Brazil and Germany, the two largest national economies within their respective continents, are taking the lead in tackling climate change through outstanding policies and bilateral relations, according to experts.

In a joint statement on Aug. 20 in Brasilia, during German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit, the two countries vowed to work together for a successful outcome of the Paris Climate Change Conference later this year.

The statement said: “Mindful of the positive impacts of a strong Brazil-Germany cooperation on climate change for the two countries’ bilateral relations and for the multilateral regime under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), President Rousseff and Federal Chancellor Merkel decided to strengthen the bilateral partnership on climate change, by working together towards a successful outcome of the Paris Climate Change Conference later this year and by expanding bilateral cooperation on areas of common interest.”

Such an agreement is part of a new model of international cooperation that is emerging, according to experts.

“International cooperation on climate change needs to occur at many levels; on the multi-lateral level we need a new international agreement under the UNFCCC; smaller groups of countries can come together that wish to go further faster than the UNFCCC allows and bi-lateral relations can build upon the strengths of individual countries and focus in efforts where they have particular interests,” Jennifer Morgan, Global Director of the Climate Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI), told IPS.

Brazil and Germany “both […] very much value their forests and both have vast potential for renewable energy,” Morgan said.

In the Brazilian-German joint statement, the two countries discuss the details of their cooperation in areas of common interest, including environment, trade and investment in the Latin American country. The focus is clearly on combating climate change, especially by way of reforestation in Brazilian’s Amazon rain forest, climate finance and exchange of knowledge and technologies.

While experts underline that bilateral climate talks are a step in the right direction, they express criticism in respect of the scope of climate efforts.

“It would have […] been helpful to have more details from Brazil on its national climate plan, but it will likely announce that later. Having a mixture of negotiation issues and national implementation is helpful,” Morgan said.

“A lot of the content is positive, but we would call it rather timid,” Mark Lutes, Global Climate Policy Advisor at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Brazil, told IPS.

“It falls short of what is required and it falls short of what the potentials of the two countries are to contribute to the problem, to contribute to the solution. We would have liked to see Brazil announce their INDCs (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions).”

One of the main commitments of the 22 point joint statement is maintaining the global average temperature below 2.0 °C (35.6 °F) above preindustrial levels.

Brazil and Germany have vast potential for renewable energy and have already made great progress in that field. They use different approaches, while both are quite successful.

By 2030, Brazil wants to restore and reforest 12 million hectares of forest land and reduce deforestation to zero. So far, the country has reduced deforestation in the Amazon biome by 82 percent since 2004, more than any other country.

According to a study conducted by the Californian Earth Innovation Institute, in 2014, the Latin American country achieved remarkable success through public policies, monitoring systems and beef and soy supply chain interventions.

“Brazil has already made excellent progress by dramatically slowing deforestation and protecting land in the Amazon region. Brazil’s commitment to restore 12 million hectares of forests by 2030 will also help reduce emissions and generate economic opportunities,” Nigel Sizer, Global Director Forest Program of the WRI, said in a statement.

Germany has also taken important steps against global warming. The term ‘Energiewende’ describes Germany’s goal to achieve an energy transition from the use of coal and other non-renewable sources to renewable sources only. By 2025, 40 percent to 45 percent of Germany’s energy should come from renewable source.

The current share of renewable sources in Germany’s electricity mix is 27 percent, whereas the country aims at gaining at least 80 percent of its electricity consumption from renewable sources by 2050.

Brazil and Germany are both keen to make COP21 a success. For instance, Germany’s ambitions to reduce emissions are higher than those of the European Union.

“Until now, Brazil is one of the first large developing countries that supports a target like a de-carbonization target or zero emissions […] and we hope this will be precedent for other larger countries to get behind that and have an ambitious long-term target, that can be included in the Paris agreement,” WWF’s Lutes told IPS.

“We hope that as more countries get on board, they can be more ambitious and talk about decarbonizing or zero emissions or 100 percent renewables […], targets like that, that are all necessary, but they’re necessary by around mid-century, not the end of the century,” Lutes pointed out.

“Now is when true leadership is needed from the highest levels,” Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement at the Opening of the General Assembly High-Level Event on Climate Change on Jun. 29.

“I pledge to you that I will spare no effort to ensure that the world leaders who are responsible for an ambitious agreement in Paris – and the financing needed to implement it – are directly engaged.” (END)

“Investing in ECD boosts economic growth, it offsets inequality and it helps eliminate crime and violence,” UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and world famous singer Shakira said at a press conference Tuesday.

“It is, without a doubt, the most effective way to guarantee a more stable world, peaceful world and a more prosperous world. But we need more commitment and that’s why we’re here this week.”

ECD (early childhood development) is based on four pillars: safety and protection, health and nutrition, early childhood education and stimulation and care.

Shakira eagerly supports UNICEF’s ECD program because she knows about the importance of the first five years in the life of a child. She has been working on education programs since she was 18 years old and was stunned when she first learned about ECD and the effect it has on producing responsible adults. Therefore, she shifted her focus from working with children who are already in school to children under the age of five.

“If the child does not get proper nutrition, then the brain will not develop properly,” UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake told journalists.

Scientific findings show that brain development is most intense during the first five years when almost 1,000 neural cells connect every second.

“When a child is subjected to violence or abuse, whether in the family or from living in conflict situations, … the brain does not develop as well as it could have,” Lake said.

According to UNICEF, almost 160 million children or one-fourth of all children in the world under the age of five are cognitively and physically stunted due to malnutrition, lack of education, unstable conditions in their countries or domestic violence.

“It doesn’t cost very much for families to give children the stimulation they need so their brains will develop and the return on those investments are huge,” Lake said.

“We know that toxic stress literally creates a weak foundation,” Harvard scientist Dr. Jack Shonkoff told journalists. “It means that we have to work harder, we have to spend more money, it’s more complicated.”

To support her good cause Shakira even sang two lines of the famous John Lennon song Imagine to the journalists.

“It’s a matter of putting children at the centre of the social, economic and political debate,” Shakira said. “Children’s basic needs […] need to become a priority over any other human investment.”

Speaking on the migrant crisis, Lake said “A generation from now, those same hatreds and that same conflict can be with us unless we do more to intervene in the lives of those children, including the very youngest for the sake of their future and for the sake of Syria.” (End)

Credit: Adriane Ohanesian

By Britta Schmitz
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 21 2015 (IPS)

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a Sudanese government force formed in mid-2013 and aimed at fighting rebel factions across Sudan, has allegedly not only committed war crimes, but serious crimes against humanity in Darfur.

A comprehensive report on the true magnitude of RSF attacks can hardly be provided, due to the inaccessibility of the region and lack of reliable data. Nevertheless, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has managed to interview 212 eyewitnesses who were either victims of RSF attacks or could otherwise testify the brutality of this government force.

“When an attack happens I call the people I know in that area and see if they can help locate people who were displaced by that attack and then try to get a phone to them or, how we got most of the people, was going and talking to the people in refugee camps,” Jonathan Loeb, Fellow at the Africa Division of HRW, told IPS.

In ‘Men With No Mercy’, HRW provides evidence that RSF attacks against civilians carried out between May 2014 and July 2015 were widespread and systematic, resulting in forced displacements, torture, extra-juridical killings, mass rapes and destruction of infrastructure crimes of universal jurisdiction, for which all states are responsible.

A mother from Bardani describes how she was raped by RSF soldiers: “They separated out the girls. When they finished raping the girls they raped all of us. [Each of us was raped] by two people. About 100 of us were raped. My daughters are 18, 12 and 8. They beat all the men.”

“Everything was destroyed. There were just bodies and burned houses left. We, the women, we started burying the bodies. Sometimes we found one arm or one leg. We just buried them. I buried five complete bodies and many incomplete bodies. […] After the burial we gathered children and we left in groups. We put the children on donkeys and walked for five days to [the town of] Um Baru,” Zeinab, a 25-year-old woman from Birdik, told HRW.

According to the report, the vast majority of attacked villages had no rebel presence before the RSF arrived.

Omar, a defector from a Sudanese state force, told HRW: “What I saw the army doing, I did not accept it. They raped women and killed civilians. They said that we were fighting the movements but we never went to the movement areas.”

RSF members told HRW that they were ordered to commit crimes like mass rapes and Sudan’s vice president Hassabo Mohammed Abdel Rahman ordered RSF personnel to kill everyone living in the rebel areas near Jebel Marra.

“They asked us where the rebels were. We said we didn’t know. [I saw two men get] killed. They were shot by small boys,” a herder from Um Daraba told HRW: “

Most RSF members are Darfurians recruited by Hemeti, a former Border Guard commander and Janjaweed militia leader. Many soldiers were drawn from the Border Guards. The RSF is considered a well-equipped force of at least 5,000 to 6,000 troops with 600 to 750 vehicles. Eyewitnesses told HRW that RSF troops can be recognized by the colour of their vehicles and RSF logos.

Collective Responsibility

The conflict in Sudan has been going on for 12 years and is one of the most serious of its kind the world over. Darfur, located in Western Sudan near the border to Chad, is among the poorest and most inaccessible regions in the world. The denial of access through the Sudanese government makes it difficult for U.N. peacekeepers and aid workers to reach affected villages in Darfur.

“The Mission has repeatedly called to grant immediate and unfettered access in areas of on-going or recently concluded hostilities between government forces and rebel factions, including to the Jebel Marra area,” U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said in a statement with regard to the UNAMID mission.

“The work of UNAMID’s human rights component has also been seriously curtailed ever since the Mission called on the Government of Sudan to grant it access to Thabit, in North Darfur, to investigate allegations of rape.”

4.4 million people in Darfur need humanitarian assistance, while inaccessibility makes it hard to monitor the conflict and to prevent further attacks.

“From January 2015 till the present, the Mission has attempted to reach troubled areas in Central Darfur, including Golo, nine times – eight access denials and one patrol restriction were imposed by both parties [government forces and rebel factions] to the on-going conflict. As of now, UNAMID has not been able to obtain access to Golo and, therefore, is unable to verify, first-hand, the content of any such reports on the area,” UNAMID Spokesperson Ashraf Eissa told IPS.

Due to the systematic nature of attacks against civilians, governments and institutions that fail to take action have a responsibility when it comes to solving the conflict. HRW provides specific recommendations on how to prevent new abuses by the RSF during the upcoming dry period, which will start around the turn of the year 2015/16 to the Sudanese government, the U.N., UNAMID, the EU and its member states, as well as other institutions.

“This force is a creation of the government of Sudan, they have been armed, they have been trained, they are fully part of the Sudanese military. And like any part of the military, they can be disarmed and disbanded, if senior government and military officials decide to do so,” Loeb said.

The Sudanese ambassador on the other hand criticizes HRW for accusing the RSF, which is considered as one of the best tools to fight rebels from Sudan’s point of view.

China and Russia have blocked possible action on this issue at the Security Council so far, but knowledgeable sources consider a unified Security Council essential for solving this conflict and building political pressure on the government of Sudan. Governments and international organizations, they say, should be more vocal about convincing the two countries to enable action, push Sudan to conduct the important step of banning the RSF and to investigate any form of abuse pro-actively.

The Sudanese government, they say, has the power to disband this force, which was created by them in the first place. However, there is a collective responsibility when it comes to solving this conflict.
(End)

The chance to make an impact seems just a few mouse clicks away. Credit: Dorian V./cc by 2.0

By Britta Schmitz
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 20 2015 (IPS)

In recent years, online activism platforms have multiplied to the degree that they are starting to have a significant real world impact in areas like environmental protection, human rights and public policy.

The most important decision-making instrument of these platforms is the online petition. In the age of social media, the chance to make an impact seems just a few clicks away.“There are many metrics for success. Victory is the most obvious of metrics, but not all campaigns win and that does not necessarily mean that they are failures." -- Michael Allen Jones of Change.org

One can easily sign existing petitions or launch his or her own petition in an instant. Organisations such as 38 Degrees, Avaaz, Causes, Care2 Petitions, Change.org, ipetitions or MoveOn, just to name a few, have spread across the world and provide the option to start a free petition. Even the White House has launched an official online petition initiative called We The People.

Two big platforms that primarily provide the service of online petitions are Avaaz and Change.org, both eight years old.

“Democratic accountability is hardwired into our model. While the Avaaz team and supporters suggest campaigns, each campaign is polled and tested with a randomized sample of the Avaaz community,” Aften Meltzer, a spokesperson for Avaaz, told IPS.

Transparent monitoring of a campaign’s impact on social change might be the key to gaining more influence and going beyond primarily raising awareness, she said.

Avaaz is a democratic network of over 41 million members which was founded in New York. It has become a global movement within just a few years. Eighteen national teams on six continents launch campaigns all over the world by mobilising individuals to participate in decision-making processes on a local, national or global level.

According to their website, more than 253 million actions have been taken via Avaaz since its launch in 2007. Avaaz solely depends on individual online contributions up to 5,000 dollars.

Change.org is a similar online initiative with over 113 million participants and more than 13,000 successful petitions in 196 countries. It works in the same way by giving people the chance to make a contribution by participating in online petitions. Change.org is a social enterprise and certified B Corporation.

“Our mission is to empower people everywhere to create the change they want to see, and we believe the best way to achieve that mission is by combining the vision of a non-profit with the flexibility and innovation of a tech startup,” said Michael Allen Jones, Deputy Managing Director for North America at Change.org.

Some measurable successes

Global online networks attract a lot of international attention. Avaaz has collected online signatures and sent personal messages to Ministers of the European Commission, asking for a European Agenda on Migration.

“450,000 EU members called for urgent action, and the petition was delivered to key EU decision maker,” said Meltzer. “Our members’ voices were heard, and the EU struck a deal to boost its search and rescue budget and offer sanctuary to over 50,000 refugees.”

A one million strong petition organised by Avaaz had an impact on clothing company Benetton’s decision to reimburse the victims of the severe accident in Bangladesh’s garment factory house Rana Plaza in 2013.

Benetton decided to contribute 1.1 million dollars to the Rana Plaza Trust Fund. Besides the online petition, Avaaz put up billboards outside Benetton’s headquarters, initiated various negotiations with the CEO and company executives, and launched awareness campaigns in social media networks.

Change.org also provides information on its online petition highlights: for example, the video game company EA sports will finally include women players in their soccer games starting from September 2016. The online petition which led to this success was initiated three years ago by 13-year-old soccer fan Rebekah Araujo.

Another successful petition is the one conducted on behalf of Jeff Mizanskey, who had spent 20 years in prison. Mizanskey was the only man in Missouri serving a life-sentence without parole for non-violent marijuana offenses. As a result of collecting almost 400,000 signatures for an online petition initiated by Mizanskey’s son, he was granted clemency by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon on May 28 this year.

Raising awareness vs. lack of transparency

Given the fact that the signing of online petitions is the most important instrument of these organisations, their networks seem quite loose. All around the world, people who are normally not interconnected can make a one-time contribution and organisations like Avaaz or Change.org have little influence on whether contributors will engage in further campaigns or not. Participants might not necessarily want to learn more about the cause of a petition.

“The network here isn’t as loose as it may seem,” Jones told IPS. “They [the signers] join forces with a petition starter and want to be kept in the loop about a campaign’s narrative and progress.

“Sure, the numbers might be big, but we’ve found that petition signers actually crave updates on petitions – they want to see news articles written about the campaign, see photos from a petition delivery that a starter might do, or hear about whether a campaign wins or makes progress. That’s a level of engagement that goes far beyond just signing a petition, and really makes signers part of the story in a petition’s life cycle.”

The impact of online petitions cannot always reliably be monitored. Other groups or individuals work on social issues as well, so it is hard to say who is responsible for a change.

Jones of Change.Org told IPS: “There are many metrics for success. Victory is the most obvious of metrics, but not all campaigns win and that does not necessarily mean that they are failures. Campaigns have the power to influence a narrative on an issue, introduce new thought and emotion into a debate, and of course raise the volume on issues important to marginalised communities.”

When anyone can start a campaign and mobilise a vast number of participants, the rising number of online petitions might lead to a decline in their value. The White House already had to raise the threshold for petitions via We The People from 5,000 to 100,000 signatures, as the platform was flooded with petitions.

Nevertheless, when looking at the outcome of online petitions, they are a perfect example of the strength of weak ties. People can easily and collectively interact on the same social causes. Online petitions raise awareness. They enable immediate action, as they spread through social media. Online campaigns can be started anytime, anywhere and by anyone who has access to the internet.

With their polished web appearances, these organisations continuously expand their communities, especially attracting young web-savvy individuals who want to make a difference in some way.

Besides online petitions, some platforms also conduct on-the-ground campaigns. As long as they continue offering the option to participate in such initiatives and deliver reliable monitoring when it comes to the impact, they have the chance of transforming political decision-making processes in the long-term.

Of course, the end goal is that activism goes beyond the realms of the internet, and mobilises people to get involved in their communities and beyond. Effective and transparent monitoring that shows the impact of an online petition could attract more citizens and transform the online petition into an established instrument of modern democracy.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Radha’s family has received one of the 50 household toilets provided by German-based organization United for Hope. The waiting list in 2,500 people strong Tirmasahun is still long.

By Britta Schmitz
NEW DELHI, Dec 22 2014 (IPS)

Rural India faces sanitation problems beyond Western imagination. With its 1.25 billion inhabitants, nearly 800 million people in the country live without basic sanitation.

Due to a major lack of toilets, some 600 million Indians are forced to defecate in the open. In rural India, this figure is as high as 65 percent. In addition to these shocking numbers, there are more mobile phones in the country than toilets.

India’s sanitation problem is, most of all, a problem for the nation’s female population. Open defecation not only spreads diseases like cholera or E. coli and contaminates unprotected water sources, but also exposes women to the risk of being harassed or raped, when they rise at night or before dawn in search of a little privacy to attend to their toiletry needs in the fields.

Furthermore, women and girls in rural India have limited access to feminine hygiene products as well as the day to day challenge of where to dispose of their makeshift pads.

Making a difference

When Irish marketing manager Tara McCartney first travelled to India in 2011, she immediately felt a sense of belonging. She concluded that her 10 year corporate career would not make the world a better place, quit her job and founded the non-governmental organisation (NGO) United for Hope in Munich, Germany in December 2013.

Since then, she has built a team of about 25 highly qualified volunteers plus one employee in India who are working together to improve living conditions in the village of Tirmasahun, Uttar Pradesh.

“At United for Hope, we are committed to communities over the long-term and there is nothing more fundamental to prosperity and sustainability than access to clean water and sanitation”, says Tara McCartney, director of United for Hope.

Tirmasahun, located in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, some 30 km away from the next major town, is a village of about 2,500 inhabitants and is representative of the aforementioned sanitation crisis. It is a typical agricultural village with poor infrastructure, limited access to electricity and clean water, a major lack of toilets and two dilapidated schools.

United for Hope has adopted the village of Tirmasahun in order to create a sustainable development model, which can then be replicated for other Indian villages.

“Challenges at the village level are complex and inter-dependant and this is why we work in a holistic approach. While school attendance is a great thing, its limited in its impact if a child is still drinking dirty water and has no access to a toilet”, McCartney told IPS.

Sustainability is the key to creating scalable and lasting impact. United for Hope works across five core pillars: water and sanitation, renewable energy, education, women empowerment and alternative income generation for the villagers.

So far, United for Hope has successfully built toilets for 50 families, set up solar street lights around the village, carried out basic repair work in the two schools and purchased land for the next project phase. This land will be used for building a community centre which will serve as a meeting point for the villagers and as a base for delivering educational and awareness programs.

Enabling community action

United for Hope aims to achieve its goals by working with the local government, the community and the environment. The organisation wants to serve as a facilitator. Community members need to be involved in decision making processes and acquire all skills that are necessary for creating an impact that lasts.

Their toilet building cooperation partner is Sulabh International. India’s largest NGO, works on promoting open defecation-free habits “by creating awareness and gaining people’s confidence to own an affordable and sustainable toilet”, A. K. Sen Gupta, director general of Sulabh International Academy of Environmental Sanitation and Public Health, told IPS.

As the waiting list for toilets in Tirmasahun is long, preference is given to households with more female members.

One way of ensuring sustainability is the participation model, which has proven to be successful so far: all recipients contribute 10 percent of the cost of the toilet.

In order to ensure that the toilets are being used correctly, United for Hope regularly conducts workshops and WASH campaigns. The organisation has placed a teacher in one of the schools to carry on its programmes, especially around topics like proper hand washing.

WASH stands for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene and is a programme aimed at raising awareness around proper hygiene and sanitation usage.

Other villages in India have launched similar programmes. The village of Punsari in Gujarat is comparable to Tirmasahun: 6,000 inhabitants, far away from the next big city, a huge sanitation problem, lack of street lights and two primary schools.

In 2006, when Himanshu Patel became the new village head, Punsari began its transformation, which was supported by then State Chief Minister Narendra Modi, currently Prime Minister of India.

Their aim was to stop mass migration from villages to big cities and they were successful, investing about $ 2.28 million in the development of Punsari between 2006 and 2012.

Meanwhile, every household in Punsari has a toilet and a drainage system, the village has two functioning primary schools, a primary health centre and street lights around the village.

Two very different approaches with the same effect: if the Indian state and national or international NGOs work hand in hand, the concept of these model villages will be adopted across India contributing to resolving rural India’s sanitation woes.