A police officer walks after using tear gas to disperse protesters during a demonstration over police killings of people protesting against Kenya's proposed finance bill in Nairobi, June 27, 2024. Credit: Voice of America (VoA)

By Danny Bradlow
PRETORIA, South Africa, Jul 5 2024 (IPS)

The recent Kenyan protests are a warning that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is failing. The public does not think it is helping its member countries manage their economic and financial problems, which are being exacerbated by a rapidly changing global political economy.

To be sure, the IMF is not the only cause of Kenya’s problems with raising the funds to meet its substantial debt obligations and deal with its budget deficit. Other causes include the failure of the governing class to deal with corruption, to spend public finances responsibly and to manage an economy that produces jobs and improves the living standards of Kenya’s young population.

The country has also been hammered by drought, floods and locust infestations in recent years. In addition, its creditors are demanding that it continue servicing its large external debts despite its domestic challenges and a difficult international financial and economic environment.

Danny Bradlow

Unfortunately, Kenya is not an isolated case. Twenty-one African countries are receiving IMF support. In Africa, debt service, on average, exceeds the combined amounts governments are spending on health, education, climate and social services.

The tough conditions attached to IMF financing have led the citizens of Kenya and other African countries to conclude that a too powerful IMF is the cause of their problems. However, my research into the law, politics and history of the international financial institutions suggests the opposite: the real problem is the IMF’s decline in authority and efficacy.

Some history will help explain this and indicate a partial solution.

The history

When the treaty establishing the IMF was negotiated 80 years ago, it was expected to have resources equal to roughly 3% of global GDP. This was to help deal with the monetary and balance of payments problems of 44 countries. Today, the IMF is expected to help its 191 member countries deal with fiscal, monetary, financial and foreign exchange problems and with “new” issues like climate, gender and inequality.

To fulfil these responsibilities, its member states have provided the IMF with resources equal to only about 1% of global GDP.

The decline in its resources relative to the size of the global economy and of its membership has at least two pernicious effects.

The first is that it is providing its member states with less financial support than they require if they are to meet the needs of their citizens and comply with their legal commitments to creditors and citizens. The result is that the IMF remains a purveyor of austerity policies. It requires a country to make deeper spending cuts than would be needed if the IMF had adequate resources.

The second effect of declining resources is that it weakens the IMF’s bargaining position in managing sovereign debt crises. This is important because the IMF plays a critical role in such crises. It helps determine when a country needs debt relief or forgiveness, how big the gap between the country’s financial obligations and available resources is, how much the IMF will contribute to filling this gap and how much its other creditors must contribute.

When Mexico announced that it could not meet its debt obligations in 1982, the IMF stated that it would provide about a third of the money that Mexico needed to meet its obligations, provided its commercial creditors contributed the remaining funds. It was able to push the creditors to reach agreement with Mexico within months. It had sufficient resources to repeat the exercise in other developing countries in Latin America and eastern Europe.

The conditions that the IMF imposed on Mexico and the other debtor countries in return for this financial support created serious problems for these countries. Still, the IMF was an effective actor in the 1980s debt crisis.

Today, the IMF is unable to play such a decisive role. For example, it has provided Zambia with less than 10% of its financing needs. It has been four years since Zambia defaulted on its debt and, even with IMF support, it has not yet concluded restructuring agreements with all its creditors.

What is to be done?

The solution to this problem requires the rich countries to provide sufficient finances for the IMF to carry out its mandate. They must also surrender some control and make the organisation more democratic and accountable.

In the short term, the IMF can take two actions.

First, it must set out detailed policies and procedures that explain to its own staff, to its member states and to the inhabitants of these states what it can and will do. These policies should clarify the criteria that the IMF will use to determine when and how to incorporate climate, gender, inequality and other social issues into IMF operations.

They should also describe with whom it will consult, how external actors can engage with the IMF and the process it will follow in designing and implementing its operations. In fact, there are international norms and standards that the IMF can use to develop policies and procedures that are principled and transparent.

Second, the IMF must acknowledge that the issues raised by its expanded mandate are complex and that the risk of mistakes is high.

Consequently, the IMF needs a mechanism that can help it identify its mistakes, address their adverse impacts in a timely manner and avoid repeating them.

In short, the IMF must create an independent accountability mechanism such as an external ombudsman who can receive complaints.

Currently, the IMF is the only multilateral financial institution without such a mechanism. It therefore lacks the means for identifying unanticipated problems in its operations when they can still be corrected and for learning about the impact of its operations on the communities and people it is supposed to be helping.

Danny Bradlow is Professor/Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria

https://theconversation.com/the-imf-is-failing-countries-like-kenya-why-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-233825

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Mahrang Baloch during a public appearance. The 30-year-old has emerged as a prominent figure in the Baloch movement. Credit: Mehrab Khalid/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
ROME, Jul 4 2024 (IPS)

A 30-year-old woman speaks before tens of thousands gathered in southern Pakistan. Men of all ages listen to her speech in almost reverential silence, many holding up her portrait and chanting her name: Mahrang Baloch.

This took place on January 24 in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, 900 kilometers southwest of Islamabad. The large, predominantly male crowd that gathered to welcome a group of women was unexpected for many. However, the reasons behind it were compelling.

They were welcomed back home after leading a women’s march towards Islamabad that lasted several months, demanding justice and reparations for missing Baloch people. In a phone conversation with IPS from Quetta, Mahrang Baloch provides the context behind what became known as the ‘march against the Baloch genocide’.

“For two decades, Pakistani security forces have been conducting a brutal military operation against political activists, dissenters, journalists, writers, and even artists to suppress the rebellion for an independent Balochistan, resulting in thousands of disappearances.”

Divided across the borders of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, the Baloch people number between 15 and 20 million, with their own language and culture.

Following Britain’s withdrawal from India, they declared their own state in 1947, even before Pakistan did. However, seven months later, that territory was annexed by Islamabad. Today, they live in the country’s largest and most sparsely populated province in the country, also the richest in resources, yet plagued by poverty and violence.

Mahrang Baloch, a surgeon by profession, recalls being fifteen years old when her father, an administration official known for his political activism, was arrested in 2009. Two years later, his body was found in a ditch after being savagely mutilated.

“There is no Baloch family that has not lost one of their own in this conflict,” says the prominent activist. Remaining silent, however, doesn’t seem to be an option for them.

“We at the Baloch Unity Committee (BYC) will fight against the Baloch genocide and defend Baloch national rights with public power in the political arena. However, we will continue our struggle outside the so-called parliament of Pakistan, which lacks a true mandate from the people and facilitates the Baloch genocide,” explains the mass leader.

Sammi Deen Baloch in Dublin after receiving a human rights award last June. She has not heard from her father since his kidnapping in 2009. (Photo provided by SDB)

Harassment

International organizations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch have consistently accused Pakistani security forces of committing serious human rights violations, including arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial executions.

Pakistani authorities declined to respond to questions posed by IPS via email. Meanwhile, the Voice for Missing Baloch People (VBMP), a local platform, cites more than 8,000 cases of enforced disappearances in the last two decades.

The secretary general of that organization is Sammi Deen Baloch, a 25-year-old Baloch woman who led last winter’s march to Islamabad alongside Mahrang Baloch. Baloch is a common surname in the region. The two women are not related.

Sammi Deen also participated in previous marches conducted in 2010, 2011 and 2013. Her father disappeared in 2009, and she has not heard from him ever since. “Fifteen years later, I still don’t know if I am an orphan, and my mother doesn’t know if she is a widow either,” says the young activist.

Last May, Sammi Deen travelled to Dublin (Ireland) to collect the Asia Pacific Human Rights Award, which is given annually to outstanding human rights defenders.

However, bringing Balochistan into the international spotlight always comes at a cost.

“They resort to all kinds of strategies to silence us, from smear campaigns to threats which are also directed against our families. They even file false police reports against us constantly,” Sammi Deen Baloch told IPS over the phone from Quetta.

Mahrang Baloch visited Norway last June after receiving an invitation from the PEN Club International, a global association of writers with consultative status at the UN. Even in the Scandinavian country she was harassed during her stay, forcing the Norwegian police to intervene on several occasions.

Despite the pressure endured by these women, Sammi Deen points to “significant progress” in the attitude of her people after the last march.

“Until very recently, most of the thousands of affected families remained silent out of fear of reprisals, but people massively joined the last protest. Today, more and more people are raising their voices to denounce what is happening,” claims the activist.

Khair Bux Marri at his residence in Karachi in 2009. Until his death in 2014, he was one of the most influential and respected leaders of the Baloch people. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

Thirst for Leadership

Baloch society has historically been organised along tribal lines. Some of its most charismatic leaders, such as Khair Bux Marri, Attaullah Mengal or Akbar Khan Bugti, eventually paid with imprisonment, exile and even death for their opposition to what they saw as a state of occupation by Pakistan.

Muhammad Amir Rana is a security and political economy analyst as well as the President of the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies. In a telephone conversation with IPS from Islamabad, Rana points to a certain “need for leadership” as one of the keys behind the massive support for Baloch activists.

“The problem is that all those historical leaders are already dead, and those who remain in Balochistan are seen as people close to the establishment by a large part of Baloch society. They no longer represent their people,” explains the analyst.

He also highlights the presence of an “emerging” Baloch civil society structured around the Baloch Unity Committee (BYC), the Baloch Students Organization (BSO Azad ) or the VBMP.

“Mahrang Baloch is a young woman with an academic background who has managed to put the issue of the missing Baloch people in the spotlight, but who also brings together the feelings of her people and seems to be able to channel that into a political movement,” says the expert.

Karima Baloch used to hide her face for security reasons. The student leader went into exile in Canada, where she died in 2020 under circumstances not yet clarified (Photo: BSO Azad)

It’s an opinion shared by many, including Mir Mohamad Ali Talpur, a renowned Baloch journalist and intellectual.

“The mainstream parties often try to supplant the civil society but they, with their limited aims, are too shallow to take up the mantle. As for the tribal chiefs that remain, they are stooges of the government and their power stems from the governmental support and from the tribes,” Talpur tells IPS over the phone from Hyderabad, 1,300 kilometres southwest of Islamabad.

He also highlights the changes the last march led by women produced.

“Since the last march, all abductions have resulted in protests which include blockades of roads and other similar actions. Mahrang and Sammi have a charismatic aura and emulating them is considered honourable in both urban and tribal sections of society,” explains Talpur. He also stresses that both women give “continuity to Karima Baloch´s legacy.”

He refers to that Baloch student leader forced into exile in Canada, where she died in 2020 in circumstances that have not yet been clarified. The BBC, the British public broadcaster, even included her in its list of “the 100 most inspiring and influential women of 2016.”

As for the more pressing present, Talpur is blunt about the social impact of the women-led march:

“The most significant change is that people have realized that remaining silent about the injustices perpetrated against them only allows things to worsen.”

Girls at Dabaso Girls School in Malindi, Kenya, pose with a ball during break time. Universal secondary education could virtually end child marriage and reduce early childbearing by up to three-fourths, according to an African Union and UNESCO report. Credit: Courtesy of Stafford Ondego for the EDT PROJECT

By Maina Waruru
NAIROBI & ADDIS ABABA, Jul 4 2024 (IPS)

Investing in teachers and school leaders in Africa is the most important factor in promoting educational opportunities for girls, keeping them in school and ending child marriage, ultimately reducing gender inequality through education.

Having more female teachers in schools and having more of them lead the institutions is even more important for keeping the girls in school beyond the primary level and providing them with role models to motivate them to continue learning.

While low educational attainment for girls and child marriage are profoundly detrimental for the girls, their families, communities, and societies, investments in teachers and school leaders are also key in ending lack of learning, identified as the single biggest cause of school dropout for girls, besides traditional factors including social and cultural ones.

Despite data showing that less than a fifth of teachers at the secondary level for example, are women in many African countries, and the proportion of female school leaders is even lower, the teachers have been proven to improve student learning and girls’ retention beyond primary and lower secondary school.

As a result, better opportunities must be given to women teachers and school leaders in order to bring additional benefits to girls’ education, as women often remain in teaching for a longer time, a report by the United Nations and the African Union says.

The absence of the above has led to high drop-outs, resulting in low educational attainment, a higher prevalence of child marriage, and higher risks of early childbearing for girls across Africa, according to the report, Educating Girls and Ending Child Marriage in Africa: Investment Case and the Role of Teachers and School Leaders.

“Increasing investments in girls’ education yields large economic benefits, apart from being the right thing to do. This requires interventions for adolescent girls, but it should also start with enhancing foundational learning through better teaching and school leadership,” the document tabled at the 1^st Pan-African Conference on Girls and Women’s Education taking place July 2–5 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The lack of foundational learning is a key cause leading to drop-out in primary and lower-secondary schools, it finds, further noting that while teachers and school leaders are key to it, new approaches are also needed for pedagogy and for training teachers and school heads.

“Targeted interventions for adolescent girls are needed, but they often reach only a small share of girls still in school at that age; by contrast, improving foundational learning would benefit a larger share of girls (and boys) and could also make sense from a cost-benefit point of view,” it adds.

Parents in 10 francophone countries who responded to household surveys cited the lack of learning in school—the absence of teaching despite children attending classes—for their children dropping out, accounting for over 40 percent of both girls and boys dropping out of primary school, it further reveals.

The lack of learning, blamed on teacher absence, accounts for more than a third of students dropping out at the lower secondary level, meaning that improving learning could automatically lead to significantly increased educational attainment for girls and boys alike.

“To improve learning, reviews from impact evaluations and analysis of student assessment data suggest that teachers and school leaders are key. Yet new approaches are needed for professional development, including through structured pedagogy and training emphasizing practice. Teachers must also be better educated; household surveys for 10 francophone countries suggest that only one-third of teachers in primary schools have a post-secondary diploma,” the survey carried out in 2023 laments.

It calls for “better opportunities” for female teachers and school principals, noting that this would bring additional benefits as women also tend to remain in teaching for a longer time compared to men.

Better professional standards and competency frameworks are also needed for teachers to make the profession more attractive and gender-sensitive, it finds, revealing that countries have not yet “treated teaching as a career” and lack a clear definition of competencies needed at different levels of the profession.

Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, just over two-thirds of girls complete their primary education and four in ten complete lower secondary education explains the study authored by Quentin Wodon, Chata Male, and Adenike Onagoruwa for the African Union’s  International Centre for the Education of Girls and Women in Africa (AU/CIEFFA) and the UN agency for education, culture and science, UNESCO.

Quoting the latest data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, it reveals that while nine in ten girls complete their primary education and over three in four complete their lower secondary education globally, the proportions are much lower in Sub-Saharan Africa, where slightly over two-thirds of the girls—69 percent compared to 73 percent boys—complete their primary education, and four out of ten girls—43 percent compared to 46 percent boys—complete lower secondary education.

Providing girls and women with adequate opportunities for education could have large positive impacts on many development outcomes, including higher earnings and standards of living for families, ending child marriage and early childbearing, reducing fertility, on health and nutrition, and on well-being, among others.

It observes that gains made in earnings are substantial, especially with a secondary education, noting that women with primary education earn more than those with no education, “but women with secondary education earn more than twice as much, but gains with tertiary education are even larger.”

Each additional year of secondary education for a girl could reduce their risk of marrying as a child and having a child before the age of 18.

“Universal secondary education could virtually end child marriage and reduce early childbearing by up to three-fourths. By contrast, primary education in most countries does not lead to large reductions in child marriage and early childbearing,” it declares.

The organizations make a strong case for the importance of secondary education for girls, explaining that universal secondary education would also have health benefits, including increasing women’s knowledge of HIV/AIDS by one-tenth, increasing women’s decision-making for their own healthcare by a fourth, helping reduce under-five mortality by one-third, and potentially lowering under-five stunting in infants by up to 20 percent.

In addition, secondary education while ending child marriage could reduce fertility—the number of children women have over their lifetime nationally by a third on average—slowing population growth and enabling countries to benefit from the “demographic dividend.”

Other benefits include a reduction in “intimate partner” violence, an increase in women’s decision-making in the household by a fifth and the likelihood of registering children at birth by over 25 percent.

To remedy the crisis, there was a need to improve the attractiveness of the teaching profession as one way of getting more females heading schools, Wodon, Director of UNESCO’s International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA), said during the report’s launch at the conference.

“Virtually all teachers are dissatisfied with their job, meaning that there is a need to improve job satisfaction in the profession besides improving salaries,” he noted.

While retaining girls in school lowered fertility rates by up to a third in some countries, the study’s aim for advocating for more education for girls had nothing to do with the need for lower fertility but was in the interest of empowering girls and women in decision-making.

Empowering girls through education places them in a better position in society in terms of power relations between them and males, observed Lorato Modongo, an AU-CIEFFA official.

“It is a fact that we cannot educate girls without challenging power dynamics in patriarchal settings, where men make decisions for everyone,” she noted.

Overall, the report regrets that gender imbalances in education and beyond, including in occupational choices, result from deep-seated biases and discrimination against women, which percolate into education. It is therefore essential to reduce inequality both in and through education, acknowledging that education has a key role to play in reducing broader gender inequalities in societies.

“While educating girls and ending child marriage is the right thing to do, it is also a smart economic investment.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Members of a “Jugnu” club get trained by UN Women to support women who experience gender-based violence. Credit: UN Women

By Umang Dhingra
NEW DELHI, India, Jul 4 2024 (IPS)

As the temperature soars to new heights in India, so does domestic violence. It’s a well-established correlation that is largely left out of the climate change discussion, but the gap is glaring and needs to be bridged.

For the third summer in a row, temperatures in India are breaking historical records. The recent record high of 52.9° C (127.22° F), has resulted in loss of livelihood, water rationing, health impacts, and even death. The heat affects some more than others. As people are advised to shelter at home, those in lower economic strata contend with cramped living situations, lack of air conditioning, and power cuts.

Women bear the worst impacts. New Delhi’s Heat Action Plan (HAP) registers their greater vulnerability – noting, for example, that they’re more susceptible to falling sick from the heat compared to men, the heightened risks for pregnant people, and greater expectations of women to be caretakers. But it fails to note the increased threat of violence.¬¬¬¬¬

It is well-documented that temperature extremes lead to an increase in domestic violence cases, with low-income women bearing the brunt. In South Asia, for every degree that the temperature rises, domestic violence increases about 6%.

As India grapples with its large carbon footprint, rising temperatures, and growing population, intimate partner violence can be expected to increase drastically. P¬¬ar¬¬¬ticularly if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t regulated effectively, India could see a spike in domestic violence of more than 20% by the end of the century.

Extreme temperatures are associated with frustration, aggression, and disruptions in people’s daily routines. Researchers theorize this is the reason why heat has a such a strong influence on rates of intimate partner violence.

For low-income daily wage laborers in India, heat may result in loss of livelihood and income. Economic stress and resultant anxiety can significantly increase domestic violence risk.

In addition, women are expected to be caretakers for the family, which gives them little chance of escape from abusers and increases their vulnerability under extreme conditions. This phenomenon was prevalent during Covid-19 pandemic, when the “shadow pandemic” of domestic violence affected women across India.

The pandemic also revealed strong patterns of economic abuse of women due to unequal power dynamics within the family.

Despite research demonstrating this, the spike in domestic violence during heat waves remains hush-hush. New Delhi’s Heat Action Plan (HAP) does not mention gender-based violence even once across its 66 pages.

While it acknowledges women as a vulnerable group and deals with increased risk during pregnancy, other risks to women remain shrouded in the vagueness of “social norms” and “gender discrimination.” Failing to address the threat of intimate partner violence explicitly leaves out a key piece of the puzzle.

The omission has manifold impacts. It lets policymakers shy away from confronting the issue, creating a gap in policy at the highest level. It sets up government workers tasked with implementing the plans such as New Delhi’s HAP on the ground for failure.

With no guidance on how to deal with the predictable increase in domestic violence during extreme heat, government can offer little support for women who need it. Mahila Panchayats (“women’s councils”) and grassroots non-profits often help rural and low-income women find support and community, but extreme weather can cut them off from these resources.

Forced to stay indoors and unable to access help, women have little recourse or respite. In theory, India’s laws protect them. But in practice, implementation is spotty, and they remain vulnerable.

India’s climate policy must not leave women out in the cold. New Delhi’s Heat Action Plan and other policy initiatives must protect women and offer them accessible support. First responders and government workers must be given the tools they need to help support those at risk for domestic violence, not only during heat waves but year-round.

Finally, India’s problem with domestic violence might be exacerbated during the summers but is not unique to them. India needs a suite of policies and concrete actions to contend with rising intimate partner violence, starting at the grassroots level and prioritizing education, employment, economic stability, and family planning for all.

Heat waves and the stressors they bring might be unforeseeable in a sense, but rising temperatures and rising domestic violence are completely predictable effects of climate change. There’s no excuse for failing to redress them.

By leaving women vulnerable year after year, we are doing a disservice, both to women who need help and to the institutions that they place their trust in.

Umang Dhingra is a Duke University undergraduate and a Stanback Fellow at the Population Institute, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that supports reproductive health and rights.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Jewel Fraser
PORT-of-SPAIN, Trinidad , Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

Global South countries did get one benefit from the COVID-19 pandemic. A professor at St. George’s University in Grenada describes it as the pandemic’s “silver lining.” He was referring to the widespread use of next-generation genomic sequencing technology to identify, track, and trace the numerous variants of the Sars Cov-2 virus. Researchers and scientists in the Caribbean, Africa, and elsewhere have been eagerly harnessing genomic sequencing technology to develop resilience and greater self-sufficiency in numerous fields, ranging from health surveillance to agriculture and beyond.

In this podcast, IPS Caribbean correspondent Jewel Fraser speaks with Professor Dr. Martin Forde at St. George’s University in Grenada about a research paper published in The Lancet that he coauthored looking at the Caribbean’s use of genomic sequencing technology.

To be fully transparent, we recorded this interview in early 2023, and it’s possible that new developments have occurred since then. Also, Forde and his colleagues’ paper relied solely on the data available in the GISAID database.

Music credit: https://www.fesliyanstudios.com/

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Fifty years ago on 1 May 1974, the Sixth Special Session of the General Assembly (April–May) adopted a revolutionary declaration and programme of action on the establishment of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) “based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common interest and cooperation among all States, irrespective of their economic and social systems”. The hope was that a NIEO would “correct inequalities and redress existing injustices, make it possible to eliminate the widening gap between the developed and the developing countries and ensure steadily accelerating economic and social development and peace and justice for present and future generations”. Alas, what evolved is far from what was envisioned or called for.

Anis Chowdhury

The NIEO resolution reaffirmed the minimum target – originally defined in the strategy for the second Development Decade – of 1% of the gross national product (GNP) of each developed country to be transferred to developing countries, out of which 0.7% of GNP would be as official development assistance (ODA).

But, ODA steadily declined from around 51% of GNI in the early 1960s to around 32% during 2017-2021. Oxfam estimated that 50 years of broken promises meant a US$5.7 trillion aid shortfall by 2020. Only five countries met the ODA target of 0.7% of GNI: Denmark (0.70%), Germany (0.83%), Luxembourg (1.00%), Norway (0.86%) and Sweden (0.90%).

Unreformed international monetary system and financing of development

The NIEO resolution called for (i) full and effective participation of developing countries in all phases of decision-making at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank; (ii) adequate and orderly creation of additional liquidity through the additional allocation of special drawing rights (SDRs); and (iii) early establishment of a link between SDRs and additional development financing.

None has materialised. Despite repeated commitments, and notwithstanding some minor improvement between 2005 and 2015, the representation of developing countries in international financial institutions, regional development banks and standard-setting bodies, e.g., OECD’s international taxation, has remained largely unchanged. The governments of the largest developed countries continue to hold veto powers in the decision-making bodies of these institutions.

The unchanged mechanism for allocating SDRs in proportion to countries’ IMF quota shares meant that most of the latest SDRs allocation of (about US$650 billion) in 2021 went to advanced economies; developing countries received only about one third, the most vulnerable countries receiving much less. While both G7 and G20 called for a voluntary rechannelling of US$100 billion worth of unused SDRs, only a fraction has actually been rechannelled to developing countries.

Increased indebtedness

The NIEO resolution envisioned “appropriate urgent measures …to mitigate adverse consequences for … development … arising from the burden of external debt”. These included debt cancellations, moratorium, rescheduling or interest subsidisation, and reorientation of international financial institutions lending policies.

Failure to fulfil aid promises and reform the global financial architecture, including the IMF quota-based SDRs allocations, forced developing countries to borrow from commercial sources at exorbitantly high interest rates with shorter maturity terms and no mechanism for restructuring. This has exacerbated the debt crisis. Almost 40% of all developing countries (52 countries) suffer from severe debt problems and extremely expensive market-based financing.

Only after extensive lobbying by civil society organisations, did the IMF and the World Bank jointly take the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative in 1996, supplemented by the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative in 2005. Despite the IMF’s debt service relief, and some limited G20 debt service suspension during the Covid-19 pandemic for low-income countries (LICs), the debt crisis worsened, with 60% LICs already at high risk of or in debt distress.

Rising food insecurity

The NIEO resolution called for the accumulation of buffer stocks of commodities in order to offset market fluctuations, combat inflationary tendencies, and ensure grain and food security.

Developing countries are far from attaining food security. Even before the Ukraine war, food insecurity around the world was rising. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimated that in 2022 approximately 30% of the global population (2.4 billion people), did not have constant access to food. Among them, around 900 million people faced severe food insecurity, and an additional 122 million people have been pushed into hunger since 2019. World Bank projections show that by 2030, over 600 million people will still struggle to feed their families.

Meanwhile, Africa turned from a net-exporter to a net-importer of food since the adoption of NIEO resolution. While developing countries had an overall annual agricultural trade surplus of almost US$7 billion in the early 1960s, “since the beginning of the 1990s they have generally been net importers of agricultural products, with a deficit in 2001, for example, of US$11 billion.”

Deindustrialisation

The NIEO resolution called for “all efforts … by the international community” for “the industrialization of the developing countries”.

Except for a few countries in Asia, deindustrialisation has become the unfortunate fate for developing countries. For Africa, the GDP share of manufacturing declined from around 17% in 1990 to around 11% in 2019, and Africa remains the least industrialised region in the world. In most central Asian countries, manufacturing’s GDP shares declined from around 20% in the early 1990s to less than 10% in 2015. Large Latin American countries, e.g., Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico also witnessed declines in manufacturing’s GDP shares.

The deindustrialisation has seen increasing specialisation in commodities, resource-based manufactures and low productivity services. Thus, majority of developing countries remain vulnerable to commodity price swings.

Even late-comer Asian developing countries, including China, face the risk of premature deindustrialisation. Some, e.g., Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, are already are in a ‘middle-income trap’.

Trade and technology barriers

The NIEO resolution asked for “improved access to markets in developed countries through the progressive removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers and of restrictive business practices”.

Yet, there has been a resurgence of protectionism in OECD countries since the late 1970s. The trade protectionism under different guises, such as health and sanitary standards, persisted even after the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The World Bank has warned, “protectionist measures are on the rise… [and] detrimental policies have been outpacing trade-liberalizing policies”.

The NIEO resolution also emphasised that developing countries needed to be given “access on improved terms to modern technology and to adapt that technology, as appropriate… and … adapt commercial practices governing transfer of technology to the requirements of the developing countries”.

Still, strengthened intellectual property rights, reinforced in the WTO’s agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), have raised the costs of acquiring technology, reducing technology transfers, raising transnational corporations (TNCs)’ monopoly powers. Developed countries refused to relax TRIPs to allow developing countries’ access to Covid-19 vaccines, drugs and testing technologies.

Unabated power of transnational corporations

The NIEO resolution demanded “permanent sovereignty of States over natural resources”; and “regulation and control over the activities of transnational corporations… to prevent interference in the internal affairs of the countries … to eliminate restrictive business practices…to conform to the national development plans and objectives of developing countries, …to transfer …technology and management skills to developing countries on equitable and favourable terms; to regulate the repatriation of the profits … and to promote reinvestment of their profits in developing countries”.

The UN Commission on TNCs, a body created in 1974 for the purpose, struggled to agree on the draft code of conduct on TNCs, and in 1994 was replaced by a Commission of the Trade and Development Board of UNCTAD.

TNCs continue to influence and mould domestic and international politics to their interests. TNCs have governments at their beck and call – witness their consistent success at dodging tax payments. Stringent WTO’s TRIPS was adopted at the behest of TNCs, especially to protect monopoly profits of big transnational pharmaceutical companies.

TNCs exert political influence to liberalise trade and investment; obtain subsidies; reduce their tax burdens; dilute working conditions; relax environmental protection. As Dani Rodrik noted, the WTO is heavily influenced by major banks and TNCs. Through the World Economic Forum (WEF), the TNCs are now setting global economic agenda.

Diminished States

The NIEO resolution contained the Charter on Economic Rights and Duties of States. However, neo-liberalism promoted by US President Reagan and UK Prime Minister Thatcher sees State as a problem. Privatisation, liberalisation and deregulation have significantly eroded the State from its customary intervention in regulating economic growth and promoting redistribution. The erosion of the State as an institution is visible in underfunded social programmes, a smaller public sector, weakened regulatory structures, foregone infrastructure projects, public assets sales and continued privatisation.

Questionable legitimacy of global economic governance

The NIEO resolution demanded that the United Nations, in particular the Economic and Social Council, be entrusted with the responsibility of setting global economic agenda and coordinating it as the most inclusive organisation with legitimacy. Besides the TNC takeover of global economic agenda setting through WEF, non-inclusive informal country groupings, e.g., G7 and G20, with questionable legitimacy and formal bodies, e.g., OECD and Bank for International Settlements, are acting as norm-setters. Thus, developing countries remain unpresented and disadvantaged.

Opportunity lost

The NIEO resolution was initiated in the wake of the collapse of the post-World War II Bretton Woods System in 1971, aimed at supporting development aspirations of developing and newly decolonised countries. However, the developed world failed to see that more orderly world growth and prosperity of developing countries would have benefited them too.

Instead, they engaged in protected negotiations dragging on for about two years. The resolution was adopted by a divisive majority vote (123 for, 50 against and 1 abstention) amidst fierce opposition from developed countries.

The United States took the position that “it cannot and does not accept any implication that the world is now embarked on the establishment of something called the New International Economic Order”. The NIEO effectively went into oblivion after President Reagan declared in 1981, “We should not seek to create new institutions”.

Thus, the developed world ensured NIEO’s failure while the global economy continues to struggle under a “non-system”. The world economy has also become more crisis prone; we had the Latin American debt crisis in the 1980s, the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, the 1998 Russian financial crisis, the 2000 Turkish lira crisis and the 2002 Argentine crisis within a short span of two decades. And the global financial and economic crisis showed, a crisis originating in one corner of the globe can quickly engulf the whole world.

Yet, we still do not have a global financial governance mechanism to deal with such crises fairly. What is most disappointing may not be the failure of the NIEO as such, but the hope that it inspired.

A bleak future?

Initiated by Progressive International, delegates from over 25 countries of the Global South assembled in Havana on 27 January 2023 to declare their intent to build a NIEO fit for the 21st century, countering the TNCs’ global economic agenda setting behind the WEF. The signatories of NIEO-Mark II seek to rebuild the collective power of emerging and developing countries for fundamentally transforming the international system, and for alternative ways to respond to global crises.

NIEO-Mark II is essentially, a call for shared and differentiated responsibilities for equitable development. Developed countries acknowledge the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’, formalised at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. But they have failed to meet their financing commitments and reneged on various targets to address global warming.

Amidst ongoing global challenges, including the climate emergency geopolitical conflicts, public health crisis, global food insecurity, outstripping the response capacity of the UN, the UN Secretary-General has called for a Summit of the Future – Our Common Agenda to be held on 22-23 September 2024.

The Summit of the Future is expected to find multilateral solutions for better tomorrow; resulting in an inter-governmentally agreed “Pact for the Future” to tackle emerging threats and opportunities.

What is the chance that the nations would agree to the “Pact for the Future”? To what extent the Pact will accommodate NIEO-Mark II?

The world now is more divided than it was in the 1970s when NIEO-Mark I was first proposed. Yet, plagued by ideological conflicts, NIEO-Mark I failed, making the world more crisis prone. One can only hope that the rising ideological and geo-political tensions do not lead to a bleak future.

Anis Chowdhury, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University (Australia). Served as a senior official at the UN Department of Economic Social Affairs (UN-DESA, New York) and UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP, Bangkok) between 2008-2016.

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Crerdit: STR/AFP via Getty Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

Myanmar’s army, at war with pro-democracy forces and ethnic militias, must know it’s nowhere near victory. It recently came close to losing control of Myawaddy, one of the country’s biggest cities, at a key location on the border with Thailand. Many areas are outside its control.

The army surely expected an easier ride when it ousted the elected government in a coup on 1 February 2021. It had ruled Myanmar for decades before democracy returned in 2015. But many democracy supporters took up arms, and in several parts of the country they’ve allied with militia groups from Myanmar’s ethnic minorities, with a long history of resisting military oppression.

Setbacks and violence

Army morale has collapsed. Thousands of soldiers are reported to have surrendered, including complete battalions – some out of moral objections to the junta’s violence and others because they saw defeat as inevitable. There have also been many defections, with defectors reporting they’d been ordered to kill unarmed civilians. Forces fighting the junta’s troops are encouraging defectors to join their ranks.

In response to reversals, in February the junta announced it would introduce compulsory conscription for young people, demanding up to five years of military service. An estimated 60,000 men are expected to be called up in the first round. The announcement prompted many young people to flee the country if they could, and if not, seek refuge in parts of Myanmar free from military control.

There have also been reports of army squads kidnapping people and forcing them to serve. Given minimal training, they’re cannon fodder and human shields. Rohingya people – an officially stateless Muslim minority – are among those reportedly being forcibly enlisted. They’re being pressed into service by the same military that committed genocide against them.

People who manage to cross into Thailand face hostility from Thai authorities and risk being returned against their will. Even after leaving Myanmar, refugees face the danger of transnational repression, as government intelligence agents reportedly operate in neighbouring countries and the authorities are freezing bank accounts, seizing assets and cancelling passports.

Conscription isn’t just about giving the junta more personnel to compensate for its losses – it’s also part of a sustained campaign of terror intended to subdue civilians and suppress activism. Neighbourhoods are being burned to the ground and hundreds have died in the flames. The air force is targeting unarmed towns and villages. The junta enjoys total impunity for these and many other vile acts.

The authorities hold thousands of political prisoners on fabricated charges and subject them to systematic torture. The UN independent fact-finding mission reports that at least 1,703 people have died in custody since the coup, likely an underestimate. Many have been convicted in secret military trials and some sentenced to death.

There’s also a growing humanitarian crisis, with many hospitals destroyed, acute food shortages in Rakhine state, where many Rohingya people live, and an estimated three million displaced. Voluntary groups are doing their best to help communities, but the situation is made much worse by the military obstructing access for aid workers.

International neglect

In March, UN human rights chief Volker Türk described the situation in Myanmar as ‘a never-ending nightmare’. It’s up to the international community to exert the pressure needed to end it.

It’s by no means certain the military will be defeated. Adversity could lead to infighting and the rise of even more vicious leaders. One thing that could make a decisive difference is disruption of the supply chain, particularly the jet fuel that enables lethal airstrikes on civilians. In April, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution calling on states to stop supplying the military with jet fuel. States should implement it.

Repressive states such as China, India and Russia have been happy enough to keep supplying the junta with weapons. But democratic states must take the lead and apply more concerted pressure. Some, including Australia, the UK and USA, have imposed new sanctions on junta members this year, but these have been slow in coming and fall short of the approach the Human Rights Council resolution demands.

But the worst response has come from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Ignoring reality and civil society’s proposals, ASEAN has stuck to a plan it developed in April 2021 that simply hasn’t worked. The junta takes advantage of ASEAN’s weakness. It announced compulsory conscription shortly after a visit by ASEAN’s Special Envoy for Myanmar.

ASEAN’s neglect has allowed human rights violations and, increasingly, transnational organised crime to flourish. The junta is involved in crimes such as drug trafficking, illegal gambling and online fraud. It uses the proceeds of these, often carried out with the help of Chinese gangs, to finance its war on its people. As a result, Myanmar now ranks number one on the Global Organized Crime Index. This is a regional problem, affecting people in Myanmar’s neighbouring countries as well.

ASEAN members also have an obligation to accept refugees from Myanmar, including those fleeing conscription. They should commit to protecting them and not forcing them back, particularly when they’re democracy and human rights activists whose lives would be at risk.

Forced conscription must be the tipping point for international action. This must include international justice, since there’s none in Myanmar. The junta has ignored an order from the International Court of Justice to protect Rohingya people and prevent actions that could violate the Genocide Convention, following a case brought by the government of The Gambia alleging genocide against the Rohingya. The UN Security Council should now use its power to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court so prosecutions of military leaders can begin.

China and Russia, which have so far refused to back calls for action, should end their block on Security Council action, in the interests of human rights and to prevent growing regional instability.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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A child waits to fill water containers in Gaza. Credit: UNRWA
 
In its latest update last week. the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, reported “especially intense” airstrikes in central Gaza in recent days, particularly in Bureij, Maghazi and Nuseirat refugee camps and eastern Deir Al-Balah.
 
Meanwhile, the Israeli military’s ground offensive “continues to expand”, UNRWA noted, particularly in the southern regions of Gaza City and eastern Rafah, causing further suffering and further “destabilising” humanitarian aid flows.

By James E. Jennings
ATLANTA, Georgia, Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

Zionism is broken. It is finished as a political philosophy and cannot long survive. Having earned the visceral opposition of multitudes of people and countries around the world for engaging in vast overkill in Gaza, that historical reality will likely become clear to the Israeli people over time.

Still, how could the most powerful state in the Middle East, the most flourishing economically, with the strongest superpower backing, become defunct? It cannot—unless somehow its chief raison d’etrê, its founding philosophy, collapses. That has already happened.

In the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas, the visceral racist core of Zionism has become evident in the indiscriminate slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, including many thousands of children.

No reason of state can ever excuse that. Israel’s righteous anger against HAMAS for its obscene October 7 attack transitioned quickly into racial hatred, ending in, if not genocide, then certainly war crimes and crimes against humanity. Netanyahu and his Likud allies have not hidden their racism for decades. Now it is explicit in full view of the world.

The Zionism of Netanyahu and his supporters must be repudiated by the Israelis themselves. Israel’s leaders from Menachem Begin to today have long endorsed statements lauding Israel uber alles.

Zionism can only be rehabilitated if it separates its reason for existing from the current triumphalist military identity that is determined to kill, kill, and kill again until the utter destruction and suppression of all every tangible and ideological enemy.

In a recent CNN interview, former Shin Beth Director Ami Ayalon, was very explicit: he said “The toxic leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu” [in pursuing an endless war] will “lead to the end of Zionism.” In that case, he said, “We cannot be secure and we shall lose our identity.”

Ayalon was preceded by a number of courageous Israeli thinkers and writers who warned of the same outcome—Israel was founded in 1948 but in their opinion, Zionism had already failed ideologically by the mid-1960s. They included Hebrew University professor Israel Shahak (1933-2001), who wrote, “It is my considered opinion that the State of Israel is a racist state in the full meaning of the term.”

He insisted that, “You cannot have humane Zionism. It (too) is a contradiction in terms.” Uri Avnery (1923-2018), a decorated Israeli soldier and later a publisher and politician, published a book in 1968 titled Israel without Zionists.

Many of the original Jewish colonists had utopian dreams, but their leaders would probably not recognize the grim, revengeful militarism of today’s Israel. A few tiny orthodox religious parties in Israel have never bought into the military machine that is the Likud Party’s pride and joy.

Some have steadfastly refused even to serve in the Israeli army because they don’t believe in the Israeli state. Now even they are being conscripted.

The original dream of Zionism from Theodore Herzl to Chaim Weizmann to David Ben Gurion, although containing seeds of a today’s hob-booted military identity, nevertheless also expressed a grandiosely humane, even a universal, goal—to become a “light to the nations.” In that, Israel has signally failed.

Like HAMAS and most Palestinians, Israel’s people—and Israel as a country—has become increasingly and deeply racist. Now racism—hatred of others for their differences—has become racial-ism, which is even worse, a doctrine of race superiority, which was the Nazi credo.

The Israel of Benjamin Netanyahu and his thuggish coalition has succumbed to such race hatred that Zionists from pre-1948 Palestine would not recognize it. A Jan. 6, 2024 opinion article in the Jerusalem Post urges Israel to reform its politics along better Zionist lines and take power away from the extremists now in charge. Commendable, but not nearly enough.

What if Abraham Lincoln had countenanced America’s original sin of slavery by merely taking half steps? We might still have “slavery lite.” No, Israel’s race-based philosophy must change to the democratic ideal: a single state in Israel and the occupied territories for Muslims, Christians, and Jews. One person, one vote.

When Palestinians are treated as human beings—as real people instead of enemies to be eradicated en masse—people everywhere would soon see how quickly peace would come to the Middle East.

James E. Jennings, PhD, is President, Conscience International
www.conscienceinternational.org
conscience@earthlink.net

IPS UN Bureau

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A child watches as bodies are recovered from under the rubble of a house in the Al-Nasr neighborhood, east of the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. Credit: UN News/Ziad Taleb

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 3 2024 (IPS)

The US gun lobby justifies the unfettered American gun ownership in the US on a misguided premise: Guns don’t kill people, it’s bullets that kill people.

The accusations of genocide and war crimes in Gaza have been directed firstly, at Israel, for the killings of more than 37,700, mostly civilians, and over 86,000 injured, in retaliation for the 1,200 killed by Hamas last October, according to estimates from Gaza health officials, as cited by Cable News Network (CNN) last week.

And secondly, the blame is also squarely on the United States, the unrestrained supplier of arms, including the devastating 2,000-pound unguided bombs, to the Netanyahu government.

But a group of UN human rights experts is now blaming a third force: US arms manufacturers who are accused of implicitly killing people, along with financial institutions that fund most of these weapons suppliers.

“The transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws and risk State complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide, the UN experts said last week, reiterating their demand to stop transfers immediately.”

In line with recent calls from the Human Rights Council, the UN experts are calling for halt to the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel by US arms manufacturers – including BAE Systems, Boeing, Caterpillar, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Oshkosh, Rheinmetall AG, Rolls-Royce Power Systems, RTX, and ThyssenKrupp.

The experts say these defense contractors should also end transfers, even if they are executed under existing export licenses.

“These companies, by sending weapons, parts, components, and ammunition to Israeli forces, risk being complicit in serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian laws,” the experts said.

This risk is heightened by the recent decision from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah, having recognised genocide as a plausible risk, as well as the request filed by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) seeking arrest warrants for Israeli leaders on allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“In this context, continuing arms transfers to Israel may be seen as knowingly providing assistance for operations that contravene international human rights and international humanitarian laws and may result in profit from such assistance.”

Dr Ramzy Baroud, a journalist and Editor of The Palestine Chronicle, told IPS the UN experts’ statement is important, as it highlights the complex role of the US in supporting, sustaining, and benefiting from the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

“Quite often we call on, demand and implore the US to end its support of Israel, so that the genocide may come to an end. The experts, however, are reminding us that the US involvement is not confined to that of the White House, and direct or indirect US military and logistical support to Israel”, he pointed out.

Indeed, he said, US support is channeled through multiple players, those who manufacture, transport, assemble and maintain the weapons and munition — a multi-billion-dollar military machine that has harvested the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians.

These companies must be named, shamed, boycotted and held accountable in every possible way. They must understand that there are legal repercussions to their action, as they are complicit in the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, said Dr Baroud, a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA).

These companies are, as the experts said, ‘knowingly’ providing direct assistance to Israel in its genocidal war. They are fully aware of the extent of these crimes as articulated in the South African case against Israel at the ICJ, and the call for arrest warrants by the chief prosecutor of the ICC.

The next rational step is for these companies to be taken to task. They seem to have no moral threshold. Their quest for profits by far exceeds their concern that their weapons are killing thousands of children, women and civilians in Gaza, and throughout occupied Palestine. They must face justice as participants in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, declared Dr Baroud.

Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy, told IPS it’s difficult to draw any clear distinction between the U.S. government and the arms makers that sell to it.

“The two are so intertwined that differentiating between them is often a distinction without a difference. The revolving door for individuals, in both directions, places weapons executives in pivotal government positions and vice versa”.

The magnitude of the military profits, he pointed out, is overwhelming in the nation’s political economy and culture. The multibillion-dollar corporations that depend on selling weaponry to the government are directly participating in a routine process of literally making a killing on behalf of massive profit-taking.

To call these firms “defense contractors” is a misnomer, since what they sell has little to do with defense in any meaningful sense, he argued.

“The stepped-up weapons sales and gifts to Israel are continuations of a partnership between the U.S. government and arms suppliers with the purpose of aiding an ally and reaping still more massive profits. In tandem, the U.S. government and the companies are providing Israel with the means to continue mass murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The core of the problem is lack of democracy and vastly excessive corporate power”.

In moral terms, the culpability is far-reaching. Yet, in a sinister way, he said, the military contractors are doing what capitalism provides for them to do — seek to maximize profits regardless of the consequences for human beings and the natural environment.

In contrast, within a democratic system, government is supposed to be responsive to the informed consent of the governed — conditions that certainly do not exist in the United States.

Meanwhile, in terms of international law and human decency, the U.S. government and its arms suppliers are guilty of horrendous crimes, which assist and compound those of Israel, declared Solomon, who is also national director, RootsAction.org and author of, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine”

A report from the Human Rights Council in mid-June details six emblematic attacks involving the suspected use of GBU-31 (2,0000 lbs), GBU-32 (1,000 lbs) and GBU-39 (250 lbs) bombs from 9 October to 2 December 2023 on residential buildings, a school, refugee camps and a market.

The UN Human Rights Office verified 218 deaths from these six attacks, and said information received indicated the number of fatalities could be much higher.

“The requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimise to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel’s bombing campaign,” said High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.

The report says the series of Israeli strikes, exemplified by the six incidents, indicates that the IDF may have repeatedly violated fundamental principles of the laws of war. In this connection, it notes that unlawful targeting when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, in line with a State or organisational policy, may also implicate the commission of crimes against humanity.

Financial institutions investing in these arms companies are also called to account. Investors such as Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung, Amundi Asset Management, Bank of America, BlackRock, Capital Group, Causeway Capital Management, Citigroup, Fidelity Management & Research, INVESCO Ltd, JP Morgan Chase, Harris Associates, Morgan Stanley, Norges Bank Investment Management, Newport Group, Raven’swing Asset Management, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance, State Street Corporation, Union Investment Privatfonds, The Vanguard Group, Wellington and Wells Fargo & Company, are urged to take action.

Failure to prevent or mitigate their business relationships with these arms manufacturers transferring arms to Israel could move from being directly linked to human rights abuses to contributing to them, with repercussions for complicity in potential atrocity crimes, the experts said.

“Arms initiate, sustain, exacerbate, and prolong armed conflicts, as well as other forms of oppression, hence the availability of arms is an essential precondition for the commission of war crimes and violations of human rights, including by private armament companies,” said the experts.

The experts paid tribute to the sustained work of journalists who have been documenting and reporting on the devastating impact of these weapons systems on civilians in Gaza, and human rights defenders and lawyers, among other stakeholders, who are dedicated to holding States and companies accountable for the transfer of weapons to Israel.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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By External Source
Jul 2 2024 (IPS-Partners)

 
Christina Lamb is Chief Foreign Correspondent at The Sunday Times and one of Britain’s leading foreign journalists as well as a bestselling author. She has been awarded Foreign Correspondent of the Year six times as well as Europe’s top war reporting prize, the Prix Bayeux, and was recently given the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Society of Editors and the Outstanding Impact Award by Amnesty International.

She is the best-selling author of ten books including Farewell Kabul, The Africa House, and The Sewing Circles of Herat and co-wrote the international bestseller I am Malala with Malala Yousafzai and The Girl from Aleppo with Nujeen Mustafa. Her book Our Bodies, Their Battlefields about sexual violence in conflict won the first Pilecki Institute award for war reporting and was shortlisted for Britain’s top non-fiction award, the Baillie Gifford Prize, as well as the Orwell Prize, the Kapuscinski Prize and the New York Public Library Bernstein award.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an Honorary Fellow of University College Oxford, an International Board member of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, an Associate of the Imperial War Museum, and was made an OBE by the Queen in 2013.

Christina was a key-note moderator and participant during Education Cannot Wait’s “Spotlight on Afghanistan” session at last year’s High-Level Financing Conference in Geneva. In June 2023, Christina Lamb was appointed as an ECW Global Champion.

ECW: The 14th of June 2024 marked 1,000 days since the ban of girls’ secondary education in Afghanistan. On that tragic milestone, ECW launched phase two of its global #AfghanGirlsVoices advocacy campaign. In addition to the campaign, how can the world further activate political leadership and how can global partners – UN, CSOs, Governments and the public – help support a return to schooling for all girls in Afghanistan?

Christina Lamb: We should all feel ashamed that there is a country on the planet in 2024 where girls are not allowed to go to school. Yet, three years after the Taliban takeover, sometimes it feels as if the world has just moved on. Meanwhile girls in Afghanistan are losing hope. Unfortunately, the Taliban is a reality, but no one I know in Afghanistan wants their daughters imprisoned at home. This needs to be called out as what it is – gender apartheid. I think any engagement with the Taliban by the international community should be conditional and all global partners should be doing everything to put pressure on them, if not directly, then through others that the Taliban listen to, such as leaders from the Islamic world and influential clerics. Personally, I raise the issue at every platform I can. In the meantime, we should do everything we can to support girls through online learning, by providing books and materials to the brave activists running home schools, and by sharing #AfghanGirlsVoices.

ECW: You are a leading, credible and authentic voice on girls’ and women’s rights, a best-selling author, and a tireless advocate for the world’s most vulnerable people. Why do you do what you do, what stories of girls caught in crisis and denied their right to education have inspired you most, and why did you decide to become an ECW Global Champion?

Christina Lamb: I started my career really wanting to be a novelist, but found real life stories so compelling, perhaps particularly as the first place I went to as a foreign correspondent was Afghanistan, a land of oral tradition and great storytellers. I see my job as telling stories for those who have no platform and have always been motivated by exposing injustice.

I have now been a foreign correspondent for 36 years and wherever I have worked – from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe – it has always seemed clear to me that the single biggest thing that changes people’s lives is education, and particularly girls’ education. Teaching girls leads to improved health and raises family income – statistics bear out what I have seen for myself.

As a mother, it also makes me so sad that there are millions of children out of school. Education is a right, not a privilege – yet, shockingly, there are currently more than 224 million crisis-affected children and adolescents who urgently need education support, so anything we can do to raise awareness and change that, we should. For all these reasons, I am very happy to be an ECW Global Champion.

Though I spend much of my time in dark places, it’s in those places I often find inspiring people. Perhaps because I am a woman, they mostly seem to be women. I was lucky enough to work with Malala, who was shot by the Taliban simply for wanting to go to school and helped write her book I Am Malala. And Nujeen Mustafa, a girl from Aleppo who never went to school in Syria because she has cerebral palsy and couldn’t walk yet taught herself fluent English from watching the American soap opera Days of Our Lives and can recite all the kings and queens of England, not to mention the Romanovs.

ECW: We live in challenging times. Overseas development assistance is shrinking, while armed conflicts hit inflection points in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and beyond, and climate change impacts continue to increase – all impacting vulnerable children’s right to education. Why should public and private sector donors provide increased funding for education in emergencies and protracted crises?

Christina Lamb: We certainly do live in challenging times and my job as a war correspondent has never been so busy, for we have fewer correspondents yet more conflicts than at any time since World War II. Sadly, we don’t seem very good at focusing on more than one or two issues at a time, so conflicts like Afghanistan, Sudan and Ethiopia are being forgotten. Moreover, many people in developed nations are suffering cost of living crises, seeing their own healthcare systems unable to cope, and want to close their borders to desperate people coming in. That’s exactly why we should help people in their countries, to help them find employment and their rights be protected at home. Public and private sector donors can play an important role by increasing their funding for education in emergencies.

ECW: Your book Our Bodies, Their Battlefields, takes us closer than ever to the stark reality facing girls and women during armed conflicts. How can access to the safety, hope and opportunity of quality education safeguard human rights and provide new opportunities for girls and women everywhere?

Christina Lamb: As a female war correspondent, I’ve always been most interested in what happens to women in war, a story that long went untold. To me, women are the real heroes of the war as they are the ones keeping life together, educating and protecting children and the elderly. But there is also a dark side – the use of sexual violence and rape against women and girls, something that seems to be happening more and more, most recently in Ukraine and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet the use of sexual violence is the world’s most neglected war crime, where accountability is the exception, not the rule. Access to quality education teaches girls about their rights – but also the boys. From what I have seen, there is very little point of making women aware of their rights if you don’t do anything to change the male mindset.

ECW: Millions have read your best-selling books I Am Malala, Nujeen, Our Bodies, Their Battlefield and The Prince Rupert Hotel for the Homeless. We all know that ‘readers are leaders’ and that reading skills are key to every child’s education. What are three books that have most influenced you personally and/or professionally, and why would you recommend them to others?

Christina Lamb: I read all the time – non-fiction about issues I am covering, but also novels for enjoyment and to switch off in traumatic situations. Usually my favourite book is the one I have just read. But three books that stand out for me are: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini; The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexeivich; and The Picnic by Matthew Longo.

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Green chillies, salt and ants on a stone mortar pestle depicts the process of how the chutney is prepared. Photo courtesy: Rajesh Padhial

By Diwash Gahatraj
UDULA, India, Jul 2 2024 (IPS)

On a scorching May morning, Gajendra Madhei, a farmer from Mamudiya village, arrives at the local bazaar in Udula, a town in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district. He displays freshly caught red weaver ants, known locally as kai pimpudi, in the bustling tribal market.

Thanks to the recent recognition of Mayurbhanj’s Kai chutney, or red weaver ant chutney, with a Geographical Indication (GI) tag awarded in January, his business of selling the raw ants has seen a significant surge in profitability.

“Previously, a kilo of ants would fetch me around Rs 100, but now prices have skyrocketed. I sell a kilo for Rs. 600–Rs. 700,” he shares. The GI tag recognition has fueled the demand for the ants and highlighted their nutritional importance, previously overlooked as a tribal dish.

Chutney is a savory Indian condiment eaten with rice or chapati (wheat bread). Kai chutney is prepared by grinding red weaver ants with green chilies and salt on a stone mortar and pestle.

“For generations, many indigenous people in the district have been consuming kai chutney as a remedial cure for colds and fevers,” explains thirty-year-old Madhei, who belongs to the Bathudi tribe. In the landscape near the Simlipal Tiger Reserve in Mayurbhanj district, various tribes such as Kolha, Santal, Bhumija, Gond, Ho, Khadia, Mankidia, and Lodhas cherish this unique dish.

This year, the granting of a GI tag to Mayurbhanj Kai Chutney signifies a significant milestone in its journey from remote tribal villages to global food tables. This recognition acknowledges and safeguards the traditional knowledge, reputation, and distinctiveness associated with the chutney. It serves to preserve the cultural heritage and economic value of the dish while also preventing unauthorized use or imitation of its name and production methods.

Red weaver ants, scientifically known as Oecophylla smaragdina, thrive abundantly in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha year-round and are commonly available in local bazaars. Residing in trees, these ants exhibit a distinctive nesting behavior, weaving nests using leaves from their host trees. Due to their potent sting, which causes sharp pain and reddish bumps on the skin, people often maintain a safe distance from red weaver ants. However, in Mayurbhanj, where there is a significant Adivasi population, these ants are considered a delicacy. Whether consumed raw or in the form of chutney, they hold a significant place in the culinary traditions of the locals.

Nests of red weaver ants on trees. Photo courtesy: Rajesh Padhial

No More Tribal Delight

The traditional practice of consuming red weaver ants in Mayurbhanj has gained wider recognition beyond tribal communities after the GI tag.

“People across the State of Odisha knew about the ant-eating Adivasi tradition of Mayurbhanj, but the GI tag has helped to promote its nutritional values across all communities. This has created a high demand for the ants in the local market,” says Dr. Subhrakanta Jena from the Department of Microbiology at Fakir Mohan University in Odisha.

Jena highlights the nutritional value of red weaver ants, noting their richness in valuable proteins, calcium, zinc, vitamin B-12, iron, magnesium, potassium, sodium, copper, amino acids, and other nutrients. He suggests that consuming these ants can boost the immune system and help prevent diseases. Scientific studies have also indicated the dish’s nutritional value, emphasizing its high protein content and immunity-boosting qualities.

Traditionally, it goes to a dish for a common cold, fever, or body ache. The weaver ant, touted as a superfood, is known to enhance immunity due to its high protein and vitamin content.

“The tangy chutney, celebrated in the region for its healing properties, is considered vital for the nutritional security of the tribal people. Tribal healers also create a medicinal oil by soaking ants in pure mustard oil. After a month, it’s used as body oil for babies and to treat rheumatism, gout, ringworm, and more. Local residents also consume it for health and vitality,” says Nayadhar Padhial, a resident of Mayurbhanj.

Padhial, a member of the tribal community belonging to Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), emphasizes the community’s heavy reliance on forest-based livelihoods. For generations, indigenous communities from the Mayurbhanj district have ventured into nearby forests to collect kai pimpudi (red weaver ants). Approximately 500 tribal families sustain themselves by gathering and selling these insects, along with the chutney made from them. Padhial, also a member of the tribe, filed the GI registration in 2022.

Sellers venture into the Simlipal Tiger Reserve and its surrounding areas to collect red weaver ants, which nest in tall trees with large leaves.

“It is a laborious process to collect ants from trees,” Madhei explains. Ant collectors use axes to cut the branches where ants make their nests. “We have to be quick to keep the ants in plastic jars after they fall on the ground from trees because they bite hard, which might cause extreme pain,” he adds.

The kai chutney of Mayurbhanj is renowned among the indigenous communities residing in the neighboring states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. In the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, it is known as ‘Caprah’, while in the Chaibasa area of Jharkhand, it transforms into ‘demta’, cherished as a tribal delicacy.

Growing Love for Bugs

Insects like ants serve as a rich source of both fiber and protein, and according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), they offer significant benefits for human and planetary health. Entomophagy, the practice of consuming insects as food, has been ingrained in various cultures throughout history and remains prevalent in many parts of the world, particularly in Asian and African cultures.

The perception of eating insects, once considered taboo or repulsive in the Western world, is gradually shifting. Reports indicate that the European Union is investing over $4 million in researching entomophagy as a viable human protein source.

Internationally, entomophagy has transcended its initial “eww factor,” with some food entrepreneurs elevating it to the gourmet food category. Examples include protein pasta made from cricket flour and cricket chips, which are gaining traction in Western food markets.

Throughout history, humans have relied on harvesting various insect life stages from forests for sustenance. While Asia has a long tradition of farming and consuming edible insects, this practice has now become widespread globally. “With an increase in human population and increasing demand for meat, edible ants have the potential to emerge as a mainstream protein source,” Padhial suggests.

This shift could yield significant environmental benefits, including lower emissions, reduced water pollution, and decreased land use. Embracing insects as a dietary staple offers a promising alternative for obtaining rich fiber and protein in our diets.

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First Round of the elections in Argentina in 2023. Credit: Midia Ninja

By Rolando Kandel, Bruno Baldo, Marie L’Hostis and Bibbi Abruzzini
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Jul 2 2024 (IPS)

Between the Mafia and the State, I prefer the Mafia. The mafia has codes, it keeps its promises, it doesn’t lie, it’s competitive. If a company pollutes a river, where is the damage? The sale of organs is a market like any other. Abortion should be considered “aggravated murder”.

These are just a couple of quotes from former TV pundit Javier Milei, now president of Argentina, as he makes anti-progressism his trademark, borrowying from the ready-made discourse of the globalalt-right. He claims that global warming is “another lie of socialism”.

In recent months, Argentina has witnessed a significant shift under his new administration that threatens to undermine the very fabric of its civil society and democratic governance.

On June 12th, there was a violent crackdown on protesters outside the National Congress, involving the use of batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets. Several individuals were arrested arbitrarily and subsequently labeled as “terrorists” by the government, a move clearly intended to intimidate civil society and criminalize protest. These detainees have been transferred to federal prisons, where reports indicate continued abuse, including the use of pepper spray, physical violence, and denial of basic rights.

Last Friday, the government sent another controversial bill to Congress looking to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 13, even though minors commit less than 1% of serious crimes in Argentina. A proposal that was labelled by opposers as “pure smoke and mirrors.”

Since taking office, President Javier Milei’s administration has received significant international criticism, including from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights which has scheduled a hearing on July 11th to address the situation.

“A President proud to repress”, this is what various media across Argentina wrote as Milei went as far as accusing protesters of being “terrorists” and said police violence prevented a “coup d’état”.

These alarming development mark a stark contrast to the country’s long-standing commitment to democracy and human rights, a commitment that has been painstakingly nurtured since the end of its brutal military dictatorship in 1983.

Moreover, this change of administration has been accompanied by an abrupt “retreat” of the state from its historic role as guarantor of the rights of its citizens. This abdication by the State of its essential responsibilities adds even more concerns to the already alarming measures explicitly restricting civic space.

Javier Milei’s aggressive and theatrical style – from superhero costumes to wielding a chainsaw to illustrate his plans to cut down the size of the state – has led some to compare him to Donald Trump in the US or Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil. This shift, alongside the blurring of ideological lines between the Peronist and Together for Change coalitions, has implications for Argentina’s political landscape and on civic space.

Argentina’s civil society organizations, long the backbone of its democratic resilience and human rights advocacy, face unprecedented challenges.

Legislative proposals aimed at restricting their activities, coupled with limitations on freedom of expression and the right to protest, have sent shockwaves through the community. The administration’s policies include drastic public spending cuts, the closure of state institutions dedicated to women’s rights and access to justice, and a suspension of participation in international events related to the 2030 Agenda.

A recent protocol, announced by Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, involves identifying protesters through various means and then billing them for the costs incurred by deploying security forces to police the demonstrations. Human rights activists, opposition legislators, and organizations like the Centre of Legal Studies (CELS) argue that these measures effectively criminalize legitimate protests and violate constitutional rights. The government’s allies, such as legislator José Luis Espert, have responded with aggressive rhetoric: “Prison or bullet”.

Recently, a violent attack against a member of the organization H.I.J.O.S., known for its fight against impunity for the crimes of the last civil-military dictatorship and for the defense of human rights, has been denounced. This attack, characterized by its brutality and strong political message, reflects an alarming increase in violence against activists and civil society organizations. The attackers, by leaving the acronym VLLC (“Viva la libertad, carajo!”), associated with President Javier Milei, insinuate a disturbing link between government rhetoric and violent actions directed against “dissidents”.

These proposals, exacerbated by the country’s ongoing economic and social crises, pose new hurdles for civil society’s ability to operate and advocate for public interests.

Argentina’s history, marked by the dark years of dictatorship between 1976 and 1983, serves as a reminder of the cost of silence and inaction. The country’s journey to reclaim democracy and human rights was arduous, characterized by relentless efforts to acknowledge and compensate the victims of past repression. The current administration’s move to revise policies related to memory, truth, and human rights threatens to undo decades of progress, challenging the very essence of Argentina’s democratic sphere.

The international community, particularly organizations dedicated to the promotion of human rights and the preservation of historical memory, such as UNESCO, must heed this call to action.

The situation in Argentina requires a collective effort to support its civil society, advocate for the protection of civic space, and ensure that the lessons of the past are not forgotten.

This article was written by the Entidades no Gubernamentales para el Desarrollo (EENGD) – Red Encuentro, the national NGO platform of Argentina, in collaboration with the global civil society network Forus.

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Men riding on tricycle rickshaws amidst the scorching sun in a street in New Delhi, India. Credit: Pexels/Soubhagya Maharana

By Sanjay Srivastava, T N Singh, Praveen Kumar and Naina Tanwar
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jul 2 2024 (IPS)

The summer of 2024 has shattered heat records, starkly illustrating the harsh realities of our warming planet. In India alone, the heatwave has claimed over 100 lives and caused more than 40,000 cases of heatstroke in recent months, according to data from India’s Health Ministry. This extreme weather event has further burdened the poor and vulnerable, exacerbating the social and economic toll of disasters.

‘A just transition’ in climate adaptation

While risk emanating from warming planet is global, adaptation is always local, and resilience is specific to the people, community and ecosystem. In the vulnerable context, an inclusive approach to climate change adaptation, emphasizing ‘a just transition’ is the way forward. India’s National Adaptation Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention to Climate Change (2023) underscores this strategic focus.

This commitment was further reflected by the significant increase in adaptation finance, with total adaptation expenditure reaching 5.6 per cent of the GDP in 2021-2022 growing from a share of 3.7 per cent in 2015-16.

Bihar case: Intersection of multi-dimensional poverty and climate risk

When extreme weather events intersect with multi-dimensional poverty, vulnerabilities already on threshold of tipping points reach closer to their limit. The state of Bihar in India exemplifies this challenge. NITI Aayog’s 2021 National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) baseline report identifies Bihar as having the highest proportion of people who are multidimensionally poor.

The state also ranks lowest in India’s NITI Aayog’s SDG Index Report, with over 60 per cent of the districts classified as highly vulnerable. This disproportionate impact of disasters on the poor is evident in eastern parts of India, where the lowest MPI values of Bihar coincide with districts which are perennially prone to floods.

Bihar’s draft report on climate-resilient and low carbon development pathway (2024) emphasizes the need for resilient communities. Building resilient communities in vulnerable context requires adopting adaptation technologies backed by grassroots innovations and risk informed policy interventions.

Indian Institute of Technology Patna located in Bihar can play a crucial role in closing the state’s adaptation gap with advance technology, leading a just transition in adaptation and fostering collaborative solutions for equitable climate resilience A just transition approach built on adaptation tech applications in the multi-dimensional poverty context is key to its successful implementation.

Multi-pronged adaptation strategies

Adaptation strategies demand a convergence of diverse approaches ranging from economic incentives and robust policy frameworks to locally driven interventions. Understanding the context of risk and vulnerabilities is fundamental to any policy response. Monitoring and mapping are key to target at risk vulnerable communities to embark upon ‘a just transition’ adaptation policy.

The strategy has to move from sector to nexus approach to capitalize on inter- and cross sectoral linkages and synergies. This is important to avoid compound and cascading impacts across the sectors when disaster strikes. Adaptation technologies enable a ‘just transition’ pathways while addressing risk mapping and resilience building and responding to the climate extreme (Figure 1).

Key enablers: An adaptation technology cluster

Adaptation technologies comprise three clusters: (i) science-intensive, (ii) engineering-based and (iii) data science and risk analytics (Figure 2). Challenges lie in its customization and scaling up in specific context of vulnerabilities. ESCAP’s Risk and Resilience Portal, for example, synthesizes all three clusters and offers a unique capability to visualize current and future climate scenarios at baseline, 1.5 and 2 degrees.

This foresight is crucial for understanding the evolving risks of floods, droughts, heatwaves and tropical cyclones, allowing for anticipatory actions for early warning for the changing hazard landscape.

Opportunity for action: Operationalize adaptation technology cluster

At scale, India is operationalizing adaptation technologies to support ‘a just transition’ in vulnerable context. The Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) with an annual budget of $13 billion (2020) addresses locale specific adaptation priorities.

Under MNREGA, assets are created across the country related to water harvesting, drought relief, flood control activities, and sanitation. Satellite derived Location based services are being utilized for planning and monitoring of nearly 7-8 million assets annually using mobile-based geo-tagging. The Online Geo-spatial maps with more than 30 million assets geotagged for all MGNREGA works across the country has been a game changer.

Scaling adaptation technology cluster has helped in policy execution for social empowerment of poor and vulnerable population with leak-proof public delivery systems. Utilizing the JAM Trinity (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile), over $406.9 billion has been transferred to 11.67 billion beneficiaries. Real-time monitoring via geo-tagging enhances transparency and financial inclusion of poor and vulnerable through targeted policy schemes.

Further, start-up ecosystems are helping to scale adaptation technologies. For example, there are more than 2800 AgriTech start-ups in India driving innovation and transforming agriculture to adapt to climate risk situation. Having embraced Internet of Things (IoT) -enabled agricultural practices to now AI-enabled machines and tech, this burgeoning start-up ecosystem is quite promising. It is important to seize the moment of taking forward technological innovations to benefit India’s most vulnerable.

A dedicated centre for climate change adaptation technology is important to promote research, knowledge generation and capacity building in India’s most vulnerable context with focus on inclusion and climate justice.

Sanjay Srivastava is Chief of Disaster Risk Reduction Section, ESCAP; Professor T N Singh is Director, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Patna/India; Praveen Kumar is CEO (FIST-TBI), IIT Patna/India and Naina Tanwar is Consultant, Disaster Risk Reduction Section, ESCAP.

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The port of Manzanillo, in the western state of Colima, lying on the Pacific coast, receives the largest amount of maritime cargo in Mexico and emits the highest volume of polluting gases, despite environmental measures introduced in recent years. Credit: IDB

By Emilio Godoy
LA PAZ, Mexico, Jul 1 2024 (IPS)

The port of Pichilingue, in northwestern Mexico, faces challenges in decarbonising its activities, as do other maritime infrastructures in the country, while its polluting emissions are increasing.

The port, on the Pacific coast, has docks for ferries and merchant ships, and offers services such as drinking water, food, fuel, electricity and garbage collection, to serve ships arriving from other parts of Mexico, the United States and Asia.

This facility, owned by the Administración Portuaria Integral (API) of Baja California Sur, a peninsular state in the northwestern corner of the country, is expanding to accommodate more ships, passengers and cargo, as are other Mexican ports along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

Also, La Paz, the state capital, is under pressure to control its port activity, so the regional API is transferring to Pichilingue what it can no longer do in La Paz, such as cruise ship arrivals. Its location also facilitates its integration into a northwest circuit in the transport between Mexico and neighbouring United States.

The environmental situation of the ports requires measures, while Mexico is barely on the way to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, generated by human activities and causing global warming."Small efforts are being made in the right direction. There are initial actions that can help, such as energy efficiency measures and changing light bulbs. But a port cannot be separated from shipping": Kristina Abhold

Experts consulted by IPS acknowledged progress in containing these emissions, but warned of the need to design comprehensive policies that include ports and maritime transport.

“Small efforts are being made in the right direction. There are initial actions that can help, such as energy efficiency measures and changing light bulbs. But a port cannot be separated from shipping,” Kristina Abhold, an expert with the non-governmental Global Maritime Forum, told IPS at a port forum in La Paz.

The 36 ports of the 17 administrations of the National Port System, administered by the Ministry of the Navy (Semar), emitted 1.33 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent in 2022, almost double the level of 2021.

This is detailed in Semar’s Port Decarbonisation Strategy, which IPS obtained through a public information request and which only has the consolidated data up to that year.

A ferry unloads goods at the port of Pichilingue, in the municipality of La Paz, in the northwestern state of Baja California Sur, on Mexico’s Pacific coast. The maritime sector, which includes ports and ships, faces significant challenges in reducing its polluting emissions. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

More ships, more CO2

Maritime trade has grown in Mexico since then, and probably so have GHG emissions.

Emissions from its customers’ activities, known as Scope 3 (A3), doubled in 2022 compared to the previous year.

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol standards, the most widely used in the world, classify emissions coming from energy an industry consumes (A1) and from energy it purchases from others (A2).

A1 emissions rose 38 %, while A2 emissions rose 12 %.

As for cargo, the port of Manzanillo, located in the western state of Colima, the largest in the country and a leader in container movement, received the most between January and April this year and released 30 % more emissions into the atmosphere in 2022.

The measurements involve the activity of cargo ships, vessels parked at the port, cargo handling equipment, locomotives and cargo trucks, as well as the operation of terminals, operators, service providers, shipping lines, shipping and customs agents, and road and rail transport companies.

Port sustainability includes consideration of environmental, economic and social aspects, such as pollution, dredging of nearby areas, return on investment and job creation.

Shipping represents the second mode of transport for foreign trade in Mexico. The National Port System, with 103 ports, handled 90.86 million tonnes of cargo in the first four months of this year, almost 3 % less than in the same period of 2023.

In the opinion of Tania Miranda, Director of Environment and Climate Change Programme of the non-governmental Institute of the Americas (IOA), the steps taken are still incipient.

“We are in our infancy. It’s a process that has been going on for a short time in one of the industries that is most behind in the process, and it’s a difficult sector to do it. Investing in this type of project has been difficult,” she told IPS from the U.S. city of San Diego, which borders Mexico’s northern border.

Even so, “in the last two years efforts have been made, there was progress in inventories, there were investments in digitalisation of operations, which can lead to a reduction in emissions,” she emphasized.

With more than 100 ports and more than 11.000 square kilometres of coastline on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Mexico’s trade is one of the busiest in Latin America, facing major challenges to decarbonise port operations and shipping. Infographic: Semar

Beginners

The largest Mexican ports have taken environmental measures, but they are insufficient to address the problem.

 Manzanillo and Ensenada, the fifth largest port but the second busiest, located in Baja California and a logistics hub between Asia and the United States, have master port development programmes where environmental impact is not mentioned.

Moreover, no Mexican – or Latin American – port appears on the project map of the World Ports Sustainability Programme that covers the largest such facilities on the planet. The country also lacks a clean marine fuel refining project.

For Carlos Martner, coordinator of Integrated Transport and Logistics of the governmental Mexican Institute of Transport, some ports, especially the larger ones, have made more progress.

“The issue is coming on strong and there will be more and more demands to improve processes. But a comprehensive policy is needed that encompasses the ports,” he told IPS in La Paz.

The national strategy sees a 25 % reduction of emissions by 2030 and of 45 % by 2050, but only proposes general measures, such as planning resilient infrastructure, harmonising management and planning instruments like concession titles, master development programmes and operating rules, as well as identifying, describing and programming the application of low-emission energy policies.

Semar has also identified and is to implement measures such as the development of green shipping corridors, energy efficiency, resilient infrastructure planning, and optimisation of traceability and waste utilisation.

Manoeuvres in the port of Veracruz, in the south-eastern state of the same name and Mexico’s third largest. Large port facilities in the country have taken some measures to reduce pollution from their activities, but they are not enough to have clean and sustainable ports. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

However, Mexico did not sign up to the Clydebank Declaration for Green Shipping Corridors in November 2021 during the Glasgow climate summit, which aims to create at least six low-emission corridors by 2025 and which only 24 countries have signed.

Mexico must also meet the goals of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to lower CO2 emissions for all international shipping by at least 40 % by 2030, compared to 2008 levels.

The IMO also sets the adoption of zero or near-zero emission energy sources, fuels and/or technologies at 5 %, with a target of 10 %, of the energy used by international shipping by 2030.

Abhold, from the Global Maritime Forum,  proposed electric shipping to reduce emissions. “This decarbonises both sides of the chain and a port fee including externalities can be charged, as other ports do. But a comprehensive policy with clear goals is needed. There is a lack of signals from the government and incentives,” she stressed.

Miranda, from the IOA, said that substantial investment and coordination between government agencies in the sector at all port levels is necessary.

“The document will not achieve anything by itself. There are legal, fiscal and operational issues. I would love to see transversality with the treasury, the environmental sector. Without including ships, Mexico’s progress will be very poor. There is a dissociation between port management and maritime transport,” she stressed.

The expert Martner foresaw international pressure for the creation of green shipping corridors.

“They can be developed in the ports bordering the United States. For example, cruise ships can transit that lane. There is great pressure there to improve water quality, emissions, waste treatment. It’s a long road, but action has already been taken,” he said.

Richard Bennett during his oral statement at the Human Rights Council on June 18, 2024. Credit: Anne-Marie Colombet/Human Rights Council

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI , Jul 1 2024 (IPS)

The UN Special Rapporteur’s annual report on human rights in Afghanistan lays bare the alarming phenomenon of an institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity and exclusion of women and girls.

In the new report, Richard Bennett, the UN’s Special Rapporteur, provides an intersectional analysis of the establishment and enforcement of this institutionalized system of unparalleled gender oppression. It paints a picture of a worsening situation for women and girls.

“The situation is that the de facto authorities, who control the country but are not yet recognized as a government, are not just failing to implement their obligations to human rights under the human rights treaties that they’ve signed. They are deliberately implementing policies and practices that flout those policies to create a society where women are permanently inferior to men,” says Bennett in an exclusive interview with IPS.

Education Cannot Wait’s #AfghanGirlsVoices global campaign highlights real-life testimonies of hope, courage and resilience by Afghan girls denied their right to education. Credit: ECW

“Of course, there is sexism in every country, some worse than others, but this is very different from any other country.”

Bennett is referring to the distressing pattern of large-scale systematic violations and subjugation of women’s and girls’ fundamental rights that is unfolding, abetted by the Taliban’s discriminatory and misogynist policies and harsh enforcement methods such as gender apartheid and persecution.

“Only in Afghanistan has a government shut schools for girls above the age of 13, above the sixth grade, and does not allow women to go to universities. And this, combined with segregation, means that women are really suffering. For example, women can only get treatment from doctors who are women and the same applies to teaching. It is a very segregated society as a whole. Just today, a businesswoman told me that she could only do business with female customers. This is affecting not just the current situation and the current generation, but the future as well.”

The Special Rapporteur finds that the Taliban’s institutionalized system of discrimination is most visible through its relentless issuance and enforcement of edicts, decrees, declarations and orders that in and of themselves constitute severe deprivations of human rights and violations of international law.

Between June 2023 and March 2024, they issued an estimated 52 edicts. These include banning foreign non-governmental organizations from providing educational programmes, including community-based education. The Taliban banned women from participating in radio and television shows alongside male presenters.

In July 2023, female beauty salons were forced to close. In August 2023, women were prohibited from entering Band-e Amir National Park. In October 2023, women were excluded from holding directorships within non-governmental organizations. In February 2024, women on television were required to wear a black hijab, with their faces covered, leaving only their eyes visible.

“We are concerned about intergenerational issues, but also intersectional issues. There is discrimination against women and girls who are of an ethnic or religious or linguistic marginalized groups,  or persons with disabilities, or a woman heading a household. Travel requires accompaniment by a close male relative and some women do not have such a person available. All of this is extremely restrictive and will also affect future generations as it will lead to a lack of education and professions,” Bennett says.

The report finds that “women and girls are being maneuvered into increasingly narrow roles where the deep-rooted patriarchy, bolstered and legitimized by Taliban ideology, deems them to belong: as bearers and rearers of children, and as objects available for exploitation, including debt bondage, domestic servitude, sexual exploitation and other forms of unremunerated or poorly remunerated labor.”

The UN Special Rapporteur stresses that there was progress in Afghanistan before the return of the Taliban.

“It was not perfect, but for 20 years there was notable progress. As a result, there are very many professional women in Afghanistan, and women who head households as the main income earners—the main breadwinners for their families. The restrictions are having very serious negative effects.”

Richard Bennett, UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan, advocates for the rights of every girl to education in Afghanistan. Credit: ECW

Bennett is among the prominent supporters of the global #AfghanGirlsVoices campaign launched by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises within the United Nations. Now in its second phase, the campaign aims to ensure unrestricted access to education for Afghan girls and young women.

After seizing power in 2021, the Taliban swiftly imposed a ban on secondary education for girls, subsequently expanding this restriction to encompass universities and, more recently, private learning centers. Young women have also been prevented from leaving Afghanistan to pursue tertiary education.

“There has never been universal education in Afghanistan, even in the 20 years preceding the return of the Taliban. However, the education system gradually improved, although not as much in remote or rural areas. Part of this was due to a lack of resources, as well as an ongoing internal conflict. So, it was insecure and difficult to maintain schools. But once the Taliban came back into power after August 2021, an education system built over two decades was quickly unraveling,” he says.

In addition to the school closures, he speaks of concerns about the quality of education from two perspectives. One is the alarm over an ongoing brain drain in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over. Many teachers and university lecturers have left the country.

The other concerns are changes to the curriculum and especially a notable increase in madrasa education. Madrasa education has always been a feature of life in Afghanistan. “But now there seems to be at least anecdotal information that the teaching is much more religious-based than a broad education. Girls can go to madrasas,” he says. 

On recommendations and urgent solutions moving forward, Bennett stresses that “no country should ban schools. We therefore continue to call for the reversal of this policy and the reopening of schools with a good quality education. My recommendations are what I call an all-tools approach, as only one approach or any one tool will not work.”

Overall, he says the report calls for justice and accountability, incorporating human rights and women’s voices in political processes and diplomatic engagement. Emphasizing that bolstering documentation of human rights abuses and violations is critical, as is reinforcing protection and solidarity for Afghan women, girls and human rights defenders.

Bennett has a direct message to the current rulers in Afghanistan, the Taliban, to reverse their policies and to comply with human rights. The second message is to the international community, urging them not to normalize or recognize Afghanistan’s unacceptable and worsening human rights situation.

Further stressing that the global community should strongly resist normalizing diplomatic relations or accepting the Taliban into the UN unless and until they meet concrete, measurable, verifiable benchmarks on human rights and the rights of women and girls.

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CIVICUS discusses the criminalisation of same-sex relations in Iraq with Sarah Sanbar, researcher at Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division.

Sarah Sanbar

What led to recent legislative changes criminalising LGBTQI+ people?

On 27 April 2024, the Iraqi parliament passed an amendment to the country’s 1988 anti-prostitution law, effectively criminalising same-sex relations and transgender identities. The amendment states that same-sex relations are punishable with between 10 and 15 years in prison, and provides for one to three years’ imprisonment for those who undergo or perform gender-affirming medical procedures.

The law also punishes those who ‘imitate women’ with a seven-year prison sentence and a fine of between 10 and 15 million Iraqi dinars (approx. US$7,700 to US$11,500) and criminalises the ‘promotion of homosexuality’, a vague and undefined expression.

The passing of this law follows years of steadily increasing hostile rhetoric against LGBTQI+ people. Prominent politicians and media personalities have consistently spread harmful stereotypes, tropes and disinformation. They often claim homosexuality is a western import that goes against traditional Iraqi values.

This rhetoric has increasingly translated into government action. For example, on 8 August 2023, the Communications and Media Commission issued a directive ordering all media outlets to replace the term ‘homosexuality’ with ‘sexual deviance’ in all published and broadcast language. The directive also banned the use of the word ‘gender’, which shows how the crackdown on LGBTQI+ rights is intertwined with broader issues, and is also used to target and silence women’s rights organisations working on gender-based violence.

Sadly, as in many other countries, LGBTQI+ people in Iraq are being used as political pawns and scapegoats to distract from the government’s failure to provide for its people. Tensions are growing between the more conservative and religious groups in society and government and those that take a more secular approach to governance. The fact that conservatives have gained increasing support in successive elections allows laws like this to be passed. Such a law probably wouldn’t have been passed even a few years ago.

What’s the situation of LGBTQI+ people in Iraq, and how do you expect it to change?

The situation of LGBTQI+ people is extremely unsafe. Threats to their physical safety, including harassment, assault, arbitrary detention, kidnappings and killings, come from society at large – including family and community members as well as strangers – and from armed groups and state personnel. Human Rights Watch has documented cases of abductions, rape, torture and killings by armed groups. Impunity is widespread, and the government’s failure to hold perpetrators accountable sends the message that this violence is acceptable.

With the passage of the new law, the already dire situation is expected to worsen. Tolerance for abuses has now been made explicit through legislation. As a result, an increase in violence is to be expected, along with an increase in the number of LGBTQI+ Iraqis fleeing the country to seek safety elsewhere. Unfortunately, it is becoming even harder for LGBTQI+ Iraqis to ensure their physical safety in the country, let alone lead fulfilling lives, find love, make friends and build links with others in their community.

What are the challenges facing Iraqi LGBTQI+ rights organisations?

The space for LGBTQI+ organisations in Iraq has long been extremely limited. For example, in May 2023, a court in the Kurdistan Region ordered the closure of Rasan, one of the few groups willing to publicly advocate for LGBTQI+ rights in the region. The reason the court gave for its closure was its activities ‘in the field of homosexuality’, and one piece of evidence cited was its use of rainbow colours in its logo.

Organisations such as Rasan have previously been targeted under vaguely worded morality and public indecency laws that restrict freedom of expression. By criminalising the ‘promotion of homosexuality’, the new law makes the work of LGBTQI+ organisations even more dangerous. Any action in support of LGBTQI+ rights could be perceived as ‘promoting homosexuality’, which could lead to activities being banned or organisations being shut down. It will be almost impossible for LGBTQI+ rights organisations to operate openly.

In addition, all civil society organisations in Iraq must register with the Directorate of NGOs, a process that includes submitting bylaws, lists of activities and sources of funding. But now, it is essentially impossible for LGBTQI+ organisations to operate transparently, because they can’t openly state their intention to support LGBTQI+ people without risking closure or prosecution. This leaves two options: stop working, or operate clandestinely with the risk of arrest hanging over them.

Given the restrictive legal and social environment, many organisations operate from abroad. IraQueer, one of the most prominent LGBTQI+ advocacy groups, is based in Sweden.

But despite the challenges, LGBTQI+ organisations continue to advocate for LGBTQI+ rights, help people fleeing persecution and work with foreign governments to put pressure on Iraq to roll back discriminatory policies. And they have made significant achievements, facilitating the safe passage of people fleeing persecution and broadening coalitions to advocate for LGBTQI+ rights internationally. Their perseverance in the face of adversity is inspiring.

What international support do local LGBTQI+ groups need?

Global organisations should use their capacity to sound the alarm and advocate for the repeal of the new law and the reversal of other discriminatory measures, and for impunity for violence against LGBTQI+ people in Iraq to be addressed.

An effective strategy could be to focus on human rights violations. Equal protection from violence and equal access to justice are required under international law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Arab Charter on Human Rights, both of which Iraq has signed. Advocacy for LGBTQI+ rights as human rights can put greater pressure on the Iraqi government to fulfil its obligations.

It’s also essential to provide resources and support to local organisations in Iraq and in host countries where LGBTQI+ Iraqis seek refuge, to ensure people have access to basic needs and community support, and can live full lives without fear.

Civic space in Iraq is rated ‘closed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.

Get in touch with Human Rights Watch through its website, and follow @hrw and @SarahSanbar on Twitter.

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People search for water in Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip. Credit: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba

By James E. Jennings
ATLANTA, Georgia, Jul 1 2024 (IPS)

The rule at Pottery Barn is “You break it, you bought it.” It should be for Israel as well. The Netanyahu government’s eight-month long bombing campaign in Gaza, nearly half of the strikes by 2,000 lb. “dumb” or unguided bombs, has destroyed a high percentage of housing units in the territory.

Hospitals, universities, schools, vocational training centers, mosques, and one church and a Christian hospital were bombed deliberately. If—and when—the war is over, who will pay for the damage to Gaza’s infrastructure? The answer is that Israel must pay.

The death toll among Palestinian civilians is horrific—as everybody knows—over 37,000 by now according to UN data, one third of them children, with many corpses still under the rubble. None of the children killed in the Netanyahu war cabinet’s genocidal attacks ever voted for HAMAS or had anything to do with the October 7th bloody razzia by Yahya Sinwar’s minions.

Long after the hated name HAMAS is expunged from history, Israel’s far greater barbarity will remain, having stained the nation forever.

This war needs to stop. If the word “inhumane” no longer has meaning, we are all in trouble. Despite warnings by President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken not to give way to rage and keep killing civilians unnecessarily, US funding for the war has continued and even increased by lopsided congressional votes.

While the nearly 1.5 million displaced Palestinians in Rafah huddle in their tents waiting the bombing that is sure to come, the hypocrisy of US leaders is transparent and galling—“Don’t kill civilians—but here’s plenty of money and bombs to do it with.”

Most commentators say Netanyahu is headed for the political scrap heap and possibly to jail when this war is over. He therefore has an incentive to keep the war going as long as possible. And Biden’s “pause” in sending more 2,000 lb. bombs to Israel is a joke—everybody knows they will get there eventually.

What will even be left of Gaza’s infrastructure in another few months? Looking forward, who will build homes for the more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million dispossessed people who are now living on the streets or under plastic sheets with summer’s raging heat continuing?

Why should US taxpayers pay for Israel’s ammunition that is even now killing multitudes of innocent people, and then pay to rebuild their homes? Why should the Arab Gulf states, as they have been doing for decades. pay for the damage?

No–Israel must pay. They broke it and they must fix it. That does not mean that they can colonize and keep it to compensate themselves. Expulsion of the Arab citizens and annexation and colonization of the territory would be another international war crime on top of the ones already committed.

It’s true that HAMAS started the war with its obscene killing and capturing of civilians. But nobody alive on planet earth for the last 75 years really believes that the clock started Oct. 7. The fact is that this mad and bloody Arab-Israeli conflict began over a century ago. Over half of the families now in Gaza were forcibly evicted from their homes and villages in southern Palestine in the 1948 Nakba (disaster).

The tragedy is that two of the world’s most high-sounding religions, Judaism and Islam, have stooped to such inhumanity and have belied their principles, making both HAMAS and hyper-Zionist Israel global bywords of scorn for their inhumane actions.

Netanyahu and the Israeli leadership have for decades put into effect a very clever plan: transfer the costs of operating the West Bank to Arab allies, the US and the international community, and the eternally hopeful PLO-led Palestinians—and, after 2007, to HAMAS in Gaza, but never with any intention of allowing anything near full statehood to develop.

The Palestinians, the UN, the Arab States, and the world community have been duped for decades, paying for maintenance of the West Bank quasi-government and the reconstruction of South Lebanon and Gaza following the many wars with Israel. Who paid for all those Israeli jet fighters, tanks, and bombs? The ever-gullible US voters.

The Arab World, the US taxpayers, and especially the Palestinians national leaders, were suckers, paying for false Israeli promises of Palestinian independence, only to be occupied militarily, while being continuously and intermittently bombed into submission. American politicians are just waking up to this reality.

Israel—especially the Netanyahu government—has never had any intention of allowing a truly independent state on the West Bank and in Gaza. The US and the Gulf States, along with numerous international organizations, have supported Palestinian life and livelihood for decades, but that should end. Israel should either put up or shut up.

Is the “Two-State Solution” a chimera or a mirage? Will Israel assume its full obligations under international law? What is the point of creating a Bantustan on the West Bank, and possibly another one in Gaza, as if they represent real countries with genuine statehood, borders, and independence?

As the occupying power controlling life on the West Bank for 56 years ever since the 1967 War–and now for Gaza as the blockading power and besieging entity, Israel is legally responsible under international law.

Both areas are the responsibility of Israel. It’s time they started paying their own bills and not looking to US citizens or the Arab States to pick up the check. Israel must pay. You broke it—you fix it.

James E. Jennings, PhD, is an advocate for Palestinian Human and Civil Rights and for greater understanding of the Middle East by Americans. He has delivered humanitarian aid in Palestine, Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran for over half a century, receiving among others, an award from the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees. Jennings has appeared on CNN, FOX, al-Jazeera, and other media in the US and abroad. He is president of the aid organization Conscience International www.conscienceinternational.org and director of its US Academics for Peace program.

IPS UN Bureau

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Seayeen Aum promotes ecotourism in the remote province of Ratanakiri, in Cambodia’s northeast. Credit: Kris Janssens/ IPS

By Kris Janssens
PHNOM PENH, Jun 28 2024 (IPS)

Modernity is arriving rapidly in Cambodia, observes journalist Kris Janssens (48), who has lived and worked in the country since 2016. The predominantly young population is eager to move forward, embracing technology over traditional agriculture or fishing. Can Cambodians unite their country’s authentic soul with their aspirations for progress?

Enormous changes throughout the years

I arrived in Cambodia in the winter of 2015, on January 7 to be precise. At the time, I was unaware of the significance of this date in Cambodian history, marking the official end of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. To be honest, I knew very little about Cambodia.

Today, half of the Cambodians are under 25 years old. This is the first generation of twenty-year-olds to grow up without war or violence. These youngsters want to move forward with their lives. And that usually means moving away from the countryside

I planned to stay here briefly before returning to India, where I had just finished a series of radio reports. The unique Cambodian spirit changed my decision and my life course. This country immediately felt so familiar to me that I decided to move here permanently, about eighteen months later, in the fall of 2016. I’m still very happy that I can live in this magical kingdom.

But throughout the years, Cambodia has changed enormously. In the capital city of Phnom Penh, small shops and cozy coffee bars make way for tall bank buildings. And the picturesque airport will soon be replaced by a huge terminal, further away from the city center, and out of proportion compared to the human-scaled city that I love so much.

I have the feeling that the country is losing a part of its soul, and I want to try to capture and document this authentic spirit before it is too late.

Very young population

The fact that Cambodia is at a tipping point is primarily due to demography and history. More than one and a half million Cambodians died during the brutal Khmer Rouge era in the 1970s. The Pol Pot era was followed by a power vacuum and it took until the 1990s before peace and stability could return.

Today, half of the Cambodians are under 25 years old. This is the first generation of twenty-year-olds to grow up without war or violence. These youngsters want to move forward with their lives. And that usually means moving away from the countryside. The population of Phnom Penh has increased from 1.7 to 2.4 million people in the past ten years.

According to demographic forecasts, Phnom Penh will have more than 3 million inhabitants by 2035. More and more young Cambodians want to study in the city and switch from agriculture or fishing to technology or tourism.

Harsh economic reality

This shift is clearly visible in Kampong Khleang, a stilt village on the shore of the great Tonle Sap Lake, close to Siem Reap and the famous temples of Angkor Wat. Early in the morning, a rickety canoe takes me out to the open water, heading towards the rising sun. But what appears idyllic to me represents a harsh economic reality for the fishermen here. The catch is meager, and life is difficult.

“My son is going to work in the city, away from the water,” says Borei. It is the end of a tradition because his ancestors have lived as fishermen for generations. “But living along the water has become difficult, there are too many fishermen.” His shy ten-year-old son gazes ahead quietly. I ask him where he would like to work. After some hesitation, he responds “with the police”.

“That is a typical answer,” says Chhay Doeb. He is the Executive director of Cambodia Rural Students Trust, an NGO that provides scholarships to students from impoverished rural families.

“When young people arrive in the city, they want to become police officers, soldiers, doctors or teachers,” he says. “But they gradually discover that they can also work in the real estate sector or as a lawyer, for example.”

Noticeable distrust among parents

Doeb believes that the Cambodian economy will evolve and diversify even further. “But the economic level of neighboring countries like Thailand or Vietnam is not yet within reach,” he says.

At its founding in 2011, the organization had to go to villages and convince students of the NGO’s good intentions. Today, there are almost a thousand applications for twenty new places every year. The money for the scholarships comes from Australia.

Doeb still notices distrust among parents, wondering what their offspring is doing in the city.

I also experience this suspicion in Kratie, a small town on the bank of the Mekong River in the rural interior of Cambodia. The typical rural villagers look like characters sculpted from clay, with heads weathered by the sun and bodies wrinkled from hard work.

I meet Proum Veasna, who is about to take his cows back to the stable at dusk. During our conversation, his close neighbor passes by on his moped. He teasingly squeezes Veasna’s bare stomach. “We are friends, we all know each other here,” he says. His son works as a construction worker in Phnom Penh, but he has never been there himself. “It’s polluted, I would immediately get sick.”

Veasna has always worked as a farmer. “I had no choice because I have no education.” He wants a different future for his four children. “My daughter is learning English and Chinese.” The girl cycles by as we talk about her. “She can grow up to be whatever she wants, she is so smart,” says the proud dad.

Boosting economy

Upstream the Mekong River, in the neighboring province of Stung Treng, I meet Teap Chueng and Kom Leang, a retired couple living in a lonely house in a vast wooded landscape. “Covid never happened here”, they tell me with a big smile, “because we are never in touch with city dwellers”.

They do not need to go to the nearby town, as they are completely self-sufficient. “We have four hectares of land”, says Teap Chueng, while his wife proudly shows home-grown winter melon, a mild-tasting fruit related to the cucumber.

The region is also known for cashew nuts. “As we speak, new factories are being built, so the farmers will be able to scale up the production”. Although they realize that industrialization will change the landscape of their beloved home, the couple can’t wait for this development to happen. “It will boost our economy, which will benefit our children and grandchildren”.

A country with a lot of energy

Seayeen Aum is a typical example of someone who managed to work his way up. As a child, he learned how to survive in nature. “We didn’t always have enough money”, he says. “But if you know and understand the forest, you will always find something to eat.”

Today he promotes ecotourism in the remote province of Ratanakiri, in Cambodia’s northeast. And with success. During our trek through the jungle, he constantly receives calls and orders on one of his two mobile phones. “We are a country with a lot of energy,” he says, laughing.

This entrepreneur succeeded in marketing this region, with traditional ethnic minority groups, in a respectful manner to a Western audience. Authenticity and progress do go hand in hand here for the time being.

This is a country with a lot of challenges, providing all these graduating students with satisfying employment, to say the least. The drive for stability is important to Cambodians, but I also see ambitious people like Seayeen, who have a plan and are progressively working towards the result. In another five to eight years from now, this country will look completely different.

By External Source
Jun 28 2024 (IPS-Partners)

 
In Zambia, over 6.5 million people need humanitarian assistance because of the drought. 3.5 million of them are children.

The impacts of El Niño and climate change have been devastating for children.

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The 60th session of the Subsidiary Bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (SB 60, UNFCCC), took place in Bonn June 3-13, with the issue of climate finance high on the agenda. Credit: UN Climate Change Lucia Vasquez Tumi

By Mary Church
BONN, Germany, Jun 28 2024 (IPS)

Despite the evident and increasing urgency of the climate crisis, the June intersessional meeting of the UNFCCC closed with little to show for two full weeks of negotiation.

With COP29 being cited as ‘the Finance COP’, much of the focus across various agenda items was on ever contested questions of who owes what to whom. Crucially, the meeting was supposed to advance negotiations on a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance for the post 2025 period, due to be agreed in Baku.

However, despite ‘quantified’ being in the very name of the goal, developed countries refused to be drawn on the critical matter of how much is owed and needed.

The 2020 goal of $100bn per year (stretched to 2025) remains unfilled, with the vast majority of what the Global North claims to have contributed in the form of loans, or money redirected from other overseas budgets.

Likewise, despite the long fought battle which secured a new loss and damage finance mechanism at COP27, that pot too remains as good as empty, with current pledges equating to less than 0.2% of the climate change related losses faced by Global South countries each year.

Climate finance is key. Intimately related to the core UNFCCC principles of equity and Common but Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR), it is central to unlocking the stalemate that has plagued negotiations since they began.

But instead of concrete finance commitments and delivery, carbon markets are increasingly being spun as climate finance, with some increasingly desperate nations on the frontlines of the climate crisis grasping wishfully at the idea that a 5% share of proceeds from markets under the Paris Agreement will plug the longstanding gap on adaptation funding, and others preparing to sell off their rich ecosystems as some form or other of carbon credits.

As the practical limitations, to say nothing of the social and environmental harms, of novel land based Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) schemes are increasingly exposed at a scale to impact the climate, Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), one of the most widely touted CDR technologies, would require twice the entire global land area currently under cultivation, oceans are being sized up as the next frontier for such exploitation.

Oceans cover over 70% of the Earth’s surface, and are already our greatest ally in the fight against climate change. Alarmingly, however, highly speculative and risky theories about engineering them at will to sequester and store ever more carbon are increasingly being incorporated into the climate policy landscape.

We see this in the opaque language that invites parties to scale up ‘ocean-based mitigation action’ that found its way into the Global Stocktake decision text last year in Dubai, and more clearly in the explicit inclusion of dangerous ocean CDR methods in the ongoing wrangling over Article 6 guidelines, which in various iterations identify ocean fertilisation, ocean alkalinity enhancement and algae cultivation / biomass sinking for potential inclusion.

And concerningly, we also saw it in this year’s Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue held in Bonn. Pitched as a “[recognition of] the need to strengthen the understanding of, and action on, ocean and climate change”, the Dialogue, now in its 4th year, saw a push for research and development of marine CDR under its theme on ‘Technology Needs for Ocean Climate Action, including Finance Links’.

The problem for those who would financialise and plunder the oceans under the guise of climate mitigation is that there are of course other UN Conventions of equal importance to the UNFCCC that have for good reason imposed restrictive regulations on these activities.

The Convention on Biological Diversity has had a de facto moratorium in place on all geoengineering since 2010, while the London Convention / London Protocol, which regulates pollution at sea, has made clear its intention to add potentially a further four categories of marine geoengineering to its 2008 prohibition on ocean fertilisation.

Crucially, a commercial factor is a key element under both regimes in restricting outdoor experiments – which of course is inherent in any ocean-based CDR envisaged under carbon markets, voluntary or otherwise.

The fact is, however, that none of the marine geoengineering approaches increasingly referred to as CDR do anything to tackle the root causes of climate change, and none have been able to demonstrate that they can effectively capture or store carbon with any permanence.

They are an extremely dangerous distraction from the real action we know is needed to rapidly bring down greenhouse gasses, starting with an urgent and just phase out of fossil fuels. Furthermore they are likely to cause great harm to the delicate equilibrium of the oceans – already severely stressed by over-exploitation, pollution and global heating – with potentially grave consequences for ocean biodiversity, food chains, fisheries, and even the oceans’ natural capacity to sequester carbon.

At least 40 open-water marine geoengineering experiments are currently underway or in planning, across a variety of theories and technologies, many of which have a clear commercial element and are likely in violation of international agreements. Some of these are already running into very practical challenges, such as the postponement of Planetary Technologies’ planned ocean alkalinity enhancement trial in Cornwall, where community resistance led to an independent assessment which exposed serious flaws in the plan, while biomass cultivation and sinking start-up Running Tide announced the closure of its fairly advanced operations only this last week, citing lack of demand for carbon credits from the voluntary market.

Ultimately however, as a broad spectrum of civil society organisations made clear in several interventions at the Ocean and Climate Dialogue, and in a statement endorsed by over 100 organisations as of last month, Paris Agreement carbon markets, which are so very clearly legitimising these highly speculative and risky approaches, cannot ignore international agreements restricting them and must uphold the precautionary principle.

As we head to COP29 in Baku and as IPCC kicks off its work on the 7th Assessment Cycle later this year, the voices of civil society across the globe, Indigenous Peoples, coastal communities and fisherfolk must be heard as they reiterate the risk of undermining the vital role oceans play in sustaining life on earth. It is unquestionably clear that our oceans cannot be for sale.

Mary Church is Geoengineering Campaign Manager, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and member of Hands-Off Mother Earth! (HOME) Alliance.

IPS UN Bureau

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Aftermath of attack in the city center of Kharkiv, Ukraine. June 2024. Credit: IOM

By Andrew Lichterman, Alyn Ware and Yosuke Watanabe
OAKLAND, California / PRAGUE, Czech Republic / YOKOHAMA, Japan, Jun 28 2024 (IPS)

Our three organizations– Western States Legal Foundation, Peace Depot, and Basel Peace Office– all dedicated to the elimination of nuclear weapons, have consistently expressed our concern about the risk of nuclear war escalating during armed conflicts and times of high tension, when nuclear-armed states often make veiled or even explicit threats to use nuclear weapons and prepare for such use.

This has happened, for example, with the governments of India and Pakistan trading nuclear threats during their 2001 stand-off, the U.S. government making veiled nuclear threats against Iraq in 1991 and 2003, and the U.S. and North Korean leaders threatening to strike each other with nuclear weapons in 2017.

We speak out now against the series of coercive nuclear threats that have been made by the Russian government since 2022 in conjunction with its invasion of Ukraine and occupation of Ukrainian territory.

From the start of the full-scale invasion and war in 2022, the government of the Russian Federation has made a series of threats to use nuclear weapons against countries that provide Ukraine with weapons and other military assistance.

Russian officials also have claimed the right to use nuclear weapons to defend territories they have occupied and illegally annexed in the course of the war. These threats have been accompanied by such posturing as the announced deployment of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus and the highlighting of exercises of Russian nuclear forces in a military district on Ukraine’s borders.

These threats make clear once more a key role of the nuclear weapons possessed by the world’s most powerful states: to make it easier for their governments to pursue aggressive wars and to coerce countries to accept this aggression by exponentially increasing the danger to all who might oppose them.

In 1996, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal, but did not reach a conclusion, one way or the other, regarding an extreme circumstance of self-defense when the very survival of a state is at stake.

This approach was controversial at the time in the international legal community, with considerable opinion that the threat or use of nuclear arms is illegal in all circumstances. That view has only strengthened in the nearly three decades since then.

Among other developments, the UN Human Rights Committee found in 2018 that threat or use of nuclear weapons is contrary to the human right to life; the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons declared in its preamble that use of nuclear weapons is contrary to international humanitarian law (IHL) governing the conduct of warfare; and a 2011 International Red Cross and Red Cross Movement resolution stated that it is “difficult to envisage how any use of nuclear weapons could be compatible with” IHL.

Regardless of one’s view of the current state of the law, the population of the Russian Federation faces no threat to its “very survival”. Their government could end its war on Ukraine tomorrow and the Russian Federation would remain a large and powerful state with an immense resource and industrial base, its internationally recognized borders intact.

There is no rationale for the brandishing of nuclear weapons by the government of the Russian Federation other than to leverage their terrible destructive power to advance its war of aggression and conquest in Ukraine.

In January 2022, less than two months before the government of the Russian Federation launched its invasion, that government, together with those of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and China issued a statement affirming that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Then in November 2022, at the G20 Summit in Bali, and again at the September 2023 G20 Summit in Delhi, the leaders and/or foreign ministers of China, France, India, Russia, UK, and USA declared that the “use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.” Yet, the nuclear threats continue.

Amidst a war already involving extensive air bombardment and missile warfare, together with the use of new kinds of electronic warfare that intensifies the fog of war, a nuclear crisis would pose extraordinary dangers. No one should have any illusions that such a crisis could be easily controlled.

The government of the Russian Federation should cease its threats of nuclear use, and issue assurances that it will not use nuclear weapons in the conflict with Ukraine. The United States, France, the United Kingdom, and NATO should issue such assurances as well.

Andrew Lichterman is Senior Research Analyst, Western States Legal Foundation, Oakland, California, USA; Alyn Ware is Global Coordinator, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, Director, Basel Peace Office, Prague, Czech Republic; Yosuke Watanabe is Research Fellow, Peace Depot, Japan Coordinator, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, Yokohama, Japan.

The Western States Legal Foundation, based in Oakland, California, seeks to abolish nuclear weapons as an essential step in making possible a more secure, just, and environmentally sustainable world; Peace Depot is a non-profit, independent think tank based in Yokohama, Japan. It supports civil society’s peace movements, particularly in the area of nuclear disarmament and military base issues; Basel Peace Office is a coalition of four Swiss organizations and three international organizations advancing effective policies and proposals to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world.

IPS UN Bureau

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Organisations fighting inequality and hunger, such as the Oxfam coalition, support calls for the world's rich to be taxed more fairly. A new study, sponsored by Brazil, will be the basis for debating the issue among the world's most powerful economies. Credit: Oxfam

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jun 27 2024 (IPS)

A global agreement could levy a small tax on the world’s 3,000 richest people, with fortunes in excess of US$ 1 billion, and use the money to fight world hunger, a study by the Brazilian government and the European Union’s Tax Observatory has shown.

The richest “are paying less than other socio-economic groups. This is a simple proposal, to make them pay at least two per cent per year of their wealth or income, and thus raise between US$ 200 billion and 250 billion each year,” said Gabriel Zucman, the French economist who led and presented the study.

If the tax were extended to owners of fortunes of more than US$ 100 million, an additional US$ 100 billion to 150 billion could be raised, said Zucman, director of the Tax Observatory and professor of economics at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and the University of California at Berkeley, in the United States.

The proposal and the study are driven by Brazil’s president, the moderate leftist Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, the current president of the Group of 20 (G20), who will present it for debate at the summit of this club of the world’s main industrial and emerging economies, late this year in Rio de Janeiro.

For Lula, “it is time for the super-rich to pay their fair share of taxes”, and to direct those resources towards combating hunger and poverty in developing countries, he said this month at meetings of the Group of 7 – Western powers – and the International Labour Organisation.

Lula commissioned Zucman’s team to prepare the technical study, “A blueprint for a coordinated minimum effective taxation standard for ultra-high net worth individuals”, which the economist presented online on 25 June, followed by a chat with a small group of journalists, including IPS."It is a choice between opacity and transparency. Tax evasion is not a law of nature": Gabriel Zucman.

“It is essential to ensure that everyone pays their fair share of taxes”, said Brazil’s finance minister, Fernando Haddad, following Zucman’s presentation. “The Brazilian presidency of the G20 has put international tax cooperation at the top of the agenda of the group’s financial track”, he added.

Susana Ruiz, head of tax policy at Oxfam International, the global anti-poverty coalition, said: “We welcome the Zucman report, which offers a critical contribution toward fixing a system that allows the ultra-rich to avoid taxes and not only accumulate and protect astronomical amounts of wealth and income ―but also hide it from governments.”

“Taxing the ultra-rich properly could raise billions of dollars for governments to combat inequality and tackle the climate crisis,” said Ruiz.

When he hosted the president of Benin, Patrice Talon, in May, Lula argued that “if the world’s 3,000 billionaires paid a 2 per cent tax on the earnings of their wealth, we could generate resources to feed the 340 million people in Africa who are facing extreme food insecurity.”

However, the report – and Zucman’s presentation – have not addressed the destination of the resources to be raised: “I can’t say how the money will be used. The distribution has to be decided by the people with their deliberations and democratic vote,” he said.

Economist Gabriel Zucman, of the European Union’s Tax Observatory, during the presentation of the study, that claims a two per cent tax on the world’s largest fortunes would raise US$ 250 billion per year, which was seen in many capitals online. Credit: Humberto Márquez/IPS

The very rich pay very little

Zucman argued that “billionaires and the companies they own have been the main beneficiaries of globalisation. This raises the question of whether contemporary tax systems manage to distribute these earnings adequately or, on the contrary, contribute to concentrating them in a few hands.”

In almost four decades – from 1987 to 2024 – the wealth of the very rich, 0.0001 per cent of the population, grew at an average 7.1 per cent per year and captured 14 per cent of the global gross domestic product, while the average wealth per adult increased by no more than 3.2 per cent.

On average, billionaires pay an effective tax rate of just 0.3 per cent of their wealth, less than other socio-economic groups.

This is largely because they own conglomerates of companies or publicly traded shares, and through these mechanisms they report, for example, lower annual taxable income than their actual wealth.

Zucman said his proposal “is very simple: that they pay 2 per cent of their wealth or income (a combination of income and wealth taxes) and thus equalise with other socio-economic groups.”

Publications such as Forbes constantly feature the world’s wealthiest individuals, all of them men, including tech start-up tycoons. A new era of transparency about their tax contributions must be ushered in, say the promoters of a new combined income and wealth tax: Credit: Valora Analitik

How to do it?

The key, Zucman explains, is to define a minimum market value that is difficult for billionaires to manipulate, “and that can now be done with the thousands of tax analysts around the world, as banking secrecy is lifted and with greater coordination between countries.”

An example of this coordination is the well-known Pillar 2 of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), which in 2021 proposed taxing at least 15 per cent of the income of transnational firms in industrialised nations, “something that did not seem possible 10 years ago”, he adds.

The basis of the new tax would be to estimate the presumed profit along with the wealth in stock and company shares. “There are also the planes, yachts, Picassos, but that is a very small part of global wealth,” according to the expert.

He admitted that billionaires might move to countries that do not levy them with the new taxes, but the state where they have their property and original sources of income can continue to tax their wealth even while abroad.

“I think this taxation mobility tends to be exaggerated in public debates,” said Zucman.

Ideally, he said, “the standard should progress as more countries join”, and a new form of cooperation between countries should be established, respecting each other’s sovereignty. “There is no need for a new international treaty,” he said.

A recent survey among G20 countries by the French firm Ipsos showed that 67 per cent of adults think there is too much economic inequality, and 70 per cent believe the rich should pay higher taxes, according to the Tax Observatory.

Support for a wealth tax on the rich is highest in Indonesia (86 per cent), Turkey (78 per cent), the UK (77 per cent) and India (74 per cent). It is lowest in Saudi Arabia and Argentina (54 per cent), but still exceeds half of respondents.

In the US, France and Germany, around two thirds of respondents support a wealth tax on the rich.

“It would be naïve to assume that all taxpayers will be in favour. But it is also a choice between opacity and transparency. Tax evasion is not a law of nature,” summarised Zucman.

Finally, he stressed that the aim of the report, which began in February, “is to launch a global policy conversation, not to end it”.

The first major global debate among the world’s leading economies will take place when G20 finance ministers meet in Rio de Janeiro on 25-26 July. But it is already clear that the road, at best, will be a long one.

Credit: Chanakarn Laosarakham/AFP via Getty Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Jun 27 2024 (IPS)

At the height of 2024 Pride season, decades of civil society campaigning came to fruition in Thailand. With 130 votes for and only four against, on 18 June the Senate passed the Marriage Equality Bill. With a few strokes of the pen, the bill tweaked the language of the Civil and Commercial Code, replacing gendered references such as ‘man’ and ‘woman’ with gender-neutral ones such as ‘persons’ and ‘spouses’. It now goes for formal assent to King Maha Vajiralongkorn and will take effect 120 days after publication in the official bulletin.

This means equal marriage is now recognised in 37 countries. Recent progress has seen Estonia become the first post-Soviet state to join the ranks in 2023, and Greece the first majority-Orthodox Christian country to do so in early 2024. Thailand is the first country in Southeast Asia and the third in Asia, following Taiwan and Nepal, to recognise the right to marry and all associated rights for same-sex couples.

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE AROUND THE WORLD

The long road to equality

With its vibrant LGBTQI+ culture, Thailand has long been advertised as ‘an exceptional destination for gay travellers’. But things weren’t quite so good for local LGBTQI+ people, whose identities and relationships lacked legal recognition and associated rights.

Civil society worked to change that. Efforts to advance the rights of same-sex couples in Thailand date back at least as far as 2011.

The first shift came in 2012, when the government began to consider some kind of recognition for same-sex relations. In 2013 it drafted a civil partnership bill with bipartisan support, but progress stalled under the military government formed as a result of a 2014 coup.

The country remained under military rule until mid-2019, but rather than stopping, LGBTQI+ activism gained strength by connecting with the country’s youthful and outspoken movement for democracy. In 2017, a petition calling for the recognition of civil partnerships gathered over 60,000 signatures. The government responded by preparing a draft bill and holding public hearings where it received overwhelming public support. But by mid-2020, the bill – which activists criticised for not ensuring the same rights as marriage – died in parliament.

When youth-led protests for democratic change erupted in 2020, their demands included LGBTQI+ rights and led to the development of a new bill that was eventually introduced but failed to pass before parliament was dissolved ahead of a general election in May 2023.

LGBTQI+ activists also took to the courts, but received a setback. In 2021, in response to a petition filed by two LGBTQI+ people seeking to get married, the Constitutional Court ruled that the section of the Civil and Commercial Code that defined marriage as being between a man and a woman was constitutional. LGBTQI+ activists were particularly unhappy with the court’s sexist and demeaning language.

Cultural and political battles

Longstanding efforts to normalise the presence of LGBTQI+ people and shift conservative narratives produced high levels of acceptance and support for LGBTQI+ rights. Thailand ranks 44 out of 196 countries in Equaldex’s Equality Index, which rates countries according to their LGBTQI+-friendliness. But unlike most other countries, it places higher for public attitudes than for its laws.

This meant Thai LGBTQI+ activists were able to use the broadly favourable climate of opinion to pressure politicians. They turned LGBTQI+ rights into a bandwagon politicians wanted to join for political gain. As a result, some of the major parties competing in the 2023 election campaigned on pledges to push for marriage equality. This included the progressive Move Forward party, which won the most seats.

But military-appointed senators stopped Move Forward forming a government, and instead Pheu Thai Party, a populist party twice deposed in military coups, formed a coalition with military-aligned parties – not the outcome young democracy activists had hoped for. Still, the new prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, had also promised to send a bill to parliament.

He still took his time, and LGBTQI+ activists gave him the push he needed. By early September 2023, when the new government was sworn in, the Rainbow Coalition for Marriage Equality had collected over 362,000 signatures in support of marriage equality. Srettha sent the bill to parliament in November, and in December debate started on the government’s bill plus three other versions submitted by other parties and civil society.

The House of Representatives passed all four bills with an overwhelming majority, then formed a committee to merge them into one, and passed the combined bill with near unanimity. The Senate completed the process on 18 June.

What – and where – next

The Marriage Equality Bill recognises rights in relation to inheritance, adoption and healthcare decisions. But beyond these direct effects, activists expect it to have powerful indirect impacts, sending a message of acceptance and encouraging younger LGBTQI+ people to come out and lead full lives free of discrimination and violence.

Now marriage equality has been achieved, LGBTQI+ activism is turning to the next big issue – trans rights. Despite playing a prominent role in entertainment, transgender people in Thailand face steep barriers, particularly in employment. They have few legal protections against discrimination, and those that exist aren’t fully enforced. They’re unable to obtain legal documents that reflect their gender identity, and what few rights they have in this regard depend on bureaucratic discretion. To change this, LGBTQI+ activists will keep campaigning for a Gender Recognition Bill.

The significance of the change achieved in Thailand, and the further change that seems sure to come, extends far beyond the country’s borders. Most countries in the region don’t recognise same-sex marriage, and some, including Brunei, Malaysia and Myanmar, still severely criminalise same-sex relations.

Thai activists believe their success can both bring further change at home and set an example for other countries to follow. Given what they’ve achieved, they have every reason for hope.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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Youth demonstrate on the streets of Nairobi, adjacent to the national parliament, while legislators rush to pass the Finance Bill 2024. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS

By Robert Kibet
NAIROBI, Jun 27 2024 (IPS)

In a historic first, Kenya’s youth have mobilized in large-scale protests to demand that the political establishment listen to them. The Finance Bill 2024, which proposed new taxes across several sectors, was the catalyst for the protests, igniting outrage among a youth demographic that feels betrayed by decades of political promises. These protests, driven by economic and social grievances, escalated dramatically, culminating in clashes with police that led to numerous deaths and widespread unrest.

The streets of Kenya’s major towns and cities became battlegrounds, showcasing a remarkable display of youth agitation. Hundreds of demonstrators faced illegal arrests and detentions, with many others sustaining injuries in the chaos. 

Amidst these tumultuous scenes that gripped Kenya, young female protesters emerged as a force to be reckoned with, standing shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts in defiance of punitive tax measures. Their presence in the chaotic protests was not just significant; it was transformative, as they marched fearlessly into the fray, determined to have their voices heard.

Wanjiku Stephens, donning a luminous green raincoat, became an emblem of bravery as she marched towards a police water cannon. Her act of standing in solidarity with a fellow protester shocked many.

“I was somewhere behind when I saw a young guy hit by the water cannon. A young and energetic guy who not only believed in himself but in the people. That is when I said I have to speak up as a woman,” she recounted, her voice tinged with a mix of fear and resolve. Wanjiku couldn’t pinpoint where her courage came from, only that she found herself on the frontlines, unwavering.

Shakira Wafula boldly confronted the anti-riot police, mirroring Wanjiku’s spirit.

“I am here for Kenya, for my people. I am here for your rights. Push me,” she declared defiantly, clad in black, raising her fist up and holding a Kenyan flag.

Shakira’s frustration was palpable as she described her encounter. “The police tried to control how I was moving. This raised my pressure,” she explained.

Wanjiku also highlighted the specific grievances of women regarding the Finance Bill. “If you look closely at the Finance Bill, a lot of things are affecting us as women. From sanitary towels to anything involving the household, which is the woman’s responsibility,” she pointed out.

“In other countries, sanitary products are free, so why not in Kenya? Why are we being charged for having periods, something we didn’t choose?” she asks.

An anti-riot police officer escorts an arrested female protester outside the Kenya Supreme Court in Nairobi during the demonstrations. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS

The current government claimed that the previous administration had borrowed heavily from foreign governments, so the Finance Bill sought to increase and introduce new taxes to pay off this debt while simultaneously making Kenya less reliant on foreign debt. This was to bridge the debt gap and also raise revenue to finance the government’s move to subsidize agriculture inputs. The taxes on basic necessities, such as bread and sanitary towels, infuriated the youth and Kenyans.

Unlike previous demonstrations marked by stones and crude weapons, these Gen Z protesters opted for peaceful chants, documenting their protests on their phones and even live-streaming to reach a wider audience. Their approach was a testament to a new wave of activism, one that harnessed technology and peaceful resistance to amplify their message.

As these relentless women took their stand, they not only fought against economic injustice but also redefined the role of women in Kenya’s fight for a fair and just society. Their courage and determination became a powerful symbol of the youth uprising, inspiring countless others to join the cause.

The proposed Finance Bill is seen by many as a burden on ordinary Kenyans, deepening their financial struggles, while expanding government spending. The youth, already facing high unemployment despite being educated, view this bill as a direct assault on their economic prospects. Their frustration is palpable, and their actions speak volumes about their desperation and determination.

In a bid to suppress the protests, law enforcement officers resorted to firing live ammunition, wielding batons, deploying water cannons, and using tear gas grenades. This heavy-handed approach resulted in a significant number of deaths and injuries, though the precise count remains uncertain.

According to the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (1979) and the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (1990), only the minimum force necessary should be used for legitimate law enforcement purposes during an assembly. These international standards highlight the excessive nature of the force used against the Kenyan protesters, raising serious human rights concerns.

The anger and determination of the youth reached a peak as they occupied the parliament precincts, one of the most protected zones in the country. They managed to breach security and gain entry into the bicameral house, leading to chaotic and unprecedented scenes.

At least four protesters were shot dead as police struggled to disperse the rioters. The situation escalated further as protesters vandalized windows and set fire to the new wing of the parliament building, causing significant damage and forcing MPs and parliamentary staff to scramble for safety.

The use of live ammunition to quell the riots, along with reports of arbitrary arrests and the intimidation of activists, has drawn sharp criticism from lawyers and human rights groups. They argue that such measures are not only excessive but also violate the fundamental rights of the protesters.

As the dust begins to settle, the broader implications of these protests for Kenyan society and politics become clearer. The targeting of businesses perceived to be aligned with politicians supporting the Finance Bill underscores the deep-seated frustration and mistrust among the youth. The potential for future unrest looms large as the young generation continues to demand justice and economic fairness.

In a surprising turn of events, Ruto succumbed to mounting pressure from Gen Z, millennials, and the public, leading him to make an unprecedented decision. The president announced the withdrawal of the contentious 2024 Finance Bill, a move that the protesters, who flocked to the streets in record numbers, had fiercely demanded.

A police vehicle set on fire by angry protesters as they sought entry into the national parliament in Nairobi. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS

“Listening keenly to the people of Kenya who have said loudly that they want nothing to do with this Finance Bill for 2024, I concede. Therefore, I will not sign the 2024 Finance Bill, and it shall subsequently be withdrawn. I have agreed with these members that this becomes our collective position,” Ruto declared in a nationally televised address on Wednesday.

The UN Secretary-General expressed his concerns over the violence in Kenya connected to protests and street demonstrations.

However, this decision sparked a debate on its legality. Rarieda Legislator Paul Otiende Amolo, who played a key role in crafting the 2010 constitution, pointed out that the president cannot unilaterally withdraw a bill since he is not a member of parliament.

“To constitutionally nuance this, the legal way is for the president to register reservations on all aspects of the bill, including the title, then send the bill back to parliament within seven days. Parliament then votes to adopt each reservation, effectively nullifying the bill,” explained lawyer Waiko Wanyoike.

In a statement, António Guterres expressed his sadness over the reports of deaths and injuries, including those of journalists and medical personnel.

He also said he was concerned about reported cases of targeted arbitrary detentions. Guterres said he underscored the need to uphold the right to demonstrate peacefully and urged the Kenyan authorities to exercise restraint.  He conveyed condolences to the bereaved families and wished those injured a speedy recovery.

Human rights advocates quickly weighed in on the matter. Wangeci Grace Kahuria is the Executive Director of Independent Medical Legal Unit (IMLU) and convener of the Police Reforms Working Group.

“It’s not the protesters who are treasonous but the president’s acts. According to Article 241/2/c of the constitution, which requires the National Assembly’s approval but never did, the Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) deployment was illegal and made the killings worse,” according to Kahuria.

Joshua Changwony, Executive Director of Constitution and Reform Education Consortium (CRECO), noted the widespread nature of the protests, emphasizing that 67 towns across the country participated, making it a national movement rather than a localized Nairobi issue.

Speaking to IPS on the phone, legal expert Willis Otieno commented on the political implications, stating, “Parliament, as it were, already stands impeached in the eyes of the people of Kenya. This is a response to the people exercising their Article 1 right to the constitution by demanding a rejection rather than withdrawal.”

He argued that the people had effectively ‘impeached’ parliament, rendering it powerless in this context. The Finance Bill is revenue-raising legislation, which means the amendments made last year will remain in effect. This forces the government to return to the drawing board and reduce the budget.”

For Otieno, the two press conferences done by the president and his deputy in different locations confirm that “we do not have a functioning government.”

“The legislators refused to listen to the people who gave them their views. The same legislators clapped when the president withdrew the bill, yet they are the ones who passed it,” remarked Otieno.

Deputy President Gachagua blamed the National Intelligence Service (NIS), yet the people did not elect the security spy agency.

“They should not play blame games and must take ultimate responsibility. The president and his deputy owe Kenyans one duty: to vacate their offices and resign because, by their admission, they are shirking responsibilities to others whom the people of Kenya did not elect,” reiterates Otieno.

As Kenya navigates this critical juncture, the voice of its youth continues to echo through the corridors of power, signaling a profound shift in the nation’s political landscape. The collective action of a generation has not only forced a significant policy reversal but has also sparked a broader conversation about accountability, governance, and the power of the people.

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Credit: Christopher V Photography/iStock via Getty Images. IMF

By Emilio Fernandez-Corugedo, Pamela Madrid and Frank Fuentes
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 27 2024 (IPS)

The Dominican Republic leads Latin America in GDP growth, with an average annual rate of around 5 percent per year since the 1970s. The Caribbean nation has made great strides in reducing poverty and improving living standards.

Reaching investment grade on its sovereign bonds would further accelerate progress by lowering interest rates, increasing capital flows, and broadening the investor base. This would also reduce private sector financing costs and boost the economy’s growth potential.

Interest rates on public debt are high relative to peers, notably those with investment grade. High interest rates mean fewer resources for spending on infrastructure, social services, and making the economy more resilient to climate change, an important risk for the country.

Elevated public debt (or interest payments) relative to low tax revenues—known as debt affordability—is a key risk constraining its credit rating and contributing to high interest rates. That’s why reforms, especially to the tax system, will be key. A comprehensive tax reform could help the country boost revenues and earn an investment grade rating.

Revenue raising

Tax revenues are limited by costly exemptions and a high threshold before personal income taxes apply. Streamlining tax incentives and exemptions—which together amount to about 5 percent of GDP, or a third of all tax revenues—is also crucial for simplifying the tax system and reducing evasion.

Permanently raising tax revenues by at least 2 percent of GDP would allow for sustainable increases in key public investment and social spending – helping to boost productivity and private consumption while reducing inequality and poverty.

Overall, a comprehensive tax reform could raise the level of GDP by around 1 percent after 10 years and by 2 percent after 30 years (see Chart). Additional public resources from the reform would also create space in the budget to scale up public investment in infrastructure that can mitigate losses from climate events, which are sizeable for the country.

The Dominican Republic is vulnerable to climate shocks including hurricanes, storms, and floods which already cause average annual losses of around 0.5 percent of GDP to infrastructure alone. The country is also increasingly vulnerable to rising temperature and sea levels.

Climate change is expected to increase these vulnerabilities. Making public infrastructure more resilient to climate events so that their impact is 40 percent less severe could further boost GDP by around 0.5 percent after 10 years and by 1.75 percent after 30 years.

Fiscal rule

Beyond the much-needed increase in tax revenues, comprehensive fiscal reform should include the adoption of a fiscal rule imposing long-term limits on public debt that would increase certainty and help safeguard fiscal sustainability.

Recapitalizing the central bank remains a crucial step to ensure its financial autonomy. In this regard, the IMF has provided technical assistance in the design of a Fiscal Responsibility Law, which is pending approval by the lower chamber of Congress, and has supported the authorities’ efforts to draft a new central bank recapitalization law.

Electricity sector

Another critical reform is addressing the long-standing inefficiencies in the electricity sector that result in high losses, which have averaged between 1 and 2 percent of GDP per year in the last decade.

We estimate that cutting losses by half—to a level comparable to those in advanced economies—could increase GDP by 0.3 percent after 10 years as efficiency improves, costs are reduced, and blackouts are eliminated.

These improvements, along with lower non-technical losses and tariff adjustments to bring electricity prices in line with production costs, would eliminate electricity sector losses and provide further fiscal space for development needs, boosting GDP by a further 0.2 percent after 10 years and 0.75 percent after 30 years.

Considering the Dominican Republic’s potential, the challenges it currently faces and the uncertainty of the global outlook, delaying a comprehensive fiscal reform would not only be costly but also a missed opportunity on its journey towards investment grade. Undertaking these key reforms could further boost the level of GDP by around 2 and 5 percent after 10 and 30 years respectively.

Emilio Fernandez-Corugedo is a Deputy Division Chief, Pamela Madrid is a Senior Economist in the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department and Frank Fuentes is an Advisor to the IMF Executive Director representing the Dominican Republic.

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Organizers decided to cancel physical Pride events this year for fear of a repeat of violence that marred the 2023 event when far-right groups attacked festival goers. The organizers and Georgia's president said anti-LGBT hate speech from government officials had incited violence ahead of the event in Tbilisi.

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jun 26 2024 (IPS)

“If this legislation passes, LGBT+ people simply aren’t going to be able to live here.” The warning from Tamar Jakeli, an LGBT+ activist and Director of Tbilisi Pride in Tbilisi, Georgia, is stark, but others in the country’s LGBT+ community agree, accurate.

Jakeli is talking to IPS in early June, soon after the ruling government party, Georgian Dream, proposed a bill in parliament that would, among others, outlaw any LGBT+ gatherings, ban same-sex marriages, gender transition and the adoption of children by same-sex couples. 

It will also prohibit LGBT+ ‘propaganda’ in schools and broadcasters and advertisers will also have to remove any content featuring same-sex relationships before broadcast, regardless of the age of the intended audience.

Strikingly similar to various legislation passed over the last decade in Russia, where the regime has looked to crack down on any open LGBT+ expression, critics say it could, if passed, have a devastating effect on Georgia’s queer community.

They fear it will lead to violent attacks on LGBT+ people and an increase in stigmatization, marginalization, and repression of the community.

“This legislation will give the green light to anyone who already has very conservative opinions to unleash violence on the LGBT community,” says Jakeli.

Experience from other countries where similar legislation has been introduced suggests this is a very likely outcome.

“The experiences of Russia and other countries that have passed such legislation show a clear pattern: state-sanctioned discrimination tends to foster an environment of hostility and violence against LGBTI communities,” Katrin Hugendubel, Advocacy Director at LGBT+ rights group ILGA-Europe, told IPS.

“This legislative move in Georgia could embolden extremist groups and individuals, leading to an increase in hate crimes and violence. The societal message that LGBTI people are less deserving of rights and protections can have severe and dangerous consequences,” she added.

Rights groups say that while the law would have an immediate negative effect on many aspects of LGBT+ people’s lives, it is also likely to reverse what has been a growing acceptance of the community in the country, albeit a slow one.

Although recent research suggests prejudice against LGBT+ people runs deep among what is a traditionally conservative population, activists say attitudes have become more tolerant towards the community in the last few years.

“There is still a conservative society here, and transphobia, homophobia and prejudice exist, [but] in recent years, surveys have shown people being less homophobic, especially in big cities and among the young. The dynamic has been positive,” Beka Gabadadze, an LGBT+ activist and Chairperson of the Board at Queer Association Temida in Tbilisi, told IPS.

But this could now all be under threat.

“The introduction of this legislation has the potential to undo much of the progress that has been made in recent years,” Hugendubel warned.

“Improvements in the situation for LGBTI individuals in Georgia have been fragile and often driven by the efforts of activists and supportive segments of society. This law, by contrast, represents a significant setback that could negate the positive changes achieved. It could lead to increased fear, discourage public expressions of identity, and drive LGBTI people and their allies back into hiding,” she said.

The bill must pass three readings in parliament before it becomes law, and the last of those is expected for September, a few weeks before planned parliamentary elections.

Activists say they expect it to be passed, pointing to the government’s willingness to push through legislation regardless of how unpopular it might be. a law requiring civil society groups that receive a certain amount of funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” was passed earlier this year, despite massive street protests and overwhelming public opposition to it.

Over the next few months as the Bill is debated, Jakeli says she is expecting rising repression against the community.

She says her organization’s offices have already been attacked—she believes by people connected to the government. A Georgian Dream MP appeared to claim responsibility for a series of attacks against the offices of civil society organizations in May this year.

She also expects many LGBT+ people to start, if they have not already, planning a new life abroad.

While Georgian Dream has said the bill has been introduced as a necessary measure to stop the spread of “pseudo-liberal” values that undermine traditional family relationships, critics see it as the latest cynical attempt by a government turning away from the West to increase stigmatisation of certain groups, particularly the LGBT+ community, for political gain ahead of elections.

Georgian Dream also linked its foreign influence legislation to protecting the country from NGOs promoting LGBT+ rights, among others.

“The timing and nature of these legislative moves suggest that they are part of a broader strategy to appeal to homophobic and anti-minority sentiments among certain voter bases,” said Hugendubel. “This tactic has been used in other countries to consolidate power by stoking fears and prejudices,” she added.

Following the implementation of the foreign agent law, the US slapped sanctions on Georgian officials and the EU is currently considering similar action. There have been calls for similar moves to deter the government from pursuing its anti-LGBT+ legislation.

“International pressure, such as sanctions or diplomatic measures, can be effective in signalling to the Georgian government that these actions have severe repercussions. Additionally, domestic protests and sustained public opposition can also play a crucial role in pushing back against these laws,” said Hugendubel.

But Jakeli said the government might try to use any mass protests to further push their own repressive political narrative.

“What Georgian Dream wants is for LGBT+ activists to go out on the streets now and protest and then they can turn around to voters and say, ‘Look, these are radicals trying to overthrow the government who want to spread their decadent western morals through Georgian society’,” she says.

Activists say they are holding out hope that the elections in October will bring about a change of government. Although Jakeli admits the “odds of that happening are not great” with opposition parties, she points out, “facing almost as much repression from the government as the LGBT+ community does.”

But even if Georgian Dream do remain in power after the October vote, Jakeli believes its efforts to further stigmatize the LGBT+ community may actually have already backfired.

“The protests against the ‘foreign agent’ law united different sections of society and more and more people see anti-LGBT+ laws as another ‘Russian’ method of polarizing and dividing society.

“When I was on the front lines of the foreign agent law protests, for the first time I felt as if I was part of the majority, not minority, in Georgia. I think that people have realized that everyone should have human rights, including LGBT+ people,” she says.

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By Tomohiko Aishima
TOKYO, Japan, Jun 26 2024 (IPS-Partners)

The crisis that began with the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shows no signs of ending, and the threat of nuclear war is no longer in the realm of the unimaginable. With conflicts intensifying in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere producing appalling humanitarian crises, humanity stands on a dangerous precipice. There has been no time since the end of the Cold War when the risk of nuclear weapons use has been as high and prolonged as it is now. Even as there is renewed focus on the catastrophic consequences of any use of nuclear weapons, the discourse remains divided—whether to further escalate military confrontation or to return to multilateral negotiation and dialogue. Humanity confronts stark choices. JAPANESE

As SGI members actively engaged in civil society, we believe the following to be crucial and represent forms of action that can transform the direction of history in this crucial moment: To inform people of the inhumane realities of nuclear bombings; to inherit the vow from those who came before us to prevent such tragedies from recurring; and to inspire people deeply towards a more hopeful future.

History demonstrates that when people stand their ground and resist the overwhelming impulse to pessimism and resignation previously unthought-of developments and advances become possible. That is, the times that seem darkest and most desperate can hold opportunities to fundamentally reform human society.

Focusing on the role and leadership of youth, we will continue advocating the legacy of countless aspirations for peace on every level—toward a world free from nuclear weapons, a world without war. It is vital to amplify and spread these voices and here quality media has a critical role to play.

Drawing from our experiences of engagement at UN and grassroots levels for nuclear disarmament, we would like to highlight three points:

First, in order to inform, the devastating consequences of nuclear weapons need to be brought home to even more people. This is crucial if we are to stave off catastrophe.

The weakening and erosion of norms against the use, proliferation and testing of nuclear weapons is a matter of deep concern; no successor framework to the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), which expires in February 2026, is in sight. A shared recognition of the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons can serve as the basis for the kind of dialogue that is needed build trust and confidence.

There is much we can learn from the response to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the time when humanity came closest to the brink of nuclear war. The determination never to repeat that experience and to advance nuclear disarmament was a key motivation for the adoption of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968. It It is worth noting that US and the USSR announced their intention to hold the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks on the day of the signing ceremony for the NPT, negotiations that represented the first steps taken the two countries to slow the nuclear arms race and fulfill their commitment to nuclear disarmament made Article VI of the NPT.

Reflecting on that history, in January 2023 SGI President Daisaku Ikeda issued a proposal in which stressed the following:

Dr. Daisaku Ikeda. Credit: Seikyo Shimbun

The spirit and sense of purpose that prevailed at the time of the birth of the NPT is resonant with and complementary to the ideals that motivated the drafting and adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). I strongly call for all parties to explore and expand ways to link the efforts made on the basis of these two treaties, drawing forth their synergistic effects toward a world free from nuclear weapons.

Carrying forward the vision of President Ikeda, who passed away last November, members of the SGI are determined to generate momentum for a global course shift away from nuclear buildup premised on deterrence, toward nuclear disarmament that will avert catastrophe.

Second, in order to inherit, we feel the need to listen closely to the voices of global hibakusha.The average age of surviving hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has exceeded 85. Additionally, there are many global hibakusha, people around the world who have been impacted by uranium mining, nuclear testing, and nuclear weapons production processes. The realities of their have not been widely told. Their voices must be heard as they contain lessons we cannot afford to forget.

To this end, the SGI has produced a video of Hiroshima hibakusha Keiko Ogura’s in-person testimony to leaders at the G7 Hiroshima Summit (link1). This video was also screened at an NPT Preparatory Committee side event held on August 7, 2023, leaving a deep impression on participants, including many young people in attendance.

Algerim Yelgeldy, a third-generation survivor of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, giving a testimony at a side event during the 2nd meeting of the States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. By Katsuhiro Asagiri, President of INPS Japan.

The spirit animating hibakusha in Japan and throughout the world to confront and recount their horrific experiences is the determination that no one else should endure what they have suffered. This open-hearted concern for others stands in stark contrast with the underlying logic of nuclear weapons—the readiness to annihilate others in pursuit of one’s own interests and objectives. It is this readiness that marks nuclear weapons as an absolute evil.

Finally, we seek to inspire action by promoting awareness of the interlinkages between nuclear disarmament with global issues like climate change.

Even if the global armageddon of full-scale nuclear war is avoided, scientists have reported that a limited nuclear war could cause “nuclear winter,” resulting in food shortages and famine that could potentially kill 2 billion people. Nuclear testing has inflicted immense damage on formerly colonized peoples and indigenous communities. Nuclear abolition is an intersectional issue spanning discrimination, human rights, climate justice, environment, gender, inclusion, humanitarianism and ethics, among others.

Aiming toward the UN Summit of the Future this September, this past March Japanese youth jointly organized the Future Action Festival that sought to raise awareness of these interconnections at a gathering of nearly 70,000 young participants.

Future Action Festival convened at Tokyo’s National Stadium on March 24, drawing approximately 66,000 attedees. Credit: Yukie Asagiri, INPS Japan

As part of the second People’s Decade for Nuclear Abolition campaign [link3], the SGI is striving to build renewed momentum for nuclear abolition toward 2027, focusing on peace and disarmament education.

It is increasingly crucial that people reach across their respective fields of action and policy positions to unite their voices for nuclear abolition and, to this end, we also seek to strengthen interfaith dialogue and cooperation.

Anna Ikeda of SGI delivered a joint statement endorsed by 115 inter-faith and civil society organizations (CSOs) on 29 November. Credit: SGI

We recognize the urgency of this moment and what is at stake for all of us – the beloved natural world and the beloved community of humanity. Our fates are intertwined and we cannot ignore the resounding threats that confront us. . . . This fear is not unique to this moment in time. Let us draw courage from the audacity and vision of past struggles for justice, taking comfort in the wisdom that immense challenges always feel impossible until they are done.

 

 
Tomohiko Aishima is Executive Director of Peace and Global Issues, Soka Gakkai International (SGI)

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Destruction in northern Gaza. Credit: UNRWA

By James E. Jennings
ATLANTA, Georgia, Jun 26 2024 (IPS)

There have been many genocides throughout history, but the first to be displayed on TV in all its sickening horror before the entire world is the Israeli genocide against the civilians of Gaza.

Truth is the first casualty of war, so it’s no surprise that the slick Israeli propaganda machine has managed to make Israel’s slaughter of 37,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 15,000 children, acceptable to multitudes of Americans.

With the exception of the widespread campus protestors, most Americans are by now convinced that Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants are all fanatical Islamists who deserve to be killed like vermin. That’s not only a lie—it is a damnable lie.

There is an even bigger atrocity in this war, and a more unbearable one than killing children, if that is possible—and that’s when the truth is killed. When your good is labeled evil, it’s maddening.

Today the decency and moral outrage of millions of US youth is being slandered by ranting propagandists like MS-NBC’s Joe Scarborough, and of course the entire FOX News crew, labeling the campus protest movement anti-Semitic. The claim is false and must be exposed as another damnable lie.

It’s more than illogical, it’s silly, to say that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism. The vast majority of campus protesters are not anti-Semites and have no trouble separating the actions of extreme Zionist ideology as played out in Gaza from their classmates and friends who happen to be Jews.

“The naming of things is the rectification of things,” Confucius taught. Antisemitism is Antisemitism. Zionism is Zionism. The two are not the same. Otherwise, how could Senator Bernie Sanders, a Jew, attack the Netanyahu’s extreme Zionist government so strenuously, and how could so many of the student demonstrators who are against Zionist Israel’s Gaza campaign themselves be Jewish?

When Republican Congresswoman Elise Stephanic, a Jew, attacked George Soros, a celebrated progressive Jewish philanthropist on CNN recently for supporting the protesters, wasn’t she herself being an Anti-Semite?

Neither George W. Bush nor Joe Biden are Jews. They are Christians—but are certainly bigtime Zionists. Bush by leading America into the morass of the Iraq War primarily designed to protect Israel, and Biden in Gaza, by giving Israel all the money and bombs it needs to kill so many thousands of civilians.

“Don’t kill children, but here’s money and ammunition to do it with.” Nobody is fooled by that, still less university students who have had to display their critical thinking skills before they could even get into college.

Increasing numbers of Jewish organizations are rejecting Israel’s descent into doctrinaire Anti-Arab racial policies that echo Nazism’s extreme philosophy. They know that race-hatred is racism, but that doctrinaire racial superiority vs. inferiority is racial-ism, which is far worse.

The situation in Gaza is unbearable for a civilized world to witness. Painting an entire generation of idealistic American college youth with the slander that they are racists is unbearable. If anything is worse than Genocide, it is claiming that those who oppose it are the greater cause of evil.

James E. Jennings, PhD, is President of Conscience International and Executive Director of US Academics for Peace. He has delivered aid to Gaza hospitals over more than three decades, including during Israel’s bombing campaigns in 2009 and 2014.

IPS UN Bureau

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Comparative research on healthcare financing options shows revenue-financed healthcare to be the most cost-effective, efficient, and equitable, while all health insurance imposes avoidable additional costs.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

The resulting ‘moral hazard’ and ‘cherry-picking’ problems reflect the public’s weak bargaining power vis-à-vis healthcare providers and insurance companies.

US health spending per capita is the highest, partly due to additional private health insurance costs. The share of US national income spent on healthcare has risen to 18%!

Such avoidable insurance management costs are quite high, averaging almost 4% more. Consequently, upward cost pressures remain intense.

Yet, despite spending so much, it only ranks 40th in average life expectancy worldwide. Its other health indicators also leave much to be desired.

Hence, greater spending does not necessarily improve health outcomes, and spending more on insurance does not improve health either.

Revenue financing
Hence, the main healthcare financing choices are social health insurance (SHI) and revenue financing, which enables risk pooling for entire national populations.

After reviewing extensive evidence, the World Bank’s Adam Wagstaff found revenue financing much more cost-effective, efficient, and less expensive than insurance options.

Germany, the only major OECD country heavily reliant on SHI, is second only to the US in health spending per capita, largely due to insurance administration costs.

With insurance premium revenue increasingly inadequate, the government finances the ever-growing funding gap. Rather than being a healthcare financing option for the future, it should be recognised as an atavism, even for highly unionised Germany.

Social health insurance
SHI advocates insist it is needed owing to inadequate fiscal means. But budget shortfalls imply a lack of political will. SHI’s claims to raise more money are grossly exaggerated.

SHI premiums are effectively flat or pro rata taxes, making overall tax incidence more regressive. SHI financing is inadequate everywhere and under growing stress due to ageing societies.

Most governments claim to be committed to inclusion and equitable access, but SHI would undermine declared national commitments to the WHO’s ‘healthcare for all’ and the UN SDGs’ ‘universal healthcare’.

Besides betraying these commitments, SHI cannot ensure the needed funding or financial sustainability. Any realistic government should recognise SHI will be politically unpopular.

SHI’s costs and dangers, including the perverse incentives involved, are rarely acknowledged. Employers have minimised their SHI liabilities by casualising labour contracts. Rather than employ workers directly, they hire indirectly, using various contract labour arrangements.

Priorities?
The typical emphasis on curative health services has also worsened health outcomes by neglecting vital public health programmes. By emphasising curative services, many causes of ill health do not get sufficient attention.

Many preventive and public health problems remain neglected and underfunded. Most governments must spend more on prevention, especially to address largely preventable non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

The world needs far better healthcare financing. Various complementary reforms are also required. Instead, poorly sequenced, ill-considered reforms have been the norm in recent decades.

The resulting ‘non-system’ offers poor, weak and ineffective incentives for public and preventive health provision. Meanwhile, potentially lucrative segments have been privatised or contracted out, often to incompetent political cronies.

The UK NHS capitation system successfully transformed doctors’ incentives. Instead of prioritising patient payments, UK doctors are incentivised to ensure the well-being of those under their care.

Recognise market failure
Former UK Conservative Party adviser and “non-interventionist market economist” Professor Geoffrey Williams rejects “any [government] intervention … in almost every area of economic activity, but not in health, because health is quintessentially the place where markets fail.

“That is why we use health more often than any other example when we teach about market failure, particularly insurance market failure. We know the health market fails and that we cannot find market solutions to those market failures as we might in other forms of market failure.

“We know that government tax funding is the only real way of providing universal healthcare.” Neither universal healthcare nor health for all can be achieved without adequate revenue financing, even if termed insurance.

Improving healthcare
Malaysia has low infant and maternal mortality rates and improved life expectancy thanks to simple, low-cost reforms introduced from the 1960s, especially training village midwives to help mothers and babies.

Lowering such mortality is responsible for over four-fifths of increased Malaysian life expectancy over the decades. Now, much more should be done to improve babies’ and mothers’ nutrition for the ‘first thousand days’ from conception to age two.

A ‘hybrid system’ would not work, as it would only provide some public financing to address egregious ‘market failures’. Targeting would be worse, both costly and involving both inclusion and exclusion errors.

With political will, revenue financing is sustainable despite rising costs. We should renew our commitment to public healthcare, not as it has become, but as it should be.

IPS UN Bureau

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CIVICUS discusses the results and implications of recent elections to the European Parliament with Philipp Jäger, Policy Fellow at the Jacques Delors Centre, an independent, non-partisan think tank focused on European policy processes and outcomes.

Philipp Jäger

For more civil society interviews and analysis, please visit CIVICUS Lens.

 
What are the key takeaways from the recent European Parliamentary elections?

As predicted by the polls, there was a shift to the right, with around a quarter of the seats going to the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Identity and Democracy (ID) groups. Most of the parties in these two groups, including Italy’s post-fascist Brothers of Italy, France’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative for Germany (AfD) – which was expelled from ID just before the election – are far-right populist parties.

However, the right’s gains did not amount to a landslide victory and the political centre managed to keep a majority. The conservative European People’s Party (EPP) won the most votes, improving on its performance in the last election. The vote for the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) remained stable, while the Liberals (Renew) and the Greens lost a significant number of seats.

In the outgoing parliament, the EPP, Renew and S&D formed an informal coalition and legislation was usually passed with their support. This time they still have a majority, albeit a slimmer one, with around 403 seats out of 720. Together with the Greens, the political centre still has a comfortable majority to pass laws. A centrist coalition is emerging as the most likely way forward, which would imply a degree of continuity.

However, the EPP has indicated that it is open to working informally with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy on specific issues to secure a centre-right majority. There’s virtually no possibility of a centre-left majority. As all plausible majorities involve it, the EPP is in a strong position. Whether legislation moves to the right will therefore depend largely on how much the EPP moves in that direction.

The election results are also crucial in determining the next president of the European Commission, as the European Parliament must confirm the nomination made by the European Council. Current president Ursula von der Leyen will most likely be elected for another term, supported by the votes of the EPP, S&D, Renew and possibly the Greens.

What explains the uneven performance of the far right?

Right-wing parties made significant gains in France and Germany, the two largest EU member states, which together elect a quarter of all European parliamentarians. In France, Marine Le Pen’s RN party won 30 seats, twice as many as President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party. In Germany, the AfD secured 15 seats, more than any of the three parties currently in government.

The Greens suffered significant losses in France and Germany, accounting for 14 of the 19 seats lost by the group. In Austria, the right-wing Freedom Party of Austria, part of the ID group, emerged as the largest party.

In Denmark, Finland and Sweden, however, far-right parties won fewer votes than expected, while green and left-wing parties made gains. Meanwhile in Poland, the ruling coalition achieved a solid result, successfully fending off a challenge from the right-wing Law and Justice party.

This highlights the fact that the EU elections are not one election, but 27 different national-level elections. As a result, voting in EU elections is often more about national issues than EU policy. Generalising about the EU does not do justice to the diversity of its member states, where local factors often play a role.

Nevertheless, it appears that a significant proportion of EU voters are concerned about their livelihoods. They are not necessarily already negatively affected, but they may fear for the future. One reason may be that they are exposed to events over which they have little control, such as Russia’s war in Ukraine, climate change, immigration and inflation – the elements that provide fertile ground for extreme parties to grow.

What are the potential implications for national governments that suffered the biggest losses?

The results of these elections may have strong implications for national governments. In France, Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called early parliamentary elections. This is a very risky decision, as it may hand the far right a decisive win. If his party fares badly, Macron risks becoming a lame duck president, unable to push through domestic legislation.

In Germany, the conservative Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union of Bavaria, currently in opposition, scored strong results, while the three governing parties jointly won only around 36 per cent. Combined with the strong performance of AfD, the results are seen as a damning indictment of the government. The results in eastern Germany, where AfD won more votes than any other party, are a harbinger of state elections later this year.

In Hungary, a challenge to incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has emerged. His right-wing populist party, Fidesz, scored its lowest ever EU election result.

These national-level political developments have implications for EU policymaking, given the role of the Council in the legislative process. With less political support at home, the French and German governments are less likely to push the EU agenda in the Council, as they have routinely done in the past.

What’s the likelihood of the EU Green Deal being rolled back?

It will require a major transformation of our economies, supported consistently over the next two decades, to achieve climate targets and successfully implement the EU Green Deal. Additional public funding will be essential to drive the costly process of decarbonising industry. Recent election results suggest we may lack the ambition and political will to do this. If the rightward shift continues and limits further climate action, the EU risks missing its overarching climate targets.

However, a rollback of existing environmental policies is unlikely over the next five years. While some targeted adjustments may be made to reduce administrative burdens, core climate legislation such as the Emissions Trading System is unlikely to be dismantled. Still, there is a risk that the level of ambition could be compromised under the guise of cutting red tape.

On climate, as on other key issues such as immigration, top-level personnel will play a key role. For example, Spain’s deputy minister Teresa Ribera, a vocal advocate of climate action, is a candidate for the role of climate commissioner. A leader of her stature would be well placed to defend the Green Deal in difficult circumstances. In the coming weeks, as von der Leyen seeks the Council’s nomination, political negotiations will intensify as parties vie to place their candidates in key positions.

How do you see the future of the EU?

The future of the EU as we know cannot be taken for granted. While the European Parliament’s overall shift to the right suggests a changing political landscape, the centre right is likely to retain control over most legislation. However, we may see more cooperation between the centre right and the far right on specific issues such as migration.

The situation is somewhat different in the European Council, where decisions require unanimity or qualified majority voting. Although the election hasn’t changed its composition, it has weakened the governments of France and Germany and strengthened Italy. This is highly relevant because small groups of governments, or individual governments, can block legislation or use their votes to extract concessions. EU-sceptical states or destructive forces such as Hungary’s government have often used their veto power.

The rise of Eurosceptic, right-wing governments in key EU states such as Italy, Slovakia, the Netherlands and possibly Austria, which holds elections soon, could further fuel anti-EU sentiment. If the number of hard-right, anti-EU governments increases, they will quickly gain more influence in the Council. While this scenario may not lead to the dissolution of the EU, it could result in an EU where consensus and common action become increasingly difficult.

Get in touch with the Jacques Delors Centre through its website or Instagram page, and follow @DelorsBerlin and @ph_jaeg on Twitter.

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Women from Odisha’s indigenous communities joke and laugh as they sell and barter vegetable, greens, herbs and tubers they grow on the hill slopes of their villages. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
SHILLONG & BHUBANESWAR, India, Jun 25 2024 (IPS)

As the school lunch bell goes off, 40 eager little bodies—41 if you count the school dog—burst out onto the veranda. Awaiting them are a stack of steel platters, into which will be ladled a nutritious and delicious lunch, all of it indigenous cuisine.

Earlier in this Lower Primary school in Meghalaya’s East Khasi Hills, in India’s north-east, the government-funded school meals aimed at reducing child malnutrition served only rice, potato and yellow lentils. In a Himalayan foothill region rich in biodiversity, with food systems based on locally grown and foraged edibles, the indigenous communities’ healthy food is again being recognized and entering school meals.

Indigenous food systems, adapted over years to food crises including droughts, extreme cold and snow, persevered even in the face of decades of onslaught from commercialized government-backed monostaples—rice and wheat. These indigenous biodiversity warriors held on to their food systems through their unique and extremely localized culinary skills.

Tribal women sell their completely naturally grown grains, lentils and beans in a weekly town market in Koraput, Odisha’s tribal heartland in the Eastern Ghats. Food grown by indigenous people have the lowest carbon footprint. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Many of the tribal food and forest products have medicinal values and tribal women were wise in this knowledge. Today, many of these are being packaged into ‘nutraceuticals’ combining nutrients and pharmaceuticals as preventives for general and lifestyle health issues. Just one example of many is Moringa leaves (Moringa oleifera), now packaged and sold in powder and tablet form. It contains minerals, Vitamin A, B⁶ and plenty of iron, which is why pregnant women have been asked for years to include Moringa in their diet.

The biggest recognition of their five decades-long endeavor since India’s Green Revolution comes with the United Nations declaring 2023 as the International Year of Millets following a proposal by India, supported by over 70 countries, to raise awareness about millets’ multiple benefits, from nutrition and health to environmental sustainability.

For perspective, starting in the 1960s, the Green Revolution transformed food systems, greatly expanding monocropping and the overall production of wheat and rice in Asia and elsewhere, replacing millets and other crops in many areas.

Now, the Indian government for its part, has included millets in the public food assistance scheme for the economically weaker sections, which reaches millions of poorer families. Given India’s growing lifestyle diseases and that it’s now known as the diabetes capital of the world, some of the upper classes in India are rapidly transitioning towards millets and other foods with medicinal properties. 

Further, Geographical Indication (GI) tags—an official recognition of a unique product of food, art or craft originating in a specific location—are being awarded in larger numbers by the government. Several food preparations and grains that women of tribal communities have been preserving over generations are being awarded this certification, bringing sustainability and continuity to the GI products by opening up markets and offering trade-related protection under intellectual property rights.

The latest in the list in January 2024 is eastern state Odisha’s chutney made from red weaver ants, a semi-solid paste known in the region for its medicinal and nutritional properties, harvested sustainably and eaten by certain tribal communities.

Preserved by Women Over Centuries, Now Promoted by Government and Non-Profits

“There has been a distinct trend of the government’s attitude becoming more positive towards promoting indigenous foods in the last two to three years,” Bhogtoram Mawroh, a key research official of the Meghalaya-based non-profit North East Society for Agroecology Support (NESFAS), told Inter Press Service.

“Indigenous edibles, local and in-season, are being revived in school meals that had gone out of the children’s platter at home in the last few years. They include nutritious and medicinal cultivated and foraged greens and herbs like Jatira (water celery), Jamyrdoh (fish mint), Jali (wild leafy vegetable), Khliang syiar (herb Centella asiatica), Shriewkai, Jalynniar and Ja Miaw (wild leafy vegetables),” Mawroh elaborates. “The best development is that mothers too are cooking them at home now,” he added.

School students in Meghalaya’s East Khasi Hills enjoy the school meal, which now contains healthier and tastier preparations from a local basket of grown and foraged ethnic ingredients. Credit: Manipadma Jena/NESFAS

NESFAS, which is piloting the indigenous school meal in 11 schools with 414 students from seven villages, aims to increase the coverage to 500 schools. While government school meal funding is utilized, Rome-based The Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty (TIP) is a major partner.

“Though still being consumed, this vegetable usage has gone down in recent years, especially among the younger generations.  Innovation, in preparation to attract youth back to their ancient foods, is a major component of the revival,” said Mawroh.

Here too, it’s women’s knowledge systems that spearhead innovation. While school cooks are being trained, it’s the Biodiversity Management Committees that play a pivotal role. One of the few matrilineal societies that persists, the women elders in the Khasi community that mainly form these communities are repositories of traditional knowledge on hyper-local biodiversity. They have been gathering food from forests for generations and have knowledge of location, seasonality and properties. They advise what can be included in school lunch menus in each season.

Recognizing this, the biodiversity agency of the state government, along with local and international non-profits, has lately formed 71 Biodiversity Management Committees in rural Meghalaya to formally document in ‘People’s Biodiversity Registers’ all the knowledge of local biodiversity, especially focusing on species that are close to extinction.

Indigenous Food Entrepreneurs: Cafes Run by Women

Yet today, some indigenous women are boldly investing in their food systems at a higher level. They have become indigenous food entrepreneurs, opening exclusively tribal cafés serving centuries-old authentic cuisines, with some experimental recipes aimed at attracting popular taste.

Pioneering ethnic food entrepreneurship in India, Aruna Tirkey has proved indigenous food can be popular and cannot be sidelined as it has been in the last decades. Courtesy: Aruna Tirkey

Aruna Tirkey is one of them. Troubled by ethnic food being sidelined, and with it her community’s identity, customs and culture, she decided eight years ago to revive those, whatever the challenges or financial costs.

From the Oraon tribe in India’s Jharkhand State, Tirkey, a development professional in her 40s, told IPS she started out with just 500 rupees (USD 6), selling millet-based stuffed dumplings on a mobile trolley.

Soon after, Tirkey decided to set up her restaurant in Jharkhand’s capital city, Ranchi, serving exclusively Oraon food preparations. Named ‘Ajam Emba’ translating to ‘great taste’ in Oraon’s spoken dialect, she took the bold step with deep faith and hope that it would resonate with food connoisseurs.

It did. From an income of a few thousand rupees, earnings are currently touching 50 lakh rupees (about USD 59,932) a year.

“Over the last two to three years, Ajam Emba’s sales have shot up because, post-Covid, more people are now conscious about healthy food choices,” Tirkey told IPS. “Our food catering business for marriages, personal and office parties aside from restaurant sales is booming.”

Currently operating from a rented place, Tirkey has poured in all her savings into building her own establishment, supplemented by bank loans. “Once the building is complete with authentic Oraon décor, my earnings will grow four times more. Such is the demand now for the novelty that tribal cuisine offers,” Tirkey said.

“I am the head chef and will keep on experimenting and researching new recipes and best mix of ingredient.”

It is for this reason that her clientele includes a large number of Oraon people themselves who have moved away from home for jobs. In Ajam Emba, they come to rediscover their childhood tastes. Foreign tourists, too, come to get a slice of a unique cuisine known for its minimal carbon footprint.

Tirkey trains and provides employment to her community women as cooks, helpers and waiters. Hundreds of farmers and foragers have benefited from providing ingredient to Ajam Emba’s kitchen.

Dial Muktieh poses proudly beside her Mother Earth Café, which is now a commercial success and preserves Meghalaya’s biodiversity while contributing to her village’s economy. Courtesy: NESFAS

Dial Muktieh, 44, is busy slicing fresh bamboo shoots to be sautéed with smoked beef and served alongside wild edibles’ green salad of jamyrdoh, leaves of garlic chive, perilla, lemon, salt and tomato, with roselle juice to wash it all down. In her Mei-Ramew Café or Mother Earth Café, in Khweng village in the hills of Meghalaya’s Ri-Bhoi district, it’s the youth mostly who come asking for this piping hot dish, which is giving a good run for money to modern junk foods. Also popular are indigenous preparations of dry fish chutney, fried small local fish, fried silk worms and tapioca cake.

Along with Muktieh, who learned traditional cooking and ingredients from her grandmother, Plantina Kharmujai’s and one more Mother Earth Café are centres of hyperlocal ethnic food revival in Meghalaya.

Popular and with more cafés in the pipeline, they are “more entrenched into the local economy, with profitability rising” within four to five years of establishment.

Revitalization and promotion of ethnic cuisines can contribute to healthier, more sustainable and more equitable food systems, well aligned with the objectives of sustainable food systems at the United Nations, say several studies from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). Ethnic cuisines are also closely linked to sustainable management of agrobiodiversity and agroecosystems. Awareness can help transform the way the world produces, consumes, and thinks about food.

Checkmate: The Vagaries of Climate Change 

Across the Himalayas, as weather patterns become unpredictable, farmers are finding their regenerated traditional crops, food preservation systems and wild edibles to be more resistant to the vagaries of nature.

“Food from forests—many regenerative tuber foods, mushrooms, and greens—are fortunately still available here and have not gone extinct as several species already have in high-altitude regions,” Amba Jamir told IPS from Nagaland, another north-eastern Himalayan foot-hill state. “Now communities plan to take stronger conservation measures and popularize food choices that are sustainable for the planet,” added Jamir, an environment policy and development advisor specializing in upland resource management in the eastern Himalayas.

Food diversity, where it still thrives, means that varied ecosystems—both natural and farmed food sources—are still managed and maintained.

The women elders of Odisha’s Dongria Kondh community embark on a journey to distant hill villages of their clan to collect drought-resistant millet seeds that are on the verge of perishing. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

There is no better instance of this than the practices of the ancient Dongria Kondh tribal community high in India’s Eastern Ghats range of mountains.

In the hill hamlets of Rayagada district in eastern India’s Odisha state, community women elders claim that even ten years ago, their staple crop, millet, had 10 existing varieties, down from 45 varieties that were locally farmed almost 70 to 80 years ago.

In a particularly severe drought year, when they found they were left with just two available varieties, they began their endeavor to revive the lost heirloom strains.

The women, traditionally responsible for keeping the community’s seeds safe, have gotten into urgent mission mode, traveling arduously by foot to remote forest villages after gaining prior information that one or two farmers are still preserving a millet variety the others have abandoned. Millets have very high seed viability, because of which they can be stored for five to six years in case of drought, said agrobiodiversity experts.

Lost for nearly five decades, they rescued the Kodo millet, which is high in fiber and energy content and ideal for diabetics; two varieties of sorghum; and a Foxtail millet. And they are keeping up the search for their lost heirloom seeds.

“In a world where food security is increasingly uncertain in some parts of the world, these foods (millets) could be a game changer,” says Bill Gates in his blog GateNotes. “Could a grain older than the wheel be the future of food?”

Asia is home to 55 percent of the people in the world affected by hunger. More than 400 million people face continuing threats to food security, according to a recent 2024 study by  International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), one of the 15 research centres of the World Bank and the Government-funded Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

Millets’ share in cropped area. Credit: FAOSTAT

According to the IFPRI study, Asia has the potential to significantly expand production of millets and thus help to sustainably meet growing food demand in the region and globally. As of 2022 (the latest figure available), Asian millet production was approximately 15.6 million metric tons (MT), compared to 699 million MT for rice and 343 million MT for wheat. In major producers China, India and Nepal, area harvested and production for millet is much lower than that for rice and wheat. Thus, there is clearly room to grow.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

This feature is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.

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Excerpt:

Alice Wairimu Nderitu, United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide (UNOSAPG), speaks at the high level segment of the 10th Annual Symposium on the Role of Religion and Faith-based Organizations in International Affairs, accompanied by the moderators of the session, Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, ACT Alliance general secretary, and Simona Cruciani, Senior Political Affairs Officer, UN Office of the UNOSAPG.
 
The symposium, organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and a coalition of faith-based and UN partners, featured UN officials, representatives of international faith-based organizations, and other experts. 25 January 2024. Credit: Marcelo Schneider/WCC

By Azza Karam
NEW YORK, Jun 25 2024 (IPS)

In Part 1, I outlined how our shared existence is challenged not only by simultaneous crisis, but also by the notions – and realities – of perceived ‘holy wars’. I point out that ‘holy wars’ are not only perceptions within, or of, monotheistic faith traditions, but actually enacted by members of diverse belief systems.

I note how these ‘holy war’ dynamics are part of the vicious cycle of polarisation and sorrowful lack of social cohesion in most societies, while also coexisting with an increasing realisation amongst several decision-making entities (governmental, non-governmental and intergovernmental) of how important religions have been, and continue to be.

Religious institutions, religious leaders and religious (or faith based) organisations, are indeed the original social service providers, community mediators, social norm upholders and changemakers, and actually, historically, also the original human rights’ defenders.

I emphasize how the toxic mix with narrow political interests (might that be tautological?) means that in the minds of some who hold decision making positions, and/or have access to arms, and/or control laws and their implementation, and/or impact on beliefs, behaviours and attitudes through unparalleled pulpits (or all of the above), ‘holy war’, is justified.

In the age of ‘holy wars’, we are called upon to understand that part of our social disconnect resulting in the polarisation and significant weaking of our civil societies, may well be furthered by the manner in the current interest in and on religion.

Elsewhere I have argued that appreciating the ‘good’ powers of religious institutions and leaders, and the remarkable reach of religious social services and positive changemakers, is necessary, but by no means enough.

In fact, seeking to emphasize, support and identify the religious as the panacea, is harmful – in the same ways that marginalising the religious as evil, anti-human rights, unhealthy, misogynist, unnecessary, parochial, etc. has been, and remains, harmful, to the very same fabric of the civil societies we all uphold.

It is not all about good religion or bad religion. Rather, it could be about how to generate, nurture, protect, and yes, honour, civil societies.

Neither our governments (including even the elected ones), nor our religious institutions (including those which have survived centuries) nor our corporations (including those with the highest ranking of CSR and ESG) can, alone, change the dramatic junction of our collective human and planetary realities.

The late Wangari Mathai, a Kenyan woman environmental activist who won the Nobel Peace prize in 2004, demonstrated remarkable foresight when she highlighted the interconnectedness of our challenges, thus: “[I]n a few decades, the relationship between the environment, resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights, democracy and peace.”

We need to begin to investigate what it will take to identify, understand, and activate, a poetics of solidarity. The Oxford Reference explains that “poetics are the general principles of poetry or of literature in general, or the theoretical study of these principles. As a body of theory, poetics is concerned with the distinctive features of poetry (or literature as a whole), with its languages, forms, genres, and modes of composition.”

If we use the term ‘poetics’ to refer to solidarity, not merely as an aspect of literature and/or theory, but as lived realities, what are the “languages, forms, genres and modes of existence” that this would entail? In the following paragraphs, I do not propose definitive answers. I merely share some thoughts to engender and provoke each of us, to reflect – and to engage.

A poetics of solidarity needs to have as a premise of its existence, an understanding that working ‘alone’ to solve the problems which impact all – whether as a lone multifaceted institution, the United Nations, corporation(s), religion/religious or multi-religious entity, secular NGO or umbrellas of NGOs, judicial actor(s) or bodies, cultural agents or entities, financial or military behemoths, etc., is clearly not enough.

We have landed here in these very challenging spaces and times, even as so many have laboured for so long in almost all domains of human existence, and even after many movements of solidarity succeeded in overcoming and righting and fighting the good fight. Yet, here we are.

A poetics of solidarity needs to hold accountable all our ways of thinking and doing, so far. I am not implying, by any means, that we have all failed. Rather, we all stand on the shoulders of many who have given their lives to make this a better world for all. We must acknowledge that loud and clear and take responsibility for what many are doing, and have done, that contributes to our shared existence.

This alone would be unlike many leaders who take office and make a point of undermining, or worst still, undoing, all that was done before them or by their predecessors. Or those who hold offices and invest so much in decrying, complaining, unravelling, and withering critiques of those trying to work alongside. Or those who claim to be part of a team, but cannot and will not support one another when things get tough.

A poetics of solidary demands that we put our money, and other resources, including activating our so-called values – where our mouths are. It is not good enough to speak about human rights, and/or the glory of our respective faiths and/or “interfaith peacemaking”, or even building edifices to such ‘co-existence’, when we do not contribute to the efforts of those who fight for these rights.

It is hard to justify killing, maiming, criminalising, imprisoning and in other ways, silencing, those who ask for their rights, and struggle for the rights of others. It is also hard to justify those who pretend to fight for the rights of others, when the going is good, and are silent or notably absent, when the going is tough.

What if, rather than undermine, constantly critique, systematically oppose, complain, or even just remaining silent (and hide behind claims that the particular issue at hand is not their business or endeavour), when we see our fellow humans give – what if we praise, give thanks, reach out to share a kind word, and better still, ask how we can help…? What if we give of the ‘little’ we have? Don’t all our faiths say that? You think this sounds too simple?

Did Einstein not say at some point something like the only difference between stupidity and genius, is that genius has its limits, and that everything should be made as simple as possible – but not simpler? Kindness, praise, and giving of what we value, to those we would normally not (want to) see or deign to appreciate, giving to those who speak and work and live differently – but aim for the collective good, is not simple. It is genius. Working together with those who may bear a different institutional flag, rather than seeking to create or consolidate your own, is also genius.

A poetics of solidarity may require us to acknowledge that solidarity is fundamentally about how we relate to one another, with kindness, empathy and willingness to serve – in words and deeds. But it is also to humbly realise that even as some of us try our best to relate and to “support”, “empower”, “engender”, or “enable”, we may well end up hurting one another, and/or even damage parts of our environment that some of us, including future generations, will need, to just survive.

When it comes to the poetics of solidarity in the age of ‘holy wars’, we cannot afford to now see anything ‘religious’ as a saviour, or the only source of our interrelated salvation. Nor can we afford to ignore the religious realms altogether, thinking we know our welfare best, or keep the religious at bay. Instead, we need to take responsibility for the fact that our faiths – including our faith in human rights – demand us to be accountable for ourselves, one another, and our planet.

What we need is a poetics of solidarity which does no harm – but this may well mean sacrificing something dear to us. We have lived – and still do – in an age where we think it is possible to have it all. Perhaps we may just have to come to terms with the fact that we each, and all, need to let go of something valuable to us – and to give, in service, instead.

All our institutions, groups, communities and our individual selves, bear a responsibility. Our long-established religious institutions, faith-based and interfaith initiatives in their mushrooming multitudes, need to be held accountable to what we give of our most valuable, to those who are not religious, those who come from different religions or religious organisations, and especially, to those who uphold all human rights for all peoples at all times.

Secular rights’ bearers and duty holders too, need to take responsibility for how we marginalise even as we ‘advocate’, how we maim as we seek to ‘protect’, and how we silence as we vocalise the ‘like-minded’. We speak of alliances and partnerships, but we walk, and work, in silos, seeking our own profit(s).

A poetics of solidarity may well be about cultivating and deliberately working alongside those we dislike, and giving the best of what we have, and of whom we are.

Professor Azza Karam is President and CEO of Lead Integrity; an affiliate with the Ansari Institute of Religion and Global Affairs at Notre Dame University; and a member of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism.

IPS UN Bureau

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Tidal waves on Namkhana Island flood a house Storms, heavy rainfall, and flood wreak havoc in this region of West Bengal. Credit: Supratim Bhattacharjee/Climate Visuals

By Alison Kentish
ANTIGUA & BARBUDA, Jun 25 2024 (IPS)

Germany’s State Secretary and Special Envoy on International Climate Action, Jennifer Morgan, has emphasized the need for urgent climate action and called on G20 nations to do more to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The G20 comprises 19 developed and developing nations, the European Union and, since 2023, the African Union. It represents the world’s biggest economies, totaling 85 percent of the global GDP.

In an interview with IPS on the sidelines of the Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS4), the former Greenpeace International Co-Director highlighted the crucial role of the G20 in combating climate change.

“Germany and, of course, the European Union are ready to continue to take the lead on phasing out fossil fuels and building on renewable energy, but we need the G20 to step it up,” she told IPS.

“At the end of the day, there will be things that we can adapt to. By the year 2030, we have to halve global emissions and for that, we are working hard within the G20 to get all these countries, including ours, to move forward very deliberately.”

Morgan spoke of the resilience-focused narrative of small island developing states, a theme woven throughout SIDS4.

Germany’s State Secretary and Special Envoy on International Climate Action, Jennifer Morgan. Credit: X

“How can countries be resilient to the extreme weather that’s coming, the hurricanes that are coming? How can we build up, for example, water systems? This is a key focus that Germany is working on and I heard a lot about it here, so that they’re resilient to saltwater coming into a system so that they’re resilient when a storm hits. That’s one area where we can move forward,” Morgan said.

Morgan has been vocal about the need for energy transition and for ramped-up investments in clean energy in developing economies. Last week, she highlighted the fact that while investment in clean energy will double that of fossil fuels in 2024, “investment must accelerate further, especially in emerging and developing economies, where two-thirds of the global population sees only 15 percent of this investment.”

“The gap needs to be closed,” she shared on the social media platform X.

Speaking to IPS, the climate envoy said the issue of finance will also factor greatly in how small island states adapt to a changing climate. She said SIDS leaders are unanimous in their calls for greater access to finance and the reform of the international financial system.

“Germany is working globally on a range of those issues to create a fit-for purpose finance system that also works for small island developing states,” she said.

“We are working hard to get the strategies of the Green Climate Fund for example, to have special windows for SIDS and also support for putting forward proposals that are much more accelerated and having 50% of finance globally go for adaptation and resilience, which is a big priority for SIDS. We are also helping to increase the funds coming to SIDS. SIDS receive funds. I can say from a German perspective that we’re active and also from the Green Climate Fund, but we need to continue to make it more efficient and faster and also make sure that it gets to people on the ground because people on the ground, who are living in their villages in their towns, know what’s best to be able to be more resilient to the impacts of climate change.”

Morgan describes Germany’s work with SIDS on cultural heritage digitization as both ‘heartbreaking and absolutely essential.’

“For countries that are very low lying, facing sea level rise and storms, people have to leave their villages and their cultural heritage is connected to those places. We’ve been working with Tuvalu and other countries to document, through artificial intelligence and digitization, the things that are most essential for them, ensuring that they are protected and not lost,” she said.

Morgan’s messages mirrored those of United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne. The UN Chief called on developed economies to fulfill their pledge to double adaptation financing by 2025, while Browne called on the global north to honor its USD 100 billion climate finance pledge and operationalize the loss and damage fund.

“Small island developing states have every right and reason to insist that developed economies fulfill their pledge to double adaptation financing by 2025 and we must hold them to this commitment as a bare minimum,” Guterres told the conference. Browne added that “these are important investments in humanity, justice and the equitable future of humanity.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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IPS UN Bureau Report

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