Credit: UN Photo/Pernaca Sudhakaran

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 12 2017 (IPS)

More than seven decades after the deployment of deadly atomic bombs in Japan, the UN has passed a historic treaty banning nuclear weapons around the world. Though it has sparked hope for a future without nuclear weapons, uncertainty in the success of the treaty still lingers.

More than 122 countries, representing two-thirds of the 192-member UN, adopted the historic treaty banning nuclear weapons after months of talks.

“We have managed to sow the first seeds of a world free of nuclear weapons…the world has been waiting for this legal norm for 70 years,” said Elayne Whyte Gomez, Permanent Representative of Costa Rica and the president of the UN conference which negotiated the treaty.

Elayne Whyte Gómez. Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elias

There are approximately 15,000 nuclear warheads globally, more than 90 percent of which belong to the United States and Russia.

Unlike the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which allowed five countries to possess such arms, the new instrument is an explicit prohibition on the direct or indirect use, threat of use, possession, acquisition, and development of nuclear weapons.

It also for the first time includes obligations to provide assistance to victims of nuclear weapons testing and use as well as environmental remediation of areas contaminated a result of nuclear weapon activities.

“This normative treaty highlights the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons—it is a huge achievement especially for the Hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Arms Control Association’s (ACA) Researcher Alicia Sanders-Zakre told IPS.

Reference to such consequences can be seen throughout the treaty, including the deep concern “about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would result from any use of nuclear weapons” and the persistent risk to humanity posed by the “continued existence of nuclear weapons.”

Though the awareness of nuclear weapons’ devastating humanitarian ramifications is certainly not new, both Snyder and Sanders-Zakre noted that states still legitimize nuclear weapons in their security approaches.

“Some states negotiating the treaty would say that by having a security doctrine of nuclear deterrence, nuclear weapons states legitimize nuclear weapons and distract from their humanitarian consequences…which are often not in the forefront of the security stage,” said Sanders-Zakre.

The new treaty aims to strip nuclear weapons of their prestige by making them unacceptable under international law.

Not Without a Fight

The world’s nine nuclear-armed states as well as the majority of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) members boycotted the negotiations, except for the Netherlands which voted against the document.

Among the most vocal critics is the United States who, since the beginning of the talks, said that the process was not “realistic,” especially in the wake of rising tensions between the North American nation and North Korea.

“There is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons, but we have to be realistic. Is there anyone who thinks that North Korea would ban nuclear weapons?” asked U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley.

In a joint statement, the U.S., United Kingdom, and France announced that they do not ever intend to sign, ratify, or become party to the treaty.

“A purported ban on nuclear weapons that does not address the security concerns that continue to make nuclear deterrence necessary cannot result in the elimination of a single nuclear weapon and will not enhance any country’s security, nor international peace and security,” they stated, reiterating their continued commitment to the NPT.

Snyder told IPS that it was not surprising that such nations did not participate due to a desire to retain the political power associated with nuclear weapons. However, she criticised the joint move as it may be in violation of the NPT.

Article 6 of the NPT, which the majority of member States have signed, states that each party must “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.”

Snyder noted that negotiations were considered by the majority to be an “effective measure” in the pursuit of disarmament.

“While this prohibition is not the final effort to achieve and maintain a nuclear weapons free world, it is certainly a key element of a world without nuclear weapons. It was an absence that is embarrassing for the nuclear armed states, demonstrating their commitment to inhumane weapons over humanity,” she continued.

However, nuclear-armed nations would argue that they are not violating the NPT as they do not consider that the prohibition will result in the elimination of nuclear weapons and is thus not an “effective measure,” said Sanders-Zakre.

The treaty reflects a growing divide between nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states on visions of disarmament.

Between a Nuke and a Hard Place?

Additional frustrations have arisen concerning the treaty’s prohibition on the stationing, installation or deployment of nuclear weapons on territories as it puts many NATO members in nuclear sharing agreements in a sticky situation.

Five nations, including Germany and Turkey, currently host U.S. nuclear weapons as part of NATO’s nuclear sharing policy. In order for NATO members to join, they will have to reverse or withdraw from their obligations.

“One the one hand, the treaty seeks to be universal to include many members. But at the same time, it is a prohibition treaty and having a member of a prohibition treaty that has nuclear weapons on their soil would be contradictory,” Sanders-Zakre told IPS.

But can a nuclear ban treaty be successful without such nations?

Snyder and Sanders-Zakre say yes.

“The treaty sets a norm, and the nuclear armed states have a history of following norms even when they don’t sign up to the treaties behind them,” said Snyder, referencing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) which, despite not being ratified by all nations and not entering into force, has set a norm in which nuclear testing is condemned.

“That norm will grow from this treaty as well, and will likely result in ongoing substantive condemnation of the activities of the nuclear armed states that are not disarmament,” Snyder continued.

Sanders-Zakre noted that there might be some obstacles in the way before the treaty’s entry into force, including potential lobbying by nuclear weapon states to dissuade others from ratifying the instrument or a general decrease in political momentum.

But, with or without the nuclear weapon states, the treaty will mark a significant normative step towards disarmament if all 122 states which negotiated the instrument sign and ratify.

“My hope is that this treaty will be the first step towards more productive disarmament dialogue, and that it will serve as a wake-up call to nuclear weapon states that have not seriously been pursuing disarmament negotiations for quite some time,” Sanders-Zakre said.

Snyder similarly described the historic occasion as the first step of many, stating: “This treaty will help towards the elimination of nuclear weapons—it’s not the last thing that will get them out of the world forever, but it helps by reaffirming the complete illegitimacy of such inhumane weapons and offers a pathway for elimination.”

The treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons will be open for signature by member states on 20 September, marking the beginning of the 72nd Session of the General Assembly. It will enter into legal force 90 days after it has been ratified by 50 countries.

Earlier this year, atomic scientists set the Doomsday Clock to two and a half minutes before midnight, reflecting a fear that the world is closer to a nuclear disaster than it has been since 1953 after the U.S. and Soviet Union tested hydrogen bombs.

The post Nuclear Ban Approved, Now What? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Hanif Hassan Ali Al Qassim

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jul 7 2017 (IPS)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Takeyh Joins In

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Also Lieberman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Baher Kamal
ROME, Jul 7 2017 (IPS)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Credit: IOM

Drivers of Rural Migration

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

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

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

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

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

Farming and Livestock Bear Over 80 Per Cent of Damage

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

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

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

The South-South Triangular Cooperation

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Parliamentarians

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

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

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

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

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

Legislators and the Middle East

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anis Chowdhury

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

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

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

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

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

Jomo Kwame Sundaram. Credit: FAO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Credit: UN Photo

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

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

This report is the first step of that response.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is our collective responsibility.

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

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

It is our most powerful tool for prevention.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Allow me to outline the eight guiding ideas:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Agriculture Accounts for over 80% of Freshwater Withdrawals

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

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

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

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

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

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

Climate Change to Compound Water Scarcity

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

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

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

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

New Global Action Programme for SIDS Countries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Focus on the Small Island Developing States

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

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

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

By Azza Karam
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 4 2017 (IPS)

A decade ago, it was difficult to get Western policy makers in governments to be interested in the role of religious organizations in human development. The secular mind-set was such that religion was perceived, at best, as a private affair. At worst, religion was deemed the cause of harmful social practices, an obstacle to the “sacred” nature of universal human rights, and/or the root cause of terrorism. In short, religion belonged in the ‘basket of deplorables’.

Azza Karam, Senior Advisor, UNFPA and Coordinator, UN Interagency Task Force on Religion and Development

Yet, starting in the mid-1990s with then President of the World Bank, James Wolfenson, and celebrated in 2000 under then UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan when the Millenium Development Goals were agreed to, a number of religiously-inspired initiatives coalesced, all trying to move ‘religion’ to international development’s ‘basket of desirables’.

The arguments used to begin to generate positive interest in the role of religious NGOs in international multilateral fora were relatively straightforward. Today they are almost a cliche: religious institutions are the oldest social service providers known to human kind, and several basic health and educational institutions of today, are administered or influenced to some extent, by religious entities.

So if we are serious about strengthening health systems and universal access to healthcare, enhancing educational institutions, content and accessibility, protecting our environment, safeguarding the rights of marginlised and vulnerable populations, countering social exclusion and ensuring human dignity, then – the argument is – we have to work with those who influence minds, hearts, and continue to provide and manage significant amounts of social services in most countries. Facts and figures as to how many social services are provided by/through religious institutions continue to be provided and roundly disputed.

The number of initiatives within the secular multilaterals – like the UN – which focused on ‘religion and development’ began to slowly attract the attention (and the money) of some western donor governments such as Switzerland and Norway, both of whom were keen on mobilising religious support for women’s rights in particular. Some governments (such as the USA and the UK) dabbled in engaging with religious NGOs both at home in their own countries, and supporting some of them in their development and humanitarian work abroad.

Nevertheless, from a multilateral perspective, the larger tapestry of western donor support to efforts around religion, tended to be marginal – dipping toes in the water rather than taking a plunge.

With the increasing presence of al-Qaeda on the world stage in 2001, and the subsequent war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the world witnessed the emerging gruesome hydras of religious extremism, at once fueling, and being fueled by, the phenomena of ultra nationalism, racism, xenophobia and misogyny. Some western governments spoke openly of engaging religious actors in counter-terrorism, but this narrative was fraught with political tensions.

It was only when migrants appeared to ‘flood’ European shores (albeit in numbers which are only a fraction of those ending up in developing countries), that there was a noticeable surge of keen interest by several western governments in ‘this religion thing’.

For the UN developmental entities who had invested significantly to generate the interest of their largest western donors in the relevance of religions to development, spurred by the learning from the MDGs and with a view to realizing Agenda 2030, there was a noticeable volte face which was taking place right under their noses.

Almost overnight, UN-steered initiatives to engage with religious actors and enhance partnerships around health, education, environment, women’s rights, humanitarian work, all of which had been painstakingly prepared and backed by years of research, consultations, networking and shared practice (as the work of the UN Interagency Task Force on Religion and Development testifies) became the object of desire by some governments.

Rather than seek to support the UN in continuing to engage with this work and the critical partnerships developed and labored over for years, however, the objective of these governments is to seek to directly manage the convening, networking and funding roles of faith-based entities, ostensibly with the same objectives of achieving the SDGs.

But there is a critical difference between the UN convening and working with faith-based organizations and religious leaders, and one or a handful of governments doing so. To survive, to thrive, and to protect human rights, the agenda of multilateral entities has to remain distinct from the national self-interest of any one government – or a handful thereof – no matter how powerful this government (or these governments), may be.

This applies to all issues, constituencies and types of partnerships outlined in SDG 17. But the argument here is even more powerful: that where religions are concerned, the need for unbiased and non-partisan engagement with religious actors, distinct from any one nation’s self-interest, is crucial.

If there is suspicion about the role of a non-western government in supporting religious actors in countries outside of its own, then why do we not also suspect western governments of involving themselves in supporting religious efforts in countries other than their own?

This question becomes especially pertinent when we begin to look at the religious composition of the western governments now keen on ‘supporting religion and development’ abroad – they are mostly Christian. And if we look at the governments viewed with much suspicion who have long been supporting religious engagement overseas (also for development and humanitarian purposes, one might add), they tend to be Muslim. A coincidence perhaps?

To avoid these kinds of questions, it would behoove all concerned parties interested in achieving the significant targets of the Sustainable Development Goals, and with a view to endorsing the United Nations’ mandate of safeguarding peace and security and protecting human rights, to support the efforts of the UN system in engaging the whole of civil society.

Rather than efforts driven by some governments, to work with select religious actors, in some countries, the challenge (which is fully achievable) is to strengthen the multi-faith and broad-based civic coalitions of legally registered, bona fide NGOs, working with and known to their governments and to the UN entities, at national, regional and global levels, to deliver for the world.

Otherwise, the danger is that such efforts will be misconstrued as the new colonial enterprise in international development, playing into rising religious tensions globally. History is replete with examples where mobilizing religious actors in other countries, no matter how well-intentioned, can create some rather unholy alliances.

The post Is Religion the New Colonial Frontier in International Development? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A civil defence team search for survivors after a barrel bomb attack in Aleppo Syria in August 2014. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

By Farhang Jahanpour
OXFORD, Jul 3 2017 (IPS)

Although US policies during the past few months have been quite puzzling and unpredictable, the events of the past few days have been truly bewildering and alarming. On Monday 26th June, the White House released a statement saying that the United States had “identified potential preparations for another chemical attack by the Assad regime…” It went on to say: “If, however, Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price.”

The threats were not limited to the Syrian government. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, followed that statement by tweeting: “Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Assad, but also on Russia & Iran who support him killing his own people.”

It is of course beside the point to ask how US officials have “identified” that Syria was preparing for another chemical attack, while after so many years of fighting ISIS and other terrorists, they have not yet been able to find out who is supplying them with weapons, funds and organization.

Farhang Jahanpour

With these strange and unsubstantiated statements, the Trump Administration is introducing a new element of uncertainty to the developments in the Middle East. As if the situation in that volatile region was not bad enough, these warlike statements have made it much worse. Many people are asking whether the US Administration is preparing the ground for a major confrontation in the Middle East with unimaginable consequences.

Some 14 years ago, in total violation of international law, former US President George W. Bush launched a barbaric attack on Iraq on the basis of fabricated intelligence, which destroyed that country, killed and wounded more than a million people, and gave rise to ISIS that has afflicted the world ever since.

Far from having learned any lessons from that disastrous mistake, the Trump Administration seems intent on committing a similar mistake on a grander scale. During the campaign, Candidate Trump accused the former US Administration of having created ISIS, not indirectly but deliberately. He spoke about America having spent six trillion dollars on illegal wars in the Middle East and having nothing to show for it. He vowed that he would not be interested in regime change and was intent on resolving international disputes through negotiations and deals.

Whether he has changed his mind or whether the neocons in the Administration have infiltrated and dominated his administration makes little difference. The clear fact is that the Trump Administration seems to have opted for the logic of war, instead of resolving the conflicts by peaceful means.

During the past few weeks, US forces have launched a number of attacks on the positions of the forces allied with the Syrian government. On 18th May and 6th June, American aircraft bombed pro-Syrian militias in southern Syria. They shot down two Iranian-made drones on 8th and 20 June, and on 18th June a US fighter shot down a Syrian aircraft that was attacking ISIS bases west of Raqqa.

On 6th April, after an alleged Syrian chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun, a US frigate fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at the air base from which the Syrian aircraft had taken off. This was despite the fact that the United Nations was still investigating the source of the attack, and some leading investigative reporters and even the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity who were on the ground had cast doubt on the Syria government’s involvement in the chemical attack.

It is strange that as Syrian forces, backed by Russia and Iran, are gaining the upper hand and liberating most of Syria from the terrorists, the intensity of Israeli and American attacks on Syrian government forces has increased.

From the start of the crisis in Syria, there have been a number of theories based on some leaked information that claimed that the entire debacle in Syria was part of a vicious plot by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States, initially supported by Turkey and Qatar, to isolate Iran and to cut off any links between Iran and Hezbollah through Syria.

Whether those theories about US involvement in Syria in support of Israel and against Iran were correct or not, the fact remains that the Trump Administration is engaged in an illegal and dangerous course of action that may result in a an unwanted war between Russia and Iran on the one hand, and the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia on the other.

In view of these developments it is important to point out:

1. US actions are in clear violation of the UN Charter and are acts of aggression against a sovereign state.
2. While Russian and Iranian forces are fighting in Syria against the insurgents at the invitation of the Syrian government, America as an uninvited guest has been fighting against the Syrian forces.
3. If the Trump Administration is sincere in wanting to eliminate ISIS it should support Russia and Iran to liberate the remaining territory occupied by the terrorists.
4. If the Trump Administration believes in democracy, free elections and the rule of law, it should call for elections in Syria under UN supervision after the defeat of the insurgents, and then accept the election results, rather than keep calling for the ouster of the Syrian president.
5. Before launching into a dangerous adventure against Russia and Iran, the Trump Administration must carefully consider the consequences of such a major confrontation.
6. If the Trump Administration is determined to push for war in Syria, US allies should make it clear that they will not support another unnecessary war in the Middle East.
7. Meanwhile, instead of being only concerned about possible threats to the state of Israel, it is time to take serious steps to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict with some justice for the hard-pressed Palestinians who have lived under a brutal occupation for more than 50 years. Finding a fair solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict would ensure Israel’s security more than any attempts at regime change in other countries.
8. During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump strongly criticized President Obama for having set a red line regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and then failing to punish Syria. President Trump should realize that by issuing similar ultimatums to the Syrian government on the hypothetical use of chemical weapons, he is giving an open invitation to the terrorists to undertake such false flag operations, and then he will have to act, whether the Syrian government had been responsible for the use of chemical weapons or not.

Finally, to add an element of farce to the entire episode, on June 28th Defense Secretary James Mattis announced that the Syrian government had heeded the US warning and had changed its mind about the use of chemical weapons.

The situation in the world is too serious for the leading superpower in the world to pursue such confused and contradictory policies. It is time for the US government to adopt serious and sane approaches towards the Middle East before the world is engulfed in another major catastrophe.

Farhang Jahanpour is a former professor and dean of the Faculty of Languages at the University of Isfahan and a former Senior Research Scholar at Harvard. For the past 30 years he has been teaching courses on the Middle East at the Department of Continuing Education and is a member of Kellogg College at the University of Oxford

The statements and views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of IPS.

The post Is the United States Preparing for a War in Syria? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

In 2014 alone, about 11 million young Africans entered the labour market. But many see few opportunities in the agriculture sector and are constrained by a lack of skills, low wages, and limited access to land and financial services. Combined, this makes them more prone to migrate from rural areas.

Youth employment should be at the centre of any strategy to face economic and demographic challenges in Africa, the Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) José Graziano da Silva told a joint African Union-European Union meeting in Rome.

“Fostering sustainable agriculture and rural development is essential to absorb these millions of youth looking for a job,” Graziano da Silva said. “A sustainable world can only be achieved with the full engagement of young people. They must feel integrated and believe that a more peaceful and prosperous world is possible.”

The one-day meeting, held on July 2, was co-hosted by the African Union Commission, the European Commission and the Estonian Presidency of the EU Council and was attended by Ministers of Agriculture of the African Union and the European Union.

The aim was to build a common vision on how to generate sustainable, inclusive jobs for African youth in the rural sector.

Graziano da Silva outlined five steps to engage youth in agriculture and rural development.

Firstly, enhance youth participation and leadership in producer organizations and other rural institutions to empower them to engage in policy dialogue.

Secondly, stimulate private sector investments to create a modern and dynamic agricultural sector and value chains, and to build infrastructure needed for agricultural investments.

Thirdly, provide rural areas with better services such as electricity, education and health.

The fourth step is to strengthen the physical, economic, social and political links between small urban centres and their surrounding rural areas.

Finally, invest more in Information and Communication Technologies, which has the potential to improve efficiency in some farm work and facilitate access to markets, information and business opportunities.

The number of people struggling to find enough food each day in South Sudan has grown to six million. Credit: FAO

This simple but efficient program teaches vulnerable children and young people about farming and management skills, the UN agency said.

As examples, it reports that in Nigeria, it is supporting the design of the National Youth Employment in Agriculture Programme; and FAO and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development have joined forces to increase jobs and business opportunities for young people in rural areas of Benin, Cameroon, Malawi and Niger through a 4 million dollars grant made available by the Africa Solidarity Trust Fund.

The conference outcomes will be presented at the Africa-EU Summit in November this year and will guide future work of both the European Commission and the African Union Commission.

An FAO-supported horticulture project in Ethiopia is helping create job opportunities for young people. Credit: FAO

The joint African Union-European Union meeting in Rome was held on the eve of FAO’s Conference 40th Session on 3-8 July 2017. It is the organisation’s highest governing body and sessions are held every two years.

The purpose is to convene the Member Nations at FAO headquarters to review and vote on the Director General’s proposed program of work and budget.

Pressing Issues

Participants will discuss a number of pressing issues including how to turn commitment into action to achieve the Global Goal of Zero Hunger; water scarcity, food security and a changing climate in the Near East and North Africa; sustainable solutions to prevent famine in conflict-affected countries; an action plan on food security and nutrition for Small Island Developing States; and the role of rural development in mitigating pressures that drive migration.

This year around 1,000 participants are expected to attend, including 70 Ministers, 15 Deputy Ministers and one President. The session takes place over 6 days during which around 20 side events will be held, FAO informs.

FAO has 194 Member States plus one Member Organization, the European Union, and two Associate Members, The Faroe Islands and Tokelau.

The post ‘Address African Rural Youth Unemployment Now or They Will Migrate’ appeared first on Inter Press Service.

“Reconstruction and reconciliation require finances and physical structure, but the families of the victims of the conflict first and foremost need their integrity protected. Physical and financial compensation mean little without justice,” wrote Suman Adhikari nearly 11 years ago, during a ceasefire in Nepal’s Maoist insurgency.

The conflict ended later that year, leaving 17,000 dead over a decade, including Adhikari’s father. A teacher and headmaster in Lamjung district, he and his fellow teachers in January 2002 refused Maoist demands to hand over 25 percent of their salaries. Days later, cadres seized him as he was teaching a Grade 10 class, bound his hands and legs, and dragged the man out of the school to a forest, where he was stabbed in the stomach and shot in the head. His body was left tied to a tree.“Many victims have been unable to get on with their lives. They are frustrated and suffer from psychological trauma." --Suman Adhikari

Soon after, Suman returned to the capital Kathmandu, where he began talking to other conflict victims about their own horrible experiences. They met with civil society organisations and political leaders, created an organisation and submitted their demands to political leaders then crafting the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

Today, as chairperson of the Conflict Victims Common Platform, Suman finds himself repeating many of the same requests.

One of the Common Platform’s main demands is that the government provide needs-based compensation to victims. The state has paid most of them Rs 500,000 (4,834 US dollars) as interim relief since the conflict ended but Adhikari says one-off payments can’t replace many of the breadwinners who families lost; without them, many are still struggling to find sufficient work or pay school fees.

“Many victims have been unable to get on with their lives. They are frustrated and suffer from psychological trauma,” he says.

Suman Adhikari, chairperson of Nepal’s Conflict Victims Common Platform, holding a photo of his father. Credit: Marty Logan/IPS

While society moves on, with, for example, the political leader who was prime minister three times during the insurgency taking over as PM again last week from former Maoist supremo Prachanda, victims are being forgotten, Suman says. “They still haven’t had the chance to speak of their pain properly, from the heart.”

A recent report found that victims have diverse demands for ‘truth’. Prepared by the Nepal office of the International Centre for Transitional Justice and local think-tank Martin Chautari from recent interviews with victims, it noted that many people needed closure and an end to their ambiguous losses. “Our people will come home today or tomorrow. We watch the roads,” said one woman in Bardiya, the district that had the most disappearances during the conflict.

Recognition is also a common wish, Aileen Thomson, head of ICTJ Nepal, told IPS. “They feel that the violation happened because of their membership in certain communities … a lot of times violations perpetrated by the State were because of perceived associations with the Maoists, which was really tied to identity and community and where you lived.”

The survivors want society to know that their kin were innocent victims, caught in the crossfire, adds the report.

Just as victims’ demands varied, civil society also had different ideas about what transitional justice should achieve, says Mandira Sharma, co-founder of Advocacy Forum, an NGO that filed numerous court cases for conflict-era crimes. But those theoretical discussions were shelved when it became apparent that political leaders from both sides were hoping to use the process to avoid prosecutions, adds Sharma, who is now doing a PhD in human rights and law.

“We went to see the prime minister at that time, Girija Prasad Koirala, and he was very open and honest. He said ‘Look, I had concerns raised by the military, I had concerns raised by the Maoists, and I have assured them that nothing will happen to them… We have to turn now to development, and we have to forget what happened’.”

Instead, Advocacy Forum and other groups continued to take cases to court. After victims received their interim relief, “You could have closed the chapter forcing victims to be quiet with that, but that would have been temporary: this deep sense of injustice would have remained,” Sharma says.

“In that past that’s what we did (using commissions formed after earlier political milestones like Nepal’s return to democracy in 1990). That hasn’t helped us to heal, that hasn’t helped us to improve the justice system, to correct the sense that certain people are always above the law. And there’s a very deep sense of inequality in our system because of this. We identified this as something we had to fix.”

Today though, transitional justice appears at a near standstill. The government created truth and disappearances commissions in 2014, but the legislation was severely criticised on several fronts. The Supreme Court later struck down a provision that grants amnesty for serious human rights violations.

Human Rights lawyer Raju Chapagain says that while the laws creating the bodies must be amended, the truth commission could be making efforts to advance transitional justice, which would also help to diminish a strong sense of scepticism about the body. “Nothing is preventing them inquiring into human rights violations. Commissions have powers equivalent to courts; they have adequate powers in terms of inquiries,” he says.

By taking action the commission could overcome its “credibility gap,” Chapagain adds, but it has failed to date, in part because it hasn’t engaged with victims.

The truth commission opened its office in Pokhara, west of Kathmandu, this week, one of seven regional centres, but Adhikari says the body still refuses to engage with victims. “The commissions are not good, the appointments are political, the commissioners are new to this: they should at least have a willingness to learn and to collaborate – but they don’t listen to us.”

The post Time Stands Still for Nepal’s Conflict Victims appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Nikki Haley and the Egyptian ambassador to the UN, Amr Aboulatta, in the Security Council. Haley told Congress recently that Trump’s proposed budget for the UN put the world body “on notice.” Credit: RICK BAJORNAS/UN PHOTO

By Barbara Crossette
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 29 2017 (IPS)

Five months into her stint as United States ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley faced two days of often-sharp questioning on June 27 and 28 by influential panels of the United States Congress. They demanded justification for the Trump administration’s decision to slash funding to the United Nations, particularly cuts to the UN Population Fund, Unicef, UN Women and the World Food Program.

Concerns were also raised about the wisdom of reducing the US budget contributions to peacekeeping from 27 percent to 25 percent (which cannot be done unilaterally without incurring arrears) and by squeezing peacekeeping missions around the world. Haley was proud to note that funds for the mission in Haiti were being cut by $150 million, though Secretary-General António Guterres just named Josette Sheeran, special envoy on cholera in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Cuts to US contributions to the International Atomic Energy Agency in an era of nuclear proliferations were also questioned.

Haley also proudly told Congressional members that the US got the UN General Assembly budget committee this month to reduce the annual peacekeeping budget. In fact, the US aimed for $1 billion in cuts but agreed to about half that amount, for a total yearly budget of $7.3 billion.

Paradoxically in her testimony in Congress, Haley bemoaned the lack of equipment for peacekeeping troops (the mission in Mali desperately needs armored tanks), which could be financed through a more generous UN budget and save lives.

The tone of questions asked to Haley by Congressional members may suggest that Trump’s 2018 budget will not get significant legislative support on UN-related issues, yet there remains a hard core of Republican legislators who — not always clear on facts or context on how the organization works — are dismissive and insulting. Among them and other groups, a strong pro-Israeli lobby continues to function and may have been strengthened by Trump’s team.

Haley acknowledged pressure from Israel — calling it “support” — that led to the US forcing Guterres, the secretary-general, to reverse the appointment in February of Salam Fayyad, a former Palestinian prime minister, as the UN’s special representative for Libya. Fayyad’s appointment apparently was not initially opposed by Haley. Asked by a member of Congress about the last-minute about-face in the US on Fayyad, Haley said that because Palestine was not recognized as a country by the US, a Palestinian should not be given an official UN post.

In this case, she said, appointing him would add to the UN’s “imbalance” against Israel. She would not say clearly whether Israel forced the change in the original US position or whether a Palestinian could ever be approved for a UN post.

On her first day testifying before Congress, Haley was questioned by a House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee dealing with funds for international organizations; on the second day, she faced the full House committee on foreign affairs. A consummate politician, Haley performed well, skirting some issues, although generally showing unwavering support for the Trump team and the president himself.

“We are on the same page,” Haley said of Trump, who seems to approve of her tough talk in the international arena and his voice at the UN. “I don’t go rogue on the president.”

Yet, she added later that “this administration does not tell me what to say or not to say.”

In an interesting interlude amid the questioning by appropriations committee members, Haley revealed that the most recent threat to Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad and his backers, Russia and Iran, should another Syrian chemical weapons attack occurred, was just a threat by the US, with no action planned.

The goal, she said, was “to send a message” not only to Syria but also to Russia and Iran to get them to “back off.”

On the zeroing out of US funds for Unicef from the proposed 2018 federal budget, about which members on both committees voiced a range of reactions — from disbelief and disappointment to shock and outrage — Haley breezily replied to one questioner that the “starting point” of the budget was to build up the military and look for cuts everywhere else.

She did not react when Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Democrat from Virginia, asked whether the world’s children — through slashing Unicef — should have to pay for the US military buildup, saying it was “not a proud value that Americans would uphold.”

Members of Congress, many of them Democrats shut out of policymaking in a House of Representatives controlled by the Republican party, also wanted to know why the US appeared to have an incoherent foreign policy. They noted conflicting pronouncements in President Trump’s tweets and public flip-flops; measured statements by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson; and declarations by Haley that seemed to be her own opinion at times.

Putting it mildly, the US has become “unpredictable,” a legislator said.

Pressed to describe her relations with her bosses in Washington, Haley revealed to the foreign affairs committee that she rarely talked with Trump or Tillerson and had no information on the unusual number of vacancies in the US State Department. She said that her closest relationship was with the national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, the defense secretary; James Mattis, with whom she spoke on issues concerning the UN; and others in the president’s cabinet, of which she is a member.

“We work as a team,” she said, adding that there was “a very organized process in place.”

On Russia, Haley stuck to her strong objections to the invasion of Crimea and Moscow’s incursions into eastern Ukraine, and accepted that Russia meddled in the 2016 US election. She insisted, however, that Trump was not involved in colluding with the election interference. Asked whether she had discussed with Trump the Russian involvement in the election, possibly at the direction or President Vladimir Putin, Haley said that topic had not come up because it was not a UN matter.

Haley faced many questions on the rationale for the total defunding by the Trump administration of the UN Population Fund, or UNFPA. The most persistent questioners came from Democrats, but they were not alone. Haley responded that there was nothing she could do about the full loss of funds from the US to UNFPA since it had been done by presidential order. She insisted that the money saved, about $70 million by current calculations, would go to similar US aid programs.

Those programs, however, strictly bar US funding for any international organization or NGO that assists or even counsels on abortion. Reflecting her lack of interest about the loss of money to UNFPA, she was asked how maternal health care was being replaced by the UN agency in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, which she just visited. Although she admitted she didn’t know, she said the next day in Congress “I always just meet with women” when she had visited the refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey.

The Trump administration (and the George W. Bush administration) used debunked reports that the Population Fund’s work in China supported forced abortions there to stop financing the agency. Haley repeated the claim, but told the appropriations subcommittee that the UNFPA was “associated” with a “company” in China that was guilty of involuntary “sterilization.” She did not repeat that formulation in the foreign affairs hearings, but Lois Frankel, a Democrat from Florida, called the China reason a “totally phony excuse.”

“A lot of women are going to suffer,” said Ami Bera, a Democrat from California and medical doctor, said about the cuts to the Population Fund.

Much of the hearings were consumed by repeated questions and criticisms of the Human Rights Council. Haley repeated what she said in her confirmation hearing in January about the Council needing to be “fixed.” She has never said plainly that the US is considering withdrawing from the 47-nation body. But in Geneva in June, Haley, saying she had come to see the Council firsthand, made a brief appearance (about three minutes) in the chamber to announce her presence.

Later that day in a speech to the Graduate Institute of Geneva, she warned that the US could “go outside” the Council to protect human rights if two nonnegotiable conditions were not met.

In that speech, Haley demanded that the Council change its election procedures (which would have to be done by the General Assembly) to “keep the worst human rights abusers from obtaining seats on the Council.” That would mean the open election of Council members, who are now chosen regionally by consensus, or horse-trading.

“As it stands, elections for membership to the Council are over before the voting even begins,” she said. “No competition means no scrutiny of candidates’ human rights records. We must change the elections so countries are forced to make the case for membership based on their records, not on their promises.”

Her second demand was that a Council agenda provision — known as Item 7 — which perennially singles out Israel for condemnation, “must be removed.” That command has garnered wide bipartisan support in the US, and American diplomats have been successful in recent years in reducing the number of obsessive resolutions on this issue, which will not be open to debate again until 2020. In Congress, Haley pointed to Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as providing the “hard core support” for Item 7.

Haley had no problem defending Trump’s decision to quit the Paris Agreement on climate change. “We are not going to throw climate out the window,” she said, adding: “What the president did was in the best interest of businesses and the best interest of our country.”

To which Connolly, the representative from Virginia, proclaimed that Trump’s decision put the US in the same boat as Nicaragua and Syria.

(*Brought to IPS readers courtesy of PassBlue, online independent coverage of the UN, a project of the Ralph Bunche Institute, City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center)

The post Nikki Haley Grilled in US Congress on America’s Role in the UN and the World appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Adult literacy and education program. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/ IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 29 2017 (IPS)

Millions lack access to quality education around the world—but how can the international community change this?

Two years into the adoption of the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), one of which includes a goal to provide inclusive, equitable, and quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all, the question of ‘how’ still remains.

In an effort to answer this question, the UN convened a high-level meeting to discuss and explore new approaches to achieve the education goal, namely SDG 4.

“Access to quality education is not only a goal in itself, but a fundamental building block of creating a better world of sustainable peace, prosperity, and development,” said current General Assembly President Peter Thomson during the opening segment.

“For in the act of investing in education, we are realizing the potential of our greatest asset: the potential inherent in the people of this world,” he continued.

Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed echoed similar sentiments, stating, “We know that when we deliver education to a young person, we are not only delivering the knowledge and skills they will need to chart their futures, but we are preparing them to lend their hearts, hands, and minds to shaping a much more peaceful, prosperous society indeed for themselves but also for everyone.”

However, much work needs to be done.

More than 260 million children and young people are out of school, and the number of primary-aged children not in school is increasing.

Over 750 million youth and adults also do not have basic literacy and numeracy skills, even if education is accessible.

Access to education often has a trickle-down effect, helping boost food, health, and economic security, all of which are also essential SDGs.

Education is therefore the “golden thread” that connects all 17 SDGs, Thomson noted.

But providing education is no simple task as there are many challenges to overcome.

Children in fragile or conflict-affected countries are often hard to reach but are three times more likely to miss primary school compared to children in other non-fragile developing countries. Additionally, only 50 percent of refugee children and 22 percent of refugee adolescents have access to primary and secondary schools.

“This is not only a short-term challenge, but a challenge that goes directly to the heart of our long-term efforts to build a more peaceful and equal world,” Mohammed said.

Innovative ways to deliver quality education are therefore essential, from providing temporary learning spaces to displaced children to using technology to reach children in remote and hard-to-reach areas.

Girls also still face a range of barriers from gender-based violence to social and cultural norms that prevent girls from attending to even the lack of appropriate and separate toilet facilities for girls, causing 130 million primary and secondary-aged girls to be out of school today.

Two-thirds of all illiterate adults are also women.

Since increasing women and girls’ access to education is proven to directly contribute to healthier families and economies, Thomson urged to look for ways to end gender discrimination that stops women and girls from accessing education.

Participants also highlighted the importance of providing lifelong learning for life and work.

“Over the next ten years, a billion young people will enter the global workforce. They need the requisite skills and competencies required not only to do the jobs that exist today, but the many jobs that haven’t yet been invented,” Mohammed stated.

Thomson added that adults should also be supported with ongoing training to help them adapt to and participate in rapidly changing workplaces.

According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), automation threatens up to two-thirds of jobs in developing countries, reflecting the necessity of adaptation support and vocational training.

However, among the biggest challenges to provide inclusive, equitable, and quality education is finances which continue to be insufficient worldwide.

The Education 2030 Framework for Action, adopted by the international community in 2015 to lead efforts to achieve SDG 4, provides two benchmarks for public expenditures on education: allocate at least 4-6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to education and/or allocate at least 15-20 percent of public expenditure to education.

Some countries such as the Republic of Korea, which has one of the best education systems in the world, have successfully allocated almost 5 percent of GDP to education, providingequitable access to vocational programs, and achieiving some of the highest secondary and tertiary enrollment and attainment rates in the world.

“This comes from the belief of the people on the power of education from the bottom,” said Republic of Korea’s Former Minister of Education and member of International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity Ju-Ho Lee during the event.

However, this is not the case for many other countries. The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) found that 51 out of 138 countries with data spent less than 4 percent of GDP on education, including a number of both low-income and high-income countries.

Though low and lower middle income countries have increased their spending on education, it is estimated that these countries would still face an annual financing gap of 39 billion dollars between 2015-2030.

External resources such as aid become essential for such countries. However, aid to education has remained stagnant.

Between 2014 and 2015, aid to education was a total of 12 billion dollars below its 2010 level and significantly less than the amount required to achieve SDG 4.

Mohammed urged for increased funding both on domestic and international levels, especially to countries most in need, as well as calling on participants to explore new approaches beyond ODA.

New funds dedicated to education have already been created, including the Education Cannot Wait Fund which provides education in humanitarian contexts. The UN’s education envoy Gordon Brown also proposed an international finance facility to leverage funds to help close the global funding gap for education.

Referring to his meeting with schoolgirls kidnapped from a school in Chibok, Nigeria, Thomson said that it should serve as inspiration to strengthen access to education for a safer and equitable world.

Mohammed made a similar appeal, stating: “There is no better investment in the future of peace and resilience of a society than in the education of its citizens, every citizen, and perhaps to say beyond citizens for those who are stateless—every person deserves a right to quality education.”

The UN High-Level SDG Action Event on Education is the last in a series of SDG events convened by the 71st session of the General Assembly. Each event focused on a key driver of sustainable development including sustainable peace, climate action, financing, and innovation.

The post Education, a Building Block for Sustainable Peace appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The first of Argentina’s three existing nuclear plants, Atucha I, is located 100 km from Buenos Aires. China has offered to finance 85 percent of the 14 billion dollar cost of two other plants. Credit: CNEA

By Daniel Gutman
BUENOS AIRES, Jun 27 2017 (IPS)

Two new nuclear power plants, to cost 14 billion dollars, will give a new impetus to Argentina’s relation with atomic energy, which began over 60 years ago. President Mauricio Macri made the announcement from China, the country that is to finance 85 per cent of the works.

But besides the fact that social movements quickly started to organise against the plants, the project appears to face a major hurdle.

The Chinese government has set a condition: it threatens to pull out of the plans for the nuclear plants and from the rest of its investments in Argentina if the contract signed for the construction of two gigantic hydroelectric power plants in Argentina’s southernmost wilderness region, Patagonia, does not move forward. The plans are currently on hold, pending a Supreme Court decision.“China has an almost endless capacity for investment and is interested in Argentina as in the rest of Latin America, a region that it wants to secure as a provider of inputs. Of course China has a strong bargaining position and Argentina’s aim should be a balance of power.“ -- Dante Sica

Together with Brazil and Mexico, Argentina is one of the three Latin American countries that have developed nuclear energy.

The National Commission for Atomic Energy was founded in 1950 by then president Juan Domingo Perón (1946-1955 and 1973-1974) and the country inaugurated its first nuclear plant, Atucha I, in 1974. The development of nuclear energy was halted after the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, by then-president Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989), but it was resumed during the administration of Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007).

According to the announcement Macri made during his visit to Beijing in May, construction of Atucha III, with a capacity of 745 MW, is to begin in January 2018, 100 km from the capital, in the town of Lima, within the province of Buenos Aires.

Atucha I and II, two of Argentina’s three nuclear power plants, are located in that area, while the third, known as Embalse, is in the central province of Córdoba.

Construction of a fifth nuclear plant, with a capacity of 1,150 MW, would begin in 2020 in an as-yet unannounced spot in the province of Río Negro, north of Patagonia.

Currently, nuclear energy represents four per cent of Argentina’s electric power, while thermal plants fired by natural gas and oil account for 64 per cent and hydroelectric power plants represent 30 per cent, according to the Energy Ministry. Other renewable sources only amount to two per cent, although the government is seeking to expand them.

Besides diversifying the energy mix, the projected nuclear and hydroelectric plants are part of an ambitious strategy that Argentina set in motion several years ago: to strengthen economic ties with China, which would buy more food from Argentina and boost investment here.

During his May 14-17 visit to China, Macri was enthusiastic about the role that the Asian giant could play in this South American country.

“China is an absolutely strategic partner. This will be the beginning of a wonderful era between our countries. There must be few countries in the world that complement each other than Argentina and China,” said Macri in Beijing, speaking to businesspeople from both countries.

During his May 14-17 visit to China, Argentina President Mauricio Macri announced the construction of two new nuclear power plants. Argentina, Brazil and Mexico are the three Latin American countries that use nuclear energy. Credit: Argentine Presidency

“Argentina produces food for 400 million people and we are aiming at doubling this figure in five to eight years,“ said Macri, who added that he expects from China investments in “roads, bridges, energy, ports, airports.“

Ties between Argentina and China began to grow more than 10 years ago and expanded sharply in 2014, when then president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015) received her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires, where they signed several agreements.

These ranged from the construction of dams in Patagonia to investments in the upgrading of the Belgrano railway, which transports goods from the north of the country to the western river port of Rosario, where they are shipped to the Atlantic Ocean and overseas.

On Jun. 22, 18 new locomotives from China arrived in Buenos Aires for the Belgrano railroad.

However, relations between China and Argentina are not free of risks for this country, experts warn.

“China has an almost endless capacity for investment and is interested in Argentina as in the rest of Latin America, a region that it wants to secure as a provider of inputs. Of course China has a strong bargaining position and Argentina’s aim should be a balance of power,“ economist Dante Sica, who was secretary of trade and industry in 2002-2003, told IPS.

“They are buyers of food, but they also want to sell their products and they generate tension in Argentina´s industrial structure. In fact, our country for several years now has had a trade deficit with China,“ he added.

Roberto Adaro, an expert on international relations at the Centre for Studies in State Policies and Society, told IPS that “Argentina can benefit from its relations with China if it is clear with regard to its interests. It must insist on complementarity and not let China flood our local market with their products.“

Adaro praised the decision to invest in nuclear energy since it is “important to diversify the energy mix“ and because the construction of nuclear plants “also generates investments and jobs in other sectors of the economy.“

However, there is a thorn in the side of relations between China and Argentina regarding the nuclear issue: the project of the hydroelectric plants. These two giant plants with a projected capacity of 1,290 MW are to be built at a cost of nearly five billion dollar, on the Santa Cruz River, which emerges in the spectacular Glaciers National Park in the southern region of Patagonia, and flows into the Atlantic Ocean.

In December, when the works seemed about to get underway, the Supreme Court suspended construction of the dams, in response to a lawsuit filed by two environmental organisations.

The three Chinese state banks financing the two projects then said they would invoke a cross-default clause included in the contract for the dams, which said they would cancel the rest of their investments if the dams were not built.

To build the two plants, three Chinese and one Argentine companies formed a consortium, but after winning the tender in 2013, construction has not yet begun.

Under pressure from China, the government released the results of a new environmental impact study on Jun. 15 and now plans to convene a public hearing to discuss it, so that Argentina’s highest court will authorise the beginning of the works.

Added to opposition to the dams by environmentalists is their rejection of the nuclear plants. In the last few weeks, activists from Río Negro have held meetings in different parts of the province, demanding a referendum to allow the public to vote on the plant to be installed there.

They have even generated an unusual conflict with the neighbouring province of Chubut, where the regional parliament unanimously approved a statement against the nuclear plants. The governor of Río Negro, Alberto Weretilnek, asked the people of Chubut to “stop meddling.“

“Argentina must start a serious debate about what these plants mean, at a time when the world is abandoning this kind of energy. We need to know, among other things, how the uranium that is needed as fuel is going to be obtained,“ the director of the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation, Andrés Nápòli, told IPS.

Argentina now imports the uranium used in the country’s nuclear plants, but environmentalists are worried that local production, which was abandoned more than 20 years ago, will restart.

The post China Drives Nuclear Expansion in Argentina, but with Strings Attached appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Hunger is still one of the most urgent development challenges, yet the world is producing more than enough food. Credit: FAO

By IPS World Desk
ROME, Jun 27 2017 (IPS)

It is no secret that the biggest responsible for climate change is greed. The greed of the world’s largest private corporations, which blindly seek unlimited high financial benefits. And the greed of those politicians who are also blindly keen about holding their temporary power at any cost, thus not daring to challenge big business. Ordinary people can meanwhile help slow down such a hellish race.

For instance, food waste has become a dangerous habit: buying more than we need at supermarkets, letting fruits and vegetables spoil at home, or ordering more than we can eat at restaurants. This way, each year, about one third of the food we produce globally is lost or wasted.

This is what the United Nations over and again tells. The point is that humans are apparently not paying real attention to help avoid such a huge food waste and loss, while lamenting that hunger and poverty are again breaking records in several parts of the world, often due to man-made disasters caused by excessive and even voracious consumption.

The facts about food waste and loss are bold. In developing countries, a large part of food –40 per cent– is lost at the harvest or processing stage, the Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports. This is called “food loss.”

Meantime, in developed countries, this same percentage –40 per cent– is lost at the consumer or retail stage, throwing away food that is not bought at stores or food that is not eaten at home, restaurants and cafeterias. This is called “food waste.”

In short, every year, an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of the food produced for human consumption worldwide is lost or wasted.

Wasting Food Increases Greenhouse Gas Emissions

“We have formed habits that hurt our world and put extra strain on our natural resources. When we waste food, we waste the labour, money and precious resources (like seeds, water, feed, etc.) that go into making the food, not to mention the resources that go into transporting it,” the UN agency reminds.

In other words, wasting food increases greenhouse gas emissions and contributes to climate change.

And it is an excess in an age where almost a billion people go hungry, and represents a waste of the labour, water, energy, land and other inputs that went into producing that food.

In industrialised countries, significant waste occurs at the consumption stage, while in low-income countries, food losses take place primarily during the early and middle stages of the supply chain, according to FAO.

At the same time, the losses incurred in developing countries are largely due to infrastructural constraints related to poor transport, storage, processing and packaging facilities, in addition to capacity gaps that result in inefficient production, harvesting, processing and transport of food.

Depending on the commodity and the local context, these activities –which are key to reducing losses– are often carried out by smallholder farmers or other actors operating close to the farm-gate, such as traders, collectors, agro-processors and marketing cooperatives, the UN specialised body adds.

One reason is that it is difficult for smallholders to ensure efficient delivery of produce to buyers because of their small-sized operations and their vulnerability when faced with environmental and market fluctuations.

This situation contributes not only to food loss, but also to higher transaction costs, loss of income and increased food insecurity, reinforcing the overall argument for supporting producer organisations that foster the collective capacity of smallholder operations.

Credit: FAO/Rodger Bosch

The UAE Food Bank Initiative

Some countries have already taken political decisions to institutionalise the efforts of fighting hunger and food waste. Such is the case of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has at the beginning of this year launched the UAE Food Bank.

Though it, the UAE has confirmed its political will to institutionally fight hunger and food waste, which will lead the regional efforts in managing food loss and food waste.

The newly established UAE Food Bank will gather many stakeholders to collect excess food from hotels, supermarkets, restaurants and farms. It will store and package the food for distribution, while inedible food will be recycled for different usages, including but not limited to animal feed and fertilisers.

Food loss and waste in NENA are estimated at up to 250kg per person and over $60 billion USD annually. The social, economic, and environmental impacts are serious for a region which relies heavily on global food imports, has limited potential to increase food production, and faces scarcity of water and arable land. Reducing food losses and waste is vital for sustainable food systems and regional food security. Credit: FAO

Food loss and waste in Near East North Africa region is estimated at up to 250 kilogrammes per person and over 60 billion dollars annually, thus the reduction of food losses and waste is vital for sustainable food systems and regional food security.

Meanwhile, bad habits can change, global warming can be slowed down, also at the individual level.

The post Any Way to Help Slow Down Climate Change… Individually? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Police officers use tear gas to crack down on a May 24 trade union march heading towards the Brazilian Congress to protest the projected labour and social security reforms which cut social rights. Credit: UGT

By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 24 2017 (IPS)

In addition to driving up the number of unemployed people to 14.2 million, the severe recession of the last two years led Brazil to join the global trend of flexibilisation of labour laws in order to further reduce labour costs.

Creating more jobs without affecting rights is the basic argument of the government and advocates of the reform that has made its way through the lower house of Congress but is pending a vote in the Senate, announced for the end of the month.

“Increasing job insecurity will be the consequence of this measure,” said Ricardo Antunes, sociology professor at the University of Campinas, in the southern state of São Paulo.

This process, which “completely undermines labour rights,” according to the academic, also includes a law on outsourcing in force since March, and a social security reform still in the initial stages in parliament, and whose approval is unlikely given the requirement of a special two-thirds majority in both houses.“Outsourcing does away with the employee-employer relationship, with workers frequently moved from one worksite or job to another. Workers lose their identity, no longer knowing if they are steelworkers or service providers, or to which category they belong.” -- Wagnar Santana

“This is a global trend that advances in a country depending on the level of resistance it runs into: slower where the trade union movement is strong, like in Germany and France, and faster where trade unionism is weaker, such as Great Britain and the United States,” Antunes told IPS.

In Brazil, workers are facing this offensive already weakened by unemployment, which is projected to remain high for a long time to come.

According to the state Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), unemployment stood at 13.7 per cent in the first three months of 2017, or 14.2 million people in a country of 207.6 million with a workforce of 103.1 million.

But underemployment amounted to 24.1 per cent, or 26.5 million people who work part-time or just a few hours a week or are considered only “potential” workers, the IBGE reported.

In addition, the lineup of forces in Congress is highly unfavourable to labour rights, with the government of President Michel Temer enjoying a vast majority, although it is vulnerable to allegations of corruption against the president and almost all of the leaders of the ruling coalition, who face possible prosecution in the Supreme Court.

The legislation proposed by the government “de-regulates labour relations, with arguments that reveal ignorance or bad faith,” argued Wagnar Santana, president-elect of the Union of Steelworkers of the ABC region, an industrial region in greater São Paulo that gave rise to the Workers’ Party (PT) and the CUT central union.

“This de-regulation did not increase employment in countries such as Spain, Mexico and Portugal, but instead drove up the rate of informal work. In Mexico, people who work for Volkswagen need another job as well to have a decent standard of living,” said the trade unionist, who works for the German car-maker.

Keeping formal labour rights such as a weekly day off and health coverage on the books means little without the possibility of enforcing them, due to the growth of informal work, employment instability and outsourcing, and the weakness of the trade union movement, he told IPS.

“Outsourcing does away with the employee-employer relationship, with workers frequently moved from one worksite or job to another. Workers lose their identity, no longer knowing if they are steelworkers or service providers, or to which category they belong,” complained Santana.

Trade unions have trouble organising, in the construction industry for example, where job rotation is frequent, he said.

If collective bargaining agreements between workers and employers trump labour laws, as the government’s proposed reform stipulates, the rights of workers would be undermined.

The strongest and best organised trade unions, such as the ones in large industrial cities, could negotiate better agreements and ensure that they are respected, but many others would not be able to. “That would end up weakening all of us, since we are not isolated,” said the trade unionist.

There are other factors that conspire against labour in Brazil, besides the high unemployment and the economic crisis aggravated by political troubles. The process of deindustrialisation weakens even the most combative trade unions, such as the steelworkers union.

The union of ABC, which represented up to 150,000 workers in the 1980s, currently has only 73,000 members, based in the municipalities of São Bernardo do Campo, Diadema, Ribeirão Pires and Rio Grande da Serra, after many ups and downs over the two past decades, Santana noted.

From the steelworkers of São Bernardo do Campo emerged trade unionist and political leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who founded the Workers Party (PT) in 1980, which he led to power the first day of 2003 and with which he governed Brazil until the last day of 2011, when he handed over the presidency to his fellow party member Dilma Rousseff, who was removed from office in August 2016.

The crisis and international competition also contributed to the rise in unemployment and to lower participation by industry in Brazil’s GDP.

But it is the devaluation of work at a global scale which Antunes attributes to the transnationalization of large companies, the new modes of production and the hegemony of finance capital, which has led to the setback in labour standards that is being pushed through in Brazil.

It is a return to “archaic” labour relations that is almost like a return to slavery, according to the expert in the sociology of labour. “Slaves used to be sold, now they are rented” through outsourcing, he said.

In 1995, Antunes published the book “Goodbye to Work?”, in which he discusses the trend towards increasing informality and precariousness of labour, and “21st century slavery”. “Precarious work used to be an exception, now it has become the rule,” he said.

One example is the British “zero-hour contract” where the employer is not required to provide any minimum working hours. One million people in the UK are working under these contracts, which puts them at the disposal of the company, to be called in to work when needed, and earning only for the hours they work, without full labour rights, said Antunes.

In Brazil this modality was included in the labour reform as “intermittent employment”.

The incorporation to the labour market of China’s huge reserves of labour power contributed to the devaluation of work around the world.

“They are qualified workers that the revolution fed and educated. Five years ago China offered poor quality industrial goods, today they have cutting-edge technology,” said the sociologist, adding that Asia has an enormous cheap labour force in countries like India, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

The reduction of costs is widespread. “In Italy they are closing factories that are reopening in Poland or Hungary, cutting monthly wages from 2,000 to 300 euros,” he said, to illustrate.

“There is a new morphology of labour. In Brazil we have 1.5 million workers in ‘telemarketing’ that did not exist before. Remote work, through on-line connection by cellphone or computer, has become widespread,” he pointed out.

But the working class has grown, although it is “more fragmented and diverse than before, and subjected to online work”. New forms of protest are emerging, including “picketing and roadblocks”, in Argentina for example, instead of strikes, he said.

“The outlook for the future is one of struggle, rebellions, as well as repression, massacres. The 21st century will be one of social upheavals”, concluded Antunes.

The post Global Devaluation of Work Drives Up Unemployment in Brazil appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Credti: CIAT. Source: FAO

By IPS World Desk
ROME, Jun 23 2017 (IPS)

Soils are polluted due mostly to human activities that leave excess chemicals in soils used to grow food, the United Nations reports.

Excess nitrogen and trace metals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury can impair plant metabolism and cut crop productivity, ultimately putting pressure on arable land, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 23 June informed. “When they enter the food chain, such pollutants also pose risks to food security, water resources, rural livelihoods and human health.“

The issue took centre stage at the Fifth Plenary Assembly (PA) of the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) held at FAO headquarters in Rome this week.

“Soil pollution is an emerging problem, but, because it comes in so many forms, the only way we can reduce knowledge gaps and promote sustainable soil management is to intensify global collaboration and build reliable scientific evidence,” said Ronald Vargas, a FAO soils officer and Secretary of the GSP.

“Combating soil pollution and pursuing sustainable soil management is essential for addressing climate change,” said for his part Rattan Lal, President of the International Union of Soil Sciences, in his keynote address to the Plenary Assembly.

Degraded soils after flooding in Pakistan. Floods are an important transportation vehicle for soil pollutants. Credit: FAO

Tackling human-caused problems through sustainable practices will mean “more change will happen between now and 2050 than during the 12 millennia since the onset of agriculture,” he added.

The GSP Plenary Assembly is a unique, neutral and multi-stakeholder platform to discuss global soil issues, to learn from good practices, and to deliberate on actions to secure healthy soils for an effective provision of ecosystem services and food for all,” said Maria Helena Semedo, FAO Deputy Director-General, Climate and Natural Resources. “Action at the country level is the new frontier.”

The Plenary Assembly endorsed three new initiatives aimed at facilitating information exchange: the Global Soil Information System; the Global Network of Soil Laboratories, set up to coordinate and standardize measurement across countries; and the International Network of Black Soils, launched to increase knowledge about the world’s most fertile agricultural soils, which are also known for their high carbon content.

Soil Pollution Under Scrutiny

Around one-third of the world’s soils are degraded, due mostly to unsustainable soil management practices. Tens of billions of tonnes of soil are lost to farming each year and one cause is soil pollution, which in some countries affects as much as one-fifth of all croplands, the UN specialised agency reports.

The term soil pollution refers to the presence in soils of chemicals that are either out of place or at higher-than-normal concentrations. Such contamination may be produced by mining and industrial activity or by sewer and waste mismanagement.

In some cases, FAO adds, pollutants are spread over large areas by wind and rain. Agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides – and even antibiotics contained in animal manure – are also major potential pollutants and pose special challenges due to the fast-changing chemical formulas employed.

Farmers unload soil in Sri Lanka. Credit: FAO

“Soil pollution is an insidious risk because it is harder to observe than some other soil degradation processes, such as erosion. The hazards posed depend on how soil properties affect the behaviour of chemicals and the speed with which they enter ecosystems.”

The diversity of contaminants and soil types, and the ways they interact, make soil surveys to identify dangers difficult and expensive, according to FAO.

Black Soils

Although commonly referred to in national soil classifications, “black soils” are far from uniform. The new International Network of Black Soils defines them as containing at least 25 centimetres of humus and with soil organic carbon content above 2 per cent; by this definition they cover about 916 million hectares, or 7 per cent of the world’s ice-free land surface.

Around one-quarter of black soils are the classic “Chernozem” type, with a humus layer of more than 1 metre; these are found in the breadbasket steppe regions of Eastern Europe and Central Asia and in the former prairies of North America, the UN agency adds.

The International Network of Black Soils aims to promote the conservation and long-term productivity of black soils by producing analytic reports and serving as a platform for knowledge sharing and technical cooperation.

The post “Black Soils” – Excessive Use of Arsenic, Cadmium, Lead, Mercury… appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A view of rusted, abandoned ships in Muynak, Uzebkistan, a former port city whose population has declined precipitously with the rapid recession of the Aral Sea. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

By IPS World Desk
ROME, Jun 23 2017 (IPS)

Record high temperatures are gripping much of the globe and more hot weather are to come. This implies more drought, more food insecurity, more famine and more massive human displacements.

In fact, extremely high May and June temperatures have broken records in parts of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the United States, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported, adding that the heat-waves have arrived unusually early.

At the same time, average global surface temperatures over land and sea are the second highest on record for the first five months of 2017, according to analyses by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA-Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Europe

In Portugal, extremely high temperatures of around 40 degrees Celsius contributed to the severity of the devastating, fast-moving weekend wildfires that ripped through the country’s forested Pedrógão Grande region, some 150 kilometres (95 miles) north-east of Lisbon, leaving dozens dead and more injured.

WMO on 20 June also reported that Portugal is not the only European country experiencing the effects of the extreme weather, as neighbouring Spain – which had its warmest spring in over 50 years – and France, have seen record-breaking temperatures. France is expected to continue see afternoon temperatures more than 10 degrees above the average for this time of year.

Meantime in Spain, spring (from 1 March to 31 May 2017) has been extremely warm, with an average temperature of 15.4 ° C, which is 1.7 ° C above the average of this term (reference period 1981-2010), the UN specialised body informs. Many other parts of Europe, including the United Kingdom, also witnessed above average temperatures into the low to mid 30°s.

United States

On the other side of the Atlantic, the US is also experiencing record or near-record heat, WMO reported. In parts of the desert southwest and into California, temperatures have hovered near a blistering 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius).

Media reports on 20 June suggested that some plane traffic was halted in and out of Phoenix Sky Harbour International Airport in Arizona because it was too hot to fly. The flight cancellations came amidst of one of the hottest days in the past 30 years of record keeping in the US state.

Near record-to-record heat has also been reported in the desert South West US and into California, with highs near 120°F (49°C) in places. More than 29 million Californians were under an excessive heat warning or advisory at the weekend. Phoenix recorded 118°C (47.8°C) on 19 June. A number of flights to Phoenix Sky Harbour International Airport were reportedly cancelled because it was too hot to fly.

And the so-called Death Valley National Park, California, issued warnings to visitors to expect high temperatures of 100°F to over 120°F (38°C to over 49°C). Death Valley holds the world record for the highest temperature, 56.7°C recorded in 1913.

Herders collect water with camels at one of the few remaining water points in drought-affected Bandarero village, Moyale County, Kenya. Credit: Rita Maingi/ OCHA

North Africa, Middle East and Asia

Meantime, temperature in United Arab Emirates topped 50°C on 17 May, while in the centre of Iran’s Kuzestan province in the South-East of the country, neighbouring Iraq, temperatures reached 50°C on 15 June, said the UN specialised agency.

The heat-wave in Morocco peaked on 17 May, when there was a new reported record of 42.9°C Larach Station in northern Morocco.

The high June temperatures follow above average temperatures in parts of the world at the end of May. The town of Turbat in South-Western Pakistan reported a temperature of 54°C. WMO will set up an international committee of experts to verify the temperature and assess whether it equals a reported 54°C temperature recorded in Kuwait last July.

Unprecedented Record of Displacements

Meanwhile, the world has marked New Inhumane Record: One Person Displaced Every Three Second. Nearly 66 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes last year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) informed in its report Global Trends, released ahead of the World Refugee Day on June 20.

The figure equates to “one person displaced every three seconds – less than the time it takes to read this sentence.

Such an unprecedented high records of human displacements is not only due to conflicts. In fact, advancing droughts and desertification also lay behind this “tsunami” of displaced persons both out of their own countries and in their own homelands.

On this, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) on the occasion of the World Day to Combat Desertification (WDCD) on June 17, alerted that by 2025 –that’s in less than 8 years from today– 1.8 billion people will experience absolute water scarcity, and two thirds of the world will be living under water-stressed conditions.

Now it is feared that advancing drought and deserts, growing water scarcity and decreasing food security may provoke a huge ‘tsunami” of climate refugees and migrants. See The Relentless March of Drought – That ‘Horseman of the Apocalypse’

Monique Barbut, UNCCD Executive Secretary, reminded that the world’s drought-prone and water scarce regions are often the main sources of refugees. Neither desertification nor drought on its own causes conflict or forced migration, but they can increase the risk of conflict and intensify on-going conflicts, Barbut explained. See: Mideast: Drought to Turn People into Eternal Migrants, Prey to Extremism?

An Urgent, Potentially Irreversible Threat

In Parallel, the United Nations leading agency in the fields of agriculture has issued numerous warnings on the huge impacts that droughts have on agriculture and food security, with poor rural communities among the most hit victims.

As a ways to help mitigate the effects of the on-going heat waves, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 20 June signed with WMO an agreement to deepen cooperation to respond to climate variability and climate change, “represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies, natural ecosystems and food security.”

Through this joint work, the two organisations will work on strengthening agro-meteorological services and making them more accessible to farmers and fishers; improve global and region-specific monitoring for early warning and response to high-impact events like droughts.

The agreement was signed on June 19 by FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva and WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas on the sidelines of an international seminar on drought organised by Iran, the Netherlands, and FAO in Rome.

“Saving livelihoods means saving lives – this is what building resilience is all about,” said Graziano da Silva.
Recalling the 2011 drought in Somalia that saw over 250,000 people perish from hunger, he said, “People die because they are not prepared to face the impacts of the drought – because their livelihoods are not resilient enough.”

“For years, the focus has been responding to droughts when they happen, rushing to provide emergency assistance and to keep people alive,” he said, noting that while “of course, that is important,” investing in preparedness and resilience is essential.

The post The World Is Burning appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Refugees at the Greek-Macedonian border where a makeshift camp had sprung up near the town of Idomeni. The sudden closure of the Balkan route left thousands stranded. Credit: Nikos Pilos/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 20 2017 (IPS)

Around 20 people are newly displaced every minute of the day, according to a new report.

In its annual Global Trends report, the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR has recorded unprecedented and concerning levels of displacement around the world.

“We are used to looking at the world and seeing progress, but there is no progress to be made in terms of conflict and violence that is producing people who have had to flee,” said the Director of UNHCR’s New York Office Ninette Kelley, ahead of World Refugee Day.

In just two decades, the population of forcibly displaced persons doubled from 32 million in 1997 to 65 million in 2016, larger than the total population of the United Kingdom.

Of this figure, almost 23 million are refugees while over 40 million are displaced within their own countries. Approximately two-thirds of refugees have been displaced for generations.

Despite the slight decrease in displacement in the last year, the numbers are still “depressing” and “unacceptable,” Kelley told IPS.

“Each individual number really reflects a deep level of human loss and trouble and is experienced every minute and every second of every day,” she stated.

Much of the growth was concentrated between 2012 and 2015, and driven largely by the Syrian conflict which, now in its seventh year, has forcibly displaced over 12 million representing over half of the Middle Eastern nation’s population.

However, the biggest new concern is now South Sudan where renewed conflict and food insecurity is driving the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis.

At the end of 2016, 3.3 million South Sudanese were displaced, equivalent to one in four people, and the figures have only continued to rise in 2017.

Kelley particularly pointed to the disturbing rise in displaced children around the world. Though children comprise of 30 percent of the world’s population, they disproportionately make up over 50 percent of refugees.

Over 66 percent of South Sudanese refugees alone are children.

Meanwhile, over 75,000 unaccompanied or separated children applied for asylum, a figure that is assumed to be an underestimate.

“I really ask you to pause and think about your own children or your nieces or your nephews and then think about the journeys that refugees take across conflict areas, across deserts, climbing mountains, giving their lives to unscrupulous traffickers and smugglers. And imagine those journeys of children without their parents or without adult accompaniment—then they arrive, and they are alone,” Kelley said.

The majority of displacements continue to be borne by developing countries which host almost 85 percent of the world’s refugees under UNHCR’s mandate. Such refugee influxes cause additional stress to low and middle income countries which already lack the necessary resources for their own citizens.

Uganda, where 37 percent live on less than 1.25 dollars per day, is now the largest refugee-hosting nation in Africa with over 1 million refugees from South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Burundi.

Already unable to provide adequate health services and other public goods to its citizens, Uganda’s resources have become increasingly stretched.

Despite the bleak picture and severe imbalance in global responsibility sharing, there has been little action or progress in the issue of displacement.

In 2016, a little over 40 percent of UNHCR’s budget was left unfunded, impeding the agency’s ability to meet refugees’ needs including relief items, shelter, and education.

Refugee plans continue to be underfunded, including South Sudan’s regional refugee response plan which is currently 15 percent funded.

Though 189,000 people were resettled in 2016 and a total of 37 countries are now providing resettlement places, both of which represent increases from the previous year, the number of available resettlement spots are still “disappointingly small” relative to refugee flows, Kelley said, urging for new approaches in displacement response.

In addition to highlighting the need for conflict prevention and mitigation, Kelley noted the need for more resettlement places, opportunities for family reunification, education scholars, and work exchange programmes in order to broaden the possibilities for refugees embarking on dangerous journeys due to consequences beyond their control.

She pointed to the historic New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants as a “positive” and comprehensive response framework to assist both refugees and the communities in which they live.

Adopted in 2016, the Declaration also tasks UNHCR with developing a global compact for safe, regular, and orderly migration which is undergoing negotiations in order for adoption by 2018.

Kelley also looked to action and engagement closer to home by individuals themselves, stating: “We can’t see these figures and sit back and say there’s nothing I can do.”

“We can volunteer, we can contribute, we can donate, we can educate, we can advise ourselves, we can try to build bridges within our own communities that seem to be widening day by day,” she concluded.

World Refugee Day is held every year on June 20th to commemorate, raise awareness of, and mobilize action for the millions of refugees around the world.

The post Children Now More Than Half of the 65 Million Displaced appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Dr. Hanif Hassan Al Qassim
GENEVA, Jun 20 2017 (IPS)

The world is heading into troubled waters as we are witnessing an unprecedented movement of people – refugees, migrants and internally displaced persons (IDPs) alike – fleeing from misery, poverty and conflicts. The refugee crisis that has swept across Europe and the Middle East is becoming the 21st century’s most protracted crisis with no immediate solution in sight. The world has not witnessed a more complex movement of people since the end of the Second World War; thousands of human beings undertake perilous and treacherous journeys in hope for a better and a safer future. Many of them perish during these hazardous journeys. How can we forget the words the British-Somali poet Warsan Shire who said:

“No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.”

The 2017 World Refugee Day is an important occasion to stand united with millions of refugees around the world. This international commemorative day was announced in 2001 following the adoption of Resolution 55/76 by the United Nations General Assembly on 12 February 2001. It also marked the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the “1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.” Although the traumas of the Second World War reminded the world of the importance of never ignoring the past, the contemporary crisis calls for concerted efforts to resolve the plight of refugees worldwide as a matter of urgency and to address the root causes of mass exodus, as a long-term strategy.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are 21 million refugees worldwide. In 2017, there was an estimated 5 million Syrian refugees worldwide. Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Sudan – countries located in the Arab region – are also considered as source countries of refugees owing to the proliferation of conflicts and the rise of violent extremism.

The majority of these refugees have sought refuge in countries neighbouring their country of origin. In the Middle East, countries in the Arab region are hosting one of the highest number of refugees. More than 1 million people have found refuge in Lebanon, a country that has already welcomed more than 500,000 Palestinian refugees. Jordan is home to approximately 660,000 refugees, whereas Iraq and Egypt have welcomed around 240,000 and 120,000 refugees respectively despite internal upheavals and civil strife. On top of this, one can also add Turkey that is currently hosting nearly 3 million Syrian refugees.

On the other side of the Mediterranean Sea, several European countries have showed some support to address the plights of refugees from the Arab region. Germany and Sweden have taken adequate measures to accommodate the influx of refugees by welcoming 400,000 and 100,000 refugees respectively. Other countries such as France and the Netherlands have also pleaded to relocate refugees entrenched in refugee camps in transit countries such as Italy, Greece and Hungary.

Although a certain degree of solidarity is being expressed by European countries, the number of refugees being granted protection in rich Western countries constitutes a very small one-digit percentage of the population compared with countries in the Arab region. Despite being signatories to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, many countries have decided to openly defy the acceptance of refugees belonging to certain religious faiths within their societies. Walls have been built in a misconceived attempt to exclude refugees from entering certain countries. The fearmongering and scapegoating of refugees have likewise given rise to a populist tidal wave. Right-wing movements use the contemporary refugee crisis to confer legitimacy on their aspirations to political power through whipping up xenophobia and through conflating Islam with terrorism.

During a panel debate that was held on 15 March 2017 at the United Nations Office in Geneva (UNOG) on the subject of “Islam and Christianity, the Great Convergence: Working Jointly Towards Equal Citizenship Rights” several panellists underscored that these types of practices are contradictory to the core principles of Islam and Christianity preaching love, peace and tolerance towards people in need. Societies should stand united in addressing the rise of populism that is pervasive in many countries.

I would also like to call upon governments in the Middle East and in the West to work jointly to address the protracted refugee crisis. Rich countries have a moral responsibility to provide development assistance to poorer countries to achieve a more equitable burden sharing arrangement for hosting refugees. Countries in the West and in the Middle East need also to step up their joint efforts to eliminate the root causes which have fuelled extremism. Peace and stability in the Middle East need to be restored before refugees can safely return to their home societies. This calls for a radical political change of approach in problem solving in the region.

The post The World Society Needs to Express Greater Solidarity for Refugees Worldwide appeared first on Inter Press Service.