well as maintaining the perseverance, stamina, objectivity and legal strength to do so. An endurance against all odds, but nevertheless made possible through the UN’s established rules, combined with its global and local outreach. Of course, there are cracks and concerns, but the administrative structure and operations of the UN are firmly based on the commitment of its member states.

    People, who in general are prone to criticize the UN system are often only perceiving the actions of the Security Council and how its commitment is crippled by the veto power of its five permanent members. However, this does not apply to the UNFCCC and its scientific support organisation, ICCP. As a scientist and propagator for awareness about climate change, I perceive the lack of understanding the great importance of the UN as a marketing problem. People are not aware of what this global organisation stands for, and even less so – its support of the global scientific community.

    IPS: Will you attend the COP summit in Dubai?

    Michael Tjernström: No, most scientists have through their research already made their fair contribution to efforts to combat climate change. The current state of research, results and warnings are comprehensively explained and diffused through the ICCP reports and scientists have thus no need to attend the COPs. Whether or not politicians listen to science or not is not determined by my presence at a COP.

    COP summits are more politically than scientifically motivated. However, they are based on the factual basis provided by ICCP reports. The COPs mainly attract other stakeholders than scientists, such as government representatives, spokespersons for environmentalist pressure groups and lobbyists representing the interests of fossil fuel-based industries, as well as oil and coal producing companies. Many such lobbyists try to find a place among decision makers, while environmentalists might be looking for political scapegoats.

    People and organisations are trying to highlight their own, often specific interests, some of them being based on doubtful assumptions and moral priorities. Environmentalists have often demanded that certain interest groups be excluded from COP summits, like those lobbying for the use of fossil fuels, interests of oil producers, as well as industrialists who, for the sake of their own profit, try to minimize the threat from global warming.

    Nevertheless, it is important that influential stakeholders are present . The global outreach demands this. Everyone has to be allowed to have their voice and concerns heard, as well as being provided with an opportunity to be informed about scientific achievements, new environmentally friendly technologies, and the threats of global warming.

    Industrialization based on non-polluting and zero emissions of greenhouse gases, as well as new eco-friendly technology, are essential for change and improvement. Environmentalism’s contributions are also important. Like most revolutionary movements radical environmentalists highlight political and capitalist motivational reasons and misconduct, while they demand change and sacrifice. Historically did socialists and suffragettes contribute to emancipation and justice. However, some revolutionaries have turned into fanatics, and some have concentrated on relatively minor but easily targeted issues while ignoring an overall picture. For example, opponents to air travel are maybe not fully aware of the fact that it actually contributes to only three percent of global greenhouse emissions, while private cars and other fossil-fuel based transportation means account for much more of carbon dioxide emissions . It might be stated that it would be more beneficial for the environment to limit the use of your car, than avoid travelling by air. Veganism may be considered as beneficial when it comes to emission of greenhouse gases, though methane emissions from ruminating animals constitutes less than five percent of greenhouse gas emissions. If we could stop throwing away a third of all the food we produce, this would be much more efficient and would also have other benefits. However, every effort to limit greenhouse emissions is worthy of attention, though decisive and comprehensive political actions are particularly crucial for achieving zero greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible. It is not enough to limit them; they must be eliminated.

    IPS: But can COPs really have the impact you could wish for?

    Michael Tjernström: In several respects, development is moving in the wrong direction, especially when it comes to acquiring knowledge. Many confide in badly informed, or even deceitful, social media and populist politicians. In certain circles a negative attitude to research and science is thriving. Science might by such groups be perceived as an essentially separate activity, practiced by an intellectual elite devoting itself to mutual admiration.

    The COPs make participants aware of the fatal threat of global warming. But more than that, it also makes the general public aware and therefore participants can be held accountable for their actions, or lack thereof, and are through legally binding agreements forced to take social and economic measures to amend the ongoing destruction of natural resources, and the atmosphere.

    IPS: What exactly is ICCP and what is its connection with the COPs

    Michael Tjernström: Generally speaking, people are not knowledgeable, most don’t know what ICCP is. The task of ICCP, i.e. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities and it does so by examining all relevant scientific literature on the subject. This comprehensive review and dissemination of scientific insights and research results include natural, economic and social impacts and risks. ICCP also covers possible responsive options. IPCC does not conduct its own original research, its mandate is to survey the research situation, while aiming at being objective and comprehensive, and only openly published results that have already been reviewed by experts can be used. Thousands of scientists and other experts then volunteer to review the findings and publications of ICCP, before its key findings are compiled into a Synthesis Report intended for policymakers and the general public. Experts have described the work of ICCP as the biggest peer review of the global scientific community. COP28 will discuss the 6th ICCP Synthesis Report, issued in March 2023.

    Most climate-related risks assessed in the Fifth Synthesis Report, issued in 2014, are in the Sixth Report deemed to be higher than earlier predicted and projected long-term impacts are worse than they were assumed to be in 2014. The Sixth Synthesis Report highlights that climatic and non-climatic risks will increasingly interact, creating compound and cascading risks, which will be extremely difficult to manage. The confidence of the conclusions has also been gradually increasing across the reports.

    The development of climatological research is quite fast, the lag in actual efforts to halt global warming is mainly to be found in decisive decision-making. The original ICCP reports contain tens of thousands of pages that few decision-makers can assimilate. The summary for policy makers is reviewed and edited by several stakeholders. Efforts may thus be made to mitigate alarming findings and adapt them to political concerns. However, changes and adaptions are carefully wetted in order to secure that none of them contradict actual and fact-based research results, predictions and warnings.

    IPS: Do you perceive yourself as a pessimist, or as an optimist?

    Michael Tjernström: I am both hopeful and worried. As a researcher I cannot allow myself to fall victim to paralyzing dystopias. As a scientist I contribute to the measurement of climatological processes, while taking the pulse of the current situation, but also looking for trends and measures to mitigate, and perhaps even hinder, a worrisome development. Accordingly, a scientist has to be a kind of optimist even in the face of despair. Furthermore, I consider that my role as a researcher has to involve the popularization and dissemination of research results. A role I appreciate and feel comfortable with.

    It is reasonable that we in the West, who so far have contributed by far the most to the ongoing climatological damage, also take our responsibility when it comes to mitigation and adaptation. We have the technological, historical and scientific prerequisites to make amends for all the damage we have caused and should therefore also go into the breach for the realisation of necessary improvements, while contributing to the economic means to do so.

    But the picture is complicated. China is making great progress in climate research, but is at the same time contributing to the world’s largest emissions of greenhouse gases in total, and is number two in the world in per capita emissions, yet is still claiming they should still be treated as a developing country and indeed has a large poor population in the face of a rapidly growing middle class. Africa is lagging behind in its industrial development and consequently have limited emissions, but must nevertheless already now end its dependence on fossil fuels.

    We in the West live well and safely and could without any major problems dismiss a lot of the gratuitous comfort we currently are enjoying. The drama is undeniable, even when the Paris Agreement was signed it was by some researchers pointed out that the 1.5 target was unattainable in reality. There is much talk about tipping points, when much of the existing ecological balance suddenly collapses, and that this might happen at a two degree rise in global temperature. But contributing factors are manifold and I don’t believe it will be happening in the near future. There is no really compelling evidence for most of these suggested tipping points. The most important thing is to immediately stop the burning of fossil fuels. In spite of all, I assume that much can and will be done to stop the worrisome development.

    IPS interchange with Professor Tjernström was quite extensive and informative. In a following article we will return to Professor Tjernström describing his own research and thoughts about current, and future climatological changes.

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  • Human Rights Crucial as Wealthy Nations Reap Energy Transition Benefits

    Human Rights Crucial as Wealthy Nations Reap Energy Transition Benefits

    Yamide Dagnet points to the urgency of climate action to meet the Paris Agreements, while protecting frontline communities and about 70 000 attendees grapple with issues during the UN Climate Change Conference COP28. Credit: COP28/Walaa Alshaer
    • by Umar Manzoor Shah (dubai)
    • Inter Press Service

    DUBAI, Dec 03 (IPS) – Yamide Dagnet, the Director for Climate Justice at Open Society Foundations, delves into the intricacies of the negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 27th session of the Conference of Parties (COP28) in Dubai.As the world converges for COP 28, the urgency of addressing climate change has never been more palpable. In an exclusive interview with IPS, Yamide Dagnet, the Director for Climate Justice at Open Society Foundations, delves into the intricate details of this pivotal conference—from the unprecedented start to key challenges and opportunities in climate finance. She offers a comprehensive and nuanced perspective on global climate discourse.

    As COP 28 unfolds, this interview provides a panoramic view of the complex landscape of climate action. From the challenges of climate finance to the critical role of the private sector and the ethical considerations in technology deployment, Dagnet offers a roadmap for navigating the intricate terrain of climate change, including an urgent call to action urging global leaders, businesses, and civil society to address the challenges that lie ahead collaboratively. As the world grapples with the consequences of climate change, the interview serves as a compass, guiding stakeholders towards a more sustainable and resilient future, and her voice clearly articulates her views that while the just energy and industrial revolution hold immense potential for economic growth in resource-rich nations, it is crucial to protect the rights of frontline communities and activists.

    The Start of COP 28

    The conference’s initial day set an unprecedented tone. “Positive developments like the creation of the Loss and Damage Fund and sizeable pledges, especially from countries like the UAE, Germany, and the EU, are highlights of this momentum’s emphasis on international solidarity; I hope that the momentum generated on day one will permeate the entirety of COP 28,” Dagnet told Inter Press Service.

    Yamide Dagnet, Director for Climate Justice at Open Society Foundations. Credit: TJ Kirkpatrick, Open Society Foundations
    Yamide Dagnet, Director for Climate Justice at Open Society Foundations. Credit: TJ Kirkpatrick, Open Society Foundations

    Wealthier Nations and Climate Change

    Dagnet delves into the role of wealthier nations in the fight against climate change. “While there is an expectation for these nations to fulfil their commitments, reality paints a different picture. Adaptation finance has not seen the necessary investment,” she said while pointing to a critical gap in addressing the immediate impacts of climate change. Looking at the financial dynamics, Dagnet dissected the pledges made by key nations and highlighted the ongoing challenges in reaching the financial targets made since 2009 and outlined in the Paris Agreement. Dagnet contends that “fulfilling pledges and demonstrating seriousness are essential steps for wealthier nations to regain trust and ensure a unified front in the fight against climate change.”

    Key Trends in Climate Change Policy

    Transitioning into a discussion on key trends shaping climate change policy in the next decade, Dagnet underscored the critical importance of aligning investments with the goals of the Paris Agreement. A concerning trend emerges as she highlights the “doubling of subsidies for fossil fuels, signaling a misalignment with the imperative to transition to clean energy. There is a need to redirect investments toward clean energy, adaptation, and activities in line with the Paris Agreement.”

    Delving into philanthropic organizations’ role in supporting climate action, Dagnet says that while some positive dynamics have emerged on loss and damage, much work remains to be done. “Let us not forget that economic and non-economic losses and damages cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.” She says there is a need to prioritize investments in supporting adaptation efforts, acknowledging the urgent need for resilience in the face of climate change impacts. She is hopeful as diverse group of eleven philanthropic organizations committed on December 2 to develop a joint strategic plan, joining the global chorus of voices calling for increased funding and action on climate adaptation.

    Balancing Economic Goals and Climate Policies

    Dagnet also highlights the challenge of balancing economic goals while adhering to climate policies, emphasizing the integration of climate policy into the broader development agenda. She illustrated the economic risks posed by climate-related disasters, citing examples of hurricanes causing widespread destruction. “Resilient infrastructure is vital, as even substantial economic gains can be wiped out if development projects are not resilient to floods, hurricanes, and other climate-related events,” she said.

    Exploring the business sense of investing in reducing emissions, Dagnet highlights that, with the decreasing costs of renewable energy, it is not only an environmental imperative but also financially prudent. “The cost-effectiveness of renewable energy makes a compelling case for nations to prioritize emission reduction efforts, aligning economic goals with sustainable development,” she said.

    It also means recognizing that the rare transition minerals needed to scale up the use of renewable energy require a just energy and industrial revolution, which holds immense potential for economic growth in resource-rich nations.

    “However, the risk of human rights abuses and other adverse effects should be taken into account and mitigated by focusing on value addition in mineral supply chains by reconciling with the protection of activists and frontline communities, including people’s rights in land use, labor, and conservation of cultural heritage.”

    The Role of the Private Sector

    Dagnet further delves into the role of the private sector in climate action, focusing on areas such as adaptation and loss and damage. She acknowledged the challenges faced by the private sector in engaging with these aspects, emphasizing the need for them to integrate climate risk into their business models. “While adaptation may not seem immediately profitable, the long-term consequences of inaction are severe,” she says. She suggests that insurance companies need to review their business models, considering how they can better contribute to tackling losses and damages.

    Technology for Addressing Climate Change

    Turning to the role of technology in addressing climate change, Dagnet discussed the potential and pitfalls. She advocates for a “balanced approach that leverages indigenous knowledge alongside technological solutions. Dagnet highlights the importance of proper assessment, monitoring, safeguards, and global governance to mitigate the risks associated with less-proven and more controversial solutions like geoengineering, carbon dioxide removal, and carbon capture and storage. This is critical for responsible technology deployment, recognizing that while technology can offer solutions, it must be guided by ethical considerations, an understanding of potential risks, and the design of appropriate guardrails to minimize unintended adverse impacts.” She suggested that a holistic approach, which includes both technological advancements and indigenous knowledge, together with a more participatory process bringing various constituencies from both the global north and global south, provides a more robust foundation for addressing climate change challenges in an innovative and equitable way.

    Civil Society’s Accountability Role

    Dagnet further highlighted the vital role of civil society in holding governments accountable for their climate commitments, including their financial pledges. She contends that efforts to “measure progress and scrutinize government actions are essential tools for civil society to hold governments accountable for their commitments.” She also acknowledged the power of public pressure to drive governments to take more ambitious climate action. Dagnet emphasized the need for a multi-faceted approach, combining legal frameworks, grassroots movements, and international collaboration based on robust data and supported by nuanced and more sophisticated communication strategies, to hold governments accountable on the global stage effectively.

    Assessment of International Agreements

    Dagnet provided a sober assessment of the international agreements reached so far in the fight against climate change. She also acknowledged that the world is far from achieving its climate objectives, and the window to meet temperature goals is shrinking rapidly. But like many climate justice avengers, she is not defeated and points out ways COP28 and its global stocktake can create an inflection point, with a “course correction pathway” that highlights the need for increased attention to scaling up efforts to keep global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius and enhance resilience, especially in the face of recent climate-related disasters globally. “No country is immune to the disasters the climate change is unleashing. It is imperative to scale up and speed up efforts to keep fossil fuels on the ground while focusing on building resilience to mitigate the impact of climate change,” she concluded.

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  • Why is There Funding for War But Never for Climate finance, Ask Feminists

    Why is There Funding for War But Never for Climate finance, Ask Feminists

    A feminist coalition called for feminist approaches to combating climate change. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS
    • by Umar Manzoor Shah (dubai)
    • Inter Press Service

    DUBAI, Dec 02 (IPS) – The Feminist Green New Deal Coalition has highlighted feminist climate solutions and shared feminist policies and frameworks that are advancing just climate policies at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 27th session of the Conference of Parties (COP28) in Dubai.

    US-based Feminist Green New Deal Coalition shared at a press conference that to truly address the root causes, as well as the scope and scale of the climate crisis, feminist approaches and principles are necessary for a cross-cutting approach that combats historical oppression and uplifts the leadership of marginalized groups.

    Katherine Quaid (Confederated Tribes of Umatilla) and communications coordinator, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), Mara Dolan, US Program Manager, Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), Jacqui Patterson, Founder and Executive Director, The Chisholm Legacy Project, Julia Bernal (Sandia Pueblo/Yuchi), executive director at Pueblo Action Alliance, and Dr Frances Roberts-Gregory, a feminist political ecologist at Harvard University, spoke during the conference.

    The participants called for a paradigm shift, urging feminists to unite against environmental injustices by incorporating Indigenous wisdom, supporting regenerative economies, and demanding a just transition to create a more equitable and sustainable world.

    Dolan said that the coalition firmly asserted that no military spending can be truly sustainable.

    “Our advocacy extends beyond the call for “green” militaries to a resolute commitment to organizing against militarization.The alarming reality of the US funding the genocide of the Palestinian people raises questions about misplaced financial priorities. We question why there is always funding for war but never for climate finance,” she said.

    According to Patterson inequities, profiteers dominate governance systems all over the world, putting racial justice issues on the back burner.

    “To counter this, we demand representation for frontline defenders in decision-making spaces related to water, energy, and environmental policies. Acknowledging the environmental consequences of US imperialist practices, we recognize and welcome those who migrate due to the adverse effects on their environment, fostering insecure circumstances,” Patterson said.

    Bernal, who is Executive Director at Pueblo Action Alliance on Climate Change and Soil Impact, emphasized the urgency of addressing climate change and highlighted the impact on land and soil, which “if left unattended, could result in faster water movement, floods, and a diminishing supply of usable water.”

    On Indigenous Wisdom and Resistance, Dr Frances Roberts-Gregory said that the Indigenous people, often undermined by states, hold valuable knowledge in caring for the land and water. “Their traditional models should be uplifted to protect both the environment and its people.”

    The speakers also underscored feminist solutions grounded in activist research, challenged data analysis, and advocated for a just transition.

    “We underscore the importance of regenerative economies, youth activism, and respecting Indigenous rights and knowledge. We stress the significance of storytelling to prevent the erasure of experiences. In the pursuit of a common goal, we call for unity, leaving behind our differences to confront a larger, shared enemy,” was their message.

    In early 2019, a collaboration emerged among organizations advocating for women’s rights and climate justice. Acknowledging the importance of integrating feminist perspectives into discussions about a healthy planet and communities, these groups recognized gender equality as a pivotal element.

    The need for a feminist intervention led to the creation of the Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal.

    “The agenda, shaped collectively, will continue to evolve through campaigns and initiatives beyond Fall 2019, with its future direction determined collaboratively,” said Quaid.
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  • Restoring Indigenous Trees: New Mission to Combat Climate Change in Rwanda

    Restoring Indigenous Trees: New Mission to Combat Climate Change in Rwanda

    Nearly 30 species of indigenous species have been identified to guide tree planting in various locations, including in urban areas, to restore ecosystems and the advantages and services we receive from them in Rwanda. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS
    • by Aimable Twahirwa (kigali)
    • Inter Press Service

    KIGALI, Dec 01 (IPS) – With the ongoing national tree-planting campaign, Rwanda seeks to replace its degraded forest resulting from charcoal production and firewood and increase the need for construction materials with new indigenous trees to combat climate change.

    By using the power of carbon markets to fight climate change, Rwanda aims to reduce 4.6 million metric tons of carbon emissions across different key sectors, including forest, through its ambitious climate action agenda that features a 38 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions compared to business-as-usual by 2030.

    Rwanda’s ambitious carbon market strategy has been designed to enhance forest protection and significantly boost the country’s capacity to absorb carbon emissions, but some scientists believe that while planting trees is important, what is very critical is what species of tree to plant and where to plant it.

    “People need to underpin the tree planting with knowledge of what ecosystems were before this massive land cover change,” said Professor Beth Kaplin, the Director of the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resources Management of the University of Rwanda, while referring to the current situation in Rwanda.

    Experts emphasize the need for a shift so that the country ends the homogenization of the landscape, where all riparian zones should not be all one tree species, like it is the case today across different remote rural parts of Rwanda.

    “We need to have these native trees scattered around the Rwandan landscape to maximize nature’s contributions to people,” Kaplin told IPS in an exclusive interview.

    The Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resources Management at the University of Rwanda has identified 29 indigenous species that can help guide tree planting in the appropriate locations to restore ecosystems and the advantages and services we receive from them in Rwanda.

    But the critical step, according to researchers, is for local community members to gain knowledge of these native trees, how they grow, and their multiple values.

    Soil erosion control in particular suffers the most with plantation-style forest restoration, while native tree species can sequester carbon and attract birds, insects, and pollinators that can serve the surrounding agricultural landscape, according to the researchers.

    One of the latest studies conducted by a team of researchers from different Rwandan and Swedish universities has demonstrated that shifts in seasonal variations in rainfall and temperature recorded across the East African region, with high mountains and Great Lakes, are likely to affect tree species composition and the carbon balance of tropical forests.

    Dr. Aloysie Manishimwe, one of the co-authors of the study from the Department of Biology, College of Science and Technology, University Rwanda, told IPS that in most cases, tree plantations have an advantage only in wood production, but they are not as helpful as restoring natural forests when it comes to the conservation of biodiversity.

    “When restoration goals are about environmental benefits, we should aim to restore native forests,” she said.

    While findings show that montane rainforests are very productive and contain more biomass and carbon than their indigenous counterparts, they are mostly grown in a warmer climate.

    Currently, Rwandan officials urge farmers to change their misguided mindset if they are to take an interest in planting indigenous trees.

    According to Concorde Nsengumuremyi, the Director General of the Rwanda Forestry Authority, the majority of farmers still prefer non-indigenous species such as Eucalyptus, which make quick profits in the short term, instead of adopting recommended indigenous species.

    Rwanda has exceeded its 30 percent forest cover target by 2020, and the country has achieved 30.4 percent, according to figures from the government.

    Although some officials seem to lack information and are missing the big picture of the environmental, health, and economic benefits of indigenous trees in Rwanda, some experts point out that there is still a vast underrecognized opportunity, such as planting these species on road edges and urban areas, where they can greatly contribute to green urbanization.

    “Urban parks, road edges, and landscaping around buildings—these can all use native species and replace the non-native species,” said Kaplin, who backs the initiative.

    Native tree planting is usually among the most warmly welcomed green options that can help accelerate climate action—voluntary and compliance carbon markets in Rwanda in line with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement signed in 2015.

    Currently, researchers are looking to engage with local administrative officials to establish a list of indigenous trees in line with the Spatial Biodiversity Assessment as a tool to guide restoration practices, including native tree planting.

    “Our youth are growing up without knowing what the native trees look like in Rwanda; we need to have these native trees scattered around the Rwandan landscape to maximize nature’s contributions to people,” Kaplin said.

    The Rwanda Forest Authority predicts that the country will plant 4.9 million fruit trees, 6.7 million ornamental trees, 273,590 bamboo trees, 34.2 million agro-forestry trees, and 16.5 million trees in general for different purposes.

    Rwanda is not the only country that is planting trees. Earlier in November, the Kenyan government declared a public holiday to encourage the planting of trees, aiming for 15 billion trees by 2032.

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  • Latin America Still Has a Long Way to Go to Eliminate Gender Violence

    Latin America Still Has a Long Way to Go to Eliminate Gender Violence

    “He who loves does not kill, does not humiliate or mistreat” reads a poster carried in a protest against violence against women in Lima, the capital of Peru, which is part of a slogan repeated in demonstrations against femicides and other forms of sexist violence in Latin America. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
    • by Mariela Jara (lima)
    • Inter Press Service

    LIMA, Nov 24 (IPS) – This article is part of IPS coverage of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, celebrated Saturday, Nov. 25.”The Latin American and Caribbean region has made many advances in the fight against gender violence, but now we are facing reactions that show that our rights are never secure and that we must always be on the alert to defend them,” said Susana Chiarotti, a member of Mesecvi’s Committee of Experts.

    The Committee of Experts is the technical body of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Mesecvi), known as the Convention of Belem do Para, which will celebrate its 30th anniversary in force in the countries of the region in 2024. The committee is made up of independent experts appointed by each state party.

    Chiarotti summed up the regional situation of progress and setbacks in a conversation with IPS from her home in the Argentine city of Rosario, ahead of the United Nations’ Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, commemorated on Saturday, Nov. 25.

    Gender violence violates the human rights of one in four women in this region with an estimated female population of 332 million, 51 percent of the total, and escalates to the extreme level of femicide – gender-based murders – which cost 4050 lives in 2022, according to figures confirmed Friday, Nov. 24 by the Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean.

    Likewise, UN Women‘s regional director for the Americas and the Caribbean, María Noel Vaeza, told IPS from Panama City that the emblematic date seeks to draw the attention of countries to the urgent need to put an end to violence against women once and for all by adopting public policies for prevention and investing in programs to eliminate it.

    She pointed out that Nov. 25 is the first of 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, which run through Dec. 10, Human Rights Day.

    Vaeza said that less than 40 percent of women who suffer violence seek some kind of help, which clearly shows that they do not find guarantees in the prevention and institutional response system and therefore do not report incidents.

    “This has serious consequences for their lives and those of other women, as the perpetrators do not face justice and impunity and violence continue unchecked,” she said.

    Uruguayan María Noel Vaeza, UN Women regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, draws the attention of countries to the urgent need to put an end to violence against women through the adoption of public policies for prevention and investment in programs to eliminate it. CREDIT: UN Women
    Uruguayan María Noel Vaeza, UN Women regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, draws the attention of countries to the urgent need to put an end to violence against women through the adoption of public policies for prevention and investment in programs to eliminate it. CREDIT: UN Women

    Vaeza said that, despite these worrying trends, there is more evidence than ever that violence against women is preventable, and urged countries in the region to invest in prevention.

    “The evidence shows that the presence of a strong, autonomous feminist movement is a critical factor in driving public policy change for the elimination of violence against women at the global, regional, national and local levels,” said the UN Women regional head.

    She explained that many studies have shown that large-scale reductions in violence against women can be achieved through coordinated action between local and national prevention and response systems and women’s and other civil society organizations.

    So in order to move towards regulatory frameworks and improve the institutional architecture and budget allocations to prevent, respond to and redress gender-based violence, strengthening the advocacy capacity of feminist and women’s movements and organizations is indispensable.

    She also mentioned that whenever progress is made, there are setbacks as well, and “unfortunately history shows us that social changes against things like machismo/sexism and violence require the efforts of society as a whole and plans and policies that give answers to the victims today, but also make it possible to improve the system in the medium and long term.”

    Vaeza stressed that violence against women and girls remains the most pervasive human rights violation around the world. Its prevalence worsened in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and is growing further due to the interrelated crises of climate change, global conflicts and economic instability.

    She also mentioned the proliferation of new forms of violence and the persistence of those “who believe that we do not have to guarantee women’s human rights, and organize themselves, and in the region we have situations such as attacks against women human rights defenders and activists that have become more frequent.”

    Vaeza, from Uruguay, underlined that there is more evidence than ever that it is possible to change this reality and that in order to have peaceful societies, reducing inequality and poverty is key, and all this will depend on advancing gender equality and the rights of those who have historically faced discrimination.

    They are mainly, she said, women living in poverty, indigenous women, women of African descent, rural women, women migrants, and women and girls with disabilities.

    Susana Chiarotti is a member of the Committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention, which has been monitoring the performance of States in their obligation to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women for the past 30 years. CREDIT: Cladem Argentina
    Susana Chiarotti is a member of the Committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention, which has been monitoring the performance of States in their obligation to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women for the past 30 years. CREDIT: Cladem Argentina

    Strong reactions to progress

    Chiarotti said: “I have been with Mesecvi for 20 years and I can see the changes. Let’s remember that it was only in 1989 that laws on violence against women began to be enacted and that we did not have services, shelters, specialized courts and even less a specific Convention to address this issue, which was the first in the world.”

    The lawyer and university professor emphasized that in 40 years the women’s movement has put the issue of violence against women on the public agenda and has made such huge strides that “we could be called the most successful lobby in history in positioning an issue in such a massive and global manner.”

    And she added that “we did not believe then, in 1986, 1987 or 1988, that the phenomenon had permeated all structures, not only the intimate sphere; there was symbolic, institutional, political and many other forms of violence, which led us to demand more answers, especially from the State, which, being patriarchal, admitted women only with forceps.”

    Chiarotti, who is also a former head of the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (Cladem), warns that they are now facing reactions to the extent that unimaginable alliances have arisen to stop them, such as that of the Vatican with conservative evangelical churches and far-right groups.

    She also mentioned the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that in June 2022 overthrew the right to abortion in that country, which had been in force for almost 50 years.

    “That makes you realize that our rights are never secure, that we must always be on the alert to defend them. And it is difficult for a movement that is cyclical, that has waves, that rises and falls, to be always alert,” she said.

    In addition, she mentioned the recent victory of the candidate Javier Milei as future president of Argentina and the dangers he represents for women’s rights, sexual diversity and the historical memory of human rights abuses.

    “This will not be the first time that this people, and women especially, will enter a stage of resistance, because we have been resisting misogynistic attacks and fighting for life for centuries, but we have a very hard time ahead of us,” Chiarotti said.

    She added that Latin America has fragile democracies that are only a few decades old and in crisis, which impact women’s rights. “Many of our countries came out of dictatorships, the longest has had 50 or 60 years of democracy. We will have to work to defend democratic institutions, to use them to defend our rights,” she said.

    Holding up signs demanding "No to violence" and "No to machismo," women demonstrate against gender violence in front of Peru's main courthouse in Lima. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
    Holding up signs demanding “No to violence” and “No to machismo,” women demonstrate against gender violence in front of Peru’s main courthouse in Lima. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

    Prevention: a task eluded by the States

    The expert argued that since the work of preventing gender-based violence is more costly and time-consuming than that of punishment and less politically profitable, the efforts of countries are weak in this area despite their importance.

    “Limiting the work to punishment and addressing incidents is like seeing a big rock that people stumble over and bang up against, and they are cured and taught to go around it, but without removing it from the path. Without prevention we will always have victims because the discriminatory culture that reproduces violence will not be transformed,” she warned.

    But even adding up what countries invest to address and eradicate violence against women in the region, none of them reach one percent of their national budget according to the Third Hemispheric Report published by Mesecvi in 2017, a proportion that has apparently not changed since then.

    In September of this year, the United Nations published a study showing that an investment of 360 billion dollars is needed to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment by 2030, established as one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This would help to eliminate the scourge of gender-based violence.

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  • Africa Will Not Cope with Climate Change Without a Just, Inclusive Energy Transition

    Africa Will Not Cope with Climate Change Without a Just, Inclusive Energy Transition

    Climate change impact on Africa has been devastating as this photo taken in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai in Mozambique shows. Credit: Denis Onyodi / IFRC/DRK
    • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
    • Inter Press Service

    NAIROBI, Nov 24 (IPS) – A just transition should be viewed as an opportunity to rectify some of the wrongs where women are not prioritised in the energy mix, yet their experience of the impact of climate change is massive, says Thandile Chinyavanhu, a young South African-based climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Africa.

    Recent UN scientific research on the state of the climate change crisis and ongoing climate action reveals that the window to reach climate goals is rapidly closing. The world is not on track to reach the goals set out in the Paris Agreement, which commits all countries to pursue efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

    To achieve this goal, emissions must decrease by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. Ahead of COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), expectations are high that a clear roadmap to net zero progress will be reached, bringing issues of energy, a global energy transition, and energy security into sharp focus.

    The energy sector has a significant impact on climate as it accounts for an estimated two-thirds of all harmful greenhouse gas emissions. The burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of the ongoing global climate change crisis, significantly altering planet Earth. The issue of energy and climate is of particular concern to African countries, especially the Sub-Saharan Africa region, as they also relate to increased vulnerabilities for women, especially rural women. The intersection between energy security and economic growth, poverty reduction, and the empowerment of women and girls is not in doubt.

    Still, despite access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy for all being articulated under the UN’s SDG 7, one in eight people around the world has no access to electricity. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, nearly 600 million people, or an estimated 53 percent of the region’s population, have no access to electricity. Currently, less than a fifth of African countries have targets to reach universal electricity access by 2030. For some, the silver bullet is to dump fossil fuels and go green; for others, it is an urgent, just, and equitable transition to renewables.

    IPS spoke to Chinyavanhu about her role as a social justice and climate activist. She says she wants to contribute to climate change mitigation, ensuring that people and cities are prepared for climate change and can adapt to what is coming.

    Thandile Chinyavanhu
    Thandile Chinyavanhu

    Here are excerpts from the interview.

    IPS: Why are current energy systems untenable, considering the ongoing climate change crisis?

    Chinyavanhu: On going green and dumping fossil fuels, there are several issues at play, and they vary from country to country. Fossil fuels—coal, oil, and gas—are by far the largest contributors to global climate change, as they account for more than 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions. South Africa, for instance, has a big coal mining industry and is one of the top five coal-exporting countries globally. The country relies heavily on coal for about 70 percent of its total electricity production. We need to move away from energy consumption models that are exacerbating the climate crisis, but we must also ensure that we are centred on a just transition.

    IPS: What should a ‘just energy transition’ look like for Africa and other developing nations?

    Chinyavanhu: Overall, we are looking at issues of socio-economic development models that leave no one behind. To achieve this, renewable energy is the pathway that provides us with energy security and accelerated development. We have serious energy-related challenges due to a lack of preparation and planning around the energy crisis. The challenge is that Africa needs energy and, at the same time, accelerates its development in a manner that leaves no one behind, be it women or any other vulnerable group that is usually left behind in policy responses.

    There is a need to address challenges regarding access to energy for all so that, in transitioning to clean energy, we do not have any groups of people being left behind, as has been the case. This is not so much a problem or challenge as an opportunity for countries to address gaps in access to energy and ensure that it is accessible to all, especially women, bearing in mind the many roles they play in society, including nurturing the continent’s future workforce. A just energy transition is people-centred.

    We must recognise and take stock of the economic impact that moving from fossil fuels to clean energy could have on people and their livelihoods, such as those in the mining sector. It is crucial that people are brought along in the process of transition, giving them the tools and resources needed for them to be absorbed into new clean energy models. There is a very deep socio-economic aspect to it because people must be given the skills and capacities to engage in emerging green systems and industries.

    IPS: As a young woman activist, what do you think the roles of women in an energy transition are?

    Chinyavanhu: Women are generally not prioritised, and so they do not have the same opportunities as men, even in matters of climate change adaptation and mitigation, and this is true for sectors such as agriculture and mining. Women have great economic potential and have a very big role to play towards a just energy transition as key drivers of socio-economic progress.

    In the green energy space, economic opportunities are opening up. Men are quickly taking over the renewable energy industry, but there are plenty of opportunities for women to succeed if given the right resources. We are at a point in time when we have the opportunity to leave behind polluting technologies and, at the same time, address some of the key socio-economic challenges that have plagued societies for a long time.

    This transition should be viewed as an opportunity to rectify some of those wrongs in a way that is people-centred and inclusive. No one should be left behind. It is really about building harmony with nature while also addressing many of the socio-economic issues that plague us today. This is more of an opportunity than a hurdle. It is about understanding and rectifying systems’ thinking that contributes to women being left behind. It is important that we see the bigger picture—identify and acknowledge that different groups—not just women, but any identifier that places people at a point of vulnerability—have been left furthest behind. The energy transition process has presented an opportunity to make it right.

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  • COP28: Climate Summit in Closed Civic Space

    COP28: Climate Summit in Closed Civic Space

    Credit: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Bloomberg Philanthropies
    • Opinion by Andrew Firmin (london)
    • Inter Press Service

    LONDON, Nov 17 (IPS) – The need to act on the climate crisis has never been clearer. In 2023, heat records have been shattered around the world. Seemingly every day brings news of extreme weather, imperilling lives. In July, UN Secretary-General António Guterres grimly announced that ‘the era of global boiling has arrived’.

    In short, there’s a lot at stake as the world heads into its next climate summit.

    But there’s a big problem: COP28, the latest in the annual series of conferences of parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, will be held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This is a country with closed civic space, where dissent is criminalised and activists are routinely detained. It’s also a fossil fuel power bent on continuing extraction.

    At multilateral summits where climate change decisions are made, it’s vital that civil society is able to mobilise to demand greater ambition, hold states and fossil fuel companies and financiers to account and ensure the views of people most affected by climate change are heard. But that can’t happen in conditions of closed civic space.

    Concerning signs

    In September, the UAE was added to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, which highlights countries experiencing significant declines in respect for civic freedoms. Civic space in the UAE has long been closed: no dissent against the government or advocacy for human rights is allowed, and those who try to speak out risk criminalisation. In 2022, a Cybercrime Law introduced even stronger restrictions on online expression.

    There’s widespread torture in jails and detention centres and at least 58 prisoners of conscience have been held in prison despite having completed their sentences. Many of them were part of a group known as the UAE 94, jailed for the crime of calling for democracy. Among the ranks of those incarcerated is Ahmed Mansoor, sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2018 for his work documenting the human rights situation, and held in solitary confinement for over five years and counting.

    Ahead of COP28, civil society has worked to highlight the absurdity of holding such a vital summit in closed civic space conditions. Domestic civil society is unable to influence COP28 and its preparatory process, and it’s hard to see how civil society, both domestic and international, will be able to express itself freely during the summit.

    Civil society is demanding that the UAE government demonstrate that it’s prepared to respect human rights, including by releasing political prisoners – something it’s so far failed to budge on.

    An ominous sign came when the UAE hosted a climate and health summit in April. Participants were reportedly instructed not to criticise the government, corporations, individuals or Islam, and not to protest while in the UAE.

    Civic space restrictions aren’t the only indication the UAE isn’t taking COP28 seriously. The president of the summit, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, also happens to be head of the state’s fossil fuel corporation ADNOC, the world’s 11th-biggest oil and gas producer. It’s like putting an arms manufacturer in charge of peace talks. Multiple other ADNOC staff members have roles in the summit. ADNOC is currently talking up its investments in renewable energies, all while planning one of the biggest expansions of oil and gas extraction of any fossil fuel corporation.

    Instead of real action, all the signs are that the regime is instrumentalising its hosting of COP28 to try to launder its reputation, as indicated by its hiring of expensive international lobbying firms. An array of fake social media accounts were created to praise the UAE as host and defend it from criticism. A leaked list of key COP28 talking points prepared by the host made no mention of fossil fuels.

    A summit that should be about tackling the climate crisis – and quickly – is instead being used to greenwash the image of the host government – something easiest achieved if civil society is kept at arm’s length.

    Fossil fuel lobby to the fore

    With civil society excluded, the voices of those actively standing in the way of climate action will continue to dominate negotiations. That’s what happened at COP27, also held in the closed civic space of Egypt, where 636 fossil fuel lobbyists took part – and left happy. Like every summit before it, its final statement made no commitment to reduce oil and gas use.

    The only way to change this is to open the doors to civil society. Civil society has consistently sounded the alarm and raised public awareness of the need for climate action. It’s the source of practical solutions to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts. It urges more ambitious commitments and more funding, including for the loss and damage caused by climate change. It defends communities against environmentally destructive impacts, resists extraction and promotes sustainability. It pressures states and the private sector to stop approving and financing further extraction and to transition more urgently to more renewable energies and more sustainable practices. These are the voices that must be heard if the cycle of runaway climate change is to be stopped.

    COPs should be held in countries that offer an enabling civic space that allows strong domestic mobilisation, and summit hosts should be expected to abide by high standards when it comes to domestic and international access and participation. That should be part of the deal hosts make in return for the global prestige that comes with hosting high-level events. Civil society’s exclusion mustn’t be allowed to happen again.

    Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.


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  • Argentines Get Used to the Fact that Inflation Can Always Get Worse

    Argentines Get Used to the Fact that Inflation Can Always Get Worse

    José Lonardi stands in his tiny candy and beverage shop in downtown Buenos Aires. Customers, he says, have lost all reference points for the price of products in Argentina and so nothing surprises them anymore. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman / IPS
    • by Daniel Gutman (buenos aires)
    • Inter Press Service

    BUENOS AIRES, Nov 16 (IPS) – People in Argentina have become accustomed to the fact that nothing costs the same today as it did the week before and they take price hikes in stride with resignation, says Mariano Cohen. “Almost nobody gets angry or complains anymore. They just don’t buy something if they can’t afford it,” he explains in his disposable goods store in Villa Crespo, one of Buenos Aires’ most commercial neighborhoods.

    Mariano sells plastic cups, plates and bowls, cardboard packaging rolls and aluminum containers. He serves bars, restaurants and the public. He has a large sales room, about 80 square meters, and a mezzanine of the same size, which he uses as a warehouse and is a great asset for a merchant who sells non-perishable products.

    The business owner tells IPS that he buys and stocks as much merchandise as he can, to anticipate price hikes.

    “If I don’t have more, it’s because there’s no more coming in or because they don’t want to sell me large quantities. The other day a supplier suspended a very important delivery from one minute to the next and gave me back the money I had already paid him,” he comments, with the same gesture of resignation that, he says, his customers make when faced with the prices in his store.

    The economy of this South American country, with a long history of imbalances and inflation, has entered a spiral of permanent price increases that has already squelched the capacity for amazement of its 46 million inhabitants.

    In Argentina, the absurd has been normal for some time: here you can buy a pair of shoes in six installments without interest, with financing subsidized by the government or even by private banks, but to buy a house you must pay in cash, because mortgages are almost non-existent. Today, price rises are so common that people are surprised the few times that a price is the same from one week to the next.

    In 2021, there was concern when inflation climbed to 50 percent per year, partly attributed to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced an increase in currency issuance to meet social assistance needs. However, people soon became nostalgic for this figure: in 2022 the index climbed to 95 percent, the highest since 1991.

    Even so, the economy of this nation – where more than 40 percent of the population is poor and practically no private sector employment has been created for the last 12 years – seems to be determined to prove that it can always get worse.

    This year inflation climbed again, to an accumulative 103 percent in the first nine months alone, reaching 138 percent in the interannual index (from September 2022 to September 2023), according to official data. Projections indicate that 2023 will end with an increase in consumer prices of around 150 percent.

    An employee uses a machine to count banknotes in a store in Patagonia in southern Argentina. The constant increase in prices has meant that many products must be paid for with dozens of bills of the devalued Argentine peso and has forced stores to buy counting machines to save time. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman / IPS
    An employee uses a machine to count banknotes in a store in Patagonia in southern Argentina. The constant increase in prices has meant that many products must be paid for with dozens of bills of the devalued Argentine peso and has forced stores to buy counting machines to save time. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman / IPS

    Emerging and drowning again

    “I feel that the day I get paid my salary is the best day of the month, but also the worst,” Ariel Machado tells IPS, laughing bitterly.

    “I’m happy when I get paid, but when I set aside the money for fixed expenses and calculate how much I’ll have left, I feel like I’m drowning again,” says Ariel, who has a son and is separated from his wife, and who is employed by a well-known public relations agency in Buenos Aires and also sells selected wines over the Internet to supplement his income.

    A typical member of the strong middle class of Buenos Aires, used to going on vacation to the beaches of Brazil and dining in restaurants a couple of times a week, Ariel says that those things are now just memories and that today he sometimes feels like he’s spinning “on a wheel of unhappiness, because of the amount of things I want to do and can’t.”

    He tries to forget about it, but doesn’t succeed. “Worrying about money consumes a lot of energy. Three years ago I couldn’t save either, but this didn’t happen to me. Now there are days when even having a cup of coffee outside the office seems like a wasteful luxury,” he says.

    By his own admission, Ariel is not even remotely among the most vulnerable segments of the population, who spend practically all their income on food, prices of which have been rising more than average.

    Latin America’s third largest economy is immersed in a process of stagnation and deterioration that began in 2012 and caused the governing parties to lose the last two presidential elections, in 2015 and 2019.

    On Sunday Nov. 19, the next president will be chosen in a runoff election in which the ruling party’s centrist candidate Sergio Massa will compete against the far-right opposition candidate Javier Milei.

    Only the extravagant proposals of Milei, who calls for the free carrying of arms and the creation of a market for the sale of organs, in addition to immediate dollarization and the elimination of the local peso from the Central Bank, have made Massa, who since 2022 is the Minister of Economy, competitive.

    Elections always generate even more instability in the economy and situations that are difficult for visitors to understand.

    Those who can afford to do so stock up on items in anticipation of what will happen to prices and consumption after the elections.

    Thus, September, the month prior to the first round of elections, showed a strong increase in consumption in supermarkets (eight percent above the previous month, according to private sector data), comparable only to March 2020, when the pandemic confinement began.

    In any case, the impact of inflation on the poorest is especially visible in the outskirts of the capital. Greater Buenos Aires is home to 15.5 million people, or one third of Argentina’s population, where more and more people sleep on the streets or wander around in search of something to eat.

    The poor suffer from a decline that is measured not only in terms of income but also with respect to access to basic services and to environmental conditions.

    A paper published in October by the Argentine Catholic University’s (UCA) well-respected Observatory of Social Debt found that since 2018 a process of reduction of the inequality gap began in Greater Buenos Aires, but due to the worsening living conditions of the middle class rather than to improvements in households in the most impoverished neighborhoods.

    Members of these vulnerable sectors of Buenos Aires told IPS that the escalation of inflation is more a problem of the middle class people living in the city, who have to lower their standard of living and who are becoming poorer, while in their case “we were and are so bad off that a jump in inflation of 100 to 150 percent does not change anything for us.”

    In addition, part of the poorest population of Buenos Aires and its outlying areas receives social assistance from the central or city governments, or from non-governmental organizations.

    A supermarket in Buenos Aires displays a sign from the "Fair Prices" program, which consists of an agreement between the Argentine government and companies to curb the prices of basic products. People frequently complain that the products are often not available, due to the reluctance of the companies to comply with this commitment. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman / IPS
    A supermarket in Buenos Aires displays a sign from the “Fair Prices” program, which consists of an agreement between the Argentine government and companies to curb the prices of basic products. People frequently complain that the products are often not available, due to the reluctance of the companies to comply with this commitment. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman / IPS

    No reference point

    José Lonardi owns a tiny shop selling candy, beverages and cigarettes on Paraguay Street, a few blocks from the Obelisk, an icon of downtown Buenos Aires. The prices of the merchandise, he tells IPS, increase almost every week, sometimes by three to five percent, and sometimes by 20 to 30 percent.

    “Two or three years ago, customers still complained when prices went up, because they had some point of reference. Today, inflation has picked up so fast that nobody knows how much things are worth and nobody says anything anymore,” he remarks.

    Against this backdrop, contradictory advice is rampant. The value of pesos is melting like ice cream under the sun and people want to get rid of them. On afternoon TV programs, a steady parade of economists advise people to buy large quantities of toilet paper to beat inflation.

    Many people, however, do not pay attention to them: in different neighborhoods of Buenos Aires restaurants are always full, even on weekdays. “In the Argentine economy nobody knows what might happen next week. So pesos are burning holes in people’s pockets, and people, as long as they have them, spend them,” says José.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Argentina: Unpalatable Choices in Election Plagued with Uncertainty

    Argentina: Unpalatable Choices in Election Plagued with Uncertainty

    Credit: Tomás Cuesta/Getty Images
    • Opinion by Ines M Pousadela (montevideo, uruguay)
    • Inter Press Service

    MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Nov 03 (IPS) – For many of Argentina’s voters the choice in the 19 November presidential runoff is between the lesser of two evils: Sergio Massa, economy minister of a government that’s presiding over a once-in-a-generation economic meltdown with a whopping 140-per cent inflation rate, or Javier Milei, a far-right libertarian who admires Donald Trump, wants to shut down the Central Bank and wields a chainsaw in public as a symbol of his willingness to slash the state. Many will rue that it ever came to this.

    A peculiar outsider

    A post-modern media celebrity, Milei’s performance style is a perfect fit for social media. He’s easily angered, reacts violently and insults copiously. He’s unapologetically sexist and mocks identity politics.

    Milei bangs the drum for ‘anarcho-capitalism’, an ultra-individualistic ideology in which the market has absolute pre-eminence: earlier this year, he described the sale of human organs as ‘just another market’.

    To expand his appeal beyond this extreme economic niche he forged an alliance with the culturally conservative right. His running mate, Victoria Villarruel, represents the backlash against abortion – legalised after decades of civil society campaigning in 2020 – and sexual diversity and gender equality policies, along with reappraisal of the murderous military dictatorship that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983.

    In the run-up to primary elections in August, the two mainstream coalitions – the centre-left incumbent Union for the Homeland (UP) and the centre-right opposition Together for Change (JxC) – displayed a notable lack of leadership and indulged in internal squabbles that showed very little empathy for people’s daily struggles. All they had to offer in the face of widespread concerns about inflation and insecurity were the candidacies of the current minister of the economy and a former minister of security. They made it easy for Milei to hold them responsible for decades of corruption, ineffectiveness and failure.

    In Milei’s discourse, the hardworking, productive majority is being bled dry by taxation to maintain the privileges of a parasitic and corrupt political ‘caste’. His proposal is deceptively simple: shrink the state to a minimum to destroy the caste that lives off it, clearing their way for individual progress.

    Milei gained traction among young voters, particularly young men, via TikTok. He found fertile ground among a generation that no longer expect to be better off than their parents. While many of his followers concede that his ideas may be a little crazy, they appear to be willing to take the risk of embracing the unknown on the basis that the really crazy plan would be to allow those long in control to retain their power and expect things to turn out differently. Milei has capitalised on the despair, hopelessness and accumulated anger so many rightfully feel.

    Surprise after surprise

    The first surprise came on 13 August, when Milei won the most votes of any candidate in the primaries.

    Milei only entered politics in 2021, when the 17 per cent vote he amassed in the capital, Buenos Aires, sent him and two other libertarians to the National Congress. In the 2023 primaries he went much further, winning 30 per cent of the vote. He placed ahead of JxC, whose two candidates received a joint 28 per cent, and UP, the current incarnation of the Peronist Party, which took 27 per cent. The bulk of the UP vote, 21 per cent, went to Massa. That Peronism, once the dominant force, came third was a historic first.

    The second surprise came on 22 October. Following the primaries, all talk was of Milei winning the presidency. He trumpeted his intent to win the first round outright. Measured against these expectations, his second place looks like an underperformance. But the fact that a candidate who wasn’t on the radar before the primaries has made the runoff shows how quickly the political landscape can shift.

    In the October vote Milei took almost the exact share he’d received in the primaries. Massa finished above him with almost 37 per cent, displacing JxC, which lost four points on its second-place performance in the primaries.

    The fact that the economy minister was able to distance himself from the government he’s part of – one often described as the worst in 40 years – to come first was viewed as a notable victory, even though his share was just about the lowest Peronism has ever received.

    One explanation for Massa’s improved performance was turnout, which increased by eight points to almost 78 per cent – still low for a country with compulsory voting, but enough to make a difference. Much of the increase could be credited to the political machinery that mobilised voters on election day, aided by the minister-candidate pulling as many levers as he could to improve his chances. This included putting lots of instant cash into voters’ pockets, including through tax breaks benefiting targeted groups of workers and consumers.

    An unpalatable decision

    There’s still much uncertainty ahead. Economic failure is Milei’s best propaganda, so much will depend on how the economy behaves over the next couple of weeks. Milei and the destruction he represents can’t be written off.

    Neither those currently in power nor those in the mainstream opposition recognise the obvious: Milei is their fault. They’ve held power for the best part of the past 40 years without effectively tackling any of the issues that concern people the most.

    Many voters now feel they face an unpalatable choice between a corrupt and failing government and a dangerous disruptor. They fear that if they choose to keep Milei out, their votes may be misinterpreted as a show of active support for a continuity they also reject. What’s at stake here is more than one election. If Milei is kept at bay, the political dynamics leading to the current economic dysfunction will still need to be addressed – or the far-right threat to democracy won’t end with Milei.

    Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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  • Hurricane Otis and the Indifference Toward the Children of Acapulco

    Hurricane Otis and the Indifference Toward the Children of Acapulco

    • Opinion by Rosi Orozco (acapulco, mexico)
    • Inter Press Service

    ACAPULCO, Mexico, Nov 02 (IPS) – Acapulco is a paradise. A port of golden sunsets, toasted sand, and deep blue sea. Its dream beaches captivated the hearts of Elvis Presley and Elizabeth Taylor. US President John F. Kennedy chose its shores to spend his honeymoon with Jackie Kennedy. Its luxury hotels and the untamed sea made it the most famous tourist destination in Mexico.

    Rosi OrozcoToday, Acapulco is devastated. A Category 5 hurricane—the deadliest possible rating—called “Otis” hit the beach on October 25 with incomparable force. No one anticipated it. Hours before it made landfall, it was just an inconvenient storm. Suddenly it became a deadly cyclone. Most of the hotels are destroyed, the sea swallowed people, houses were blown away, and dozens of people are dead.

    In the last century, its beauty attracted the world’s most influential celebrities. Its tranquil mornings and lively nightlife attracted actresses, singers, politicians, aristocratic musicians, and families who wanted to spend their summers by the sea. I myself spent my youth at the family timeshare apartment in Acapulco, and it was there that I met my husband Alejandro, with whom I’ve been married for 40 years. My life is permanently connected to Acapulco.

    Luxury businessmen, millionaire athletes, and Michelin-starred chefs arrived. Also drug dealers, money launderers, and men looking for girls and boys to rape in exchange for food or a few dollars for their parents who lived in the city’s poor areas.

    Because there are two Acapulcos. They both share an airport and roads, so all roads lead to that pair of versions of the same city. There is a “diamond Acapulco” where the rich vacation with all the amenities at their disposal. And there is a “traditional Acapulco,” where the poor live who work for wealthy tourists.

    The people who inhabit “diamond Acapulco” and “traditional Acapulco” do not usually cross paths. They live in the same city, but they are separated by golf courses and exclusive shopping malls. Only rich foreigners and wealthy nationals cross to the poor side when they feel a repugnant urge: to make their plans for child sex tourism a reality with girls and boys as young as 3 years old.

    Acapulco is one of the most unequal tourist destinations in the world. In Mexico, it is the most unequal municipality of all: more than 60% of its 900,000 inhabitants live in extreme poverty, which means they do not know what they will eat today or tomorrow. They are the workers who serve plates of fresh seafood, who sweep marble floors, who fill the wine glasses of tourists.

    For years, journalists and human rights organizations have told horrific stories that combine poverty, inequality, and sex tourism: a 6-year-old boy rented out to be photographed naked in exchange for milk and eggs; a 9-year-old girl sold to a Canadian tourist to be his wife for a month; homeless teenagers invited to sex parties on lavish yachts in exchange for food; parents and mothers waiting outside hotels for their children to be raped for a price paid in dollars per hour.

    Those pedophiles and child molesters turned Acapulco into the country’s primary destination for child sexual tourism. They also led Mexico to the disgraceful second position in the production of child pornography, only surpassed by Thailand, according to data from the Mexican Chamber of Deputies and the United Nations Children’s Fund.

    Today, Acapulco is a different place. Little remains of the port that enchanted singers Agustín Lara and Luis Miguel. There are thousands of poor families without homes, hundreds of workers who lost their jobs, and dozens of fishermen without boats to go out to sea to find sustenance. The destruction is so extensive that complete economic recovery is estimated to take decades, not years.

    Under these conditions, childhood is at very high risk. Many families have lost so much that their bodies are the only currency they have left. And in the dirty business of forced prostitution, child bodies are the most sought after.

    Amid this unprecedented crisis in Mexico, the Chamber of Deputies approved amendments to the general law against human trafficking. These changes aim to broaden the scope of the law enacted in 2012 and update it to address new technologies that traffickers and organized crime engaged in sexual exploitation can use. The wording has some issues that we are still analyzing, but it also includes positive aspects.

    For example, it introduces new protections for individuals with injuries, intellectual disabilities, and Afro-Mexican towns and communities. The latter represent 6.5% of the total population in Guerrero and 4% of the residents in Acapulco, according to the National Population Council.

    Civil society organizations are monitoring these changes and hope that the deputies will honor their commitment to protecting the victims.

    Meanwhile, it is the responsibility of all, not just in Mexico, to help Acapulco back on its feet, a place that has given so much to both nationals and foreigners. It won’t be easy or quick, but every day we delay puts the vulnerable children at risk due to the magnitude of sexual tourism in that beautiful port.

    After Hurricane Otis, Acapulco will be different. Its reconstruction is an opportunity to build a new city on the ruins of depravity, one with values and respect for human dignity. I long for the day to see it standing and for its coastline, beach, and air to remain a paradise, especially for children like me who grew up happily by the sea.

    IPS UN Bureau


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  • Mauritius Begins to Correct a Historic Wrong Towards LGBTQI+ People

    Mauritius Begins to Correct a Historic Wrong Towards LGBTQI+ People

    • Opinion by Ines M Pousadela (montevideo, uruguay)
    • Inter Press Service

    MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Oct 27 (IPS) – In response to lawsuits brought by LGBTQI+ activists, the Mauritius Supreme Court has issued two landmark judgments striking down the criminalisation of consensual sex between adult men as unconstitutional. Its reasoning turned upside down the argument used by anti-rights forces to attack LGBTQI+ activists in many African countries: it acknowledged that criminalisation is the foreign import rather than gay sex, and a relic of colonialism it’s high time to shake off.

    A damning colonial legacy

    As in so many other Commonwealth states, criminalisation of consensual sex between men in Mauritius dated back to the British colonial era. Former colonies inherited criminal provisions targeted at LGBTQI+ people and typically retained them on independence and through subsequent criminal law reforms long after the UK had changed its laws.

    That’s exactly what happened in Mauritius, which declared independence in 1968 but retained Criminal Code provisions criminalising homosexuality dating from 1838. Section 250 of this law punished ‘sodomy’ with penalties of up to five years in prison.

    Around the Commonwealth, same-sex sexual acts remain a criminal offence in 31 out of 56 states, often punishable with harsh jail sentences, and in three cases – Brunei, north Nigeria and Uganda – potentially with the death penalty.

    Even if extreme punishments are unlikely to be applied, as was the case in Mauritius, they have a chilling effect. Legal prohibitions stigmatise LGBTQI+ people, legitimise social prejudice and hate speech, enable violence, obstruct access to key services, notably healthcare, and deny them the full protection of the law. As a result, LGBTQI+ lives remain shrouded in uncertainty and fear.

    Conflicting trends

    Only in two Commonwealth states – Rwanda and Vanuatu – were same-sex relations never criminalised. In others, decriminalisation has come over time. A few – Australia, Canada, Malta and the UK – began processes leading to decriminalisation in the 1960s and 1970s, followed by New Zealand in the 1980s and the Bahamas, Cyprus and South Africa in the 1990s.

    As some of these states went on to make further progress, notably in equal marriage rights, civil society activism continued to fuel the decriminalisation trend in the 2010s, starting in Fiji, with nine countries following over the next decade. Four more – Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Singapore and St Kitts and Nevis – followed suit in 2022.

    The visible backlash against LGBTQI+ rights in Commonwealth states such as Ghana, Kenya and Uganda, where small gains in rights and visibility are bringing a disproportionate anti-rights response, tend to grab the headlines. The struggles of LGBTQI+ people in these countries are vital. But this shouldn’t obscure an overall trend of progress.

    There are conflicting processes at play, with a tug of war between forces struggling for the realisation of rights and those resisting advances in the name of tradition and a supposedly natural order. In this struggle setbacks are inevitable – but in the long term, the side of rights is winning.

    A rights-ward trajectory

    Things started to change in Mauritius in the mid-1990s, when the issue of healthcare for LGBTQI+ people was first raised in the National Assembly in relation to HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment. The country’s first public Pride event was held in 2005, and soon afterwards, in 2008, the Employment Rights Act banned discrimination based on sexual orientation. In 2012, the Equal Opportunities Act came into force, mandating protections in employment, education, housing and the provision of goods or services.

    In October 2019 LGBTQI+ rights activist Abdool Ridwan Firaas Ah Seek, backed by his LGBTQI+ organisation Collectif Arc-en-Ciel (Rainbow Collective), filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of section 250. Two similar challenges had been filed the previous month, including one by Najeeb Ahmad Fokeerbux of the Young Queer Alliance, alongside three other plaintiffs.

    On 4 October 2023, the Supreme Court delivered its historic decisions. In the Ah Seek case, it ruled that the constitution’s ban of discrimination based on sex includes sexual orientation, and that the prohibition of sex between consenting adult men was discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional. In the Fokeerbux case, it sustained the plaintiffs’ argument that the sodomy provision treated gay men as criminals and their sexuality as a crime and disrespected their relationships.

    Legal and social change

    Having decriminalised same-sex relations, Mauritius now places 54 out of 197 countries on Equaldex’s Equality Index, which ranks countries on their LGBTQI+-friendliness. The island nation scores 58 out of 100 points, a measure of all that remains to be done, even though it ranks far above the African region as a whole, which averages 28 points.

    Outstanding issues in Mauritius include full protections against discrimination, marriage equality and adoption rights and recognition and protections for transgender people.

    Mauritius scores higher for its legal situation than it does for public attitudes towards LGBTQI+ people. A recent survey showed that tolerance towards LGBTQI+ people has increased but there’s still work to be done. For the LGBTQI+ rights movement, it’s clear that while legal advances help normalise the existence of LGBTQI+ people, changing laws and policies is not enough.

    A welcome opportunity for visibility came three weeks after the Supreme Court ruling, when the Pride march returned to the streets of Mauritius after a two-year absence. But the opportunity was also seized by an anti-rights group to stage a demonstration against advances in LGBTQI+ rights.

    Who’s next?

    The Mauritius Supreme Court ruling was welcomed by United Nations human rights experts and agencies, which encouraged the state to continue along the reform path and called on the 66 countries that still criminalise gay sex – almost half of them in Africa – to follow suit.

    The landmark Mauritius court ruling is part of a global trend that’s likely to continue. Civil society’s successes should offer further inspiration for advocacy efforts elsewhere. But given the potential for backlash, there’s also a need to protect and defend rights and take violations of LGBTQI+ people’s rights seriously wherever they occur.

    Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.


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  • Community Solutions Combat Water Shortages in Peru’s Highlands

    Community Solutions Combat Water Shortages in Peru’s Highlands

    Fermina Quispe (fourth from the right, standing) poses for photos together with other farmers from the Women’s Association of Huerto de Nueva Esperanza, which she chairs and with which she promotes crop irrigation with solar pumps in her community, Llarapi Chico, located more than 4,000 meters above sea level in the municipality of Arapa in the southern Peruvian highlands of the department of Puno, a region badly affected by drought. CREDIT: Courtesy of Jesusa Calapuja
    • by Mariela Jara (lima)
    • Inter Press Service

    LIMA, Oct 26 (IPS) – The lack of water is so severe in Peru’s highlands that farming families are forced to sell their livestock because they cannot feed them. “There is no grass or fodder to feed them,” says Fermina Quispe, a Quechua farmer from a rural community located at 4,200 meters above sea level.

    Llarapi Chico, the name of her community, belongs to the district of Arapa in the southern Andean department of Puno, one of the 14 that the government declared in emergency on Oct. 23 due to the water deficit caused by the combined impacts of climate change and the El Niño phenomenon.

    Arapa is home to 9,600 people in its district capital and villages, most of whom are Quechua indigenous people, as in other districts of the Puna highlands.

    With a projected population of more than 1.2 million inhabitants, less than four percent of the estimated national population of over 33 million, Puno has high levels of poverty and extreme poverty, especially in rural areas.

    According to official figures, in 2022 the poverty rate in the department stood at 43 percent, compared to 40 percent and 46 percent in 2020 and 2021, respectively – years marked by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The recession of the Peruvian economy could drive up the poverty rate this year.

    In addition, Puno was shaken by the impunity surrounding nearly 20 deaths during the social protests that broke out in December 2022 demanding the resignation of interim President Dina Boluarte, who succeeded President Pedro Castillo, currently on trial for attempting to “breach the constitutional order”.

    The United Nations issued a report on Oct. 19 stating that human rights violations were committed during the crackdown on the protests, one of whose epicenters was Puno.

    Fermina Quispe is president of the Women’s Association of Huerto de Nueva Esperanza, which is made up of 22 women farmers who, like her, are getting involved in agroecological vegetable production with the support of the non-governmental organization Cedepas Centro.

    The 41-year-old community leader spoke to IPS in Chosica, on the outskirts of Lima, while she participated in the Encuentro Feminismos Diversos por el Buen Vivir (Meeting of Diverse Feminisms for Good Living), held Oct. 13-15.

    With a soft voice and a face lit up with a permanent smile, Quispe shared her life story, which was full of difficulties that far from breaking her down have strengthened her spirit and will, and have helped her to face challenges such as food security.

    Pumps fueled by 180-watt solar panels draw water from rustic wells to irrigate vegetable crops in the highland greenhouses of Peruvian farming communities. In the picture, farmer Fermina Quispe is helping to move the solar panels. CREDIT: Courtesy of Fermina Quispe
    Pumps fueled by 180-watt solar panels draw water from rustic wells to irrigate vegetable crops in the highland greenhouses of Peruvian farming communities. In the picture, farmer Fermina Quispe is helping to move the solar panels. CREDIT: Courtesy of Fermina Quispe

    As a child she witnessed the kidnapping of her father, then lieutenant governor (the local political authority) of the community of Esmeralda, where she was born, also located in Arapa. Her father and her older brother were dragged away by members of the Maoist guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), which unleashed terror in the country between 1980 and 2000.

    “A month later we found my father, they had tortured him and gouged out his eyes. My mother, at the age of 40, was left alone with 12 children and raised us on her own. I finished primary and secondary school but I couldn’t continue studying because we couldn’t afford it, we had nowhere to get the money,” she recalls calmly. Her brother was never heard from again.

    She did not have the opportunity to go to university where she wanted to be trained as an early childhood education teacher, but she developed her entrepreneurial skills.

    After she married Ciro Concepción Quispe – “he is not my relative, he is from another community,” she clarifies- they dedicated themselves to family farming and managed to acquire several cattle and small livestock such as chickens and guinea pigs, which ensured their daily food.

    Her husband is a construction worker in Arapa and earns a sporadic income, and in his free time he helps out on the farm and in community works.

    Their eldest daughter, Danitza, 18, is studying education at the public Universidad Nacional del Altiplano in Puno, the departmental capital, where she rents a room. And the youngest, 13-year-old Franco, will finish the first year of secondary school in December. His school is in the town of Arapa, a 20-minute walk from their farm.

    Fermina managed to build “my own little house” on a piece of land she acquired on her own and outside of her husband’s land, in order to have more autonomy and a place of her own “if we have conflicts,” she says.

    She also began to look for information about support for farming families, bringing together her neighbors along the way. This is how the association she now presides over came into being.

    However, the drought, which has not let up since 2021, is causing changes and wreaking havoc in their lives, ruining years of efforts of families such as Fermina’s.

    “We have a water crisis and the families are very worried. We are not going to have any production and the cattle are getting thin, we have no choice but to sell. A bull that cost 2,000 soles (519 dollars) we are selling off for 500 (129 dollars). The middlemen are the ones who profit from our pain,” she says.

    During her participation in the Encuentro Feminismos Diversos por el Buen Vivir held in Chosica, near Lima, Fermina Quispe, a farmer from the Andes highlands of the department of Puno, in southern Peru, dresses in a colorful lliclla, a handmade Quechua blanket. She is working on solutions in her community to mitigate the impact of a severe drought on subsistence agriculture and livestock production. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
    During her participation in the Encuentro Feminismos Diversos por el Buen Vivir held in Chosica, near Lima, Fermina Quispe, a farmer from the Andes highlands of the department of Puno, in southern Peru, dresses in a colorful lliclla, a handmade Quechua blanket. She is working on solutions in her community to mitigate the impact of a severe drought on subsistence agriculture and livestock production. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

    Solar water pumps

    In the face of adversity, “proposals and action” seems to be Quispe’s mantra. She wants to strengthen her vegetable production for self-consumption and is thinking about growing aromatic herbs and flowers for sale. To do so, she needs to ensure irrigation in her six-by-thirteen-meter highland greenhouse where she uses agroecological methods.

    During her participation in Cedepas Centro’s training activities, she learned about solar water pumps, which make it possible to pump water collected in rustic wells called “cochas” to gardens and fields. She has knocked on many doors to raise funds to set up solar water pumps in her community.

    “Fermina’s gardens and those of 14 other farmers in her community now have solar pumps for irrigation and living fences made of Spanish broom (Cytisus racemosus),” José Egoavil, one of the experts in charge of the institution’s projects, told IPS.

    “They are small pumps that run on 120- to 180-watt solar panels,” he says in a telephone interview from Arapa.

    He explains that the solar panel is connected to the pump, which sucks the water stored in the wells that the families have dug, or in the “ojos de agua” – small natural pools of springwater – present on some farms. Thus, they can irrigate the vegetable crops in their greenhouses, and the living fences.

    “It is a sustainable technology, it does not pollute because it uses renewable energy and maintenance is not very expensive. In addition, the families give something in return, which makes them value it more. Of the total cost of materials, which is about 900 soles (230 dollars), they contribute 20 percent, in addition to their labor,” he says.

    Egoavil, a 45-year-old anthropologist, has lived in Arapa for three years. He is from Junín, a department in the center of the country where Cedepas Centro, an organization dedicated to promoting food security and sustainable development in the Andes highlands of central and southern Peru, is based,

    “The focus of our work is on food security and a fundamental issue is water for human consumption and production. There have already been two agricultural seasons in which we have harvested much less and we are about to start a new one, but without rain the forecasts are not encouraging,” he says.

    Given the water shortage, they have promoted the community participation of families in emergency projects such as solar pumps, which help to ensure their food supply.

    In addition, long-range water seeding and harvesting works are underway, such as the construction of infiltration ditches at the headwaters of river basins.

    The participation of small farming families is the driving force behind the works and they are responsible for identifying the natural water sources for their conservation and the construction of the ditches that will prevent the water from flowing down the hills when it rains.

    “The ditch is like a sponge that retains water, but if it doesn’t rain, we don’t know what will happen,” says Egoavil.

    A veterinarian by profession, Jesusa Calapuja, born in the Peruvian highlands, participated in the Encuentro Feminismos Diversos por el Buen Vivir, held on the outskirts of Lima, where she spoke about the reality of peasant families in a context of poverty and water shortages due to drought. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS
    A veterinarian by profession, Jesusa Calapuja, born in the Peruvian highlands, participated in the Encuentro Feminismos Diversos por el Buen Vivir, held on the outskirts of Lima, where she spoke about the reality of peasant families in a context of poverty and water shortages due to drought. CREDIT: Mariela Jara / IPS

    Learning to harvest water

    Jesusa Calapuja, a 27-year-old veterinarian born in Arapa, is one of the people in charge of technical assistance in agroecological production, planting and water harvesting at Cedepas Centro.

    Using the Escuela de Campo (countryside school) methodology, she travels by motorcycle to the different communities where she interacts with farming families. She came with Fermina Quispe to the feminist meeting in Chosica, where IPS interviewed her.

    Calapuja also notes changes in the dynamics of the population due to water scarcity. For example, their production no longer generates surpluses to be sold at the Sunday markets; it is barely enough for their own sustenance.

    “They don’t have the income to buy what they need,” she says.

    She also notices that at training meetings, women and men no longer bring their boiled potatoes or soup made with the oca tuber, or roasted corn for snacks, but only chuño (dehydrated potatoes) or dried beans. The scarcity of their tuber and grain production is evident in their diets.

    But Fermina Quispe hastn’t lost her smile in the face of adversity and is confident that her new skills will help the women in her community.

    “Our great-great-grandparents harvested water, made terraces and dams; we have only been harvesting, collecting and using. But it won’t be like that anymore and we are taking advantage of the streams so the water won’t be lost. We only hope that the wind does not carry away the rain clouds,” she says hopefully.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • How to Defend the Environment and Survive in the Attempt, as a Woman in Mexico

    How to Defend the Environment and Survive in the Attempt, as a Woman in Mexico

    Dozens of women environmentalists participated in Mexico City in the launch of the Voices of Life campaign by eight non-governmental organizations on Oct. 12, 2023, which brings together hundreds of activists in five of the country’s 32 states. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
    • by Emilio Godoy (mexico city)
    • Inter Press Service

    MEXICO CITY, Oct 24 (IPS) – The defense of the right to water led Gema Pacheco to become involved in environmental struggles in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, an area threatened by drought, land degradation, megaprojects, mining and deforestation.

    Care “means first and foremost to value the place where we live, that the environment in which we grow up is part of our life and on which our existence depends,” said Pacheco, deputy municipal agent of San Matías Chilazoa, in the municipality of Ejutla de Crespo, some 355 kilometers south of Mexico City.

    A biologist by profession, the activist is a member of the Local Committee for the Care and Defense of Water in San Matías Chilazoa, which belongs to the Coordinating Committee of Peoples United for the Care and Defense of Water (Copuda).

    The local population is dedicated to growing corn, beans and chickpeas, an activity hampered by the scarcity of water in a country that has been suffering from a severe drought over the past year.

    To deal with the phenomenon, the community created three water reservoirs and infiltration wells to feed the water table.

    “Women’s participation has been restricted, there are few women in leadership positions. The main challenge is acceptance. There is little participation, because they see it as a waste of time and it is very demanding,” lamented Pacheco.

    In November 2021, the 16 communities of Copuda obtained the right to manage the water resources in their territories, thus receiving water concessions.

    But women activists like Pacheco face multiple threats for protecting their livelihoods and culture in a country where such activities can pose a lethal risk.

    For this reason, eight organizations from five Mexican states launched the Voices of Life campaign on Oct. 12, involving hundreds of habitat protectors, some of whom came to the Mexican capital for the event, where IPS interviewed several of them.

    Involvement in the defense of water led Gema Pacheco to become an environmental activist, participating in the Voices of Life campaign in Mexico, which seeks to bring visibility and respect to this high-risk activity in Mexico. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
    Involvement in the defense of water led Gema Pacheco to become an environmental activist, participating in the Voices of Life campaign in Mexico, which seeks to bring visibility and respect to this high-risk activity in Mexico. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

    The initiative seeks to promote the right to a healthy environment, facilitate environmental information, protect and recognize people and organizations that defend the environment, as well as learn how to use information and communication technologies.

    In 2022, Mexico ranked number three in Latin America in terms of murders of environmental activists, with 31 killed (four women and 16 indigenous people), behind Colombia (60) and Brazil (34), out of a global total of 177, according to the London-based non-governmental organization Global Witness.

    A year earlier, this Latin American country of almost 129 million inhabitants ranked first on the planet, with 54 killings, so 2022 reflected an improvement.

    “The situation in Mexico remains dire for defenders, and non-fatal attacks, including intimidation, threats, forced displacement, harassment and criminalization, continued to greatly complicate their work,” the report says.

    The outlook remains serious for activists, as the non-governmental Mexican Center for Environmental Law (Cemda) documented 582 attacks in 2022, more than double the number in 2021. Oaxaca, Mexico City and the northern state of Chihuahua reported the highest number of attacks.

    Urban problems

    The south of Mexico City is home to the largest area of conservation land, but faces growing threats, such as deforestation, urbanization and irregular settlements.

    Protected land defines the areas preserved by the public administration to ensure the survival of the land and its biodiversity.

    Social anthropologist Tania Lopez said another risk has now emerged, in the form of the new General Land Use Planning Program 2020-2035 for the Mexican capital, which has a population of more than eight million people, although Greater Mexico City is home to more than 20 million.

    “There was no public consultation of the plan based on a vision of development from the perspective of native peoples. In addition, it encourages real estate speculation, changes in land use and invasions,” said López, a member of the non-governmental organization Sembradoras Xochimilpas, part of the Voices of Life campaign.

    Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental defenders. In 2022, 31 activists were murdered, the third highest number in the region behind Colombia and Brazil. CREDIT: Cemda
    Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental defenders. In 2022, 31 activists were murdered, the third highest number in the region behind Colombia and Brazil. CREDIT: Cemda

    Apart from the failure to carry out mandatory consultation processes, activists point out irregularities in the governmental Planning Institute and its technical and citizen advisory councils, because they are not included as members.

    The conservation land, which provides clean air, water, agricultural production and protection of flora and fauna, totals some 87,000 hectares, more than half of Mexico City.

    The plan stipulates conservation of rural and urban land. But critics of the program point out that the former would lose some 30,000 hectares, destined for rural housing.

    The capital’s legislature is debating the program, which should have been ready by 2020.

    Gisselle García, a lawyer with the non-governmental Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense, said attacks on women activists occur within a patriarchal culture that limits the existence of safe spaces for women’s participation in the defense of rights.

    “It’s an entire system, which reflects the legal structure. If a woman files a civil or criminal complaint, she is not heard,” she told IPS, describing the special gender-based handicaps faced by women environmental defenders.

    Social anthropologist Tania López is one of the members of the Voices of Life campaign, launched by eight non-governmental organizations on Oct. 12, 2023 to highlight the work of women environmental defenders in Mexico. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
    Social anthropologist Tania López is one of the members of the Voices of Life campaign, launched by eight non-governmental organizations on Oct. 12, 2023 to highlight the work of women environmental defenders in Mexico. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

    Still just an empty promise

    This risky situation comes in the midst of preparations for the implementation of the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Escazú Agreement, an unprecedented treaty that aims to mitigate threats to defenders of the environment, in force since April 2021.

    Article 9 of the Agreement stipulates the obligation to ensure a safe and enabling environment for the exercise of environmental defense, to take protective or preventive measures prior to an attack, and to take response actions.

    The treaty, which takes its name from the Costa Rican city where it was signed, guarantees access to environmental information and justice, as well as public participation in environmental decision-making, to protect activists.

    The Escazú Agreement has so far been signed by 24 Latin American and Caribbean countries, 15 of which have ratified it as well.

    But its implementation is proceeding at the same slow pace as environmental protection in countries such as Mexico, where there are still no legislative changes to ensure its enforcement.

    In August, the seven-person Committee to Support the Implementation of and Compliance with the Escazú Agreement took office. This is a non-contentious, consultative subsidiary body of the Conference of the Parties to the agreement to promote and support its implementation.

    Meanwhile, in Mexico, the Escazú National Group, made up of government and civil society representatives, was formed in June to implement the treaty.

    During the annual regional Second Forum of Human Rights Defenders, held Sept. 26-28 in Panama, participants called on the region’s governments to strengthen protection and ensure a safe and enabling environment for environmental protectors, particularly women.

    While the Mexican women defenders who gathered in Mexico City valued the Escazú Agreement, they also stressed the importance of its dissemination and, even more so, its proper implementation.

    Activists Pacheco and Lopez agreed on the need for national outreach, especially to stakeholders.

    “We need more information to get out, a lot of work needs to be done, more people need to know about it,” said Pacheco.

    The parties to the treaty are currently discussing a draft action plan that would cover 2024 to 2030.

    The document calls for the generation of greater knowledge, awareness and dissemination of information on the situation, rights and role of individuals, groups and organizations that defend human rights in environmental matters, as well as on the existing instruments and mechanisms for prevention, protection and response.

    It also seeks recognition of the work and contribution of individuals, groups and organizations that defend human rights, capacity building, support for national implementation and cooperation, as well as a follow-up and review scheme for the regional plan.

    García the attorney said the regional treaty is just one more tool, however important it may be.

    “We are in the phase of seeing how the Escazú Agreement will be applied. The most important thing is effective implementation. It is something new and it will not be ready overnight,” she said.

    As it gains strength, the women defenders talk about how the treaty can help them in their work. “If they attack me, what do I do? Pull out the agreement and show it to them so they know they must respect me?” one of the women who are part of the Voices of Life campaign asked her fellow activists.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Brazil: A Step Forward for Indigenous Peoples Rights

    Brazil: A Step Forward for Indigenous Peoples Rights

    • Opinion by Ines M Pousadela (montevideo, uruguay)
    • Inter Press Service

    MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Oct 24 (IPS) – Brazil’s Supreme Court has delivered a long-awaited ruling upholding Brazilian Indigenous peoples’ claims to their traditional land. It did so by rejecting the ‘Temporal Framework’ principle, which only allowed for the demarcation and titling of lands physically occupied by the Indigenous groups who claimed them by 5 October 1988, when the current constitution was adopted. This excluded the numerous Indigenous communities who’d been violently expelled from their ancestral lands before then, including under military dictatorship between 1964 and 1985.

    The case was brought in relation to a land dispute in the state of Santa Catarina, but the ruling applies to hundreds of similar situations throughout Brazil.

    This was also good news for the climate. Brazil is home to 60 per cent of the Amazon rainforest, a key climate stabiliser due to the enormous amount of carbon it stores and the water it releases into the atmosphere. Most of Brazil’s roughly 800 Indigenous territories – over 300 of which are yet to be officially demarcated – are in the Amazon. And there are no better guardians of the rainforest than Indigenous peoples: when they fend off deforestation, they protect their livelihoods and ways of life. The best-preserved areas of the Amazon are those legally recognised and protected as Indigenous lands.

    But there’s been a sting in the tale: politicians backed by the powerful agribusiness lobby have passed legislation to enshrine the Temporal Framework, blatantly ignoring the court ruling.

    A tug of war

    The Supreme Court victory came after a long struggle. Hundreds of Indigenous mobilisations over several years called for the rejection of the Temporal Framework.

    Powerful agribusiness interests presented the Temporal Framework as the proper way of regulating article 231 of the constitution in a way that provides the legal security rural producers need to continue to operate. Indigenous rights groups denounced it as a clear attempt to make theft of Indigenous lands legal. Regional and international human rights mechanisms sided with them: the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples warned that the framework contradicted universal and Inter-American human rights standards.

    In their 21 September decision, nine of the Supreme Court’s 11 members ruled the Temporal Framework to be unconstitutional. With a track record of agribusiness-friendly rulings, the two judges who backed it had been appointed by former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, and one of them had also been Bolsonaro’s justice minister.

    As the Supreme Court held its hearings and deliberations, political change took hold. Bolsonaro had vowed ‘not to cede one centimetre more of land’ to Indigenous peoples, and the process of land demarcation had remained stalled for years. But in April 2023, President Lula da Silva, in power since January, signed decrees recognising six new Indigenous territories and promised to approve all pending cases before the end of his term in 2026, a promise consistent with the commitment to achieve zero deforestation by 2030. The recognition of two additional reserves in September came alongside news that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon had fallen by 66 per cent in August compared to the same month in 2022.

    Agribusiness fights back

    But the agribusiness lobby didn’t simply accept its fate. The powerful ruralist congressional caucus introduced a bill to enshrine the Temporal Framework principle into law, which the Chamber of Deputies quickly passed on 30 May. The vote was accompanied by protests, with Indigenous groups blocking a major highway. They faced the police with their ceremonial bows and arrows and were dispersed with water cannon and teargas.

    The Temporal Framework bill continued its course through Congress even after the Supreme Court’s decision. On 27 September, with 43 votes for and 21 against, the Senate approved it as a matter of ‘urgency’, rejecting the substance of the Supreme Court ruling and claiming that in issuing it the court had ‘usurped’ legislative powers.

    The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil’s (APIB) assessment was that, as well as upholding the Temporal Framework, the bill sought to open the door to commodity production and infrastructure construction in Indigenous lands, among other serious violations of Indigenous rights. For these reasons, Indigenous groups called this the ‘Indigenous Genocide Bill’.

    The struggle goes on

    As the 20 October deadline for President Lula to either sign or veto the bill approached, a campaign led by Indigenous congresswoman Célia Xakriabá collected almost a million signatures backing her call for a total veto. Along with other civil society groups, APIB sent an urgent appeal to the UN requesting support to urge Lula to veto the bill.

    On 19 October the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office said Lula should veto the bill on the basis that it’s unconstitutional. On the same day, however, senior government sources informed that there wouldn’t be a total veto, but a ‘very large’ partial one. And indeed, the next day it was announced that Lula had partially vetoed the bill. According to a government spokesperson, all the clauses that constituted attacks on Indigenous rights and went against the Constitution were vetoed, while the ones that remained would serve to improve the land demarcation process, making it more transparent.

    Even if the part of the bill that wasn’t vetoed doesn’t undermine the Supreme Court ruling, the issue is far from settled. The veto now needs to be analysed at a congressional session on a date yet to be determined. And the agribusiness lobby won’t back down easily. Many politicians own land overlapping Indigenous territories, and many more received campaigns funding from farmers who occupy Indigenous lands.

    While further moves by the right-leaning Congress can’t be ruled out, the Supreme Court ruling also has some problems. The most blatant concerns the acknowledgment that there must be ‘fair compensation’ for non-Indigenous people occupying Indigenous lands they acquired ‘in good faith’ before the state considered them to be Indigenous territory. Indigenous groups contend that, while there might be a very small number of such cases, in a context of increasing violence against Indigenous communities, the compensation proposal would reward and further incentivise illegal invasions.

    But beneath the surface of political squabbles, deeper changes are taking place that point to a movement that is growing stronger and better equipped to defend Indigenous peoples’ rights.

    The 2022 census showed a 90-per-cent increase, from 896,917 to 1.69 million, in the number of Brazilians identifying as Indigenous compared to the census 12 years before. There was no demographic boom behind these numbers – just longstanding work by the Indigenous movement to increase visibility and respect for Indigenous identities. People who’d long ignored and denied their heritage to protect themselves from racism are now reclaiming their Indigenous identities. Not even the violent anti-Indigenous stance of the Bolsonaro administration could reverse this.

    Today the Brazilian Indigenous movement is stronger than ever. President Lula owes his election to positioning himself as an alternative to his anti-rights, climate-denying predecessor. He now has the opportunity to reaffirm his commitment to respecting Indigenous peoples’ rights while tackling the climate crisis.

    Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.


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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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