One of the new locomotives, imported from China to modernise Argentina’s freight railway network, being unloaded in the port of Buenos Aires in May. Credit: Ministry of Transport

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jul 12 2017 (IPS)

Development in Argentina in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century was closely tied to that of the railway. The eighth largest country in the world, Argentina’s economy grew through exporting agricultural and livestock products, and the railways were key to founding centres of population and transporting goods to the ports.

“The railways had an enormous social and cultural impact, and often arrived in areas where there was little or no population. Around the middle of the last century there were 48,000 kilometres of track, at which point the railway system was nationalised as Ferrocarriles Argentinos (Argentine Railways), the largest railway company in the world,” historian Eduardo Lazzari told IPS.

But by 1950, decline had set in. Branch lines were closed and the track network was almost halved, in this country with an area of 2.8 million square kilometres and an estimated population of 43.5 million.

This decline is viewed by some Argentines as a cause, by others as a consequence, but nearly all of them see it as symbolic of the fate of the country, which has suffered countless economic crises in recent decades, and where according to official figures one-third of the population lives in poverty.. “We have to think about what kind of railway we want, because for many years the main problem has not been lack of investment but bad management. It makes no sense to try to go back to the railway system the country once had, because needs have changed." -- Alberto Muller

Argentina now has a recovery plan for the railways, involving investments of billions of dollars and addressing both freight carriage as well as passenger transport in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, where 15.2 million people live, representing 35 percent of the country’s total population.

There are also plans, on a lower key, to renovate intercity rail links in this, the third largest economy of Latin America.

“In the last few years there have been investments on a scale that I have never seen before, especially in the metropolitan railway network. Some of them have not been particularly well planned,” transport expert Alberto Muller, the head of a research centre at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) told IPS.

Muller voiced the doubts entertained by many experts in the field about the priorities that have been adopted. “We have to think about what kind of railway we want, because for many years the main problem has not been lack of investment but bad management. It makes no sense to try to go back to the railway system the country once had, because needs have changed,” he said.

In 2008 the state began to buy new railway carriages for metropolitan trains, which it had not done since 1985.

The railway sector was privatised in the 1990s as part of the neoliberal reforms undertaken by the government of Carlos Menem (1989-1999).

The visible deterioration in services and infrastructure began to be reversed in recent years, when the state recovered ownership of the majority of branch lines.

But it took a major tragedy to give the railways top political priority and accelerate investments.

On a Wednesday morning in February 2012 a train carrying 1,200 passengers on the Sarmiento line drove into Once, one of the four main stations in Buenos Aires used daily by thousands of suburban commuters. The brakes failed and it crashed into the buffers..

The crash killed 51 people and led to a trial that riveted the nation and sentenced transport officials and private railway company administrators to prison terms.

In their verdict, the judges determined that the accident had been caused by the “deplorable lack of maintenance that affected safety conditions.”

The weight of public opinion led to 1.2 billion dollars being spent by 2015 to modernise the metropolitan railway lines.

In 2016, in the first year of the government of president Mauricio Macri, an investment plan was announced for nearly 14.2 billion dollars up to 2023. The goal is that trains entering and leaving Buenos Aires should have a daily passenger transport capacity of five million people, compared with their current capacity of 1.2 million passengers.

The plan will be financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), credits from Brazil’s National Development Bank, and contributions from the Argentine Treasury.

Multimillion dollar investments are also planned to modernise the freight railroad network.

China will contribute four billion dollars to the renewal of more than 1,500 kilometres of track in Belgrano Norte and San Martin, carrying freight from the north and west of the country to the ports of Rosario, on the Parana river, and Buenos Aires, on the Rio de la Plata, to be shipped for export.

The agreement includes the purchase of 3,500 railway carriages and 107 locomotives from China.

“The railroad must play a key role in Argentina’s economic recovery,” Transport Minister Guillermo Dietrich said on May 30 upon receiving 10 of the Chinese locomotives.

As for intercity railways, services between Buenos Aires and the city of Mar del Plata were reinaugurated on July 3. The 400 kilometre journey takes nearly seven hours, giving rise to heavy criticism.

A 60-year-old newsreel video, showing the same journey taking four and a half hours, rapidly went viral on the social networks.

“Argentine society has a nostalgic vision of the railroads, and official policies tend to go along with this, which is a mistake. Intercity trains, for example, have little chance of surviving because this is a very large and relatively underpopulated country, and so the costs are too high,” Jorge Wadell, the co-author of “Historia del Ferrocarril en Argentina” (History of the Railroad in Argentina), told IPS.

One of the most important works in progress is laying the Sarmiento line, which was the scene of the 2012 disaster, underground. This railway line connects the centre of the capital with the west of the conurbation, and practically cuts the City of Buenos Aires in two. At present there are dozens of level crossings that are dangerous and complicate rail traffic.

The project has a budget of three billion dollars and involves digging a 22-kilometre long tunnel with tracks for two trains, one in each direction.

The initiative has been on the drawing board for decades and while many people have called for its completion, some experts have criticised the concept.

“At present there are four tracks on the Sarmiento line, but with the tunnel there will only be two, and all the trains will have to stop at all the stations, so there will be no more fast trains. Nowhere in the world is railway capacity being reduced in this way,” the head of the Instituto Ciudad en Movimiento, Andres Borthagaray, told IPS.

The other major project is the Regional Express Network, consisting of the construction of 20 kilometres of tunnels and a network of underground stations to link the different railway lines arriving in Buenos Aires from the suburbs.

The post Argentina Plans Billions of Dollars in Railway Projects appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Two women and a baby in a village near the city of Makeni, in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone. Credit: UN Photo/Martine Perret

By Dr. Hanif Hassan Al Qassim
GENEVA, Switzerland, Jul 11 2017 (IPS)

The world population has witnessed a remarkable growth during the recent decades. In 1965, it stood at 3.3 billion people. In 2017 –52 years later– the global population reached a staggering 7.5 billion people corresponding to more than a doubling of the Earth’s residents over the last half-century.

Humans have been blessed with access to natural resources such as water, food and rare minerals that have been indispensable to the evolution and to the progress of humanity since time immemorial.

Nonetheless, the rapid increase of the world population is raising again Malthusian concerns. The Earth’s resources are finite and cannot sustain the current population growth rate in the long run; the Earth’s population is set to grow to 9.8 billion people by 2050. “When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.”

This is tantamount to saying that world population during the post WWII century will increase 3 times as much since man’s appearance on our planet. A Native American saying reminds us that uncontrolled population growth and excessive use of resources can leave the world empty-handed:

“When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.”

The 2017 World Population Day is an important occasion to raise awareness on contemporary unsustainable consumption patterns.

According to the United Nations, this year’s World Population Day will coincide with the 2017 Family Planning Summit that will focus inter alia on family planning among the world’s most marginalized and vulnerable women.

Preventative family planning is a vehicle for promoting sustainable population growth and for enhancing the status of women.

The “Protection of the Family” resolution adopted on 22 June 2017 by the United Nations upholds international human rights standards on the right to life and the right to family life, and is a good starting-point to further promoting sustainable population growth through family planning.

Child marriage is considered as a major triggering factor worsening population pressure around the world. It is referred to as a major problem in numerous countries located in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and even in Europe.

Dr. Hanif Hassan Ali Al Qassim

The charity “Girls not Brides“ estimates that 1 out of 3 girls in the developed world are married before the age of 18. It also estimates that approximately 700 million women alive today were married when they were children.

According to the World Bank and the International Centre for Research on Women, child marriage accelerates population growth as women marrying before the age of 18 are prone to having more children than women marrying at a later age.

Child marriage also discourages women from pursuing higher education as their prospects of completing education diminishes drastically. In many cases, girls marrying at an early age are left with no other option than to drop out of school. This impedes the prospects for achieving economic empowerment owing to the marginalization of girls and of women.

Lack of access to family planning also remains a major concern in many countries. The 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action called upon member states of the United Nations (UN) to improve access to family planning services in an effort to resolve issues related to overpopulation.

The 1994 Cairo Declaration on Population & Development likewise called for constrained efforts to strengthen family planning particularly in the developed world. Nonetheless, the UNFPA estimates that approximately 225 million women “are not using safe and effective family planning methods.”

In order to address these challenges, I appeal to UN member States to implement concrete plans to address target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This target requires the world community to eliminate all forms of harmful practices including early and forced child marriage to advance the status of girls and women worldwide.

Addressing child marriage would further advance gender equality, increase access to education and improve the social status of girls and women. Child marriage is considered as a violation of human rights and must be eliminated in all its forms.

Enhancing family planning policies enables societies to cope with population pressures by bringing down the fertility rate to a sustainable level. This would improve the economic well-being of families and alleviate poverty and inequality. The economic burden on families would be reduced as there would be fewer mouths to feed.

However, countries should avoid implementing family planning policies reducing the fertility level below the 2.1 reproduction rate.

Addressing the depopulation of ageing advanced societies by fostering migration of population from high population growth developing countries is therefore key to optimizing growth potential and thus to move development forward.

The post Promoting Sustainable Population Growth, Key to Raising Human Rights Standards appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Sex workers in India’s Chennai city demonstrate their skills in slipping condoms on a phallus. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
CHENNAI/LONDON, Jul 11 2017 (IPS)

In a semi-lit room of a southern Chennai neighborhood, a group of women sit in a circle around a table surrounded by large cardboard boxes of “Nirodh” – India’s most popular condom.

Clad in colorful saris, wearing toe rings and red dots on their foreheads, they look like ordinary housewives. Slowly, one of the women opens a box, takes out a handful of condoms and a wooden phallus. Sound of laughter fills the air as each woman takes her trurn to slip a condom over the phallus. It’s a rare, happy hour for these women who live a hard life as sex workers – a fact they carefully guard from their families.“In our community, over 90 percent of people survive by begging. How can they ever afford any of these treatments?" --Axom, a 26-year-old transsexual man

Baby, who only goes by the first name, is in her forties and the most experienced of all when it comes to demostrating condom skills. A peer educator, Baby has been teaching fellow sex workers all over the city of Chennai how to practice safe sex and protect themselves from both HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.

Thanks to constant training and a generation of awareness, condoms are now part and parcel of almost all of the city’s 6,300 sex workers’ lives, she says. But their sexual health and protection from diseases still completely depend on their clients’ willingness to use a condom.

“We try our best to help the client understand that it is very important to wear a condom because that will keep us both safe from HIV and other infections like gonorrhea. But it needs some convincing. Most of them wear it only grudgingly,“ says Baby.

Female condoms – a mirage

India is one of the largest manufacturers and exporters of condoms in the world. The government-owned Hindustan Latest Limited (HLL) produces over a billion condoms annually, including Nirodh. Of these, 650 million Nirodh condoms are given away annually free of cost for the safe sex campaign. But when it comes to female condoms, there is no free lunch and one must buy the condoms from a store.

AJ Hariharan is the founder and CEO of the Chennai-based Indian Community Welfare Organization (ICWO), one of the largest NGOs in the country working for the welfare of sex workers. Hariharan says that female condoms could be of immense help for the sex workers, but are extremely hard to access because of steep pricing.

A pack of male condom costs around 25 rupees, while a female condom is priced at 59 and above. This is far beyond the reach of most sex workers whose daily earnings are 200-500 rupees, which goes to support their families.

“At the current price, a female condom is an out of reach luxury for poor women. They will never be able to able to use this which is a shame because the average sex workers really need female condoms,” Hariharan adds..

The reason behind the “great need” is both self-empowerment and money, he explains: it takes some time to explain to a client why he must wear a condom and then help him put it on. But this requires time and often, the couple may have to wait before the man has an erection again. With a female condom, business can be done faster as she can save both her time and energy and serve him quick. For those women who rent a place for work, this can be very helpful as she can be with multiple clients in few hours and spend less on rent.

Organizations like ICWO have asked the government for a free supply of female condoms, says Hariharan, but have not received any so far. “This is one of the biggest unmet needs and it must be looked seriously into,” he says.

Despite their inability to afford female condoms, the sex worker community is luckier than other marginalized people of the city as they regularly access sexual and reproductive health services.

“There are eight hospitals in the city where we can go for a regular health check-up that includes having an HIV and STI test and take condoms,” says Vasanthi, a sex worker.

Healthcare for the Transgender

But for another sexual minority – the 450,000 strong transgender community – even a regular health check-up remains a struggle.

“One of the biggest challenges is finding a doctor who can and is willing to understand our problems,” reveals Axom, a 26-year-old transsexual man.

“The moment you walk into a hospital or a private clinic, the doctor will start judging your character and rebuke you for your sexual choice, instead of advising you what to do. It always starts with ‘why do you choose to be this way?’ After this, obviously you will never feel like opening up about your health issues,” Axom says.

Besides the moral policing, transgender community members also face uphill battles to afford healthcare including feminizing and masculinizing hormonal treatment.

Axom has been undergoing hormonal treatment. He hopes to have sex reassignment surgery – a multilayered medical treatment that will give him a prosthetic penis – and is spending over 10,000 dollars on the treatment. Thanks to his job in one of the world‘s biggest e-commerce firms, he can afford it, but for most others, such procedures remain a distant dream.

“In our community, over 90 percent of people survive by begging,” Axom says. “How can they ever afford any of these treatments?“

FP2020, Commitments and Gaps

In 2012, India became a part of the FP2020 – a global partnership to achieve Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 5 and ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and rights by 2030. India had committed among other things to invest two billion dollars over eight years to reduce the unmet need and address “equity so that the poorest and most vulnerable population have more access to quality services and supplies.“

On July 11, representatives from the FP2020 partner countries are participating in a summit in London again to inform and analyse the current status of delivering those commitments made four years ago.

For India, this is a good chance to tell the world what it has really done and recommit to achieve the goals that it had set, says Lester Coutinho, Deputy Director of Family Planning at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“Governments, including India, are now responding to the gaps in the commitments that they made. Adolescents and youths are one area, supply chain is another, money for purchasing commodities is the third. Giving counseling and information to women and young people is another. There are tangible solutions in these areas that the government can adopt,” says Coutinho.

Meanwhile, in Chennai, transsexual men and woman like Axom hope that one day the government will subsidize the SRS and hormonal treatment for transgenders.

“The Supreme Court of India recognized the transpeople as a third gender in 2014, so we are now entitled to equal rights and facilities as other citizens do. If the government can offer free surgeries for life-threatening diseases, why can’t we expect it to offer us subsidies on treatments that can remove threats to our identities and the restoration of a normality in our life?” asks Axom.

The post For India’s Urban Marginalized, Reproductive Healthcare Still a Distant Dream appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Participants at a gay pride celebration in Uganda. Credit: Amy Fallon/IPS

By Dr Felicity Daly
NEW YORK, Jul 10 2017 (IPS)

While there has been progress in researching the health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people and responding to certain emerging health threats in high-income countries – elsewhere in the world such research is inadequate and incomplete.

A new report published by OutRight Action International, the Global Forum on MSM and HIV highlights that wherever research has been conducted, LGBTI people’s health is shown to be consistently poorer than the general population.

Agenda 2030 for LGBTI Health and Well-Being, has been written in advance of the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development which convenes from 10-19 July 2017 at the United Nations in New York. At this meeting UN Member States will review progress on implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals – a plan of action for “people, planet and prosperity”.

The aspiration of the SDGs to “leave no one behind” can be utilized to improve the health and well-being of LGBTI. UN officials, former Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity Prof. Vitit Muntarbhorn, have made it clear that the SDGs are inclusive of all people regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics.

A new report published by OutRight Action International, the Global Forum on MSM and HIV highlights that wherever research has been conducted, LGBTI people’s health is shown to be consistently poorer than the general population.

LGBTI people have the right to health – the same as all other people, and thus LGBTI health concerns should be included in the implementation of the health goal – SDG 3.

Agenda 2030 for LGBTI Health and Well-Being reviews data from low- and middle-income countries, which shows that compared with the general population gay, bisexual men and other men who have sex with men are 19 times more likely to be living with HIV and transgender women are 49 times more likely to be living with HIV.

The report notes that the health concerns of lesbian and bisexual women, trans and intersex people have all too often been overlooked and presents data which demonstrates that LGBTI people also experience: poor mental health, higher prevalence of alcohol and substance abuse, lack of access to sexual and reproductive health services, and inadequate funding for inclusive and effective health interventions.

The common drivers behind these health disparities are violence, criminalization, social exclusion and discrimination, including widespread discrimination LGBTI people experience in health care settings.

Ironically, this means that very often LGBTI people are rendered invisible in efforts to collect health data, which do not include questions about sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics.

The lack of data poses problems in effectively targeting health services to help those in most need. While some high-income countries have effectively used research to inform HIV prevention and care for gay and bisexual men, and other affected populations this has not been the case in most countries.

Missing health data makes it harder for LGBTI people to advocate for resources they need and becomes an excuse for governments hostile to LGBTI populations to ignore the health needs of LGBTI people.

A systematic review of general population studies conducted in Australia, Europe, and North America found that compared with heterosexual people, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are at higher risk for mental disorders, including depression and anxiety, suicidal ideation and deliberate self-harm
Moreover, data about LGBTI health overwhelmingly represents research conducted in high income countries where there has been social and legal progress for some sexual and gender minorities.

For example, a systematic review of general population studies conducted in Australia, Europe, and North America found that compared with heterosexual people, lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are at higher risk for mental disorders, including depression and anxiety, suicidal ideation and deliberate self-harm.

Data gaps are starkest in countries where discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression and sex characteristics is entrenched in law.

There are no specific indicators in the SDG framework that measure the health specifically for LGBTI people. Nevertheless, states can voluntarily report on progress and we urge them to do so in order to live up to the commitment to “leave no one behind.”

Agenda 2030 for LGBTI Health and Well-Being details the type of data UN Member States should collect to effectively monitor implementation of the targets of SDG 3 in a way that improves the health and well-being of LGBTI people.

We want to ensure Member States ask the right questions in order to understand and monitor health and well-being among LGBTI people. We urge that they also focus on ending stigma and discrimination, which has a major detrimental impact on health and well-being, and also poses barriers to accessing health care services that LGBTI people need.

We stress that all Member States must repeal the laws, policies, and practices that criminalise same sex behaviour and limit the ability of people to express, and have legally recognised, their gender identity.

States must also prohibit non-consensual medical procedures, including intersex genital mutilation, forced sterilizations as requirements for gender recognition, and forced anal examinations.

LGBTI people are well aware of the health disparities taking hold and stealing lives in their communities, but insufficient evidence makes it harder to make a convincing case for health services to respond to these needs.

We hope more countries will accelerate a research revolution for LGBTI inclusion, which improves the health and well-being of these communities.

The post Will the UN “Leave No One Behind” and Improve LGBTI Health and Well-Being? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A lab technician at the Disease Investigation Centre near Yogyakarta, Indonesia checks for the avian flu virus in samples taken from poultry. Credit: FAO

By Kanis Dursin
JAKARTA, Indonesia, Jul 10 2017 (IPS)

Poultry farmer Bambang Sutrisno Setiawan had long heard about biosecurity but never gave serious thought to it, even when the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 forced him to cull thousands of his layer chickens in 2003 and 2009.

Eighteen years into the business, however, Bambang, who is called Ilung by friends, is now converting his second farm into a three-zone biosecurity poultry with a strong conviction that it is the only way to save his business amid continued threats of bird flu and other animal diseases.Indonesia detected its first bird flu case in 2003. Since then, the H5N1 virus has killed millions of poultry in 32 of the country’s 34 provinces.

“My second poultry biosecurity will soon operate, hopefully in July,” Ilung told IPS by phone from Semarang, Central Java, a one-hour flight east of the capital Jakarta, in mid-June.

The 44-year-old has two poultry farms, each accommodating around 30,000 layers, and one day-old chick site that can hold 10,000 chicks.

Ilung converted one of his farms into biosecurity poultry in November 2015 after attending seminars and trainings organized by local Livestock and Animal Health Services and Food and Agriculture Organization’s Emergency Center for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD).

Three-zone biosecurity is one of programs ECTAD Indonesia is promoting to contain the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) that continues to plague the country of 250 million people since its first detection in 2003.

The model divides a farm into three separate areas: a red zone for high disease risk external areas, yellow zone for medium risk service areas, and green zone for clean and highly secure access-restricted area where the chicken flock is located. Access from the red zone to the yellow zone requires showering and a complete change of clothing and footwear, while further inward access to the green zone requires a second change of footwear to maintain biosecurity standards.

According to Ilung, biosecurity keeps animal diseases out and cuts disinfectant and medicine costs by 30 percent and 40 percent, respectively.

“Production also rises to 60 kilograms per 1,000 layers now, compare to 50 kilograms previously, and more importantly, I have not had disease outbreaks since November 2015,” said Ilung.

In 2009, Ilung culled half of his layer chickens after bird flu struck his farms for the second time. Prior to that, the father of two was forced to prematurely sell 11,000 chickens to cut losses after 300 layers were found to have died of H5N1 in 2003. He has been in the poultry business since 1999.

Robby Susanto, a 62-year-old poultry farmer in Solo, Central Jaw said biosecurity has proven to bring a lot of benefits to poultry farmers like him.

“Our net profit has increased by between 11 percent and 35 percent since practicing biosecurity poultry,” he told IPS by phone from Solo, an 80-minute flight east of Jakarta.

Susanto started his poultry farming in 2010 after participating in ECTAD’s biosecurity pilot projects together with five other farmers.

“Biosecurity keeps avian influenza and other animal diseases out of his 100,000 layer chickens and help maintain production of five tons of eggs per day,” he said.

A study by ECTAD Indonesia shows that for every cent spent on three-zone biosecurity, poultry farmers gain as much as 12 cents in profit.

Ilung said he spent around 5,000 dollars for each biosecurity farm.

Indonesia has been listed as one of the global hotspots for human H5N1 avian influenza infections since 2005, prompting ECTAD to open an office in the country in 2006.

James McGrane, FAO ECTAD Indonesia Team Leader, at his office in Jakarta. Credit: Kanis Dursin/IPS

“Since 2005, Indonesia has been one of the global epicenters for human H5N1 avian influenza infections with more human cases and fatalities than any other country until 2014,” James McGrane, ECTAD Indonesia Team Leader, told IPS in an interview in Jakarta.

Indonesia detected its first bird flu case in 2003. Since then, the H5N1 virus has killed millions of poultry in 32 of the country’s 34 provinces, disrupting the livelihoods of large numbers of people dependent on poultry-keeping, according to ECTAD Indonesia.

Up until 2017, the World Health Organization has recorded 199 confirmed human cases of avian influenza in Indonesia, with 167 deaths. That figure is the highest in the world, with Egypt coming in second with 120 deaths out of 359 cases, and Vietnam third with 64 deaths of 127 cases.

Negligence on the part of poultry farmers – not wanting to follow proper security standards – has been cited as the main reason human deaths were high in Indonesia.

Aside from promoting biosecurity, ECTAD Indonesia helped the central and local governments develop and implement a community-based Participatory Disease Surveillance and Response (PDSR) system to contain HPAI in backyard poultry in 32 provinces.

By 2015, PDSR had 2,500 trained officers working in 350 districts in 30 provinces. The system, according to McGrane, was able to detect and attend to over 10,000 HPAI outbreaks over the years.

“In 2009, following an evaluation of the PDSR system, greater emphasis was placed on working with the commercial poultry sector, and a program was initiated to strengthen relations with and surveillance in the commercial industry,” said McGrane.

Since 2012, ECTAD has helped implement biosecurity poultry in six pilot commercial layer chicken farms.

Fadjar Sumping Tjatur Rasa, Animal Health Director of the Livestock and Animal Health Directorate General of the Ministry of Agriculture, said biosecurity has succeeded in reducing avian influenza cases in Indonesia.

“We still have bird flu cases every year but their number has continued to decrease every year,” Fadjar told IPS on Tuesday, June 20, 2017.

The agriculture ministry recorded 255 H5N1 cases in 2016, compare to 123 cases in 2015, 343 in 2014, and 470 in 2013.

Indonesia suffered its worst avian influenza outbreak in 2007 with 2,751 confirmed cases before it went down to 2,293 cases in 2009 and 1,502 cases in 2010. The ministry of agriculture has so far recorded 94 cases in 2017.

Fadjar expressed optimism that bird flu cases would continue to fall now that Indonesia has adopted One Health approach in dealing with various human and animal diseases.

One Health recognizes that the health of humans, animals, and ecosystems are interrelated and thus any potential or existing health risk calls for collaborative efforts between health practitioners (including vets, doctors, public health officers, epidemiologists, ecologists, toxicologists) and related institutions to attain optimum health for people, animals, wildlife and the environment.

“Now the ministry of health alerts us [the Ministry of Agriculture] and other stakeholders if they suspect a patient is suffering from an avian influenza virus. We too have to inform the ministry of health and other stakeholders about suspected bird flu outbreaks,” said Fadjar.

ECTAD Indonesia also helped the government establish the Influenza Virus Monitoring (IVM) Online platform to monitor circulating HPAI and other influenza viruses. According to McGrane, since its launch in 2014, the platform has seen increases, among other things, in the number of H5N1 isolates being uploaded to IVM Online, isolates that have been antigenically and genetically characterized, and improved knowledge on circulating AI viruses in Indonesia.

“Influenza virus monitoring and characterization is crucial for the development of local vaccines, effective against the circulating strains of HPAI in Indonesia,” said McGrane, adding: “The selected challenge strains are used to test the efficacy of new vaccines developed by local commercial vaccine companies.”

“ECTAD today continues to support the control of HPAI and other endemic zoonotic diseases such as rabies and anthrax, while also focusing on new or re-emerging global health threats which spill over into humans from animal populations, such as Ebola, MERS-CoV and Zika,” said McGrane.

The post Three-Zone Biosecurity Offers New Hope to Indonesian Farmers appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Lusaka-based journalists march on the Great East Road campaigning for the attacks against journalists to stop. Credit: Kelvin Kachingwe/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 9 2017 (IPS)

The UN system and its member states must develop policies to protect journalists and end impunity for crimes against them, said key stakeholders during a meeting.

A multi stakeholder consultation held in Geneva brought together representatives from governments, civil society, media, and academia to discuss developments in the area of safety of journalists and the issue of impunity.

“Too many journalists are imprisoned for the wrong reasons. Too many journalists are forced to flee their countries. Women journalists face particular forms of harassment. Murder remains the most tragic form of censorship,” said UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) Director-General Irina Bokova to participants.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), some 1,246 journalists have been killed since 1992. The deadliest countries were those in conflict situations including Iraq, Syria, Philippines, and Somalia.

There were also almost 260 journalists in jail at the end of 2016, the most CPJ has ever documented. Turkey is the world’s leading jailer of journalists with over 145 imprisoned journalists, more than China, Egypt, and Iran combined.

As censorship tactics become more complex, new challenges have arisen for journalists, underscoring the need to protect journalists and end impunity.

“Online attacks now occur at a frequency and scale that we’ve never experienced before. We need new ways to protect journalists, to deal with what technology has enabled because computational propaganda means to stifle any challenge or dissent against power,” said CEO of Philippines newspaper Rappler Maria Ressa during the consultation.

In an effort to address these complex issues, stakeholders formulated numerous recommendations to reinforce and improve the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity adopted by the UN Chief Executives Board in 2012.

Among the main challenges highlighted by stakeholders was how to translate the UN Plan of Action into national policies and practices.

“We need to reboot our thinking of the UN Plan to bridge the gap between the progress made at the international level and the situation on the ground,” said Executive Director of International Media Support at the meeting organised by UNESCO and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information Frank La Rue stressed the importance of governments to set up national mechanisms for the safety of journalists and the report on such policies to help end impunity for attacks against journalists.

Participants also emphasized the importance of UN leadership and the strengthening of the UN system to better address journalists’ safety, including enhancing inter-agency coordination and the mainstreaming of safety issues in agencies’ programming.

They also urged making better use of existing avenues and mechanisms in the UN system in order to improve monitoring and reporting on attacks against journalists, especially in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Within the internationally agreed agenda is goal 16 which calls for the creation of peaceful and inclusive societies with effective and accountable institutions and highlights the need to ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms.

Journalist safety and ending impunity are therefore essential to achieve this goal.

The recommendations will be finalised into a non-binding outcome document to help inform stakeholder actions in the future.

The post A Global Call for Journalists’ Safety appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Two chimney stacks (left) burning gas at the Tula refinery in the state of Tulio, adjacent to Mexico City. Burning and venting gas at facilities of the state group PEMEX increases methane emissions in Mexico. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jul 8 2017 (IPS)

Mexico is in transition towards commercial exploitation of its shale gas, which is being included in two auctions of 24 hydrocarbon blocks, at a time when the country is having difficulty preventing and reducing industrial methane emissions.

Increasing atmospheric release of methane, which is far more polluting than carbon dioxide (CO2) and which is emitted along the entire chain of production, is threatening the climate goals adopted by Mexico within the Paris Agreement which aims to contain global warming.

“Shale gas is the last gas that is left to exploit after reserves that are easier to access have been used up. Its production entails higher economic, environmental and energy costs. It is practically impossible for a shale gas well to be non-polluting,” researcher Luca Ferrari, of the Geosciences Institute at the state National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) told IPS.

The state-run but autonomous National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) issued a resolution on Jun. 22 calling for bids for the two auctions of 24 blocks of gas and oil in five basins, located in the north, southeast and south of the country. For the first time, shale gas reserves are included. Bidding will take place on Jul. 12, and total estimated reserves of 335 million barrels are being offered.

By refraining from producing non-conventional fuels (like shale gas) itself, the government is partially opening the energy sector to participation by private enterprise to supply the country’s industrial gas needs.

Mexico’s energy reform, introduced in August 2014, opened up exploitation, refining, distribution and sales of hydrocarbons, as well as electricity generation and sales, to national and foreign private sectors.

In shale gas deposits, hydrocarbon molecules are trapped in sedimentary rocks at great depths. Large quantities of a mixture of water, sand and chemical additives, which are harmful to health and the environment, have to be injected to recover shale gas and oil.

The “fracking” technique used to free shale gas and oil leave huge volumes of liquid waste that has to be treated for recycling, as well as methane emissions that are more polluting than CO2, the greenhouse gas responsible for most global warming.

Mexico, shale superpower

An analysis of 137 deposits in 41 countries by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) puts Mexico in sixth place worldwide for technically recoverable shale gas reserves, behind China, Argentina, Algeria, the United States and Canada, with reserves of 545 trillion cubic feet. The country occupies seventh place for shale oil.

However CNH quotes more moderate estimates of probable reserves, of the order of 81 trillion cubic feet.

“Current regulations are based on best practices, but the philosophy of environmental protection has been abandoned. Exploitation is deepening inequities in a negative way, such as environmental impact. It is irresponsible to auction reserves without a proper evaluation of environmental and social impacts,” researcher Ramón Torres, of UNAM’s Development Studies Programme, told IPS.

In March, the national Agency for Industrial Safety and Environmental Protection, responsible for regulating the hydrocarbons sector, published a regulatory package on exploitation and extraction of non-conventional reserves.

The regulations identify the risks of fracking fluid leaks, heightened demand for water, pollution caused by well emissions of methane and other volatile organic compounds, pollution caused by toxic substance release and by the return of injected fluid and connate water to ground level from the drill hole.

The regulations indicate that 15 to 80 percent of fracking fluid returns to the surface, depending on the well. As for atmospheric pollutants, they mention nitrogen oxides, benzene, toluene, methane and coal.

Measures are imposed on companies, such as verifying the sealing of wells, applying procedures for preventing gas leaks, and disclosing the composition of drilling fluids. Gas venting is prohibited, and burning is restricted.

Since 2003, Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) has used hydraulic fracking – applicable not only to shale extraction – to drill at least 924 wells in six of the country’s 32 states, according to CartoCritica, a non-governmental organisation. At least 28 of these were confirmed to be of non-conventional crude.

Gas emissions

Within this context, Mexico faces problems in reducing methane emissions.

In 2013 the country emitted 126 million tonnes of methane into the atmosphere, of which 54 million were from the stock rearing sector, 31 million from oil and gas, and 27 million from waste products. The rest was from electricity generation, industry and deforestation. Use of gas for electricity generation contributed at least 0.52 million tonnes.

Mexico, Latin America’s second largest economy, emitted a total of 608 million tonnes of CO2 during the same year.

Pemex Exploration and Production, a subsidiary of the state PEMEX group, reported that in 2016 its total methane emissions were 641,517 tonnes, 38 percent higher than the previous year.

Shallow water undersea extraction contributed 578,642 tonnes, land based fields 46,592 tonnes, hydrocarbon storage and distribution 10,376 tonnes, gas fields not associated with oil fields 5,848 tonnes, and non-conventional fields 57 tonnes.

In 2016, PEMEX changed the way it reported emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHG). Previously these volumes were reported by production region, making comparative analysis difficult.

In 2015, the Northeast Marine Region comprising the Gulf of Mexico, where the largest underwater oil deposits are located, emitted 287,292 tonnes.

The emissions reduction was presumably associated with reduced fossil fuel production due to a fall in international prices and PEMEX’s own lack of financial resources.

But between 2012 and 2014 emissions increased by 329 percent, leaping from 141,622 tonnes to 465,956 tonnes, presumably because of increased venting and burning of gas (whether or not associated with crude oil wells). PEMEX lacked the technology for gas recovery.

By reducing venting and burning, PEMEX was able to reduce its emissions between 2009 and 2011, after GHG emissions grew from 2007 to 2009.

In Ferrari’s view, the problem is a technical and economic one. “The first step is to prevent venting,” but that requires investment, he said.

According to the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR) led by the World Bank, in 2015 Mexico burned 5 billion cubic metres of gas, putting it in eighth place in the world, the same as for venting intensity, the relation between cubic metres of gas burned to barrels of oil produced.

The aim of the GGFR is to eradicate such practices by 2030.

Mexico is one of 24 goverrnments participating in the initiative, together with French Guiana and Peru in the Latin American region. Thirty-one oil companies – not including PEMEX – and 15 multilateral financial institutions are also involved. The World Bank will publish its first report on burning and venting gas this year.

Torres and Ferrari agree that the volume of gas produced by hydraulic fracking will not be sufficient to satisfy domestic demand.

“The volume that can be exploited is small and insufficient,” said Torres. Ferrari’s calculations indicate that shale gas would only supply domestic needs for 10 months.

In May Mexico produced 5.3 billion cubic feet of gas per day, and imported 1.79 billion cubic feet. Meanwhile, it extracted 2.31 million barrels of crude per day.

In the same month, the Energy Ministry updated its Five Year Plan for Oil and Gas Exploration and Extraction 2015-2019 and set a new target to auction reserves of nearly 31 billion barrel equivalents of non-conventional fuels.

The post Mexico’s Methane Emissions Threaten the Environment appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jul 7 2017 (IPS)

Iran hawks suddenly have a new mantra: the Islamic Republic is the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, and the Trump administration should work to hasten the regime’s impending collapse.

It’s not clear why this comparison has surfaced so abruptly. Its proponents don’t cite any tangible or concrete evidence that the regime in Tehran is somehow on its last legs. But I’m guessing that months of internal policy debate on Iran has finally reached the top echelons in the policy-making chaos that is the White House these days. And the hawks, encouraged by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s rather offhand statement late last month that Washington favors “peaceful” regime change in Iran, appear to be trying to influence the internal debate by arguing that this is Trump’s opportunity to be Ronald Reagan. Indeed, this comparison is so ahistorical, so ungrounded in anything observable, that it can only be aimed at one person, someone notorious for a lack of curiosity and historical perspective, and a strong attraction to “fake news” that magnifies his ego and sense of destiny.

This new theme seemed to have come out of the blue Tuesday with the publication on the Wall Street Journal’s comics—I mean, op-ed—pages of a column entitled “Confront Iran the Reagan Way” by the South Africa-born, Canada-raised CEO of the Likudist Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), Mark Dubowitz. I wish I could publish the whole thing (which is behind a paywall), but a couple of quotes will have to suffice:

In the early 1980s, President Reagan shifted away from his predecessors’ containment strategy toward a new plan of rolling back Soviet expansionism. The cornerstone of his strategy was the recognition that the Soviet Union was an aggressive and revolutionary yet internally fragile regime that had to be defeated.

Reagan’s policy was outlined in 1983 in National Security Decision Directive 75, a comprehensive strategy that called for the use of all instruments of American overt and covert power. The plan included a massive defense buildup, economic warfare, support for anti-Soviet proxy forces and dissidents, and an all-out offensive against the regime’s ideological legitimacy.

Mr. Trump should call for a new version of NSDD-75 and go on offense against the Iranian regime.

…the American pressure campaign should seek to undermine Iran’s rulers by strengthening the pro-democracy forces that erupted in Iran in 2009, nearly toppling the regime. Target the regime’s soft underbelly: its massive corruption and human-rights abuses. Conventional wisdom assumes that Iran has a stable government with a public united behind President Hassan Rouhani’s vision of incremental reform. In reality, the gap between the ruled and their Islamist rulers is expanding.

….The administration should present Iran the choice between a new [nuclear] agreement and an unrelenting American pressure campaign while signaling that it is unilaterally prepared to cancel the existing deal if Tehran doesn’t play ball.

Only six years after Ronald Reagan adopted his pressure strategy, the Soviet bloc collapsed. Washington must intensify the pressure on the mullahs as Reagan did on the communists. Otherwise, a lethal nuclear Iran is less than a decade away.

Dubowitz, who clearly has allies inside the administration, asserts that parts of this strategy are already being implemented. “CIA Director Mike Pompeo is putting the agency on an aggressive footing against [the Iranian regime’s terrorist] global networks with the development of a more muscular covert action program.” Dubowitz predictably urges “massive economic sanctions,” calls for “working closely with allied Sunni governments,” and argues—rather dubiously—that “Europeans …may support a tougher Iran policy if it means Washington finally gets serious about Syria.” As for the alleged domestic weaknesses of the regime, let alone its similarity to the USSR in its decline, he offers no evidence whatever.

Takeyh Joins In

I thought this was a crazy kind of one-off by FDD, which, of course, houses former American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Freedom Scholar Michael Ledeen, who has been predicting the imminent demise of the Islamic Republic—and Supreme Leader Khamenei—for some 20 years or so. Ledeen also co-authored former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s bizarre 2016 autobiography and no doubt tutored the NSC’s 31-year-old intelligence director, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, whose conviction that the regime can be overthrown has been widely reported.

But then a friend brought to my attention a short piece posted Wednesday on The Washington Post’s website by Ray Takeyh, a Council on Foreign Relations Iran specialist who in recent years has cavorted with Dubowitz and FDD and similarly inclined Likudist groups, notably the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). Entitled “It’s Time to Prepare for Iran’s Political Collapse,” it also compared Iran today with the Soviet Union on the verge.

Today, the Islamic republic lumbers on as the Soviet Union did during its last years. It professes an ideology that convinces no one. It commands security services that proved unreliable in the 2009 rebellion, causing the regime to deploy the Basij militias because many commanders of the Revolutionary Guards refused to shoot the protesters.

…Today, the Islamic republic will not be able to manage a succession to the post of the supreme leader as its factions are too divided and its public too disaffected.…

The task of a judicious U.S. government today is to plan for the probable outbreak of another protest movement or the sudden passing of Khamenei that could destabilize the system to the point of collapse. How can we further sow discord in Iran’s vicious factional politics? How can the United States weaken the regime’s already unsteady security services? This will require not just draining the Islamic republic’s coffers but also finding ways to empower its domestic critics. The planning for all this must start today; once the crisis breaks out, it will be too late for America to be a player.

Once again, actual evidence for the regime’s fragility is not offered. Indeed, although he claims that the 2009 “Green Revolt” “forever delegitimized the system and severed the bonds between state and society,” he fails to note that May’s presidential election resulted in a landslide win for President Hassan Rouhani with 73 percent voter turnout, or that reformist candidates swept the local council polls in most major cities, or that the leader of the reformist movement, leaders of the Green Movement, and prominent political prisoners encouraged participation. Nor does he address the question of whether Washington’s intervention in Iran’s internal politics—in whatever form—will actually help or harm efforts by the regime’s “domestic critics” to promote reform, particularly in light of the recent disclosures of the extent and persistence of U.S. intervention in the events leading up to and including the 1953 coup that ousted the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadeq. Or whether last month’s terrorist attack by ISIS in Tehran might have strengthened the relationship between society and state.

This is not to deny that the regime is both oppressive and highly factionalized, but why is it suddenly so vulnerable—so much like the Soviet Union of the late 1980s—compared to what it was five or ten or 20 or 25 years ago? Only because Khamenei is likely to pass from the scene sooner rather than later? That seems like a weak reed on which to base a policy as fraught as what is being proposed.

Again, I’m not sure that this Iran=USSR-at-death’s-door meme is aimed so much at the public, or even the foreign-policy elite, as it is toward the fever swamps of a White House run by the likes of Steve Bannon or Stephen Miller or Cohen-Watnick. But here’s why a little more research into the new equation really got my attention.

And Also Lieberman

Dubowitz’s article, it turns out, was not the first recent reference. The most direct recent reference was offered by none other than former Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who incidentally is one of three members of FDD’s “Leadership Council,” in a speech before none other than the annual conference of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and its cult leader, Maryam Rajavi, outside Paris July 1. Seemingly anticipating Takeyh (plus the Rajavi reference), Lieberman declared:

Some things have changed inside Iran, and that’s at the level of the people. You can never suppress a people, you can never enslave a people forever. The people of Iran inside Iran have shown the courage to rise up… To just talk about that, to just talk about that, to hold Madam Rajavi’s picture up in public places, is a sign of the unrest of the people and the growing confidence of the people that change is near. The same is true of the remarkable public disagreements between the various leaders of the country…It is time for America and hopefully some of our allies in Europe to give whatever support we can to those who are fighting for freedom within Iran.

He then went on, “Long before the Berlin Wall collapsed, long before the Soviet Union fell, the United States was supporting resistance movements within the former Soviet Union”—an apparent reference, albeit not an entirely clear one — to the Reagan Doctrine and its purported role in provoking the Communist collapse.

And, in a passage that no doubt expressed what at least Dubowitz and his allies think but can’t say publicly at this point:

The Arab nations are energized under the leadership of King Salman and Crown Prince [Mohammed] bin Salman. [Saudi Prince (and former intelligence chief) Turki Al Faisal Al Saudi addressed the “Free Iran Gathering” just before Lieberman.] They’re more active diplomatically and militarily as part of a resistance against the regime in Iran than we’ve ever seen before. And of course for a long time the state of Israel, because its very existence is threatened by the regime in Iran, has wanted to help change that regime. So you have coming together now a mighty coalition of forces: America, the Arab world, and Israel joining with the Resistance, and that should give us hope that we can make that [regime] change.

Putting aside the question of just how popular or unpopular Madam Rajavi is in Iran for a second, there are a number of truly remarkable things about Lieberman’s speech. How much will it help “the resistance” in Iran to be seen as supported by the Saudis and the “Arab nations?” And how will it help to boast about Israel’s assistance when most Iranians already appear to believe that the Islamic State is a creation of the Saudis and/or Israel? Is there any “mighty coalition” more likely to permanently alienate the vast majority of Iranians? Is it possible that the MEK has become an IRGC counter-intelligence operation? It’s very clear indeed that the group is lobbying heavily—and spending lavishly—to become the administration’s chosen instrument for achieving regime change. But advertising Saudi and Israeli support for the enterprise will likely make that goal more elusive. The MEK’s reputation in Iran was bad enough, but this is really over the top.

Lieberman no doubt received ample compensation for saying what he said. Other former prominent US officials, including John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani, and Gen. Jack Keane—all of whom probably have closer ties than Lieberman to the White House – also spoke at the MEK event, which, incidentally, makes me think that the White House is indeed seriously considering supporting the group as at least one part of its Iran policy. I suspect we’ll find out soon enough.

This piece was originally published in Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy Lobelog.com

The post New Neocon Mantra: Iran, like Soviet Union, on Verge of Collapse appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Unprecedented levels of population displacements in the Lake Chad Basin ‒Cameroon, Chad, the Niger and Nigeria. Credit: FAO

By Baher Kamal
ROME, Jul 7 2017 (IPS)

World organisations, experts and scientists have been repeating it to satiety: climate change poses a major risk to the poorest rural populations in developing countries, dangerously threatening their lives and livelihoods and thus forcing them to migrate.

Also that the billions of dollars that the major industrialised powers—those who are the main responsible for climate change, spend on often illegal, inhumane measures aiming at impeding the arrival of migrants and refuges to their countries, could be devoted instead to preventing the root causes of massive human displacements.

One such a solution is to invest in sustainable agriculture. On this, the world’s leading body in the fields of food and agriculture has once again warned that climate change often leads to distress-driven migration, while stressing that promoting sustainable agriculture is an essential part of an effective policy response.“Since 2008 one person has been displaced every second by climate and weather disasters”

The “solution to this great challenge” lies in bolstering the economic activities that the vast majority of rural populations are already engaged in,” José Graziano da Silva, director-general of the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 6 July said.

The UN specialised agency’s chief cited figures showing that since 2008 one person has been displaced every second by climate and weather disasters –an average of 26 million a year– and suggesting the trend is likely to intensify in the immediate future as rural areas struggle to cope with warmer weather and more erratic rainfall.

For his part, William Lacy Swing, director-general of the UN International Organization for Migration (IOM), also on July 6 said “Although less visible than extreme events like a hurricane, slow-onset climate change events tend to have a much greater impact over time.”

Swing cited the drying up over 30 years of Lake Chad, now a food crisis hotspot. “Many migrants will come from rural areas, with a potentially major impact on agricultural production and food prices.”

Credit: IOM

Drivers of Rural Migration

“Rural areas of developing countries, where often poor households have limited capacity to cope with and manage risks, are forecast to bear the brunt of higher average temperatures. Such vulnerabilities have been worsened by years of under-investment in rural areas.”

Using migration as an adaptation strategy can be positive –remittances can bolster food security and productive investment in places of origin– but can also perpetuate more vulnerability if not supported by adequate policies.

“We need to systematically integrate migration and climate change into national development and poverty reduction programmes, disaster risk reduction and crisis planning and develop agricultural policies and practices that enhance resilience in the face of climate-induced forced migration,” IOM’s Swing added.

Both Graziano da Silva and Swing made their statements during the FAO Conference in Rome (3-8 July 2017).

FAO and IOM called for explicit recognition of migration –both its causes and its potential– in national climate change and rural development policies.

Farming and Livestock Bear Over 80 Per Cent of Damage

Here the United Nations has again reminded that farming and livestock sectors typically bear more than 80 per cent of the damage and losses caused by drought, underscoring how agriculture stands to be a primary victim of climate change. Other impacts include soil degradation, water scarcity and depletion of natural resources.

CRISIS IN SOUTH SUDAN. South Sudan is facing unprecedented levels of food insecurity, as 6 million people. Credit: FAO

FAO also supports vulnerable member states in various ways, including with setting up early warning and early actions systems, dealing with water scarcity and introducing Climate-Smart Agriculture methods and Safe Access to Fuel and Energy initiatives designed to ease tensions between refugees and their host communities as well as reduce deforestation.

The South-South Triangular Cooperation

South-South Cooperation – partnerships in which developing countries exchange resources and expertise – is proving an inclusive and cost-effective tool to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Graziano da Silva said.

“South-South and Triangular Cooperation offers the possibility of an approach that is not the traditional way followed by donors. It is more horizontal and it is based on the concept of solidarity,” he added at a side-event at the FAO Conference that took stock of the achievements of FAO-China South-South Cooperation Programme and looked at ways to involve more countries and international organisations in similar partnerships.

Graziano da Silva praised China’s “pioneering role as the largest contributor in supporting the programme,” as well as its decision to establish the FAO-China South-South Cooperation Trust Fund with a total financial grant of 80 million dollars. “I am sure that the interest in South-South and Triangular Cooperation will continue to grow because the benefits are shared by both sides of this partnership.”

China has sent over 1,000 experts and technicians to 26 countries in Africa, Asia, the South Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean, through FAO’s South-South Cooperation Programme. Results have included positive contributions to improve agricultural productivity and food security in developing countries.

FAO and China have promoted triangular cooperation with developed countries and other international organisations, to expand partnerships and promote global sharing of agricultural expertise and knowledge.

Through its South-South and Triangular Cooperation Programme, the UN specialised body is facilitating exchanges of experiences and know-how by supporting the placement of more than 2,000 experts to more than 80 countries around the world.

The Parliamentarians

Meanwhile, parliamentarians have a key role to play along with governments, civil society, private sector, international agencies and donors “to achieve a Zero Hunger generation in our lifetime”, on 6 July said Graziano da Silva at a meeting with lawmakers on the side-lines of the FAO Conference.

“You are the ones who are responsible for enacting laws and for approving budgets, among other roles,” he said asking them to increase funding in their national budgets for food security and nutrition.

He also noted that achieving Zero Hunger by 2030 is still possible despite the fact that the number of hungry people has started to grow again.

“But we have to move quickly from political commitment to concrete actions, especially at national and regional levels. As elected representatives, you possess a high level of political influence that is essential for a positive change in your countries.”

He also emphasised the role of legislators in improving nutrition and food safety and praised them for acknowledging “the need for specific constitutional and legislative provisions to ensure the enjoyment of this human right to adequate food”.

Legislators and the Middle East

The Middle East and North of Africa (MENA) region, being one of the most impacted areas by climate change worsening the already dangerous water scarcity challenge, will this month receive special attention through the Asian and Arab Parliamentarians Meeting and Study Visit on Population and Development (Amman, 18-20 July 2017).

Organised by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), which serves as the Secretariat of the Japan Parliamentarians Federation for Population (JPFP), and the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development (FAPPD) and its Secretariat in Amman, Jordan, the event will call attention of Asian and Arab parliamentarians to population perspectives in the 2030 Agenda.

It is expected the meeting will enhance the capacity of parliamentarians who are responsible for population and development and establish a dialogue between Arab and Asian parliamentarians so as to exchange good practices, ideas and policy interventions.

Meantime, the three Rome-based UN food and agriculture agencies are embarking on an unprecedented joint programme to work with vulnerable communities in three crisis-prone areas over five years to meet their immediate food needs and boost their resilience, while addressing the root causes of food insecurity.

A 38 million dollars initiative funded by Canada, will be rolled out in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger and Somalia by both FAO, the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

In short, there are more feasible, effective –and human– solutions than building walls and adopting expensive, often-inefficient “security” measures to halt the growing massive forced displacement of the poorest.

The post Climate Change-Poverty-Migration: The New, Inhuman ‘Bermuda Triangle’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The G20 leaders meeting in Hamburg, Germany, on 7-8 July comes almost a decade after the grouping’s elevation to meeting at the heads of state/government level. Previously, the G20 had been an informal forum of finance ministers and central bank governors from advanced and emerging economies created in 1999 following the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis.

Anis Chowdhury

The new grouping’s record in steering the global economy since the first summit in Washington, DC in November 2008 after the global financial crisis (GFC) was acknowledged by financial markets to have begun a couple of months before.

London Summit’s high point
At the following April 2009 London Summit, hosted by Gordon Brown, the G20 leaders demonstrated unprecedented solidarity in confronting the global meltdown with financial packages for the IMF, World Bank and others worth USD1.1 trillion. The London financial package included USD250 billion to help developing countries secure trade finance in the face of financial uncertainty.

These measures succeeded in turning the tide, with world economic growth recovering robustly from minus 2.1% in 2009 to plus 4.1% in 2010, exceeding the pre-crisis 2007 level of 3.8%. G20 boosters are inclined to claim that the London Summit pulled the global economy from the cusp of the first post-Second World War “great depression”.

However, there has been little evidence of how the funds may have saved the world economy. There has been modest trade growth since 2008 — after earlier sustained trade expansion — as most G20 member countries introduced essentially ‘protectionist’ trade measures despite their declared commitment to the contrary. The leaders also agreed to develop new financial regulations and improve financial supervision, but the patchwork which emerged has had limited and mixed consequences.

Toronto U turn
G20 leadership, evident at the April 2009 London summit, was abdicated with its U turn at the June 2010 Toronto summit while claiming success for its earlier collective efforts. The Canadian hosts trumpeted its own strong recovery from around -3% in 2009 to +3% in 2010 as the G20 exaggerated hints of recovery to pave the way for ‘fiscal consolidation’ instead.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram. Credit: FAO

Canada received strong support from Germany and Japan which also claimed strong recoveries. Further support came from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB) which invoked the ‘expansionary fiscal consolidation hypothesis’ to claim that urgent U turns would boost investor confidence to sustain economic recovery.

The U turn from Keynesian-style debt-financed fiscal stimulus measures deprived the modest recovery of the means for sustaining renewed expansion, thus ensuring the GFC’s ‘Great Recession’, which has dragged on in much of the North for almost a decade since, dragging down world and developing country growth in recent years.

Recession self-inflicted
Despite warnings from the United Nations and a few others against premature fiscal consolidation, G20 leaders at the Toronto Summit agreed to cut budget deficits in half by 2013, and to eliminate deficits altogether by 2016! The decision triggered a double dip recession in Japan and some Eurozone countries.

Canada and Germany, which pushed for rapid fiscal consolidation, have since experienced significantly slower growth averaging 1.8% and 1.2% respectively. The global economy thus began a prolonged period of anaemic growth averaging around 2.5% per annum.

Clearly, G20 economic growth continues to be modest. They are still unable to attain the 2010 growth rate, giving the lie to the ‘expansionary fiscal consolidation’ claim. The IMF has since acknowledged that its initial recommendation of rapid fiscal consolidation was based on “back of the envelope” calculations!

Research also shows that fiscal consolidation has exacerbated income inequality while fiscal consolidation basically began once financial sectors had been rescued from the consequences of their own greedy operations.

Ersatz substitute
Lack of accountability to the rest of the world has also meant that the G20 continues to undermine multilateralism. Inclusive multilateralism is now being threatened on many other fronts as well, not least by the Trumpian turn in the White House and the growing tendency for the Europeans to act as a bloc.

The G20’s broader membership has made negotiations and consultations more difficult than those involving the G7 grouping of major developed economies. But its greater inclusion and diversity has also ensured its superior record compared to the G7, which continues to decline in relevance.

As the Toronto U turn and its devastating legacy remind us, the G20’s finest moment after its London summit in 2009 was easily reversed through host country efforts although the US and China were acting quite differently in practice.

Expectations of the Hamburg G20 summit are now quite modest, and there is greater media and public interest in the bilateral meetings around the event. It is a sad reminder that needed reforms to improve the world economy and the welfare of its people are unlikely to come from the G20, and tragically, from any other quarter for some time to come.

The post G20’s Record Does Not Inspire Hope appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Women informal cross-border traders negotiate a minefield ranging from bus drivers and conductors, customs officials and dangerous and unfamiliar environments. Credit: Trevor Davies/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 7 2017 (IPS)

As its population changes, Africa has the potential to transform its society into one that is productive and prosperous, according to a new report.

With increasing life expectancy and declining mortality and fertility rates, many African nations are seeing profound shifts in their demographics that have significant implications for social and economic development.

Approximately 60 percent of Africa’s population is currently under 25 years old, and its youthful population is expected to continue to rise.

In order to help harness the potential of Africa’s youth, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) produced a regional report card to help countries assess their status and create roadmaps for long-term development.

“Many countries, particularly in Africa, are really anxious to try and capitalise on the youth bulge,” UNFPA’s Chief of Population and Development Branch Rachel Snow told IPS.

“So that motivated us to produce a simple atlas where countries can see where they stand with some of the really key indicators that are important for creating an enabling environment for a demographic dividend,” she continued.

According to UNFPA, the demographic dividend is the achievement of accelerated sustainable development when declining fertility leads to an increase in the proportion of the population entering the work force.

When such youth are healthy, well-educated, empowered, and have opportunities for decent work, they have the capacity to stimulate economic growth for years to come.

Though Snow noted that there has been improvement, the region continues to struggle across various sectors.

In its new report titled “The Demographic Dividend Atlas for Africa,” UNFPA found that over 20 percent of youth in the majority of countries in Northern and Southern Africa are unemployed.

In some countries such as Libya and South Africa, half of all young people between the ages of 15 and 24 years old are unemployed, reflecting challenges that youth face in entering the labour market.

However, youth unemployment data can be deceptive as a high proportion of young people often work in vulnerable employment, Snow told IPS.

At first glance, Uganda has a relatively low youth unemployment rate of 6 percent but upon closer look at its employment status, over 70 percent participate in some form of informal work.

Similarly, 4 percent of youth are unemployed in Niger yet more than 9 out of 10 workers are in the informal work sector.

But in order to help youth enter the formal work force, it is also important to look beyond employment figures that affect the availability and access to safe economic opportunities and utilise a multidimensional approach.

“In some countries, young people that don’t have any chances at all because of child marriage, no family planning…and at the same time you’ve got quite a few countries where people have made great progress on primary education and it sort of ends there,” Snow stated.

“You see the lack of a clear trajectory created for young people,” she continued.

Many countries have low levels of secondary school enrollment, especially in nations where informal employment are highest. Uganda and Niger have gross secondary enrollment rates of 26 percent and 21 percent respectively.

Child marriage, which makes girls more likely to be unemployed or underemployed, are similarly high in such contexts.

Approximately 70 percent of women between 20-24 years old are married before the age of 18 in Niger.

“We want to highlight the challenges for employment and so it can prompt a much more innovative conversation within governments in terms of where they need to be mainstreaming these issues,” Snow said.

However, among the pressing challenges hindering such long-term investment are the multiple protracted crises seen across the continent from Libya to the Central African Republic.

Snow highlighted the importance of linking humanitarian aid and development assistance in order to help post-conflict countries build resilience and redevelop their systems.

During the 29th African Union Summit held in Ethiopia, where the report was launched, heads of States deliberated on peace and security issues as well as finances as it pushed the body towards self-sufficiency.

“Africa needs to finance its own programs…institutions like the AU cannot rely on donor funding as the model is not sustainable,” said Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe during the two-day summit whose theme was “Harnessing the Demographic Dividend through Investment in the Youth.”

Though there is concern for the large numbers of unemployed youth around the world, Snow expressed hope a change in perspective and continued progress.

“We would like to try to encourage reflection on seeing young people not as a threat, but young people as a true opportunity for development,” she concluded.

The post An African Atlas for Youth and Sustainable Development appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A wide view of the Security Council meeting on the Situation in Libya. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Roshni Majumdar
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 6 2017 (IPS)

The failure of European Union (EU) to buckle up safety for migrants and refugees reaching its shore has been condemned by Amnesty International in a report today.

The most notorious instances in the seas of the Mediterranean plummeted with stricter actions from the EU in the wake of dooming deaths in 2015. The image of a three year old Syrian boy, who was found dead off the shores of Turkey, shook the world to pay more attention to the plight of refugees fleeing war.

Two years on, efforts to ensure the safety of migrants and refugees have once again dropped off the radar of EU.

In the first half of the year alone, 2000 refugees died in the Mediterranean sea, three times the numbers from 2015.

Smugglers off the coast of Libya, for instance, often hurl refugees onto inflatable rubber boats that are inadequately equipped, or have insufficient fuel.

Migrants in large numbers arrive in Libya to ultimately make their way across the sea to Italy. This year alone, 73,000 refugees reached Italy.

The EU, disconcerted by its own fragmentation of agenda in the region, has largely neglected the safety of persons crossing the high seas. Instead, the European bloc has focussed on policies to disrupt smugglers and stall the departure of boats all together.

This strain of policy—strengthening Libyan coastguards and keeping boats at bay—to rein in the numbers from capsizing boats has largely failed.

This is why, ministers from the EU met today in Tallin to commit to better cooperation with NGOs to navigate the deadly waters of this route, a senior campaigner at Amnesty International, told IPS News.

The only way to ensure safety for migrants and refugees is offering safe and alternative routes as well as breaking up smuggling operations off the coast of Libya, a country already marred with instances of human rights abuse.

“European states have progressively turned their backs on a search and rescue strategy that was reducing mortality at sea in favour of one that has seen thousands drown and left desperate men, women and children trapped in Libya, exposed to horrific abuses,” said John Dalhuisen, director of Amnesty International in Europe.

The senior campaign manager, in an email to IPS news, called upon the international community’s help to end the strongmanship of Libyan coastguards, and for compliance with the Refugee Convention of 1951.

The post Death Toll Rises in the Mediterranean Sea as EU Turns Its Back appeared first on Inter Press Service.

What remains of a street in Aleppo. Credit: IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 6 2017 (IPS)

A former French judge has been appointed as the head of an independent team tasked with investigating war crimes in Syria.

Catherine Marchi-Uhel was appointed by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to lead a panel known as the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism which aims to gather, preserve, and analyze potential evidence of serious violations of international law committed in Syria since 2011 for use by courts or an international tribunal.

The legal team, established in Geneva, was created by the UN General Assembly in December 2015 after facing longstanding resistance from Russia which has used its veto power eight times in the Security Council to block investigations and action on the conflict.

Marchi-Uhel is the first head of the panel and has extensive experience in international criminal law, previously serving as an international judge with the UN mission in Kosovo and in Cambodian courts prosecuting leaders of the Khmer Rouge. She was the Head of Chambers at the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and worked in various legal positions at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with UN peacekeeping missions.

Most recently, Marchi-Uhel has been serving as the ombudsperson for the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and al-Qaeda.

Many applauded the move, including Human Rights Watch who noted that the team is “critical” for the “long march to justice,” stating: “For victims who have known nothing but suffering, despair, and abandonment, the creation of this team represents a small step in the difficult struggle for justice, redress and an end to impunity that has marked the bloody conflict.”

Though the exact figure is uncertain, estimates of casualties from the 7-year long war range from 320,000 to over 400,000.

A UN International Commission of Inquiry has comprehensively documented atrocities committed by all parties to the conflict, including systematic attacks on hospitals and schools.

One of the deadliest attacks in Syria came in October 2016 when a series of airstrikes hit a complex of schools in Haas, killing a total of 36 civilians, 21 of whom were children between the ages of 7 and 17. Another 114 people were injured in the attack including 61 children. Afraid of future attacks, the school was closed.

“A Syrian Air Force attack on a complex of schools in Haas (Idlib), amounting to war crimes, is a painful reminder that instead of serving as sanctuaries for children, schools are ruthlessly bombed and children’s lives senselessly robbed from them,” the commission stated.

Such attacks in Syria are estimated to account for half of global attacks on schools from 2011 to 2015.

Several countries have already begun their own investigations into war crimes in Syria including Sweden which prosecuted a former Syrian opposition fighter for war crimes in December 2016.

The International Mechanism headed by Marchi-Uhel is expected to further these efforts around the world.

However, the team, funded by voluntary contributions, has only received half of the $13 million that its work is estimated to cost in its first year with 26 contributing countries as of June.

Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Switzerland, and Qatar are among the group’s top donors.

Regardless, many are hopeful that the team can send an important message to parties of the conflict.

“Their work should help to ensure that the horrendous atrocities committed in Syria over the past six years cannot be swept away with a veto,” said Human Rights Watch.

The post “Long March to Justice”: Appointed Judge to Investigate Syrian War Crimes appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By António Guterres
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 6 2017 (IPS)

Allow me first of all to express my deep gratitude to all the colleagues that have worked hard – in the Secretariat, in the Agencies, Funds and Programmes – to allow for this report to be ready on time. And to the leader of the team – the Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed – who has been not only the inspiration, but also the centre of management and strength to make things happen, and to make things happen with the required ambition and with the required detail.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Credit: UN Photo

The 2030 Agenda is our boldest agenda for humanity, and requires equally bold changes
in the UN development system.

You tasked me with putting forward proposals that match the ambition needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

This report is the first step of that response.

It is my offering for debate and discussion on what I am convinced is the most ambitious yet realistic roadmap for change.

It includes 38 concrete ideas and actions to usher in a new era of strengthened implementation founded on leadership, cohesion, accountability and results.

This effort is not about what individual entities do alone – it is about what we can and must do together to better support your efforts in implementing such a transformative agenda.

The UN development system has a proud history of delivering results. Across the decades, it has generated ideas and solutions that have changed the world for millions of the poorest and most vulnerable people on earth.

In many countries, we have supported flagship national policies and the reinforcement of institutions, which have made a profound difference in people’s lives.

The system made significant contributions to supporting countries in their pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals, the most successful global anti-poverty effort in history.

All of you were critical to producing the 2030 Agenda, the most ambitious anti-poverty, pro-planet agenda ever adopted by the UN. Yet we all know that the system is not functioning at its full potential.

We are held back by insufficient coordination and accountability on system-wide activities.
Yes, there may often be good reasons why things are the way the way they are.

But far too much of what we do is rooted in the past rather than linked to the future we want.

We need to change in order to secure the promise of sustainable development, human rights and peace for our grandchildren. And we have no time to lose.

The 2030 Agenda points the way and has to be given life as the defining agenda of our time, because it is the integrated platform to respond to the needs of people and governments.

The UN development system, therefore, must itself be far more integrated in our response … more aligned … and more able to work seamlessly across sectors and specializations – and to do so more effectively.

Our shared goal is a 21st century UN development system that is focussed more on people and less on process, more on results for the most poor and excluded and less on bureaucracy, more on integrated support to the 2030 Agenda and less on “business as usual”.

This means asking some deep and difficult questions about our structures, skillsets and the architecture for action.

This is our collective responsibility.

After all, sustainable development is pivotal to the lives of every person, everywhere.

It is a means to improve the lives of people, communities and societies without harming our planet; and a route to advancing the realization of economic, cultural, social and political rights for all as well as for enabling global peace and security.

It is our most powerful tool for prevention.

For all these reasons, I made a very conscious decision to be as explicit as possible in this first report in the interests of full transparency – to put ideas on the table in black and white for discussion and debate.

This report is also an integral component of a broader reform agenda to strengthen the United Nations to better meet today’s complex and interlinked challenges.

These actions include reforming the peace and security architecture – giving adequate priority to prevention and sustaining peace.

It includes management reform – to simplify procedures and decentralize decisions, with transparency, efficiency and accountability.

It includes clear strategies and actions to achieve gender parity, end sexual exploitation and abuse; and strengthen counter-terrorism structures.

But reform is not an end in itself. And, of course – we all know – reform is not easy.

We undertake reforms keenly aware of our obligation to live up to the values of the United Nations Charter in the 21st century.

Ultimately this is about ensuring we are positioned to better deliver for people.

Those who suffer most from poverty or exclusion, those who have been left behind and who have no access to development, to peace or to respect for their rights and dignity and who look to us with hope to help better their lives.

To meet the mandates of the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review, we held extensive and inclusive consultations with Member States and the UN system.

We created an internal mechanism with DESA and the UN Development Group to work together, with transparency and accountability.

We initiated technical work and drew on previous studies on accountability, transparency, coordination and oversight of the UN development system.

We worked with external experts in the largest-such effort to gather and analyze data on system-wide functions and capacities across the UN.

The proposals reflect the leadership needed at the country level to help Member States achieve their goals, and the leadership needed at headquarters to meet the ambition of the 2030 Agenda on the ground.

Some require further consultations. Others can be set in motion immediately.

I will continue to engage with you in the coming months before I put forward a more detailed report in December as required.

Allow me to outline the eight guiding ideas:

First, the UN development system must accelerate its transition from the Millennium Development Goals to the 2030 Agenda. There are major gaps in the system’s current skillsets and mechanisms.

The system is still set up to perform on a narrower set of goals focused on certain sectors, rather than across the entire sustainable development agenda.

Of course, we must be humble. The UN cannot do everything, everywhere.

But we must be able to provide advice, pool expertise and help Governments implement the Sustainable Development Goals in their entirety. And we must help convene the partners they require to take actions to scale.

Better coordination, planning and accountability will provide the platform for UN Country Teams to transform overlaps into synergies and to help government identify partners to bridge gaps.

Second principle, we need a much stronger focus on financing for development.

Governments and people expect the UN to help deliver on Official Development Assistance and unlock doors to financing, expertise, know-how and technologies. And we must do so working with the international financial institutions, the private sector and all other partners.

The report envisions a role for Resident Coordinator offices as a country-level hub to support governments in broadening their own resource bases and for leveraging financing for development and mobilizing agency-specific expertise.

A strengthened DESA will work in collaboration with Regional Commissions and the UN development system to provide policy guidance and backing that Resident Coordinators and UN Country Teams need to help Governments leverage financing.

Third principle, we need a new generation of Country Teams that are tailored to the specific needs of each country.

Our country offices around the world have an average of 18 agencies.

The 2030 Agenda compels us to move to Country Teams that are more cohesive, flexible, leaner, and more efficient and focussed in their scope. We need teams that can respond to evolving national priorities in an integrated and holistic way.

This includes the imperative of addressing the humanitarian-development nexus and its links with building and sustaining peace in a way that does not lead to a diversion of funds or shift in focus from development to other objectives, while also preserving the autonomy of the humanitarian space. We have discussed this for years; it is now time for action.

The old way of working has been based on weak collective accountability. This approach has not, and will not lead, to transformative change to improve people’s lives.

We must make the most of the strengths of individual agencies with their strong mandates while trying to achieve greater coherence, unity and accountability – including at the top.
By December, we will put forward for your consideration specific criteria that could help determine the optimal UN configuration on a country-by-country basis.

Fourth principle, we must resolve the ambiguity in the role of Resident Coordinators.

Today, Resident Coordinators are expected to steer UN Country Team support at the national level, but with limited tools and no formal authority over other UN agencies and offices.

To lead this new generation of Country Teams, Resident Coordinators must be well-staffed and supported with sufficient resources, and have direct supervisory lines over all UN Country Teams on system-wide responsibilities.

The members will naturally preserve the reporting lines to their headquarters in the exercise of their respective mandates.

With greater authority must also come greater accountability. These are two sides of the same coin.

Our consultations and analysis point to the value of delinking the functions of Resident Coordinators from UNDP Resident Representatives while ensuring continued access to the substantive policy support, operational tools and joint financing they need.

The current “firewall” between these two functions cannot guarantee the level of impartiality needed for Resident Coordinators to generate confidence and lead effectively.

The reporting lines from the Resident Coordinators to the Secretary-General will need to be clarified and strengthened, alongside increased accountability to Member States for UN development system-wide results.

Let me be crystal clear: Sustainable development must be the DNA of Resident Coordinators.

Resident Coordinators should be able to steer and oversee the system’s substantive contribution to the 2030 Agenda, in line with national priorities and needs.

But Resident Coordinators must also be able to take a broader view and lead integrated analysis and planning processes which have significant implications for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

They must also support Governments in crisis prevention focused on building resilience and anticipating shocks that could undermine progress, whether they come from climate change, natural hazards or the risk of conflict.

The success of the 2030 Agenda requires that the Resident Coordinator function remains anchored in the operational system for development, firmly connected to the country level, and with UNDP as a key driver for development.

I will work with you to present more detailed proposals to improve the Resident Coordinator system by December 2017.

Fifth principle, for too long, reform efforts in the field have been hindered by the lack of similar efforts at headquarters.

To enable change on the ground, we need an accountability mechanism here at headquarters that is seen as impartial and neutral. And we need to do so without creating new bureaucracies or superstructures.

To address this long standing issue, I intend to assume my full responsibilities as Chief Executive of the United Nations, and reassert a leadership role in UN sustainable development efforts, in support of Member States and our staff on the ground.

I am asking the Deputy Secretary-General to oversee and provide strategic guidance to the UN Development Group, as well as leading a Steering Committee to foster coherence between humanitarian action and development work.

Decentralization is a key goal of all my reform efforts. Effective decentralization will require strengthening accountability in headquarters, but always with a focus on delivery on the ground.

Sixth principle, we need to foster a more cohesive UN policy voice at the regional level. We will launch a review of our regional representation and activities, to clarify the division of labour within the system and explore ways to reinforce the UN country-regional-global policy backbone.

Seventh principle, the accountability of the UN development system is a matter of priority.

Accountability is indeed an end in itself, because it fosters transparency, improves results and holds our institutions to agreed standards and commitments. It is also a critical incentive for collaboration and better reporting on system-wide impact.

My report outlines three specific areas for continued engagement with Member States: first, improving guidance and oversight over system-wide results, with the ECOSOC at the centre; second, more transparency around collective results, including through system-wide annual reporting and the establishment of a system-wide independent evaluation function; and third, more robust internal accountability to ensure that internal mechanisms such as the Chief Executives Board and the UN Development Group deliver on Member States mandates and internal agreements.

Eighth principle, and last, there is a critical need to address the unintended consequences of funding that have hampered our ability to deliver as one. Around 85% of funds are currently earmarked, around 90% of which to single-donor-single agency programmes.

A fragmented funding base is delivering a fragmented system undermining results in people’s lives.

I would like to explore with you the possibility of a “Funding Compact”, through which the system would commit to greater efficiency, value-for-money and reporting on system-wide results, against the prospect of more robust core funding support to individual agencies and improved joint funding practices.

The true test of reform will not be measured in words in New York or Geneva.

It will be measured through tangible results in the lives of the people we serve.

This report outlines areas where I believe ambitious but realistic changes can be implemented without creating unnecessary disruption on the ground.

It also reflects my previous experience as head of a major UN operational agency. My decade leading UNHCR gave me first-hand experience on the strengths of the system and challenges of interagency cooperation.

I saw the need to preserve an adequate level of autonomy to ensure flexible and efficient delivery, in line with the specific mandates that need to be implemented.

Yet in many field visits, I heard time and time again from colleagues and partners that we must do far better in working together as a system that delivers results for people.

We have entered a critical period for your concrete perspectives and ideas.

Many questions raised in this report will require answers and further consideration. We intend to seek these answers jointly with you. Repositioning the UN development system is indeed our shared responsibility.

Just as our founders looked well into the future when they shaped and adopted the UN Charter, we too have a collective responsibility to invest in the United Nations of tomorrow and the world if we want an agenda 2030 to be the success it deserves to be.

I am convinced that, together, we can take the bold steps that the new agenda requires and that humanity also deserves.

I now look forward to hearing your questions and suggestions, and I hope more suggestions and proposals than questions.

The post UN Needs a 21st Century Development System appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Bags of feed at the Rossgro agribusiness firm in South Africa. Credit: Friday Phiri/IPS

By Friday Phiri
MPUMALANGA, South Africa, Jul 6 2017 (IPS)

The United States and Europe’s preference for white meat is hurting Africa’s poultry industry, says Luc Smalle, manager at the agro firm Rossgro in South Africa’s Mpumalanga area.

With 3000 Ha of maize and 1000 Ha of soya, as well as 1,500 heads of beef cattle, Rossgro mills its own feed, which also caters for millions of chickens housed in 40 environmentally controlled houses.Africa’s young, dynamic population has the potential to lead an economic revival in the region, backed by targeted long- and short-term reforms in key areas.

But Smalle is uncertain about the future of the poultry business, not only in South Africa but the whole continent.

He recalled how the US and Europe exported millions of tonnes of chicken meat to the then Soviet Union (now Russia). Historically, Russia was the major importer of America’s dark meat. According to available data, in 2009 alone, Russia is said to have doled out 800 million dollars for 1.6 billion pounds of U.S. leg quarters.

But in 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin banned U.S. chicken from Russian shores, allegedly because it was treated with ‘unsafe’ antimicrobial chlorine. The ban remains in place, although some say it’s more about politics than public health.

Either way, according to Smalle, the ban “has led America and Europe to look for alternative markets to dump brown meat because most of the First World eats white meat, so they are dumping chicken in the third world, especially Africa. We should stand together and work with our governments to stop imports or put high tariffs so that they can’t dump it anymore.”

In a chicken, white meat refers to the breast and wings while legs and thighs are considered red/dark meat. The nutritional difference is fat content. White meat is a leaner source of protein, with a lower fat content, while dark meat contains higher levels of fat, hence the developed world preference for white meat on health grounds.

Smalle believes this state of affairs is hurting African poultry industry competitiveness where the average cost of raising a chicken is far much higher than in the developed world. He says most African farmers rely on bank loans from banks while their European and American counterparts are heavily subsidised by their governments.

“It’s going to kill the whole poultry industry in Africa if nothing is done to reverse the trend; they have subsidies which the African farmer does not have,” Smalle told IPS, citing the South African poultry industry, where he says a third of the workers have lost their jobs because firms have been pushed out of business.

Under free market economics, Smalle’s arguments might seem out of order. But the latest Africa Competitiveness Report 2017 jointly issued by the African Development Bank, World Bank and World Economic Forum seems to support the continent’s argument.

The report warns that without urgent action to address stagnating levels of competitiveness, Africa’s economies will not create enough jobs for young people entering the job market, adding that if current policies remain unchanged, fewer than one-quarter of the 450 million new jobs needed in the next 20 years will be created.

The biennial report comes at a time when growth in most of the region’s economies has been slowing despite a decade of sustained growth, and is likely to stagnate further in the absence of improvements in the core conditions for competitiveness.

Compounding the challenge to Africa’s leaders is a rapidly expanding population, which is set to add 450 million more to the labour force over the next two decades. Under current policies, only an estimated 100 million jobs will be created during this period.

Africa’s young, dynamic population does, however, possess the potential to lead an economic revival in the region, backed by targeted long- and short-term reforms in key areas, the report finds.

“To meet the aspirations of their growing youth populations, African governments are well-advised to enact polices that improve levels of productivity and the business environment for trade and investment,” says the World Bank Group’s Klaus Tilmes, Director of the Trade & Competitiveness Global Practice, which contributed to the report.

“The World Bank Group is helping governments and the private sector across Africa to take the steps necessary to build strong economies and accelerate job creation in order to benefit from the potential demographic dividend.”

Some of the bottlenecks and solutions include strengthening institutions, which experts believe is a pre-condition to enable faster and more effective policy implementation; improved infrastructure to enable greater levels of trade and business growth; greater adoption of technology and support to developing value-chain links to extractive sectors to encourage diversification and value addition.

The World Economic Forum’s Richard Samans, Head of the Centre for the Global Agenda and Member of the Managing Board, believes that “removing the hurdles that prevent Africa from fulfilling its competitiveness potential is the first step required to achieve more sustained economic progress and shared prosperity.”

The Africa Competitiveness report was released in May during the 27th World Economic Forum on Africa in Durban, South Africa, attended by more than 1,000 participants under the theme “Achieving Inclusive Growth through Responsive and Responsible Leadership.”

The report combines data from the Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) with studies on employment policies and city competitiveness.

The post U.S. “Dumping” Dark Meat Chicken on African Markets appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Initiative on water scarcity will make governments, international organisations, civil society and the private sector work together to seek participatory and innovative policy, governance and management options for the sustainable use of water scarce resources, which are vital for the food security of the Near east and North Africa countries. Credit: FAO

By IPS World Desk
ROME, Jul 5 2017 (IPS)

In the Near East and North Africa region, the per capita renewable water availability is around 600 cubic metres per person per year –only 10 per cent of the world average- and drops to just 100 cubic metres in some countries, the United Nations warned.

“Arab states must continue to seek innovations to overcome water scarcity in the face of climate change,” said the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General José Graziano da Silva at an event co-hosted by the Arab League on the side-lines of the UN specialised agency’s biennial Conference (3-8 July 2017).

He praised Near East and North African countries’ progress, despite the challenges, in areas such as desalination, water harvesting, drip irrigation and treating wastewater. “It is fundamental to promote ways for agriculture, and food production in general, to use less water, and use it more efficiently”.

“Population growth and the impacts of climate change will put more pressure on water availability in the near future. Climate change, in particular, poses very serious risks.”

Agriculture Accounts for over 80% of Freshwater Withdrawals

Farmers and rural households should be at the centre of strategies to address water scarcity, Graziano da Silva said. “Not only to encourage them to adopt more efficient farming technologies, but also to secure access to drinking water for poor rural households. This is vital for food security and improved nutrition.”

Agriculture accounts for more than 80 per cent of all freshwater withdrawals in the region, reaching peaks above 90 per cent in some countries including Yemen and Syria. Sustainable and efficient water management practices in agriculture are therefore key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger.

“The future of the Arab region is tightly linked to the problem of water scarcity,” said for his part the Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Abul-Gheith.

Water use innovations crucial to face climate change in Arab countries. Credit: FAO

“There is a major gap between supply and demand when it comes not only to water but also food in the Arab region. This gap leads to dire political, economic and security consequences.”

He also urged better collaboration with countries that are home to rivers that flow into the region, and noted that water levels in the Euphrates and Nile Rivers are decreasing steadily.

Climate Change to Compound Water Scarcity

Unrestrained demand for water for agriculture in the region has led to groundwater over‐drafting, declines in water quality and land degradation including salinization, FAO reports. “Climate change is expected to compound these trends and agriculture will be one of the hardest hit sectors.”

More frequent and intense heat waves and reduced rainfall will curb growing seasons. With less rain, there will be a reduction in soil moisture, river runoff and aquifer recharge. Increased uncertainty will affect productivity, and make agricultural planning more difficult.

In collaboration with the Arab League, FAO launched a Regional Initiative on Water Scarcity in the Near East in 2013, which supports the coordination of a Regional Collaborative Strategy.

Building on this, the UN agency launched a Global Framework, Coping with water scarcity in agriculture, at COP 22 in Marrakesh last year. It encourages cooperation among stakeholders and will help develop technology and governance based on good science.

New Global Action Programme for SIDS Countries

Meantime, new United Nations global action programme launched on 4 July at FAO seeks to address pressing challenges related to food security, nutrition and the impacts of climate change facing the world’s Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

The initiative was developed jointly by FAO, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and the Office of the High Representative for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (OHRLLS).

Global Action Programme (GAP) on Food Security and Nutrition in Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Credit: FAO

Because of their small size and isolation, SIDS are particularly threatened by natural disasters and the impacts of climate change, says the UN specialised body. “Many have limited arable agricultural land and are dependent on small-scale agriculture, ocean resources and high priced imports.”

The Global Action Programme aims to achieve three objectives: i) create enabling environments for food security and nutrition; ii) promote sustainable, resilient nutrition-sensitive food systems; and, iii) empower people and communities for improved food security and nutrition.

On this, Graziano da Silva stressed that the Global Action Programme is the fruit of wide-ranging consultations in the SIDS regions where food security and nutrition must be addressed together with issues such as climate change, the health of oceans, land degradation, social inclusion education and gender equality.

“The impacts of climate change are particularly worrisome. They affect everything that we plan to do in the SIDS countries,” he said, referring to their vulnerability to rising ocean levels and the increase in extreme weather events such as tsunamis, storms, floods and droughts.

Regarding the nutrition situation, FAO chief said that “the triple burden of malnutrition is a reality among many SIDS countries. This means that undernourishment, micronutrient deficiency and obesity coexist within the same country, same communities and even the same households.”

For his part, the President of the Republic of Palau, Tommy Remengesau Jr. pointed to the need to “curb the alarming trends” in the SIDS such as, in the case of the Pacific region, the high rate of mortality caused by non-communicable diseases including cancer and heart attacks, to which poor nutrition is a major contributor.

“In my view the Global Action Programme is an important mechanism to empower our communities and peoples,” Remengesau said, underscoring the need to gradually shift people in the SIDS towards “wholesome nutrition and healthy lifestyles.”

“I call on the international community, development partners, intergovernmental organizations and fellow SIDS to work together to help our communities and our people,” he said.

UN General Assembly President Peter Thomson, who is also Fiji’s Permanent Representative to the UN, said at the event that the launch of the programme “represents an important step towards implementation of the (SDG) Sustainable Development Goals targets as related to the SIDS for addressing poverty, health, water, sanitation, economic development, inequalities, climate change, and of course the oceans”.

Thomson noted that the Global Action Programme stems from the SIDS Acclerated Modalities Of Action (S.A.M.O.A.) Pathway – the outcome of the Third International Conference on SIDS held in Apia, Samoa in 2014, where FAO was invited to develop a global framework for action.

Focus on the Small Island Developing States

FAO has scaled up its work with the SIDS in recent years including in areas aimed at improving the management and use of natural resources; promoting integrated rural development; and building resilience to extreme weather events.

Last month during the Ocean Conference in New York, FAO presented a commitment to increase economic benefits to SIDS countries through the Blue Growth Initiative. In particular, this will be done through three specific regional SIDS projects, with funding of some 16 million dollars from this agency’s budget.

The post Mideast: Water Use Innovations ‘Crucial’ to Face Climate Change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Martin Khor
PENANG, Malaysia, Jul 5 2017 (IPS)

It’s been 20 years since the Asian financial crisis struck in July 1997.   Since then there has been an even bigger global financial crisis, centred in the United States starting in 2008.  Will there be another crisis in the near future?

The Asian crisis began when speculators brought down the Thai baht, making fortunes in the process.  Within months, the currencies of Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia were also affected.  The crisis was to turn the East Asian Miracle into an Asian Financial Nightmare.

Despite all the accolades showered onto the East Asian emerging economies before the crisis, weaknesses had built up in the affected countries, including current account deficits, low foreign reserves and high external debt.

In particular, in a few years before the onset of the crisis, the countries liberalised their financial system, in line with the international advice provided at that time.  This enabled local private companies to freely borrow from abroad and in foreign currency, mainly US dollars.   Companies and banks in Korea, Indonesia and Thailand had rapidly accumulated over a hundred billion dollars of external loans in each country, prompted by these loans’ lower interest rates compared to the local rates.   This was the Achilles Heel that led their countries to crisis.

Martin Khor

These weaknesses made the countries ripe for hedge funds and other speculators to bet against their currencies.  When the value of the local currency devalued very significantly against the US dollar, and when governments spent their already low reserves in a vain attempt to stem the currency fall, three of the countries ran out of foreign exchange to service their external loans.

They went to the International Monetary Fund for bail out loans that carried draconian conditions including high interest rates, drastic cuts in government spending, no bailouts of failing banks and companies, whilst allowing continued freedom for capital to exit.   These IMF policies worsened their economic situation, leading to recession, job retrenchments and bank and corporate bankruptcies, besides the loss of economic sovereignty. Protestors in Korea held signs:  “IMF equals I Am Fired!”

Malaysia was the fortunate country that did not have to seek IMF loans.  The country’s foreign reserves had gone to a dangerously low level but it was still adequate to finance imports and service foreign debt.  If the ringgit had been allowed to fall a bit further, the danger line would have been breached.

After a year of self-imposed austerity measures, Malaysia dramatically switched course and introduced a set of unorthodox policies.  These included pegging the ringgit to the dollar, selective capital controls to prevent short-term funds from exiting, lowering interest rates, boosting bank loans, increasing government spending and rescuing failing companies and banks.

This was opposite to the prevailing economic orthodoxy and the IMF policies imposed on the other three countries, and the global establishment predicted the sure collapse of the Malaysian economy.

But surprisingly the economy recovered, even faster and with less losses than the other countries.  In fact the IMF had to relax some of its conditions on the other countries to avoid their performance being poorly compared to Malaysia’s.  Today the Malaysian measures (or some of them at least) are cited as examples of a successful anti-crisis strategy.

The Asian crisis two decades ago taught the lesson that over-borrowing in foreign currency like the US dollar is dangerous for a country as it may face difficulties in servicing the debt if the local currency falls; more money in local currency would then have to be forked out to repay the same volume of US-dollar debt.
The IMF itself has changed, a little.  For example it now includes some capital controls as part of legitimate policy measures in certain situations.

The Asian countries, vowing never to have to go to the IMF again, built up strong current account surpluses and foreign reserves to protect against bad years and keep off speculators.   The economies recovered, but not back to the spectacular 7 to 10 per cent pre-crisis growth rates.

In 2008, the global financial crisis erupted, with the United States as its epicentre.  The tip of the iceberg was the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the massive loans given out to house-buyers that were not credit-worthy, thus the term “sub-prime crisis.”

The underlying cause was the deregulation of US finance and the freedom with which financial institutions could devise all kinds of shady “financial products” to draw in investors and unsuspecting customers.   They made many billions of dollars with all the layers of financial intermediation and manipulative schemes, but with the Lehman collapse the house of cards came tumbling down.

To fight the crisis, the United States, under President Barrack Obama, embarked first on expanding government spending and when that had its political limits he relied on financial policies of near-zero interest rates and “quantitative easing”, with the Federal Reserve pumping trillions of dollars into the US banking system.

It was hoped that the easy availability of huge and cheap credit would get consumer and businesses to spend and lift the economy.  But that only partly happened.   Instead, a significant portion of the trillions went via investors into speculative activities, including abroad to emerging economies.

Europe, on the verge of recession, followed the US with near zero (in some cases below zero) interest rates and large quantitative easing, with limited positive results.

The US-Europe financial crisis affected Asian countries too, but in only a limited way.  The main effect was on trade, with declines in export growth and commodity prices, as demand fell in Western markets.

The large foreign reserves built up after the Asian crisis plus the current account surplus situation acted as buffers against external debt problems and kept speculators at bay.

Just as important, hundreds of billions of dollars of funds annually poured from developed countries into emerging economies in Asia and other regions, in search of higher yield since interest rates in the originating countries were very low.

These massive capital inflows helped to give a boost to the Asian countries’ economic growth but have resulted in problems of their own.  First, they lead to asset bubbles, or rapid price increases of houses and the stock markets, and the bubbles may burst when they are over-ripe.

Second, the inflows may only cause short-term relief rather than being long-term solutions.  Much of the funds are short-term portfolio investors looking for quick profit, and they can be expected to leave when conditions change, such as a rise in interest rates in the US making that market now more attractive.

Third, the countries receiving capital inflows have thus built up new vulnerabilities to financial volatility and economic instability.  If and when investors pull some or a lot of their money out, there may be problems including price declines, inadequate replenishment of bonds, decline in currency and foreign reserves.   A few countries potentially face a new financial crisis.

A new vulnerability in many emerging economies is the rapid build-up of external debt in the form of bonds denominated in the local currency.

The Asian crisis two decades ago taught the lesson that over-borrowing in foreign currency like the US dollar is dangerous for a country as it may face difficulties in servicing the debt if the local currency falls; more money in local currency would then have to be forked out to repay the same volume of US-dollar debt.

To avoid this, many countries sold bonds denominated in the local currency to foreign investors, so that the repayment will be predictable and stable in terms of the local currency, thus avoiding the risk of a change in the foreign exchange.

However if the bonds held by foreigners are large in value, the country will still be vulnerable to the effects of a withdrawal when conditions change, such as a rise in US interest rates or a crisis in a major emerging country that changes investor perception of emerging-market risk.

As an example, almost half of Malaysian government securities, denominated in ringgit (the local currency) is held by foreigners, the result of the wave of capital inflows in recent years.  Though the country does not face the risk of having to pay more in ringgit if there is a fall in the local currency, it will may still face difficulties if foreigners suddenly withdraw a lot of their bonds.

What is the state of the world economy and what are the chances of a new financial crisis?  Big and relevant questions to ponder over, 20 years after the start of the Asian crisis and nine years after the global crisis.   But we will have to consider them in another article.

The post The Asian Financial Crisis — 20 Years Later appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Washington Consensus policy advocacy of financial liberalization from the 1980s had uneven consequences for the East Asia region. Credit: Kara Santos/IPS

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 5 2017 (IPS)

After months of withstanding speculative attacks on its national currency, the Thai central bank let it ‘float’ on 2 July 1997, allowing its exchange rate to drop suddenly. Soon, currencies and stock markets throughout the region came under pressure as easily reversible short-term capital inflows took flight in herd-like fashion. By mid-July 1997, the currencies of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines had also fallen precipitously after being floated, with stock market price indices following suit.

Most other economies in East Asia were also under considerable pressure. In November 1997, despite South Korea’s more industrialized economy, its currency also collapsed following withdrawal of official support. Devaluation pressures also mounted due to the desire to maintain a competitive cost advantage against the devalued currencies of Southeast Asian exporters.

Blind spot
Mainstream or orthodox economists first attempted to explain the unexpected events from mid-1997 in terms of orthodox theories of currency crisis. Many made much of current account or fiscal deficits, real as well as imagined.

When the conventional wisdom clearly proved to be unconvincing, the East Asian miracle was turned on its head. Instead, previously celebrated elements of the regional experience, e.g., government interventions and ‘social capital’, were blamed for the crises.

The media emphasized ‘cronyism’, i.e., government favouritism for particular business interests, and poor corporate governance. These were real problems, but irrelevant to explaining the crisis. Increasingly, blame was put on poor sequencing of financial liberalization, but not on capital account liberalization itself.

This blind spot has helped ensure that the most important lessons from the crisis have been largely lost. Other currency and financial crises from the 1990s make clear that key lessons have not been appreciated. Instead, erroneous lessons drawn by orthodox economists, financial analysts and the media have muddied the policy discourse. Also, the policies and policymakers responsible for the crisis need to be identified and addressed as they have come back, albeit in different guises.

Wrong lessons have diverted attention away from the intellectual and ideological bases of the erroneous thinking, analyses and policies responsible for the crises. Such ideas are largely, though not exclusively associated with Washington Consensus’ advocacy of economic liberalization at both national and global levels. Thus, drawing critical lessons would undermine the intellectual, analytical and policy authority of the interests and institutions involved.

Finance rules
Although there was analytical work critical of East Asia’s ‘miracle’ before the crisis, none actually anticipated the debacle or saw its roots in financial liberalization. Meanwhile, transnational dominance of industry in Southeast Asia facilitated the ascendance and consolidation of financial interests and politically influential rentiers, later deemed ‘cronies’ after 1997.

This increasingly powerful alliance successfully promoted financial liberalization in the region, both externally and internally. Southeast Asian financiers were quick to identify and capture rents from arbitrage and other opportunities offered by international financial integration. Little caution was urged in the face of greater foreign capital flows in Southeast Asia, which became more pronounced in the 1990s.

Washington Consensus policy advocacy of financial liberalization from the 1980s had uneven consequences and implications for the region. This eventually led to new kinds of currency and financial crises due to easily reversed capital inflows, including foreign bank borrowings and portfolio capital flows.

As the interests of domestic financial capital did not fully coincide with those of international finance, the impact of financial globalization was partial and uneven. For instance, both Malaysia and Thailand wanted capital inflows to finance current account deficits. This was largely due to their service account deficits, mainly for imported services and investment income payments abroad. Such deficits grew with imports for consumption and construction, as well as greater ease of investment, including speculation, abroad.

There is no evidence that such capital inflows contributed significantly to accelerating the growth of export earnings. Instead, they blew up asset price bubbles, which inevitably burst with devastating economic, social and political consequences.

Lessons not learnt
Two decades later, there is apparently still no consensus on the East Asian crises and their causes. But contrary to the impression conveyed by the Western media, most serious analysts now agree that the crises essentially began as currency crises of a new type, different from those previously identified with current account deficits, or fiscal profligacy, or even macroeconomic indiscipline more generally.

They also agree that the crises started off as currency crises and quickly became more generalized financial crises, before affecting the real economy. Reduced financial liquidity, inappropriate official policy responses and ill-informed, ‘herd’-like market responses then exacerbated this chain of events.

The post 1997 Asian Crisis Lessons Lost appeared first on Inter Press Service.

I am standing in the middle of a public elementary school in a rural municipality in the province of Cavite. The playground is without trees and shade. In the searing heat of a late morning sun, the cement building bakes. The steel handrails ribboning the walkways are too hot to hold. The area is nice, though. There are mountain views, fancy cafés and gourmet dining nearby. But the schoolhouse is on the wrong side of the good life. No one here can afford anything from Starbucks. I am waiting for lunchtime recess. For many of the kids, this will be the best part of their day. It will be the only time they will get to eat.

Rachel A.G. Reyes

A feeding program has been in operation at this school for a year or so. Theoretically, the Department of Education allots a budget of P14,000 per month, or P200 per student, for food. In practice, the allocation is not always dependable. The all-women teaching staff, and volunteer parents, all of whom are mothers of children at the school, have found ways to supplement the budget. They are energetic in soliciting external funds. A group of policemen pledged P1,500 twice a year. Out of this money, the entire school could be fed one meal.

A canteen fund of about P500 for the most needy children was also scraped together. Teacher A, a young graduate of Cavite State University, treats this money with respect and thrift. With some of it, she does the grocery shopping and brings the food to school. Every morning, from 6.30a.m, a group of mothers from the school’s Parents’ Federation come to do the cooking. Each day the menu varies and what is produced from so little is well nigh miraculous. There might be macaroni soup, chicken arrozcaldo, or sotanghon noodles. The dishes are vegetable-rich and protein-heavy. Giving a piece of fresh fruit to each kid would be too expensive, but there are rare sweet treats like champorrado, the chocolate rice pudding, or turron, deep fried banana wrapped in thin pastry.

I am really astonished at how much the canteen fund is made to stretch. In addition to groceries, a portion is put toward the maintenance of a vegetable garden where grades 4, 5, and 6 cultivate malunggay, eggplants, beans, and papaya. Another portion goes toward the work of the clinic, which is run by Teacher H. She trained at the Philippine Normal School and readily shows me charts and data. She combines an obvious analytical approach with enthusiasm. She draws up the school health reports, liaises with the barangay health worker who visits once a month, the municipal doctor who sees the children four times a year, and the municipal dentist who comes once a year. But it is everyday malnutrition and malady that wreck these young bodies. She tells me about the common illnesses of the kids –the deadly quartet of fever, lagnat, ubo at sipon, coughs and colds, and dengue. Malnourished children have collapsing immune systems.

It is well known that hungry children have short attention spans in the classroom. But this seems to be the least of it. Teacher T is the school’s guidance counselor. She graduated from the Far Eastern University and has worked for the school for 26 years. She tells me that children from hungry homes are afflicted with an assortment of behavioral problems that frequently stem from parental abuse. Bullying is pervasive, yes, but there is worse. She cites the case of a young girl who, for three years, was stealing from and beating other children. This child did not know any better. Her mother had a mental illness. There is no professional therapist who will give their time free to poor families, so the teacher takes on the task. “Habang may buhay may pagasa,” she says. While there is life, there is hope.

The mothers who have done the cooking that morning sit in the shade of a hut by the side of the burning road, fanning themselves. On their own time and with no pay, they also clean the school and raise money for activities, including the regional sports fest. But each one of them has a load of other jobs to do. Later in the day, Lina will sell sticks of barbecue; Annabelle is a part-time house-helper and works a field of sweet potato; Lhuz caddies in a golf course.

These women uncomplainingly roll up their sleeves and just get on with it. They are proud of what they do, proud of their initiative and resourcefulness, and the knowledge they have gained. They tell me how they learnt to feed their children better food by attending talks given by the visiting municipality nutritionist. Improving diets at home is difficult and some parents, they say, just don’t get it. They tell me that the school also teaches parents about drug addiction and, in the same breath, recall how two men were recently murdered in a tokhang operation. One of the men was a relative and there is no doubt in their minds that the police was responsible. “The drug problem is lessened by making lives disappear,” Lina remarks in a tone full irony.

The lunch bell rings and the kids bound out of the classrooms. Every meal amounts to a triumph, proof that individual human actions can add up. “Tuloy, tuloy ang laban,” Lina says.

If readers wish to donate to the feeding program of this school, please get in touch with me.
rachelagreyes@gmail.com

This story was originally published by The Manila Times, Philippines

The post Feeding Hungry Children: How a School Does It Against the Odds appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Prime minister Theresa May could have easily ignored, without anyone noticing, the vengeful white Briton who drove his truck into a crowd of Muslim worshippers, mowing down a few and killing one. After all, England had not yet fully recovered from the terror carnage in Manchester and London inflicted by home-grown Muslims.

Jawed Naqvi

Ms May could have also feigned pain like Prime Minister Modi who equated the pogrom of Muslims in Gujarat to a puppy coming under the wheel of his car. But she preferred to call the white man a terrorist. A comment expected from Jeremy Corbyn came from May. That`s how democracies humble their leaders. Why does Indian democracy falter here? In Donald Trump`s America too, regardless of the viciousness his followers pursue against the nonwhites, there is still a robust system that works for more than a mere pretence of justice. The white man who killed a Sikh in the wake of 9/11 is rotting in prison.

On the other hand, at least two white Americans were wounded and at least one other was killed when they tried to save Hindus and Muslims from white hate-mongers in different episodes. Despite Europe being under siege from Muslim terrorists there is vocal and robust protection for the ordinary Muslims against racist vendetta.

People come out on the streets in the US and Europe at the hint of any perceived bias. Even in strife-battered and terror-stricken Pakistan (where terror groups are, ironically, allowed to walk openly with a swagger) human rights workers have laid down their lives. And af ter a church was bombed in Peshawar some years ago, Muslims (and others) ringed churches in major cities in a show of solidarity for the Christian community.

Last week`s Not In My Name protests across India against the widespread phenomenon of public lynching came as a whiff of fresh air. Such relief is rare and far between in the world`s largest democracy. Thelynching of Muslims, Dalits and Christians, we all know, could not happen without the encour-agement of the Hindutva establishment. And this was the theme of the spontaneous protests. They came like a cloudburst to a parched land.

There are individuals who have died for the cause in India. Who can forget the murder by Hindutva assassins of the Kalburgi-Pansare-Dhabolkar trio as they fought blind faith and superstition planted and nurtured by the rulers? Let us also put on record the mealy-mouthed disapproval Prime Minister Modi expressed against his cow vigilantes. How else could another man be brutally beaten to death within hours of his disapproval? One of Modi`s chief ministers says cow killersshould be hanged. Another says they should be packed of f to Pakistan. His cabinet has men who celebrated killers as nationalist icons. The reason is not f ar to seek. The world is crawling with the `us versus them` rogue groups. The difference is that groups like Boko Haram are dismantling what is otherwise the best in their civilisation, from outside the system. They are the non-state players, whereas Hindutva in India is well entrenched within the system. It is hollowing out India`s democracy with a surgeon`s ease. Similarity is inescapable here with the zealots who were infiltrated by Ziaul Haq into state institutions in Pakistan. And this has been happening for years, decades even.

Now that the so-called mainstream media in India has bared its Hindutva fangs (Trump complimented Modi on the `friendly` coverage he got at their Washington meeting) it is not difficult to perceive the cover-up that was imposed over the years. Thefact is, though seldom discussed in the newspapers or on TV channels, that the destruction of Babri Masjid took place years before the Afghan Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas. Somehow, the Ayodhya outrage is accepted as a nationalist exigency while the Bamiyan criminals were handed the terror tag.

The fact is that churches were burnt, nuns raped and an Australian missionary roasted alive with his two sons by a Hindutva mob in Orissa way before Boko Haram could spell `Christian`. Boko Haram, loosely meaning `foreign is sinful`, could learn from Hindutva`s institutionalised hatred of Christians, Muslims and communists, all three bereft of a common strategy to fight their tormentors.

Two Hindutva leaders have invited comparison with Boko Haram. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath claims the minarets of the fabled Taj Mahal represent not Indian ethos but an alien culture. Hitherto, he implied, politicians with an inferior sense of patriotism were giving replicas of the Taj Mahal to foreign dignitaries. Now the truer Indian spirit has spurred a new crop of leaders to gift copies of Hindu scriptures.

The ruling party`s nominee for India`s next president claimed something similar seven years ago.

`Islam and Christianity are alien to India,` Ram Nath Kovind had said when he was just appointed a BJP spokesperson. That`s what Boko Haram says about Nigerian Christians. That`s what the Nazis said of German Jews.

Mr Kovind had slammed the proposed inclusion of Muslim and Christian Dalits entitled for job reservation offered to the other Scheduled Castes.

Boko Haram has been carrying out what Hindutva calls ghar wapsi, forcing Christians to convert `back` to Islam their version of Islam `back` being Boko Haram`s interpretation of what came first, Islam or Christianity in the Nigerian timeline.

Anyone with an iota of integrity and faithful memory will see the methods as strikingly similar. Not In My Name partisans could learn from a Pakistani humorist, who told his countrymen: accepting something without reason cannot be weeded out with reason. The writer is Dawn`s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

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