Tabeth Gowere (76) makes extra cash from weaving plastic waste. A group of seniors started weaving plastic out of a need to improve the environment and make some extra cash. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
by Jeffrey Moyo (harare)
Inter Press Service
HARARE, Oct 20 (IPS) – They do not have a pension nor financial support from families or relatives, but they have themselves. Now they have become collectors of plastic waste, which they turn into products as they battle for survival – earning money from the growing plastic pollution in Zimbabwe.
Such are the lives of the country’s senior citizens, like 76-year-old Tabeth Gowere and 81-year-old Elizabeth Makufa, both hailing from Harare’s Glenora high-density suburb, where they become famous as plastic waste collectors.
Gowere and Makufa, thanks to plastic waste, now care for themselves financially despite their old age, so they said.
“At first, we saw plastic waste just being flown around by the wind, and we started to pick these, cleaning the environment, burning it, but later realized we could make something out of these plastics and earn money. So, using plastic waste, we started weaving different things, including mats to decorate sofas. Many people were impressed by our work, and they started placing orders for the plastic products we were making,” Gowere told IPS.
Makufa, like Gowere, has also seen gold in the dumped plastic waste.
“We say this is waste, but from it, we find something that is helping us to sustain us in life. I make 30 US dollars daily at times from selling the products I make from plastic waste, which means at least I get something to survive,” Makufa told IPS.
The young are learning from the lessons from the senior plastic waste entrepreneurs – like 40-year-old Michelle Gowere.
“Weaving things using plastics is a skill I learned from my mother-in-law, Mrs Gowere. We spend time together daily, and because of this, I ended up learning the skill from her; this is helping me to, at least, help my children with food to carry in their lunch boxes when they go to school,” Michelle told IPS.
To Michelle’s mother-in-law and many others, the environment has been the secondary beneficiary of the geriatrics’ initiative collecting plastic waste.
“You would see that in our area, waste collectors from the council rarely come to empty the refuse bins. So, as we use plastic waste to make our products, we are making our environment clean,” Michelle told IPS.
Zimbabwe Environmental Management Agency (EMA) about 1.65 million tonnes of waste are produced annually in Zimbabwe, with plastic making up 18 percent of that.
However, Makufa says it was not the love of money that swayed them into getting into plastic waste but improving the environment.
“It was not because we lacked money that we turned to collecting plastic waste, but we copied some people who were doing it, and we started doing the same. We thought of removing plastic waste from our environment, and we told ourselves if we could take those plastics and weave them together, we could have impressive products that we could sell and earn some money,” Makufa told IPS.
As the group of elderly people are making a difference in collectively fighting plastic waste, the local authorities welcome their contribution but add that it is everybody’s responsibility to care for the environment.
“The job of caring for the environment is not a responsibility of the council alone. In fact, it is the duty of everyone to make sure where they live there is cleanliness. As a council, we thank people who are beginning to realize that there is money in plastic waste. It’s not every waste that should be dumped; there is what we call recycling, and some people make money from it, but the duty to take care of our surroundings is not a prerogative of the council, but ordinary people as well,” Innocent Ruwende, Harare City Council spokesperson, told IPS.
Priscilla Gavi, director of Help Age Zimbabwe, a non-governmental organization mandated to take care of the elderly’s needs, says the elderly, too, are critical in the fight against plastic waste.
“Old age does not make someone incapable of supporting their families and taking care of themselves. It doesn’t stop the aged from working for their country. In fact, old age gives people opportunities to use skills gained during their prime ages, and they, for instance, make use of plastics, producing different things for sale from plastic waste as they also rid the environment of the plastic waste,” Gavi told IPS.
Yet for many like Makufa, collecting plastic waste has also turned out to be therapeutic in addition to being an economic venture.
“These things that we make with our own hands using plastic waste help us to rest from mental stress owing to problems we have these days that strain us psychologically. So, this helps us to be always occupied and refrain from overthinking about things we don’t have control over,” said Makufa.
According to the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), an estimated 1.65 million tonnes of waste are produced annually in Zimbabwe, with plastic making up to 18 percent of that.
Gowere and Makufa and other elderly recyclers and plastic entrepreneurs have drawn the admiration of organizations like EMA.
“This is a commendable initiative that is promoting upcycling of waste and upscaling recycling as a business. This reduces the amount of waste that ends up in landfills and the environment. Plastic waste takes hundreds of years to decompose, and it releases harmful toxins into the environment when burned,” Amkela Sidange, spokesperson for EMA, told IPS.
In Africa, an estimated 55 million girls under the age of 15 have experienced – or are at risk of experiencing – FGM. Credit: Shutterstock
Opinion by Stephanie Musho, Esther M Passaris (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Oct 20 (IPS) – The tips of our fingers have densely packed nerve endings. That is why a miniscule paper cut activates our pain receptors and causes stubborn pain for a day or two. Now consider that a clitoris has over 10,000 nerve endings. It is the human female’s most sensitive erogenous zone, explaining the sexual pleasure it elicits at the slightest touch. A paper cut on your clitoris would be agonizing yet does not compare to the pain of female genital mutilation – or FGM.
The consequences are devastating and far-reaching, permeating social, political and economic facets of daily life. Consider that the current and future financial cost of health care alone for women living with conditions caused by FGM is USD 1.4 billion annually. Yet, over 4 million women and girls remain at risk of undergoing this violation.
Unlike male circumcision that has been found to reduce transmission rates of HIV and sexually transmitted infections, FGM has no medical benefits. It is simply a function of patriarchy meant to sexually control women. The consequences of FGM are dreadful.
Survivors have spoken out on what sex is like after this heinous mutilation: they feel no sexual pleasure, only excruciating pain. Childbirth is even worse as they are more susceptible to complications, increasing the prevalence of maternal mortality and morbidity by way of obstructed labor, fistula, post-partum hemorrhage, sepsis and ultimately death. The psychological effects are extensive too, resulting in, among other things, depression, crippling anxiety, and even suicide.
Worse still is that the repercussions extend beyond physiology. FGM is often a precursor to child marriage, cutting off the prospects of a girl or young woman actualizing themselves. It is further compounded by conflict and climate crises. In such contexts, bride price is deemed to be an ‘easy escape’ from economic hardships. This false perception makes an already bad situation worse.
In Africa, an estimated 55 million girls under the age of 15 have experienced – or are at risk of experiencing – FGM. This is despite the existence of robust laws and policies that criminalize this violation in at least 28 countries on the continent. For example 50% of these 55 million girls are found in three countries – Egypt, Ethiopia and Nigeria, and all three countries have criminalized the practice. This disregard of the rule of law can be attributed to deeply entrenched cultural dogma, founded on patriarchy that perpetuates the clashing of harmful culture with the legal code.
Additionally, African women and girls in the diaspora, such as those among the 11 million Africans in Europe and 2 million in the U.S., continue to suffer, with little to no legal protections in place. Aggravating this is that undocumented migrants have little recourse, as seeking protection from FGM would expose them to detention and deportation.
Besides, an emerging trend in the fight against FGM is the contention with cross border FGM. This is where communities travel outside of territories with stringent laws that criminalize the practice to carry out the violation elsewhere to avoid prosecution. This is termed ‘vacation cutting’. It is consequently imperative that FGM is criminalized everywhere, for there to be progress towards our shared global sustainable goals.
The fight to end this scourge is made harder by the medicalization of FGM where health professionals conduct the practice in place of traditional ‘cutters’; in a fallacious and inadequate attempt to mitigate the damaging impacts of FGM. In fact, a qualified medical doctor recently filed an application in the High Court challenging the prohibition of FGM, citing criminalization of the practice as a violation of bodily autonomy and an infringement of a woman’s right to uphold her culture. This is a reiteration of the need to double down efforts to eradicate the practice as there are those among us that remain committed to the continued relegation of women and girls, and their entrapment in vicious dependency and poverty cycles in the name of culture.
It is then evident that ending FGM requires an armory of varied strategies. This begins with the understanding that when a country becomes party to an international legal instrument, it consents to limitations to its sovereignty and must therefore fulfil its obligations under international law.
This includes those under African Charter on People’s and Human Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa – commonly known as the Maputo Protocol, for African States; and the United Nations Convention on the Elimination on all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), among others. These are important tools towards much needed universal criminalization of and ending FGM.
The world is currently at the midpoint of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) set to elapse in 2030, and all indications point to a completely off-track trajectory – if not regression. If the current rate of progress continues, it could take nearly 300 years to attain gender equality.
While some could argue that it is unrealistic to succeed in 7 years, it is certainly possible to accelerate action and shorten this depressing forecast. We must therefore accelerate action and truly leave no one behind. This means protecting those at risk of this horrendous violation of women and girls. Additionally, a needed increase in financial investments; and it makes financial sense to make them since ending FGM saves economies the costs of the attendant consequence.
The time is now to focus on FGM because while there are ongoing efforts to reform the global financial architecture towards financing for development, these have been heavily centered on climate action. Whilst this is indeed important, the relegation of other goals in this pursuit runs the risk of pushing them – including those on women and girls further to the periphery. These spaces must be expanded towards intersectional collaboration towards financing and meeting our people and planetary goals.
Additionally, there are at least 40 general and presidential elections slated for next year. Fifteen elections are in Africa; 7 in the Americas; 8 in Asia; another 8 in Europe and 2 in Oceania. It is an opportune time for the electorate to demand the inclusion of gender and health rights like ending FGM in manifestos as a start.
People can appraise track records and thereafter hold elected leaders accountable to their commitments including on increased budgetary allocations and transparency in expenditure. Good governance is indeed central to these efforts.
Ultimately, ending FGM requires a concerted effort, a global push with full solidarity where everyone has a responsibility to act. If the rights of women and girls are not prioritized and intersectionality leveraged, as deliberated on at the just concluded International Conference on FGM, we will ultimately fail to achieve Agenda 2030 in its entirety and possibly even our health and gender goals in our lifetime.
Stephanie Musho is a human rights lawyer and campaigner; and an Aspen New Voices Senior Fellow
Hon. Esther Passaris is a Member of Parliament in the Republic of Kenya and a member of the Pan African Parliament
Cattle quench their thirst at a drying river as worsening drought conditions continue in Isiolo County, Kenya. Credit: ILRI/Geoffrey Njenga
by Maina Waruru (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Oct 17 (IPS) – Women in pastoralist areas of East Africa are critical to the health of livestock in their communities, holding the key to effective animal vaccination campaigns meant to protect herds against deadly diseases.
They are, therefore, an important part of any vaccination strategies designed to guard the animals against killer outbreaks and need to be involved in such efforts for them to be successful.
Achieving the goals of such campaigns has become increasingly important as the effects of climate change introduce new diseases that threaten the sector and, by extension, household incomes.
It has become critically important to integrate females in such health campaigns, and one barrier to their success is the failure of authorities and development agencies to involve them.
While women, due to cultural reasons, do not commonly own livestock, they act as caregivers when the animals are sick, and with incidents of disease outbreaks rising, involving them, in the end, ensures improved food and financial security for families.
Besides, an increasing number of households in the region where livestock keeping is the economic mainstay are being headed by women who also act as providers to their families.
Unsurprisingly, as many as 43 percent of livestock insurance policyholders in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, where the policies have been introduced in the recent past, are women, scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) say.
“Besides taking care of animals when they are sick, women influence the allocation of resources at the household level, determining things such as how money should go to buying vaccines, for example. Therefore, a strong gender strategy to allow women access to disease control is very important,” said Dr Bernard Bett, ILRI Senior Scientist, Animal and Human Health Program.
In its disease surveillance and response strategy, ILRI engaged “community disease reporters,” local leaders, and village women’s champions, including women heads of households, to gather information on outbreaks and to create awareness about vaccination campaigns, says Bett.
At times he noted, women got intimidated in queues by men during mass vaccination exercises, making them lose valuable time for other chores at home as they waited for their turn in the queue.
Authorities and organizations carrying out the missions have responded by enforcing a first–come–first–serve policy in the interest of fairness and increased animal health personnel staffing levels for orderly vaccinations, he explained.
Recognizing that conflict with household tasks was a permanent reality for women, ILRI practiced and advocated for early communication to enable better planning through community messaging while actively supporting females’ role in caring for livestock, he added.
Climate change, evidenced by frequent droughts and flood incidents in arid and semi-arid areas of East Africa that are the home of pastoralism in the region, Bett observed, presented a major disease burden with incidents of outbreaks of diseases such as Rift Valley Fever being a major threat.
“Highly climate-sensitive diseases causing pathogens attracted by changes in weather conditions, including those caused by vectors such as ticks and tsetse flies, become common. Efficient delivery of disease control measures, including vaccinations, is therefore important,” he told a recent media briefing in Nairobi.
Owing to the nomadic nature of pastoralists in search of pastures and water in times of shortage it is women are the ones who take care of households when the men are away with cattle and camels, while women are left behind caring for goats, calves, and vulnerable animals, making them also effectively in charge of their households.
Like their counterparts in the crop farming areas of the region, women pastoralists are faced with the challenge of providing food for their families, which is made worse by lack of income due to livestock deaths, noted Dr Rupsha Bernerjee, ILRI senior scientist attached to livestock and climate initiative.
“Whenever there are shocks such as droughts which in turn lead to food shortages, women skip meals to ensure their families are fed. It is therefore important to promote social inclusion in livestock health programs to ensure no one is left behind,” she said.
The impressive uptake of livestock insurance among women increases the resilience of herder communities, enabling them to cope with climate-induced risks, she added.
“Payments made to herders when droughts are very severe help in reducing distress sales of livestock guaranteeing that families are cushioned against possible malnutrition, thus the importance of women livestock health,” she told the briefing at the global body’s Nairobi headquarters.
In appreciating the important role in the health of livestock IDRC, Global Affairs Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation established the Livestock Vaccine Innovation Fund (LVIF), which supports the development and production of innovative vaccines to improve livestock health and the livelihoods of farmers.
The agency notes that worldwide, more than 750 million people keep livestock as a source of income, 400 million being women, but animal diseases, such as Newcastle disease in chickens and peste des petits ruminants (PPR) in goats, create widespread devastation, with women disproportionately affected because “they are less likely than men to be able to access vaccines to prevent such losses.”
“Millions of women livestock holders face financial and animal losses when diseases sweep through their farms. These infections are often highly preventable with a simple vaccination, so what is preventing women from taking measures to protect their assets?” the IDRC poses.
To answer find answers to the imbalance, the partners launched a regional livestock vaccine initiative called SheVax+ research project was launched in 2019, bringing together Cumming School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University-US, the Africa One Health University Network (AFROHUN) together and implementing partners, Makerere University, University of Nairobi, and University of Rwanda.
Helen Amuguni, the SheVax+ principal investigator, identifies three primary barriers to livestock vaccine uptake among women smallholder livestock farmers in East Africa, including gender norms, which lead to women having less access to information on vaccinations, animal health, and livestock management practices.
Stereotypes, she says, affect the way women are viewed in relation to livestock ownership, leading to their exclusion during vaccination information campaigns. Power relations also mean some women require permission from the male household head to attend training or control livestock-related resources.
As a result, many women lack understanding of, among other things, the availability and importance of vaccines, while those who do have awareness may be prevented from acting upon it, she explains.
Besides carrying out disease control and management initiatives insuring livestock, as happens with the Index-Based Livestock Insurance pioneered by ILRI to ‘de-risk’ the sector, was a critical component of cushioning the sector’s well-being and incomes for households, according to Bernard Kimoro, head of climate change and livestock sustainability in the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Kenya.
Operational in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, the insurance utilizes satellite data to determine and read the conditions of the vegetation, where herders get compensation when the vegetation turns brown/yellow to indicate drought or shortage of foliage.
Desperation in the pure livestock systems in the region due to frequent climate change-linked droughts in the region called for both new animal disease control and feeds and nutritional strategies, he said.
The droughts have led to keepers using unsustainable feeds with high methane gas levels owing as the owners tried to keep animals alive during the dry spells, the official regrets.
The Greater Horn of Africa region is predicted to experience El Nino weather conditions characterized by higher than usual rainfall beginning this October to early 2024.
Tuberculosis remains the leading infectious cause of death in the world, responsible for 1.6 million deaths a year, and is an active and acute crisis in many countries. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
Opinion by Maria Beumont (new york)
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Oct 13 (IPS) – Maria Beumont, MD, is Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for the TB AllianceAt the end of September, two weeks after the United Nations held a High-Level Meeting on Tuberculosis (TB), a torrential storm dropped 6” of rain on New York City. The intensity of the storm recalled that of Hurricane Ida two years earlier, which—in the largest city in the United States—damaged more than 3% of buildings, killed 13 people, and left 380 families homeless.
As recently as the early 1990s, New York City was a hotspot for TB. Throughout the decade, the city spent more than a billion dollars to contain the disease, which had become entrenched in its more impoverished communities—including those without homes. TB has plagued the world for millennia, for as long as communities have been separated by wealth.
Today, it remains the leading infectious cause of death in the world, responsible for 1.6 million deaths a year, and is an active and acute crisis in many countries.
The low-resource settings where much of the world’s TB burden is concentrated are the same places set to bear most of the impact of climate change and whose health systems are ill-equipped to handle added burden.
In August, two typhoons slammed into the coast of Southern China, forcing the evacuation of almost one million people. At the same time, a surprise cyclone hit Southern Brazil, leaving 1,600 people without homes. And earlier this year, Cyclone Freddy hammered Mozambique and Malawi, forcing hundreds of thousands of people into temporary shelter. All four countries have a high burden of TB cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
India, another high-burden TB country, has been hit hard this year by heat waves and drought. It is estimated that 17 million Indians will face climate-change induced hunger by 2030. Increases in climate-induced food insecurity will only add to the existing crisis; the UN estimates that 735 million people around the world faced food shortage in 2022.
If rises in human displacement and hunger are tragic first order effects of climate change, TB is a giant, looming second order effect. Displacement and malnutrition are established risk factors for TB, and both are exacerbated by climate change. Though such impacts are not directly tracked, we can assume that recent climate-enhanced superstorms, heat waves, and droughts amplified the TB burden in Brazil, China, India, Malawi, and Mozambique.
While climate change is a leading topic at major global forums around the world, including at the UN, the TB pandemic remains largely ignored. In 2018, TB appeared on the global radar when the UN held its first High-Level Meeting (HLM) on TB. National delegations agreed to four ambitious goals on providing treatment to people with TB, preventive treatment to people at risk, and drastically increasing the amount of funding devoted to tackling the disease and developing new tools for this effort.
The world was already behind in fulfilling these commitments when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, derailing TB funding and care. As COVID-19 raged, the limited funding and attention for TB had to be diverted to face the new threat. As a result, TB deaths increased for the first time in more than 20 years. Ultimately, not one of the primary commitments from the HLM were met. As climate change intensifies along with the effects of displacement and malnutrition, it may lead to future TB outbreaks and further strain already fragile health systems.
Despite these setbacks, there have been notable achievements in TB research and care. A treatment for the highly drug-resistant forms of the disease was approved by the US FDA and other regulatory authorities, and was endorsed by the WHO. Additionally, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance on a four-month treatment for drug-sensitive TB, reducing treatment duration for the first time in decades.
TB researchers remain optimistic. Changing the way we fight TB is achievable, and we have a strong research pipeline of promising new TB treatments, diagnostics, and vaccines. Breakthroughs are on the horizon—and they are sorely needed. The impact of safe, shorter, effective, and affordable tools to control TB is anticipated to be significant.
At the UN’s second High-Level Meeting on TB this past September, another batch of ambitious goals were adopted—including a six-fold increase in funding for services and research. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we all witnessed the results of focused efforts and appropriate funds. The same is true for TB: with adequate funding and resources, we can develop the next generation of tools to fight TB. Support from world leaders now is critical, as we can end one of humanity’s oldest diseases if we come together, while also mitigating the impact of one of the climate change crisis. This opportunity cannot be missed.
The man dressed in white represents the Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. His presence causes fear on the emptying streets of Kabul. Credit: Learning Together
Inter Press Service
Oct 12 (IPS) – The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasonsAfghanistan can be likened to an open prison, where nearly 20 million women struggle daily for their freedom. What these women demand is a simple right – the right to lead dignified lives, equal to their male counterparts. Unfortunately, this aspiration seems distant and despairingly unattainable.
Ever since the Taliban swept back to power in Afghanistan two years ago, the treatment meted out to women is a reflection of how they are viewed in society: “imperfect mind, incompetent, weak, and should be under the control and administration of a man”, says Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the head of the Supreme Court.
In his new book, titled, “Islamic Emirate and the System”, published by the Taliban, Haqqani considers women as mainly meant to produce children for the continuity of generations.
Education, work outside the home, and social and cultural activities of women, which are considered their basic rights, have been declared blasphemous and contrary to the divine system that they themselves believe in.
However, in the divine system that we Muslims are familiar with, studying is mandatory for both men and women.
Under the Taliban’s rule, women are banned from attending school and university; are not allowed to sit around in parks; women’s gyms are shuttered. Even the sound of music is prohibited at wedding ceremonies.
Women are also denied access to justice in Taliban courts for crimes like theft and rape unless filed through a male guardian. Those who dare to protest their fundamental rights face arrest, forced confessions under brutal torture, and, if their crime is considered serious, as judged by the Taliban, they are stoned or shot in public.
A few examples follow as testimony to the Taliban’s violent and heinous acts against women.
Last a year, a district court in Badakhshan province sentenced a woman and a man to be stoned to death. Their crime was their desire to live together.
Celebrating Mother’s Day is declared a crime by the Taliban, and a group of women paid dearly in May this year. A trip to the shop in Kabul to buy cakes for the celebration ended them being thrown into the back of Ranger car by armed men.
They were driven to an unknown place and not heard of since. Eyewitnesses said no one could approach to help the women by asking why they were arrested. Their loved ones are anxiously waiting for their return.
Zainab Abdul Hai, another young girl was shot dead by the Taliban at a checkpoint while returning from a wedding party. The reason, according to the Taliban, was not wearing a full hijab.
I myself also fell victim to the enforced restrictions put in place by the Taliban. Although I was fully covered in a hijab, I was interrogated for 20 minutes by an armed group at a checkpoint in Shah Do Shamshire just because a few strands of hair could be seen under my hijab.
As I was crossing the road after my release, the stare of accusation and mocking laughter felt like a sword sunk deep into my soul.
Today in Afghanistan, simply walking the streets has become an arduous and nearly impossible task for women. Credit: Learning Together
Twenty-nine-year-old Ruqiyeh Sai was among a group of women protesting for their right to work and for their daughters to go to school. In the space of three months in 2022 and 2023, she was arrested twice by the Taliban and tortured in a dreaded torture centre.
Ruqiyeh, told Nimrokh magazine in an interview: “One of them punched me, the other kicked me, and another one hit me with a water pipe. “They cursed me”, ‘to which country did you sell yourself, you prostitute? For whom do you spy?’ “I passed out under their torture,” she said.
Ruqiyeh Sai was released from prison with a guarantee from the elders and a promise to the Taliban not to protest anymore. Nevertheless, she was video-recorded and threatened to be stoned to death if she raised her voice again.
“I was very confused, and I am still confused to the extent that sometimes I think of suicide, but when I see my children, I abandon the thought”, she said. Ruqiyeh has since fled to Pakistan with her children.
Suicide among Afghan women has increased since the Taliban returned to power, according to a UN Report. It is mainly due to depression stemming from the severe crackdown on women and girls’ human rights, especially since many have been forced to abandon their education.
However, women and girls’ suicide is not widely reported due to the Taliban’s clamp down on the press.
Women’s voices are also silenced over the radio. In their latest decree the Taliban have ordered that if a woman’s voice is heard over the radio – whether as a presenter or even in commercials – the owner of that radio station would be punished.
In essence, the Taliban today mirrors the oppressive regime of two decades ago, perpetuating the suffering of Afghan women.
Farmer Gustavo Panameño stands in the middle of what is left of his cornfield, hit hard by drought and windstorms, near Santa María Ostuma, in central El Salvador. Many Salvadoran small farmers are feeling the impact of El Niño, as are many others in Central America and the rest of the world. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
by Edgardo Ayala (santa marÃa ostuma, el salvador)
Inter Press Service
SANTA MARÃA OSTUMA, El Salvador, Oct 10 (IPS) – The effects of El Niño on agriculture in Central America are once again putting pressure on thousands of small farmer families who are feeling more vulnerable economically and in terms of food, as they lose their crops, due to climate change.
But that is not all. In addition to the obvious fact that poor harvests lead to higher food prices and food insecurity, they also generate a lack of employment in the countryside, further driving migration flows, said several experts interviewed by IPS.
The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather phenomenon had not been felt in the area since 2016. But now it has reappeared with stronger impacts. Meteorologists define ENSO as having three phases, and the one whose consequences are currently being felt on the ground is the third, the strongest.
Impact on the families
“The lack of water made us plant later, in June, when a drought hit us and ruined our corn and beans,” Gustavo Panameño, 46, told IPS as he looked disconsolately at the few plants still standing in his cornfield.
The plot Gustavo leases to farm, less than one hectare in size, is located in Lomas de Apancinte, a hill in the vicinity of Santa María Ostuma, in the central Salvadoran department of La Paz.
“The beans were completely lost, I expected to harvest about 300 pounds,” he said.
The corn and bean harvest “was for the consumption of the family, close relatives, and from time to time to sell,” said Gustavo.
A large part of Héctor Panameño’s corn crop in central El Salvador was destroyed by strong winds during a period when rain was scarce as a result of the El Niño phenomenon. The small farmer also lost his bean crop, making it a challenge to feed his family of nine. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Nearby is the plot leased by Héctor Panameño, who almost completely lost his corn crop and the few beans he had planted.
Corn and beans form the basis of the diet of the Salvadoran population of 6.7 million people and of the rest of the Central American countries, which have a total combined population of just over 48 million.
This subtropical region has two seasons: the wet season, from November to April, and the dry season the rest of the year. Agriculture contributes seven percent of GDP and accounts for 20 percent of employment, according to data from the Central American Integration System (SICA).
“I lost practically all the corn, and the beans too, they couldn’t be used, they started to grow but were stunted,” said Héctor, 66, a distant relative of Gustavo.
At this stage, the stalks of the corn plants have already been “bent”, a small-farming practice that helps dry the cobs, the final stage of the process before harvesting.
And what should be a cornfield full of dried plants, lined up in furrows, now holds barely a handful here and there, sadly for Héctor.
Both farmers said that in addition to the droughts, the crops were also hit by several storms that brought with them violent gusts of wind, which ended up knocking down the corn plants.
“The plants were already big, 45 days old, about to flower, but a windstorm came and knocked them down,” recalled Héctor, sadly.
“After that, there were a few plants left standing, and when the cobs were beginning to fill up with kernels another strong wind came and finished knocking down the entire crop.”
A few weeks ago both Gustavo and Héctor replanted corn and beans, trying to recover some of their losses. Now their hopes are on the “postrera”, as the second planting cycle is called in Central America, which starts in late August and ends with the harvest in November.
The windstorms mentioned by both farmers are apparently part of the extreme climate variability brought by climate change and El Niño.
The photo shows a parched ear of corn in a small cornfield that was destroyed in central El Salvador. It is estimated that losses of the staple crops corn and beans in the country, as a result of the impacts of extreme weather events, such as El Niño and the historical shortage of rainfall, on local production, will lead to a grain deficit of about 6.8 million quintals (100-kg). CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
Guatemala is also experiencing what experts have noted in the rest of the region: because El Niño has arrived in the “strong phase”, in which climate variability is even more pronounced, there are periods of longer droughts as well as more intense rains.
That puts the “postrera” harvest in danger, said the experts interviewed.
This means that whereas El Niño would bring drought in the first few months of the agricultural cycle, now it is hitting harder during the second period, in August, when the postrera planting is in full swing.
“For the farmers it was clear since April that it was raining less, compared to other years,” Sigüenza told IPS from Guatemala City.
“Then, in August, we had the first warnings from the highlands and the southern coast that the plants were not growing well, that they were suffering from water stress,” he said.
The most affected region, he said, is the Dry Corridor, which in Guatemala includes the departments of Jalapa, Chiquimula, Zacapa, El Progreso, part of Chimaltenango and Alta Verapaz, in the central part of the country.
The Dry Corridor is a 1,600 kilometer-long strip of land that runs north-south through portions of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
It is an area highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, where long periods of drought are followed by heavy rains that have a major effect on the livelihoods and food security of local populations, as described by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Sigüenza said that food security due to lack of basic grains is expected to affect some 4.6 million people in Guatemala, a country of 17.4 million.
Even the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) “predicted that August, September and October would be the months with the greatest presence of El Niño,” said Luis Treminio, president of the Salvadoran Chamber of Small and Medium Agricultural Producers.
Treminio said that 75 percent of bean production is currently planted, and because it is less resistant to drought and rain than corn and sorghum, there is a greater possibility of losses.
“So the risk now is to the postrera, because if this scenario is fulfilled, we will have a very low postrera production,” he said.
Treminio’s estimate is that El Salvador will have a basic grains deficit of 6.8 million quintals, which the country will have to cover, as always, with imports.
This bean plant growing on a Salvadoran farm may or may not make it to harvest. The El Niño phenomenon has begun to hit hard the “postrera” or second harvest in Central America, in which farmers hope to recover some of the losses suffered in the first harvest, in May and June. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala / IPS
As in other countries in the region, Nicaraguan farmers suffered losses in the first planting, in May, and again in the second, the postrera, “and all of this leads to a strong imbalance in the small farmer economy,” the FAO official said from Panama City.
Sanches said that El Niño will be felt in 93 percent of the region until March 2024 and, in addition, 71 percent is in the “strong phase”.
He added that in the Dry Corridor 64 percent of the farms are less than two hectares in size. In other words, there are many families involved in subsistence agriculture, and with fewer harvests, they would face unemployment and would look for escape valves, such as migration.
“All this would then trigger an explosion of migration,” said Sanches.
With regard to the impacts in Nicaragua, researcher Abdel Garcia, an expert in climate, environment and disasters, said that, in effect, the country is receiving “the negative backlash” of El Niño, that is, less rain in the months that should have more copious rainfall, such as September.
García said that the effects of the climate are not only being felt in agriculture, and therefore in the economy, but also in the environment.
“The ecosystem is already suffering: we see dried up rivers and surface water sources, and also the reservoirs, which are at their lowest levels right now,” García told IPS from Managua.
García said that some farmers in the department of Estelí, in northwestern Nicaragua, are already talking about a plan B, that is, to engage in other economic activities outside of agriculture, given the harsh situation in farming.
In late August, FAO announced the launch of a humanitarian aid plan aimed at mobilizing some 37 million dollars to assist vulnerable communities in Latin America in the face of the impact of the El Niño phenomenon.
Specifically, the objective was to support 1.1 million people in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
Even more ambitious is an initiative in which FAO will participate as a liaison between the governments of 30 countries around the world and investors, multilateral development banks, the private sector and international donors, so that these nations can access and allocate resources to agriculture.
At the meeting, which will take place Oct. 7-20 in Rome, FAO’s world headquarters, governments will present projects totaling 268 million dollars to investors.
Among the nations submitting proposals are 10 from Latin America and the Caribbean, including Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
Meanwhile, despite the gloomy forecasts for farming families, who are taking a direct hit from El Niño, both Gustavo and Héctor remain hopeful that it is worth a second try now that the postrera harvest is underway.
“We have no choice but to keep working, we can’t just sit back and do nothing,” said Héctor, with a smile that was more encouraging than resigned.
The Mbeubeus dumpsite in Dakar, Senegal, where Practical Action, an international organisation is helping the communities phase out open burning of waste. Credit: Practical Action.
by Robert Kibet (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Oct 02 (IPS) – With the African continent recycling less than 11 percent of its waste, COP28 provided leaders on the African continent to consider integrated waste systems that include informal waste workers.
Akinyi Walender, Africa Director at Practical Action, an innovative international development group, says the informal waste workers are rarely involved. She was speaking recently at the inaugural Africa Climate Summit.
“For us to tackle the issue of waste, we really have to look at how we can have a more integrated system in place, which means we need to bring everybody along,” she told a session on open burning of waste on the sideline of the summit.
Coming ahead of the upcoming Cop28 summit, Wandeler says it provided an opportunity for the African continent to think concretely about what it wants to achieve on climate issues.
“The situation on climate is so dire that we do need to really act. We should already begin to look at opportunities within the continent and make those good while we wait for the funding that is supposed to come on adaptation,” Walender told IPS in an interview.
Over 90 percent of waste generated in Africa is disposed of at uncontrolled dumpsites and landfills, often with associated open burning. Nineteen of the world’s 50 biggest dumpsites are located in Africa, all in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The African Union set an ambitious target for African cities to recycle at least half of their waste by 2023, but many are still far from achieving this.
According to the UN Environment Programme, the goal can be met and even surpassed with a shift of organic waste to composting and bioenergy recovery, along with the refurbishment, repair, reuse, and recycling of the waste.
In 2016, Sub-Saharan Africa alone generated around nine percent of global waste or 180 million tonnes, of which about two-thirds is dropped in landfills and open dump sites, left to pollute the nearby environment and global climate. This is projected to quadruple by 2050.
Last year, environment ministers from 54 African countries met in Dakar, Senegal, at the 18th session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), committing to achieve a 60 percent reduction of open waste burning by 2030 and fully phase out open burning of waste by 2040.
It is an ambitious target, which Walender says, “With the much wider UN 2030 Agenda on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in place, many countries have so much that they need to grapple with”.
Akinyi Walender, the Director of Practical Action Africa, speaking during a session on open burning of waste at the sideline of the recent Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS
“We have many policies in place, but most are hardly implemented. The whole topic on open burning of waste and its 2040 timeline is very short. Many have yet to even put in place those policies that govern the open burning of waste. I feel that this timeline is actually very short,” Walender told IPS in an interview.
Sam Dindi, director for training and community mobilization at Mazingira Yetu, a Kenyan-based environment organization, says if countries embrace a green and circular economy in which waste is reused, it has the potential to create job opportunities for the youth.
“Open burning of waste is a quick way of addressing a problem, but again, it brings an even bigger problem that we may not be able to solve both as a country and as a continent,” he told IPS in an interview.
Last year, Kenya passed the Solid Waste Management Act 2022, dubbed Sustainable Solid Waste Management Act 2022, which requires the closure of all open dumpsites and transit to landfills, a controlled form of dumpsite.
“Kenya is making progress. Last year, Kenya passed the Solid Waste Management Act 2022, which transforms how we manage waste from the previous linear economy and promotes a circular economy in which waste is given a new lease of life. It is either upcycled or recycled,” says Dindi.
According to Dindi, the implementation of the policies in place remains a barrier to the efforts of various stakeholders.
“Implementation of the policies is where the rubber meets the road. This is where we lack the political goodwill because perhaps implementing these policies is perceived to affect some businesses, policymakers, or other interested parties,” Dindi told IPS.
Dumping of waste, according to stakeholders who spoke at the session, agreed that the open burning of waste heavily impacts the impoverished and marginalized communities.
A 2021 report by Practical Action dubbed Managing Our Waste indicates that nearly two billion people on the planet live without any form of waste collection, with Sub-Saharan Africa experiencing some of the lowest waste collection coverage.
The report recommends monitoring waste management as a people-centred service, integrating the voice of those most affected and improving informal waste workers’ lives and working conditions.
“At all levels, waste policies need to focus not only on environmental benefits but also on improving the lives of the poorest communities and workers. Their voices need to be heard in all key decision-making processes,” reads the report.
In Senegal, Practical Action is working with local communities and government agencies to reduce the open burning of waste at two major dumping sites, namely, the infamous Mbeubeus site in Dakar and a second one in Thiès.
“While it is generally seen as a responsibility of the local government, the community and the private sector need to be involved. If you look at the whole circular economy, there is the ability to reuse, recycle the waste, and reorient it in terms of packaging,” Walender told IPS.
When addressing food insecurity, it’s clear that insufficient food production isn’t the problem. According to FAO estimates, Latin America and the Caribbean could feed over 1.3 billion people, twice their population. Credit: Riccardo De Luca / FAO
Opinion by Mario Lubetkin (santiago)
Inter Press Service
SANTIAGO, Sep 29 (IPS) – Mario Lubetkin is FAO Assistant Director-General and FAO Regional Representative for Latin America and the CaribbeanIn recent years, the population of Latin America and the Caribbean has seen a worrying increase in hunger figures, especially among the poorest in the region.
When we talk about food insecurity in our region, as in the rest of the world, we realize that this problem does not stem from deficient food production. According to FAO estimates, Latin America and the Caribbean could feed more than 1.3 billion people, twice its population.
Thus, where does this problem arise? A relevant factor in this matter is food loss and waste, which prevention is fundamental in the development of agri-food systems.
In 2019, the United Nations General Assembly first established 29 September as International Food Loss and Waste Awareness Day, recognizing the positive impact of reversing FLW can have on people’s food and nutrition security.
Four years after the declaration of this day, we must take stock of what we have achieved, look ahead and take immediate action to reverse a complex scenario with economic, social, environmental, and moral costs.
According to FAO figures, 13% of the world’s food is lost in the supply chain, from post-harvest to retail, and a further 17% is wasted in households, food services, and retail. The highest levels of losses occur in nutrient-rich foods such as fruit and vegetables (32%), meat, and fish (12.4%).
Inefficiencies along the food chain and in consumption also have a significantly impact on the environment. Therefore, preventing food loss and waste can help to combat hunger and the consequences of climate change through greenhouse gas emissions.
Current scientific evidence points to innovative solutions that support family farming, distribution and supply systems, drive circular bio-economy actions, and target investments and funding to develop monitoring and early warning systems to prevent FLWs, as well as comprehensive legal frameworks aimed at prevention. But it is still not enough.
At the end of August, the FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean organized a discussion on how to prevent and reduce food losses and waste in the context of food security and nutrition, with the participation of the Holy See, representatives of the Chilean government, and FAO.
This conversation explored ideas and solutions to move from reflection to action and to understand that ending the phenomenon of food loss and waste has a direct impact on the lives of individuals and society as a whole.
The way forward is clear: to address this situation it is imperative to work in a coordinated and multi-sectoral way to achieve results quickly. Governments, businesses, civil society and academia must join forces, to generate evidence, investments in infrastructure and technology, and other measures to address this situation.
Much needs to be done. Food loss and waste must be addressed from an ethical, political and scientific perspective. We are all responsible for this challenge.
What Africa needs is deep systematic changes in land governance. Communities need to control the disposition of their territories; peace will never happen if populations are stuck in economic instability. Credit: Tommy Trenchard/IPS
Opinion by Solange Bandiaky Badji (washington dc)
Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON DC, Sep 25 (IPS) – When the heads of state of all United Nations members spoke in front of the UN General Assembly last week, a number of African leaders were not be able to attend, having been removed from office in military-led coups.
On the surface, these nations do not share many similarities outside of geography and colonial histories. Consider Gabon and Niger, the most recent countries to experience “regime change.” Gabon is a small, biodiverse nation; the president under house arrest and his father before him have been in power since 1967. Niger is a much larger, mostly desert country; the president under house arrest had been elected in 2021.
This instability, taking place across West and Central Africa, has drawn plenty of attention, both regionally and internationally. But missing in the debates on which international power is behind each coup or whether they should be tolerated is the far more basic question on resources.
While France, the U.S., Russia, and China have condemned or worried about the wave of coups, they have mainly focused on the need to restore “constitutional order” and democracy. The root cause of the coups and conflicts in Africa is about resource extraction that drives poverty and human rights violations.
There are now seven African countries whose militaries have removed national governments, and all of their economies are largely dependent on resource extraction. Mali and Burkina Faso are among the world’s leading producers of gold. Chad and Sudan depend on oil extraction. Niger is the world’s fourth largest producer of uranium. Guinea holds between one quarter and half of the world’s bauxite reserves, the primary source of aluminum. Gabon is the second biggest producer of manganese in Africa and its economy also depends on oil and gas extraction, even as the government was exploring ways to tap emerging carbon credit markets for the tropical forests that cover almost 90% of its land.
The land needed for resource extraction, and the labor needed for the mines, drilling operations, or refineries—this economic activity comes at a cost. Families eking out a livelihood based on agriculture or forest products have little recourse when larger economic interests swoop in and take their land and resources.
In these countries, the rural communities have lived on and tended the land for generations—far longer than the governments have been in power. Land and property ownership is the basis of individual wealth in the Global North. But in the Global South, legal systems that disenfranchise rural communities are accepted because of the resources that their land contains.
The resource extraction sector does not provide a suitable replacement for the livelihoods that community members lose when their lands are taken. We have yet to see an example where miners, for example, are adequately compensated and protected from workplace hazards.
In the Sahel, Niger is often commended for its recognition of customary tenure rights. Niger has a progressive Rural Code adopted in 1993 that set innovative land governance systems, legislation and institutions.
A Rural Land Policy was adopted in 2021 with provisions to recognize rights and prevent land conflicts. Niger also has the most progressive pastoral law in the Sahel, adopted in 2010, that recognizes the rights of nomadic communities dependent on livestock. Burkina Faso and Mali also have strong protections for community rights, but enforcement was lacking in all three countries.
Foreign investors are always happy to exploit these countries’ resources; enforcing community rights is never their priority. Equitable sharing of the benefits from the extractive sector, to provide local youth with gainful employment or land ownership, and respecting rural land ownership arrangements, are rarely on the table.
I look at Senegal, where I was born and raised, and all the ingredients are there for the country to join this string of coups. Government revenues depend on resource extraction—phosphate mines drive most of the economy.
Natural gas and oil have been discovered off the coast and the government ambition is to make Senegal an oil, gas, and hydrocarbon giant. While Senegal has been the most stable country in the Sahel, we are seeing democratic rollback with arrests of opposition political leaders and citizens, which triggered massive street protests.
And, Senegal’s legal system does not protect the land rights of rural communities—leaving them without a basis for wealth. Senegal has struggled to come up with a new land policy and law to take into account the current political and economic context and give ownership rights to the communities. The land law in force is the “Loi du Domaine National,” adopted immediately after we gained independence from France in 1964.
Ultimately, it’s not about who is in power and is certainly not limited to former French colonies. This is all about how resource extraction is prioritized. What Africa needs is deep systematic changes in land governance. Communities need to control the disposition of their territories; peace will never happen if populations are stuck in economic instability.
“Africa is a beggar sitting on a gold mine,” said Birago Diop, the 20th century Senegalese poet and storyteller. Despite their natural riches, four of these seven countries—Mali, Niger, Sudan and Chad—scored in the bottom 10th of the global “Prosperity Index;” the other three score in the bottom 40%.
The challenge before all of us—for Africa’s regional bodies like ECOWAS and the African Union, and for global institutions like the UN—is how we can leave these outdated economic models in the 20th century. Two decades into this century, we still haven’t embraced the need for a more equitable approach to natural resources. Until we do so, no government is safe.
Dr. Solange Bandiaky-Badji, PhD is Coordinator of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). She holds a PhD in Women’s and Gender Studies from Clark University, Massachusetts, and an MA in Environmental Sciences and in Philosophy from Cheikh Anta Diop University, Senegal.
A protest for women’s rights in Puebla, Mexico. Credit: Melania Torres/Forus
Opinion by Bibbi Abruzzini, Marie LHostis (new york)
Inter Press Service
The 2023 Special Edition of the SDG Progress Report emphasized that we’re falling short in implementing the SDGs. In April this year, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres deplored that “Progress on more than 50 per cent of targets of the SDGs is weak and insufficient; on 30 per cent, it has stalled or gone into reverse,” disproportionately impacting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable.
As we approach the halfway mark of the 2030 Agenda, we urge world leaders at the UN General Assembly to address the precarious state of SDG implementation. Here’s our 5 asks.
Walk the talk with clear implementation plans and benchmarks for the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals.
“In Guatemala, there are two worlds, one for a small group that benefits from this macroeconomic stability, this weakness of democracy, this co-optation of state institutions, and a large majority of the population that faces poverty and inequality,” says Alejandro Aguirre Batres, Executive Director of CONGCOOP, the national platform of NGOs in Guatemala that recently published an alternative report on the implementation of the SDGs in the country.
Human rights activists in Cartagena, Colombia from the Coalition of Human Rights in Development at the Finance in Common Summit. Credit: Sebastian Barros/Forus
Governments must make specific national implementation plans to advance the Sustainable Development Goals, with clear benchmarks on when to achieve the targets set in 2015. Following the SDG Summit, we call on the United Nations and its partners to ensure that the “National Commitments to SDG Transformation” called for by the Secretary-General are adequately compiled and tracked, including by providing a transparent and inclusive platform for showcasing these commitments, helping to ensure adequate implementation, follow-up and accountability.
All efforts and commitments must focus on breaching the increassing gap in inequalities, healing polarisation and restoring socio-environmental rights at the core of Agenda 2030 implementation as no form of development should come at the cost of environmental degradation and injustice.
Presenting a viewpoint from Asia, Jyotsna Mohan Singh, representing the Asia Development Alliance, emphasizes that while the SDGs look good on paper, their real-world implementation remains far from satisfactory. She explains, “Governments should develop a policy coherence for sustainable development roadmap with timebound targets,” adding that it’s all about creating spaces grounded in equity where civil society and other stakeholders can join discussions and connect with local communities.
In regions like the Sahel, stretching 5,000 kilometers below the Sahara Desert from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, challenges like conflict, political instability, extreme poverty, and food insecurity affect nearly 26 million people. Yet, this region is teeming with opportunities, boasting abundant resources and a young population, including 50% young women and girls.
As civil society leader Mavalow Christelle Kalhoule, Forus Chair and President of SPONG, the Burkina Faso NGO network, puts it, “What unfolds in the Sahel and in so many other forgotten communities ripples across the globe, impacting us all even if we choose to look away.
Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals is vital to unlock a different future. But for global change to truly happen, we need countries to come together, we need solidarity, horizontal spaces, and for world leaders to start listening and acting accordingly.”
Commit to the protection of civic space and human rights.
“Although the state of Pakistan has ratified many global instruments, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the SDGs, the irony is that none of them have been transformed into local policies and regulatory frameworks. Unfortunately, civil rights advocates and organizations have either transformed themselves into humanitarian organizations or practiced self-censorship to avoid state atrocities. Pakistan is failing to achieve SDGs due to disengagement with civil society and other stakeholders.
Ironically, the government is unable to provide reliable data on any of their own priority indicators to measure progress towards the implementation of SDGs, particularly on rights-based indicators,” says Zia ur Rehman, National Convener of the Pakistan Development Alliance. Their newly published Pakistan Civic Space Monitor reveals a generally restricted civic space, including restraints on freedom of speech, assembly, information, rule of law, governance, and public participation, with further deterioration. This rings true for 92% of Forus members – comprising national and regional civil society networks in over 124 countries – who consider the protection of civic space and human rights a top priority.
Fridays for Future activists during a Climate March in Brussels, Belgium. Credit: Both Nomads/Forus
Indeed, over the past decade, thousands of civil society organizations have faced increasing challenges due to restrictions on their formation and activities. Nine out of 10 people now live in countries where civil liberties are severely restricted, including freedoms of association, peaceful assembly, and expression, according to the CIVICUS Monitor. Forus reports confirm that civil society deals with increasing restrictions, involving extra-legal actions, misinformation and disinformation about their work both online and offline.
Research also highlights the insufficiency of current institutional mechanisms to ensure an enabling environment for civil society, including addressing impunity for attacks on civil society and human right defenders, implementing supportive laws and regulations, and facilitating effective and inclusive policy dialogue. A recent ARTICLE 19 report highlights the inadequate integration of crucial elements like freedom of expression and access to information into SDGs, hampering progress.
Journalist killings increased in 2022. Additionally, monitoring access to information mainly focuses on having a legal framework, ignoring its quality and adoption. Strengthening these rights is vital for advancing all SDGs. The growing number of human rights defenders being killed every year – at least 401 in 26 countries were murdered for their peaceful work in 2022 – is another worrying trend that needs to be reversed as the protection and promotion of human rights is the cornerstone of achieving sustainable development. Without human rights we will just move backwards.
Strengthen and Catalyze Robust Financing for the SDGs.
From the recent Summit for a new global financing pact to the Finance in Common initiative, it’s clear that the focus this year has been on increasing investment. But we need quality not just quantity, as expressed in a join civil society declaration aimed at public development banks signed by over 100 civil society organisations from 50+ countries.
While we welcome UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s call for a SDG Stimulus, we remind Governments, International Financial Institutions, public development banks and donors that more efforts must be done to scale up investments for the realization of the SDGs at all levels, including through additional support for civil society and by involving communities in all “development talks”.
The role of the private sector and financial institutions in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda must be talked about openly. It is important to include in all development projects being carried out specific budgets for actions linked to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Discussions about financial reforms that are being repeatedly undertaken by several countries cannot happen behind close doors and in non-inclusive forums such as the G7 and G20. Instead, they should be open, inclusive, and transparent, involving a broader spectrum of protagonists, including civil society, to ensure fairness and sustainability in shaping global financial policies.
“The SDGs are severely off track as we reach the critical half-way point of Agenda 2030. We need a renewed global ambition on financial commitments to make progress on the SDGs. Reforms of global financial architecture are a crucial part of this to ensure we have a fairer, more effective, inclusive and transparent system supporting lower-income countries that are at the forefront of the global climate, debt, poverty, food, and humanitarian crises. It’s not about a lack of finance, it is about political will and getting our priorities right,” says Sandra Martinsone, Policy Manager – Sustainable Economic Development at Bond UK.
Mobilize Transformative Commitments for SDG16+.
Recognizing the vital role of SDG16+ as a critical enabler for the entire 2030 Agenda, governments should come to the SDG Summit with targeted, integrated, focused and transformative commitments to accelerate action on SDG16+.
As developed in the #SDG16Now collective campaign, this includes domestic policies and resources, legal reforms and initiatives to advance SDG16+ at the international, national and local levels, as well as ambitious global commitments to strengthen multilateralism and international resolve to promote peace, justice, the rule of law, inclusion and institution-building.
Additionally, governments must use key moments – such as the 2024 High-Level Political Forum and the Summit of the Future – to advance implementation and delivery of the SDGs through similar commitments to action, and ensure adequate follow-up to these commitments going forward.
Ensure civil society participation and listen to communities, reinvigorate commitments to SDG17.
The 2030 Agenda overall cannot be achieved without building on the role of civil society and fostering a true global partnership. Every year at the fringes of the UN General Assembly, initiatives such as the Global People’s Assembly bring to the ears of world leaders the voices of communities historically marginalised. Governments need to reinvigorate engagement towards SDG17 to trengthen the means of implementing sustainable development goals and revitalising global partnerships for sustainable development.
It’s high time we move away from conducting discussions about the future of development in closed-door settings. Tokenistic participation of civil society, where their involvement is merely symbolic or superficial, undermines the core principles of nclusivity, hurting genuine progress and meaningful collaboration. A more inclusive approach must be embraced that actively involves civil society and communities. Let’s #UNmute their voices and perspectives by bringing about reforms to current participation mechanisms, and giving them a real platform to be heard.
In 2015 every government in the world agreed as a global community on what we want for our comon future for people and planet. So many efforts and work went on to reach such an agreement. Now is the time for governments and world leaders to walk the walk and prioritize people and the planet, delivering the 2030 Agenda, essential to secure our shared future. It is time for world leaders to act decisively and uphold their commitments to the SDGs.
Liberia is one of the last countries in West Africa to still have vast tracts of forest – but this valuable resource is disappearing at an alarming rate. Credit: Shutterstock.
Opinion by Silas Kpanan Ayoung Siakor (monrovia)
Inter Press Service
MONROVIA, Sep 15 (IPS) – The fate of Liberia and its forests are entwined. Yet a new climate change deal, set to be announced at the UN climate change talks in Dubai this November, would drive a wedge between our communities and their woodlands.
Currently, forests make up more than two-thirds of Liberia’s land area, and are crucial for people’s livelihoods. They were illegally plundered by the former President Charles Taylor to fund a civil war that left an estimated 150,000 dead.
And since 2003, when the war ended, vast swathes of forested land have been signed over to foreign investors, as a corrupt minority have enriched themselves through illegal logging at the expense of the impoverished majority. We have lost nearly one quarter of our forests to economic development projects since then—with most of the loss occurring in the last ten years. This is a disaster for the communities that live on these lands and for efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change.
Now another chapter is unfolding in the tangled history of Liberia’s forests.
At the end of March, Liberia’s Ministry of Finance signed a memorandum of understanding with a United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based consultancy called Blue Carbon LLC, giving it the exclusive right to manage an area of rainforest covering one tenth of our national land. The deal, which has been negotiated in secrecy, is reportedly in the process of being finalized.
Under the agreement Blue Carbon will pay Liberia to manage and preserve one million hectares of forest for 30 years, and sell carbon credits from the emissions ‘saved’ by protecting these forests to major polluters, who will use them to offset their own emissions.
That is a significant chunk of our country, set to be pawned to the planet’s major polluters, enabling them to continue extracting and burning fossil fuels while claiming to protect the planet.
If this deal proceeds, it is likely to do so under dubious legality and without the prior consent of the communities living in the forests.
What’s more, it is part of a global trend called ‘carbon colonialism’, where instead of taking concrete steps to decarbonise, corporations offset their greenhouse gas emissions by paying to preserve forests or other ecosystems—often against the wishes of the local or Indigenous communities who live there. A similar deal with Zimbabwe’s government was announced in the middle of August.
‘Greenwashing’
Money is desperately needed to support local communities protecting their forests in Liberia as much as anywhere and there may well be ‘offset projects’ that are truly beneficial for local or Indigenous communities—but this is not one of them.
The chairman of Blue Carbon LLC is Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, a member of the UAE royal family, which has major interests in the country’s oil and gas infrastructure.
The UAE—a fossil fuel state—is planning a huge expansion of oil and gas even though, at the end of the year, it will host the UN’s COP28 climate summit.
To burnish its environmental credentials ahead of the COP, the UAE’s government and various state-run companies have hired some of the world’s biggest PR companies to mount a greenwashing campaign.
The Blue Carbon deal—which is set to be unveiled at the COP to show how the UAE is fulfilling its commitments under the Paris Climate deal—is part of this greenwashing.
The deal, which ignores this body of research, is also a primary threat to rural Liberians and their hard-won land rights. Around 70 per cent of land in Liberia is owned by communities. Roughly one third of our people live in forested areas, and the local people who live on the land targeted under the deal will only be consulted about it after it has been signed – that is, if they are consulted at all.
As such, it represents a ‘climate land grab’ that reverses some of the steady progress that Liberia has made on recognising community rights.
The deal’s legality is also dubious, and the agreement appears to violate our constitution and a number of Liberian laws, notably the National Forestry Reform Law (2006), the Community Rights Law (2009), the Public Procurement and Concessions Act (2010), and the Land Right Act (2018).
One can only sell carbon if you own it. Liberian law is clear that communities own their customary forest lands and the resources on them.
The conditions of our people are worsening by the day. Liberia is one of the last countries in West Africa to still have vast tracts of forest – but this valuable resource is disappearing at an alarming rate.
Liberians must remain open to working with anyone, including corporations, who can help us protect our forests and our peoples’ rights. But we must remain resolute in our opposition to false climate solutions such as this deal.
Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor has championed community forest and land rights in Liberia for two decades. His efforts were recognized with the Whitley Award for Environment and Human Rights in 2002 (UK), the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2006 (US), Award for Outstanding Environmental and Human Rights Activism from the Alexander Soros Foundation (US), and the Mundo Negro Fraternity Award in 2018 (Spain).
In class at the public school in Lasbela, in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. The low quality of government schools has turned private education into a luxury accessible to only a few. Credit: Mariyam Suleman Anees/IPS
by Mariyam Suleman Anees (gwadar, pakistan)
Inter Press Service
GWADAR, Pakistan, Sep 13 (IPS) – Ten years ago I ran an academy for girls in Dohr Gatti, a small slum on the outskirts of Gwadar, a coastal city in Balochistan, southwestern Pakistan. Most of the girls were between the ages of eleven and fifteen and had the little opportunity to receive a formal education.
Plagued by tradition and poverty, their desire to learn was often thwarted by the tradition of marrying as soon as they reached puberty and spend the rest of their lives raising children, as their mothers had.
At the academy I tried to raise awareness in the community about how crucial it was for girls to receive an education. That worked, at least a little.
Years later, some girls in Dohr Gatti managed to enroll in local public schools. In 2021, one of my students got the highest score on the district’s annual eighth-grade exam.
But even that couldn’t change her destiny. Soon after her triumph on the test, which showed her potential to continue studying, she had to stop. She was married off and sent to a remote village, where she still lives with her in-laws and a husband much older than her.
I often wonder how far students like her could have gone if their right to education was protected and if they only had one chance to pursue their dreams.
The question often raised in such cases is “who exactly is to blame?”
Religion and tradition intermingle in Balochistan, a region of Pakistan which has its own language and culture but where, as in the rest of the country, Sunni Islam is hegemonic.
Parents, tradition, patriarchy, poverty, political unrest in the region, the education system itself, the government, all come under scrutiny. But the state of access to education for girls remains largely unchanged.
Girls at Pishukan public school. The majority of them will not attend secondary school after being married as soon as they reach puberty. Credit: Anila Yousuf/IPS
A luxury good
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest yet most underdeveloped province. According to a World Bank report, the overall literacy rate in the province is 41 percent. It’s half that for women, 19 percent.
It’s no surprise that only two out of ten women can read in Balochistan, when UN data suggests that 78 percent of Baloch girls of school age do not go to school. For those who do manage to attend, the dropout rate among female students is much higher.
Despite these stark obstacles, some have made progress. Some Baloch women have not only completed their education and begun successful careers, but have also actively contributed to improving girls’ education in the region.
Anila Yousuf is the principal of a girls’ school in Pishukan, a small fishing village in southern Balochistan. She has recently been selected for Postgraduate studies in the United Kingdom, and recently published a collection of stories of women from Gwadar, her hometown.
But she’s aware she’s the exception:
“There´s lower enrollment among girls and many of them drop out of school as soon as they reach secondary school. This means that the number of women both in higher education and in the working sector is much lower,” Yousuf tells IPS.
Long-standing political tensions between Pakistan’s central government and Balochistan often takes some of the blame for the problem, with budgets for local education often treated as a political football.
However, a 2010 reform in Pakistan’s constitution transferred responsibility for education to local provinces, and led to increases in provincial public funding for education.
International agencies including the World Bank, UNICEF, US Partnership, and British Council have also been working through local organizations focused on reducing gendered disparities in provincial education.
Provincial ministers receive an annual ‘development fund’ to allocate towards various projects, including education initiatives, within their respective constituencies. Critics say the money does not appear to have chipped away at the problem much, however.
“There is no proper planning for effective use of funds. Not even public-school teachers enroll their children in them,” says Yousuf. “They choose private schools or send their children outside the province.”
Private schools have become a thriving business in the towns and cities of the province. But with 60% of the population living below the poverty line, private schooling for girls is a luxury inaccessible to the majority.
The lack of women with formal educations in Balochistan has affected the local labor market, and limited many Baloch women’s ability to start careers. According to Yousuf, most of the few women who enter the workforce are usually teachers or healthcare workers.
“I fear that we are going backwards throughout the country. Women are increasingly locked up at home. There are still specific markets for them and more and more Koranic schools are seen, more women hidden under a burla,” says the activist.
Anila Yousuf with her students in the library of the school she runs in Pishukan. Education in Pakistan is segregated and there are fewer schools for female students. Credit: Mariyam Suleman Anees/IPS
Gender roles
Zaitoon Kareen, a university professor in Uthal, Balochistan, tells IPS that educating a daughter is always more expensive in Balochistan.
“Baloch girls need assistance, especially for higher education when they have to travel and live in a different town or city. They need better shelters and someone to accompany them when traveling to schools or universities for safety reasons,” explains Kareen.
She will be leaving the province herself soon, after being accepted for a Postgraduate study in the UK.
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) suggests that girls only attend school if there is one close to home. But with only 26 percent of primary schools, 42 percent of lower secondary and 36 percent of upper secondary schools accepting girls, it’s often hard for families to find a neighborhood school their daughters can attend.
“When parents can only afford to invest in the education of a single child, they tend to prioritize the boy, as he is more likely to get a paid job and live with his parents in the future,” Hafsa Qadir, an activist with WANG -a local NGO- tells IPS.
In 2020, the Baloch provincial government attempted to address the problem, claiming a new educational plan, the Educational Sector Plan 2020-25, would address the disparity.
Zakia Baloch, a local woman who attended school and now works as a physical therapist — one of the first women to work in the field in the region — said part of the problem is the schools themselves often dissuade girls from continuing their education.
“Instead of providing proper education, there is often a heavy emphasis on traditional gender roles, preparing girls primarily for domestic roles rather than equipping them for careers and empowering them as independent individuals,” she says.
She called the government-funded education system “negligent” in its teacher selection process, resulting in “inadequately trained educators with very limited skills and exposure.”
“In 2023, when technology has opened many avenues of learning, our system is still locked in a cocoon,” laments the Baloch woman.
Opinion by Osamu Kusumoto, Sotaro Kusumoto (tokyo, japan)
Inter Press Service
TOKYO, Japan, Sep 12 (IPS) –
1. SDGs and global governance
Sustainable development is the challenge of how to build a society in which humanity can live with dignity in this global environment. The SDGs set 17 goals and 169 targets to achieve sustainable development. Goals 16 and 17 are aimed precisely at building global governance through the formation of global rules. Goal 16 lists 10 specific targets, while Goal 17 lists 19 targets.
Sotaro KusumotoWhen a society functions with common values, it can be governed by non-verbal rules such as norms, but when the planet Earth, which is made up of diverse values, is regarded as a single society, it becomes necessary to govern it in the form of rules of law by explicit laws as common rules for the management of society. This is the condition for global governance by so-called global rules. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is little research on the nature of these global rules and how they should be constructed.
In order to answer this question, it is necessary to analyse the relationship between the legitimacy that defines the rules of governance in each country and the governance structure in the first place, and based on this analysis, identify issues and make proposals that can overcome these issues.
2. Laws of respective country and legitimacy
In modern societies, national laws are legislated under national constitutions. For example, the pros and cons of the death penalty are debated, but the essential reason why this is controversial is whether the fundamental question of on what grounds a person can deny the life of another person, even if he or she uses the institution of law, exists there. This question becomes clearer in the case of democracy. The epistemological question becomes whether the people, as sovereigns who constitute the sovereignty of the state, can take the lives of sovereigns on the basis of law, even if the law is legislated by parliamentarians elected through the system of elections.
In fact, the institution of the state is the only institution that can legally kill. International law recognises war as the final solution measures to international disputes. It is also regarded as a means of settling disputes over the sovereignty of states, recognised by international law, in the absence of any superior power.
Osamu KusumotoWhat is clear here is that the sovereignty of a state goes beyond the usual logical arguments and forms a value for the people, and the law of each country is founded on the fact that this value is not in question.
And the legitimacy of this rule is, surprisingly, provided for in the preamble of each country’s constitution. Even if there is no such statement in the preamble of the constitution, it is stipulated in the more fundamental texts of the fundamental law of each country, in the case of the UK in the Magna Carta, in the case of the US in the Declaration of Independence, and in the case of France in the Declaration of Human Rights.
The international order to date has made the values of the hegemonic powers, such as Pax Romana and Pax Britannica, the de facto rule. However, in an international community where diverse cultures and values exist, it is not possible to conduct global governance with the values of any one country as the global rules.
3. Possibility of global rules
Even though it is a difficult question how to set values, the legal conditions under which global rules can be established are relatively clear. Fairness, rationality, transparency, stability and predictability are required. A rule of law is established when people understand that the rule has validity.
The question is how to construct transcendental values that correspond to the sovereignty of people’s belief systems as values in the law of each country. The sociology of religion and the sociology of domination shows that the legitimacy of the transcendent rule of law, which forms the basis of the values of each country, is formed from the fact that the survival of the group is possible.
When we consider that humanity is an inhabitant of this fragile planet and that the idea of humanity as a community is at the root of the SDGs, and that our lives and the lives of others have equal value as the very basis of human rights, the legitimacy of global societal domination in the era of the SDGs must be based on sustainability, this means that the legitimacy of global society’s domination in the era of the SDGs must lie in sustainability.
Despite criticisms of idealism, the only logical solution to global governance is to create the conditions for its realisation.
Sotaro Kusumoto, Staff, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan Osamu Kusumoto, Secretary General, Forum on Future Vison
UNITED NATIONS & NAIROBI, Sep 08 (IPS) – In a world set on fire by climate change and brutal conflict, millions of children in emergencies and protracted crises need educational support. Children in 48 out of 49 African countries are at high or extremely high risk of the impacts of climate change, particularly in the Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Guinea, Somalia, and Guinea Bissau.
“We have reached catastrophic proportions of 224 million children today in conflict and other humanitarian crises in need of education support. Financial needs for education in emergencies within humanitarian appeals have nearly tripled over the last three years – from US$1.1 billion in 2019 to almost US$3 billion at the end of 2022. In 2022, only 30 percent of education requirements were funded, indicating a widening gap,” Education Cannot Wait (ECW) Executive Director Yasmine Sherif tells IPS.
Released today ahead of this month’s UN General Assembly and SDG Summit in New York, ECW’s ‘With Hope and Courage: 2022 Annual Results Report’ is a deep dive into the challenges, opportunities, key trends, and vast potential that “education for all” offers as nations across the globe race to deliver on the promises outlined in the SDG’s, Paris Agreement and other international accords.
Sherif stresses that as nations worldwide celebrate International Literacy Day – and the power of education to build sustainable and peaceful societies- ECW calls on world leaders to scale up financial support to reach vulnerable children in need, especially those furthest left behind. As more and more children are plunged into humanitarian crises, there is a widening funding gap as the needs have skyrocketed over recent years.
The report sends an urgent appeal for additional financing – featuring the latest trends in education in emergencies. It also shows the fund’s progress with UN and civil society partners in advancing quality education, particularly Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 for vulnerable girls and boys in humanitarian crises worldwide to access inclusive, quality, safe education.
“While the number of out-of-school children in situations of conflict, climate-induced disasters, and as refugees is skyrocketing – funding is not keeping up with the snowballing crisis. But even in these unfortunate circumstances, the report has a positive message. ECW and its global strategic partners have reached 8.8 million children with quality, holistic education since its 2016 inception and more than 4.2 million in 2022 alone. The only reason we have not reached more children is insufficient funding. We have mobilized over $1.5 billion to date, and we need another $670 million to reach 20 million children by the end of our 2023-2026 strategic plan,” she observes.
Sherif emphasizes that the global community must ensure that girls and boys impacted by armed conflicts, climate-induced disasters, and forced displacement are not left behind but rather placed at the forefront for an inclusive and continued quality education. Education is the foundation for sustainable and peaceful societies.
“Our annual report demonstrates that it is possible to deliver safe, inclusive, quality education with proven positive learning outcomes in countries affected by conflict and to refugees. ECW has done it through strategic partnerships with host governments, government donors, the private sector, philanthropic foundations, UN agencies, civil society, local organizations, and other key stakeholders,” she explains.
“Together, we have delivered quality education to 9 million children and adolescents impacted by crises. The systems are in place, including a coordination structure; with more funding, we can reach more girls and boys in humanitarian crises around the world in places such as the Sahel, South Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and Latin America and enable girls to access community-based secondary education in Afghanistan. We have a proven efficient and effective funding model of delivering the promise of education.”
ECW has thus far financed education programmes across 44 countries and crisis settings. Of the 4.2 million children reached in 2022, 21 percent were refugees, and 14 percent were internally displaced. When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools across the globe, ECW repositioned its programming and supported distance learning, life-saving access to water and sanitation facilities, and other integrated supports – reaching an additional 32.2 million children.
ECW’s commitment to gender equality and tackling the gender gap in education is bearing fruit. Towards the fund’s goal of 60 percent girls reached in all its investments, girls represent over 50 percent of all children reached in 2022.
In 2022, ECW’s rapid First Emergency Responses to new or escalating crises included a strong focus on the climate crisis through grants for the drought in Eastern Africa and floods in Pakistan and Sudan. ECW also approved new funding in response to the war in Ukraine and renewed violence in the Lake Chad Region and Ethiopia.
“On scaling up funding for education, the report shows funding for education in emergencies was higher than ever before in 2022, and that total available funding has grown by more than 57 percent over just three years – from US$699 million in 2019 to more than US$1.1 billion in 2022,” Sherif explains.
With support from ECW’s key strategic donor partners – including Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as the top-three contributors among 25 in total, and visionary private sector partners like The LEGO Foundation – US$826 million was announced at the ECW High-Level Financing Conference in early 2023.
In addition, collective resource mobilization efforts from all partners and stakeholders at global, regional, and country levels helped unlock an additional US$842 million of funding for education in emergencies and protracted crises, which contributed to alignment with ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programmes in 22 countries.
To date, some of ECW’s largest and prospective bilateral and multilateral donors have not yet committed funding for the full 2023–2026 period, and there remains a gap in funding from the private sector, foundations, and philanthropic donors. In the first half of 2023, ECW faces a funding gap of approximately US$670 million to fully finance results under the Strategic Plan 2023–2026, which will reach 20 million children over the next three years.
IPS UN Bureau Report
The poorest people in some of the least responsible regions for climate change or emissions – like East Africa – are losing their lives and livelihoods to human-induced climate change. Credit: Charles Karis/IPS
Opinion by Amitabh Behar, Fati NZi Hassane (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Sep 06 (IPS) – From 2017, Shamso Isac has helplessly witnessed the demise of all her sources of income. Failed rain seasons and dried-up water sources meant a lack of pasture, which led to the death of her livestock. Widespread hunger exacerbated by rising food costs forced her to relocate to Burlhedi internally displaced persons camp in Baidoa in the Southwest state of Somalia. She recalls walking for weeks seeking a place she could get food for her family. When her child asks for something to eat or drink, she has nothing to offer; all she can do is cry, overwhelmed by the utter hopelessness she feels.
Shamso’s story mirrors that of millions across East Africa and many other parts of the world. Despite contributing a mere 0.1% of global emission, millions are bearing the harshest impact of climate change with over 31.5 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and South Sudan experiencing the worst episode of climate-induced extreme weather, which is fuelling an alarming hunger crisis.
The devastating droughts and floods in these four East African countries have also costed the region an estimated $30 billion losses from 2021 to the end of 2023 with Oxfam calculating that approximately $7.4 billion worth of livestock have perished, pushing farmers and pastoralists deeper into poverty.
Climate change has resulted in the rise of the global temperature by up to 1.2° Celsius making the severity of East Africa’s drought 100 times more likely. The poorest people in some of the least responsible regions for climate change or emissions – like East Africa – are losing their lives and livelihoods to human-induced climate change. Rich industrial countries are responsible for 92% of excess emissions.
Yet, it is the people like those in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan that are facing a multitude of detrimental social, economic and health impacts that are exacerbated by climate change. Small island nations are losing their land to rising oceans and if this trajectory persists, entire countries could disappear under rising sea levels. The climate crisis is a human tragedy and is making existing inequalities and injustices a whole lot worse.
Climate justice demands that those responsible for causing the crisis must be held accountable, and those most affected must get adequate support to adapt to the problems and mitigate them. Why does this matter? It matters because it compels the global community and those primarily responsible for the climate crisis to work with and support those who bear the heaviest burden.
It matters because it addresses a more systemic problem that is the fundamental cause of this crisis and many others. The problem is an economic model that is fossil-dependent and designed to benefit a select few, the super-rich, and that’s causing a planetary crisis and aggravating social injustices around the world.
A fundamental shift is needed to effectively tackle this injustice, without which, extreme weather conditions will recur more frequently and with increasing intensity leading to more hunger and human suffering in the future in countries where people have done the least to contribute to climate change.
As a crucial starting point, the governments of industrialized countries must pay their fair share of climate finance and honour their commitment to provide 0.7% of their Gross National Income to the Global South countries including the $8.74 billion needed to support for the humanitarian response in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan in order to save lives and livelihoods.
To fill this gap, governments in the affluent and in the industrialised nations must ensure companies and the rich are paying their fair share of taxes, not least those profiting from harming the planet. This will enable these countries and communities at the frontline to start building back and build resilience for the next climate shock.
Secondly, the top polluting countries must pay their fair share of the climate finance to East Africa to help its governments scale up their climate mitigation and adaptation so they can help the most impacted communities to recover from climatic shocks. These funds should no longer be in the form of loans but as grants.
Finally, industrialized polluting countries should commit to paying their fair share of the losses and damage suffered by East Africa countries. Estimates show that these polluters owe $8.7 trillion to developing countries, including in Africa. This finance will be crucial to support communities and countries to adapt to climate change, recover from damage and loss and to transition to clean development.
We need to embrace a fundamental, systemic change. Even as we’re saving lives through the humanitarian response, we must also focus on the root causes of the climate change crisis and food insecurity.
Hunger is unacceptable in the 21st century. To witness millions suffering from lack of food in a world of plenty and in a world where billionaire wealth has exploded, is an abomination. The hope side of this doom-and-gloom scenario is that we have the resources in the world to address these challenges. The right leadership and political choices can end hunger. The time to act is now.
Fati N’Zi-Hassane is the Oxfam in Africa Director at Oxfam International. Amitabh Behar is the Interim Executive Director at Oxfam International
If production decreases due to El Niño, there will be less food availability, and the income of the most vulnerable households that live and eat on what they produce will be reduced. Credit: Ligia Calderón / FAO
Opinion by Mario Lubetkin (santiago)
Inter Press Service
SANTIAGO, Sep 01 (IPS) – Mario Lubetkin is FAO Assistant Director-General and FAO Regional Representative for Latin America and the CaribbeanThe climatic phenomenon known as “El Niño” is intensifying its presence worldwide. Projections are not favorable for the countries of the Latin America region. Below-normal rainfall is expected in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, northern Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, inland Peru, Guyana, and Suriname.
In addition, above-normal precipitation is projected for the northern coast of Peru and Ecuador associated with the “El Niño Costero” phenomenon.
If production decreases due to El Niño, there will be less food availability, and the income of the most vulnerable households that live and eat on what they produce will be reduced.
In case of rainfall deficit, food security will be affected, reducing the cultivated area, with effects on harvests and increased death, malnutrition, and diseases in livestock.
On the other hand, excess rainfall associated with El Niño will also lead to crop failure. It will also deteriorate soils, cause death and disease in animals, and damage key infrastructure.
It is critical to act now to reduce potential humanitarian needs. Protecting agriculture will directly impact food security and help prevent the escalation of food crises in the region.
Meeting this challenge requires a robust strategy that addresses risks in the broader context of global climate change.
FAO is implementing proactive actions to reduce potential humanitarian hardship in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador in the Dry Corridor in Central America.
These actions include support for water management, storage, and harvesting; micro-irrigation systems; safe seed storage systems; use of resistant varieties; prophylaxis and livestock feed, among others. In this way, we have protected the 2023 post-harvest agricultural season. A similar program will soon be initiated in Bolivia, Venezuela and Colombia.
In Ecuador, we will be supporting the implementation of drains and mechanisms to evacuate excess water from crops and prevent landslides, as well as providing equipment for seed and crop conservation, conservation of artisanal fishing production, and facilitating vaccination for livestock to mitigate the effects of El Niño Costero.
FAO recently launched a response plan to raise US$36.9 million to assist vulnerable communities in Latin America. The initiative, announced as part of Humanitarian Assistance Month, aims to support 1.16 million people in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela.
Without these efforts to reduce risk and act early, there will be a perpetual need for urgent humanitarian action and a growing risk of deterioration into new emergencies.
With a more coordinated effort by international organizations, governments, the private sector, regional organizations, civil society, and communities, we can cope with events like El Niño and better protect livelihoods and food security, leaving no one behind.
BRAC International recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bihar Government’s Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society to launch Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana Shahari, the first government-led urban Graduation programme in Asia. Credit: BRAC
by Rina Mukherji (pune, india)
Inter Press Service
PUNE, INDIA, Aug 30 (IPS) – In a bid to tackle the complexities of urban poverty, the Government of Bihar’s Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS) has launched Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana Shahari (SJY Urban). The program will include a time-bound series of multifaceted interventions addressing food security, social inclusion, and sustainable economic livelihoods to enable participating households to achieve a better standard of living.
As part of this program, BRLPS has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with BRAC International, which will serve as a thought partner to the Government of Bihar for the project development and also is building a consortium of partners to support the government in its implementation. Project Concern International (PCI), for example, is taking on management responsibilities and will also host thematic workshops across departments and with civil society experts to support inclusive learning and dialogue.
Mobile Creches will create a community cadre of childcare providers who will support maternal and child health. They have a 50-year-old history of providing childcare support, maternal and nutritional health, and WASH training to urban women in the slums of Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune. Quicksand will support the learning process to consolidate the design through ethnographic methods, prototyping, and other design elements. These learnings will help inform the project about the fabric of each respective urban community and provide a feedback loop once the rollout starts.
SJY Urban was inspired by the existing rural programme, Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana (SJY), locally known as JEEVIKA, the largest government-led Graduation programme in the world, which has reached over 150,000 households as of early 2023 and is still expanding. SJY Urban is modelled on the rural programme’s six basic modules: 1) Building up the aspirations and confidence of households; 2) Financial Inclusion; 3) Improvement of Health, Nutrition, and Sanitation; 4) Social Development; 5) Livelihood generation; and 6) Government Convergence.
While taking inspiration from JEEVIKA, the Urban Programme will be adapted to respond to the unique challenges people in poverty face within the urban context.
“Urban poverty is complex and inadequately addressed,” said Shweta S Banerjee, Country Lead – India, BRAC International. “SJY Shahari is a unique project in the many challenges it has accepted, including supporting project participants during extreme heat waves. BRAC is excited and committed to serving as a thought partner to the Government of Bihar as we take the time to test, learn, relearn, and deploy the project design.”
Applying Learnings from the Rural Programme to the Urban
The 36-month SJY Urban Programme will be launched in five wards in Patna and five wards in Gaya for now and will be scaled up in a year’s time. Given the unique challenges in urban settings, where research and solutions are more limited in comparison to rural settings, the programme will incorporate learnings from the SJY programme.
“In keeping with the requirements in an urban setting, we intend to provide improved skill sets in carpentry, plumbing, welding, and the like that can help workers access better employment opportunities both within and outside Bihar. For instance, there are around 50,000 to 100,000 Bihar workers in the Tiruppur hosiery industry. We intend to provide them with the necessary skill certification through the National Skill Development Council,” Jeevika CEO Rahul Kumar told IPS.
Designed with a focus on women’s empowerment, SJY has made a pronounced difference for people living in extreme poverty in Bihar, particularly through inclusive livelihood development and access to financial security through self-help groups (SHGs). The urban programme will also utilise SHGs to improve financial opportunities along with sustainable livelihood options.
While the livelihood options are different, there is still a great opportunity for skill development for people living in urban poverty. JEEVIKA plans to pursue livelihoods for participants through conventional entrepreneurship, building up specific skills for trades, and partnerships with public utilities. The existing bank sakhi programme, a program that has trained rural women to assist customers in opening accounts and other administrative bank-related services, as part of JEEVIKA, saw 2,500 bank sakhis leverage Rs 10,000 crore in business for various banks.
According to Rahul Kumar, the bank sakhi programme could be introduced in across Bihar and offer additional financial products such as insurance and mutual funds.
There are also climate-responsive livelihoods that have been utilised in the rural programme that can work for an urban setting as well, such as waste management, recycling of waste, and the use of e-rickshaws. With climate change contributing to rapid urbanisation across Asia and driving millions more into poverty, affecting those furthest behind first, sustainable, resilient livelihood development will be a critical component of SJY Urban. The programme will work to further enhance resilience among participants by providing them with resources and training to develop food security and social inclusion.
Creating a Stronger Ecosystem Through Convergence
Similar to the rural programme, SJY Urban will bring together different existing government schemes and agencies to best serve those living in extreme poverty. The programme will also leverage the existing enterprises within the rural programme and promote them in the urban programme as well, such as market poultry and dairy products.
There are existing livelihood initiatives that rural participants are driving forward, such as running nurseries across the state, which have provided saplings to the Environment, Forest, and Climate Change Department for planting. These saplings can be used by urban plantations and gardens that are also under the department. Similarly, there are kiosk carts that sell Neera or palm nectar that are processed and made by JEEVIKA participants. There is an opportunity to expand this enterprise to the urban setting as well.
JEEVIKA will also engage other government agencies to support the design and implementation of the urban programme. Most recently, JEEVIKA and BRAC convened an inaugural workshop in preparation for launching the Urban Poor Graduation Project, in collaboration with the Departments of Urban Development and Housing, Labour Resources, Social Welfare, Women and Child Development Corporation. The workshop brought together government representatives and experts with diverse sectoral expertise to reflect on existing solutions for urban poverty and share key insights that could help inform the design and delivery of the Urban Poor Graduation Project. The workshop also brought together practitioners and leveraged knowledge from Graduation-based programmes outside Bihar and India.
The shared expertise and convergence in existing government schemes and partnerships will allow the programme to address unique challenges facing the urban environment and enhance coordination, which will ultimately improve overall impact.
Challenges and Learning Opportunities in an Urban Environment
This will be one of the first urban Graduation programmes at scale that combine skills development and livelihood support to alleviate urban poverty.
The unique constraints presented by the urban environment in Bihar, such as limited land availability, the migratory nature of the population in urban poor neighbourhoods, and heatwaves impacting the ability to work, present an opportunity to learn and adapt programming further to test what works.
“The kind of social cohesion prevalent in rural areas is lacking in urban centres. This makes social mobilisation, on which the programme rests, a difficult task,” Kumar said.
The first phase in designing the programme, along with the learnings from the first cohort of participants, will offer valuable insights on how to combat the challenges of those living in urban poverty face. Such learnings can then be shared across the Global South to support broader efforts to respond to rapid urbanisation and an increase in urban poverty.
SJY Urban is poised to move head-on, with its consultants scheduled to hammer out a clear strategy in the coming months. In a year’s time, Kumar says the programme aims to cover all 240 urban local bodies in the state.
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 25 (IPS) – A coalition of civil society organizations, (CSOs), including climate activists, anti-poverty campaigners and celebrity chefs, are among those calling for an emergency meeting of world leaders on the global food crisis during the UN General Assembly (UNGA) sessions in New York next month.
With 735 million people going hungry, 122 million more than before the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizers of the ‘Elephant in the Room’ campaign say the food crisis is being overlooked by world leaders, with devastating consequences.
An open letter to world leaders, signed by supporters, including climate activist Vanessa Nakate, award-winning farming advocate Wangari Kuria, musician and philanthropist Octopizzo, SDG Advocate Richard Curtis, and US celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern, says the food crisis is being ignored – “a victim of siloed approaches as it’s so multidimensional”.
The letter calls for a massive joined-up response at the highest levels of government. “You know there is a global food crisis. You are ignoring it in your budgets. You do not address it enough with the media. It is not high on your agenda for the G20, UNGA or COP28. And so, it remains an elephant in the room.” (an obvious problem that people do not want to talk about.)
“As leaders, you have allowed this emergency to unfold. The solutions to end the food crisis exist. It is your responsibility to lead the world out of disasters, not compound them.”
Launched by Hungry for Action, the campaign is supported by over 40 organizations including Save the Children, the ONE Campaign and Global Citizen and is coordinated by the SDG2 Advocacy Hub.
The plea for a summit of world leaders on the global food crisis coincides with three unprecedented high-level political meetings in September: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit on September 18-19; a high-level dialogue on Financing for Development (FfD) on September 20; and a Summit of the Future on September 21.
Danielle Nierenberg, President and Founder, Food Tank told IPS the world is facing multiple emergencies–the climate crisis, the public health crisis, the biodiversity loss crisis, and the hunger crisis.
To address these challenges, she said, “we need urgent action–not by 2030–but today. I am thankful for the efforts of activists and advocates who are pushing for change.”
“But we need policymakers to treat these crises like the emergency they are and push for positive transformation of how we produce and consume food at UNGA. We can’t wait any longer.”
Joseph Chamie, a former director of the UN Population Division, and an independent consulting demographer, told IPS there is no question about an increasing and worrisome global food crisis.
“About one billion people, or nearly 12 percent of the world’s population, face severe levels of food insecurity with 735 million people going hungry,” he said.
There is plenty of food in the world. While the world’s population has doubled from 4 to 8 billion over the past fifty years, global food production has more than tripled, said Chamie, who served as the Deputy Secretary-General for the 1994 International Conference on population and development and has worked in various regions of the world.
There is a consensus on the causes of the global food crisis, he argued.
Among the major causes of the global food crisis, he singled out “armed conflict and violence; climate change with extreme weather events and emergencies; poverty and economic shocks with soaring prices for fertilizer”.
He pointed out that there is much that can be done to address the global food crisis.
“World leaders need to adopt policies, provide additional funds and take action to address the major factors creating the global food crisis. The major media outlets need to do more to inform the world community about the global food crisis”.
There are no reasons, he said, for delays in addressing the global food crisis. “It is necessary and appropriate to convene an emergency meeting of world leaders on the global food crisis at the UN General Assembly in New York next month.”
Countries, international agencies and responsible others need to act today to address the global food crisis, not in some distant future.
“Hungry people, especially children, can’t eat excuses, they need food today,” said Chamie, the author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials“.
Meanwhile, the Hungry for Action campaign says the global food crisis is caused by a combination of conflict, climate change, rising food prices and the punishing debt burdens faced by many poorer countries, 21 of which now face catastrophic levels of debt distress and food insecurity.
“Admitting the scope of the problem is the first step towards solving it,” said Rev. Eugene Cho, president and CEO of the U.S.-based Christian anti-hunger organization Bread for the World.
“Several countries, including the U.S., have acknowledged there is a problem and taken steps to address it. That is a good start. But it is not enough to get us out of the crisis. The global food and malnutrition crisis is a climate crisis, a conflict crisis, and a rising costs crisis: it demands a powerful and unified global response.”
This year’s UN appeals for emergency assistance are only just over a quarter funded, much lower than for the last global food crisis in 2008, and yet there are twice as many additional people going hungry compared to 2008 levels.
“There is nothing inevitable about children dying because they don’t have enough to eat, just as there is nothing inevitable about families in rich countries queuing for food banks,” said climate activist, Vanessa Nakate.
“There is nothing inevitable about a food system that cannot withstand shocks from climate change or conflict. There is enough food in the world for everyone.”
“During the last major global food crisis, following the 2008 economic crash, we saw world leaders coming together at the G8 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, to make bold commitments,” said David McNair, Executive Director for Policy at the One Campaign
“This year, as we live through a so-called ‘polycrisis’, the food crisis seems to be getting lost, a victim of a siloed approach to tackling the world’s problems.”
According to the campaign, action to tackle the global food crisis should focus on three key elements: saving lives, building resilience of affected communities to withstand climate and food price shocks, and securing the future by reform of the global food system to make it more sustainable and equitable.
Solutions world leaders should progress at an emergency meeting include:
Fully funding the UN’s $55bn humanitarian appeals and doubling climate adaptation funding for lower income countries, while also cancelling their debts and reforming the multilateral financial system to unlock vital funds.
Investing in the smallholder farmers, health workers and communities on the frontlines of the food crisis, including through social protection programmes.
Fixing the broken global food system by supporting more sustainable farming, diversifying crops, improving nutrition and access to a healthy diet, and reducing food waste.
These measures would break the cycle of crisis and could save the world billions at the same time, campaigners said.
Beauty salons used to be one of the few places where Afghan women could gather without male control. Credit: Learning Together
Inter Press Service
Aug 23 (IPS) – The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons.In July of this year, the Taliban issued a decree that resulted in the closure of hair salons and beauty parlors across Afghanistan. This directive aligns with the extreme Islamist policies now governing Afghanistan, which aim to confine women strictly within their homes.
This action followed a prior decree in December of last year, which prohibited women from working in non-governmental organizations that provided humanitarian assistance particularly beneficial to women. Many of these organizations have subsequently closed down their operations in the country.
A total of 12,000 predominantly women-led businesses have been closed down in Kabul, the capital city, and 33 other provinces. The Women’s Hairdressers Union estimates that each hair salon employs on average three women.
“I was profoundly disheartened by this news,” expressed Shabnam (pseudonym), who added, “My friends were so sad that they started to cry. I tried to cheer them up, but I understand that nothing can be harder than losing your source of income and being the family’s only breadwinner.”
The closure of humanitarian organizations particularly affects women. These organizations note that female employees play a vital role due to their better understanding of women’s challenges, enabling tailored aid delivery to specific needs.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 25 million Afghan families live below the poverty line, earning less than two US dollars daily.
Before the Taliban’s return to power two years ago, numerous women held significant positions within government, non-governmental roles, as well as in national and international institutions in Afghanistan.
However, the Taliban, following a particularly stringent interpretation of Islam, intends to dismantle such progress, and it is women who bear the brunt of this policy.
This beauty parlor was discreetly situated on a side alley, but it is now also closed. Credit: Learning Together
Access to higher education has been denied to women, and they are prohibited from working outside the home – leading to economic sanctions imposed by the international community.
Several decades of warfare have devastated the Afghan economy, resulting in many households being headed by women as the sole breadwinners.
Mina (pseudonym), who reluctantly closed her salon, lamented: “Losing my job was very heavy for me because I am the guardian of four children who are under 18 years old, and all their expenses and responsibilities are on me.”
This story was produced by Learning Together, a voluntary network of Finnish female journalists. The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons.
There are still tens of thousands of people in need of health services including surgical interventions from the previous war that left almost 600,000 people dead. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS
Opinion by Abdo Husen (addis ababa)
Inter Press Service
ADDIS ABABA, Aug 23 (IPS) – Less than a year since warring parties in Ethiopia signed a peace agreement, the country is on the brink of renewed bloodshed following escalating hostilities between government forces and the Fano militia in the Amhara region.
Government forces accuse the militant group of plotting a coup; while the militia maintain their marginalization in the post-war reconstruction arrangements including the peace process itself. Additionally, conflict in the Oromia region remains active and unresolved.
As the poignant African adage goes, when mighty elephants fight, the grass gets trampled. Indeed, the common Ethiopian continues to get caught in the crossfire. They suffer the deleterious effects of a brutal conflict on all sectors of the economy including health. Unless a long-term solution is found, post-war reconstruction efforts in the past 9 months will be negated.
The Ministry of Health in collaboration with development partners had begun rebuilding health infrastructure and resourcing facilities. These include the rehabilitation of 69 hospitals and 709 health centers. The destruction of these facilities is imminent if hostilities between parties to the conflict continue to escalate.
Today, there are still tens of thousands of people in need of health services including surgical interventions from the previous war that left almost 600,000 people dead.
My recent visit to Tigray and Afar regions helped me see firsthand the current reality regarding the dire need for surgical services emanating from conflict. At Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, I met 9-year-old Selam* (not her real name) who is suffering leg bone fractures and an open wound on her knee. She is a blast survivor. Unable to extend her leg due to immense pain, she had to limp her way to the hospital using two canes taller than her height. It took her two years to make it to the hospital due to the long distance and transportation costs. Sadly, she must still wait for hospital admission as the waiting list is very long.
For Selam and patients like her, the next best time to provide surgical care to restore functionality to their limbs and improve their shot at returning to school is now. There is a potential to leave tens of thousands disabled if they do not access surgical services and associated therapies. Yet, these disabilities are preventable.
In Mekelle – the regional capital of Tigray, unpublished health and regional administration records show that there are over 20,000 patients waiting for plastic and orthopaedic surgery from injuries sustained in the previous war. Compare this to the supply-side that points to only two plastic and reconstructive surgeons available to cover the demand.
With their current weekly surgical output, it is going to take 8-10 years to provide much-needed surgery to all their patients. These depressing statistics will only get worse if a lasting resolution to the conflict in other parts of the country is not urgently arrived at.
Additionally, surgical care for congenital anomalies – including cleft conditions- have long been relegated since the COVID-19 pandemic hit as most elective surgeries were pushed back. Furthermore, the previous conflict in Tigray made them less priority as the health system faced a total collapse and every effort was directed towards emergency trauma care.
At one Hospital alone – Ayder, there are over 500 registered cleft patients waiting for surgery. The hospital has recently restarted providing cleft correction surgeries. However, the workforce is overstretched, and stockouts of essential supplies hamper their ability to provide the services at scale. With the new outburst of hostilities in Amhara and unresolved conflict in Oromiya, this situation is set to worsen.
In the previous Tigrayan war that spilled over to other parts of the country, sexual and gender-based violence was highly reported. There are often breakdowns of social and legal protections in conflict situations. Consequently, perpetrators take advantage of vulnerable women and children.
In fact, United Nations investigators reported that rape was used a weapon of war. This has far-reaching negative health repercussions including mental health disorders. If this new war between the federal government and the Fano militia is not curtailed, the human cost, particularly borne by women and girls, could be even worse than previous conflicts.
Moreover, conflicts result in the disruption of health systems and delivery, resulting in preventable morbidity and mortality. The lack of well-resourced health facilities also increases the chances of maternal complications such as obstetric fistula that require surgical interventions.
Additionally, consider the long distances that pregnant women are forced to cover due to the destruction of their nearest health facilities. This exerts negative pressure on their physiological and psychological health. Furthermore, the long transit exposes them to added risks emanating from the breakdown of peace and security.
It is a depressing situation. It is important that the federal government and regional administrations in areas that are experiencing peace, prioritize access to health services as a matter of urgency. This prioritization is not only towards catering for the healthcare needs of their populations but also in response to the increased demand from conflict-affected areas including surgical care.
It could be argued that singling out the health sector as a priority for domestic investment is not realistic given the limited resources available to the government for security and the operation of other sectors of the economy.
However, ensuring health is the foundation of efforts to rebuild a functional society that can work towards comprehensive national development.
Therefore, the Ethiopian government must leverage international systems and structures to mobilize external investment for healthcare, including quality and safe surgical care. A good starting point would be right at home with the African Union (AU). The AU has the power and influence to marshal financial and diplomatic support for its host country.
Secondly, the United Nations must step up to its role in this crisis. In September, world leaders convene in New York for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Midpoint Summit. To fulfil these goals by 2030, the UN must act on its clarion call of leaving no one behind by ensuring that seemingly challenged nations like Ethiopia that are deep in a poly-crisis are brought along. This can be done by facilitating neutral party-led talks with the government and the rebels.
Additionally, the United States as a key governmental partner whose geopolitical interests in Ethiopia are vast and have long been secured must be reciprocal with goodwill in this time of need. However, the onus remains on the government towards preventing a total collapse of the peace and its attendant consequences.
Ethiopia cannot do it all on its own.
All parties to the current conflict have a responsibility to respect international humanitarian law and the right to health. Above all it is not long ago that we have seen the power of dialogue to peacefully resolve conflicts in Ethiopia. In the same vein, the peaceful resolution for the renewed conflict has importance going beyond the health care and surgical services. Without this, innocent civilians will continue to suffer preventable injury and deaths.
Abdo Husen is a Program Coordinator at Operation Smile Ethiopia and a Global Surgery Advocacy Fellow
