Opinion by Enrique Hernandez Pando (madrid, spain)
Inter Press Service
MADRID, Spain, Aug 22 (IPS) – Enrique Hernández Pando is Executive Director, Commercial Development & Impact, GALVmedEl Castellar – For 33-year-old mother-of-seven and poultry farmer Helena Kindole in Chanya village in Tanzania, one of the main barriers to growing her chicken business is a lack of access to health services. But not for herself or her family – for her animals.
With smallholder poultry farming often a lifeline for millions of low-income and rural families – accounting for 80% of poultry production in the region – access to medicines and vaccines is just as important for livestock as it is for people. And yet, logistical, infrastructural, and supply challenges are hindering access to veterinary services across the African continent and therefore, holding back smallholder productivity.
Enrique Hernández PandoAt the same time, a rapidly industrialising poultry sector in many developed countries, and an increase in grain prices globally, coupled with cheap imports from more developed markets and low access to animal health care is driving inequality between small- and large-scale producers, threatening to squeeze out smallholder poultry farmers.
Thankfully, this is starting to change. Animal health initiatives are helping local hatcheries to vaccinate chicks against common and damaging diseases before selling them to small-scale farmers, who rear the chicks until they are six months old, eventually selling them to neighbours, restaurants, and other businesses nearby.
For women like Helena, who make up nearly half of the global agricultural workforce in developing countries and in sub-Saharan Africa, the poultry sector offers a crucial source of income and healthy animals are essential for decent livelihoods.
Equipping farmers with the right tools can help to set them up for success to compete alongside more industrialised production systems.
Introducing vaccinations at local hatcheries can strengthen small-scale producers’ sustainability and commercial clout. Supporting these hatcheries with the necessary vaccination equipment and expertise means they can provide customers with large numbers of chicks that are vaccinated against common poultry diseases, such as Newcastle disease and Infectious bronchitis, the former of which contributes to 60% of poultry mortalities in many African countries. This reduces the risk of bird loss, contributing to improved income and more successful businesses overall.
Small-scale chicken farmer in Tanzania/Arusha, 2015. Credit: Karel Prinsloo/GALVmed
But implementing vaccination measures alone is not enough, as a lack of technical support and knowledge on zoonoses and other infectious diseases that affect poultry can also hinder productivity. Training on animal health practices, market development opportunities, and advice on biosecurity, good management practices, and more are also crucial pieces of the puzzle. Providing this can help to level the playing field between large scale, industrial hatcheries and small-scale producers.
The PREVENT project (Promoting and Enabling Vaccination Efficiently, Now and Tomorrow) is one example of an initiative working to improve poultry production for Africa’s rapidly growing population. In just two years, this four-year initiative has administered 159 million vaccine doses and vaccinated 49 million hatchery chicks. It has also trained 100 field technicians who have conducted 2,600 farm visits and held over 1,400 farmer meetings across four countries in sub-Saharan Africa, to date.
A low-input but high-producing sector, raising chickens offers a reliable pathway out of poverty for many rural households. A small-scale producer can easily sell their chicks or chickens at the market as they are more affordable for the consumer than beef, for example, but also bring a myriad of other benefits. They add value to social structures, are high in protein, and, on top of this, can directly benefit women who in fact make up the majority of smallholder poultry farmers in the developing world.
Small-scale chicken farmer in Tanzania/Arusha, 2015. Credit: Karel Prinsloo/GALVmed
Against the backdrop of a global cost of living crisis, record-breaking temperatures, and ongoing conflicts, closing the inequality gap for smallholder farmers is critical to build a sustainable future for all. Supporting small-scale producers with training, animal health measures, and much more can help to level the playing field, one small-scale producer at a time, just like Helena.
Women outside an emergency vehicle aimed at helping those affected by flooding. CREDIT: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
by Ashfaq Yusufzai (peshawar, pakistan)
Inter Press Service
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN, Aug 18 (IPS) – Torrential monsoon rains have left the people, especially women, in crisis as they are still grappling to recover from the last year’s floods in Pakistan.
“We are yet to return to normal lives after devastation caused by severe rains in June 2002 when the new series of rains have started only to further aggravate our problems,” Jannat Bibi, a resident of Kalam in the Swat Valley, told IPS.
Bibi, 44, a housewife, along with co-villagers, must walk about a kilometre twice a day to collect drinking water for her 10-member family. She says they want the government to provide them with essential needs like food, water, shelter, and medication.
“A new ongoing wave of monsoon rains has left us high and dry as we are facing a host of ailments due to contaminated water.”
“Some non-governmental organisations have given us mineral water, utensils and foodstuff last year in June when torrential rain damaged our mud-built houses, but this year, there’s nobody to extend us a helping hand despite severe floods,” she says.
Most people in the neighbourhood fear that more rain would bring more misery for them as the people have yet to rebuild their homes while roads and health facilities were in shambles.
Dr Farooq Khan in Swat district says the people desperately require clean drinking water as cases of diarrhoea have been increasing among them.
“There are more cases of vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue, haemorrhagic fever (DHF) and Leishmaniasis because the people are exposed to mosquitoes-bites, the transmitters of these diseases, due to pools of stagnant water which serves as breeding grounds for mosquitoes,” Khan said.
Power breakdowns create problems because people cannot get drinking water from wells, and they often store it in uncovered pots, which serve as breeding spots for mosquitoes. “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recorded 18,000 dengue Haemorrhagic fever patients and 18 deaths in 2022,” he said.
National Disaster Management Authority says at least 86 people, including eight children, have been killed by floods and landslides triggered by monsoon rains that have lashed Pakistan since last month. In June 2022, a flood killed 289 people, it says.
“Women are the worst victim of climatic changes as they stay home and have to prepare food, wash clothes and look after children, therefore, we need to focus on their welfare,” Dr Javid Khan, a local physician in Malakand district, which is adjacent to Swat, says.
According to him, about 20 cholera cases have been recorded because people use water contaminated by sewerage pipes during floods.
“The World Health Organization is establishing two diarrhoea treatment centres to prevent outbreaks of food and water-borne diseases,” he said.
Munir Ahmed, a local environmentalist, says that women, representing about half of the country’s population, are the worst affected by torrential rains.
Last year, massive flooding affected nearly two-thirds of the country’s population in Pakistan, as it submerged the low-lying areas inhabited by poor people, he says.
Rains destroyed 1.7 million homes in Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces which also damaged the water sources and cultivable land, he says.
“As the people were recovering from the past year’s devastation caused by flood, a new spell has started dampening their hopes of recovery,” Ahmed says.
More than 1 300 health facilities and 3 000 schools destroyed by 2022’s floods are yet to be built.
“More than 50 000 pregnant women are finding it hard to undergo mandatory checkups at hospitals because of bad roads and lack of transportation in the country,” according to the Ministry of Health. It says the government is providing alternate sources in the shape of mobile vehicles to ensure their home-based clinical examinations.
Jabina Bibi, of the remote Chitral district, waited in stayed at home despite being six months into her pregnancy and didn’t receive a medical checkup until a local NGO sent a team to her locality, and she managed to source iron tablets for the treatment of severe malnourishment.
“The NGO’s doctors proved a blessing for me, and I delivered a normal baby because they carried out an ultrasound which enabled me to know the date of delivery for which I was taken to the hospital located 50 km away,” she said.
Other women also benefited, but the facilities are scarce, she said.
Chitral experienced more floods in July this year, which killed at least ten people. Water-Aid, and non-profit organisation, says that the floods have left almost 700 000 pregnant women in the country without getting maternal healthcare, leaving them and their newborns without support, food, security, and basic medical care. The miscarriage rate also skyrocketed during this period.
Floods causing landslides also resulted in the displacement of people and the loss of millions of livestock.
In Mansehra district, extensive damage rendered many roads unusable, creating significant transportation difficulties.
“We need to find work because construction activities have stopped, and it’s extremely to travel to other districts to find jobs,” Mushtaq Ahmed, 24, a resident of Mansehra, said. Pakistan is the second country with the most melting glaciers due to global warming, and Mansehra is one of the affected districts.
Climate experts believe that women and children are at a much higher risk of losing their lives during a disaster due to their limited access to resources during emergencies. The situation regarding monsoon rains has been under control as of now, but there are forecasts of potential rains in the coming days, which can hammer the last nail in the coffin of those madly hit by rainwaters last year.
Climate change brings, in its wake, deprivation of people from food security, health, education, and jobs, besides exposing women to violence, displacement, and mental health issues, and the government needs to protect the people from the ill effects of floods, experts say.
If people living in informal settlements gained access to adequate housing, the average life span would jump 2.4 years on average globally, saving 730,000 lives each year. Credit: Lova Rabary-Rakontondravony/IPS
Opinion by Jonathan Reckford, Joseph Muturi (cape town, south africa)
Inter Press Service
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Aug 16 (IPS) – When representatives from dozens of countries gathered recently at the UN High Level Political Forum in New York to share progress on their efforts to achieve the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this disturbing reality was clear: the world is not even close to meeting the goals by 2030 as intended.
According to the report released at the meeting, progress on more than half of the SDG targets is weak and insufficient, with 30% of targets stalled or in reverse. In particular, progress towards SDG 11, which centers on making “cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” is stagnating, signaling regression for the third year in a row.
Unless governments take urgent action to address the plight of more than 1 billion people struggling daily to survive in slums and other poorly constructed informal settlements, we will not achieve the SDGs.
Access to affordable, safe housing is a fundamental human right, and intrinsically linked to building sustainable and resilient communities. It’s time world leaders turned their attention to improving housing conditions in informal settlements as a critical first step in helping to solve the most pressing development challenges of our time, from health and education to jobs and climate resilience.
Consider Milka Achieng, 31, who lives among the more than 250,000 residents of Kibera, a bustling hub of mud-walled homes and small businesses that make up one of the world’s largest informal settlements on the south side of Nairobi, Kenya.
Every day, Milka heads out for work and walks past the kiosk where she pumps water that isn’t clean enough to drink without boiling. She passes neighbors who live with the constant fear of eviction and the threat of deadly fires sparked by jerry-rigged electrical lines.
Yet despite these conditions, Milka remains upbeat. She works for a Kenya-based startup that, from its production facility in the heart of Kibera, cranks out firesafe blocks designed to make homes in informal settlements safer and more resilient. These are the kinds of innovative, scalable solutions that not only hold promise for the future of Kibera, but also for the millions of families struggling to keep their loved ones healthy and safe in informal communities around the globe.
By 2050, nearly 70% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas, making the proliferation of informal settlements inevitable – unless world governments take bold, collective action.
A new report reveals the incredible, transformational benefits – in terms of health, education, and income – if world leaders invest in upgrading housing in informal settlements. The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) modeling from 102 low- and middle-income countries shows that if people living in informal settlements gained access to adequate housing, the average life span would jump 2.4 years on average globally, saving 730,000 lives each year.
This translates to more deaths prevented than if malaria were to be eliminated. The report also found that as many as 41.6 million additional children would be enrolled in school worldwide.
Economic growth, meanwhile, would jump by as much as 10.5% in some countries, whether measured as GDP or gross national income per capita. The resulting increase in living standards would exceed the projected cost of improving informal settlements in many countries.
These findings provide a long-overdue wake-up call to governments and municipal authorities that prioritizing safe and secure housing would have far-reaching implications for advancing not just community wellbeing, but national and global economic prosperity.
World leaders whose countries contribute billions of dollars annually to foreign assistance yet don’t prioritize improving informal settlements are making a grave mistake. Their goals related to education, health, and other areas of human wellbeing hinge on how well the world responds to trends such as growing inequities, rapid urbanization, and a worsening global housing crisis.
As the heads of an international housing organization and a global network of slum dwellers, respectively, we believe governments have an urgent responsibility to invest in comprehensive solutions to our global housing crisis.
This includes supporting start-ups, such as Milka’s factory, which are pioneering innovative, low-cost, and community-driven solutions to strengthen the foundation of unsafe housing settlements worldwide.
Simultaneously, officials at the global, national and municipals levels must ensure that residents have land tenure security, climate-resilient homes, and basic services such as clean water and sanitation.
Importantly, IIED researchers also concluded that, while they couldn’t put a precise number on it, the rehabilitation of informal settlements would have a clear and positive “spillover effect” by strengthening environmental, political and health care systems for all. This, in turn, would improve overall societal wellbeing for generations to come.
Upgrading the world’s supply of adequate housing is a lever for equitable human development and a cornerstone for sustainable urban development. Global, national and community stakeholders must join forces with the more than 1 billion voices clamoring for greater access to safe and secure homes.
When residents of informal settlements do better, everyone does better. Strikingly, it’s that simple.
Togotia, a forgotten African leafy vegetable, has found its way back into markets as its high nutritional value could help address food security. CREDIT: Egerton University
by Wilson Odhiambo (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Aug 16 (IPS) – Kenya’s fight for food security may have just gone ‘Old School’ as Egerton University dons win a grant to help bring back a pre-colonial delicacy that was gradually sliding its way off consumers’ plates.
Their project, dubbed ‘Exploring Potential of Togotia (Erucastrum arabicum), a forgotten African leafy vegetable for nutritional security and climate adaptation in Kenya,’ won the grant in October last year in a bid to help farmers and consumers realise the importance of the crop that many, today, term as a weed.
According to the project’s lead researchers, Togotia falls among the forgotten African leafy vegetable (fALVs), which have been ignored in formal research and policy and their nutritional values.
The project focuses on Togotia’s nutritional value and hardy nature compared to other vegetables such as cabbage, kale and spinach that are exotic to Kenya.
It involved the expertise of Prof. G Mendiodo (University of Nottingham), Dr Maud Muchuweti (University of Zimbabwe), Dr Miriam Charimbu (Egerton University) and Dr Charles Kihia (Egerton University).
The grant, worth Ksh 4.9 million (about USD 37 000) was awarded to the institution by the Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) UK.
“Togotia and many other traditional vegetables have their roots embedded deep in the pre-colonial era, where they formed a daily delicacy for many. However, the colonial period brought exotic crops that quickly became a favourite for many, majorly due to their high market demands,” Kihia told IPS.
Between 1960 and 1980, these exotic vegetables flooded the local markets, especially in towns, thus relegating Bogota and other traditional vegetables to the rural areas.
And, due to high market demand for the exotic vegetables, farmers in the villages also transitioned to cash crop farming, a move that saw Togotia gradually cast out as a weed.
However, the current global changes in climate conditions have seen many farmers suffer the consequences of unpredictable weather patterns that have seen crops dwindle in the local markets.
Most food crops that serve towns come from rural areas where farmers rely heavily on weather patterns to meet the market demands.
Kenya is currently facing one of the worst drought periods in its history, making food production a burden for the farmers who town dwellers rely on for their needs. Lack of rainfall means low food production, which leads to high food prices in the market.
“The drought has led to a scarcity of many vegetables, such as kale and spinach, which have the highest demand in town. The ones that we are getting right now have tiny leaves, which customers complain about,” said Nancy Mulu, a local grocer in Nairobi.
“We are forced to sell them in small bunches at high prices due to the trouble we go through to get them,” she explained to IPS.
“The only traditional vegetable I sell in my shop are Terere (Amaranthus), Managu (Solanum), Saga (Cleome), and Kunde (Vigna). I have never come across a fellow vendor selling Togotia in town. They are mostly found in the village areas, and even there, many still treat them as weed,” she added.
Despite the rains that recently kicked off, the meteorological department warned farmers that it may not be enough to meet their agricultural demands.
Charimbu told IPS that if embraced, Togotia will be important in helping the country meet both the supply and nutritional demand of the people.
“Emergence and intensification of climate change with associated unreliable rainfall (either too much or too little) limit capacity of local farmers, not only to produce their own food but also surplus for sale, resulting in impoverishment,” she explained.
“The high cost of farm inputs required for the exotic vegetable also makes them an expensive and unsustainable venture during draught seasons such as the one the country is experiencing. Being a hardy crop, Togotia easily has an edge over them.”
“They flourish in marginal soils, require limited agrochemical input, are fast maturing (takes two weeks), widely occurring and are resistant to many local pests, and hence are ideal candidates for sustaining nutritional and household food security even during such draught periods, Charimbu added.
In major crop production towns like Molo and Kuresoi, known for maize, potatoes, carrots, onions, kales, and cabbages, Togotia is usually considered a weed and farmers prefer to get rid of it or feed it to the livestock. Few people in the area consider it a food crop.
From their analysis, the dons found out that apart from being hardy, Togotia was a rich source of vitamin C, iron, zinc, protein and calcium, which are important for the human body.
Kihia believes that the project will not only help to redefine the current understanding of the use and ecology of Togotia but also identify and develop appropriate agronomic cropping protocols suitable for adoption among small-scale farmers in Kenya and elsewhere.
“For a farmer with a healthy crop of maize targeted for sale in the lucrative Nairobi market, it is a weed. But when the same farmer hires a number of locals to do weeding at his farm, they remove the weed and eat it. Similarly, when there is massive crop failure and the maise crops do poorly, this weed becomes an important survival crop for the farmer and the community,” Kihia added.
In counties like Baringo, which falls among the hardest hit by the drought, Togotia is one of the residents’ main vegetables to supplement their needs. If this can be incorporated in other drought-prone areas like Turkana, Marsabit and Samburu, it will go a long way in helping address the recurring food crisis in Kenya.
“Incorporation of Togotia and other fALVs into current land-use will not only increase farms agrobiodiversity and household food diversity but also provide important forage crop for bees and other pollinators that are disappearing from Kenyan landscapes,” he concluded.
The project will involve setting up demonstration farms at the university and sensitising local farmers and communities around on their importance in helping supplement their nutritional needs.
They aim to produce Togotia varieties that are responsive to environmental needs in terms of resistance to pests, diseases, and drought.
Monsoon rains flooding Indian cities is more widespread in 2023, raising questions on business-as-usual development policies that continue even as climate conspicuously shifts. CREDIT: Manipadma Jena/IPS
by Manipadma Jena (bhubaneswar, india)
Inter Press Service
BHUBANESWAR, INDIA, Aug 15 (IPS) – As torrential rains, cloudbursts, floods, and landslides continue to wreak colossal damage and claim lives in Himachal Pradesh, India’s Himalayan foothill provinces. The question everyone is asking is: why is this happening?
Himachal Pradesh received 250 millimetres or ten inches of rain in just four days, between 7 to 11July, which accounted for almost 30 percent of the total monsoon rainfall in a year. This sent mountain rivers spilling over their banks into villages and towns and caused widespread flash flooding, mud, and landslides.
Over the whole month of July, the State received 71 percent excess of 438 mm actual rainfall against 255.9 mm normal rainfall. It is the second-highest rainfall in 43 years, since 1980, according to the government’s meteorological department.
Himachal Pradesh has witnessed a six-time increase in major landslides in the past two years, with 117 occurring in 2022 as compared to 16 in 2020, according to data compiled by the State disaster management department.
This year until now, the state witnessed 79 landslides and 53 flash flood incidents, with the monsoon only halfway, arriving in late June, as per the developing data.
There have been 223 deaths from these disasters to date. Cloudbursts and losses continue in Himachal Pradesh. Even on August 10, a family of 5 were buried under their collapsed home.
Is Faulty Ecological Development Worsening the Damage?
A video that has gone viral worldwide sums up not just the magnitude of destruction but answers some of the reasons why. The video opens with loud panic calls as a thickened river of muck and huge logs swerve downhill monstrously into a narrow village lane flanked by rows of shops in Thunag village in the Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh.
Locals claimed the trees are Himalayan Cedars chopped down in tens of thousands to widen highways as the government rapidly develops its mid-hills as go-to summer holiday destinations for tourism.
Trees from forest land cleared for roads, tunnels and hydro-power dams are disposed on hill slopes, in rivers banks and streams along with the earthen muck and debris, said Tikender Singh Panwar, a city administrator who had earlier held office.
The course of the rivers has narrowed down, and the riverbeds filled up with silt, causing them to break banks much sooner than they normally would when torrential rains come.
Both tourism and hydro-electricity sectors are the highest earners for the government and are currently being developed on priority.
The planned development is responsible for this colossal damage, is not so much climate shift, Panwar categorically says. An urban specialist and earlier deputy mayor of Shimla, the State’s summer capital, Panwar, says the focus of Himachal Pradesh, with a fragile Himalayan ecosystem, is on (risky) exploitation of natural resources of water, forest, and nature to pull in more State income.
Warming in Asia has almost doubled in the last 30 years. Chart indicating the warming trend in Asia in 1991–2022 vs 1961–1990 period. CREDIT: Courtesy WMO State of the Climate in Asia 2022 report
Traditionally, mountain regions for building infrastructure were not cut with vertical slits but terraced to minimise instability in these geologically vulnerable regions. Unfortunately, in a hurry to complete projects, mountains have been cut into vertically, leading to landslides, according to Panwar.
The government’s Himachal Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority agrees. “Vulnerability of the geologically young and not-so-stable steep slopes in various Himalayan ranges has been increasing at a rapid rate in the recent decade due to inappropriate human activity like deforestation, road cutting, terracing and changes in agriculture crops requiring more intense watering.”
Land use change is another trigger being viewed as causing a natural disaster to become more damaging. Spreading concrete infrastructures, including “river-view” hotels and homestays, encroach on the riverbanks and basins.
Cement plants have proliferated to meet the demand for leap-frogging constructions.
When more rainfall lands in an area than the ground can absorb, or it falls in areas with a lot of impermeable surfaces like concrete and road asphalt that prevent absorption, the water runs downhill, gathering force and everything on its way, turning streams and rivers into raging torrents. It seeks the lowest point in a potential pathway, often reclaiming its own encroached space – the river basin.
In India’s mostly unplanned urban areas, these often are roads, parking lots, slum settlements, and even multi-storied shops and homes. Changes in land use and land cover contribute to acerbate disaster damage.
Sand mined illegally from riverbanks to keep pace with the high demand from construction activities could also have played a role in the devastation that rivers caused in Himachal Pradesh, environmental activists said.
Question Mark on Hydro-Power Projects in Fragile Himalayan Region
Hydropower is the biggest source of income for Himachal Pradesh, with the national government having a major stake. The State has five major rivers. It sells electricity to other states. Rural electrification, too, remains a major focus. But the environmental cost of the dams in the Himalayan region may be high and already being experienced, said activists.
The State’s hydroelectricity potential is high, around 27,436 megawatts, which is 25 percent of the national potential. Of this, 10,519 MW is harnessed so far. More projects with lengthy tunnels to channelise river flow are being added quickly. “Sometimes the course of rivers was diverted to build dams for hydro-power projects. This is like playing with nature, says Panwar.
By 2030, some 1088 hydropower projects are planned to generate 22640 MW of electricity, according to Panwar. India has committed to achieving 500 Gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030.
This is raising alarm bells for more impending disasters.
In a Warming Asia: The Role of Climate Change in Increasing Water Disasters
When the cloudburst in the Thunag area dumped torrential rains, locals said they had no warning. But cloudbursts are characteristically localised, and sudden torrential rainstorm phenomena, categorised when rainfall is 100 millimetres per hour, have been increasing.
Cloudbursts occur when warm air currents block rain from falling, causing an accumulation of moisture. When the upward air currents become weak, the cloud dumps rain.
Flash flooding similarly occurs after excessive rainfall pours down in less than six hours. Both are unexpected and often catch victims unprepared.
The role of climate change is becoming increasingly evident in these types of deluges across continents.
The simplest part of the explanation for a complex phenomenon is that warmer temperatures lead to increased evaporation. This leads to extra moisture in the atmosphere, which in turn leads to heavy rainfall, especially when two weather systems coincide in a high-altitude, mountainous region. This is what happened in Himachal Pradesh in early July.
A low-pressure weather system carrying moisture all the way from the Mediterranean Sea to northern India, known as a Western Disturbance, coincided with the normal monsoon system, together resulting in torrential rain. This is not abnormal and, as such, not attributable to changing climate.
However, studies by scientists around the world show that the climate shift is intensifying the water cycle and will continue to intensify as the planet warms. A number of factors are intensifying the water cycle, but one of the most important is that warming temperatures raise the upper limit on the amount of moisture in the air. That increases the potential for more rain.
An international climate assessment in 2021 documented an increase in both wet extremes, including more intense rainfall over most regions, and dry extremes. These will continue to increase with future warming.
In India’s Himalayan region, with its complex terrain and varied weather patterns, deep, intense convective clouds form under normal circumstances. However, studies find instances of deep convection have increased over recent years. Sixty-five percent area in the Himalayan States now shows a trend towards ‘daily extreme rainfall’ categorised when 15 cm of rain falls in 24 hours. Climate change is thought to be one of the main causes of this, according to Madhavan Rajeevan, a senior retired official of India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences. “This can have severe consequences,” he says.
According to the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT), Asia is the world’s most disaster-impacted region; 83 percent of the 81 weather, climate, and water-related disasters in Asia in 2022 were flood and storm events. More than 50 million people were directly affected.
WMO State of the Climate in Asia 2022 report released in July said Asia, the largest continent with 30 percent of Earth’s land area, is warming faster than the global average. The warming trend in Asia in 1991–2022 was almost double the warming trend in the 1961–1990 period (see chart), according to the World Meteorological Organisation report.
The #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign is a compelling and poignant campaign developed in collaboration with ECW Global Champion, Somaya Faruqi. CREDIT: ECW
by Cecilia Russell (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Aug 14 (IPS) – Two years ago, the then 19-year-old Somaya Faruqi and the Afghan Robotic Team travelled from Herat City to Kabul, the heart of Afghanistan—the Taliban had taken over Herat city, cutting off electricity and internet. The all-girls team’s great passion for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) had driven them to Kabul to rehearse for a competition.
“After three days, I woke up, looked outside the window, and saw the Taliban in the streets. I was very shocked and could not believe it. I never imagined that the Taliban could take over Kabul. There were thousands and thousands of people trying to flee the country, and after three days of trying, we flew to Qatar with the help of the Qatari government. I wondered what would become of my sister and classmates who were left behind,” Faruqi tells IPS.
It did not take long for the de facto authority to unveil their plans. Two years down the line, the Taliban has waged a gender war and women and girls are on the receiving end. The Taliban edict has banned adolescent girls from the classrooms. After year six, they are to stay at home, says Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW)—the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.
Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW)—the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, says the ban on girl’s and women’s education has the effect of forcing them to live once again in the shadows. CREDIT: ECW
“Afghan girls are banned from accessing secondary and tertiary education because of their gender, and this is the most ruthless form of discrimination. They cannot understand why they are not allowed to attend school like their brothers. Their pathway to education has been cut, and they are in pain, suffering and (often) struggling with suicidal thoughts. We must stand in solidarity with them, for in the words of Martin Luther King Jr, injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Their distress should shake us to the core,” Sherif tells IPS.
She says that the situation in Afghanistan is one of the worst in the world. To elevate Afghan girls’ voices on the global stage, ECW has launched the #AfghanGirlsVoices Campaign. A compelling, poignant campaign developed in collaboration with Faruqi, who is an ECW Global Champion.
Faruqi finished her 12th grade in Qatar, from where she applied to college and received a scholarship from the Qatar Fund for Development to pursue engineering studies in the United States. Her astounding progress and brilliance are a testament to the devasting blow being dealt to millions of Afghan girls.
“The situation in Afghanistan gets worse from one day to the next. Women and girls are prisoners in their own homes, in their own country. They cannot leave their homes without a male guardian- a father, brother or relative. They have been denied the freedom to pursue any interest outside their home, and they sit around with nothing to do. Through this campaign, I want the world to know that there is a country today where girls are denied fundamental human rights, forced out of school and into marriages,” Faruqi explains.
The campaign is to be launched on August 15, the second anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. is in Gordon Brown—UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of ECW’s High-Level Steering Group on the eve of the launch, stressed the need for the international community must hear this poignant call from the heart of Afghan girls and young women.
Faruqi affirms the need to hear from those inside Afghanistan, at the very heart of the ongoing injustice, to hear how their lives have been turned upside down and how a fragile future now hangs in the balance if the global community remains silent.
Sherif says the situation is particularly horrific because girls are simply not being left behind in the education system due to conflict or climate disaster; an official ban is keeping them out of school. As a firm fist pushes millions of girls out of school, the immediate impact is a rolling back of time to a place where women lived in the shadows. This devastating decree means that 50 percent of the population is not able to access education.
“This is not reflective of Islam. The foundation of Islam is learning. The first word in the Quran is read. It does not advocate for girls not to go to school. The ban is unacceptable,” she emphasizes.
The campaign uses moving images by a young Afghan female artist and determined testimonies from Afghan girls. It features a series of equally inspiring, heart-wrenching and determined testimonies from Afghan girls whose lives have been abruptly upended by the ban preventing them to pursue their education and dreams.
Their powerful words are conveyed together with striking illustrations depicting both the profound despair experienced by these Afghan girls and young women, along with their incredible resilience and strength in the face of this unacceptable ban on their education.
ECW invites partners and the wider public to stand in solidarity with Afghan girls by posting messages from Afghan girls across social media every day—from 15 August, the date when the de facto Taliban authorities came into power in Afghanistan 2021, until 18 September, which marks the start of the official ban on school for adolescent girls.
Sherif says the campaign is in line with sustainable development goal 4 and will run through the UN General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit from 18-19 September at the UN General Assembly in New York. The Summit aims to mark the beginning of a new phase of accelerated progress towards the SDGs with high-level political guidance on transformative and accelerated actions leading up to 2030 – progress that cannot be achieved with Afghan girls left behind.
“ECW, through our in-country partners, has invested in formal and non-formal education in Afghanistan since 2014. More than 70 percent of the Afghan population is in dire humanitarian need. It is a country on the brink of collapse in terms of people’s well-being. We are therefore calling for urgent funding to continue to fund community-based education through our grassroots organizations. We should never stop supporting Afghanistan; people are suffering,” Sherif emphasizes.
ECW has been supporting education programmes in Afghanistan since 2017. The ECW-supported extended Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) in Afghanistan supports more than 250,000 children and adolescents across some of the most remote and underserved areas of the country. The programme delivers community-based education, organised at the local level with support from local communities, and is critical to keep education going. Girls account for over half of all the children and adolescents reached by the MYRP.
IFAD says investing in smallholder farmers is key to tackling food insecurity or severe food and nutritional insecurity. CREDIT: Busani Bafana/IPS
by Busani Bafana (bulawayo)
Inter Press Service
BULAWAYO, Aug 14 (IPS) – A world free from hunger is possible, but it demands political will, investment, and effective policies to transform agriculture and rural development, says Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
More than 800 million people in the world went to bed hungry in 2022, and 3.1 billion others could not afford to eat a healthy diet in 2021, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)’s latest State of Food Insecurity and Nutrition in the World report.
IFAD described the startling SOFI report as “a wake-up call for the fight against hunger,” noting that massive investment in rural development and small-scale agriculture will win the war on hunger.
“Every year, the hunger and food insecurity numbers remind us of this dark reality: Not only are we not reaching our targets — we are moving farther away,” Lario told IPS in an interview via email.
Enough Food but Hunger for Decisive Action
According to the SOFI, hunger numbers stalled between 2021 and 2022, but there were 122 million more hungry people in 2022 than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sustainable Development Goal #2 is the zero-hunger goal of the United Nations. It aims to end all forms of hunger and malnutrition by 2030 by ensuring all people — especially children and the more vulnerable — have access to sufficient and nutritious food all year round. But is the zero-hunger goal realistic, given that the number of hungry people globally is rising despite advances in technology to boost food production and productivity?
Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). CREDIT: IFAD
“In a world of plenty, where inequalities are increasing, zero hunger is the only objective to have,” Lario said. “Ending hunger is feasible. It is a matter of political will, adequate investments, and policies.”
Commenting on the SOFI report, Danielle Nierenberg, President of the Food Tank, said world leaders were failing to prioritize the needs of millions of people around the globe in creating better food and nutrition security.
“If we leave people behind because there is something going on in the world, whether there is conflict in Russia against Ukraine or inflation across the globe … If we do not protect and nourish those who are most in need, we are setting ourselves up for disaster,” Nierenberg told IPS in an interview.
“Hungry people tend to be angry people for obvious reasons … What we need is better political will and active policymakers to really solve this with the help of communities, nonprofits and research institutions who have been leading the charge against hunger.”
Reacting to the SOFI report, Oxfam, a global charity focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, said it was unforgivable for governments to watch billions of people going hungry in a world of plenty.
“Solutions to end world hunger exist, but they require bold and united political action,” said Hanna Saarinen, Oxfam International Food Policy Lead, in a statement, calling on governments to support small-scale food producers and promote especially the rights of women farmers, who are key in the fight against global hunger.
Lario said in Africa, conflicts, poverty, lack of infrastructure and access to energy, and poor access to education and vocational training, combined with high population growth, were converging to worsen the challenge of food and nutrition insecurity.
However, this did not mean that hunger cannot be overcome as the African continent had many assets to boost food security, including land, natural resources, and the dynamism of its youth, said Lario.
Invest in Rural Development and Small-Scale Agriculture
Danielle Nierenberg, President of the Food Tank. CREDIT: Food Tank
Asked what needs to be done to win the war against hunger and undernutrition on the back of many countries which put more money into funding war than food security.
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia as well as the tension in East Asia, have driven increased global military spending by 3.7 percent in real terms in 2022, to a record high of USD 2 240 billion, according to new data on global military spending published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
“Governments need to understand that hunger and poverty fuel conflicts, migration and ultimately instability,” Lario told IPS, noting that the Ukraine war and the dependency of many countries on food imports has led to the recognition of the importance of food sovereignty and food security for national security.
“To win the war on hunger, we need to massively scale up our investments in rural development and small-scale agriculture,” said Lario.
Lario is convinced that investing in agriculture is three times more effective at reducing poverty than investing in any other sector. Agriculture remains the backbone of many African economies.
Financial support for agriculture has been stagnant at just 4-6 percent of total Overseas Development Aid (ODA) for at least two decades. IFAD notes that agriculture ODA fell to USD 9.9 billion in 2021, far below what is needed.
Very few African governments have invested 10 percent of their budget in agriculture as per the Malabo Declaration of 2014. Besides, small-scale farmers receive less than 2 percent of global climate finance despite being major food providers, Lario said.
IFAD estimates that up to USD 400 billion would be needed annually until 2030 to build sustainable, equitable and resilient food systems.
“We need to tackle the root causes of hunger and rural poverty,” he said, adding that “Inaction will be expensive. Every USD 1 spent on resilience now saves up to USD 10 in emergency aid in the future.”
Women and girls in Kenya’s West Pokot celebrate as the government cracks down on those practising harmful Female Genital Mutilation in the area. CREDIT: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Aug 09 (IPS) – It promised to be the most defining, groundbreaking, and transformative protocol on African women’s rights. Specific in its approach, broad in its reach, and unique in its all-encompassing nature, covering issues such as HIV/Aids, widow inheritance and property disinheritance in a most unprecedented manner.
The Maputo Protocol was designed in line with the realities of the plight of women on the continent. Providing tailor-made solutions to lift women from beneath the crushing weight of a cultural system that disadvantages women from birth. Twenty years on, it is time to take stock.
“The 20th Anniversary of the Maputo Protocol is a historical advocacy moment for women’s rights advocates. It offers an opportunity to demand from African Governments real and tangible change for women and girls in their countries,” Faiza Mohamed, Africa Regional Director of Equality Now, tells IPS.
“By acceding to the Maputo Protocol, lifting reservations, fully domesticating, and implementing the Protocol, and ensuring their compliance with accountability processes. Beyond this, it signifies the generational changes over two decades and points to the need to reflect on future generations and to future-proof the Maputo Protocol and the SOAWR Coalition.”
The Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) is a coalition of over 80 civil society organizations, a pan-African women’s movement that pushes for accelerated ratification of the protocol in non-ratifying states while holding governments accountable to deliver for women in line with the Protocol.
Youth delegates at Maputo Protocol 20th anniversary celebrations, July 11, 2023. CREDIT: Equality Now
Mohamed stresses that the SOAWR Coalition is a remarkable testament to the power of women’s organized movements and their capacity to influence transformative policy agendas, leaving a lasting impact.
“Through its persistent efforts, SOAWR has successfully kept the protocol on the agenda of AU member states, leading to significant influence as 44 out of 55 African states have ratified or acceded to the Maputo Protocol. This achievement has turned the Protocol into a potent public education tool for women’s rights, both at the national and grassroots levels,” she explains.
“Notably, there has been substantial progress in the advancement of national jurisprudence on women’s rights, as well as in the empowerment of women themselves. Thanks to the coalition’s effective public sensitization campaigns, formerly taboo subjects like sexual and reproductive health rights, female genital mutilation, and polygamy have become open and advanced topics in various countries.”
The coalition has demonstrated how much women and like-minded partners can achieve working in solidarity. Additionally, each organization continues to push the women’s agenda forward – pushing and pulling in the same direction, to realize the dream of a society where women are fully represented in every corner of the spaces they call home.
“The Maputo Protocol comes out of the African feminist fire, and we need to keep it burning. That it is one of the most progressive legal instruments that came out of Africa. That it represents our diversity and our strength because we are not a monolith. It also represents the power of collective action and also the dream of the Africa we want,” says Nigerian-born Becky Williams, a young woman who now lives in Uganda and works for Akina Mama wa Africa.
Equality Now is currently advocating for adopting the Multi-Sectoral Approach in implementing the Maputo Protocol. The Multi-Sectoral Approach (MSA) provides a framework for convening different sectors within governments and actors outside of government in a joint effort to implement women’s rights as provided for in the Protocol.
Mohamed emphasizes that if recognized and embraced by governments and civil societies, the Maputo Protocol can be a powerful tool for change as it offers women a tool for transforming the unequal power relations between men and women that lie at the heart of gender inequality and women’s oppression.
To coincide with the Maputo Protocol’s 20th anniversary, SOAWR, Make Every Woman Count (MEWC), and Equality Now released a report titled, “Twenty years of the Maputo Protocol: Where are we now?” Providing a detailed account of progress made thus far, successes, challenges and recommendations.
Regarding rights related to marriage and child marriage, the report finds that several countries have adopted constitutional reforms related to the prohibition of forced marriage. For example, the constitution of Burundi guarantees marriage equality. The constitutions of Guinea, Malawi, Uganda, and Zimbabwe set the legal age of marriage at 18 years. AU Member States have enacted legislation on rights related to marriage.
On economic and social welfare rights, half of the African states maintain constitutional provisions guaranteeing equal remuneration for work of equal value or the right to fair or just pay. More than half of African states have laws mandating equal remuneration for work of equal value.
Regarding health and reproductive rights, almost all African states maintain constitutional provisions related to health and/or health care, and many enshrine the principle of non-discrimination based on health. Notably, six countries, including Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, enshrine rights related to reproductive health care, such as access to family planning education or reproductive/maternity care.
Group photo of the delegates at the Maputo Protocol 20th anniversary celebrations held in Nairobi, Kenya. CREDIT: Equality Now
While women’s rights have come a long way, the report stresses that there is a long way to go and makes specific key recommendations, such as the need to address the right to abortion and treat each case as espoused in the Protocol. It also suggests that the Maputo Protocol should be used to protect women and girls’ reproductive health rights and advocates that Member states remove laws that fail to protect reproductive health rights.
It advocates for the passing of family laws to protect women’s rights before, during, and after marriage and establish special courts to deal with complex marriage issues. In addition, it suggests that Governments implement regional and international treaties such as the Maputo Protocol and educate women and girls on these.
It would like to see programmes that allow young women to return to school after giving birth promoted and demands that early marriage be criminalized, and customary law is adapted so that it no longer defines what happens to women in marriage.
It asks governments to provide universal health services and insurance access, especially for pregnant, vulnerable, and/or specially protected women. It requires member states to improve infrastructure, training, and equipment for health services in rural areas.
Equally important, the protocol includes the empowerment of women and girls to realize their sexual and reproductive health rights through awareness campaigns delivered in communities and schools and wishes to see menstrual hygiene management incorporated into national legal frameworks through awareness-raising activities from more actors, especially parliamentarians.
Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
Inter Press Service
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug 09 (IPS) – The primary commodity price boom early this century has often been attributed to a commodity ‘super-cycle’, i.e., a price upsurge greater than what might be expected in ‘normal’ booms. This was largely due to some minerals as most agricultural commodity price increases were more modest.
This minerals boom improved many developing country growth records, not least in Africa. With growing pressures to act urgently in response to accelerating global warming, mitigation efforts have been stepped up, promising energy transitions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
These require major shifts from fossil fuel combustion to renewable energy and complementary (e.g., transport) technologies. This energy transition requires more of specific minerals like lithium, copper and cobalt. This increased demand for minerals offers resource-rich economies more opportunities for greater domestic resource mobilization for development.
The Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) and the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) report, The Future of Resource Taxation: 10 policy ideas to mobilize mining revenues, reviews major problems faced by African and other governments trying to greatly increase revenue from mining.
Great expectations, little taxation
Colonial and neo-colonial mining arrangements have rarely delivered the revenue needed by post-colonial governments. Weak governance, overly generous tax incentives, poor fiscal policies, bad contracts, as well as tax avoidance and evasion have all eroded mineral revenues for developing countries.
Resource-rich countries have been rethinking how to benefit more from mining in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, worsening developing country debt crises, and increasingly uncertain government revenues and expenditures.
Mining royalties and taxation have remained largely unchanged for decades, while corporate income tax is hard to collect, vulnerable to profit shifting and often minimized with the aid of tax professionals and corrupt officials.
Improving taxation
Taxing transnational corporations has long posed major challenges. Poor laws and enforcement as well as limited funding and staff mean most developing countries are poorly equipped to apply complex international tax norms, such as the ‘arm’s-length principle’ and ‘double taxation treaties’.
Developing nations are especially vulnerable to tax base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). International Monetary Fund staff estimate African countries have lost annual mining revenue up to $730 million annually due to BEPS.
Many developing countries identified ‘transfer pricing’ as the greatest challenge to taxing mining. The problem has been made worse by mining tax regimes and investment agreements favouring investors, especially from abroad.
Such agreements often contain fiscal incentives making mining revenue collection difficult. Worse, many governments believe generous tax incentives are necessary to attract mining investment. But these typically undermine effective tax administration, causing significant revenue losses.
Also, policy conditionalities typically ‘lock in’ poorly designed fiscal conditions and mining contracts, often required or recommended by the IMF or World Bank. These tend to benefit investors, potentially resulting in costly disputes for host governments.
Generating substantial government revenue from artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is difficult. As ASM induces more local spending, rather than extraction or export taxes, indirect taxes and wealth taxes are probably better for such incomes.
Governments of resource-rich developing countries require finance and reliable personnel for successful implementation, to ensure accountability and curb corruption. Sufficient financial and technical assistance can greatly improve mining revenue collection, ensuring companies pay all royalties and taxes due.
Effective implementation needs to be well supported by international agreements and organizations, development partners, and civil society. Tax incentives undermining government policy objectives and legal systems should be avoided.
Taxing better not easy
More access to information and expertise can greatly improve mining tax administration. Information, particularly from other jurisdictions, is critical for tax administrations to better collect taxes due. Sadly, progress has been painfully slow in many developing countries.
Instruments designed to improve information exchange include bilateral investment and tax treaties, tax information exchange agreements, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, and the ATAF Multilateral Agreement on Assistance in Tax Matters.
Mining revenue collection needs to be able to verify the quantity and quality of mineral reserves and extracts. Key challenges include enhancing tax audit capacity and getting up-to-date knowledge of mining, including implications of changes in mining techniques.
Better inter-agency cooperation is often necessary for better regulation and to avoid an incoherent, fragmented approach. Many mining revenue BEPS problems are due to capacity constraints, e.g., whether governments can effectively verify the costs of goods and services and mineral prices.
Many transactions also require tax auditors to have detailed knowledge of the mining value chain. Many aspects of mining operations allow inflating actual costs to evade taxes. Valuing intangibles, such as intellectual property, is also difficult. Many countries also lack regulations to tax the sale of offshore indirect mining assets, often losing much revenue as a consequence.
Too little too late?
Mineral-rich developing countries hope for more ‘resource rents’ from mining to significantly enhance government revenue. They hope mining taxation will collect much more revenue, subject to other policy goals. However, in most cases, mining has failed to deliver the expected revenues.
Inappropriate laws and investment agreements, overly generous tax incentives, as well as tax evasion and avoidance have contributed to this failure. Some authorities lack the expertise, information and means to more effectively tax mining. Corruption and poor revenue management also remain challenges.
Thankfully, mining revenue collection has improved, albeit modestly. Many countries are improving their mining tax regulations and strengthening their tax audit capacity.
Better international cooperation can address many problems, including information asymmetries. All countries implementing the Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) are now required to disclose mining, oil, and gas contracts. This can significantly improve transparency.
Although welcome, such improvements are still far from enough to meet the considerable domestic revenue mobilization needs of developing countries soon enough to adequately accelerate sustainable development after dismal progress for almost a decade.
Goat rearing is contributing to economic independence and improved livelihoods of women thanks to a post-COVID-19 empowerment project. CREDIT: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS
by Umar Manzoor Shah (milonpur, india)
Inter Press Service
MILONPUR, INDIA, Aug 08 (IPS) – Seema Devi is a 39-year-old woman hailing from India’s northeastern state of Assam. She lives in a village called Milonpur, a small hamlet with no more than 1 000 inhabitants. While most men from the village, including Devi’s husband, move to cities and towns in search of work, women are left behind to take care of the house and kids.
Devi says that after the COVID-19 lockdown in India in the year 2020, the family income drastically plummeted. As most of the factories were shut for months, the workers, including Devi’s husband, were jobless. Even after the lockdown ended and workers were called back to the factories, the wages witnessed a dip.
“Earlier my husband would earn no less than Rs 10 000 a month (125 USD), and after the lockdown, it wasn’t more than a mere 6 000 rupees (70 USD). My children and I would suffer for the want of basic needs like medicine and clothing, but at the same time, I was considerate of the situation and helplessness of my husband,” Devi told IPS.
However, there were few alternatives available at home that could have mitigated Devi’s predicament. With the small area of ancestral land used for cultivation, the change in weather patterns caused her family and several households in the village to reap losses.
However, in 2021, a non-government organization visited the hamlet to assess the situation in the post-COVID scenario. The villagers told the team about how most of the men in the village go out to cities and towns in search of livelihood and work as labourers in factories and that their wages have come down due to economic distress in the country.
After hectic deliberations, about ten self-help groups of women were created. They trained in livestock farming and how this venture could be turned into a profitable business.
The women were initially reluctant because they were unaware of how to make livestock farming profitable. They would ask the members of the charitable organisation questions like, “What if it fails to yield desired results? What if some terrible disease affects the animals, and what if the livestock wouldn’t generate any income for them?”
Wilson Kandulna, who was the senior member of the team, told IPS that experts were called in to train the women about cattle rearing and how timely vaccinations, proper feed, and care could make livestock farming profitable and mitigate their basic living costs. “At first, we provided ten goat kids to each women’s group and made them aware of the dos and don’ts of this kind of farming. They were quick to learn and grasped easily whatever was taught to them,” Wilson said.
He added that these women were living in economic distress due to the limited income of their husbands and were desperately anxious about the scarcity of proper education for children and other daily needs.
Devi says that as soon as she got the goat kids, she acquired basic training in feeding them properly and taking them for vaccinations to the nearby government veterinary hospital.
“Two years have passed, and now we have hundreds of goats as they reproduce quickly, and we are now able to earn a good income. During the first few months, there were issues like feeding problems, proper shelter during monsoons and summers, and how and when we should take them out for grazing. As time passed and we learned the skills, we have become very trained goat rearers,” Devi said.
Renuka, another woman in the self-help group, told IPS that for the past year, they have been continuously getting demands for goat milk from the main towns. “People know about the health benefits of goat milk. They know it is organic without any preservatives, and that is the reason we have a very high demand for it. We sell it at a good price, and at times, demand surpasses the supply,” Renuka said.
For Devi, livestock farming has been no less than a blessing. She says she earns more than five thousand rupees a month (about 60 USD) and has been able to cover daily household expenses all by herself. “I no longer rely on my husband for household expenses. I take care of it all by myself. My husband, too, is relieved, and things are getting back on track,” Devi said, smiling.
Kalpana, a 32-year-old member of the group, says the goats have increased in number, and last year, several of them were sold in the market at a good price.
“The profits were shared by the group members. Earlier, women in this village were entirely dependent on their husbands for covering their basic expenses. Now, they are economically self-reliant. They take good care of the house and of themselves,” Kalpana told IPS News.
Note: Names of some of the women have been changed on their request.
Smallholder farmer Elizabeth Mpofu uses renewable energy to reduce emissions from firewood at her farm in Shashe, Mashava. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS
by Farai Shawn Matiashe (bulawayo, zimbabwe)
Inter Press Service
BULAWAYO, ZIMBABWE, Aug 04 (IPS) – When Nelson Mudzingwa arrived in the Shashe farming area in Mashava in Masvingo, about 294 kilometres from the capital Harare, in the early 2000s, the land was barren, with no hope that the soils could be suitable for farming.
The area used for cattle ranching had turned into a semi-arid.
Livestock was dying due to hunger while trees succumbed to deforestation, and water levels in the nearby Shashe River had decreased because of siltation.
More than two decades later Shashe farming area has transformed into a reputable farming hub.
This was done by employing agroecology techniques, including using locally available resources such as growing traditional grains, rehabilitating the area by planting trees, water harvesting to conserve water and venturing into poultry to get manure to improve soil fertility.
“When I harvest crops in the fields, I make sure that I put aside seed in preparation for the next season,” says Mudzingwa, the 53-year-old small-holder farmer who was born in Chiwundura in Midlands Province, a central part of Zimbabwe.
“By digging contours that channel water in our fields, we have improved the chances of receiving rainfall in Shashe. Even during the dry season, we receive rainfall which was not common when we first arrived.”
Peter Mudzingwa looking at harvested groundnuts at his father Nelson Mudzingwa’s farm in Shashe, Mashava. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS
Shashe farming area has evolved into a learning area where farmers around Zimbabwe and beyond the borders come to learn agroecology at Shashe Agroecology School, a centre of agroecology, of which Mudzingwa is one of the founders.
Zimbabwe, just like the rest of the southern African region, has been experiencing climate change-induced prolonged droughts and incessant rainfall resulting in floods.
Climate change does not discriminate.
Every living being must pay.
The majority of Zimbabweans live in rural areas, and climate change, caused by human activities, is a major threat to their livelihood.
They rely on agriculture to feed their families as well as earn a living by selling some of the produce.
Government and non-governmental organisations have been working hand in hand to introduce measures that reduce the impacts of climate change.
In Shashe, agroecology farming is basically conserving the land and environment.
This concept involves strengthening the resilience of smallholder farmers through the diversification of agroecosystems.
That is organic soil management and water harvesting for conservation.
In the Shashe farming area, smallholder farmers like Mudzingwa grow a variety of food crops, including grains, cereals, legumes, vegetables, fruit trees and medicinal plants.
They also rear livestock, including cows, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens.
The grains such as sorghum, millet and rapoko are drought-resistant crops meaning smallholder farmers can still have a bumper harvest even during droughts.
Everything on the Mudzingwa’s farm is recycled.
“Livestock are our biggest source of manure. We collect crop residues from the fields and feed the cattle. Then we collect waste and make organic manure in compost,” says Mudzingwa, who is an agriculturist by profession.
The smallholder farmers in this area have fish ponds where they farm different species like catfish and breams.
Mudzingwa says fish farming, poultry, and crops depend on each other for survival.
“We feed fish with chicken droppings and worms. We keep worms in the composts we make for manure. The water from the fish ponds after harvesting is channelled to the garden because it is highly nutritious,” he says.
Another smallholder farmer is Elizabeth Mpofu, who has fed and clothed her three children and one grandchild using proceeds from her agroecology venture in the Shashe farming area.
She turned to sustainable farming after realising that rainfed agriculture was no longer viable in this area; she was resettled following the Land Reform Programme in the early 2000s.
The chaotic Land Reform Programme implemented under President Robert Mugabe saw black farmers taking back their land from the few minority white farmers two decades after Zimbabwe gained its independence from the British colonialists.
Just like Mudzingwa, Mpofu is into fish farming, growing drought-resistant crops like millet and sorghum, poultry and water harvesting to conserve moisture in the fields.
Mpofu keeps seeds for the next agriculture season to ensure that traditional grains critical in providing high yields amid climate change do not run into extinction.
Mudzingwa and Mpofu supply other farmers in Shashe and around the country with seeds and pass agroecology knowledge and skills to them.
Mpofu has planted trees and maintained indigenous trees near her plot as part of her reforestation efforts.
Mpofu’s family relies on agroecology.
She keeps some produce for her family after harvesting and sells the excess to other residents in Mashava or Masvingo, the province’s city.
“Agroecology is the way to go. As a woman, I have been able to look after myself and my family,” Mpofu, a widower, tells IPS.
The agroecology initiative in Mashava and Bikita has reached about 500 smallholder farmers, says Simba Guzha, a regional project manager for Voluntary Service Overseas, a charity supporting farmers like Mpofu and Mudzingwa.
Guzha tells IPS that affordable and less resource-input farming practices like agroecology are important to enhance agricultural production and increase food security at the household level.
“In Zimbabwe, agriculture production is mainly rainfed, and smallholder farmers in marginalized areas contribute more than 70 percent of food production in the country, yet they lack they do not have the financial capacity to purchase synthetic inputs.”
“In Mashava, most soils are loamy sands to sandy which are prone to acidification, leaching and poor structure and can barely support plant life, the use of organic fertilisers and green cover crops that bind the soil help to replenish such soils and enhance microbial activity that supports plant life while sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.”
Guzha says agroecology in Mashava has empowered women and the youth, who are usually marginalised and vulnerable.
“It has enhanced their productive capacity as well as empowered them to have diversified food sources and income-generating activities,” he says.
“Agroecology promotes growing of indigenous or orphan crops and diversity that are well suited to low rainfall areas like Mashava, hence, farmers are guaranteed of getting something in case of severe droughts. It has promoted local diets and culturally acceptable foods that are nutritious and healthy for the local people.”
View of the Itaipú hydroelectric plant shared by Brazil and Paraguay on the Paraná River. CREDIT: Mario Osava/IPS
Opinion by Philippe Benoit, Anne Sophie Corbeau (washington dc)
Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 03 (IPS) – The Colorado river basin has recently been wracked by an extended drought which brought to the fore major concerns regarding hydroelectricity production. Up on the Colorado sits the iconic Hoover Dam, which transforms water into enough electricity to power 1.3 million people in Nevada, Arizona and California.
Although an agreement was reached by the three dependent Western states to cut water use, it served as a reminder of the dependency of energy production on water … a dependency that is being subjected to greater uncertainties because of climate change.
This phenomenon is not only impacting citizens dependent on the Colorado River but stretches across the United States and the world. Over the past two years, Europe, China, Brazil, Iraq, the Horn of Africa, have experienced the worst droughts in (sometimes hundreds of) years.
Importantly, the water-to-energy relationship also runs the other way: water production and delivery are themselves dependent on energy.
Moreover, the need of water services for energy is likely to increase, driven by growing populations, rising prosperity (notably in developing countries) and novel uses of energy for water in desalination plants and elsewhere. As we feel the impact of increasingly intense heat waves and droughts, the time has come to revisit the challenges of the water-energy nexus.
The dependence of energy production on water has long been recognized by energy experts, but has surprised many others. Beyond very visible hydropower plants, like the Hoover Dam, water is used to cool down nuclear power plants (through the cooling towers emitting steam that many may have noticed, without perhaps always identifying the purpose), as well as in natural gas and coal-fired plants. Water is also used in various stages of the energy supply chain, including for production and processing.
Climate change is expected, through its impact on water supply and availability, to increase vulnerabilities in energy production. For example, changing rain patterns will create uncertainties for hydropower production, which represents 15 percent of global power generation, even if the overall level of rainfall doesn’t change.
And in a completely different dynamic, various coal power plants dependent on barge transport for resupply have seen their operations imperiled by low water levels. These are aspects that have received some, but altogether inadequate, attention to date.
Both hydroelectricity and nuclear generation, two low-carbon sources of electricity, are expected to increase significantly over decades to come under various government programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Moreover, even as the need for water to cool down coal-fired plants is eventually expected to drop as countries transition from this carbon intensive fuel source, new uses for water are emerging, including for the production of hydrogen through electrolysis.
What has attracted less attention is the impact of growing demand for energy from developments in water systems. The UN projects that the world’s population will increase by over 1.2 billion by 2040, with about two-thirds of that increase occurring in emerging economies and other developing countries.
These nations are also projected to see significant increases in their income levels, increasing the ability of their populations to access water services, at home, at the office or for pleasure. Moreover, the demand for food is also similarly projected to increase, and with that, the need for more water irrigation services inevitably powered by energy.
These factors are helping to drive an increase in the demand for energy. For example, the International Energy Agency projects that the amount of energy required by the water sector will more than double within 20 years. The major driver under the IEA’s modelling is the demand from desalination plants.
These are no longer confined to the dryer climates of the Middle East and North Africa, but also in regions which once thought that their water supplies were ample, such as Europe or Asia. Other important growing demand for water is also coming from waste water treatment plants and the supply of clean drinking water and sanitation services to both the billions of poor who currently lack it and the other more prosperous billions across the developing world whose consumption is projected to increase.
Unfortunately, efforts to meet this demand will be exacerbated by climate change. For example, droughts are likely to require the transport of water over longer distances to satisfy the needs of populations suffering from water scarcity, an effort that will require more energy.
Similarly, over the past year, droughts have heightened the possibility of water restrictions for millions of people in Southern Europe, including drinking water, which might in turn require more desalination.
But though tensions are inevitable, actions can be taken to, if not avoid the problems, dampen its impact. Actions lie in the water or energy sectors, and, often, at the intersection of the two. In the water sector, these include reducing water losses, allowing construction of rainwater collection tanks for agricultural use, increasing waste-water facilities, and fast-tracking the installation of desalination plants.
The energy-for-water dimension will become increasingly fraught, driven by the combination of climate change, growing populations and increasing prosperity. Not only do we need to redouble our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we also require stronger concerted actions on adaptation and resilience.
Like for energy, we need to be more efficient at using water, whether this is for households needs, industrial processes, agriculture or energy; meanwhile concerted action and discussion between those sectors will be needed.
The recent events along the Colorado River serve as an important wake-up call. Water is at the essence of our quality of life, and energy is an integral part of that story. We need to do a better job of managing our thirst for water and the energy required to satisfy that demand … and we need to do this in the face of a changing climate.
(First published in The Hill on July 7, 2023)
Philippe Benoit is research director forGlobal Infrastructure Analytics and Sustainability 2050 and previously held management positions at the World Bank and the International Energy Agency. He is also adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
Anne-Sophie Corbeau is global research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a visiting professor at Sciences Po.
Two pregnant girls walk through the center of the capital of El Salvador, a country with one of the highest rates of pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14, and where, as in the rest of Central America, what prevails are conservative views opposed to the teaching of sex education in schools, which is essential to reducing the phenomenon. CREDIT: Francisco Campos / IPS
by Edgardo Ayala (san salvador)
Inter Press Service
SAN SALVADOR, Aug 03 (IPS) – Pregnancies among girls and adolescents continue unabated in Central America, where legislation to prevent them, when it exists, is a dead letter, and governments are influenced by conservative sectors opposed to sex education in schools.
The most recent incident reflecting this situation was the Jul. 29 veto by Honduran President Xiomara Castro of an Integral Law for the Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy, approved by the single-chamber Congress on Mar. 8 and criticized by conservative groups and the country’s political right wing.
“We don’t know the arguments behind the veto, but we could surmise that the law is still being held up by pressure from these anti-rights groups,” lawyer Erika García, of the Women’s Rights Center, told IPS from Tegucigalpa.
The influence of lobbying groups
Conservative sectors, united in “Por nuestros hijos” (“for our children”), a Honduran version of the regional movement “Con mis Hijos no te Metas” (roughly “don’t mess with my children”), have opposed the law because in their view it pushes “gender ideology”, as international conservative populist groups call the current movement for the dissemination of women’s and LGBTI rights.
In June, the United Nations expressed concern about “disinformation campaigns” surrounding the Honduran law.
The last of the marches in favor of “family and children” took place in Tegucigalpa, the country’s capital, on Jul. 22.
These groups “appeal to people’s ignorance, to fear, to religion, with arguments that have nothing to do with reality,” said García. “They say, for example, that people will put skirts on boys and pants on girls.”
According to the Honduran Penal Code having sexual relations with minors under 14 years of age is statutory rape, whether or not the girl consented.
In 2022, 1039 girls under 14 gave birth.
“The problem is quite serious, and it is aggravated by the lack of public policies to prevent pregnancies among girls and adolescents,” García said.
In the countries of Central America, which have a combined total of some 50 million inhabitants, ultra-conservative views prevail when it comes to sexual and reproductive health and education.
In El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua – as well as the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean – abortion is banned under all circumstances, including rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s life.
In the rest of Central America, abortion is only permitted in certain circumstances.
The Honduran president vetoed the law under the formula “return to Congress”, so that it can be studied again and eventually ratified if two thirds of the 128 lawmakers approve it.
Zuleyma Beltrán, 41, talked about becoming pregnant at the age of 15 because there is no proper sex education in El Salvador. A second pregnancy led to a miscarriage that landed her in jail in 1999, where many Salvadoran women who miscarry or have abortions end up due to a draconian anti-abortion law. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
“I didn’t even know what a condom was”
However, having laws of this nature does not ensure that the phenomenon will be reduced, since legislation is not always enforced.
An UNFPA report noted that in this country the pregnancy rate among girls and adolescents dropped by more than 50 percent between 2015 and 2022.
However, “it is worrisome to see that El Salvador is one of the 50 countries in the world with the highest fertility rates in girls aged 10-14 years,” the UN agency said in its latest report, released in July.
Among girls aged 10-14, the study noted, the pregnancy rate dropped by 59.6 percent, from 4.7 girls registered for prenatal care per 1000 girls in 2015 to 1.9 in 2022.
The map of pregnancies in girls and adolescents in El Salvador added that the country “needs to further accelerate the pace of reduction, adopting policies and strategies adapted to the different realities of girls aged 10-14 years and adolescents aged 15-19 years.”
Such actions must be “evidence-based,” the report stressed.
The reference appears to be an allusion to the prevalence of conservative attitudes of groups that, in Honduras for example, reject sexual and reproductive education in schools.
This lack of basic knowledge about sexuality, in a context of structural poverty, led Zuleyma Beltrán to fall pregnant at the age of 15.
“When I became pregnant I didn’t even know what a condom was, I’m not ashamed to say it,” Beltrán, now 41, told IPS.
She added: “I suffered a lot because I didn’t know many things, because I lived in ignorance.”
Two years later, Beltrán became pregnant again but she miscarried, which landed her in jail in August 1999, accused of having an abortion – a plight faced by hundreds of women in El Salvador.
El Salvador not only bans abortion under any circumstances, even in cases of rape. It also imposes penalties of up to 30 years in prison for women who have undergone abortions, and women who end up in the hospital after suffering a miscarriage are often prosecuted under the law as well.
“The State does not provide girls with sex education or sexual and reproductive health, and when pregnancies or obstetric emergencies occur as a result, it is too cruel to them, it only offers them jail,” she added.
Recinos said that, due to pressure from conservative groups, the State has backed down on the strategy of providing sexual and reproductive information in schools.
“Now they are more rigorous in not allowing organizations working in that area to go and give talks on comprehensive sex education in schools,” she noted.
Not even baby formula
In Guatemala, initiatives by civil society organizations that since 2017 have proposed, among other things, that the State should offer reparations to pregnant girls and adolescents, to alleviate their heavy burden, have made no progress either.
These proposals included the creation of scholarships, making it possible for girls to continue going to school while their babies were cared for and received formula.
“But unfortunately we have not been able to take the next step, to get these measures in place,” said Paula Barrios, general coordinator of Women Transforming the World, in a telephone conversation with IPS from the capital, Guatemala City.
Barrios said that most of the users of the services offered by this organization, such as legal and psychological support, “are girls and adolescents who are pregnant because of sexual violence and are forced to have their babies.”
She said that in the last five years some 500,000 girls under 14 years of age have become pregnant, and the number is much higher when teenagers up to 19 years of age are included.
“Today we have half a million girls who we don’t know what they and the children who are the products of rape are eating,” Barrios stressed, adding that as in El Salvador and Honduras, in Guatemala, having sex with a girl under 14 years of age is considered statutory rape.
“Society sees it as normal that women are born to be mothers, and so it doesn’t matter if a girl gets pregnant at the age of 10 or 12 years, they just think she has done it a little bit earlier,” she said.
Patriarchy and capitalism
The experts from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador consulted by IPS said the root of the phenomenon is multi-causal, with facets of patriarchy, especially gender stereotypes and sexual violence.
“The patriarchy has an interest in stopping women from going out into the public sphere,” said Barrios.
She said the life of a 10-year-old girl is cut short when she becomes pregnant. She will no longer go to school and will remain in the domestic sphere, “to raise children and stay at home.”
For her part, Garcia, the lawyer from Honduras, pointed out that there is also an underlying “system of oppression” that is intertwined with patriarchy and colonialism, which is the influence of a hegemonic country or region.
“We have girls giving birth to cheap labor to feed the (capitalist) system, and there is a greater feminization of poverty, girls giving birth to girls whose future prospects are ruined,” she said.
In the meantime, to avoid a repeat of her ordeal, Beltrán said she talks to and teaches her nine-year-old daughter about sexuality.
“In order to keep her from repeating my story, I talk to her about condoms, how a woman has to take care of herself and how she can get pregnant,” she said.
“I don’t want her to go through what I did,” she said.
DG Simeon Ehui visits IITA Semi-Autotrophic Hydroponic SAH, cassava multiplication section with Kenton Dashiell and Debo Akande facilitated by Mercy Diebru-Ojo, Assitant Seed Specialist (Right). Credit: IITA
by Guy Dinmore (st davids, wales)
Inter Press Service
ST DAVIDS, WALES, Aug 02 (IPS) – “My key message is really simple,” says Dr Simeon Ehui, the newly-appointed director general of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, which works with partners across sub-Saharan Africa to tackle hunger, poverty and natural resource degradation.
“The clock is ticking,” Ehui tells IPS in an interview from Washington DC on his last day at the World Bank, urging Africa’s leaders to recognise the “absolute, paramount” importance of increasing funding for agriculture.
Dr Ehui, who also becomes regional director of Continental Africa for CGIAR, a global network of food security research organisations, says Africa’s food security is worsening. He lists the challenges: the climate crisis and extreme weather events that are presently causing floods in the west and central Africa and drought in the east; relatively high population growth; migration to urban areas; and specifically, the Ukraine-Russia war that triggered soaring prices of chemical fertilisers and grain.
As the African Development Bank recently noted, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resulted in fertiliser prices rising two to three times over 2020 levels, creating serious supply gaps across the continent and driving food inflation. In sub-Saharan Africa, households spend up to 40% of their budget on food, compared to 17% in developed economies. Africa, the bank says, is over-reliant on food staples and agricultural inputs, importing over 100 million tonnes of cereals a year.
Much of that food deficit and accompanying poverty is concentrated in several African states, led by Nigeria (where IITA is based in Ibadan), which is projected to overtake the US as the world’s third most populous country by 2050 with some 400 million people.
“My vision is thriving agricultural food systems in Africa,” says Dr Ehui, and, specifically for IITA and CGIAR, this means fostering the conditions to sustain centres of research excellence where scientists will be excited to work, with transparency of management and gender equality.
“We have to be able to respond quickly … We need to accelerate our research to respond to the needs of the people,” he adds.
While the global climate crisis is having a huge impact on food security, Dr Ehui agrees that political issues cannot be set aside. “We can’t divorce policy issues from the bigger agenda . The two go together,” he says, singling out land tenure, land grabbing, and obstacles to women having access to land.
IITA will provide analysis and options for policy-makers to improve access to land and boost investments in agriculture.
Asked whether he is concerned that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation plays an overly dominant role in providing over half of IITA’s funding of “research and delivery” projects, Dr Ehui begins by expressing his appreciation of the foundation’s support, particularly in the development of Aflasafe to combat dangerous aflatoxin in maise, groundnuts and other crops. However, the new director general also says he wants to “diversify sources of funding and scale-up research”.
He also rejects criticism from some quarters of the “failure” of Africa’s Green Revolution as embraced by Bill Gates, saying India’s one-crop model of the “green revolution” and a lack of care for the environment had not been applicable to Africa and its own complex systems.
IITA and CGIAR are responding to the needs of smallholder farmers in Africa, Dr Ehui says, and that means agriculture that is sustainable and regenerative.
“The focus on regenerative agriculture reflects the importance of natural resource management and local eco-systems,” says Dr Ehui, a national of Cote d’Ivoire who worked for 15 years at CGIAR, managing multi-agricultural research development programs in Africa and Asia, and whose most recent post was World Bank Regional Director for Sustainable Development for West and Central Africa.
Asked if there was a genuine shift towards regenerative and sustainable practices for Africa, Dr Ehui said CGIAR had long been focusing on using local technologies for enhancing food security, for example, reducing reliance on chemical fertilisers for those who could not afford it and using locally available inputs instead. “When I was a young scientist, we were working on these technologies,” he notes.
The Dakar 2 summit on food security last January recognised how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had exposed Africa’s over-reliance on imports of chemical fertilisers. “We have the resources to make it locally,” says Dr Ehui, who chaired a summit session.
At the summit, Senegal’s President Macky Sall, then head of the African Union, declared that “Africa must learn to feed itself” and that at least 10 percent of national budgets should be spent on agriculture.
Dr Ehui says it has been shown that every dollar spent on agricultural research brings a return of 10 dollars and that such investment will go a long way to help improve the socio-economic conditions of the people. Meeting basic needs will also help stem migration across the Mediterranean to Europe, he says.
Despite the challenges, agriculture is growing in much of sub-Saharan Africa and remains the mainstay of most African economies and a major employer. With 65% of the world’s remaining arable land in Africa and with a youthful and dynamic population, the African Development Bank believes Africa is capable of feeding itself as the world approaches a total population of nine billion people by 2050.
But have the pleas heard at the Dakar summit been heeded? “There has been a shift,” Dr Ehui replies. Funding for agriculture is still “below optimum”, but “a few countries” have responded, and he feels confident that, with work, numbers will soon increase.
Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown. Credit: UN
by Abigail Van Neely (united nations)
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 01 (IPS) – Civilian infrastructure is under attack in cities across Ukraine, and the need for long-term aid grows. However, the United Nations’ 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan for Ukraine is only 30 percent funded, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, told journalists.
The response plan for the year calls for USD 3.9 billion to continue frontline deliveries several times a week, prepare Ukraine for winter, and support long-term recovery and rebuilding in the country. Brown said that funding meant to help at least 11 million Ukrainians has been inadequate due to unexpected demands.
Access to water for drinking and irrigation has become a key issue following the destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka Dam. Top-floor residents have watched their downstairs neighbors evacuate flooded apartments. Several thousand people have been displaced due to water damage. Brown said that while the situation has been managed in the short term, the UN team continues searching for long-term solutions to water contamination.
Brown highlighted that the need for trauma support is growing at a fast pace. While it is too early to assess the long-term psychological effects of the current war, a 2019 study found a high prevalence of PTSD and depression in Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
The Black Sea city of Odesa has been attacked by Russia several times in the past weeks. The city is an important hub for the UN and the humanitarian community because it acts as a staging area for frontline responses, Brown explained. She recently traveled there to check on UN staff.
In Odesa, Brown visited the historical Orthodox cathedral. The Transfiguration Cathedral is in the center of a protected part of the city and within 700 meters of where most UN staff live and work. Brown learned that neighboring civilians had taken shelter in a bunker in the cathedral when an air siren went off, not knowing it would be hit. There was damage throughout the building, with one wing completely destroyed. A team of UNESCO experts has been deployed to further assess the condition of the cathedral. Brown said she was heartened to see community members gather to clean up broken glass.
“What I saw in Odesa last week with my own eyes is being repeated across many big cities in Ukraine,” Brown said.
According to Brown, big cities with a UN presence nearby are regularly targeted. Whole neighborhood blocks have been struck, and entire buildings have come down. Attacks on infrastructure like critical ports have hurt civilian workers, Ukrainian farmers, and vulnerable people in the Global South who rely on grain from the region. Access to resources has been a particular concern since Russia’s termination of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
The UN continues to advocate for access to Russian-occupied territories for the purpose of providing aid. Brown said they have been denied due to “security concerns.”
“The humanitarian situation hasn’t changed… the only thing that’s going to relieve that situation is if the war stops,” Brown said.
“Migration is a right,” read the handkerchiefs held by two women at a demonstration in the Argentine capital for migrants’ rights. At left is Natividad Obeso, a Peruvian who came to Buenos Aires in 1994, fleeing political violence in her country. CREDIT: Camilo Flores / ACDH
by Daniel Gutman (buenos aires)
Inter Press Service
BUENOS AIRES, Jul 27 (IPS) – Remi Cáceres experienced gender-based violence firsthand. She struggled, got out and today helps other women in Argentina to find an escape valve. But because she is in a wheelchair and is a foreign national, she says the process was even more painful and arduous: “Being a migrant with a disability, it’s two or three times harder. You have to empower yourself and it’s very difficult.”
When she came to Buenos Aires from Paraguay, she was already married and had had her legs amputated due to a spinal tumor. She suffered violence for several years until she was able to report her aggressor, got the police to remove him from her home and raised her two daughters watching after parked cars for spare change in a suburb of the capital
On the streets she met militant members of the Central de Trabajadores Argentinos (CTA), one of the central unions in this South American country, who encouraged her to join forces with other workers, to create cooperatives and to strengthen herself in labor and political terms. Since then she has come a long way and today she is the CTA’s Secretary for Disability.
“The places where women victims of gender-based violence are given assistance are not accessible to people who are in wheelchairs or are bedridden. And the shelters don’t know what to do with disabled women. Recently, a woman told me that she was sent back home with her aggressor,” Remi told IPS.
From her position in the CTA, Remi is one of the leaders of a project aimed at seeking information and empowering migrant, transgender and disabled women victims of gender violence living in different parts of Argentina, for which 300 women were interviewed, 100 from each of these groups.
The data obtained are shocking, since eight out of 10 women stated that they had experienced or are currently experiencing situations of violence or discrimination and, in the case of the transgender population, the rate reached 98 percent.
Most of the situations, they said, occurred in public spaces. Almost 85 percent said they had experienced hostility in streets, squares, public transportation and shops or other commercial facilities. And more than a quarter (26 percent) mentioned hospitals or health centers as places where violence and discrimination were common.
One of the trainings held by the “Wonder Women Against Violence” project. On the left is Remi Cáceres, who escaped domestic violence and today is Secretary of Disability at the Central de Trabajadores Argentinos central trade union. CREDIT: María Fernández / ACDH
Another interesting finding was that men are generally the aggressors in the home or other private settings, but in public settings and institutions, women are the aggressors in similar or even higher proportions.
The study was carried out by the Citizen Association for Human Rights (ACDH), an NGO that has been working to prevent violence in Argentina since 2002, with the participation of different organizations that represent disabled, trans and migrant women’s groups in this Southern Cone country.
It forms part of a larger initiative, dubbed Wonder Women Against Violence, which has received financial support for the period 2022-2025 from the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. Since 1996, this fund has supported projects in 140 countries for a total of 215 million dollars.
The initiative includes trainings aimed at providing tools for access to justice to the most vulnerable groups, which began to be offered in 2022 by different organizations to more than 1,000 women so far.
Courses have also been held for officials and staff of national, provincial and municipal governments and the judiciary, with the aim of raising awareness on how to deal with cases of gender violence.
María José Lubertino, president of the Citizen Association for Human Rights, takes part in a feminist demonstration in Buenos Aires. Lubertino coordinates the project on violence against disabled, transgender and migrant women in Argentina that runs from 2022 to 2025. CREDIT: Camilo Flores / ACDH
Fewer complaints
“Argentina has made great progress in recent years in terms of laws and public policies on violence against women, but despite this, one woman dies every day from femicide (gender-based murders),” ADCH president María José Lubertino told IPS.
“In this case, we decided to work with forgotten women. We were struck by the fact that there were very few migrant, trans and disabled women in the public registers of gender-violence complaints. We discovered that they do not suffer less violence, but that they report it less,” she added.
Lubertino, a lawyer who has chaired the governmental National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI), argues that these are systematically oppressed and discriminated groups that, in her experience, face their own fears when it comes to reporting cases: “migrants are afraid of reprisals, trans women assume that no one will believe them and disabled women often want to protect their privacy.”
Indeed, the research showed that 70 percent of trans, migrant and disabled women who suffered violence or discrimination did not file a complaint.
Many spoke of wanting to avoid the feeling of “wasting their time,” as they felt that the complaint would not have any consequences.
Each group faces its own particular hurdles. Migrant women experience discrimination especially in hospitals. Transgender people, in addition to suffering the most aggression (sometimes by the police), suffer specifically from the fact that their chosen identity and name are not recognized. Disabled women say they are excluded from the labor market.
More than three million foreigners live in this country of 46 million people, according to last November’s data from the National Population Directorate. Almost 90 percent of them are from other South American countries, and more than half come from Paraguay and Bolivia. Peru is the third most common country of origin, accounting for about 10 percent.
Of the total number of immigrants, 1,568,350 are female and 1,465,430 are male.
As for people with disabilities, the official registry included more than 1.5 million people by 2022, although it is estimated that there are many more.
Since 2012, a Gender Identity Law recognizes the legal right to change gender identity in Argentina and by April 2022, 12,665 identification documents had been issued based on the individual’s self-perceived identity. Of these, 62 percent identified as female, 35 percent as male and three percent as non-binary.
Women participate in one of the trainings on gender-based violence in Buenos Aires. The project is carried out by the Citizen Association for Human Rights with financial support from the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. CREDIT: Camilo Flores / ACDH
Different forms of violence
Yuli Almirón has no mobility in her left leg as a result of polio. She is president of the Argentine Polio-Post Polio Association (APPA), which brings together some 800 polio survivors. Yuli is one of the leaders of the trainings.
“Through the trainings, those of us who participated found out about many things,” she told IPS. “We heard, for example, about many cases related to situations of power imbalances. Women with disabilities sometimes suffer violence at the hands of their caregivers.”
The most surprising aspect, however, has to do with the restrictions on access to public policies to help victims of gender-based violence.
The Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity runs the Acompañar Program, which aims to strengthen the economic independence of women and LGBTI+ women in situations of gender-based violence.
The women are provided the equivalent of one monthly minimum wage for six months, but anyone who receives a disability allowance is excluded.
“We didn’t know those were the rules. It’s a terrible injustice, because disabled victims of violence are the ones who most need to cut economic dependency in order to get out,” said Almirón.
“Back then Argentina had no rights-based immigration policy. There was a lot of xenophobia. I was stopped by the police for no reason, when I was going into a supermarket, and they made me clean the whole police station before releasing me,” she said.
Natividad says that public hospitals are one of the main places where migrant women suffer discrimination. “When a migrant woman goes to give birth they always leave her for last,” she said.
“Migrant women suffer all kinds of violence. If they file a complaint, they are stigmatized. That’s why they don’t know how to defend themselves. Even the organizations themselves exclude us. That is why it is essential to support them,” she stressed.
Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
Inter Press Service
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jul 26 (IPS) – Currency values and foreign exchange rates change for many reasons, largely following market perceptions, regardless of fundamentals. Market speculation has worsened volatility, instability and fragility in most economies, especially of small, open, developing countries.
US Fed pushing up interest rates
For no analytical rhyme or reason, US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) chairman Jerome Powell insists on raising interest rates until inflation is brought under 2% yearly. Obliged to follow the US Fed, most central banks have raised interest rates, especially since early 2022.
Jomo Kwame SundaramThe US dollar or greenback’s strengthening has been largely due to aggressive Fed interest rate hikes. Undoubtedly, inflation has been rising, especially since last year. But there are different types of inflation, with different implications, which should be differentiated by nature and cause.
Typically, inflationary episodes are due to either demand pull or supply push. With rentier behaviour better recognized, there is now more attention to asset price and profit-driven inflation, e.g., ‘sellers inflation’ due to price-fixing in monopolistic and oligopolistic conditions.
Recent international price increases are widely seen as due to new Cold War measures since Obama, Trump presidency initiatives, COVID-19 pandemic responses, as well as Ukraine War economic sanctions.
These are all supply-side constraints, rather than demand-side or other causes of inflation.
The Fed chair’s pretext for raising interest rates is to get inflation down to 2%. But bringing inflation under 2% – the fetishized, but nonetheless arbitrary Fed and almost universal central bank inflation target – only reduces demand, without addressing supply-side inflation.
But there is no analytical – theoretical or empirical – justification for this completely arbitrary 2% inflation limit fetish. Thus, raising interest rates to address supply-side inflation is akin to prescribing and taking the wrong medicine for an ailment.
Fed driving world to stagnation
Thus, raising interest rates to suppress demand cannot be expected to address such supply-side driven inflation. Instead, tighter credit is likely to further depress economic growth and employment, worsening living conditions.
Increasing interest rates is expected to reduce expenditure for consumption or investment. Thus, raising the costs of funds is supposed to reduce demand as well as ensuing price increases.
Earlier research – e.g., by then World Bank chief economist Michael Bruno, with William Easterly, and by Stan Fischer and Rudiger Dornbusch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – found even low double-digit inflation to be growth-enhancing.
The Milton Friedman-inspired notion of a ‘non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment’ (NAIRU) also implies Fed interest rate hikes inappropriate and unnecessarily contractionary when inflation is not accelerating. US consumer price increases have decelerated since mid-2022, meaning inflation has not been accelerating for over a year.
At least two conservative monetary economists with Nobel laureates have reminded the world how such Fed interventions triggered US contractions, abruptly ending economic recoveries. Although not discussed by them, the same Fed interventions also triggered international recessions.
Friedman showed how the Fed ended the US recovery from 1937 at the start of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s second presidential term. Recent US Fed chair Ben Bernanke and his colleagues also showed how similar Fed policies caused stagflation after the 1970s’ oil price hikes.
De-dollarization?
However, the US dollar has not been strengthening much in recent months. The greenback has been slipping since mid-2023 despite continuing Fed interest rate hikes a full year after consumer price increases stopped accelerating in mid-2022.
Many blame recent greenback depreciation on ‘de-dollarization’, ironically accelerated by US sanctions against its rivals. Such illegal sanctions have disrupted financial payments, investment flows, dispute settlement mechanisms and other longstanding economic processes and arrangements authorized by the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and UN charters.
Even the ‘rule of law’ – long favouring the US, other rich countries and transnational corporate interests – has been ‘suspended’ for ‘reasons of state’ due to economic warfare which continues to escalate. Unilateral asset and technology expropriation has been justified as necessary to ‘de-risk’ for ‘national security’ and other such considerations.
Horns of currency dilemma
For many monetary authorities, the choice is between a weak currency and higher interest rates. With growing financialization over recent decades, big finance has become much more influential, typically demanding higher interest income and stronger currencies.
Central bank independence – from the political executive and legislative processes – has enabled financial lobbies to influence policymaking even more. For example, Malaysia’s household debt share of national output rose from 47% in 2000 to over four-fifths before the COVID-19 pandemic, and 81% in 2022.
There is little reason to believe recent exchange rates have been due to ‘economic fundamentals’. Currencies of countries with persistent trade and current account deficits have strengthened, while others with sustained surpluses have declined. Instead, relative interest rate changes recently appear to explain more.
Thus, both the Japanese yen and Chinese renminbi depreciated by at least six per cent against the US dollar, at least before its recent tumble. By contrast, British pound sterling has appreciated against the greenback despite the dismal state of its real economy.
Marisol and Misael Menjívar pose next to the biodigester installed in March in the backyard of their home in El Corozal, a rural settlement located near Suchitoto in central El Salvador. With a biotoilet and stove, the couple produces biogas for cooking from feces, which saves them money. The biotoilet can be seen in the background. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
by Edgardo Ayala (suchitoto, el salvador)
Inter Press Service
SUCHITOTO, El Salvador, Jul 25 (IPS) – A new technology that has arrived in rural villages in El Salvador makes it possible for small farming families to generate biogas with their feces and use it for cooking – something that at first sounded to them like science fiction and also a bit smelly.
In the countryside, composting latrines, which separate urine from feces to produce organic fertilizer, are very popular. But can they really produce gas for cooking?
“It seemed incredible to me,” Marisol Menjívar told IPS as she explained how her biodigester, which is part of a system that includes a toilet and a stove, was installed in the backyard of her house in the village of El Corozal, near Suchitoto, a municipality in the central Salvadoran department of Cuscatlán.
“When the first ones were installed here, I was excited to see that they had stoves hooked up, and I asked if I could have one too,” added Marisol, 48. Hers was installed in March.
El Corozal, population 200, is one of eight rural settlements that make up the Laura López Rural Water and Sanitation Association (Arall), a community organization responsible for providing water to 465 local families.
The families in the small villages, who are dedicated to the cultivation of corn and beans, had to flee the region during the country’s 1980-1992 civil war, due to the fighting.
After the armed conflict, they returned to rebuild their lives and work collectively to provide basic services, especially drinking water, as have many other community organizations, in the absence of government coverage.
In this Central American country of 6.7 million inhabitants, 78.4 percent of rural households have access to piped water, while 10.8 percent are supplied by wells and 10.7 percent by other means.
With small stoves like this one, a score of families in El Corozal in central El Salvador cook their food with biogas they produce themselves, thanks to a government program that has brought clean energy technology to these remote rural villages. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Since November 2022, the government agency has installed around 500 of these systems free of charge in several villages around the country.
The aim is to enable small farmers to produce sustainable energy, biogas at no cost, which boosts their income and living standards, while at the same time improving the environment.
The program provides each family with a kit that includes a biodigester, a biotoilet, and a small one-burner stove.
In El Corozal, five of these kits were installed by Asa in November 2022, to see if people would accept them or not. To date, 21 have been delivered, and there is a waiting list for more.
In El Corozal, a rural settlement in the municipality of Suchitoto in central El Salvador, the technology of family biodigesters arrived at the end of last year, and some families are now producing biogas to light up their stoves and cook their food at no cost. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
“With the first ones were set up, the idea was for people to see how they worked, because there was a lot of ignorance and even fear,” Arall’s president, Enrique Menjívar, told IPS.
In El Corozal there are many families with the surname Menjívar, because of the tradition of close relatives putting down roots in the same place.
“Here we’re almost all related,” Enrique added.
The biodigester is a hermetically sealed polyethylene bag, 2.10 meters long, 1.15 meters wide and 1.30 meters high, inside which bacteria decompose feces or other organic materials.
This process generates biogas, clean energy that is used to fuel the stoves.
The toilets are mounted on a one-meter-high cement slab in latrines in the backyard. They are made of porcelain and have a handle on one side that opens and closes the stool inlet hole.
One of the main advantages that family biodigesters have brought to the inhabitants of El Corozal, a small village in the Salvadoran department of Cuscatlán, is that the whole process begins with clean, hygienic toilets, like this one set up in Marleni Menjívar’s backyard, as opposed to the older dry composting latrines, which drew flies and cockroaches. To the left of the toilet is the small handle used to pump water to flush the feces into the biodigester. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
They also have a small hand pump, similar to the ones used to inflate bicycle tires, and when the handle is pushed, water is pumped from a bucket to flush the waste down the pipe.
The underground pipe carries the biomass by gravity to the biodigester, located about five meters away.
The system can also be fed with organic waste, by means of a tube with a hole at one end, which must be opened and closed.
Once it has been produced, the biogas is piped through a metal tube to the small stove mounted inside the house.
“I don’t even use matches, I just turn the knob and it lights up,” said Marisol, a homemaker and caregiver. Her husband Manuel Menjívar is a subsistence farmer, and they have a young daughter.
In El Corozal, biodigesters have been installed for families of four or five members, and the equipment generates 300 liters of biogas during the night, enough to use for two hours a day, according to the technical specifications of Coenergy, the company that imports and markets the devices.
But there are also kits that are used by two related families who live next to each other and share the equipment, which includes, in addition to the toilet, a larger biodigester and a two-burner stove.
With more sophisticated equipment, electricity could be generated from biogas produced from landfill waste or farm manure, although this is not yet being done in El Salvador.
Marleni Menjivar gets ready to heat water on her ecological stove, watched closely by her four-year-old daughter, in El Corozal in central El Salvador, where an innovative government program to produce biogas has arrived. With this technology, people save money by buying less liquefied gas while benefiting the environment. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Saving money while caring for the environment
The families of El Corozal who have the new latrines and stoves are happy with the results.
What they value the most is saving money by cooking with gas produced by themselves, at no cost.
They used to cook on wood-burning stoves, in the case of food that took longer to make, or on liquefied gas stoves, at a cost of 13 dollars per gas cylinder.
Marleni Menjívar, for example, used two cylinders a month, mainly because of the high level of consumption demanded by the family business of making artisanal cheeses, including a very popular local kind of cottage cheese.
Every day she has to cook 23 liters of whey, the liquid left after milk has been curdled. This consumes the biogas produced overnight.
For meals during the day Marleni still uses the liquefied gas stove, but now she only buys one cylinder a month instead of two, a savings of about 13 dollars per month.
“These savings are important for families here in the countryside,” said Marleni, 28, the mother of a four-year-old girl. The rest of her family is made up of her brother and grandfather.
“We also save water,” she added.
The biotoilet requires only 1.2 liters of water per flush, less than conventional toilets.
In addition, the soils are protected from contamination by septic tank latrines, which are widely used in rural areas, but are leaky and unhygienic.
The new technology avoids these problems.
The liquids resulting from the decomposition process flow through an underground pipe into a pit that functions as a filter, with several layers of gravel and sand. This prevents pollution of the soil and aquifers.
Also, as a by-product of the decomposition process, organic liquid fertilizer is produced for use on crops.
Most families in the rural community of El Corozal have benefited from one-burner stoves that run on biogas produced in family biodigesters. Larger two-burner stoves are also shared by two related families, where they cook on a griddle one of the favorite dishes of Salvadorans: pupusas, corn flour tortillas filled with beans, cheese and pork, among other ingredients. CREDIT: Coenergy El Salvador
Checking on site: zero stench
Due to a lack of information, people were initially concerned that if the biogas used in the stoves came from the decomposition of the family’s feces, it would probably stink.
And, worst of all, perhaps the food would also smell.
But little by little these doubts and fears faded away as families saw how the first devices worked.
“That was the first thing they asked, if the gas smelled bad, or if what we were cooking smelled bad,” said Marleni, remembering how the neighbors came to her house to check for themselves when she got the latrine and stove installed in December 2022.
“That was because of the little information that was available, but then we found that this was not the case, our doubts were cleared up and we saw there were no odors,” she added.
She said that, like almost everyone in the village, her family used to have a dry composting toilet, but it stank and generated cockroaches and flies.
“All that has been eliminated, the bathrooms are completely hygienic and clean, and we even had them tiled to make them look nicer,” Marleni said.
She remarked that hygiene is important to her, as her little girl can now go to the bathroom by herself, without worrying about cockroaches and flies.
KIGALI, Jul 20 (IPS) – Scientists have recently unveiled a first-ever weather forecasting model using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning solutions to help vulnerable African countries build resilience to climate impacts.
Researchers from the Kigali-based African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) are working on a new AI algorithm that allows various end users of weather predictions to make data-driven decisions.
According to climate experts, these efforts focus on building an intelligent weather forecasting system that is multi-dimensional and updated in real-time with a long-range and is a technology capable of simulating long-term predictions much more quickly than traditional weather models.
“Key to these interventions is to improve the accuracy of weather forecasting and help African governments better prepare for and respond to weather emergencies,” Dr Sylla Mouhamadou Bamba told IPS.
Bamba is the lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report 6 (AR6) for the Working Group 1 contribution: The Physical Science Basis and African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) – Canada Research Chair in Climate Change Science based in Kigali, Rwanda.
The AI model currently being tested by researchers from the Kigali-based Centre of Excellence focuses on analyzing huge data sets from past weather patterns to predict future events more efficiently and accurately than traditional methods commonly used by national meteorological agencies in Africa.
The first-ever machine learning model, which researchers are currently testing, focuses on analyzing huge data sets from past weather patterns to predict future events more efficiently and accurately than traditional methods to boost climate resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS
Rather than working out what the weather will generally be like in a given region or area to get forecasts, Bamba points out that developing modern statistical models using a machine learning approach to forecast sunlight, temperature, wind speed, and rainfall has the potential to predict climate change with efficient use of learning algorithms, and sensing device.
Although most national meteorological agencies in Africa have tried to enhance the accuracy of their weather forecasts, scientists say that although current technologies can forecast weather over the next few days, they cannot predict the climate over the next few years.
“Many African countries are still struggling to take measures in preventing major climate-related disaster risks in an effective manner because of lack of long-term adaptation plans,” Dr Bamba says.
The latest findings by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) show that as the global climate further warms, the long-term adverse effects and extreme weather events brought about by climate change will pose an increasingly serious threat to Africa’s economic development.
The limited resilience of African countries against the negative impacts of today’s climate is already resulting in lower growth and development, highlighting the consequences of an adaptation deficit, it said.
Indicative findings by economic experts show lower GDP growth per capita ranging, on average, from 10 to 13 per cent (with a 50 per cent confidence interval), with the poorest countries in Africa displaying the highest adaptation deficit.
While projections show that climate change is likely to exacerbate the high vulnerability, the limited adaptive capacity of the majority of African countries, particularly the poorest, will potentially roll back development efforts in the most-affected nations, Dr Andre Kamga, the Director General of the African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD). This highlighted the need to build high-resolution models.
Apart from exploiting processes to achieve early warning for all in the current climate value chain Dr Kamga stresses the pressing need to move to impact-based forecasts to enhance the quality of information given to users and to expect more efficient preparedness and response.
While Africa has contributed negligibly to the changing climate, with just about two to three percent of global emissions, the continent still stands out disproportionately as the most vulnerable region globally.
The latest report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) indicates that most of these vulnerable countries lack the resources to afford goods and services to buffer themselves and recover from the worst of the changing climate effects.
While AI and machine learning remain key solutions for researchers to overcome these challenges, Prof. Sam Yala, Centre President at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Rwanda, is convinced that these modern weather forecasting models are important to help manage challenging issues related to improving adaptation and resilience in most African countries.
Frank Rutabingwa, Senior Regional Advisor, UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the Coordinator Weather and Climate Information Services for Africa Programme (WISER), acknowledges that for African countries to prevent and control major climate-related disaster risks effectively, it is important to improve their forecasting and information interpretation capacities.
Latest estimates by researchers show that the skill of numerical weather prediction over Africa is still low, and there remains a widespread lack of provision of nowcasting across the continent and virtually no use of automated systems or tools.
Scientists from AIMS are convinced that this situation has significantly affected the ability of national meteorological services to issue warnings and, therefore, potentially prevent the loss of life and significant financial losses in many countries across the continent.
In Africa, a study by Dr Sylla projected an extension of torrid climate throughout West Africa by the end of the 21st century. However, other African regions, such as North Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa, lack this information.
“Artificial intelligence and machine learning can play a critical role by filling these data gaps on the reliability of weather forecasts that undermine understanding of the climate on the continent,” he said.
ECW director Yasmine Sherif and other delegates at the “Ensuring Education Continuity: The Roles of Education in Emergencies, Protracted Crises and Building Peace” conference at the UN. Credit: Abigail Van Neely/IPS
by Abigail Van Neely (united nations)
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 14 (IPS) – As the 2030 deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) looms, Education Cannot Wait’s director Yasmine Sherif warned, “We are failing the promises we made on everything in the sustainable development goals, but especially on education because, without education, we cannot achieve any of the other sustainable development goals.”
Sherif was speaking at the “Ensuring Education Continuity: The Roles of Education in Emergencies, Protracted Crises and Building Peace” conference at the United Nations headquarters – where speaker after speaker called for an immediate increase in funding for education in crisis zones.
The conference was co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Japan, Italy, and Switzerland, UNICEF, ECW, Global Partnership for Education (GPE), UNESCO, Save the Children, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Japan NGO Network for Education. The event was created with the goal of addressing the “crucial role of education as a life-saving and life-sustaining intervention in an emergency.”
It took place as a side event during this week’s High-Level Political Forum aimed to address the “crucial role of education as a life-saving and life-sustaining intervention in an emergency.”
This discussion came at a critical time. Earlier this week, the 2023 Sustainable Development Goals Report painted a grave picture of progress towards achieving the quality education goal proposed for 2030. Four out of every five countries studied experienced learning losses following the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the end of 2022, there were 34.6 million refugees, the highest global number ever recorded, of which 41% were children. According to ECW, 224 million crisis-affected children need education. Over half of these children – 127 million – are not achieving the minimum proficiencies in literacy or numeracy.
“It is critically important during this that we emphasize that education is a fundamental human right,” Ambassador Kimihiro Ishikane, Permanent Representative of Japan to the UN, said.
Noting that seven years remain before the SDG deadline, Stefania Giannini, Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO, urged Member States to commit to the Safe Schools Declaration, an inter-governmental agreement to protect education in times of armed conflict.
Speakers emphasized the importance of consistent education even during times of crisis.
During protracted emergencies in areas that have been disrupted by man-made conflicts or natural disasters, education continuity provides children and communities with a “sense of normalcy”, as Awut Deng Acuil, Minister of Education in South Sudan, remarked. “ fosters social and emotional wellbeing of learners affected by crises.
Two weeks ago, ECW launched a program in South Sudan to support a recent influx of refugees. Acuil highlighted that education is more than just knowledge gained in the classroom. She explained that it involves essential social-emotional learning, supports country development, builds resilience, promotes conflict resolution, and can even assist with economic recovery.
“Continuity of education for millions of children affected by crises remains at stake. Though we all know that one, education is a fundamental right for all children, and education continuation in high emergency situations remains a high priority for many communities,” Acuil said.
“Education is more than service delivery. It is a means of socialization and identity development through the transmission of knowledge, skills, values and attitudes across generations. It is, therefore, an important tool for the sustenance of peace, for without education, we cannot have peace,” said Asaju Bola, Minister from the Permanent Mission of Nigeria to the UN.
Somaya Faruqi, an engineering student and captain of the Afghan Girls Robotic Team, spoke about the power of academic achievement as a means to inspire gender equity. After her robotics team’s success in international competitions, more Afghan girls were given permission to join.
“The key to all these processes was education. Accessible education for girls and for boys equally,” Faruqi said.
Now, following the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, Faruqi describes her home country as “a prison for girls” she had to flee.
ECW director Yasmine Sherif and other delegates at the “Ensuring Education Continuity: The Roles of Education in Emergencies, Protracted Crises and Building Peace” conference at the UN. Credit: Abigail Van Neely/IPS
The event showcased the measures that UN agencies have been taking to ensure education continuity. The UNESCO Qualifications Passport initiative provides refugees with a means for their qualifications to be certified and recognized in their host countries. UNESCO and UNICEF jointly launched the Gateways to Public Digital Learning, a global initiative for schools, learners, and teachers to have access to quality digital learning tools.
Digital learning and alternate forms of education provision were noted as significant tools to invest in, especially for students located in remote areas or in those communities who are unable to attend traditional public schooling. Ultimately, as Frank van Cappelle, Senior Advisor of Education, UNICEF, noted, “a holistic approach is needed; a flexible approach is needed… The human element is key.”
However, despite some gains, funding remains a barrier to the success of these programs. According to Charles North, the CEO of the Global Partnership for Education, the number of children impacted by crises is rising, but funding is not.
Rotimy Djossaya, Executive Director for Policy, Advocacy, and Campaigns at Save the Children, called for “timely debt relief for countries whose debt burdens are threatening their ability to invest in education.” He cited statistics that four out of fourteen low and middle-income countries spent more on servicing external debt than they did on education in 2020.
The event showcased a continuous, pressing need for education to be made a priority on the national and global levels. As Sherif noted, education is the foundation of a “more prosperous world.”
