By IPS World Desk
ROME, Mar 19 2019 (IPS)

Water is a precondition for human existence, and for the sustainability of our planet. It is entwined with almost everything human, from climate change and global economy to gender issues and human rights.

Worldwide, 100 million families are stuck in a cycle of poverty and disease, because they don’t have access to safe water.

In some countries, women and girls spend up to 6 hours every day walking to get water for their families.

Water-borne diseases kill more children under the age of five than malaria, measles, and HIV/AIDS – combined.

In developing countries, as much as 80% of illnesses are linked to poor water and sanitation conditions, and 2.4 billion people worldwide lack access to a toilet.

Water scarcity, flooding and lack of proper wastewater management continue to hinder social and economic development.

The United Nations’s Sustainable Development Goal 6 calls for “ensuring the availablity and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, by 2030.”

Accordingly, World Water Day – celebrated on March 22nd – is observed internationally as day to inspire people around the world to learn more about water-related issues, and to take action to make a difference.

This year’s World Water Day theme, “Water for All,” is focused on tackling the water crisis as it affects marginalized groups, including women, children, refugees, indigenous peoples, disabled people and many others.

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Tourists cool off from high temperatures on the beach at the archaeological site of Tulum, in the southeastern Yucatan peninsula, an area of Mexico highly vulnerable to climate change. Powerful hurricanes, storms, drought, heat waves and rising sea levels are climate change effects that impact the mental health of the country's population. Credit: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Mar 19 2019 (IPS)

Minerva Montes lost her home on Holbox Island in 2005 when Hurricane Wilma hit the Yucatan Peninsula in southeastern Mexico. Rebuilding her home was quicker and easier than overcoming the psychological aftermath of the catastrophe.

“They activated the evacuation alarm, I didn’t know what to do, I packed my things and put them on the ground floor, because I had heard that the wind didn’t hit there. But I didn’t know then about the effects of the flood,” she said."The first thing is to save lives and get people into safe places. And after that comes the psychosocial intervention. What we pay a lot of attention to is the kind of reaction they have to such an extreme situation. Some people manage to overcome the situation on their own and help others, whole others continue to feel panic." -- Jorge Álvarez

Montes, who is involved in wildlife rehabilitation, had just moved to the island a year earlier. The island, located about 1,600 kilometers from Mexico City and home to some 2,000 people, forms part of the municipality of Lázaro Cárdenas in the state of Quintana Roo. And she had only been living in a house on the edge of the beach for a few months.

Montes, whose adult son no longer lived with her, took temporary refuge in the town of Tizimín, in the neighboring state of Yucatán, waiting for the emergency to pass and for her partner to return from abroad. A week later, she returned to what had been her home.

“What we saw was shocking, there were holes in the ground everywhere. I had the suspicion that I was not going to find anything (of the house). There were no walls, only the roof was still there. Everything I had put away to protect it had disappeared,” she told IPS during a trip through the Yucatán peninsula to observe how the local population is adapting to climate change.

Montes, who turned her nearly demolished house into a small hotel, sensed that the worst was coming, although she did not describe what she felt as fear. “You’re left with the feeling that you’re starting over. It was a hard and painful experience. It is not easy to be the victim of a disaster,” she said.

Hurricane Wilma, which reached a category 5 force due to the speed of its winds and the volume of rain dumped, making it one of the most powerful of the 21st century, hit Mexico’s Atlantic coast from Oct. 21-23, 12 years ago, to continue its destructive path towards the U.S. state of Florida.

Millions of people have suffered the same experience, exposed to the onslaught of climate change and its psychological consequences, which require attention and can become a public health problem as storms, floods, droughts and heat waves become more severe.

Mexico is highly vulnerable to the consequences of climate change.

A total of 480 Mexican municipalities are especially exposed to the phenomenon, of the 2,457 into which the country is divided, according to a report by the government’s National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC). The risks, the study estimated, threaten more than 50 million people, out of a total population of 128 million.

The Yucatan Peninsula, which divides the Gulf of Mexico in the Caribbean Sea, encompasses the states of Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatan, and plays a key climate role, as it is home to rainforest that regulates water flow and temperatures in the region. Credit: Public domain

Particularly vulnerable to global warming, the Yucatán peninsula, which includes the states of Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatán, plays a vital climate role, as it is home to rainforest that regulates water flow and temperatures in the region.

This year, springtime began a month earlier than usual, surprising people with unusually high temperatures in several areas of the country, while the weather service is now forecasting rain in the coming weeks.

The latest official data confirms that this country is the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG) in Latin America, following Brazil, with the launch into the atmosphere of 446.7 million net tons, according to figures from 2016 published last year by INECC.

For Jorge Álvarez, coordinator of the Crisis Intervention Programme for Victims of Disasters in the psychology department of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the impact is important and the situation is only going to get worse, since the climate roulette unleashed by human activity continues to spin.

“The first thing is to save lives and get people into safe places. And after that comes the psychosocial intervention. What we pay a lot of attention to is the kind of reaction they have to such an extreme situation. Some people manage to overcome the situation on their own and help others, whole others continue to feel panic,” he told IPS.

Frequent symptoms include sleep disturbance, panic attacks, and post-traumatic stress disorder, which “if not resolved soon, require specific assistance.”

While Mexico has made progress in issuing early warnings for other climate events, as well as in its rapid disaster response system, the mental health of victims could become a critical issue.

This country ranks among the 10 nations and territories in the world with the highest absolute disaster losses, amounting to 46.5 billion dollars from storms, on a list headed by the United States, with 944.8 billion in losses.

This is indicated in the 2018 report “Economic losses, poverty and disasters 1998-2017”, produced by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters of the School of Public Health of the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.

Between 2000 and 2019, Mexico issued 2,145 emergency, disaster and extreme weather warnings, 1,998 – or 93 percent – of which were in response to hydrometeorological events, while the remaining seven percent responded to geological, chemical and health problems.

On the other hand, according to the government’s National Risk Atlas, natural and man-made disasters have left a death toll of at least 7,700, more than 27 million people affected by losses and more than 21 billion dollars in damage.

The DN-III-E Plan, implemented by the Secretariat (ministry) of National Defence in disasters, includes immediate psychological care, but is ambiguous as to the follow-up of victims.

The link between these events and climate change is already attracting the attention of academia.

The study “Higher temperatures increase suicide rates in the United States and Mexico,” published in the scholarly journal Nature Climate Change in July 2018, found that the suicide rate increases 0.7 percent in U.S. countries and 2.1 percent in Mexican municipalities for each one degree Celsius rise in average monthly temperature.

The authors of the report, researchers based in universities in Canada, Chile and the United States, compared temperature and suicide data from hundreds of counties and municipalities between the years 1990 and 2010.

They also studied depressive language in more than 600 million social media updates to assess whether hotter temperatures affected mental well-being.

“This effect is similar in hotter versus cooler regions and has not diminished over time, indicating limited historical adaptation,” says the report, which projects that “unmitigated climate change” could lead to between 9,000 and 40,000 additional suicides across the United States and Mexico by 2050.

Montes is afraid another disaster could happen.. “A category 4 or 5 hurricane could wipe out everything. It frightens me to think about what could happen to people, the wildlife and vegetation. If the island disappears, there is no plan B, where to go? who to go to? I’m in a more vulnerable situation than if I lived in a city,” she lamented.

She says the government should provide more assistance. “Psychological support is essential, because people need to regain emotional security. The fear of losing one’s life, one’s health, everything you face afterward, paralyses you,” she said.

According to Álvarez, psychological follow-up and prevention are fundamental. “Disasters also involve socio-organisational aspects, which include many factors. A disaster aggravates existing conflicts,” he said.

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With the Washington Consensus from the 1980s being challenged, President Donald Trump withdrawing the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and China pursuing its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), most notably with its own initiatives such as the multilateral Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the political and economic landscape in East Asia continues to evolve. Jomo Kwame Sundaram was interviewed about likely implications for developing countries in the region and beyond.

Belt and Road Initiative

What do you think of world growth prospects and China’s Belt and Road Initiative?

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The situation is more promising in East Asia due to China’s diminished but sustained growth, and its almost unique rising labour share of national income. Most importantly for others, China has been willing to finance massive infrastructure projects, although this has given rise to a host of problems. For example, Chinese contractors are known for using Chinese material and human resources as far as possible, minimizing multiplier benefits for host economies. A few years ago, China’s ambassador to Tanzania publicly apologized for the conduct of Chinese firms in Africa, but most others tend to see all Chinese in monolithic terms. Meanwhile, US, European, Japanese, Indian and other competition for influence has helped increased options for other developing countries. However, it is not yet clear that China’s BRI and ‘alternative globalization’ will be enough to sustain rapid progress in the region.

Trade liberalization?

You once said that “If President…Trump lives up to his campaign rhetoric, all plurilateral and multilateral free trade agreements will be affected.” Now, with the US having withdrawn from the TPP, why are the Japanese, Australians and Singaporeans still pushing for the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive TPP) with all the others without the US?

It must be emphasized that the US, the EU and Japan have done little to advance trade multilateralism and keep the promise of the Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations, flawed as they are against developing country interests. Meanwhile, the Japanese, Australians and Singaporeans are trying to hype up the CPTPP as a political counterweight to China. But as a trade agreement, it will not do much except to strengthen foreign corporate power and further weaken governments, e.g., through its investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions.

Why will the CPTPP have little impact on growth, but will strengthen the power of foreign enterprises?

Let us be clear that even with the original TPP, all projections, including the most optimistic ones by the Peterson Institute, projected very modest economic growth attributable to trade liberalization. US government projections were much more modest. About 85 percent of the Peterson Institute’s projected ‘growth gains’ were attributed to ‘non-trade measures’, mainly broadening and strengthening intellectual property rights (IPRs) and foreign corporate legal rights against host governments with its ISDS provisions, which they are promoting as features for so-called 21st century free trade agreements. So, for example, if stronger IPRs raise the prices of medicines, the value of trade will also rise! With ISDS, if a government decides to ban the use of a toxic agrochemical to protect farm workers and consumers for instance, it will have to compensate the supplier for loss of profits!

International financial institutions

Do you think the Washington Consensus is threatened by South-led financial institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank?

Although still very influential, the Washington Consensus is acknowledged to have been superseded by new policy prescriptions. Despite recent ethno-nationalist Western reactions, all too many developing country governments still believe that further trade liberalization will boost growth. Meanwhile, financial globalization continues despite its adverse effects for growth, stability and equity.

Now, digital globalization is supposed to have wonderful progressive effects when it has clearly accelerated concentration of power and wealth, albeit with the rapid ascendance of innovative new players able to quickly consolidate lucrative monopolies.

I wish the new multilateral development banks would be bolder, but thus far, they have largely chosen to work within the dominant framework shaped by the Washington Consensus, probably to secure market confidence.

Credit from China’s banks, usually benefiting China’s corporations, is far more important than what the AIIB and NDB offer. Of course, lending by China’s banks has undermined the BWIs’ monopolies, and this has already been reflected by new policy initiatives by the West and Japan, e.g., to more generously provide infrastructure finance.

Meanwhile, the World Bank has aligned itself more closely with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in order to provide its new initiatives to promote market-based private finance such as securities and derivatives besides public private partnerships.

Capital controls

You have pointed out that both portfolio investment inflows to developing countries have in recent years. Do you think it appropriate to resume capital controls, as Malaysia did during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, to counter capital outflows?

With even China reintroducing capital controls, it is important to consider such options. I have long advocated counter-cyclical ‘capital account management’ to smoothen financial cycles, rather than to only impose controls after a crisis, as effective capital account management must be pro-active, agile, and flexible.

Almost by definition, capital account management is context specific. There are few ‘one size fits all’ rules. What I specifically called for in the early and mid-1990s is probably no longer relevant or appropriate. The challenge is not to expect the last crisis to recur, but to protect national economic progress from likely future threats.

Capital inflows to sustainably enhance the real economy should be prioritized, not portfolio flows which tend to be speculative, easily reversible, and do not enhance the real economy.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a former economics professor, was United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, and received the Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.

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The International Organisation for Migration’s peer-to-peer campaign is aimed at educating people about the real dangers of irregular migration. The project, known as Migrants as Messengers, trains returnee migrants to interview and record on camera returnee migrants. They are also taught how to publicly speak about their own stories. Credit: Amadou Kendessa Diallo/IPS

By IPS Correspondent
CONAKRY, Mar 19 2019 (IPS)

Elhadj Mohamed Diallo was a prisoner in Libya between October and November 2017, but he was not helpless. Far from his home in Guinea he understood the power of an organised union.

He mobilised other detainees around him to maintain order in the prison and to demand better conditions while in detention.

And when he finally returned to his home in West Africa, he used the power of the collective voice again, this time to caution others against experiencing what he did in Libya.

Back in Guinea, Diallo became part of the International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM) peer-to-peer campaign, which is aimed at educating people about the real dangers of irregular migration. The project, known as Migrants as Messengers (MAM), trains returnee migrants to interview and record on camera returnee migrants. They are also taught how to publicly speak about their own stories. As part of the campaign, the returnee migrants, who are volunteers, also attend community events where they speak in public about their own stories and first hand experiences.

The aim is to capture and present authentic and balanced stories about their migration experiences and their reintegration back home. These are shared on social media as well as through local media.

Diallo, who was incarcerated in Libya for being an irregular migrant, understood how a group of people with a common cause could become a powerful influence for change. So he create an association with about 50 other young returnees migrants, to caution people against irregular migration.

“The fact that we managed to mobilise people of many nationalities in a prison, [I thought] why not call the migrants here to make an association? I contacted those with whom I was in prison in Libya. IOM has called us for the project Migrants as Messengers. After the training, as we were bonded, we said we continue like this,” he told IPS.

“The objectives are to sensitise young people to abandon irregular migration, to set up reintegration projects to reintegrate migrant returnees first and to attract potential migrants to invest in our projects. [It aims to show them how] to succeed at home,” Diallo said.

The association is still very young, but is making progress.

Mariama Bobo Sy, the spokesperson for IOM in Guinea, told IPS, “The association’s executive office, which is made up of six people, was set up after the permission and the approval was granted on Aug 28, 2018 by the governorate of Conakry, the capital city. As we speak, these trained VFOs have become independent and have been taking part in various IOM projects that focus on migration in all aspects.”

Highly motivated, the association members willingly share their experiences in neighbourhoods and public places. They have conducted sensitisation campaigns at universities, through traditional media and social networks and also meet with other returned migrants to help them tell their stories. They plan to work in partnership with businesses and other employment providers to promote the professional reintegration of returned migrants.

IOM, for its part, has agreed to pay the fees for the headquarters of the association as they set up. Lucas Chandelier the communication officer at IOM in Guinea told IPS: “We are supporting  them to help them get started but the idea is that they can stand on their own and find their own funding. And the fact that they are an association will allow them to raise other grants, other than those of IOM.”

*Additional reporting by Issa Sikiti da Silva in Cotonou, Benin.

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By Era Dabla-Norris and Kalpana Kochhar
WASHINGTON DC, Mar 19 2019 (IPS)

As girls, we were raised with the belief that we could accomplish anything, and that no barrier was insurmountable. Yet, for so many women, the reality doesn’t quite meet their aspirations. Things weren’t exactly equal in the relatively conservative middle-class society in India where we both grew up.

But we thought of gender inequality as largely an issue of social justice. It was only after we started delving into the topic that we came to realize that it is an equally significant economic issue.

Women make up almost half of the world’s working-age population of nearly 5 billion people. But only about 50 percent of those women participate in the labor force, compared with 80 percent of men.

Not only is female labor force participation lower, but women who are paid for their work are disproportionately employed in the informal sector—especially in developing economies—where employers are subject to fewer regulations, leaving workers more vulnerable to lower wages and job losses.

Furthermore, even in the formal sector, women doing the same work and having the same level of education earn less than their male counterparts. And, because women generally spend less time in the paid labor market, they have lower pensions and face a higher risk of poverty in old age.

Among those who do work, few rise to senior positions or start their own businesses. Women also shoulder a higher share of unpaid work within the family, including childcare and domestic tasks, which can limit their opportunity to engage in paid work and constrain their options when they do.

The IMF’s research highlights how the uneven playing field between women and men imposes large costs on the global economy. Early IMF studies on the economic impact of gender gaps assumed that men and women were likely to be born with the same potential, but that disparities in access to education, health care, and finance and technology; legal rights; and social and cultural factors prevented women from realizing that potential. In turn, these barriers facing women shrank the pool of talent available to employers (Kochhar, Jain-Chandra, and Newiak 2017).

The result was lower productivity and lower economic growth. The losses to an economy from economic disempowerment of women were estimated to range from 10 percent of GDP in advanced economies to more than 30 percent in South Asia and in the Middle East and North Africa.

More recent research suggests that the economic benefits of bringing more women into the labor force exceed previous estimates. This is because women and men may have the same potential, but they bring different skills and ideas—that are economically valuable—to the table (Ostry and others 2018).

Gender differences may reflect social norms and their impact on upbringing, social interactions, risk preferences, and response to incentives. For instance, studies have found women to be more risk averse, reflecting greater fear of failure, and less competitive.

Women’s greater caution has benefits: gender-balanced corporate boards improve firm performance, especially in high-tech manufacturing and knowledge-intensive services. Gender diversity on boards of banking supervision agencies is also associated with greater financial stability (Sahay and Čihák 2018).

Similarly, banks with higher shares of women board members have thicker capital buffers, a lower proportion of nonperforming loans, and greater resistance to stress, possibly because having more women in executive positions contributes to diversity and complementarity of thought, leading to better decision-making.

Drawing on macroeconomic, sectoral, and firm-level data, a recent IMF study (Ostry and others 2018) suggests that men and women complement each other in the workplace in terms of different skills and perspectives, including different attitudes toward risk and collaboration.

As a result, increasing women’s employment boosts growth and incomes more than previously estimated, exceeding the improvement that comes simply from adding workers.

Among countries where gaps in participation rates are the largest, closing them adds 35 percent to GDP, on average. Four-fifths of the gains come from adding workers to the labor force, but fully one-fifth arises from the boost to productivity brought by greater gender diversity.

The study also shows that increasing women’s labor force participation produces large gains in economic welfare, which account for changes in consumption goods, home production, and leisure time; these gains exceed 20 percent in South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa (see Chart 1).

Another important finding: when more women participate in the labor force, men also benefit. Why? Because women’s complementary skills raise productivity, boosting wages for everyone.

This increase in productivity more than makes up for the decline in wages that might be expected when more workers are competing for jobs.

But simply bringing more women into the workforce may not be enough. A recent IMF study sounds a cautionary note on the challenges women face in a rapidly changing labor market (Brussevich and others 2018).

Digitalization, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are hollowing out jobs that involve routine and repetitive tasks while increasing the value of jobs involving management and cognitive skills.

Hard-won gains from policies to increase the number of women in the paid workforce and close wage gaps may be quickly eroded if women are overrepresented in jobs at high risk of automation.

Indeed, the study finds that women perform more routine tasks than men across all sectors and occupations, although there is significant variation across countries.

The risk of displacement is particularly high for less-educated women, those aged 40 and above, and those in low-skill clerical and sales jobs.

Meanwhile, women across sectors and occupations are underrepresented in professional and managerial positions that are at lower risk of displacement by technology.

Globally, women hold fewer than 20 percent of board seats in banks and bank supervision agencies (Sahay and Čihák 2018) and account for fewer than 2 percent of bank CEOs.

In the fast-growing tech sector, women are 15 percent less likely than men to be managers and professionals and 19 percent more likely to be clerks and service workers (see Chart 2).

Given the current state of technology, the study estimates that 26 million women’s jobs in 30 countries (28 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development plus Cyprus and Singapore) have a greater than 70 percent chance of being displaced by technology within two decades.

On a global scale, this suggests that 180 million women’s jobs are at risk. While more men than women are at risk of being displaced by automation, the number of female jobs lost represents a larger proportion of the female labor force.

What can be done? Because gender inequality is so multifaceted, there is no single remedy, and the best policy approach will vary across countries, depending on the level of economic development, existing gender gaps, and the speed at which the new technology affects the economy. Three broad areas can be highlighted:

First, policies to bring more women into the workforce: A range of institutional, legal, regulatory, and fiscal policy levers have been shown to boost female labor force participation.

While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, policies should seek to foster opportunity and remove barriers. Policies and infrastructure that make it easier for women to reconcile work and family life are particularly effective.

Emerging market and developing economies should

● Invest in infrastructure. In rural South Africa, for example, electrification increased female labor force participation by 9 percent. In India, building adequate sanitation facilities narrowed gender gaps in education and in female labor force participation. Mexico introduced public buses exclusively for women to ensure that they could travel safely.

● Support female entrepreneurs by increasing their access to finance. Women often face more restrictive collateral requirements, shorter maturity of loans, and higher interest rates than men (see “Banking on the Future of Women” in this issue of F&D). Initiatives such as Malaysia’s Women Entrepreneur Financing Programme and Chile’s simplified deposit accounts have helped close the gender gap in borrowing rates.

● Promote equal rights for women. Measures include addressing laws governing inheritance and property rights. Malawi, Namibia, and Peru revised their legal frameworks to reduce gender discrimination; in the decade that followed, female labor force participation rates increased substantially in all three countries.

Advanced economies should

● Push for greater parity between maternity and paternity leave. In Sweden, this has helped mothers return to work more rapidly and has shifted underlying gender norms about parenting.

● Promote access to affordable, high-quality childcare. An example is Japan, which expanded childcare leave benefits from 50 percent to 67 percent of salary. Research shows that cutting the cost of childcare by half could increase the number of young mothers in the labor market by 10 percent.

There is also considerable evidence that women are more responsive to specific tax policies than men. These include policies that do not penalize the secondary earner, who is still most likely to be female, by replacing family taxation with individual taxation, as Canada, Italy, and Sweden have done.

Tax relief measures for low-income families have also been found to increase employment rates for women. The reason: tax relief reduces the tax burden and increases after-tax earnings for women, thus increasing the incentive for women to join, or remain in, the labor force.

Examples include the earned income tax credit in the United States and a combination of tax credits and transfers in Belgium, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Second, policies to provide women with the right skills and to empower women in the workplace: Gender parity in investments in education and health are necessary to ensure that women can obtain quality jobs.

In India, for instance, IMF research suggests that female labor force participation would rise by 2 percentage points if Indian states increased education spending by 1 percent of GDP. Building skills early would also provide the most important safeguard against displacement by technology and allow women to benefit from new work opportunities.

For those already in the workforce, fiscal instruments such as tax deductions for training in the Netherlands and portable individual learning accounts in France can remove barriers to lifelong learning. Countries could also consider subsidizing training by private companies via dedicated payroll taxes and public grants.

Concerted efforts are needed to provide women with more opportunities to rise into managerial and leadership roles by setting relevant recruitment and retention targets for organizations, setting promotion quotas as was done in Norway, and creating mentorship and training programs.

Large gender gaps persist in access to the digital technology that creates new job opportunities: 60 percent of the global population, mostly women in emerging market and developing economies, still have no access to the internet; 250 million fewer women are online than men.

Public and private investment will be essential to support technological adoption and close digital gender gaps. Finland’s approach to ensuring universal access to broadband connectivity, digital education for all, and digital access to business and government services is a good example of a comprehensive approach to closing the gender digital divide.

Third, easing transitions for displaced workers: Given that female workers face a particularly high risk of being displaced through automation, it will be essential to ensure equal support for displaced men and women through labor market policies to improve skills, connect workers with jobs, and promote job creation.

Social protection systems will also need to adapt to more flexible forms of work, such as telework. To address deteriorating income security associated with rapid technological change, some advanced economies may consider expanding noncontributory pensions and adopting basic income guarantees.

Recent decades have seen considerable progress in leveling the playing field for economic opportunities, but much more work remains to be done. The good news is that countries across the globe have embraced the imperative for gender equality.

Policymakers, governments, and corporations now recognize the benefits for economic growth and development of giving women equal opportunities, and they are seeking to improve their policies and practices in this area.

The IMF is committed to working with other international organizations, governments, civil society organizations, and the private sector to reduce barriers to gender equality by providing policy advice and analysis.

The post Closing the Gender Gap: The Economic Benefits of Bringing more Women into the Labour Force appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Era Dabla-Norris is a division chief in the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department, and Kalpana Kochhar is director of the IMF’s Human Resources Department.

The post Closing the Gender Gap: The Economic Benefits of Bringing more Women into the Labour Force appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 19 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations has vowed to eradicate extreme hunger and malnutrition on a self-imposed deadline of 2030.

But it is facing a harsh realty where human-induced climate change – including flash floods, droughts, heatwaves, typhoons and landslides– is increasingly threatening agriculture, which also provides livelihoods for over 40 per cent of the global population.

In an interview with IPS, Dr. Hans R. Herren, President of the Washington-based Millennium Institute, said while agriculture remains the single largest employer on a global scale, it is even more so “when we talk about the entire food system– from production to consumption.”

It is worth to note, he pointed out, that the people employed along the food value chain, are the least well paid, with farmers, and many in the food preparation industry, among the least paid and poorest members of society.

Dr. Hans R. Herren – President Millennium Institute

“We do have a structural problem in agriculture, with a number of blockages (see report of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food System (IPES) titled “From Uniformity to Diversity “ 2016) which hamper the transformation in the food system and would allow for more equity as well a better food quality, accessibility, in all regions of the world.”

This is important given that climate change is a major challenge to agricultural production, in all parts of the world, with increasing impact in already food-challenged areas in many sub-tropical and tropical areas of the world, said Dr Herren, who is also President and Founder of the Biovision Foundation for Ecological Development.

The United Nations admits that significant changes are needed in the global food and agriculture system if we are to nourish the hungry.

“In our world of plenty”, says UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “one person in 9 does not have enough to eat while about 820 million people still suffer from hunger”.

Speaking at the Fourth Environment Assembly in Nairobi March 14, Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed said the newest 5G technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) “can help build smarter agricultural systems, energy efficient buildings, more connected energy grids and give us real time information to better respond to climate-induced natural disasters.”

But how close, or how far away, are we from this goal?

“Real-time information about weather patterns increases crop productivity, improving both food yields and economic security.”

The opportunities that these new technologies will create for climate action are immense, she said, pointing out that they do come with potential risks.

“5G is projected to use twice as much energy as we consume for today’s digital networks. This is concerning for a world that needs to lower emissions – not grow them.”

But governments must ask digital and internet companies to power their new infrastructure and data centers with clean energy and cool the centers with waste water, she said.

The new technology reality will require us to plan ahead – and invest differently, she added.

Asked if the UN’s much-publicized Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which calls for the eradication of extreme hunger and malnutrition by 2030, is realistic, Dr Herren said: ““Yes, Goal number 2 is achievable within the 2030 time period given for the SDGs.”

“However, (it will) not, if one continues to invest in short term projects, that may boost production in the short term, but jeopardies it in the medium and long term, by destroying soils, loosing biodiversity and ruining farmers with dependencies on external inputs and government subsidies.”

He said there is enough food to nourish the world population by 2050, projected at some 9.0 billion people.

“Today we do produce already enough for such a population, and the problem is less the quantity than the access. We overproduce and waste lots of food in the developed world, while in the countries in transition, farmers are being neglected,” said Dr Herren,

He said it has been easier for their governments to import subsidized, cheap food from overseas rather than help the local farmers produce the needed food.

“I have 30 years of experience in Africa, and know that farmers there can produce sufficient affordable and quality food for all. This with some R&D (research & development) support, market access and also more investments in infrastructure along the food value chain”.

With these investments, he noted, one would also create quality jobs, raise income levels and support economic, social development.

With the right agricultural practices, such as agroecology– not the green revolution approach that is still promoted by the Gates Foundation, USAID, the World Bank and other development agencies– one would promote the change needed to make agriculture the engine of growth, the solution, not the problem when it comes to climate change, and support good health and prosperity for the people in countries in transition.

“We are not too far off, but still need a dramatic and urgent transformation toward agroecology if we want to have solutions that are truly sustainable and in line with achieving the sustainable development goals (SDG),” said Dr Herren.

He said the UN’s “ Agriculture at a Crossroads” Report, which he co-chaired, suggested a transformation of the conventional and industrial agriculture model towards agroecology, organic, permaculture and other forms of sustainable agriculture, but the blockages mentioned in the IPES report have been standing in the transformation’s way.

Excerpts from the interview:

IPS: The 2018 annual report of the State of Food Security and Nutrition identifies climate change as a key force behind the ongoing rise in global hunger. How much of damage could be inflicted by extreme weather conditions on food and agriculture in the foreseeable future?

Dr HERREN: Climate Change (CC) is the most important threat to food production, and must both be mitigated and adapted to. Agriculture can be a key element in mitigation, by sequestering carbon underground, but this is only possible with organic/agroecology based agriculture.

These forms of agriculture bring resilience into the system, because they are diverse, deal with the soil and in harmony with the local environment. They do not use external inputs based on fossil energy, and so are CC neutral in the worst case, and CC positive at their best, when practiced with all the science that has been developed already to support them.

To ignore CC and the impact on agricultural production, by continuing the promotion of the green revolution model, with synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and GMOs is criminal, this knowing that alternatives exist and are feasible at all.

IPS: Has there been enough investments in infrastructure and technology to improve agricultural productivity – particularly in the developing world, and more so in Africa? If not, why is this lacking?

Dr HERREN: No, there is a lack of R&D investments by governments, same story in the, so called, developed world actually. We need to reinvent the agriculture and food system research and extension infrastructure, which remains mostly stuck in the green revolution paradigm, of solving all problems with chemicals and plant breeding, GMOs today.

Agriculture is very dependent on local ecological factors, so research has also to be done close and with the farmers, a change in the way one does R&D. It is the role of government mostly, with some support from the private sector to assure that good science and without patents is made available to the farmers…not the other way around as is the case now, where development agencies and major foundations are dictating what is good for the farmers.

IPS: In the foreseeable future, there are predictions that food in itself may be treated as a medicine— healthy eating patterns like the Mediterranean diet focusing on nuts, fruits, olive oil and vegetables—to fight diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Is this feasible in a distant future?

Dr HERREN: What is needed is a healthy production system, which produces healthy food, residue free and rich in nutrients. This food can only come from organic and agroecologically produced food. Most of the food produced via green revolution methods, that include all the synthetic fertilizers and pesticides for crops, feed and fibers, growth hormones and antibiotic in animal production are unhealthy, lead to cancer and chronic diseases that are burdening already bankrupt governments around the world, with health care costs totally out of control.

Therefore, and also because on the health of the planet, a change in the food system is urgently needed. The change can be done, we can produce enough quality food everywhere on the planet to satisfy everyone’s needs (but not greed, as Mahatma Gandhi so rightfully said).

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post Climate Change: a Threat to Agriculture & UN’s Goal to Eradicate Hunger appeared first on Inter Press Service.

An estimated 40 million people were living in modern slavery around the world in 2016, and women and girls are disproportionately affected. Credit: Adil Siddiqi/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 19 2019 (IPS)

Modern slavery and human trafficking is one of the fastest growing criminal industries and one of the biggest human rights crises today, United Nations and government officials said.

During an event as part of the annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), government officials, UN human rights experts, and civil society representatives came together to discuss the staggering trends in human trafficking as well as steps forward in the fight against modern slavery.

“Given that slavery was officially abolished in the 19th century and pretty much every country in the world has outlawed it, the trends are really alarming,” Liechtenstein’s Ambassador to the UN Christian Wenaweser told IPS.

“Modern slavery is one of the defining human rights crisis of our time… it is very much an international and transnational phenomenon so we can do this together. We have to tackle it together,” he added.

An estimated 40 million people were living in modern slavery around the world in 2016, and women and girls are disproportionately affected.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), 71 percent of victims of modern slavery are female.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that out of the detected trafficking victims, 49 percent are women and 23 percent are girls.

The vast majority of victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation, while others are exploited for forced labor and forced marriage.

“The gender dimensions of the practice cannot be ignored. Modern slavery and human trafficking constitutes gender-based violence against women and girls… gender inequality is a both a cause and a consequence of this phenomenon,” said Australia’s Minister for Women Kelly O’Dwyer.

Panelists also noted that women and girls are especially vulnerable to exploitations in situations of armed conflict.

Nadia Murad, who was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and is UNODC’s Goodwill Ambassador, was among thousands of Yazidi women who were kidnapped by the Islamic State (IS).

Many are forced to be sex slaves, and reports found that IS even uses social media sites such as Facebook to sell Yazidi women as sex slaves.

While Murad was able to escape, an estimated 3,000 Yazidi women and girls are still enslaved.

In Nigeria, Boko Haram has also kidnapped women and girls for the purposes of sexual slavery and forced marriage. A report by the Henry Jackson Society found that Boko Haram members would impregnate women in order to produce the “next generation of fighters.”

“Boko Haram’s fighters do not capture people, their standard procedure was to kill the men and treat the women and children as booty to be bargained over and sold for profit,” said Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten.

“These examples show that trafficking and sexual violence, including sexual slavery, are not just incidental but systematic, institutionalised and strategic,” she added.

However, new international initiatives are underway to fight modern slavery and human trafficking including some by the financial sector.

“That which we walk by, we endorse. I think that’s really critical for all of us, especially in the financial sector itself that while we may not actively participate in trafficking, if we walk by or turn a blind eye…then in a sense we are endorsing it,” said the Commissioner of the Financial Sector Commission against Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Frederick Reynolds.

Ambassador Wenaweser also highlighted the role of the financial sector, stating: “Modern slavery is essentially the economic exploitation of people. You make people into a commodity and you make a lot of money, so the role of the financial institutions is really key.”

Globally, modern slavery generates 150 billion dollars annually.

In fact, one of the major drivers behind sexual trafficking is revenue.

According to the Henry Jackson Society, IS alone generated up to 30 million dollars in 2016 through abductions. As the group struggles to finance its operations due to the decrease in revenues from other sources such as oil sales and taxation, modern slavery may increase.

The Financial Sector Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking hopes to combat this illicit industry.

Also known as the Liechtenstein Initiative, the Commission is a public-private partnership that brings together leaders from the financial sector, civil society, as well as survivors to find innovative ways to end modern slavery including through anti-trafficking compliance and responsible investment.

“We have chosen this because we are a financial center…and we wanted to put the expertise of our financial centre to a positive and constructive use,” Ambassador Wenaweser told IPS.

In September 2019, the initiative will provide a roadmap with actionable steps and concrete tools for the financial sector.

While the financial sector alone cannot solve the complex issue, Reynolds noted that they are a key part of the solution and highlighted crucial actions such as the increased exchange of information between the financial sector and law enforcement.

Patten pointed to the need to address root causes of human trafficking including gender discrimination as well as the importance of a survivor-centred approach.

“[Survivors’] testimonies can inform and strengthen our responses to improve prevention…Women and girls cannot be reduced to currency in the political economy of armed conflict and terrorism. They cannot be bartered, traded, trafficked..because their sexual and reproductive rights are non negotiable,” she said.

The post Fighting the World’s Largest Criminal Industry: Modern Slavery appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Riana Group.

The post Fighting the World’s Largest Criminal Industry: Modern Slavery appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Climate change and a lack of care for the environment could have devastating consequences for Saint Lucia’s healthy ecosystems and rich biodiversity. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Alison Kentish
CASTRIES, Mar 18 2019 (IPS)

In 2015, the Caribbean was “the region that could” on the climate change scene. Countries rallied under the ‘1.5 to Stay Alive’ banner, in the face of an existential threat. The now former Sustainable Development Minister of Saint Lucia Dr. James Fletcher emerged as a climate change champion at the time. But now, three years on, the scientist is giving regional climate action a C- in an assessment.

“We had tremendous momentum going into Paris. We had everyone engaged; journalists, civil society, the Caribbean Youth Environment Network and artistes. Now, it’s as if having achieved the Paris agreement, we patted ourselves on our shoulders, said job well done and dropped some of the enthusiasm,” he told IPS.
Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): What are your thoughts on developments since leading a team of negotiators to the Paris Talks?

Dr. James Fletcher (JF): We have excellent Caribbean negotiators and they continue to ensure that we preserve the things we fought so hard for, such as loss and damage in the agreement and the 1.5.

Last year, the tabling of the special 1.5 report was an important development but we did not seem to have much success in getting the COP to formally recognise the report. The language spoke about ‘noting’ rather than ‘embracing and endorsing’ the recommendations. That was disappointing.

The biggest disappointment, however, is the disengagement of the political apparatus. Going into Paris, we had the engagement of the Caribbean’s political apparatus.

We had the CARICOM chairman, who at the time was Prime Minister of Barbados Freundel Stuart. CARICOM Secretary General Irwin LaRocque was present and so was the former Prime Minister of Saint Lucia Dr. Kenny Anthony, who had responsibility for climate change. We had leaders who were engaged, stayed with us, helped to develop momentum in talking to people like Ban Ki Moon, the then Secretary General of the United Nations and former U.S. President Barack Obama, to ensure that we had political support.

That political engagement has stopped, not just at the level of heads of government, but also at the ministerial level. You don’t see that coalition of Caribbean ministers speaking strongly, with one voice, on climate change anymore and we’ve lost as a result.

Dr. James Fletcher (second from left), with Jamaican artistes and the Director General of the OECS Commission Dr. Didacus Jules (far right) celebrate the success of the 1.5 to Stay Alive Campaign during the Paris Climate Talks. Courtesy: Dr. James Fletcher

IPS: At the highest levels, how can we improve the climate change discussion?

JF: Unfortunately, we’ve changed the narrative to one just on climate finance. When our ministers, prime ministers and Saint Lucia’s prime minister, who has responsibility for climate change, speak, they speak almost exclusively about mobilising climate finance. Finance is extremely important, but not the only thing that we should be agitating for. If we cannot get industrialised countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to get us closer to 1.5 degrees Celsius, it doesn’t matter what level of climate financing we mobilise, we will not be able to stay ahead. We’ll have catastrophic impacts that no amount of money will help mitigate.

IPS: Do you think the realities of the last few hurricane seasons have made people more aware of the realities of climate change?

JF: Absolutely. Caribbean civil society is clued in to climate change. It’s heartening when I walk around and people tell me, ‘Every time we hear about climate change we think of the work that you guys did,’ and ‘This is serious, what are we going to do?’

Hurricanes Maria and Irma brought home climate change in a very real way to Dominica, the British Virgin Islands and other islands. People understand how dramatic and catastrophic climate change can be.
Fishers tell you that the fish catch is not what it used to be. They have to go much further out now to catch the pelagic [fish] that they were used to catching and are not getting the catches that they used to. In many different ways and sectors, people are experiencing climate change.

IPS: You are assisting Dominica to build climate resilience. How important is a body like the Climate Resilience Execution Agency of Dominica (CREAD)?

JF: The prime minister, in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria made a bold statement that he would make Dominica the first climate-resilient country in the world. CREAD is the vehicle to get that done.

I was asked to stay on to develop the Dominica Climate Resilience and Recovery Plan, which is the overarching plan out of which CREAD’s work plan flows. It’s the blueprint for how Dominica will become climate resilient. It’s based on three pillars; prudent disaster risk management, building resilient systems and effective disaster response and recovery, understanding that Dominica, like other Caribbean islands, will be impacted by hurricanes. With climate change, warmer oceans, warmer temperatures, you will have more severe hurricanes. At some point, every one of us will be in a position where we will have to recover from a hurricane or major storm.

IPS: Caribbean countries are pushing renewable energy programmes. Are you happy with what you are seeing?

JF: I think we could have done more, particularly in Saint Lucia. We should have had a 12 megawatt (MW) wind farm. We dropped the ball and, unfortunately, when the government tried to pick up that ball, the investor died in a tragic plane accident. I’ve been informed that the government, along with the Saint Lucia Electricity Services (LUCELEC), is trying to reactivate those discussions with another partner.

The commissioning of a 3.2 MW solar farm by LUCELEC is a step in the right direction. LUCELEC is hoping to build more utility-scale solar photovoltaic facilities with battery storage. The price of solar is going down and hopefully the price of battery storage will also go down.

The window for geothermal is closing. The cheaper solar and battery storage get, the more unattractive geothermal will become, because geothermal is a risky proposition. ….Dominica has made some serious inroads there, as has St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We’re a bit behind the curve, but hopefully Saint Lucia can get some test wells drilled and see what potential there is.

IPS: Is there any project that you would like to see undertaken?

JF: We planned on replacing 21,000 high pressure sodium street lights that cost the government around 11 million dollars annually, with LED lights…..we had a project with the Caribbean Development bank through blended financing…..we would be able to reduce the spend on electricity from streetlights to five million dollars. That project, for some reason, the government decided not to pursue, to the chagrin of the CDB because they were going to use Saint Lucia as a pilot.

The second one involves energy legislation. We’ve done quite a bit of work as we have an Electricity Supply Act that basically gives LUCELEC a monopoly for the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. That makes it impossible for any independent power producer to come in and get involved in the generation of electricity from renewable sources…… for some reason this has stalled. I really would like to see that legislation come into parliament this year.

The post Q&A: Caribbean Losing Momentum on Climate Change and Concerted Action is Needed appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Piped water has made life easier for this boy, who no longer has to help his parents fetch water from afar. Credit: Vannaphone Sitthirath/IPS

By Monika Weber-Fahr
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Mar 18 2019 (IPS)

I am drafting this on International Women’s Day – March 8 – with an eye towards World Water Day on March 22. On International Women’s Day we celebrate progress in gender equality. At the same time, we recognize how much remains to be done: how many women remain excluded from decision-making across many professions. Changing this is urgent. Water – clean and accessible – is getting scarcer at an alarming rate. While working to change this, we cannot afford to exclude women.

The water community has made political statements on gender equality, going back to 1992 when the Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development included Principle #3, affirming that “Women play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water.” Was this merely lip service? A developing world woman carry a jug of water on her head remains a stubborn image of women and water. To be sure, this image points to a daily tragedy: the fact that hundreds of millions of people do not have a convenient source of water, and that women and girls spend hours each day collecting water, losing productive time and opportunities, and living in fear for their safety. Like others, Global Water Partnership (GWP) commends the people and organisations that provide infrastructure to bring clean water nearer to communities.

GWP Executive Secretary Dr. Monika Weber-Fahr

It’s kind of simple, but not often applied: “Nothing about them without them” as we say in the Gender Action Piece. Easy to remember.

The principle applies to all water management. Getting our water resources back in shape is a huge task – rivers and aquifers need attention so they can provide the water we need to grow the crops that will feed our growing population, the water we need for growing cities, the water we need for growing industries. We cannot afford to exclude anyone who uses water or who has a solution: the poor, youth, indigenous peoples – any minority may hold a key to the future of water.

Today’s World Water Day theme is “Leaving no one behind,” a theme designated by our close partners at UN-Water. Today, says UN-Water, “billions of people are still living without safe water – their households, schools, workplaces, farms and factories struggling to survive and thrive. Marginalized groups – women, children, refugees, indigenous peoples, disabled people and many others – are often overlooked, and sometimes face discrimination, as they try to access and manage the safe water they need.”

“Leaving no one behind” is the central promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. That agenda includes the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), one of which – Number 6 – is about water. Part of that goal zeros in on work that has been piloted by GWP and its thousands of member organizations: integrating water resources management across all people and organizations that have a stake in water. The genius of this approach is that it has always been about inclusion.

So how does one practice “integrated” water resources management? Again, kind of simple: to achieve efficient, equitable, and sustainable water management, all stakeholders must have genuine opportunities to actively participate in water management decisions. Only then can decisions be taken that reflect how we all value water – reflecting its social value, its economic value, and its environmental value. In fact, it is interesting to watch how decisions change once we grasp the true value of water – which happens when those sitting at the table represent the full, rich, spectrum of society. GWP sees this whenever our Country Water Partnerships convene stakeholders to debate such decisions.

GWP was recently evaluated for how we do our work. I was glad to see that the evaluation found our network to be of “unique breadth and depth” – providing us, the evaluators said, with singular “legitimacy and reputation.” How? By working as a ‘neutral’ convener of stakeholders, as a convener who speaks “nothing about them without them.”

There are only 12 years to go when all the SDGs should be achieved by 2030. That’s a huge challenge, requiring a massive transformation to the way we run our planet. There are many unsung heroes and heroines whose hard work, grit, and determination create a safe space for people to come together to build common ground for water management decisions, working with everyone, everywhere. Want to join us at the table?

The post It’s Simple, but Requires Determination appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Monika Weber-Fahr, is Executive Secretary of Global Water Partnership

The post It’s Simple, but Requires Determination appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Yash Bhandari
WISCONSIN, USA, Mar 18 2019 (IPS)

The U.N.’s World Water day is fast approaching as the state of the world’s consumable water supply remains dismal. Billions of people face at least the very real risk of scarcity, if they’re not facing scarcity already; and about a third of the world’s groundwater systems are in danger of becoming depleted.

With the Trump Administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in 2017, things are looking grimmer still. Several state governors, Republicans and Democrats both, and Puerto Rico have even ignored the federal withdrawal and pledged to uphold the agreement on a state level. So far, seventeen U.S. states have committed to upholding it. You can learn more about the U.S. Climate Alliance here.

Furthermore, in October of 2018, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report claiming that we have only 12 years to keep global temperatures to about 1.5C—if there is even a half a degree increase, it would likely exacerbate floods, droughts, extreme heat, and poverty, all of which will affect millions of people all around the world. The Paris Agreement, in theory, would prevent this from happening.

But Dr. Isaac Hankes—a meteorologist and a Weather Research Analyst at Refinitiv—has a different view. He claims that “the Paris climate agreement is as political as it is scientific, and even if fully embraced will not offset much more than about 0.1°C of warming.

This underscores the importance of personal action by anyone concerned about the effects of warming to make a difference by making energy-saving decisions. Such opportunity now exists in nearly all facets of a home, and actions as simple as installing LED light bulbs or smart power strips could easily supersede any slower-moving government action in offsetting emissions-based warming.”

This points to the necessity for individual action in the face of institutional opposition as well as institutional inefficacy. The problem is that in order for there to be individual action, there must be an impetus; in order for there to be an impetus, there must be, at base, awareness.

A recent survey conducted by Rockay—an eco-conscious manufacturer of running apparel—reveals that awareness is exactly what more than half of Americans lack on the issue of climate change. Conducted online via 3GEM RESEARCH & INSIGHTS, the survey polled 1500 American adults, ranging from ages 18 to 55+. The findings were surprising.

For example, when the responders were asked if global warming will have deleterious effects in their own lifetime, the results were split. 34% answered they did indeed believe that there will be a global-warming-induced impact in their own lifetime; about the same percentage answered the opposite, with 7% claiming that global warming was a “hoax” outright.

Additionally, 32% seemed to be more ambivalent about the issue, answering “kind of,” pointing to an acknowledgment of a fundamental lack of awareness.

This same lack of awareness manifests itself in what is perhaps a more pernicious way. When asked the question, “Are you aware of the Paris Agreement and what it entails?” a whopping 56% of respondents answered “no.” Remember, the Paris Agreement is designed to, in theory, mitigate or even prevent entirely floods and droughts and extreme heat that are set to upend the lives of millions of people worldwide.

Remember too, that politically, the Agreement is a hot topic, creating rifts between politicians, government agencies, and even among nations on how to proceed.

Given this, it’s probably fair to say that climate change, and perhaps even foreign affairs, just isn’t on the mind of most Americans. At least not in any potent sort of way.

In fact, when the respondents were asked about how often they actually spoke about global warming with their friends and family—effectively gauging their level of concern—a tepid 14% said they “often” do. By contrast, 50% responded that they “rarely” or “never” do.

The significance of these findings is potentiated by two assumptions.

The first is that the Paris Agreement alone may not be as effective as would be ideal. The second is that the true solution lies in effectuating a change in the habits of individuals, rather than of entities.

Rockay’s survey indicates that actually succeeding in effectuating this habitual change in individuals is difficult due in part to the fact that these individuals generally have no awareness that there is actually a problem to solve, and thus they have no impetus to change.

To combat this, Rockay urges people to start small, with something easy that has potential to not just combat climate change, but water wastage as well: laundry. You can read more about the why and how here.

The hope is to raise awareness of the facts and trust that the collective consciousness will evolve to reflect them. Because only then would the earth and its inhabitants stand a chance.

The post US Survey Finds Lack of Awareness on Global Warming appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Yash Bhandari is research editor at Rockay, a clothing manufacturer that focuses on the exclusive use of eco-friendly and recyclable materials

The post US Survey Finds Lack of Awareness on Global Warming appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Masood Ahmed
WASHINGTON DC, Mar 18 2019 (IPS)

All incoming World Bank presidents bring a public record of their views about the bank and about development more generally. David Malpass, who is on track to become the bank’s next president, has not been shy in criticizing the role and management of the institution he now plans to lead.

The commentary on his nomination has detailed how his vision of the World Bank’s role and his reservations about multilateral solutions to global development challenges are at odds with the views of the bank’s shareholders and staff and—most importantly—with the needs of its clients, developing countries.

Past statements need not predetermine the direction of the Malpass presidency. Through his initial pronouncements and actions, Mr. Malpass can demonstrate that he is now the leader and guardian of an organization of 189 member countries acting together to achieve shared goals and promote common interests.

A good starting point would be for Mr. Malpass to acknowledge that the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate agreement provide a framework for action that most of the bank’s members have endorsed.

Recognizing the value added by multilateral, regional, and national development finance institutions acting as a system, not just in their own narrow interests, would also be an important step.

Here are the seven priorities for the World Bank that Mr. Malpass should consider endorsing in his initial statements and actions:

1. Support Africa’s development and integration into the world economy.

The central development challenge for the next two decades will be to help low-income Africa deal with its demographic, environmental, and developmental challenges. The success or failure of this endeavor will determine the future of the 2.5 billion people who will inhabit the continent by 2050—with major spillovers for every other region in an increasingly interconnected world.

The World Bank is already the largest multilateral financier of Africa’s development, but it can play an even stronger role to facilitate a more coherent approach by Africa’s other large development partners—including the European Union and China. In doing so, it needs to promote and finance country platforms for joined up development support and recognize that much of this development will come from private sector initiative.

2. Target the people left behind.

Development progress is always uneven. Even as countries move up to middle-income status, women, minorities, and disadvantaged regions disproportionately suffer from disease that is simple to prevent; struggle with basic numeracy and literacy, which is simple to teach; and lack human security that is taken for granted elsewhere.

And the transition from below to just above the poverty line is both fraught with challenges and easily reversed. More broadly, two billion people live in countries where sustainable development outcomes are affected by fragility, conflict, and violence, making delivering on the SDGs an intellectual and operational challenge.

Jim Kim—Mr. Malpass’s immediate predecessor—helpfully pushed the bank further into these spaces and Mr. Malpass would do well to confirm the institution’s continued focus on this agenda.

3. Help middle income developing countries make the right development choices.

Emerging markets and middle-income developing countries will increasingly drive global growth. The sustainability of their new infrastructure will define how livable our planet will be for the next century. Their economic success will provide markets for global exports and jobs around the globe.

The policy and investment decisions they make will impact our collective financial and environmental future. It would be a missed opportunity of historic proportions for the World Bank to watch these developments from the sidelines. It has a critical advisory and financing role in middle-income countries—not least as a catalyst for private finance.

Working with these countries also provides the bank with hands-on knowledge of development progress on the ground—knowledge that is essential for the bank to be a credible intellectual interlocuter for its low-income members.

So, it is important for Mr. Malpass to signal that focusing the bank’s financial support on where it has the most impact is not shorthand for pulling back from the vibrant partnership it enjoys with middle-income countries.

4. Mainstream work on global public goods.

Any number of knowledgeable observers, including a high-level group convened by the Center of Global Development (CGD) and an Eminent Persons Group set up by the G-20, have convincingly articulated why the challenge of development cannot be met without addressing problems—and opportunities—that span across countries in an increasingly interconnected world.

Whether it is preparing for the next pandemic; dealing with climate change; managing the ever-increasing flow of refugees; establishing an international tax regime that limits avoidance through tax havens; or coping with the regulatory and ethical challenges posed by big data, AI, and digital technology; action will need to be coordinated across countries and regions.

The Bank for good reasons, the bank has progressively become a major player in a number of these areas, but it still does this as an add-on to its main business, which continues to be organized around country-by-country lending.

Shareholders have not helped by creating a plethora of special facilities and trust funds that the bank manages on their behalf, which sometimes subvert the very priorities that they set for the institution when they meet in its the board to set strategy.

Mr. Malpass has the opportunity to rationalize the bank’s work on global public goods and to make this a core part of the Bank’s regular operations.

5. Be an active player in the debate on development pathways for the 21st century.

Every retrospective evaluation of the World Bank’s value add emphasizes the intellectual contribution it has made to furthering development thought and practice. That role is even more important given the widespread questioning of so much of what was taken as “good practice” in development cooperation.

Many countries are looking to China as the new model for shaping their own economic development strategy, and, no doubt, there is much to learn from China’s extraordinary journey over the past 50 years.

However, it is the World Bank as a global organization that should provide the home for discussing which of those lessons can be usefully emulated by others. Learning from China should be part of the World Bank’s intellectual agenda—not an alternative to it.

6. Engage actively with the other players who finance development.

Regional development banks are sometimes bigger players in their regions, national development banks are an underestimated force, and private foundations are major actors for driving innovation and a results-focus.

Private finance will be the key for making real the aspiration of ‘billions to trillions’ for development finance. Civil society provides ideas and holds the system accountable. The WB has a special role in making the development finance system be more than the sum of its parts. Mr Malpass needs to approach this task with serious commitment and a degree of humility. The results will be well worth the effort.

7. Don’t move around the boxes!

Every incoming president is tempted to reorganize the bank—partly to make it “their bank” and partly out of a genuine desire to make the machine work better. While no organizational structure is without its shortcomings, the cost of reorganization is often grossly underestimated.

The dust is only just beginning to settle on Jim Kim’s badly implemented and long drawn out reorganization; the last thing that an incoming president should do is embark on another round of moving boxes around.

Nor is this the moment for a wholesale changing of the guard at the senior leadership level just to show there is a new sheriff in town. The organization will deliver more and better with a bit of stability and continuity, albeit with the nudges that Mr. Malpass will want to give to align it better with his own vision.

The World Bank’s role as a multilateral development organization cannot be completely insulated from tensions among its major shareholders. Mr. Malpass comes from an administration that sees the World Bank as an instrument in a broader stand-off with China’s growing influence.

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing him will be to demonstrate that he has now moved to lead a multilateral organization that can be a “zone of mutual interest” where, with the cooperation and trust of all shareholders, he can advance global development goals that are in the interest of all.

The post Seven Challenges for US Nominee for World Bank President appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Masood Ahmed is President of the Washington-based Centre for Global Development (CGD) & former Vice President, Poverty Reduction & Economic Management, at the World Bank

The post Seven Challenges for US Nominee for World Bank President appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Mar 18 2019 (IPS)

EU Parliament elections take place every fifth year and votes have steadily been decreasing. In the last 2014 election, the overall turnout was 42.54 percent of those entitled to vote, in some nations it was just around fifteen percent. Nevertheless, results will not only be eagerly awaited by pro- and anti-EU activists, but also by ideologist from non-member countries. Particularily vociferous among such people are Steve Bannon, who wants to “Make America Great Again” and Aleksandr Dugin who wants to “Make Russia Great Again”.

Bannon, former Chief Strategist in the Trump administration, has identified “EU globalism” as his main enemy, “if I drive the stake through the vampire, the whole thing will start to dissipate.” To that end he has in Brussels founded The Movement to support right-wing populist groups opposing the EU. However, the initiative has so far not been particularily successful. It is hard to unite nationalistic secessionists. Marine Le Pen´s right-wing party Rassemblement national constitutes the biggest section of Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), a EU parliamentary group comprising far-right parties from across Europe. In spite of agreeing with most of Bannon´s ideas Le Pen does not want his support: “He is an American, not European and can thus not play a leading role in a nationalist drive to save the real Europe.” She would probably state that neither can a Russian like Aleksandr Dugin.

Describing himself as the only “ideologue” Donald Trump listens to, Bannon might nevertheless be a useful ally for European far-right wingers. He has his tentacles all over the world and did for example tell Brexiter Nigel Farage: “You’re going to have to fight to take your country back, every day. Whether it’s Italy, France, England, or the United States. If we quit, they [the Liberals] are going to be in control.””

Even if he has been called Putin´s Rasputin, Dugin has probably not the same hold on his President as Bannon has on Trump. Yet, after criticizing him for “ignoring ideas and history”, Dugin later became convinced that Putin had improved and now declares that the President´s later speeches are inspired by Dugin´s ideology and he hails Putin as an incarnated tsar:

There are no longer any opponents to Putin’s line and if they exist, they are mentally ill and should be clinically examined. Putin is everywhere. Putin is everything. Putin is absolute. Putin is irreplaceable.

Bannon might agree, since he repeatedly has acclaimed Putin´s intelligence and pointed out that the Russian President shares his views of traditionalism and nationalism: “Putin is very, very, very intelligent. I can see this in the United States where he strongly reaches out to social conservatives with his message about more traditional values.” Bannon would probably also agree with Dugin when the Russian “philosopher” exposes opinions like:

The so-called ideology of human rights inherently refuses to recognize any kind of collective identity, including that of nationality and citizenship. Hence, we see provoked and uncontrolled migration, refugees, European self-hatred. The EU will necessarily continue the same politics of immigration, promoting transgenderism, transhumanism, postmodernity, and so on. If Trump would become the real Trump and not a puppet, America could play a positive role, though currently it is not Trump’s America, but rather an aggressive neocolonialist and interventionist country. Trump has been hijacked by neocons and fanatical groups who are trying to start a global war.

Is an ideologue like Dugin really capable of influencing European politics? Maybe. Recently, the Italian weekly L´Espresso provided an example of Russian alleged covert support to a nationalistic party.¹ By following tracks left by the Russian oligarch Igor Rotenberg, who had avoided paying off huge Italian debts, L´Espresso unveiled a complicated pattern of suspicious bank accounts in tax havens and well-known banks. Igor is the son of Putin´s close friend and judo instructor Arkady Rotenberg. Arkady and his brother Boris gained billions of rubles through lucrative state contracts; like a new highway between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, huge building projects in Sochi, a bridge between Kertj on Crimea and Krasnodar Kraj, which with its 18 kilometres is Europe´s longest. The Rotenberg brothers also invest in real estate abroad. Due to their economic support to the war in Ukraine they were blacklisted by the US and the EU. Like many other oligarchs they have found various means to circumscribe the sanctions, one is covert support to European populist parties.²

The Rotenberg family has interests in Gazprom, Russia´s biggest, mainly state-owned company, though it is also supported by oligarchs close to Putin, among whom we find Konstantin Malofeev. He is not only a wealthy man providing economic support to the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbass, he has a life mission as well – fighting “moral disintegration” in the form of atheism, liberalism, feminism, abortion, immigration and homosexuality. Malofeev supports several European fringe groups, as well as established xenophobic political parties.

In July 2018, Italy’s Supreme Court ordered the nationalist party Lega Nord to repay 49 million euros misappropriated from the Italian State, while freezing 1.5 million euros deposited in Lega Nord’s bank accounts. The ruling might be withdrawn and the party assets released if Lega Nord begins to repay the embezzled funds. According to L´Espresso Matteo Salvini, leader of Lega Nord, as well as Italy´s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior has with Konstantin Malofeev worked out a scheme meaning that Lega Nord will receive a four percent commission from the sale of 3 million tons of diesel administered by Malofeev´s Avangrad Oil & Gas.

Aleksandr Dugin is assumed to have played an important part in the deal. His influential foundation Edinenie, Unity, is headquartered at the same address as Konstantin Malofeev’s company. Dugin is a frequent visitor to Italy and serves as a contact with Malofeev. His involvement is more ideologically than financially motivated. He considers Italian culture to be opposed to “detrimental influences” from the US and has declared that “Italy will be at the forefront of a great populist revolution that will change the world.” What Dugin probably refers to is Lega Nord`s “achievements”, like turning away immigrants and asylum seekers. He also appreciates that Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte from the beginning of his term has promoted a foreign policy characterized by an increasing rapprochement of Italy with Russia. He has advocated termination of international sanctions, which according to him is damaging to Italian economy and has offered Russia a strategic partnership in the fight against Islamist terrorism.

Bannon is also a great friend of Italy and as a conservative Catholic he would probably agree with Dugin´s declaration that:

We nationalists want a strong, stable state. We want order and healthy families, positive values and a strengthening of the influence of religion and the Church.

However, Bannon´s piousness and earnest belief in “family values” might be questioned. He has been married and divorced three times and his ex-wives have accused him of misdemeanour, domestic violence and battery. Bannon considers Pope Francis’s influence as detrimental to the “true” Catholic Church and has in Italy joined ranks with ultra-conservative Catholics who actively oppose Pope Francis, among others Istituto Dignitatis Humanae, a faction that within the Catholic establishment attempts to undermine the Pope’s position with the hope that he will resign.

Whatever we may think of Dugin´s and Bannon´s influence over the leaders of their respective nations and their nutty ideas, based on ultra-nationalistic nativism, fascist ideologies, Oriental mysticism and conspiracy theories, it cannot be denied that they in Europe, Russia and the US are influencing nationalist and xenophobic movements. An effort to counteract these dangerous notions would be to vote in the upcoming EU Parliament elections.

¹ L´Espresso No. 9, anno LXV, 24 febbraio.
² In 2018, Forbes Magazine estimated Arkady Rotenberg´s personal wealth to 2,7 billion USD.

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

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Excerpt:

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.”
                                                       Polonius in Hamlet

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Words cannot express adequately the pain and anguish we feel at the heinous attacks in New Zealand. We share the anguish of our fellow Muslims at those who have orchestrated such diabolical carnage in a place of prayer. As husbands, fathers and grandfathers, both of us can only imagine the pain and suffering felt by the families affected by this tragedy. In the weeks and months ahead, we must all stand together and raise aloft those values that must form the core of Islamic belief that we share with People of the Book– compassion, respect and dignity. If we fail in this, then terror is victorious.

Those ideologues and demagogues who set themselves above the rights of man and the laws of God have no place in our world, no matter who their victims or what their ideologies are. Their targets reflect the increasing polarisation of people worldwide, where hatred and fear can be spread and exacerbated at the click of a mouse, and where atrocities are streamed live for the voyeuristic thrills of criminal extremists and white supremacists. If it is true that ‘evil only wins when good people do nothing’, then let us now raise our collective voices, both Christians and Muslims alike, in repulsion and condemnation of these attacks.

Let us move away from the insidious culture that allows everyday hatred to creep into how we think about each other. Let us remember that it is empathy and not ethnicity that creates a community. Let us instead focus our thoughts on the shared humanity, which ties us to each other more deeply than any superficial differences might suggest.

We echo the words of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who spoke about the ostracisation of immigrants and the Muslim community. “They are us,” she said and we would add, “and we are you.

This is a time not only for good government, but more importantly, for good governance. We must face up to the divisions blighting our world. We must all work together to defeat hatred and give hope. This is not a mission of optimism, but one of necessity.

We may never properly come to terms with the senseless hatred that fuelled this outrage. However, we must offer our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims who lost their lives and our support to the wounded survivors of these attacks as they struggle to recover from the physical and mental trauma. Let us draw strength from our faith and our shared values. Most importantly, these terrible attacks must not be allowed to feed the hateful inhumanity of the few. Rather, these images of death and destruction must strengthen our compassion and elevate our common humanity. Instead of retribution and prolonged vitriolic responses, let us call now for peace and decency, standing together as one. When all is said and done, our conscience may question, “What part did I play? Did I help or was I part of the problem?” Now is the time to cling onto our shared ideals, our hopes and to the ties that bind us all, no matter where we come from or who we are. Now we work to overcome this darkness and remember that, in the words of Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.’

In these dark moments we wish to assure the peace-loving government and people of this exemplary nation that we are all New Zealanders.

*The signatories are HRH Prince Hassan Bin Talal of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Ambassador Idriss Jazairy, Executive Director of the Geneva Centre on Human Rights and Global Dialogue

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Thousands of youth gather in Rome on Friday, Mar. 15, to join the climate strike, a global movement that aims to make governments and institutions aware of taking serious steps to implement the Paris Agreements and save the planet. Credit: Maged Srour/IPS

By Maged Srour
ROME, Mar 16 2019 (IPS)

Friday, Mar. 15 saw hundreds of thousands of young people across the world take to the streets to join the climate strike. “We are demonstrating today for our planet and for our future. This is the place where we and those who come after us will live,” Jennifer, a 16-year-old girl from Rome, the Italian capital, who opted to join the protests, told IPS.

The climate strike has become a symbol of the global movement that aims to urge governments and institutions to take serious steps to implement the Paris Agreement and save the planet.

It is a unique voice that united over 125 countries in more than 2,000 places around the world. Protestors want to ensure that actions—which include reducing CO2 emissions, eliminating the use of plastics, promoting more sustainable agriculture—are wisely managed within the United Nations deadline of 2030. In a nutshell: take concrete action today to save the world of tomorrow.

Jennifer was following the example of Greta Thunberg, the Swedish 16-year-old girl who, without realising it, gave birth to a global movement. Indeed, this wave of youth activism began in August when Thunberg camped outside the Swedish parliament. She accused politicians of failing to uphold their commitments to fight climate change as agreed to under the Paris climate accord.

In a short time word of her civic engagement spread worldwide and the young Swedish teenager became an international celebrity who was invited to speak to climate negotiators in Poland in December, as well as to the global elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Thunberg has become an example for many young people across the world who have begun to organise themselves to promote similar initiatives. Her name has even been proposed to the Nobel Committee as a candidate for the Peace Prize. “We have nominated Greta because the climate threat may be one of the most important causes of war and conflict,” parliamentary representative Freddy Andre Oevstegaard said. “The mass movement that she has triggered is a very contribution to peace.”

Not only a responsibility of the youth

Although it was an event mostly organised by young people, some did not like the fact that adults are seemingly handing over the responsibility of caring for the planet to the youth. “Thanks to the efficiency of healthcare, those who are 60 years old today could still live for another 20 or 30 years. So it is not true that the future is ‘ours alone’. The future belongs to all of us,” another young protester in Rome told IPS.

Politics was not exempt from criticism.

“I think that this global ‘climate strike’ is important for the whole community because the environmental problem has a strong political component in it. If it is true that a lot is in the hands of individual initiatives and in the commitment of each of us, it is also true that there are mechanisms which are very complex and that can only be managed by politics,” Matteo Cappello, a naturalist from Sapienza University in Rome and specialised in environmental sciences and sustainable development, told IPS. “Not only ordinary young people and not only ordinary adults: responsibility must be universally shared and it obviously must include those who manage the decision-making processes,” he added.

The climate strike was embraced by a wide and varied audience in Rome. Among the mass of people, there were large numbers of teenagers and also university students, young workers, families and the elderly.

Lodovica Cattani, a graduate in Political Science who has been specialising in Arctic studies and sustainability, participated in the event not just as a citizen but also as a worker who aims to deal with these issues in her professional life.

“I am 28 years old and have been volunteering with the organisation Climate Reality Leaders for six years now, precisely because when I was in high school I could already see that global warming was becoming a problem and that we were going to see the results in the next decades to come. I felt there was need to be informed and take action,” she told IPS.

“The youth who have the power to succeed”

“In my opinion, the Earth has a spirit that occasionally manifests itself when it really cannot bear any more. This time it manifested itself in the form of Greta and of these thousands of young people,” Sandro, a 60-year-old farmer who came from Tarquinia, a town 100 km away from Rome, to demonstrate in the capital city, told IPS.

“I really hope that these young people will go ahead and continue to pursue their dream because it is truly in their hands. My generation is responsible for many of today’s environmental disasters and often has no open-mindedness or ability to reverse this course. It is young people who have all the potential to succeed.”

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Due to the saline water in the Khulna region, people suffer from a lack of pure drinking water. Shila Bawali and Suchitra Biswas set up a committee run by women to help the community. The purified water, generated by the reverse osmosis plant, will be available at a cheap rate to the people in their area. WaterAid, powered by the bank HSBC, is supporting this project in Dacope, Khulna, Bangladesh. Credit: WaterAid/ HSBC/ Drik/ Habibul Haque

By Jonathan Farr and Samia Mallik, WaterAid
LONDON / DHAKA, Mar 15 2019 (IPS)

The stakes are high for women when faced with a warming world – their livelihoods jeopardised by labour markets that tend to put men first, their family responsibilities increasing rapidly in the face of droughts and flooding, and politicians who refuse to acknowledge the challenges they face. The story of those living on the frontline of a harsher climate is simply not being heard.

Women commonly face higher risks and greater burdens from the impacts of climate change. Combined with the fact that climate change has a greater impact on people who are heavily dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods, women also have the least capacity to respond to increasingly severe natural disasters such as droughts, landslides, floods and cyclones. Despite this, and often because of this, it is women who are the drivers of adaptation to climate change.

By promoting their local knowledge of sustainable resource management, and leadership in sustainable practices at the household and community level, women are the innovators, entrepreneurs and pioneers when it comes to tackling climate change on a day-to-day basis. With this in mind, policies and projects should strive to not only involve women in decision-making and leadership processes for climate change mitigation, but put them in the driving seat to make the tough choices.

Shila Bawali working in her grocery shop in Dacope, Khulna, Bangladesh. Credit: WaterAid/ HSBC/ Drik/ Habibul Haque

In developing countries, there are many other examples of women’s inclusion at the local level, which have led to enhanced outcomes of climate-related projects and policies at a much wider often national level.

For example, in Dacope – a community in a climate-vulnerable region of Bangladesh where water resources are so heavily saline as to be poisonous. Children and adults of the community were suffering from skin allergies, stomach problems and water-borne diseases due to the daily consumption of unsafe water from their only water source – ponds and canals.

A group of women decided they could not stand by as their health and that of their families deteriorated due to lack of safe water. Things needed to change.

WaterAid and HSBC have been working partnership for four years in this region of Bangladesh helping to provide water, sanitation and hygiene services to many communities.

Shila Bawali along with her daughter inside her shop in Dacope, Khulna, Bangladesh. Credit: WaterAid/ HSBC/ Drik/ Habibul Haque

Through the project, mother-of-two, Shila Bawali, 35, successfully enlisted another 44 women into a committee called “Khona Khatail Mahila Samity” to start a fund for the installation of a reverse osmosis plant to purify their water.

This plant has started the water filtration process, which takes out the impurities out of the water and makes it safe for drinking. With this plant removing the salinity from ground water, it is now safe and pure to drink for the 1,300 people living in the village and also those from other communities at a very low-price. Shila plans to sell it to restaurants and cafes, so the water not only brings health benefits but improves her family’s economic outlook too.

And, as a number of the women are now trained with the essential skills to be able to maintain the water plant, it is sustainable and resilient to future climate pressures.

How does Shila feel about this success? She told WaterAid that she’s now incredibly optimistic about the future – she’s confident that life will be better, her children will be healthier, and she will be able to rely on her new source of clean water.

She is happy to serve the customers in her shop and is eager to see her own community blossoming with new hope.

Let’s applaud women like Shila who take control of their rightful destiny, and take on new challenges and risks in their hectic lives. Through their incredible drive and ambition, they can bring about lasting change to secure the future of their family and community in the face of climate change.

The post Women Take the Lead Tackling Climate Change in Bangladesh appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Jonathan Farr is WaterAid’s Senior Policy Analyst on water security & climate change, based in London & Samia Mallik is WaterAid Bangladesh’s Communications Officer, based in Dhaka.

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By Mark Baker
SOUTH CAROLINA, USA, Mar 15 2019 (IPS)

Those of us working in disaster relief know what to expect when a hurricane or earthquake strikes with devastating fury.

We know that safe water, food, and shelter will be the most immediate needs for survivors. And we have a good idea of the kind of wreckage we’ll see, although we never cease to be humbled and sobered by the tragic sights.

We also know that each crisis will offer unique challenges and opportunities that can inform our future relief work. At Water Mission, we respond to disasters because we care deeply about the people affected. As a result, we constantly seek to improve the efficiency, timeliness, and excellence of our work.

When Water Mission arrived in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria swept through the island, we were met with a different set of circumstances than we have seen in most other disaster contexts around the world.

As a U.S. territory, most communities did not need a new, central system for treating and distributing safe water. What they needed was power for their existing water and septic systems that were inoperable.

Pivoting to address this need led to a few valuable takeaways that will refine our approach to future disasters: Be prepared to adapt your response as needs unfold.

With 18 years of disaster response experience, we know that most crisis situations require immediate solutions to turn contaminated surface water into safe drinking water for entire communities.

This means that we typically deploy our Living Water Treatment Systems — designed for swift set-up in disaster zones — or other water treatment equipment appropriate for that context.

Water Mission in Puerto Rico

They were simply unable to use them due to the lack of electricity. Rather than treating surface water and setting up community distribution points, we needed to provide an independent power source and the electrical expertise necessary to reconnect their existing water systems.

Transition to long-term solutions as soon as possible

Although this is always the goal, it requires creativity to adapt disaster relief projects into sustainable community solutions. Since the rural Puerto Rican communities needed power to get safe water flowing, we quickly changed our strategy from providing water treatment equipment to restoring short-term access through generators.

Then, to reduce communities’ future dependency on the island’s electrical grid, we began replacing generators with long-term solar solutions. Water Mission installed more than 1,300 solar panels in 22 arrays, which generated more than 400 kW of power and created sustainable microgrids that support solar pumping solutions.

These solar projects are currently supporting 22 communities, and we have another 30 projects under construction with plans to work in up to 60 more communities. Today, the electrical grid is still unreliable or extremely expensive in many of the communities we serve.

Solar power offers a reliable day-to-day solution for these communities, with the added assurance that they will still have access to safe water if another storm strikes and the electrical grid is damaged again.

Adjusting our response also required Water Mission to immediately blend a sustainable community management model with our typical disaster response strategy.

Before installing solar arrays, we needed to invest time collaborating with local leaders and providing the training necessary for communities to assume ownership of the project moving forward.

To ensure they can afford to maintain the solar arrays as needed, we also worked together to develop practical financial models that would set the communities up for success.

Deploy more technical staff as soon as the needs are assessed

The unique situation in Puerto Rico demonstrated the value of quickly determining the true needs of community members and shifting strategies accordingly.

Moving forward, we plan to continue building out our response team so that we can have even more engineers and technical employees available for immediate deployment when the right skillset and equipment are identified

This strategy will allow us to provide the most helpful solutions to communities as swiftly as possible.

In the aftermath of a natural disaster, the only thing we can count on is chaos. Every situation will be different, but each offers valuable takeaways for how we can improve the excellence and expediency of our response in the next crisis.

When we evaluate our own relief efforts along with the successes or challenges of other field partners we’ll become more effective and efficient in the field.

At Water Mission, our hope is that these learnings will allow us to decrease our response time and reach more people in future disasters, while providing the most useful solutions for their unique situations.

*Water Mission is a global engineering nonprofit that has engineered and implemented safe water solutions in 55 countries. In addition to disaster relief work, it has delivered safe water to refugee settlements in Uganda, Tanzania, and Bangladesh, and have established programs in 10 different countries to provide sustainable solutions to remote, rural communities.

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Excerpt:

Mark Baker is Director of Disaster Response at Water Mission*

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(Geneva Centre) – The Executive Director of the Geneva Centre Ambassador Idriss Jazairy has strongly condemned the two terrorist attacks killing at least 40 people today in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The attacks occurred this morning inside the Masjid Al Noor mosque and the Linwood mosque.

Ambassador Jazairy expressed both shock and sadness at the attack: “The Geneva Centre strongly condemns the terrorist acts killing innocent men, women and children who were gathered for the Friday prayers in Christchurch,” the Geneva Centre’s Executive Director said. “This is an attack on multiculturalism and human dignity that constitute the founding pillars of peaceful and inclusive societies. It feeds on the rise of hatred, bigotry and the fear of the Other that have contributed to an atmosphere of social exclusion, division and rejection in many societies.”

The rise and threat of extremist violence and terrorism in both developing and developed countries illustrate that indiscriminate terrorist attacks can occur anywhere in the world. Ambassador Jazairy added:

“Indiscriminate terrorist attacks have brought bereavement to societies worldwide and constitute a threat to peace, social stability and to human wellbeing at large. Decision-makers worldwide must remain united in addressing unequivocally all incitement of discrimination, hostility, hatred and violence against Muslims and other victims of terrorism and hate crimes. The language of peace must prevail over the language of hatred and fear of the Other.”

In conclusion, the Geneva Centre’s Executive Director expressed his solidarity and condolences to the victims of the terrorist attacks and to the people of New Zealand: “In the face of this brutal murder, the Geneva Centre stands in full solidarity with the victims, their families and the people of New Zealand in their griefs.”

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(Geneva Centre) – At the 40th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council, the Geneva Centre presented on 14 March statements with regard to Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

In its statement on Saudi Arabia, the Geneva Centre commended the various steps that the Kingdom had taken towards strengthening the protection and promotion of human rights which reflected a number of important recommendations contained in the report of the Working Group on the UPR.

It welcomed the adoption and efforts towards implementation, as recommended in the report of “Saudi Vision 2030”, whose framework includes goals which address a number of human rights.

In particular, the Centre congratulated Saudi Arabia for its implementation of several recommendations pertaining to amendments to legal frameworks in compliance with international human rights standards, development of a human rights education system to strengthen the culture of human rights, formulation of a national human rights strategy, combatting human trafficking and the promotion of the freedom of expression and association.

It welcomed the specific promotion and protection of the rights of women including gender equality and non-discrimination, children and people with disabilities.

The Geneva Centre encouraged Saudi Arabia to ratify the International Covenants on civil and political rights and on economic, social and cultural rights, the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and the Convention and Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, and to abolish the death penalty. Furthermore, it invited Saudi Arabia to set a date for a visit by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.

The Centre seized this opportunity to congratulate Saudi Arabia for having adopted the Global Compact for Migration.

In its statement on Jordan, the Geneva Centre welcomed the endeavours made by Amman to enhance the improvement of its own human rights situation, and to comply with the recommendations put forward by UN member States during the UPR review process.

In particular, it took note of the measures adopted with regard to enhancing women’s rights, promoting the right to work and advancing the right to education.

The Geneva Centre encouraged Jordan to implement the remaining recommendations it had approved, particularly in relation to strengthening the independence of the judiciary system, enhancing capacity building for law enforcement agencies and combatting trafficking in persons.

It likewise appealed to Jordan to ratify other human rights treaties to which it is not yet a party, including the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

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Kishan Kumarsingh, lead negotiator for Trinidad and Tobago on climate change. Credit: Jewel Fraser/IPS

By Jewel Fraser
PORT OF SPAIN, Mar 15 2019 (IPS)

Trinidad and Tobago unveiled its monitoring, reporting and verification system in mid-March with a flourish, with government authorities underscoring the launch of the Monitoring, Reporting, Verification as a milestone in that country’s efforts to reduce its emissions in line with its commitments under the 2016 Paris agreement. And even while acknowledging the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report that current efforts such as these globally are unlikely to protect the world from warming more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, Trinidad and Tobago’s lead negotiator at climate negotiations since 1998, Kishan Kumarsingh, remains upbeat that his country is on the right path. He told IPS the Paris agreement is the foundation for a world a transition thanks to the exercise of “political will” and national sovereignty. “It all goes back to the function of political will,” he said. “Because the efficacy of international law is invariably a function of political will because it is underpinned by national sovereignty.” He said it was governments that would create an enabling environment for a carbon free world since it was these same governments, not private citizens, that negotiate climate agreements. But Dr. Leon Sealey-Huggins, a senior teaching fellow in Global Sustainable Development at the University of Warwick and a self-proclaimed scholar activist, is of the view that that is where the problem lies for the Caribbean in its efforts to secure its future against climate change. “Whether or not it’s even possible through the United Nations framework to achieve the kind of change needed for the Caribbean is questionable,” Sealey-Huggins told IPS. “The global structures of decision-making such as the UN are born out of a legacy of imperialism and globalism,” he said, with its unequal power structures and wealth distribution that have contributed to the current difficulties the Caribbean faces with climate change and its inability to successfully defend itself against it. As a consequence, Sealey-Huggins said, the solutions promoted at climate change negotiations tended to focus on funding for“more technical approaches” like MRV systems that do not allow for the kinds of “social, political and economic reorganisation” that could shift the climate agenda towards more meaningful transformation and innovative solutions. Trinidad and Tobago’s new MRV system will focus on emissions from industry, transportation and power generation, enabling identification of the source and quantity of emissions, and helping with efforts to reduce emissions in these three sectors by 15 percent by 2030, a press release from that country’s Ministry of Planning and Development said.. But such solutions “limit other options in terms of what is funded”, limiting research on other potential solutions, said Sealey-Huggins, in spite of the evidence that the global trajectory on carbon emissions reductions is insufficient to achieve the Paris goals. Nevertheless, Kumarsingh maintains there are signs of real progress, particularly since Copenhagen. He points to the launch of the Green Climate Fund which was agreed upon at Copenhagen, and the establishment of the Warsaw International Mechanism for dealing with the sticky question of loss and damage. “The Green Climate Fund is one manifestation of advancement for provision of finances and support…to developing countries,” he said. “It is not a cut and dried issue that the interests of developing countries are locked out of negotiations, because they are negotiations by nature and even among the developed countries, among the developing countries there are varying interests.” He said the issue of loss and damage has proved to be “challenging”. Besides this, however, “there is widespread acceptance that beyond adaptation there is the issue of permanent loss, permanent damage that needs to be addressed.” But how these issues would be addressed remains to be determined since monetary compensation alone might not be sufficient to compensate for the loss. “Would a monetary compensation for the loss of an island be adequate for the people themselves?…. these ideas are now being ventilated and discussed. But the cut and dried issue of compensation just won’t happen because of the historical nature of the negotiations themselves,” Kumarsingh told IPS. He stressed that countries sit at the negotiating table with the intention uppermost in mind of protecting their own country’s interest, not that of another. And while developed countries had accepted they have a responsibility towards SIDS in terms of technology transfer and financing, he acknowledged that their delivery of such help could be increased. “Of course more could be done to advance the multilateral cooperation to protect the planet as a whole from climate change because climate change is everybody’s business, particularly given the urgency and the accelerating rate of climate change we have seen in recent years,” Kumarsingh added. Grenada’s former Ambassador to the UN Dessima Williams, who was chair of the Association of Small Island States from 2009 to 2012, told IPS that the effects of climate events on the region’s economic development was a cause for great concern and needed greater action. “The issue of risk has to be broadened from beyond climate events” to factor in the increasing financial burdens these events are placing on countries that are already strapped with development debt, she said. Williams said the question of climate financing must be placed firmly on the climate agenda “in a meaningful way to impact debt reduction and share the burden in an equitable way.” However, whether Caribbean SIDS do get their concerns over financing on the agenda “could very well be an issue of negotiating capacity and negotiating skills to actually get what [we] want,” Kumarsingh concluded.

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By Fabiana Frayssinet
RÍO DE JANEIRO, Mar 15 2019 (IPS)

“More than 50 countries in the world have discriminatory laws against people affected by Hansen’s disease. There is also a lot of discrimination in the public administration…and in society,” Alice Cruz, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members, said in this interview with IPS (in Spanish, with English subtitles).

The Portuguese-born expert is one of the special participants in the First Latin American and Caribbean Assembly of Organisations of People Affected by Hansen’s Disease – another name for leprosy – taking place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Mar. 12-14.

Among the many examples of violations of the rights of those affected by the disease, Cruz cited the case of children who are expelled from school.

“People lose their jobs, there is discrimination in the community, they aren’t allowed to enter places of worship, etc, and there is discrimination in the family too,” added the Special Rapporteur in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Cruz pointed out that in 2010, the United Nations adopted “a human rights instrument to guarantee the rights of people affected by Hansen’s disease.”

According to this document, entitled “Draft principles and guidelines for the elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members”, “States should enforce this instrument which covers all areas of affected persons and protects them from the violations mentioned,” she stressed.

This is the first time that a meeting has been held in Latin America dedicated to people affected by a disease that the World Health Organisation defines as infectious and chronic, caused by the bacillus Mycobacterium leprae and which mainly damages the skin, peripheral nerves, the mucosa of the upper respiratory tract, and the eyes.

Brazil, the host country, accounts for 95 percent of all cases in the Americas, with between 25,000 and 30,000 new diagnoses per year.

The regional meeting is an initiative of the Brazilian Movement for the Reintegration of People Affected by Hanseniasis and the Colombian Federation of Organisations of People Affected by Hanseniasis, with support from Brazil’s Health Ministry and the independent Nippon Foundation.

The region’s findings, together with the ones that emerged from similar assemblies in Asia and Africa, will be incorporated into the proposals for the World Congress on Leprosy, to be held in the Philippines in September.

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