Wednesday, May 15, 2024
News and Views from the Global South
JCU Reporting on Food Security, Nutrition and Climate
John Cabot University, founded in 1972, is an independent, four-year liberal arts university offering undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees, and study abroad programs to English-speaking students from all over the world. The University is at the heart of Rome surrounded by the extraordinarily rich offerings of a city of culture, history, art, creativity, business, and international affairs.
Who was John Cabot?
Giovanni Caboto or John Cabot, as he was later called when he sailed under the English flag, was a skilled Italian navigator and explorer of the 15th century who opened the channels for further exploration of North America and thus forged a link between Italy and the Americas that has lasted over five hundred years.
Climate Change in the Global South: An Inter Press Service and John Cabot University Lecture
Lecture participants include Bachelor of Arts students from the JCU’s School of Business, students majoring in Political Science (or International Affairs), University alumni and faculty members.
Countries in Asia and the Pacific are increasingly insufficiently prepared to face extreme weather events and natural disasters which are growing in intensity and frequency, according to a new study by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). The Race to Net Zero: Accelerating Climate Action in Asia and the Pacific report indicates that countries in the region lack the sizeable financial means to support adaptation and mitigation efforts and the data necessary to inform climate action.
Over the past six decades, temperatures in Asia and the Pacific have increased faster than the global mean. Six of the top 10 countries most affected by disasters are in the region, where food systems are disrupted, economies damaged, and societies undermined. The report further underscores that while the region suffers the worst consequences of climate change, it is also a key perpetrator; accounting for over half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. This share is increasing as populations grow and economies continue to be powered by fossil fuels.
UN research shows climate change poses a ‘profound existential threat’ for Asia and the Pacific, with the potential to disrupt decades of progress and burden future generations with the costs of unsustainable economic development, warns the latest Human Development Report covering the region. Loss and damages related to climate change include higher temperatures and reduced human and land productivity, jeopardizing food production in many countries. Variable rainfall and more frequent extreme weather events will continue to cause substantial damage.
The Asia-Pacific region, typhoons, floods, heatwaves and droughts are fueling a human and economic related catastrophe – undermining hard – won development gains and derailing progress towards UN’ Sustainable Development Goals. According to the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report, adverse impacts from anthropogenic climate change will continue to intensify. This necessitates discussions around mitigation pathways to limit warming to 1.5°C particularly by rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. Across the Asia – Pacific region, climate change and its impacts, such as extreme weather patterns and rising sea levels, are devastating and unprecedented.
Further afield, Africa is on the frontlines of devastating effects of climate change despite accounting for the smallest share of global greenhouse gas emissions – 3.8 percent. Confronted by unprecedented fatal floods, storms, cyclones and record-breaking droughts, Africa can now tackle effects of climate change head on. The continent suffers disproportionately from climate change despite its low carbon footprint. Extreme changes in weather patterns such as higher temperatures and shorter rainy seasons are harming an already vulnerable food security, ecosystems, livelihoods and economies. Effects of climate change are fueling displacement and migration and worsening the threat of conflict over dwindling resources.
The State of the Climate in Africa report shows that the rate of temperature increase in Africa has accelerated in recent decades, with weather- and climate-related hazards becoming more severe. And yet financing for climate adaptation is only a drop in the ocean of what is needed. With the Loss and Damage Fund, poor and vulnerable countries in Africa expect to have access to much-needed resources to activate their climate actions. Developing countries first signaled the need for a loss and damage fund as far back as 1991 – it has taken 32 years of mounting pressure and 27 COP Summits, to finally deliver a Loss and Damage Fund.
The historic breakthrough – delivered during COP28 – means that poor and vulnerable developing countries can receive financial assistance to tackle effects of climate change head on. It was an extraordinary COP Summit in a year characterized by record-breaking temperatures combined with El Niño, producing a climatic carnage in Africa– deaths from fatal floods in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya and Libya floods that wiped out a quarter of a city.
Deadly cyclones in Malawi, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique and Zimbabwe and a severe drought in Kenya, Niger, Somalia, Ethiopia, Mauritania and Djibouti and, months-long winter heatwave in Southern African countries – heightening need for COP28 to deliver highest ambition on all items. Against this backdrop, Inter Press Service and John Cabot University will hold a lecture on March 27, 2024 to discuss the impact of climate change on the African continent, highlights from COP28 in Dubai, UAE and a sustainable pathway ahead.
Jan Lundius
Lundius is a former UNESCO official and University professor. He has 30 years of experience in social and anthropological research, evaluation of rural development projects, assessment of project impact on rural communities, as well as negotiations of technical cooperation programs for local capacity building within social sciences and humanities in Latin America and Africa.
Umar Manzoor Shah
Recognized for his outstanding contributions, Umar received the Lorenzo Natali Media Prize in 2017. Notably, Umar showcased his expertise in the coverage of COP-28 in Dubai, UAE, in 2023, producing insightful features on climate change.
The lecture session will be moderated by Alison Kentish. Kentish is an IPS journalist and reports on science and health. Her first degree is in Criminal Justice and she holds a master’s degree in science journalism from Columbia University. Her investigation into ecological restoration won one of the school’s top awards. She has bylines in the BBC Future, New Scientist and Reuters.
Food Security and Nutrition: An Inter Press Service and John Cabot University Lecture
Lecture participants include Bachelor of Arts students from the JCU’s School of Business, students majoring in Political Science (or International Affairs), University alumni and faculty members.
As hunger and food insecurity deepens, Africa is confronting and unprecedented food crisis. Estimates show that nearly 282 million people in Africa or 20 percent of the population are undernourished. This is an increase of 57 million people since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Overall, more than one billion people are unable to afford a healthy diet and approximately 30 percent of children are stunted because of malnutrition.
In Kenya alone, after five consecutive failed rainy seasons, more than 6.4 million people in Kenya, among them 602,000 refugees, are in need of humanitarian assistance – representing a 35 percent increase from 2022. It is the highest number of people in need of aid in more than 10 years. Kenya is hurtling full speed towards a national disaster as at least 677,900 children and 138,800 pregnant and breastfeeding women in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid regions alone are facing acute malnutrition.
Africa is off-track to meet United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and in particular, the global goal to end hunger, achieve food security, improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Against this backdrop, Africa – Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2023 by UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization has raised alarm bells across the continent.
The African continent is facing a food crisis of unprecedented proportions. Millions are expected to be at risk of worsening hunger in the near future due to the rippling effects of the war in Ukraine, which are compounding the devastating impacts that conflicts, climate variability and extremes, economic slowdowns and downturns, and the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic are having on the most vulnerable. In this context, social and gender inequalities are also on the rise, with women and girls being among the most affected by these shocks.
Food and nutrition – insights from the Global South
The world has more than enough food, but hunger and malnutrition are even more. Food figures are no appetizing either:
There is a double burden of food and nutrition insecurity in the world, especially the Global South. It is worrying that 735 million people in the world were undernourished in 2022 (9% of the world) and in 2023 there were 333 million people who were hungry and many still are. The world is well off track in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals in overcoming poverty and hunger.
As if the world was not hungry enough, less than 200 plant species are responsible for the global food supply but only 9 of them provide two-thirds of the total crop production and only 3 crops – wheat, rice and maize (corn) provide more than half of the world’s food energy.
And malnutrition is not cheap. It costs the globe US$3 trillion a year in economic and social impacts. Africa spends more than USD50 billion annually in food imports but the continent 60 percent of the arable land in the world. Food is one of the largest if not the largest industries in the world. Food makes the world go round but malnutrition can stop it in its tracks. Its shortage can also bring the world to turmoil. Hunger and malnutrition are on the rise but the world has enough food for the 8 million of us. Smallholder farmers keep the world fed and nourished. Getting the food from the farm to our plates is nothing short of satisfying.
In the global south food and nutrition present enormous development challenges. More people are going to bed hungry, many lack access to more, healthy food, yet 1.3 billion tonnes of food is lost or wasted each year in the world. Food and agriculture featured prominently at COP28 in UAE in 2023 with world leaders recognizing the impact of climate change on agriculture and food systems and that it has crippled the “ability of many, especially the most vulnerable, to produce and access food in the face of mounting hunger, malnutrition, and economic stresses.”
Reporting food and Nutrition, a perspective from the global South
Food is fundamental to social, economic and even political development in African countries, that is the big story. Agriculture provides employment to more than 70 percent of the population across African countries and it contributes on average about 30 percent of the GDP in some countries, making it a key sector for jobs and livelihoods. No farmers, no food. Poor nutrition is growing as food production and in many cases food quality and quantity are declining as a result of a combination of factors; climate change impacts on cropping, conflicts that have compromised food access and increased cost of food especially healthy food.
Furthermore, increasing food waste and food loss and increasingly limited food choices available, there is poor investment in the agriculture sector with a big push for the transformation of the food system. World leaders at COP28 agreed to make farm and food systems part of the solution to fighting climate change. Agriculture accounts for about a third of planet-warming emissions. Sustainable farming is the foundation of all fortune and a solution to overcoming hunger, unemployment, and biodiversity loss.
Farmers are doing something and getting it right. They are battling the odds to put food on the table and nutritious food at that. Farmers are on the forefront of defending food security and in no small measure boosting nutrition in the food there is:
Embracing resilient and nutrition packed “orphan crops” – Finger millet, groundnut, tef, yam, cassava and sorghum. There is a big move to promote indigenous and small stock for food and finance – Can we ‘meat’ in the middle? Africa is one of the regions in the world where malnutrition is rising. More people are going hungry, and even more, have no access to nutritious food. Livestock is a solution. The World Bank notes that Africa is losing between 3 and 16 percent of its GDP annually because of childhood stunting, and animal-sourced foods can contribute to reducing that problem.
Call it protein on the fly. An alternative source of nutrients is being tapped from insects which in many parts of the Global South have been in the food system but not commercialized. Old farming approaches are being given a modern makeover: from conservation farming, basins to zai pits (Yacouba Sawadogo).
Farmers are going for agroecology. The Slow Food movement is a champion for sustainable food with farmers embracing its approaches of growing clean, good food. “Slow Food gives you a 360-degree view of food systems because it covers everything that transforms the way we grow, eat, market, process and save food” – Eddie Mukiibi, President, Slow Food International.
Despite efforts made in several countries, the African continent is not on track to meet the food security and nutrition targets of the Sustainable Development Goal 2 on Zero Hunger for 2030, and certainly the Malabo targets of ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2025. Against this backdrop, the Inter Press Service and John Cabot University will hold a lecture session on Food Security and Nutrition on February 7, 2024.
Joyce Njoro
Njoro holds a Masters in Rural Sociology and Community Development and a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine degree, both from the University of Nairobi.
Njoro will unpack some of the most pressing food security and nutrition issues facing Africa, today. IFAD is both a UN organization as well as an International Financial Institution (IFI) and the landmark inaugural agriculture declaration is particularly critical as it aligns to every aspect of IFAD’s work to build food systems that can withstand ongoing climate change shocks.
As an international financial institution, IFAD provides financing through loans, grants and a debt sustainability mechanism. As a UN organization, IFAD works in remote rural areas where poverty and hunger are deepest – so that rural populations are not left behind and are equipped to lift themselves out of poverty.
Njoro will highlight the relationship between nutrition and food insecurity, the situation in Africa and a summary of the global status of food and nutrition security. The lecture session will particularly highlight the causes and main drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition in light of alarming trends in food security and nutrition.
The present edition of the Africa – Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition presents the latest analysis of the prevalence and trends in undernourishment, food insecurity, and malnutrition. In addition, it includes, for the first time, estimates of the cost and affordability of a healthy diet, which are useful indicators of people’s economic access to nutritious foods and healthy diets.
Participants will be taken through the four pillars of food security and, the food and nutrition security conceptual framework, highlighting the interlinkages between agriculture, food security and nutrition outcomes. IFAD’s case studies will form part of the presentation and discussion. The deterioration of the food security situation and the lack of progress towards the WHO global nutrition targets make it imperative for countries to step up their efforts if they are to achieve a world without hunger and malnutrition by 2030. The call for greater action remains true in view of the projected lower rate of economic growth, high general and food price inflation, and raising borrowing costs on domestic and international markets since 2022, according to Africa – Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition. This backdrop will inform presentations and discussions during the lecture series.
Busani Bafana
Njoro will be joined by Busani Bafana – a Zimbabwean development journalist who writes on science, human rights, agriculture, food security and climate change. Busani’s work has appeared in the Inter Press Service, Africa Renewal and Thomson Reuters Foundation. Some of his notable awards include the CGIAR Science Award for Excellence in Agricultural Journalism and the IUCN Commemorative Prize for Environment Reporting.
Alison Kentish
The lecture session will be moderated by Alison Kentish. Kentish is an IPS journalist and reports on science and health. Her first degree is in Criminal Justice and she holds a master’s degree in science journalism from Columbia University. Her investigation into ecological restoration won one of the school’s top awards. She has bylines in the BBC Future, New Scientist and Reuters.
Inter Press Service in partnership with John Cabot University is holding two lecture series titled ‘Reporting on Climate Change’ on November 15, 2023 and ‘Reporting on Women and Girls’ on October 12, 2023.
Participants include Bachelor of Arts students from the School of Business, students majoring in Political Science (or International Affairs), University’s alumni and faculty members.
What has climate change meant for the Global South, the least responsible for emissions, but most vulnerable to climate change impacts?
IPS journalist Busani Bafana will join Jan Lundius to address climate justice, tackle the impact of climate change on agricultural practices, community, and conflicts on the African continent and explore the efforts needed to mitigate its effects.
Busani Bafana
Bafana is a specialist climate change journalist and has reported extensively on the continent and his home country Zimbabwe. He is a media trainer with a deep understanding of the continent’s issues, its impacts on society, climate financing, and justice. Alison Kentish will moderate the session.
Jan Lundius
Lundius is a former UNESCO official and University professor. He has 30 years of experience in social and anthropological research, evaluation of rural development projects, assessment of project impact on rural communities, as well as negotiations of technical cooperation programs for local capacity building within social sciences and humanities in Latin America and Africa.
Alison Kentish
Kentish is an IPS journalist and reports on science and health. Her first degree is in Criminal Justice and she holds a master’s degree in science journalism from Columbia University. Her investigation into ecological restoration won one of the school’s top awards. She has bylines in the BBC Future, New Scientist and Reuters.
Rosemary Vargas-Lundius
Rosemary Vargas-Lundius, former senior UN IFAD official, will join Joyce Chimbi, a journalist based in Kenya, Africa- in unpacking what is required in this decade of action ahead of 2030 to meet the sustainable goals for women and girls. The lecture session will be moderated by Alison Kentish.
Vargas-Lundius holds a PhD in development economics from Lund University, Sweden and has researched rural poverty and unemployment, gender and migration. Since her arrival at IFAD, she initiated a comprehensive Gender Mainstreaming Program. More recently, she developed a new Gender and Youth webpage to share IFAD’s knowledge on these important topics. She is the Chair of the KNOMAD Cross-Cutting Theme on Gender and the Co-Chair of the Thematic Working Group on internal migration and urbanization.
Joyce Chimbi
Chimbi is a senior writer for IPS and member of the Kenya Editors Guild, who specializes in reporting on women, human rights, education, climate change, health and development. She has written for the Association of Media Women in Kenya, Gender Links, Standard Newspaper, Nation Newspaper, The Star, People Daily and Kenya Times.
Reporting on Climate Change
Climate change in Africa means many countries will experience droughts, plunging already stressed communities into further poverty and food insecurity. In Africa, climate change is blamed for exacerbating conflicts because of the nomadic herders’ search for livestock feed. People living in the Horn of Africa are experiencing the devastating consequences of a multi-year drought. In the Caribbean and Asia, and the Pacific, rising sea levels and erratic weather in heatwaves and droughts, and catastrophic monsoons similarly threaten livelihoods.
The 28th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 28) to the UNFCCC will convene in Dubai, United Arab Emirates from 30 November to 12 December 2023. It will take place in the United Arab Emirates. COP28 summit will bring parties together to accelerate action towards the Paris Agreement’s goals and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Inter Press Service will be on the ground with an all women team – producing compelling stories throughout the COP28 summit.
What has climate change meant for the Global South, the least responsible for emissions, but most vulnerable to climate change impacts? IPS journalist Busani Bafana will join Jan Lundius to unpack issues such as climate justice and shed light on what it will take to tackle the impact of climate change on agricultural practices and community. They will also address issues of climate induced conflicts on the African continent and explore the efforts needed to mitigate its effects.
Bafana is a specialist climate change journalist and has reported extensively on the continent and his home country Zimbabwe. He is a media trainer with a deep understanding of the continent’s issues, its impacts on society, climate financing, and justice. Lundius is a former UNESCO official and University professor.
Biggest Threat to Human Survival and Wellbeing
Environmental degradation and climate change
By Jan Lundis
Jan Lundius
All known life forms depend on water. More than 660 million people do not have access to safe drinking water. In developing countries, 90 percent of all wastewater enters untreated into local rivers and streams. Some 50 countries, with roughly a third of the world’s population suffer from medium to high water scarcity; of these 17 extracts more water annually than is recharged through natural water cycles. More than 1.2 billion people live in areas of water scarcity and the number is constantly increasing, mainly due to climate change. Already by 2025, it is estimated that more than half of the world will be facing water-based vulnerability. By 2030, in some developing regions of the world, water demand will exceed supply by 50 percent.
Climate change is the greatest threat to global health. Extreme weather leads to crop failure and malnutrition. A warmer climate more easily transmits various infectious diseases. The World Bank estimates that by 2030 climate change could drive over 120 million people into poverty and thus become a push factor for environmental migration, both within and between countries. People are expected to be displaced because sea level raises, extreme weather and conflict due to increased competition over natural resources.
A wealthy minority of the world contributes most to global climate change, but is nevertheless suffering the least from its effects. In 2014, Oxfam reported that the 85 wealthiest individuals in the world had a combined wealth equal to that of the bottom half of the world’s population, about 3.5 billion people. According to UN estimates, the number of the global population living in absolute poverty is approximately 734 million people, or 10 percent. Gender inequality arises from distinctions regarding cultural norms prevalent in a society. Politics and traditions around the world because inequality among individuals and it is women who are most affected. Gender inequality weakens women in many areas such as health, education, and business life. Adaption to climate change is essential for maintaining health, and even if men and women share the burden of climatological effects, research and reporting do so far not account enough for these effects onto vulnerable populations, and in particular women.
Is there a way out of the crisis? Science has to be harnessed and supported in its efforts to find ways to avoid a global catastrophe. Short-term gains for an already privileged few cannot be allowed to control the fate of the world. In these days of xenophobia and egocentrism it might be opportune to remind about the United Nations’ efforts to address the threat of global climate change. A product of the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 was Agenda 21 that put the threats to nature and human life at the centre, with a goal to achieve global sustainable development. The implementation of Agenda 21 was intended to involve action at international, national, regional and local levels and some national and state governments have legislated or advised that local authorities take steps to implement efforts to mitigate natural degradation. Most people, and especially the young who are going to be confronted with a catastrophic situation, if not enough is done to avoid it, are now far from being ignorant of what is happening to the earth and us.
Climate Changing lives
Impact of climate change, a view from the global South
By Busani Bafana
Busani Bafana
Climate change in Africa is both an opportunity and obstacle. An obstacle to development as many countries are experiencing the negative impacts of climate change in the form of increased droughts such as those in East and Southern Africa, flash floods and cyclones in Southern Africa, increased high temperatures in North, West and Southern Africa and increased pests and diseases in East Africa and the Sahel. As a result of climate change, communities have been plunged into food insecurity and poverty. In Africa, climate change is blamed for exacerbating conflicts as pastoralists fight over scarce water and pasture.
People living in the Horn of Africa are experiencing the devastating consequences of a multi-year drought.In the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific, rising sea levels and erratic weather has resulted in heatwaves, droughts and catastrophic monsoons similarly threatening livelihoods. In Europe recurrent wildfires, heatwaves and floods continue to threaten human survival and wellbeing.
Climate change is as devastating as it is complex. Recent scientific evidence does not offer good news for our survival. In Africa, the impacts of climate change are seen, felt and is a lived experience for a growing number of communities. Nevertheless, climate change is also an opportunity to save the planet and humanity by reversing our harmful actions. It is now time for action – a time to go green and live green.
Telling the climate change story
“Climate change is the biggest story of the century and one that continues to make breaking news each day. As a journalist, it is exciting and challenging to report on climate change which permeates all news beats from agriculture, law, business, politics and even sports. My reporting of climate change has largely been focused on agriculture, food security and energy and how these sectors have been affected by drastic changes in weather patterns.”
Reporting on agriculture on the continent is particularly important. Agriculture – largely through rearing of livestock – is said to contribute about 23 percent of the harmful Greenhouse Gas emissions that in turn contribute to climate change. But agriculture is also a solution to climate change through the use of environmentally friendly approaches such as conservation agriculture, improved livestock breeding and management and reduction of food waste. Climate change impacts on our food availability, access and quality which has implications for hunger, nutrition and good health. This is a story that is worth telling from both a problem and solution point of view.
Communities can – coping with climate change
While scientists warn that our delayed action on climate change means fast tracking our demise – humanity has a small window of opportunity to make things right. The small actions of communities, innovators, activists and entrepreneurs make a big impact in coping with the impacts of climate change is the motivation for journalists to report on climate change.
Recommended Reading
• The Climate Dictionary: An everyday guide to climate change
• Negotiations Must Accelerate Climate Action and Save Vulnerable Countries
• Kenya Moots Disbanding the Loss and Damage Fund, Seeks Fair Equitable Climate Action
• Q&A: Why Young and Smart Greenpreneurs are the Future of Sustainable Development
• Climate Crisis is a Child Crisis and Climate-Resilient Children, Teachers and Schools Must Become Top International Agenda
• No Agriculture, No Deal
• Malawi: Cyclone Freddy Devastates Communities, Farmers, Heightens Food Insecurity
• ZIMBABWE: Harvesting Water for Food Security
• AFRICA: Modified Banana Could Cure Deadly Disease
• Environmental reporting for African journalists: a handbook of key environmental issues and concepts
Concept Note: Reporting on Women and Girls
Lecture Session at John Cabot University led by Inter Press Service
Things are getting worse, not better for women and girls. Economic shocks are rolling back progress on gender equality as women bear the brunt of labor-market shocks. The World Economic Forum estimates we will not see gender parity for another 100 years. Forced child marriages, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is common in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and sexual and reproductive health goals are still far from what the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) envisioned. At current pace, these goals will remain unrealized.
Prior to COVID-19, women faced a 99-year wait before they could enjoy full equality with men. The effects of the unprecedented global pandemic and subsequent economic shocks have only prolonged the wait. More than 53 of the 251 SGD’s indicators make direct reference to gender equality, women and girls. Research has provided irrefutable evidence that without narrowing existing inequalities between men and women, the pursuit of SDG’s will be grossly derailed as women remain disproportionally affected by multidimensional poverty. With less than 10 years remaining to reach the SDG goals, the world is not on track and will remain off track until women and girls pull a sit at the table where decisions about their lives are made.
Rosemary Vargas-Lundius, former senior UN IFAD official, will join Joyce Chimbi, a journalist based in Kenya, Africa- in unpacking what is required in this decade of action ahead of 2030 to meet the sustainable goals for women and girls. The lecture session will be moderated by Alison Kentish.
Vargas-Lundius holds a PhD in development economics from Lund University, Sweden and has researched rural poverty and unemployment, gender and migration. Since her arrival at IFAD, she initiated a comprehensive Gender Mainstreaming Program. More recently, she developed a new Gender and Youth webpage to share IFAD’s knowledge on these important topics. She is the Chair of the KNOMAD Cross-Cutting Theme on Gender and the Co-Chair of the Thematic Working Group on internal migration and urbanization.
Chimbi is a senior writer for IPS and member of the Kenya Editors Guild, who specializes in reporting on women, human rights, education, climate change, health and development. She has written for the Association of Media Women in Kenya, Gender Links, Standard Newspaper, Nation Newspaper, The Star, People Daily and Kenya Times.
Kentish is an IPS journalist and reports on science and health. Her first degree is in Criminal Justice and she holds a master’s degree in science journalism from Columbia University. Her investigation into ecological restoration won one of the school’s top awards. She has bylines in the BBC Future, New Scientist and Reuters.
The first in a series of lectures with IPS and John Cabot University looks at the status of women and girls in the global South within the context of UN’s SGDs. The lecture particularly shines a spotlight on reporting on women and girls in light of the most pressing issues that derail their empowerment and the attainment of SDGs.
Reporting on the status of women and girls
Rosemary Vargas-Lundius
Rosemary Vargas-Lundius
To achieve the 17 SDGs, the global community must focus on women and girls, investing money on their education, health, social protection, promoting equal employment opportunities and combating gender-based violence.
Women need equal representation before the law and be equally included in decision-making prosses. Giving women the same rights as men in access to resources and representation, will help to achieve a significant number of the SDGs, including reducing inequality, combating poverty, reducing hunger, contributing to more inclusive economic growth, and promoting more peaceful societies.
Equal rights (legal, economic, and social rights) are the foundation for gender equality. Women worldwide enjoy fewer rights than men. In some countries, women are not allowed to own land, manage their own businesses, or even go out of their home unaccompanied. Such unequal treatment prevents women and girls from having adequate access to health, wealth, education, and/or knowledge. As a result, women tend to be more affected by poverty, work under precarious employment without social protection, including unpaid domestic and care work. Gender-based violence is on the increase. In many countries, the number of women being killed by a partner is alarming, while underaged girls’ marriage and female genital mutilation continue to be unchecked.
Women and girls are facing disadvantages and barriers in most spheres of social and economic life, they are often less confident than men in their financial skills and decisions. This generally results in gender differences in financial knowledge and financial behaviour. Finance is generally considered a male field, while there persists a gendered division of household work where men manage household finances, and women manage household chores and care. There exists a lack of financial socialisation from an early age, due to the existence of gendered stereotypes, culture and social norms which contribute to differences in financial knowledge of women and men in adulthood. This disadvantage is further enhanced by the fact that even if in some countries girls and young women have higher educational attainment, men continue to be more likely to be employed, earn more on average, be in decision-making positions in the public and private sector and engage in entrepreneurship activities compared to women.
The negative consequences of inequalities, climate change, social injustice, and conflicts affect women worse than men. Recent crises including the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine present new challenges as women are more likely to suffer heavier economic and financial consequences due to gender gaps in savings and income. The sharp increases in the cost-of-living threatens to erode some of the progress made on gender equality over the past decades.
The global community needs to focus on women as they represent 50 percent of society and thus have the potential of contributing to boost economic growth and productivity. According to the OECD, closing gaps in labour force participation and working hours has the potential to drive an average 9.2% boost to GDP across OECD countries by 2060, adding about 0.23% to average annual growth.
In some countries, there has been efforts to address gender gaps and tackle the structural causes of inequality. There has been some progress in some policy areas, such as paternity leave, pay transparency, flexible work opportunities and higher representation of women in government and leadership roles. Programs and policies have been developed for addressing gender stereotypes, supporting women’s labour market participation and promote a more equal distribution of paid- and unpaid-work between men and women, and ensuring the collection of gender-disaggregated data. Some countries have also tried to address gender-based violence by issuing new and more effective laws.
Despite existing data, there has been very little progress in terms of reporting the situation of women and girls across the globe. Media reports usually focus on sensationalist news. There is a lack of effort from the media to communicate to the public the relevant issues on gender inequalities and the negative impact they are having on women and girls and on society at large. There is also a neglect on reporting on progress being made.
To achieve the SDGs changes must be made at different levels of society and be structurally institutionalized worldwide, particularly in developing countries. The poorest people are the ones who suffer the most because of gender inequalities and gender-based violence. Billions of people, particularly women, are being affected and left on their own when it comes to coping with unemployment, illness, and lack of social protection. Unlike in most developed countries, people are unable to claim maternity and paternity leave, child benefit, compensation for unemployment, loss of earnings or old-age pensions. Investing in women and girls and increasing social protection will not only reduce poverty but also social and gender inequalities.
While addressing the negative effects of inequalities attention should be paid to the intersectoral nature of policy solutions supporting gender equality. This include designing policies and programs, including training programs, to ensure gender issues are addressed at all levels of society, from governmental to the individual levels, promoting the right mind-set to advance gender equality. A mainstreamed approach to gender equality is the way forward to achieve sustainable progress. Efforts should be made for incorporating gender equality considerations in policy making and strengthening the nexus between gender equality and all policy areas. This requires looking at gender equality across a whole variety of socio-economic, geographic, institutional, policy and sectoral factors. For this to be achieved, countries should work towards ensuring a better representation of women in policy and decision-making processes.
Africa’s Women’s Battle for Equality and Role of Media
Joyce Chimbi
One of the most critical, landmark conferences on women’s rights and representation is the 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference that led to the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, an agenda for women’s empowerment IS considered the key global policy document on gender equality. The Beijing Declaration framed the agenda around critical areas of women’s marginalization in the world, but more so in the Global South. These issues were organized around the thematic areas of women and poverty, education and training of women, women and health, violence against women, women and armed conflict, women and the economy, women in power and decision making, institutional mechanism for the advancement of women, human rights of women, women and media, women and the environment and the girls child. Since then, the global community has set these as goals along the Millenium Development Goals and today, around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). On the African continent, there is the Maputo Protocol of action adopted in 2003, a binding protocol by the African Union to promote and accelerate women empowerment. The African continent and the larger Global South have a surplus of policy and legal frameworks to push forward the women/girl’s agenda.
Place of media in the battle for equality
“Media today, from traditional legacy media to online media, still hugely influence our perceptions and ideas about the role of girls and women in society. What we have unfortunately seen until now is that media tend to perpetuate gender inequality. Research shows that from a young age, children are influenced by the gendered stereotypes that media present to them.”
The media landscape is evolving and journalists are increasingly called upon to amplify the voices of the marginalized, those at the periphery of society. Women account for more than half of the population in the global South. With this majority, it is astounding that women and girls are pushed out and marginalized from the epicenter of decision making in all sectors of the society, in politics, leadership and decision making, in the media, in the education sector, corporate and security agencies.
It is impossible for societies to achieve global development goals and parameters without women in decision making positions for women bring in a perspective from lived experiences. For example in education, more girls are enrolled but gradually drop out of school from one grade to the next. Women can help develop solutions that are tailor made to the experiences of women and girls.
The media has long advanced biases and stereotypes in both blatant and subtle ways. For instance, when Kenya’ controversial Finance Act 2023 was first floated, all prime-time media slots were given to male financial experts. The experts used the opportunity to educate the public on the pros and cons of the then Bill. But the voice of women was missing. Women and men experience financial challenges and opportunities in different ways. Women are often invited to speak about, or contribute to soft topics and yet without their voice in the critical hard issues that affect societies today, development will remain derailed.
Advocacy journalism?
There are raging debates over the role of media on the gender agenda. But the ethics of journalism are not in conflict with the role of media in advancing women’s rights and representation. The primary role is to inform the public that half of the population has been left behind and why it is necessary to address the marginalization as a weak link in the struggle to achieve the SDGs.
Recommended Reading
• A Flawed GDP Bypasses Women’s Unpaid Care Work
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• Women’s Financial Inclusion, Empowerment in Kenya
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• Menstrual Health and Hygiene Is Unaffordable for Poor Girls and Women in Latin America
• Health – It’s Time for Women to Lead the Sector
• Breaking Barriers: Why Free & Public Education Should be Every Woman’s Right
• Sierra Leone’s Gender Law Boosts Women’s Participation in Politics, Business
• UN’s High-Level Meeting of World Leaders Falls Short of Gender Empowerment
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