A panoramic view of the Castries Harbour, Castries, Saint Lucia: where smart borrowing and strategic reforms are reshaping the island’s economic future. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
CASTRIES, Saint Lucia, Aug 5 2025 (IPS)

The beauty of the majestic Piton mountains, vibrant culture, dazzling beaches and lush landscapes of Saint Lucia are invaluable assets. The country also takes pride in having two Nobel laureates, which is remarkable for a nation with a population of over 180,000.

However, as is true for many other small island developing states (SIDS) in the Caribbean, the picture of economic stability is not as rosy.

These countries also face a complex web of challenges that include intensifying climate impacts, economic volatility, external shocks, and the vagaries of global markets. These challenges exacerbate the difficulties of finding ways to finance much-needed sustainable development projects and resilience-building.

In 2020, the country’s public debt-to-GDP ratio was over 90 percent, due in part to the deleterious effects of the coronavirus pandemic, and by 2024, this ratio was reduced to 74.5 percent. This dramatic reduction has freed up funds, which can now be invested in projects that spur growth and enrich the lives of Saint Lucians.

Strong recovery is on the horizon

For Saint Lucia, prudent debt management is proving to be a powerful catalyst for growth and shared prosperity. The island’s experience is demonstrating how tailored reforms, technology adoption and capacity building can reduce their debt burden and enable sustainable management of their public finances.

The government is taking even bolder steps for fiscal stability, with technical support from the Commonwealth Secretariat.

In March 2024, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Ministry of Finance collaborated to develop a reform plan for the country, which started with a rigorous and comprehensive review of the public borrowing framework. Saint Lucia is now implementing this framework, which has recommended targeted and practical interventions.

Vera John-Emmanuel, Deputy Director of Finance in the Debt and Investment Management Unit in Saint Lucia’s Ministry of Finance, said, “The assessment helped pinpoint systemic strengths and weaknesses ranging from legislative gaps to coordination issues between debt management functions.

Modernising for sustainable growth

A significant outcome of the technical assistance provided by the Commonwealth team was the review of Saint Lucia’s Public Debt Management Act, which has now been passed. The revised legislation now provides a stronger legal framework for debt operations and has laid the groundwork for publishing a formal debt management strategy and annual debt reports, enhancing transparency and accountability.

Technology has also played a pivotal role in modernising Saint Lucia’s debt management practices with the adoption of the Commonwealth Meridian system. Launched in 2019, the Commonwealth Meridian debt management system is currently being used by 43 countries around the world.

John-Emmanuel said, “Meridian allows for real-time tracking of borrowing, automated reporting, and better analysis of liabilities. These upgrades have helped integrate technology into the core of Saint Lucia’s debt operations, improving both strategic planning and investor communications.”

Through technical workshops, mentoring, and regional training sessions, Saint Lucia’s debt management team has grown in both skill and confidence.

“The ongoing support has empowered our staff members to apply best practices and promote transparency,” the Deputy Director observed. “We’ve become more proactive and capable in managing our debt portfolio.”

Leveraging best practices from the Commonwealth

To mark 40 years of debt management support for member countries, this year is marked as the Commonwealth Year of Resilient, Innovative and Sustainable Debt. Initiatives, which will continue into 2026, will include sharing experiences and enhancing technical and policy solutions and support that can help governments with long-term public debt management, which will contribute to fiscal sustainability.

Dr Ruth Kattumuri, the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Senior Director of the Economic Development, Trade and Investment Directorate, noted, “The challenges for small and vulnerable states in the Commonwealth are multi-faceted. They face existential threats from frequent and extreme weather events, due to climate change, as well as economic shocks—both of which impede progress. Small island developing states also have limited potential to diversify their economies. So, maintaining a sustainable level of debt is critically important.”

Kattumuri added, “For countries like Saint Lucia, being able to tap into the experience and the knowledge base of the Secretariat means leveraging best practices from our 33 small states. We are also able to provide tailored technical assistance and capacity building to help transform public finance management, based on our long experience of supporting small states.”

Access to affordable finance is limited for Saint Lucia, which is classified as an upper-middle-income country, as are many other small island developing states (SIDS) in the Caribbean. For these countries, higher interest rates and limited funding options mean debt reform is not optional – it is essential.

Also critically important is the need to modernise governance practices in line with international standards.

These reforms have not gone unnoticed by the international financial community. Improved transparency and consistent reporting have boosted confidence among lenders and investors, enabling Saint Lucia access to concessional financing to fuel their sustainable and resilient development.

Strong partnerships for Caribbean growth

Saint Lucia’s story is not unique. Other Caribbean countries, such as The Bahamas, are also advancing sustainable debt management practices in the region. Since 2021, The Bahamas has partnered with the Commonwealth Secretariat to strengthen its public debt management framework and develop a government bond market, a project that has been supported by the India–UN Development Partnership Fund.

The experience of these Caribbean countries demonstrates that, with the right combination of thoughtful reforms, cooperation and prudent borrowing, even nations facing unique fiscal, geographic and environmental vulnerabilities can successfully manage their debt.

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Celebrating the opening of this brightly coloured charging station made using recycled plastic tiles. Stanley Anigbogu projects bring vibrant solutions to underserved communities. Credit: LightEd

By Promise Eze
ABUJA, Jun 30 2025 (IPS)

When Stanley Anigbogu heard his name announced as the 2025 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year in London earlier in March, he could hardly believe it. He had not expected to win, especially among a pool of brilliant nominees from across the globe.

The 25-year-old Nigerian energy innovator was recognised for transforming waste into solar-powered innovations that deliver clean energy to over 10,000 refugees in Africa. Anigbogu is the co-founder of LightEd, a company that turns plastic waste into solar-powered charging stations. These stations supply electricity to communities with little or no access to power. LightEd works in hard-to-reach areas and serves people in different parts of Nigeria, including thousands of displaced persons.

“I really was not expecting to win the award,” he said. “When my name was called, I was shocked. It took me a moment to believe it. I was really grateful because it was an amazing accomplishment. Just representing Africa, being the best from Africa out of 56 countries. I knew the work we were doing was important, but the other finalists were doing amazing things as well. I was grateful that my work was spotlighted because it gives the work that I do a different level of recognition. It is a very big accomplishment.”

For Anigbogu, the award is not just a personal achievement. He sees it as a moment of pride for Nigeria and for young people across the continent.

“This award gives me hope,” he said. “It shows that people see our work and that it matters.”

Stanley Anigbogu, 2025 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year. Credit: LightEd

The Youth Awards for Excellence in Development Work, known as the Commonwealth Youth Awards, is a flagship project of the Commonwealth Secretariat, which has supported youth development for over 50 years. The Secretariat’s Head of Social Policy Development, Layne Robinson, underscored the importance of highlighting the work of young leaders like Anigbogu and empowering them to do more.

He said, “These awards enable us to learn more about the work being done by young people across the Commonwealth and offer us an opportunity to support them tangibly.  By amplifying their work, the awards help them become beacons to others and contribute to building the next generation of leaders.”

In pursuit of the waste-to-energy approach, Stanley Anigbogu’s project has repurposed more than 5 tonnes of plastic waste. Reducing harm to the environment is central to his innovations. Credit: LightEd

Lighting Up Communities

Anigbogu grew up in Onitsha, a bustling town in southeastern Nigeria. Like many homes in the country, his family did not have reliable electricity. Power cuts were frequent. Sometimes, they had electricity for only a few hours in an entire week. He often had to study using candles or kerosene lamps.

These struggles sparked his curiosity about how electricity worked. He became interested in finding solutions to the challenges around him. At the age of 15, he began building small inventions. He created robots and rockets using scraps and second-hand electronic components. He built simple tools to help with tasks at home and even started a science club in school.

Stanley Anigbogu stands inside a work in progress. Credit: LightEd

After secondary school, Anigbogu moved to Morocco for university. While there, he founded a start-up which aimed to turn orange peels into energy. The project failed, but it taught him valuable lessons.

“I made a lot of mistakes because I did not understand business well,” he said. “But I learnt a lot from it.”

During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, Anigbogu returned to Nigeria. He wanted to create something useful that could help poor communities. That’s how LightEd started. His innovation is helping to address Nigeria’s electricity problem. According to the World Bank, 85 million Nigerians do not have access to electricity from the national grid. This means about 43 percent of the population lives without regular power, making Nigeria the country with the highest number of people without electricity.

Stanley Anigbogu’s projects work towards providing electricity to underserved people; the community is at the heart of the decisions on where to place the solar-powered charging stations. Credit: LightEd

One of LightEd’s flagship projects is the construction of charging stations made from plastic and recycled waste, fitted with solar panels. People use them to charge phones, lamps, and small devices. In many of these areas, it is the only source of electricity available.

LightEd has trained over 6,000 students and recycled more than 20,000 kilograms of plastic. The company has also raised over 500,000 dollars from donors and partners to expand its work.

“Our goal is to make clean energy available to everyone,” said Anigbogu, who added that the company works closely with communities to create solutions tailored to their needs.

Stanley Anigbogu finds light in waste. Credit: LightEd

“The solutions we provide are community-led. Each community has different needs. We begin by asking questions like: where should the station be built? What is their energy need? What does the community require? We also add artwork to the stations, designed to reflect what the community feels the station represents. When we work with an artist, we hold a workshop and collect input from the people. We also work with them to decide how the station will be managed. Once it is built, we hand it over to the community.”

Helping Displaced People

Anigbogu’s interest in helping displaced people began while he was in Morocco. He joined a volunteer group that visited families living in the Atlas Mountains. Many had been displaced and lacked access to electricity and clean water.

LightEd has set up solar charging stations in two big camps for displaced people in Nigeria. They also provided solar lights and lamps, making it easier and safer for people to move around at night, especially women and children.

“I want kids in refugee camps to be able to study at night. Before, everywhere used to be dark, and when you put in streetlights, it lights up the surroundings and creates a sense of safety and also supports their mental health. I think when you’re living in a dark environment and you’re already in an inhospitable situation, having proper lighting helps give you a sense of security. That contributes to an overall stronger feeling of safety. Aside from that, it also helps reduce costs, such as the money spent on things like kerosene or candles, because all you need to do is go and charge your lamp or other device. It also reduces the negative health effects from the smoke and fumes people inhale when using traditional lighting solutions,” Anigbogu said.

Looking Ahead

Anigbogu’s journey has not been without challenges. In the early days, one of the biggest obstacles was the lack of clear guidance on how to start an organisation in Nigeria, including navigating registration, documentation, and taxes. Today, his main challenge is scaling. While funding is important, Anigbogu says the harder task is finding the right strategies and structures to expand into new regions and countries.

Stanley Anigbogu hopes to use access to energy to bring people of different faiths together, helping them resolve the many conflicts in the region. Credit: LightEd

But for Anigbogu, none of this is a reason to give up. He is now working on building charging stations that also double as spaces for peace dialogue.

“I am working with the Commonwealth Peace Prize winners, who are also Nigerians. We are discussing building a charging station that can serve as a space for intergenerational and interreligious dialogue. In Nigeria, where there are many religious conflicts, I believe it is a good idea to use access to energy as a way to bring people of different faiths together to talk and understand each other,” he said.

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Ropes with young seaweed plants are tethered to underwater stakes on the shallow seabed by one of Wagina Island's seaweed farming families. These families cling to a precarious existence in the rapidly changing reef lagoon. Choiseul Province in the Solomon Islands has become a sea level rise hotspot, with the Pacific Ocean there rising three times the global average. Credit: Adam Sébire / Climate Visuals

By Umar Manzoor Shah
KARNATAKA, INDIA, Nov 23 2023 (IPS)

With a focus on strengthening the resilience of small and vulnerable member countries, Unnikrishnan Nair says the Commonwealth Secretariat is working to align development and climate finance for maximum impact.

Nair, who is the Head of Climate Change in the Economic, Youth, and Sustainable Development Directorate, told IPS in an exclusive interview that to “build resilience and avoid the reversal of development gains due to climate change, climate action must be integrated into development projects so that the funding supports the necessary climate change outcomes.”

The Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH) has served as a “catalyst to help vulnerable countries access climate finance to enhance resilience. To date, USD 315.413 million of climate finance mobilised, including USD 8.1 million in co-financing for 79 approved projects (33 adaptation, 10 mitigation, and 36 cross-cutting) in 14 Commonwealth countries.”

Unnikrishnan Nair, Head of Climate Change in the Economic, Youth, and Sustainable Development Directorate

Here are excerpts from the interview:

IPS: Please give us an overview of the current climate change policies and strategies the Commonwealth Secretariat implements. How do these policies align with broader national and international climate goals?

Nair: The Climate Change Programme of the Commonwealth Secretariat focuses on strengthening the resilience of Commonwealth small and other vulnerable member countries to the negative impacts of climate change. It provides member countries with measures and support for mitigating and adapting to a changing climate. The programme facilitates the human and institutional capacity development of member countries to access public and private climate funding to meet their Paris Agreement commitments, including the implementation of their Nationally Determined Contributions. The Commonwealth Climate Change Programme advocates for international policies, mechanisms, and rules to be more responsive to the development needs of Small Islands Developing States, and other vulnerable countries. The Programme’s support is delivered through various mechanisms and partnerships, including:

• Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub with a focus on increasing access to climate finance.
• Commonwealth Call to Action on Living Lands aimed at accelerating climate action around land.
• Commonwealth NDC Programme focuses on fast-tracking implementation and achievement of climate targets in line with the Paris Agreement.
• Geospatial Programme targeted at the use of geospatial data and information for climate decisions.
• Integration of Gender and youth for Climate Action, promoting inclusive climate action
• Low Carbon & Climate Resilient Health Sector with special focus on Health sector adaptation and mitigation planning

IPS: In what ways does your directorate address the economic impacts of climate change? Are there specific measures to promote sustainable economic development in the face of climate-related challenges?

Nair: One of the major initiatives of the Commonwealth Climate Change Programme is to undertake the Climate Public Expenditure and Institutional Review (CPEIR) to enable the consideration of climate change in the national development planning and budgeting process. This initiative applied the World Bank methodology for undertaking the CPEIR and was based on the data and information provided by the Ministry of Finance.

The CPEIR reviewed the overall climate policy adequacy in the country and analysed the strengths and weaknesses of the institutional set-ups, considering current climate change priorities and future challenges. The process also undertook an analytical review of climate expenditure and showed how the country had been allocating funds from public finance in dealing with the impacts of climate change. Initial results and recommendations were shared in a virtual validation workshop, in which a large set of participants from government institutions, the private sector, and development partners provided input, endorsed the study’s conclusions, and appreciated the recommendations.

IPS: How does your directorate engage with youth in the context of climate change and sustainable development? Are there initiatives to empower youth by advocating for and implementing climate-friendly practises?

Nair: Young people are key stakeholders in climate action, and as future decision-makers, they need to be fully engaged in climate processes, providing their perspectives, innovative ideas, and experiences that can help shape and accelerate climate action.

The integration of youth into climate change initiatives is fundamental to building resilience and developing robust climate mitigation and adaptation proposals.

The Secretariat has mandated advisers operating under the CCFAH to integrate youth considerations across all projects supported in-country to ensure that climate finance delivered in member states takes account of the needs of young people.

Commonwealth Youth Initiatives

• Commonwealth Youth Climate Network (CYCN)
• Commonwealth Youth Statement on Climate Change
• Intergenerational Dialogue on Climate Change (held at COP)
• Commonwealth Youth Development Index and Report, Climate Section
• Enhancing Access to Finance for Youth in Green Entrepreneurship
• Summer School on Climate Justice support with the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA)
• Climate Finance Teach-in Session during the Global NDC Youth Engagement Forum
• Internship Programme

IPS: How does your directorate integrate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into its climate change and economic development initiatives? Can you highlight specific projects or programmes that contribute to multiple SDGs simultaneously?

Nair: While aligning NDCs and SDGs is important, it requires funding. Climate finance plays a crucial role in’ building back better,’ as adequate funding is vital to support climate action, resilience-building, and sustainable development efforts.

Equally, to build resilience and avoid the reversal of development gains due to climate change, climate action must be integrated into development projects so that the funding supports the necessary climate change outcomes. In other words, aligning development and climate finance is essential to maximising impact. Development projects should be able to access climate funding, and climate projects should access development funding.

The Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH) is a significant enabler. By deploying Commonwealth national, regional, and thematic climate finance advisers to support governments, the CCFAH serves as a catalyst to help vulnerable countries access climate finance to enhance resilience. To date, US$ 315.413 million of climate finance has been mobilised, including US$ 8.1 million in co-financing for 79 approved projects (33 adaptation, 10 mitigation, and 36 cross-cutting) in 14 Commonwealth countries.

Some CCFAH projects are linked to the Living Lands Charter: A Commonwealth Call to Action on Living Lands (CALL). This initiative supports the alignment of climate action and sustainable development by safeguarding global land resources and taking coordinated action to address climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation while promoting sustainable, climate-resilient land management and agriculture.

IPS: What roles do innovation and technology play in your directorate’s approach to achieving sustainable development goals and combating climate change? Are there specific technologies or innovations that have shown promise in your initiatives?

Nair: On the technology front, one of the most important initiatives is an innovative project based on a partnership between Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu and a consortium of international partners working together to support and build climate resilience and enhance decision-making using satellite remote sensing technology.

The Commonwealth Secretariat is the thematic lead on climate finance and provides technical assistance to the three countries in utilising the geospatial-based platforms for enhanced access to climate finance.

The project is designed to enhance capacities, introduce technological advancements (including artificial intelligence-based methods), and provide integrated solutions for decision-making related to Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), climate resilience, environmental preservation, and food security.

IPS: How does your directorate measure the impact of its programmes and initiatives on climate change, economic development, and youth empowerment? Are there key performance indicators or metrics used to assess progress?

Nair: The programme, based on requirements, appoints external third parties to assess its performance and results through its relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence, and sustainability, per the OECD Development Assistance Committee Guidelines. This is a formative evaluation of the programme, focusing on assessing the initial results, effectiveness of the programme’s processes, and lessons learned. The evaluation is also supported by case studies to illustrate examples of how the programme operates and to identify success factors and lessons learned.

IPS: How does your directorate contribute to building the capacity of individuals and communities to respond to climate change and engage in sustainable development? Are there specific training programmes or educational initiatives?

Nair: The Commonwealth Climate Change programme is focused on building the technical and institutional capacity of small and other vulnerable states to engage and navigate through the complex climate action landscape and to take action to address the long-term impacts of climate change. This is achieved by strengthening the technical and policy infrastructure in the country, thereby improving an enabling environment for attracting technical and financial support by devising long-term climate action plans and pipelining climate finance projects, policies, and institutions.

Under the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH), rather than offering short-term consultation to countries, the project embeds qualified national advisers for a three-year period to support the country in all areas of climate finance. This embeds knowledge transfer formally through workshops, training, and continuous support in priority areas for the government. This generates a critical mass of national government officials and relevant institutions directly responsible for climate action who are capacitated to tackle various aspects of climate finance, including project development, gender mainstreaming, environmental and social governance, policy support, etc. This CCFAH ‘write shop’ approach to capacity building focused on learning by doing has proven to support the sustainability of outcomes. This approach also helps develop a critical mass of officials in government departments responsible for climate action.

IPS: What are your directorate’s major challenges in implementing climate change, economic, and sustainable development initiatives? Are there notable opportunities or innovations that could positively impact your work?

Nair: The Commonwealth Climate Change Programme is facing several challenges in implementing climate change, economic, and sustainable development initiatives. The prominent three are:

Diverse Member States: The Commonwealth comprises countries with diverse economic structures, levels of development, and vulnerabilities to climate change. Tailoring initiatives to suit each member state’s specific needs and capacities is a complex task, requiring flexibility and inclusivity in programme design and implementation.

Limited Resources: Resource constraints hinder the ability of the programme to invest in comprehensive climate change and sustainable development initiatives. Mobilising adequate financial resources to support these programmes, especially for smaller and less economically developed nations, is a persistent challenge.

Capacity Building: Enhancing the capacity of member states to plan, implement, and monitor climate change initiatives is crucial. Many countries within the Commonwealth lack the technical expertise and institutional capacity needed to carry out these programmes, necessitating targeted capacity-building efforts.

IPS: How does your directorate collaborate on climate change and sustainable development issues with international organisations and other countries? Are there ongoing partnerships that have been particularly fruitful?

Nair: The Commonwealth Climate Change Programme actively collaborates with international organisations and other countries to address pressing climate challenges. Through diplomatic channels and multilateral forums, the programme fosters partnerships that transcend borders, facilitating the exchange of knowledge, expertise, and best practises in the realms of climate change and sustainable development. This collaboration involves joint technical initiatives, capacity-building programmes, and sharing best practises aimed at inclusive climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies in line with national sustainability practises. By participating in international dialogues and contributing to global initiatives, the programme strives to create a cohesive and coordinated approach to tackle the complex and interconnected issues of climate change and sustainable development, recognising that only through unified efforts can we effectively address the shared challenges facing our planet.

Some of the very fruitful partnerships under the Commonwealth climate change programme are with the following:

• • Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
  • Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Government of the United Kingdom
  • United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR)
  • Norad (Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation)
  • NDC Partnership
  • United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
  • World Health Organization
  • United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
  • PCCB Network
  • Africa NDC Hub.

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Coastal protection at Anse Kerlan Beach in the Seychelles where residents often take the initiative to protect their properties from the impact of climate-change-induced environmental changes. The Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub assists small island states, among others, with climate finance and technical assistance. Credit: Kadir van Lohuizen/NOOR/UNEP

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Nov 8 2023 (IPS)

As the countdown to COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, continues, IPS caught up with Dr Oldman Koboto, Mauritius-based Manager for the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH).

The hub was established through the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 2013 to provide technical assistance aimed at enhancing the countries’ access to international climate finance. This is achieved through technical assistance around project proposal development, policy support, human and institutional capacity building, knowledge management, and learning, all of which are anchored on gender and youth mainstreaming.

The hub embeds climate finance experts in individual government ministries to work with and offer technical support. The experts help identify project proposals, provide policy support, and, above all, build the capacity of both technical and institutional capacity in those ministries to develop bankable funding proposals. Since its operationalization in 2016, the hub has supported member countries to access USD 315 million in climate finance. Additionally, projects amounting to over USD 800 million are in the pipeline.

Here are excerpts from the interview.

Dr Oldman Koboto

IPS: What is the nature of climate negotiations thus far?

Koboto: Negotiations are progressing well, in my view, considering the historical background. Negotiations started when climate jurisprudence was still in its infancy. It has since progressed to a point of more certainty around legal systems and transformative approaches to address the climate change convention’s objectives. Negotiations have moved from the actual architect for implementing the convention to innovative approaches toward achieving the 1.5°C Paris Agreement aspiration.

One of the pending issues, especially on finance, is the establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund – to be operationalized through the COP28. The draft outcome document for the Transitional Committee on operationalizing the Loss and Damage Fund showed consensus that could catalyze its operation. That being said, critical gaps still exist.  IPCC cautions that even if we were to implement all the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), we would still not achieve the 1.5°C targets, many of them centered around mitigation actions.

This is an indictment on the international community, through these negotiations, to make progress on adaptation-related issues. And fast-track resilience building and adaptative capacities of small and other vulnerable member states. One of the innovative approaches is leveraging private sector finance for NDCs towards climate mitigation action. But, the design parameters for both adaptation and mitigation projects are such that mitigation actions are attractive to the private sector more than adaptation measures. This creates innovation gaps toward adaptation actions, and yet mitigation initiatives do not build significant resilience. There are, therefore, successes and challenges to these negotiations.

IPS: Have countries voiced concerns regarding these negotiations?

Koboto: Almost all countries raise concerns around the pending areas and celebrate progressive areas. Countries prepare to go into the COPs by developing country positions informed by developments in international negotiations. They then build interventions around points of divergence to be ironed out in upcoming negotiations to inform or shape COP outcomes. This, on its own, is a demonstration of the countries’ concerns around those specific agenda items. It is not about one country speaking about being unhappy, but the process itself, through the established legal frameworks, enables countries to raise their concerns through platforms where such consensus could become part of the formal documentation for the COP process.

IPS: Is Africa better placed for COP28 negotiations, having recently held its inaugural Climate Summit?

Koboto: The inaugural Africa Climate Summit was a step in the right direction. It allowed African countries to paint their own vision and develop a basket of issues to push forward within international negotiations. The Nairobi Summit was consistent with other platforms for engagement on development challenges facing Africa. The message was that Africa is part of the solution and requests to be treated as equals, which is consistent with the messaging at the World Economic Forums and UN General Assembly. The draft outcome of the Loss and Damage Fund Transitional Committee indicates that developed countries’ parties will contribute to the financing of loss and damage and that developing country parties are also encouraged to contribute.

IPS: What sustains the impasse on climate financing between developed and developing countries? What will it take to break the impasse?

Koboto: This is a tough one because it falls at the heart of the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities of the UNFCCC. Having said that, it is also very difficult to target one country with the capability or capacity to provide support because of foundational principles of state policy, which sets the direction of each country regarding national and international interests. It goes without saying that national interests take precedence over international interests in areas where the two compete.

There is a willingness at the international level for developed countries to help. Meanwhile, the African continent must design innovative financing instruments to facilitate access to climate finance and attract investments to the continent. Such innovative mechanisms can be developed in subsequent African climate summits. The global climate solution lies in Africa, for the continent still has a lot of unexploited potential both in resources and opportunities around geothermal, hydrothermal, and solar energy.

IPS: What are the expectations from small island states and other vulnerable countries on new funding mechanisms and the Loss and Damage Fund going into COP28?

Koboto: The newest funding mechanism is the Loss and Damage Fund. Others are the Global Environment Facility, the Green Climate Fund, and the Adaptation Fund. African countries are unrelenting about the USD100 billion pledge made at COP15. All these funds must trickle down to developing states so that the Loss and Damage Fund becomes just an additional funding to existing funding sources.

African countries are focused on building enough consensus and influencing developed countries to deliver on promises made. Institutions such as the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub, which I lead, stand ready to facilitate African countries’ access to those Funds as soon as there is predictable and adequate funding in those Funds.

CCFAH can provide technical assistance to enhance access to climate investments at a country level and to build capacities to access these funds without the use of third parties. But these countries are unrelenting and are firmly focused on unlocking much-needed climate finance to establish and or accelerate climate action.

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Keithlin Caroo speaks to young Saint Lucian on International Rural Women’s Day. Education is an important part of advocacy on behalf of women and girls. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
SAINT LUCIA, Nov 3 2023 (IPS)

On August 22, 2023, Women’s Affairs Ministers from the Commonwealth huddled in a room at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas. For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, they were meeting in person.

The 13th Commonwealth Women’s Affairs Ministers Meeting was being held under the theme, Equality Towards a Common Future. It was taking place amid the acknowledgement by policymakers that issues like accelerating climate change, economic turmoil, political upheaval in some parts of the world, and the COVID-19 pandemic have taken a debilitating toll on progress toward the empowerment of women and girls.

Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis vowed that the gathering would be solutions-oriented.

“The time is now for our Commonwealth community to be unabashedly ambitious in our goals and plans. We need more than slogans – we need commitments,” he said.

As Dr Anne Gallagher, Director General of the Commonwealth Foundation, addressed the high-level forum, images of a recent online civil society gathering organized by the Foundation flashed on screens across the room. The key outcome of that event was a list of ten recommendations that civil society groups from across the Commonwealth want women’s affairs ministers to consider.

Recommendation number seven, “Measure better to target better,” appeared on the screen. It was one of the recommendations that drew animated discussion among delegates. It came from a young woman dedicated to helping women farmers in her part of the world.

The journey of a recommendation from an online forum to the Commonwealth’s highest decision-making body for women’s affairs is serving as an example of the importance of not just giving a voice to those who are on the ground, working with women and girls but ensuring that their concerns are heard by those charged with gender equality policy action.

A Virtual Roundtable

Keithlin Caroo was a panellist on the Commonwealth Foundation’s Critical Conversations series, a virtual discussion that seeks to find sustainable solutions to the most pressing issues for the 2.5 billion citizens of the Commonwealth.

For years, Caroo has been on a mission to help rural women in her home country, Saint Lucia, and has extended that support to the neighboring islands of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and St. Kitts and Nevis. She is the founder and executive director of Helen’s Daughters, a non-profit organization that she refers to as a ‘community,’ which has been changing the narrative on women in agriculture. Helen’s Daughters is built on the premise that while in small states, everyone is connected to agriculture, women are not sufficiently supported despite their pivotal role in the sector.

The organization helps rural women with market access and forges linkages for farmers with supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, and the public through a FarmHers Market. It runs a free Rural Women’s ‘Ag-cademy’ on the islands of Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which focuses on sustainable agriculture and entrepreneurship. It is the first all-women agri-apprenticeship programme in the Caribbean. The organization operates a structured care system that focuses on the holistic development of women, hosting training on trauma-informed care to peer-to-peer support and wellness retreats.

Before the virtual event, the Commonwealth Foundation had made it clear – recommendations from the forum would be put before decision-makers. When Caroo spoke, she did so on behalf of the women farmers who toil daily in a sector fraught with gender biases.

“This engagement was important because it shows that the voices of grassroots organizations are important to Commonwealth’s policymaking; however, what’s important for me is seeing to it that the recommendations translate from policy to actions on the ground,” she said in an interview with IPS.

“We recognized the lack of sex-disaggregated early on, and aside from our interventions, data collection, monitoring, and evaluation are key to our work. Lack of data places further burden on us because aside from crafting interventions relevant to our beneficiaries, we are also responsible for primary data collection, which takes more time and resources; however, we must craft interventions according to the current state of play rather than what is imagined. As I said during the roundtable- “We can only target better if we measure better.”

Voices like Caroo’s played an important role in ensuring a commonwealth-wide response to gender inequality.

The Process

With its theme Gender, climate change and health: how can we do better for women and girls? the virtual roundtable stoked discussion on cross-cutting issues such as violence against women, investing in women and access to education.

“The event was deliberately outcome-oriented: it included not just a debate and discussion but also a highly focused working session where all participants were charged with coming up with specific recommendations to present to this body. Not a shopping list of blue-sky ideas but practical steps that they felt reflect what Commonwealth civil society – what the 2.5 billion citizens of the Commonwealth, want their countries to do for women and girls when it comes to health and climate change,” said Gallagher.

She reminded the gathering that the Foundation is a link between Commonwealth Member States and the people they all serve. She urged the ministers to reflect on the ‘clear and urgent’ recommendations from civil society.

“For me, the clarity and simplicity of the ten recommendations signals an important truth: we all understand the challenges we are up against in relation to women’s rights and well-being, and also in relation to climate change. We all appreciate what must be done. But shifting the current trajectory in ways that make a real difference will require much more. It will require courage, commitment, and true solidarity within and between countries of the Commonwealth,” she said.

The Recommendations

Recommendation seven, “Measure better to target better,” might have struck a chord with attendees, but the other nine recommendations were also well received.

They are:

• Acknowledge that the impacts of the climate crisis are not gender-neutral,
• Empower women through gender-responsive climate policies and actions,
• Improve access to education and training for women and girls,
• Improve climate finance and bring women forward as leaders and decision-makers,
• Value and promote women and girls as adaptation educators and agents of change,
• Promote gender equality in access to healthcare
• Act to reduce gender-based violence
• Enhance women’s economic empowerment.

The meeting’s official outcome statement notes that the recommendations were welcomed and endorsed.

Their journey is not over – they are now part of the women’s affairs ministerial meeting recommendations that will be brought before Commonwealth Heads of Government at their 2024 meeting in Samoa.

“I thought this engagement was of particular importance because I had never been to a panel at this level that spoke on the intersection of gender, climate change and health or intersectionality in general. Far too often, we focus on these themes in silos,” Caroo said.

“We do not consider Helen’s Daughters an agricultural organization because we deal with gender, climate change, gender-based violence, health, economic empowerment, climate and environmental justice, several areas that contribute to the overall development of our FarmHers. I thought the roundtable was timely because our policymaking needs to take an intersectional approach.”

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Excerpt:

Rt. Hon Patricia Scotland, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, visited the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu in April to discuss climate justice and witnessed the impacts of Cyclones Judy and Kevin in the country. Photo Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Jun 5 2023 (IPS)

In the Pacific Islands and many developing and emerging countries worldwide, the informal economy far outsizes the formal one, playing a vital role in the survival of urban and rural households and absorbing expanding working-age populations.

Informal business entrepreneurs and workers make up more than 60 percent of the labour force worldwide. But they are also the most exposed, with precarious assets and working conditions, to the economic shocks of extreme weather and climate disasters.

In 2016, Category 5 Cyclone Winston, the most ferocious cyclone recorded in the southern hemisphere, unleashed widespread destruction of Fiji’s infrastructure, services and economic sectors, such as agriculture and tourism.  And in March this year, Cyclones Judy and Kevin barrelled through Vanuatu, an archipelago nation of more than 300,000 people, and its capital, Port Vila, leaving local tourism businesses with severe losses.

More than 80 percent of people in Papua New Guinea live in rural areas and are sustained by informal business activities, especially the smallholder growing and selling of fresh produce. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

It is now three months since the disasters. But Dalida Borlasa, business owner of Yumi Up Upcycling Solutions, an enterprise at Port Vila’s handicraft market, which depends on tourists, told IPS there had been some recovery, but not enough. “We have had two cruise ships visit in recent weeks, but there have only been a few tourists visiting the market. We are not earning enough money for daily food. And other vendors at the market don’t have enough money to replace their products that were damaged by the cyclones,” she said.

Up to 80 percent of working-age people in some Pacific Island countries are engaged in informal income-generating activities, such as smallholder agriculture and tourism-dependent livelihoods. But in a matter of hours, cyclones can destroy huge swathes of crops and bring the tourism industry to a halt when international visitors cancel their holidays.

Climate change and disasters are central concerns to the Commonwealth, an inter-governmental organization representing 78 percent of all small nations, 11 Pacific Island states and 2.5 billion people worldwide. “The consequences of global failure on climate action are catastrophic, particularly for informal businesses and workers in small and developing countries. Just imagine the struggles of an individual who relies on subsistence and commercial agriculture for their livelihood. Their entire existence is hanging in the balance as they grapple with unpredictable weather patterns and unfavourable conditions that can wipe out their crops in a matter of seconds,” Rt. Hon Patricia Scotland KC, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, told IPS. “It’s not simply a matter of economic well-being; their entire way of life is at stake. The fear and uncertainty they experience are truly daunting. But they are fighting. We must too.”

The formal economy in many Pacific Island countries is too small and offers few employment opportunities. In Papua New Guinea, an estimated four million people are not in work, while the formal sector has only 400,000-500,000 job openings, according to PNG’s Institute of National Affairs. And with more than 50 percent of the population of about 8.9 million aged below 25 years, the number of job seekers will only rise in the coming years. And so, more than 80 percent of the country’s workforce is occupied in self-generated small-scale enterprises, such as cultivating and selling fruit and vegetables.

But eight years ago, the agricultural livelihoods of millions were decimated when a record drought associated with the El Nino climate phenomenon ravaged the Melanesian country.

“Eighty-five percent of PNG’s population are rural inhabitants who are dependent on the land for production of food and the sale of surplus for income through informal fresh produce markets. In areas affected by the 2015 drought, especially in the highlands, the drought killed food crops, affecting food security,” Dr Elizabeth Kopel of the Informal Economy Research Program at PNG’s National Research Institute told IPS. “Rural producers also supply urban food markets, so when supply dwindled, food prices increased for urban dwellers,” she added.

In Vanuatu, an estimated 67 percent of the workforce earn informal incomes, primarily in agriculture and tourism. On the waterfront of Port Vila is a large, covered handicraft market, a commercial hub for more than 100 small business owners who make and sell baskets, jewellery, paintings, woodcarvings and artworks to tourists. The island country is a major destination for cruise ships in the South Pacific. In 2019, it received more than 250,000 international visitors.

Highly exposed to the sea and storms, the market building, with the facilities and business assets it houses, bore the brunt of gale force winds from Cyclones Judy and Kevin on 1-3 March.  Tables were broken, and many of the products stored there were destroyed. Thirty-six-year-old Myshlyn Narua lost most of the handmade pandanus bags she was planning to sell. The money she had saved helped to sustain her family in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, but it would not be enough to survive six months, she stated in a report on the disaster’s impacts on market vendors compiled by Dalida Borlasa.

The country’s tourism sector has suffered numerous climate-induced economic shocks in recent years. In 2015, Cyclone Pam left losses amounting to 64 percent of GDP. Another Cyclone, Harold, in 2020 added further economic losses to the recession across the region triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“To address the climate emergency and protect the lives and livelihoods of people, particularly those in the informal sector, countries must fulfil their commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement. They must work to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and provide the promised US$100 billion per year in climate finance,” said the Commonwealth Secretary-General. She added that climate-vulnerable nations should also be eligible for debt relief. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Secretariat is working with member countries to improve their access to global funding for climate projects. And it is calling for reform of the global financial architecture to improve access to finance for lower-income countries that need it the most.

At the same time, the International Labour Organization predicts that the informal economy will continue to employ most Pacific Islanders, and the imperative now is to develop the sector and improve its resilience.

In PNG, the government has acknowledged the significance of the informal sector and developed national policy and legislation to grow its size and potential. Its long-term strategy is to improve the access of entrepreneurs to skills training, communications, technology and finance and encourage diversity and innovation within the sector. Currently, 98 percent of informal enterprises in the country are self-funded, with people often seeking loans from informal sources. The government’s goal is to see informal enterprises transition into higher value-added small and medium-sized businesses and to see the number of these businesses grow from about 50,000 now to 500,000 by 2030.

In Port Vila, Borlasa and her fellow entrepreneurs would like to see their existing facilities made more climate resilient before they face the next cyclone. She suggested that stronger window and door shutters be fitted to the market building and the floor raised and strengthened to stop waves and storm surges penetrating.

Looking ahead, the economic forecast is for GDP growth in all Pacific Island countries this year and into 2024 after three difficult years of the pandemic, reports the World Bank. Although, the economic hit of the cyclones is likely to result in a decline in growth to 1 percent in Vanuatu this year. But the real indicator of economic well-being for many Pacific islanders will be resilience and prosperity in the informal economy.

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Hundreds of mangrove seedlings are growing in a small bay of an island south of Fiji's main island Viti Levu. The Pacific Island Countries are vulnerable to climate change and need resources to adapt. Credit: Tom Vierus/Climate Visuals

By Labanya Prakash Jena
Sharm El-Sheikh, Nov 18 2022 (IPS)

The Pacific Island Countries (PICs) – 14 small island developing nations in the Pacific Ocean – comprise one of the most exposed and vulnerable regions to climate change and natural calamities. The region did not cause this climate crisis; the crisis stemmed from heavy carbon emissions by developed countries. Yet paradoxically, the countries in the region are also the least resourced to adapt to climate change.

The IMF estimates that the PICs need an additional investment of an average of 9% of GDP on developing climate-resilient infrastructure over the next ten years. Some countries’ climate-resilient infrastructure needs more than 10% of their GDP. However, this much capital mobilisation is impossible for the region with low per capita income, volatile economy, lack of fiscal space, and low saving rate. Besides, these countries have also committed to ambitious targets to decarbonize their economies.

In this scenario, international climate finance mobilisation is critical to make the region resilient and prosperous. The longer the delay in building the much-needed climate-resilient infrastructure, the higher the cost and greater the risk of exposing these countries to extreme events for a longer time.

Labanya Prakash Jena, Commonwealth Regional Climate Finance Adviser, Indo-Pacific Region, argues international climate finance mobilisation is critical to make Pacific Island Countries resilient and prosperous. Credit: Commonwealth

Tackling the bottlenecks

There are two primary bottlenecks to international climate flows: institutional structure and lack of capacity at various levels. The PIC region’s institutional structure is plagued by limited administrative and financial capabilities, inadequate program management and accountability, and an obscure audit system to mobilise international public climate finance.

In addition, these countries lack the capacity to design and structure projects and develop a robust and tangible climate adaptation project pipeline. Besides, the region is not strategically allocating available capital, including budgetary outlays, international climate finance, development aid, and private finance. The primary focus of international institutions must be to address these challenges quickly.

Options for international climate finance: Grants, debt, equity

The total GDP of the PIC region is only about USD10 billion, with an average per capita income of approximately USD4,000 and a gross capital formation rate of 20%, according to the World Bank. This translates to a maximum domestic capital mobilisation of USD 2 billion per year. Meanwhile, the IMF estimates that the region needs an additional capital of USD 1 billion per annum for climate resilience infrastructure investment.

International grant capital is the only option to fund climate adaptation projects in the region. The reason is that any form of debt capital, even if in the form of concessional debt capital over the long term, is not an economical one. The PIC region cannot pay back debt, and it is unlikely the region’s economic size will increase at a rapid rate in the future to pay back debt.

Although the region’s primary sources of international climate finance – the Green Climate Fund (GCF), World Bank, and Asian Development Bank (ADB) – provide grants, it is only for project preparation and capacity development. These financers mostly provide debt financing, albeit at a better rate than private financers.

However, the low debt servicing ability of the region arrests them, raising foreign debt capital. It is even more problematic if the debt capital is in foreign currency (e.g., USD) – the borrowers face huge foreign currency due to expected and unexpected devaluation in the local currency, and borrowers face currency risk.

Equity capital is not the best form of financing for climate adaptation projects. Unlike climate change mitigating projects, they do not generate clear cash flows as the beneficiaries are difficult to identify to monetize climate adaptation projects. Hence, equity capital is not an efficient source of capital for climate adaptation projects.

Strategic allocation of capital is key

Unlike developed and developing countries, the PIC region does not have a have strong domestic financial and banking sector, and it rarely attracted foreign capital for large-scale investment. So, it is futile to expect large-scale private financing flows to bridge the financing gaps for their climate actions.

Moreover, the public goods nature of climate adaptation projects does not attract private financers. Hence, public financing, including capital Government budgetary outlays, international climate finance, and other development aids must be spent judiciously.

The crux is strategically allocating the available capital and aligning projects’ needs with the mandates of the public finances. One of the most efficient ways is to carve out the climate financing as a separate portfolio and decide where and how the capital would be used in various climate adaptation projects.

In addition, the climate change divisions of these countries can work closely with the Ministry of finance to mainstream climate adaptation in national development plans and sector policies and bring climate change perspectives in economic decision-making. The countries can also need to identify the projects which offer dual benefits of climate migration and adaptation, which brings a lot of attention to global climate financers.

For example, nature-based carbon sequestration through ocean conservation, forestry, and wilding (wetland, grassland) sequestrates carbon, offers natural shields, and protects human life and properties in extreme weather events. The global impact investors will find these projects attractive as they help the region become climate-resilient and create a global public good, helping everyone, including the financer’s country.

Way forward

International institutions must support Pacific Island countries to strengthen administrative and financial structures for better transparency and accountability, which can help the PICs access global public capital. In addition, Governments in the region must strategically allocate climate finance, prioritise climate actions in decision-making, integrate adaptation projects with national climate action plans, and identify suitable projects offering dual climate mitigation and adaptation benefits.

The international institutions can also help the countries identify and design projects to develop pipeline projects for funding. There is a dire need to develop institutional and local capacity to meet the needs of climate change-related economic activities in the region. But if addressed, the region will be able to finally make headway in addressing the deep adaptation challenges they face due to climate change.

• Labanya Prakash Jena is the Commonwealth Regional Climate Finance Adviser for the Indo-Pacific Region.

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Earl Green, project manager, discusses the Arundo donax bio-mass project with sugar cane farmers in Orange Walk, Belize. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

By Zadie Neufville
Kingston, Apr 19 2022 (IPS)

In September 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK-based Commonwealth Secretariat announced that it had dispatched highly skilled climate finance advisors to four member nations to help them navigate the often-complicated process of accessing climate funds. Belize, the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) only Central American member, was one of the recipients.

Since then, with the support of the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH), Belize has completed a climate finance landscape study, devised a five-year strategy to access international funds, and established a dedicated Climate Finance Unit in the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment. The unit works collaboratively with the National Climate Change Office (NCCO), which sits under the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management.

With some 28 climate change-related projects in varying stages of development, Belize needed to find a way to speed up the project development process from concept to implementation if the country were to realise its commitments, said Leroy Martinez, an economist in the Climate Finance Unit. The often-cumbersome application process for the Green Climate Fund (GCF), among other schemes, can mean projects linger for years before implementation.

In January 2022, the government announced the launch of the new Climate Finance Unit. Director Carlos Pol explained that the aim was to “maximise access to climate finance, provide the technical and other support to access and fast track projects,” while helping the private sector identify funding to carry out much-needed programmes. He noted that Belize is also being supported to build human and institutional capacity.

On long-term placement with the NCCO, working under the guidance of Belize’s Chief Climate Change Officer, Dr Lennox Gladden, is Commonwealth national climate finance advisor Ranga Pallawala, a highly skilled finance expert deployed to help Belize make “successful applications and proposals to international funds”.

Climate change impacts from wind, flood and drought have been extensive, Pol said. The damage has led to annual losses of about 7 percent of the country’s GDP, or US$123 million, which, when added to the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, elevated Belize’s debt-to-GDP rating to an unsustainable 130 percent.

Pallawala told IPS that his role includes helping to build and strengthen capacity in climate financing of Belize. He would also “strengthen their capacity to plan, access, deliver, monitor and report on climate finance in line with national priorities, and access to knowledge sharing through the commonwealth’s pool of experts”.

Pol told IPS that, as the Commonwealth’s assigned climate finance adviser, Pallawala assisted in developing a National Climate Finance Strategy to, among other things, identify likely projects and possible funding sources. Pallawala also worked with the National Climate Change Office to carry out a climate landscape study, which Pol said: “Identified the country’s needs, the funding available and that which was needed to achieve the recommendations coming out of the NDC [Nationally Determined Contribution or national climate plan]”.

The Commonwealth Climate Finance Hub work in Belize also aims to support the GCF accreditation process of local institutions, streamline climate finance and seek new opportunities to ensure that climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies are at the centre of the government’s development policies and plans.

The CCFAH will allow the country to streamline its NDC ambitions and help improve its ability to source additional funding from external sources. It will help to develop strong private/public partnership projects, benefit from the expertise within the Commonwealth’s pool of international advisers and fast track project proposals, among other things. In addition, a debt-for-climate swap initiative announced earlier this year will allow Belize to reduce its public debt by directing its debt service payments to fund some climate change projects.

In the current scenario, Pol explained Belize could use available funds to support the “early entry of projects” to minimise delays in implementation. The country has experienced challenges in this regard in the past, for example, with the start-up of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (5Cs) Arundo donax biomass project.

In 2016, the 5Cs began an ambitious project to reduce Belize’s fuel bill by using local wild grass as a substitute for the bagasse, a by-product of sugar production used to fuel the furnaces. A local wild cane with the scientific name of Arundo donax was identified as a potentially suitable renewable crop for augmenting the supply of bagasse year-round. But despite a partnership with the national electricity provider BelcoGen, the project experienced delays.

As project manager Earl Green told IPS, the absence of funds to do some requisite studies slowed implementation. In 2018, the GCF provided US$694,000 for a project preparation facility. Even with good results from the pilot phases, the GCF did not fund the studies to determine the growth rates of the wild cane.

With Pallawala on board, delays like those experienced with the Arundo donax project could be a thing of the past. Additional funding is now in place to establish cultivation plots with two species of wild cane have been planted.

Pallawala said his role is to support the CFU in building stronger projects and enhancing existing ones, “not to overlap what others are doing, but to look at all the available sources of funds and help the country develop projects that will capitalise on all the opportunities”.

This year Belize also announced a debt-for-nature-swap that effectively frees up funds that would otherwise be used to service debt to pay for its implementation of climate change projects.

So far, Belize has received just over US2.2 million in readiness funding; US600,000 in adaptation funding for water projects and US902,937 for fisheries and coastal projects; just under US 8 million to build resilience in rural areas and just under US2.2 million for project preparation funding.

To date, through its advisers, the Commonwealth Secretariat has helped member countries access more than US46 million to fund 36 climate projects through the Climate Finance Access Hub. An additional US762 million worth of projects are in the pipeline.

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A wind farm in Port Victoria on the main island of Mahe in the Seychelles is contributing to the renewable energy transition of the small island state located east of the African continent. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia , Nov 3 2021 (IPS)

Breaking the world’s reliance on fossil fuels and accelerating the global uptake of renewable energy will play a decisive role in diminishing the threat of global warming to the survival of life on earth, according to experts. But turning the vision into reality will demand unwavering political will and, critically, massive investment, which can no longer be shouldered solely by aid and development partners.

It is a challenge that the Commonwealth Secretariat, the inter-governmental organisation representing 54 Commonwealth nations, has taken on. Now it is launching an initiative at the United Nations COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow to propel the ability of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to attract major investors with sound compelling business cases.

The summit will be a key setting to leverage “the toolkit into different partner working platforms, such as the Climate Investment Platform, increase collaboration among partners and drive joint action with SIDS on energy transition ahead of other key milestones in 2022 and beyond, including the Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) Forum in Rwanda and Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in 2022 and COP27 to be held in Africa,” Alache Fisho, the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Legal Adviser on Natural Resources in London told IPS.

The SIDS Toolkit, a digital tool for governments, developed by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the international development organisation, SEforALL, is currently being trialled in the Seychelles, an archipelago nation of 99,000 people, located in the Somali Sea east of the African continent.

Converting the country’s energy system to renewables is imperative for future stability and prosperity, as climate change threatens development gains. “The livelihood of the islanders is being threatened here with sea-level rise. What we are seeing is greater coastal erosion, increased temperature rises and coral bleaching. We are also getting an increasing frequency of cyclones in the region,” Tony Imaduwa, CEO of the Seychelles Energy Commission in the capital, Victoria, told IPS.

The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Rt Hon Patricia Scotland QC, made an official visit to the Seychelles in June 2018. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

In Caribbean and Pacific Island nations, as well, air temperatures are becoming hotter, weather patterns more unpredictable, while sea-level rise is eroding finite land, destroying crops and contaminating freshwater resources.

Last year, an overwhelming 80 percent of the global energy supply was still generated by fossil fuels and only 12 percent by renewables. This puts the world on track toward a devastating temperature increase of 2.6 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, claims the International Energy Agency (IEA).

And the bill for importing oil, which comprises 95 percent of primary energy in the Seychelles, is an enormous fiscal burden on the government and its development goals. “It is a drain on our foreign exchange reserves, our earnings, and there is the whole volatile nature of the price. When the price goes up, you get the costs going up, the cost of food goes up, services go up, the electricity cost goes up, transportation goes up. There is the risk associated with the supply, too,” Imaduwa told IPS.

The Seychelles has a human development ranking of 67 out of 189 countries, the second-highest in the African region, and all citizens have access to electricity. But many other SIDS bear much higher levels of energy poverty. In the Pacific Islands, about 70 percent of households lack access to power.

It is, therefore, no surprise that clean energy, which will be more affordable to islanders, is a national priority. The majority of SIDS are committed to achieving 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.

Renewables, ideal for standalone systems, are a good fit for island nations where populations are often scattered across numerous islands separated by vast areas of the ocean. And weather conditions are a great advantage, especially for wind and solar energy. Despite clean energy only comprising 5 percent of the energy mix in the Seychelles, the momentum has begun. The first wind farm was established near the nation’s capital, Victoria, in 2013, and increasingly homes and businesses are installing rooftop solar panels.

But there are challenges to securing the large capital investment needed for complete conversion. In many cases, the lack of strong institutions, enabling regulatory frameworks and small energy markets limit the appeal of the energy sector in SIDS to the private sector and international financiers.

The Seychelles is developing its clean energy sector and blue economy with the support of the Commonwealth and other partners. Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat

“The Seychelles is no longer considered a Least Developed Country; it is an emerging economy now. So, there is a slight concern from the government that it will not be able to access concessionary loans anymore from multilateral development banks and also that there will be fewer countries that are providing overseas development assistance to the country,” Dr Kai Kim Chiang, the Commonwealth Secretariat’s National Climate Finance Adviser in the Seychelles, told IPS. “The Seychelles is a small country, so they do have challenges in attracting investors because it is a really small market here, and so then the potential for the return of investment is potentially quite small.”

Yet, about US$4 trillion will have to be injected into clean energy growth by 2030, if the global temperature rise is to be restricted to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, reports the IEA. And 70 percent of this will need to be spent in developing and emerging countries.

To this end, the SIDS Toolkit empowers governments to draft investment-grade business cases. First, key data about the economic and energy status of the Seychelles, for example, about employment, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), utility electricity cost and carbon emissions, is entered into the digital application. The toolkit then analyses the data to provide a detailed cost-benefit analysis of development and transition scenarios and identifies the state’s key investment strengths. It also pinpoints where reforms are needed to boost investor confidence, such as deficiencies in legal and institutional capacity.

“It will assist in terms of formulating strategies to unlocking investment in the energy sector in the Seychelles, and that is something that is missing for us. We are focussing on a lot of plans and policies and implementation, but sometimes we struggle on how to bring these together and create a platform that allows us to say, OK, we have a plan, yes, we want to invest in this area, but how do we do it,” Imaduwa said.

The SIDS Toolkit is designed with a broad range of potential investors in mind, including multilateral and private sector financial institutions. However, Fisho emphasised that private sector involvement is “very important”, especially as many renewable energy technologies entail large capital expenditure. “Moreover, the renewable energy technologies are fast evolving. The private sector can bring the required finance and expertise in the deployment of modern technologies,” she said.

Despite the detrimental economic impact of the pandemic worldwide over the past two years, Fisho makes a strong case for the priority of spending on the energy transition. “The pandemic has highlighted the need to transition towards clean energy in SIDS to increase energy security and economic resilience. Investment in renewable energy is consistent with supporting recover better and more resilient economic development, thereby creating more sustainable green jobs and decent income opportunities for current and future generations,” she declared.

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Mangroves could be the silver bullet needed to mitigate climate change, however, approximately 75 percent of mangrove forests globally remain unprotected and overexploited. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Oct 7 2021 (IPS)

Smelly, boggy, and full of bugs, mangroves’ superpowers are well hidden. However, there is rising confidence that mangroves are the silver bullet to combat the effects of climate change.

“Mangrove ecosystems are a habitat and nursery grounds for various plants and animals and can absorb three to four times more carbon than tropical upland forests, helping to mitigate the effects of climate change,” Dr Sevvandi Jayakody, a senior lecturer at Wayamba University of Sri Lanka, tells IPS.

Mangrove forests also act as a natural defence against storm surges, including mitigating the effects of cyclones and tsunamis, says Dr Nicholas Hardman‑Mountford, Head of Oceans and Natural Resources at the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Within this context, he says, Commonwealth countries are working together under the Commonwealth Blue Charter, an agreement made by all 54 member states, to actively work together to tackle ocean-related challenges and meet global commitments on sustainable ocean development.

The Blue Charter works through voluntary action groups led by ‘champion countries’, who rally around marine pollution and the sustainable blue economy.

The Mangrove Ecosystems and Livelihoods Action Group consists of 13 countries, including Australia, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Guyana, Jamaica, Kenya, Maldives, Nigeria, Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago Vanuatu, and the United Kingdom, is championed by Sri Lanka.

Mangrove blue carbon could bolster climate change adaptation, mitigation and resilience efforts, experts say. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Hardman‑Mountford tells IPS that countries exchange knowledge centred on mangrove protection, management, and sustainability within the action group. Shared knowledge includes a wide range of topics, including policy, legislation, and regulatory frameworks.

Leveraging on the protective power of mangroves, Jayakody says that Sri Lanka is actively building its second line of defence. The country’s first line of defence, the reefs, were heavily compromised by the deadly 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami – one of the worst disasters in modern history, killing nearly 230 000 people across dozens of countries.

Such was the devastation that the government of Sri Lanka estimated losses of over $1 billion in assets and $330 million in potential output.

Worse still, approximately 35 000 people died or went missing. In Sri Lanka alone, property damage included 110 000 houses, of which 70 000 were destroyed. In all, at least 250 000 families lost their means of support.

Experts say that mangroves have immense capacity to prevent such catastrophes and combat other devastating effects of climate change.

Bolstered by growing scientific evidence, Trinidad and Tobago, the dual-island Caribbean nation, has made significant strides in building its defence using mangroves.

Dr Rahanna Juman, Acting Director at the Institute of Marine Affairs, a government-funded research institute, tells IPS that in 2014, the government of Trinidad and Tobago commissioned an aerial survey of the country. Using this data, an estimate of carbon in mangrove forests across the country was ascertained.

“This information illustrated how mangrove and other hardwood forests could offset emissions and was incorporated into the Greenhouse Gas inventory of Trinidad and Tobago. Importantly, the survey conclusively demonstrated that mangrove forests store more carbon per hectare than other hardwood forests,” Juman expounds.

In 2020, the Institute of Marine Affairs received funding from the British High Commission to fund a mangrove soil carbon assessment project involving Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.

Dr Juman indicates that the assessment found that “the amount of carbon in the mangrove soil was many times larger than the amount of carbon above the ground. This is an assessment that could be replicated in other Commonwealth countries because we have developed a low-cost technique of undertaking this important assessment.”

Adding that Mangroves are starting to be incorporated into the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programme, which means countries could potentially earn money from protecting and restoring mangroves.

Meanwhile, Hardman‑Mountford cites various challenges in exploring blue carbon because it is still an evolving area of science and policy.

Sri Lanka understands this challenge all too well. After the Tsunami, Jayakody says that the government launched vast mangrove restoration projects covering over 2 000 hectares in partnership with other agencies.

Due to limited information on mangroves, she tells IPS that a majority of these projects failed. Undeterred and leveraging on scientific research over the years, Sri Lanka is today a success story in restoring and conserving mangrove cover estimated at 19 600 hectares.

Other challenges facing countries keen on mangrove blue carbon include a lack of protection for mangroves because approximately 75 percent of mangrove forests globally remain unprotected and overexploited.

Over the years, Jayakody indicates that mangroves have been at a very high risk of destruction because their power to prevent coastal erosion, protect shorelines, and provide livelihoods for coastal communities through fisheries was not fully understood.

Hardman‑Mountford agrees, adding that mangrove forests have declined globally with a loss of between 30 to 50 percent over the past 50 years from over-harvesting, pollution, agriculture, aquaculture, and coastal development.

The Commonwealth has a huge role to play in reversing this decline.

Overall, there are 47 Commonwealth countries with a coastline.

“Nearly 90 percent of Commonwealth countries with a coast have mangroves, and at least 38 of these countries with mangroves have provided some level of protection to their mangroves. In all, 16 countries have protected about half or more of their mangroves,” he says.

This is a challenge that Sri Lanka is successfully overcoming. With an estimated 40 percent of the population in Sri Lanka living along the coastline, Jayakody says that there was an urgent need to protect both livelihoods and coastlines from further degradation.

“In 2015, Sri Lanka established the National Mangrove Expert Committee, and through that, all mangroves were mapped. More so, several new areas were brought under protection, and there have been relentless efforts to improve the communities’ understanding of the importance of mangrove ecosystem,” she says.

Further, Sri Lanka recently validated the Best Practice Guidelines on the Restoration of Mangroves in Sri Lanka and the national mangrove action plan, in line with the mangrove policy adopted in 2020.

Other countries making strides in the right direction include the Australian government’s involvement with blue carbon and especially ongoing efforts to build capacity in blue carbon science, policy and economics through multi-sectoral partnerships.

“To support its efforts in blue carbon advocacy and outreach, the Australian government launched the International Partnership for Blue Carbon (IPBC) at the UNFCCC CoP in Paris in 2015,” says Ms Heidi Prislan, a Blue Charter Adviser at the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Australia is also one of the 28 countries that refer specifically to the mitigation benefits of carbon sequestration associated with coastal wetlands in its National Greenhouse Gas Inventory. In comparison, 59 other countries mention coastal ecosystems as part of their adaptation strategies.

To increase opportunities for blue carbon to participate in the national emissions reduction scheme, the Emissions Reduction Fund, the Australian government has supported research into potential mitigation methodologies that could be implemented to generate carbon credits from domestic projects.

Equally important, she says that Commonwealth member countries have collectively made 44 national commitments to protect or restore mangroves.

As the world stares at a catastrophe from the devastating effects of climate change, the massive potential of blue carbon and, more so, mangrove blue carbon to bolster climate change adaptation, mitigation and resilience efforts can no longer be ignored.

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Sepesa Curuki and his daughter Lupe. The family is heartbroken about leaving their ancestral lands but their home is no longer safe after being battered by intense and frequent cyclones, flooding and erosion. Credit: Sepesa Curuki

By Neena Bhandari
Sydney, Australia, Sep 23 2021 (IPS)

Sepesa Curuki and his community are coming to terms with the prospect of relocation from Cogea village on Fiji’s second-largest island of Vanua Levu. Their village, which lies between two rivers that flow into the Pacific Ocean only 2km away, has been battered by intense and frequent cyclones, flooding and erosion, threatening their very existence.

“We are heartbroken to be having to leave our ancestral land, but to survive, we must relocate to a safe place,” the 36-year-old school teacher tells IPS on a scratchy phone line, reverberating with the background sound of pelting rain.

“Our close-knit community of 72 people has experienced three severe tropical cyclones in one year. TC Harold in April 2020 and TC Ana in January 2021 caused extreme flooding, and TC Yasa in December 2020 completely consumed 23 of the 37 houses in the village. Not even a single post was left standing. The remaining homes, including ours, experienced widespread destruction,” says Curuki, who now lives with his wife, mother, two brothers and four children in a two-bedroom concrete home and a tent.

Fiji accounts for 0.006 percent of global carbon emissions, and it became the first country to ratify the 2015 Paris Agreement. But it, along with its other low-lying Pacific Island neighbours, is experiencing the catastrophic effects of climate change unfolding in a fast forward mode.

“Heavy rainfall has been triggering landslides and causing the riverbank to burst, flooding and severely damaging the crops – our only source of livelihood. In my life span, I have never seen anything like the destruction caused by TC Yasa. Most of the villagers are now living in tents scattered around the silt-covered remnants of what was once a thriving village with farms green with root crops,” says Curuki’s 63-year-old mother, Timaima, on the speakerphone as she chops cassava (tavioka) and dalo (taro) for lunch.

A quarter of Pacific Islands people live within 1 km of the coast. With the next cyclone season looming, the people of Cogea are awaiting relocation as a matter of urgency.

Sepesa Curuki’s mother Timaima and his daughter Lupe prepare dinner. Credit: Sepesa Curuki

Fiji had released its relocation guidelines in 2019, which stated that “planned relocation represents an option of last resort”. Human mobility is established as a priority human security and national security issue in the country’s National Climate Change Policy 2018-2030. The government has established the Climate Relocation of Communities Trust Fund (CRCTF) to relocate communities forced to move to safe areas by climate change-induced rising seas and extreme weather.

To improve evidence-based decision making in disaster preparedness and response and access to climate change adaptation and mitigation finance, the UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme (IPP) CommonSensing supports Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to use satellite remote sensing-based earth observation (EO) data.

The project is being implemented by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) through its UN Satellite Centre (UNOSAT) with a consortium of partners, including the Commonwealth Secretariat, which is spearheading the access to climate finance component of the project.

“We provide technical assistance to Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, through the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub (CCFAH), working towards using the geospatial-based CommonSensing platform to make better, more robust proposals for accessing climate finance, and support long-term decision-making,” says UnniKrishnan Nair, Head of Climate Change Section at the Commonwealth Secretariat.

“CommonSensing uses satellite data for calculating baseline conditions and for measuring the climate-related changes over time in aspects, such as deforestation, sea-level rise, flooding, land degradation, fisheries, coastal protection and food security. This concrete evidence-based data, which shows the impact of climate change on vulnerable communities and what can make them more resilient, makes the rationale for funding much stronger,” Nair tells IPS.

Of the international climate finance available, only three percent went to Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in 2017-18. A report compiled by the Fijian Government and the World Bank said Fiji would need to spend $4.5 billion over the next ten years on measures to adapt to climate change.

To support the development of climate change project proposals, capacity-building and project implementation, the CCFAH embeds Commonwealth National Climate Finance Advisers (CNCFA) in government departments of these countries.

Sepesa Curuki at his home in Cogea Village in Fiji. The impact of climate change has meant the village is no longer safe for this teacher and his family.

“The EO tools can help SIDS to develop and implement green stimulus measures and also in the process of revising and implementing their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as the ability to access climate finance effectively becomes increasingly relevant,” Katherine Cooke, CNCFA for Fiji, tells IPS.

“We have recently conducted Climate Finance ‘Writeshop’ training for government officials and stakeholders in Fiji in the use of CommonSensing data to meet the complex requirements of climate finance applications. It focused on three project proposals: Fiji Rural Electrification Fund – Mitigation; Climate Change Relocation – Adaptation; and Decarbonization of public bus transport in Fiji – Mitigation,” Cooke adds.

EO technologies and data in enabling better access to climate finance is still in its early stages. It is currently being trialled for Disaster Risk Reduction and Response and Adaptation.

As UNITAR-UNOSAT Geographic Information Systems (GIS) expert, Leba Gaunavinaka, who is embedded with Fiji’s Ministry of Economy, tells IPS: “In the event of natural disasters and the three recent Tropical Cyclones that hit Fiji, the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) activates their National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) and divisional EOCs coordinating response. We join them with other governmental representatives as part of the joint task force UNOSAT provides satellite imageries and GIS support to the team engaged with planning and deployment for distribution of relief in the immediate aftermath.”

These activities include tracking the cyclone path with the latest updates from the Fiji Meteorological Service and mapping impacted communities (potential population and households affected) with the Fiji Bureau of Statistics, mapping post-disaster assessments with UNOSAT rapid mapping support, and producing on-demand GIS maps for routes taken by deployed teams.

Gaunavinaka says, “NDMO’s GIS team provides updates to the daily situational reports (SITREPs). For TC Ana, there was widespread flooding due to the intense and prolonged rainfall that followed. UNOSAT supported with a flood susceptibility map (using height above nearest drainage method), and this was also shared with government stakeholders”.

“There is a trend to use offline apps for capturing data by actors on the ground and later sync when there is internet connection. Now there is an active OpenStreetMap (OSM) Fiji community supported by the HOT’s Community Impact Microgrant running monthly mapathons to crowd-source information updating Fiji’s building outlines coverage of OSM. One can also find areas where there are data gaps in building outlines and where OSM mappers aim to focus on, from UNOSAT’s Data Quality Assessment Tool available from the DSS tool on the CommonSensing Platform,” she adds.

Based on the available data, users can benefit from understanding the overall risks their communities are prone to and what priority interventions can be deployed to reduce vulnerabilities and improve coping capacities.

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Vineil Narayan on Vio Island in Lautoka. Narayan is climate finance expert who talks about how the CommonSensing project is assisting small island states with finance and tools to mitigate climate change and its devastating effects.

By Neena Bhandari
Sydney, Australia, Sep 10 2021 (IPS)

The UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme (IPP) CommonSensing is led by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) through the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), which is working with selected partners including the Commonwealth Secretariat, to improve resilience to the effects of climate change in Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

Vineil Narayan, Climate Finance Specialist and Head of Climate Change and International Cooperation Division, Ministry of Economy, Fiji, talks about the use of CommonSensing data in climate change adaptation and mitigation; and its potential in accessing the much-needed climate finance.

Neena Bhandari: How easy or difficult has it been for Fiji to access climate finance?

Vineil Narayan: Climate finance is a broad term, which includes public and private sectors. For Small Island Developing States (SIDS), particularly in the Pacific, one of the key issues is to be able to attract appropriate financing for climate-centric projects and development programmes.

There’s a massive mismatch between climate finance mobilised and climate finance needs of the region. In the public sector space, it has been relatively less difficult for us to attract climate finance that’s coming through bilateral support from countries or the Green Climate Fund (GCF). But we have been struggling to attract climate finance at an appropriate scale from the private sector. It is because we’re competing against larger economies with greater returns and potential for investors.

CommonSensing tracks Cyclone Harold through the Pacific Islands using data from satellites. The severe tropical cyclone caused widespread destruction in the Solomon Islands, Vanautu, Fiji and Tonga in 2020. Credit: CommonSensing

NB: Why time is of the essence for accessing climate finance for Fiji and other Pacific Island countries, which are facing immediate impacts of climate change and are more vulnerable to its consequences?

VN: In countries such as the United States and Australia, the impacts of climate change, for example, frequency and intensity of bushfires, are only being felt now and people are recognising that climate change is actually happening. But for us in the Pacific, climate change has been a fundamental development challenge for decades. It has already stifled our development progress over a long period of time. The urgency for climate action is not new for us in the region. ‘Time is of the essence’ is something that we’ve been saying to the world for so many years.

When The Paris Agreement was being discussed, the Pacific countries particularly demanded limiting temperature target to 1.5 degrees Celsius to reduce climate impacts. We have villages blown off the map due to storms. We have communities that are disappearing due to sea-level rise. It is posing a significant threat to our low-lying atoll neighbours like Kiribati and Tuvalu. They will disappear within the next few decades if we are not able to curtail rising sea levels expedited by climate change.

Climate change is an immediate existential threat for us. It underscores the need for immediate action and for that we need to increase and expedite the mobilisation of climate finance at a significant amount for adaptation and mitigation.

CommonSensing uses satellite remote sensing capabilities to support the Governments of Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu in their efforts to build resilience to the devastating impacts of climate change and improve access to climate finance. Credit: CommonSensing

NB: How are you using the CommonSensing tools for climate change relocation and disaster risk reduction and response?

VN: Information is power. When adaptation projects and programmes from SIDS go to the GCF, we are asked: What’s the adaptation rationale? It baffles me because the impacts of climate change and the need for adaptation is clearly reflected in the national development priorities, particularly those of the Pacific Island countries. So, for us to be asked to rationalise it is like a slap on the face.

To develop that climate rationale, one of the key things is to have appropriate access to data and information, which are crucial for mobilising finance. The CommonSensing Project helps us to provide that evidence-based rationale to access greater climate finance.

The CommonSensing team, working with United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), has been instrumental in helping to map out both disaster response measures and needs. For example, mapping out what would be the level of disaster impact based on the trajectory of a cyclone – number of households in that area, population, number of bridges, water facilities and other infrastructure information, as well as identifying what’s the level of damage and coverage that would be needed for disaster risk reduction and response. This is something that the CommonSensing Project has actually helped the National Disaster Management Office with, doing post-disaster mapping of areas impacted by three major cyclones that have hit Fiji over the past 14 months.

With regards to relocation, it is important that when you relocate a community from point A to B, you are able to take into account the geospatial dynamics and hazards. In the past, a relocation happened where a coastal community was moved, but torrential rainfall and limited geospatial knowledge of that area resulted in landslides.

The CommonSensing Project helps us to better understand, for example, the safe elevation level of a particular area where we want to relocate a community; how far away it is from the school, the electricity grid, the road? This geospatial information and hazard mapping is very powerful for us to be able to make informed policy decisions on whether and how to relocate a community.

In addition to that, the Fijian Government has developed the Planned Relocation Guidelines, which helps government agencies better understand what roles and responsibilities they have when it comes to relocating a community. We need to consider not only the infrastructure movement but also socio-economic livelihood transition and customary obligations to ensure that the community being relocated is accepted by the community, where they are being relocated.

We are also developing a standard operating procedure – a step-by-step process of how a community will be relocated. As part of the standard operating procedures, one of the fundamental things is to do a Climate Vulnerability Assessment of a particular community. And within that risk assessment, one of the key steps is to use CommonSensing data to be able to ascertain whether that community or that area in which the community is from, is actually facing geospatial hazards.

The geospatial CommonSensing data helps to identify whether sea-level rise would be an issue; what would be the appropriate vegetation around a particular area so we are able to better understand what would be the livelihoods of that community. For example, if we move a coastal community, which is dependent on fishing, inland then there will be a need for capacity building and livelihood assistance for them to transition from being a fishing community to an agricultural community.

This robust CommonSensing data helps in informed decision making when it comes to relocation work and post-disaster needs assessments.

NB: What is the potential of this satellite-based Earth Observation data for accessing climate finance?

VN: Currently, we are not using this data to access climate finance, but that is our ultimate aim. We would like to weave this information into our future climate finance applications to make them bankable. We’re not only working on doing that, but as part of the CommonSensing Project, we are also receiving support from the Commonwealth Climate Finance Access Hub.

For four weeks, we’re currently getting together 19 teams of stakeholders in workshops to develop project proposals by using CommonSensing data. These project proposals will feed into the project pipeline for the Fijian Government that we want to submit to the GCF for funding

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Courtesy of Josephine Ojiambo

By Josephine Ojiambo
LONDON, Mar 21 2015 (IPS)

Undoubtedly, we are at a crucial time in the advancement of gender equality.

As we move towards consensus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we must ensure the rights of women and girls are firmly embedded in the post-2015 development framework.It was during my first electoral campaign that I came face-to-face with a patriarchal political system fuelled by corruption and violence, including sexual violence against women campaigners, candidates and the electorate.

Twenty years ago, leaders and global activists met in Beijing and created what was the most progressive roadmap to champion the rights of women – the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

As we celebrate the anniversary of this landmark declaration, we must also caution against complacency as countries renew efforts to remove barriers that block women’s full and equal participation in all sectors of society.

An issue of serious concern remains the under-representation of women in politics. Until women are adequately represented at the highest level of policy making and decision making, we cannot hope to achieve the development aspirations of half the population.

We must accelerate efforts to reach the internationally agreed targets of 30 per cent representation of women in political decision-making roles.

The Commonwealth has made significant progress towards increasing women’s political participation. Out of 43 countries globally that have reached or exceeded the 30 per cent target, more than a third are Commonwealth countries.

We have seen the introduction of important measures to redress the lack of women in political leadership, such as quotas and national gender policies.

In India and Bangladesh, for example, constitutional amendments to reserve one-third of all local government seats for women have led to the election of over one million women.

These achievements are good but not good enough. Women continue to be marginalised, oppressed, and subjected to violence and cruelty – female genital mutilation, early and forced marriage, trafficking, slavery and sexual violence.

A culture of impunity prevails when it comes to prosecuting and preventing such violations. Under these current conditions, is it any wonder that only 22 out of 193 countries have a woman as head of state or government?

I recall my own formative political experience in Kenya: my mother became the country’s first female cabinet minister in the early seventies, and remains a formidable politician even today. I witnessed the hardships she endured to rise through the ranks, and the adversity she faced when in office, as well as her successes and achievement.

I too had a similar experience when I joined the oldest political party in Kenya, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), as a volunteer and youth activist.

Over a period of 24 years, I rose through the ranks as a professional volunteer. This role granted me presence and agency; it ushered me forward to eventually be voted in as the first female secretary-general of the party.

It was during my first electoral campaign that I came face-to-face with a patriarchal political system fuelled by corruption and violence, including sexual violence against women campaigners, candidates and the electorate.

I learned many lessons during my experience in grassroots electoral politics – the sharing of good practices, the solidarity of sisterhood within the women’s movement, and the true support of key male champions.

Globally, however, women’s political participation continues to be thwarted by innumerable obstacles. Discrimination against women is rife.

Financial resources available to women to run political campaigns are scant or non-existent. Conflicts between work and family can be overwhelming.

We are all familiar with the tired saying, ‘a woman’s place is in the home’; it is exactly this type of regressive narrative that sets women back. Challenging gender-based stereotypes is still an ongoing, uphill battle.

Therefore, we must find ways to create inclusive and enabling environments where women are able to realise their full political, economic and social potential.

We must turn our attention to paving the way for future generations. Creating pathways that enable more young women to enter the ranks of political leadership is fundamental.

Education is the single most important tool to achieve this. Yet, women and girls continue to be denied the same opportunities afforded to their male counterparts.

Statistics show, overwhelmingly, that countries with higher levels of gender equality have higher economic growth. Nevertheless, patriarchal systems continue to downgrade the value women offer society as a whole.

Our Commonwealth Charter recognises that: “Gender equality and women’s empowerment are essential components of human development and basic human rights. The advancement of women’s rights and the education of girls are critical preconditions for effective and sustainable development.”

To this end, we will work closely with member governments to fulfil international commitments in line with the stand-alone goal agreed at the 58th session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Going forward, we seek to increase women’s participation in the political and corporate sectors through electoral and legislative reforms. We continue to push for the elimination of violence against women and girls in all Commonwealth countries.

Advancing women’s economic empowerment is another priority area. It is the social responsibility of governments to improve women’s enterprise and encourage business activity, thereby strengthening women’s economic power – one of the measures of overcoming poverty.

There is much work to be done. We must now deliver on promises to secure women’s equal participation in all echelons of society. We owe it to more than half of the global population to do a better job.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

A seawall in Dominica. A recent report has called for specific measures to protect small islands from sea level rise. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten, Jul 2 2014 (IPS)

As the costs of climate change continue to mount, officials with the Commonwealth grouping say it is vital that Small Island Developing States (SIDS) stick together on issues such as per capita income classification.

Deputy Commonwealth Secretary General (Economic and Social Development) Deodat Maharaj told IPS the classification affects the ability of countries like Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and others to access financing from the international financial institutions.

“To my mind, the international system has to take special consideration of countries such as Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and others,” he said.

“The example I like to use is the example of Grenada. You would recall Hurricane Ivan about 10 years ago. It damaged about 70 percent of the housing stock in Grenada. It cost a billion U.S. dollars in damages, equivalent to two years GDP.

“So the countries in the Caribbean can move from high income or middle income to almost zero income with an economic shock or natural disaster,” Maharaj added.

Maharaj, whose appointment took effect earlier this year, said the Commonwealth is preparing “an analytical framework based on research, a case, so that countries such as Grenada when there is a natural disaster their international debt obligation for a particular period of time will be suspended so that they don’t have to continue to pay their debt when it is that they have suffered a natural disaster.”

On the issue of collaboration, one of only three female prime ministers in the Caribbean has reaffirmed her country’s commitment to dealing with climate change and all the issues associated with the global phenomena.

“I would like to reaffirm my strong belief in collaboration with other nations,” Sarah Wescot-Williams, the prime minister of St. Maarten, told IPS.

“Economic issues have forced us to look at ways and means of getting together and we are working collaboratively with other Caribbean nations to mitigate the effects of climate change as well as social issues of unemployment, crime and health.”

Prime Minister of St. Maarten Sarah Wescot-Williams (left) and Chair of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation Beverly Nicholson-Doty. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

St. Maarten recently developed and approved its National Energy Policy “and as such we have very specific goals and objectives to reach by 2020 in terms of reduction and promoting alternative, new green ideas, new green products,” Wescot-Williams explained.

She reiterated a point made while addressing regional leaders recently. “I told them we should not only look out for the bigger impacts of climate change or look at those developments as something that is far from us, far from our homes, but look at small things like beach erosion, something that St. Maarten is seeing.

“A report has been issued not very long ago indicating that unless specific measures are taken, a great part of what is now land will no longer be as far as the smaller islands, including St. Maarten, are concerned.”

How they are ranked by financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank is a major issue for Caribbean countries.

Camillo Gonsalves, a former ambassador to the United Nations, says it affects these countries’ ability to secure the required funding to effectively deal with climate change.

He noted that most Caribbean countries are ranked as middle-income countries, and using that metric alone makes his country, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, with its one-billion-dollar Gross Domestic Product (GDP), “richer than China”.

“If that is the metric by which we determine economic health and access to concessionary financing, and our ability to borrow ourselves out of a crisis or to spend ourselves out of a crisis, it is clearly a flawed measure,” he said.

He noted that within three hours last Christmas Eve, a trough system left damage and loss in St. Vincent equal to 17 percent of GDP, while the country also suffered natural disasters in 2010, and 2011 – the loss and damage from each of which was in double digits.

This, however, is the measure by which the World Bank, the IMF determine the economic strength of Caribbean countries, Gonsalves said, adding that these international institutions do not consider the region’s vulnerabilities.

“The Caribbean small island developing states are among the most heavily indebted states in the world,” Gonsalves said, noting that the debt-to-GDP ratio in the region ranges from 20 percent in Haiti – which received significant debt forgiveness after the 2010 earthquake – to 139 percent in Jamaica, with St. Kitts and Nevis and Grenada at 105 and 115 per cent, respectively, even as the European Union has set itself a debt-to-GDP ratio of 65 per cent.

“If your debt-to-GDP ratio is 139 percent and you are struck by a natural disaster… how do you borrow yourself out of that crisis? Where do you find money immediately to build your roads, your houses, your bridges, your hospitals that have been damaged? How can you set money aside in preparation for the next climate event if you have a debt to GDP ratio of over 100 per cent or approaching 100 per cent, and your debt servicing charges are that high?” Gonsalves said.

Agreeing with Wescot-Williams and Maharaj that there is strength in unity, Gonsalves, who serves as foreign affairs minister for St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said the upcoming Third United Nations Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in Samoa is an ideal opportunity for regional countries to do more than just talk about collaboration.

“The issue of how we are ranked and classified has to be rectified – not addressed, not flagged, not considered. It has to be rectified in Samoa. That has to be one of our prime objectives going into this conference,” he said.

The Samoa conference will be held from Sep. 1-4 under the theme “The Sustainable Development of Small Island States Through Genuine and Durable Partnerships”.

It will seek to assess progress and remaining gaps; renew political commitment by focusing on practical and pragmatic actions for further implementation; identify new and emerging challenges and opportunities for the sustainable development of SIDS and means of addressing them; and identify priorities for the sustainable development of SIDS to be considered in the elaboration of the post-2015 U.N. development agenda.

Maharaj said “one big challenge” for his organisation is the advancement of the interest of small states.

“When I think about the Caribbean and I think about development…we need to think about development not only in terms of five years, 10 years or 15 years,” he said.

“I would like to think about and imagine what will the Caribbean be in the year 2050 at the time when our grand- and great-grandchildren will be around and many of us won’t be here,” Maharaj added.

Dr. David Smith, coordinator of the Institute for Sustainable Development at the University of the West Indies (UWI), believes the Caribbean and other small states should look into payments for ecosystem services. Credit: Peter Richards/IPS

By Peter Richards
CASTRIES, St. Lucia, Apr 7 2014 (IPS)

Most Caribbean countries are famous for their sun, sand and warm sea breezes. Far fewer are known for their wide use of solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy.

It is one of the failings of the region, which is characterised by high external debt, soaring energy costs, inequality, poverty and a lack of human capital."Rather than have us just looking inside our own borders for solutions, we can look at other people’s solutions - or indeed other people’s mistakes." -- Dr. David Smith

The 53-member Commonwealth grouping is now trying to fill this knowledge gap with a new green growth analysis that circulated at last week’s third Biennial Conference on Small States in St. Lucia, although the formal launch is not until May.

Titled “Transitioning to a Green Economy-Political Economy of Approaches in Small States,” the 216-page document provides an in-depth study of eight countries and their efforts at building green economies.

Dr. David Smith, one of the authors, notes that none of the eight, which include three from the Caribbean – Grenada, Guyana and Jamaica – has managed on its own to solve the problem of balancing green growth with economic development.

The other case studies are Botswana, Mauritius, Nauru, Samoa and the Seychelles.

“What is useful about this book is that rather than have us just looking inside our own borders for solutions, we can look at other people’s solutions – or indeed other people’s mistakes – and learn from those and try to tailor those to our own situations,” said Smith, the coordinator of the Institute for Sustainable Development at the University of the West Indies (UWI).

Smith said that all the countries studied revealed that high dependence on imported energy and its associated costs are major factors constraining growth of any kind. Progress in greening the energy sector would have the great advantage of benefitting other sectors throughout the economy.

“Within our constraints we have to try and change that. We have to try and make sure we are much more energy sufficient and our diversity in terms of our sources of energy is increased,” he said.

St. Kitts residents welcome solar streetlights in areas they say have been dark and prone to crime. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Grenada’s Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell wants his country to become a “centre of excellence” for a clean and green economy that will result in the dismantling of an electricity monopoly with a high fossil-fuel import bill.

He said that despite help under the Venezuela-led PetroCaribe initiative – an oil alliance of many Caribbean states with Caracas to purchase oil on conditions of preferential payment – Grenada has one of the highest electricity rates in the region.

“We are now engaging with partners on solar, wind and geothermal energy to make Grenada an exemplar for a sustainable planet,” he told IPS.

Mitchell believes that the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) conference in Samoa this September must advance small states’ quest for energy that is accessible, affordable and sustainable.

“The threat of climate change is real and poses a clear and present danger to the survival of SIDS. We call on the international community to release long-promised resources to help small states like Grenada move more rapidly on our disaster risk mitigation and reduction efforts,” he added.

Last month, the University of Guyana announced that it was teaming up with Anton de Kom University of Suriname (AdeKUS) and the Beligium-based Catholic University of Leuven to be part of an 840,000-dollar programme geared at capacity-building in applied renewable energy technologies.

The overall objective is to improve the capacity of the Universities of Guyana and Suriname to deliver programmes and courses with the different technologies associated with applied renewable energy.

Natural Resources and Environment Minister Robert Persaud says that one of the biggest needs for the local manufacturing sector is the availability of cheap energy.

“For us, it is an economic imperative that we develop not only clean energy, but affordable energy as well, and we are lucky that we possess the resources that we can have both,” he told IPS. “The low-hanging fruit in this regard is hydro.”

When he presented the country’s multi-billion-dollar budget to Parliament at the end of March, Guyana’s Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh said that with the intensification of the adverse impacts of climate change, the government would continue to forge ahead with “our innovative climate resilient and low carbon approach to economic development backed by our unwavering commitment to good forest governance and stewardship”.

Guyana has so far earned 115 million dollars from Norway within the framework of its Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS). Singh said that this year, 90.6 million dollars have been allocated for continued implementation of the Guyana REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) + Investment Fund (GRIF).

“Guyana is on track to have the world’s first fully operational REDD+ mechanism in place by 2015. This will enable Guyana to earn considerably more from the sale of REDD+ credits than we do today,” he told legislators.

But the case studies showed that locating suitable and adequate financing for greening was a major constraint, even in those countries that had allocated government resources to green activities.

The study on Jamaica for example, noted that the country is still dependent on natural resource-based export industries and on imported energy, with debt servicing equalling more than 140 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). It said all these factors also contributed to constraining implementation of new policies.

With regard to financing, Smith argues that it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the World Bank to consider allowing countries to access concessional financing up and until their human development index hits 0.8.

“We want to look at renewable energy and lower cost energy. We want to make sure that the human and environmental capitals that we have within our countries are maintained,” he said.

Smith said the countries could look at the payment for ecosystem services, charging realistic rents for the use of their beaches and looking at ways debt can be used creatively.

He believes that the repayment should “not always [be] to reduce the stock of debt but at least to use the payments for something that will build either human capital or financial capital…that can be used for real growth and development.”

Seychelles Foreign Minister Jean Paul Adams (centre), flanked by Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma (left) and another Commonwealth official. Credit: Peter Richards/IPS

By Peter Richards
CASTRIES, St. Lucia, Mar 31 2014 (IPS)

As they fine-tune preparations for the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Conference in Samoa and the United Nations post-2015 development framework meeting in September, Commonwealth states are focusing on getting the international community to pay more attention to the challenges they face.

“One of the key reasons that climate change is actually a substantial topic in terms of the international arena is because of the advocacy of island states,” Seychelles Foreign Minister Jean Paul Adams told IPS at the 53-member Commonwealth‘s third Biennial Conference on Small States last week."We are vulnerable, but we are not weak." -- Seychelles Foreign Minister Jean Paul Adams

“I think we are vulnerable, but we are not weak. We’ve got a lot to offer, we have a lot of strengths and we must use those strengths,” he said.

The two-day meeting targeted five key areas of concern for small states, including redirecting funding for climate change initiatives.

“Exposure to environmental shocks, together with the deeply integrated nature of small states’ economies, social wellbeing and the natural resource base, make environmental management an important element of resilience building in these countries,” the Commonwealth said in an outcome statement.

It said the meeting shared ideas on environmental governance indicators for resilience-building and reviewed approaches to ocean governance to maximise the benefits accruing to small states from their extensive marine areas.

St. Lucia’s Foreign Minister Alva Baptiste said it was impossible to speak about development “if we do not consider sustainability and protecting our patrimony for succeeding generations.

“Less than 20 years ago, some of the most powerful nations on the planet were trying to dodge the warnings about climate change because they felt it was a problem of poor countries, but today as the devastation of climate change continues its decimating march across Europe, North America and other parts of the globe, the inescapable reality seems to be finally hitting home,” he said.

“So America has acknowledged that colder winters are not climatic accidents. Russia has accepted its warmer winter as a phenomenon of climate change, and Europe has recognised its wetter rains as climate change in action,” he said.

“There must be a recognition, especially among the richer nations, that regardless of our GDP (gross domestic product) status, we are resource-poor and in need of financial resources to undertake resilience-building work,” he said.

Delegates also highlighted the need for ocean forecasting to predict impacts from climate change; action on land-based sources of pollution; and efforts to strengthen oceans and seas issues in the Third International Conference on SIDS process (SIDS 2014).

Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma said the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat has the capacity to represent small island states within the international community on their concerns.

“The Commonwealth is the preferred interlocutor for the group of 20 working group on development and they look forward to all the input that we can bring from the outer world,” he told IPS.

“We say very often that 90 percent of the world’s GDP is on the table of the G20, but 90 percent of the world’s countries are outside [that bloc of large economies]. So who is going to make available the dilemmas and the anxieties and the expectations of the outside world? The Commonwealth does it in a variety of ways.”

Sharma said the grouping is in the process of developing a financial instrument that would stem the economic “free-fall” of any economy should it suffer from the downsides of global development.

“The instruments that we are developing now…are both on the concept of resilience as well as the practical tool kit for various types of counter cyclical loans; which means that once an external shock is experienced, your financial obligations get naturally and immediately readjusted’, Sharma said, hinting at a debt swap for climate change, “a practical suggestion now being considered by the international community at large”.

Adams said that small island states are among the first to feel the impact of climate change “whether it be through extreme weather events or sea level rise or other issues that affect basically how we are able to create wealth that can be shared amongst our people.

“We don’t have huge natural resources that we can suddenly start exploiting. We don’t have huge populations to get economies of scale so we have to look at the things that we are able to offer…and create a framework which is more conducive for those issues,” he told IPS.

Recalling the devastation caused by heavy rains to his island, Dominica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines over the Christmas holidays, St. Lucia’s Prime Minister Dr. Kenny Anthony said the question remains how much longer small states will have to lobby for an internationally accepted differentiated approach to aid for small states.

“You can turn to Grenada with Hurricane Ivan in September of 2004, where damages were well over a billion U.S. dollars, or nearly 200 percent of GDP,” he said. “You can go through nearly all the islands of the Caribbean and you would see the impact of such extreme weather events.”

The problems confronting the region are not limited to extreme weather events, he noted. Last week, the regional countries participated in a simulation for a tsunami.

“We have seen the earthquake destruction of Haiti in the year 2010 and the volcanic disaster of Montserrat. We have been warned to expect a ‘big one’, an earthquake of immense destructive power,” he added. “In response to these calamities, the pledges are often many; the delivery of the promises, not so many.”

He said the realities of climate change must catapult small states to be leaders in climate change adaptation, “because we exist largely as coastal populations threatened by sea-level rise, the bleaching of coral reefs and the desertification of some territories.”

“The economic and environmental imperative is that we commit more forcefully to renewable energy and energy efficiency,” Anthony said.

By IPS Correspondents
HARARE, Dec 9 2003 (IPS)

Zimbabwe, already in a dire economic, political and social situation, faces another bitter year ahead. The ruling ZANU-PF has declared war against the opposition, the West and the Commonwealth.

ZANU-PF, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, has threatened tough action against what it calls agents of Zimbabwe?s opposition and its western allies. It has also ordered the government to withdraw its membership from the Commonwealth.

?The message is clear. The Commonwealth is not vital for Zimbabwe to exist. We have decided to leave it because it is racist and does not respect our hard-won independence,? said one ex-combatant of the Zimbabwe?s 1970s war of liberation.

The commonwealth is an organisation of about 53 independent states which were formerly parts of the British Empire, established to encourage trade and friendly relations among its members.

Tapiwa Padera, a war veterans? leader, said there was no going back on the road ZANU-PF had taken to redress the hardships facing the majority of Zimbabweans.

He was speaking in a telephone interview with Inter Press Service after this year?s charged annual conference of the ZANU-PF at the weekend in the southeastern city of Masvingo.

President Robert Mugabe, who until the meeting had kept people guessing on his exit plans, has praised his party support for him, its decision to leave the Commonwealth and its backing of his land reform programme.

The former guerrilla leader celebrates his 80th birthday in two months. But he has dashed hopes for a new face to replace him, arguing that he is still fit, has the mandate of the people and will rule until they want him out, or when he feels too tired to go on.

Media commentators had predicted Mugabe would take advantage of the two-day conference and allow the ruling party to decide on his successor. He says that was never his idea.

Instead he has chosen war. ?Icho!? Mugabe shouted.

?Charira!? his followers responded, vehemently.

The slogan, coined during the liberation struggle of the 1970s, means ?The War Has Erupted? and ?direct confrontation?. It was abandoned in 1980 after Mugabe declared national reconciliation with the white minority settlers in Rhodesia (now renamed Zimbabwe), following independence.

One political commentator says its invocation now smells bad, especially for the labour-backed Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). And President Mugabe has made it clear the threat is genuine.

?Anyone who has a thought to destabilise us must take care that we can unleash (security) forces on him. I think the MDC have learnt their lesson,? Mugabe said.

?If they want to violate our rule, the law of the country? We can unleash legal violence, which we are permitted to do to correct violence. If they are throwing stones, naturally, some measure of force must be used to term them.?

Mugabe said Zimbabwe had taken the stance after London continued to use the MDC to remove him from power and stop seizure of farms owned by about 4,500 whites, who held more than half of the country?s prime land.

He said the opposition, to fulfil the scheme, has since launched ?strikes, demonstrations and senseless protests?. The white-run industry joined in, creating artificial shortages and hiking prices, while interest rates are shooting up at commercial banks.

Mugabe said the continued gold production also fails to reflect in the national reserves. The amount of the yellow metal the state handled annually in the recent past have since dwindled from between 27 and 29 tonnes to just 10 tonnes.

?But now, with the measures we took, I understand from the Reserve Bank that gold has now started flowing in,? he said, referring to the recent crackdown on illegal gold dealings in the country.

Mugabe said ?numerous factories? have also closed down for political reasons, to cause anger among the people and turn them against the government for the benefit of the Movement for Democratic Change.

He has announced measures to empower blacks for more goods production, which will cause competition and force prices down to counter the alleged sabotage. The state will now take full control to acquire inputs and make them available to the new producers.

Mugabe has lashed out hard at some senior members of his party who he says have become too greedy for money and adopted double standards, with ?one leg in the MDC and another leg in ZANU-PF.?

He accused the members of seizing plots allocated to ordinary people for either their own use or for relatives and friends.

Mugabe said his government had set up a committee to probe such people, who face unspecified action if they did not surrender the extra farms.

His administration, he said, would also deal with white farmers like the ?Nicole Brothers? in his home area in western Zvimba District, who are resisting the agrarian reforms.

Mugabe also said the state would intervene to ensure interest rates, which have now reached 400 percent, are not only harnessed but are also reversed immediately.

His pullout from the Commonwealth has been communicated to the group meeting in Nigeria, which media reports say received the statement Sunday, hours after it had further extended the suspension of the Southern African country.

President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria has been given personal charge to monitor the political climate in Zimbabwe, with hope to restore its membership. But the Southern African nation has already taken a stand.

Obasanjo, as well as the South African Head of State, Thabo Mbeki, and the Malawian Leader, Bakili Muluzi, is mediating between ZANU-PF and the MDC to bring them into talks to end their impasse. The three maintain their efforts are proceeding well and a solution is possible soon.

However, the MDC dismisses the statements as misleading. It complains against continued rights violations, while its petitions against the presidential and legislative poll results stand in the High Court.

The state has also not dropped treason charges against MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, accused of plotting to kill Mugabe before last year?s presidential poll. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

ZANU-PF?s conference had raised hopes for an end to Western-led sanctions and normalisation of the strained international ties, to return the economy back on track. But the party?s weekend declaration to quit the Commonwealth has shattered those expectations.

The Commonwealth last year suspended Zimbabwe after accusing the ruling party of grabbing white-owned farms, vote rigging and rights violations against the opposition. Mugabe, who enjoys support from some developing countries like South Africa and Cuba, says the accusations and the sanctions are racist plans to derail his land reform programme.

Zimbabwe used to export food surplus. But the land grab and poor planning, as well as sanctions, the Cyclone Eline of 2000 and two successive dry seasons, have forced the country to beg for its staple grain, maize. About six million people, half the country?s population, need food aid now.

Excerpt:

By Sanjay Suri
ABUJA, Nigeria, Dec 7 2003 (IPS)

Heads of government have accepted an increase in funding for civil society initiatives through an increase in the budget for the Commonwealth Foundation.

The Commonwealth Foundation is an independent Commonwealth institution that supports civil society and people’s initiatives in member countries. The Foundation is building itself up to a "people’s Commonwealth".

The Foundation was established in 1965, but has become far more active in recent years. The heads of government meeting in Coolum in Australia two years back mandated a far stronger role for it.

The precise increase in budget has not been announced yet, but the increase is expected to be "not insubstantial", an official said. The Commonwealth Foundation has at present a budget of 4.3 million dollars a year.

The budget increase follows a presentation by director of the Commonwealth Foundation Colin Ball to heads of government Friday.

As Ball put it, governments need to "acknowledge the need to review the level of assessed contributions which members make to create the resources needed to do the job."

The Foundation focuses its resources more closely now on supporting the priorities and tasks inherent in CHOGM decisions, but they are insufficient, he said.

"A modest increase in the level of assessed contributions, together with more voluntary contributions by governments to particular Foundation activitiesàwould be of great assistance," he said.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo who was in the chair asked heads if they had any objection to increasing the budget of the Foundation. There were none. Obasanjo declared that this meant that an increased budget was now accepted.

Ball urged heads of government to visit the people’s market set up at the Yar’Adua centre where the Commonwealth People’s Forum was held. The market was held up as more than a symbol of a people presence in the CHOGM process.

"During the first three days alone over 34,000 people visited the Commonwealth Market," Ball said.

"Here, and through our work over the past two years, civil society is urging us to do even more to strengthen the quality and extent of its engagement and partnerships with governments and the Commonwealth," he said. "We need your urgings, and we urge you to heed them too."

The heads of government were given about one hour in their schedule for an optional visit to the Commonwealth market set up by the Commonwealth People’s Forum. "I urge all present to participate, see civil society in action and heed the voices and messages," Ball said.

The hour that could have gone into this was taken up by delayed meetings and a tree-planting ceremony. But it was not an entirely blank hour at the market. Leaders from Tanzania and Barbados visited the market early in the afternoon, and leaders from Papua New Guinea and Lesotho visited the Yar’Adua centre where the Commonwealth People’s Forum has held most of its meetings.

Earlier on Friday it was spouses who visited the market and the centre. Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II who is the formal head of the Commonwealth visited the market, Cherie Blair, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited the Yar’Adua centre.

To civil society activists the low score among a total of 54 heads of government was further indication that most heads of government had more time for politics and business than for direct people activities.

Civil society groups have been trying to get through to heads of government even if they cannot meet them.

"Many statements, reports and communiqués will reach you from these activities," Ball said. "I hope in your own Communiqué heads will acknowledge these contributions and thus reassure civil society that its voice is being heard."

Besides accepting an increase in funding, the heads of government accepted a "framework for action" proposed by the Foundation. This framework provides for recognition that civil society makes "positive and vital contributions to development and democracy."

It envisages the strengthening of civil society, more citizen participation in governance and greater facilitation of civil society contribution to Commonwealth priorities.

Excerpt:

By Toye Olori
ABUJA, Dec 5 2003 (IPS)

The bi-annual Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting got underway in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, Friday with traditional dances and a parade of flags from the group’s 54 member states.

The head of the Commonwealth, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth the second, declared the summit open, saying that although the organisation had evolved over the years, it had also maintained its support of equality and inclusiveness.

“We have been able to retain our fundamental principles and values of democracy, rule of law and gender equality for human development. I have always been struck by the Commonwealth example of multilateralism which has allowed members, no matter what their level of development, to have their voices heard,” she told government leaders.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) is being held under the theme: “Development and Democracy: Partnership for Peace and Progress”.

Commenting on this, Queen Elizabeth said: “Democracy gives people a chance to be heard on how their government should be run. Underdevelopment is the greatest threat to democracy.”

In the same vein, Commonwealth Secretary-General Don Mckinnon noted that trade was one of the main instruments that could be used to fight poverty, which is ravaging several of the group’s member states. He called for enhanced trade relations within the Commonwealth, with richer countries getting “more and more generous”.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is taking over the chairmanship of the organisation, challenged members to develop fresh strategies for resolving the problems that face their citizens – such as HIV/AIDS, corruption and terrorism.

“The Commonwealth must join the rest of the world in the fight against the ills of underdevelopment,” Obasanjo noted. “The club must make the desired impact on its numerous peoples and work for the attainment of the millennium development goals.”

These goals include commitments by the international community to eradicate extreme hunger, and achieve universal primary education by 2015.

The gracious words of the opening ceremony belied the tensions that have marked the run-up to this gathering.

The political crisis in Zimbabwe is again proving a divisive issue for the Commonwealth, with South African President Thabo Mbeki having failed in his bid to get Zimbabwean head of state Robert Mugabe invited to the CHOGM.

Zimbabwe was suspended from the group of former British colonies after holding a flawed presidential poll last year. A delegation of Commonwealth observers condemned the election, saying it had been marred by vote rigging and intimidation.

Earlier this year, McKinnon rebuffed efforts by South Africa to lift Zimbabwe’s suspension – citing a “broad view” that it should stay in place until the CHOGM. McKinnon also rallied opposition to having Mugabe invited to Nigeria.

Sources in Abuja now say that South Africa appears to have thrown its support behind a Sri Lankan candidate to run against McKinnon’s reappointment. This is being seen as the country giving him his come-uppance for maintaining a hard-line stance on Zimbabwe.

Mbeki favours a strategic position that draws Mugabe back into the international fold, and then allows him to exit graciously as an elder statesman.

But, a Commonwealth official noted, “Frankly, we sometimes do find difficulty with South Africa’s position.”

“Now it’s backing the Sri Lankan candidate (Lakshman Kadirgaman). Why? Is it pique at the Zimbabwe issue? If so, why? What results has its position (of quiet diplomacy) yielded?”

A spokesman for South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlaminu-Zuma, Ronnie Mamoepa, said she was still in consultation with the President and the cabinet about which candidate for the post of secretary-general the country would support.

The fielding of a Sri Lankan candidate is a curve ball for McKinnon who did not expect to face a leadership race. In line with Commonwealth rules, he can – and intended to – stay two terms. Now he will have to spend the time at CHOGM lobbying for his job.

The emerging view as talks got underway was that there had been no progress in Zimbabwe to justify the lifting of its suspension. McKinnon said efforts by his organisation to secure reforms in Zimbabwe had yielded a “total lack of success…We have not met for 18 months and Commonwealth officers have been denied visas”.

He added: “I have talked to every Commonwealth leader and there is more than one view on how to proceed on Zimbabwe. But the discussion is by no means an Africa versus the rest of the world one.”

Britain and Australia’s role in the United States-led war in Iraq also proved controversial, notably at the Commonwealth People’s Forum – a civil society summit held this week.

If Zimbabwe was to be chided for violating principles, then why not Britain and Australia which were in violation of the Commonwealth’s stated support for multilateralism, asked activists this week.

Pakistan is also suspended from the organisation. The measure was introduced in 1999, after a military coup that overthrew Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

However, the fact that the 2003 CHOGM is being held in Nigeria may give delegates and observers some hope about prospects for good governance amongst rogue members.

The outgoing Chairman of the Commonwealth – Australian Prime Minister John Howard – noted that the Abuja meeting, coming barely four years after Nigeria’s re-entry into the group, was of great symbolism.

Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth while the late General Sani Abacha was in power, from 1993 until 1998.

The 1995 suspension followed Abacha’s decision to execute nine members of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), including renowned activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.

MOSOP had been fighting for greater recognition of human and environmental rights in Nigeria’s south-eastern Ogoniland, which has yielded oil worth billions of dollars – little of which has found its way back to local communities.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
ABUJA, Dec 5 2003 (IPS)

As the Commonwealth People’s Forum heads toward the finish line, attention has shifted to the organisation’s Heads of Government meeting which begins in Nigeria today.

A hectic week of discussions, a people’s market and networking in the capital, Abuja, ended in a statement from the forum warning the Commonwealth that it needed to make itself relevant to the world by matching its principles more closely with practice.

The Commonwealth represents one third of the world’s nations. Non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) from 45 of the group’s 53 member states were at the forum, which was a summit for civil society, run alongside the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM).

In their message, NGO’s said that pledges made by Commonwealth governments should be audited by the group’s secretariat – to ensure that leaders lived up to their commitments.

Civil society groups also turned the scrutiny on themselves by examining what was needed to ensure that NGO’s remained accountable and responsive to those they claimed to represent.

This process was given added impetus by the people’s market. In addition to selling the usual fare of flowing fabrics, intricate baskets and books, it also put lessons about solidarity, gender equality and grassroots activism on show by bringing together NGO’s to learn from each other.

The Country Woman Association of Nigeria, faced with a banking sector blind to the needs of rural women, has begun to pack a female financial punch. Its African Traditional Responsive Banking project takes deposits as small as one naira – less than one American cent. Members save and then borrow from the fund.

"It works," said Alhaja Agoro, a spokesperson for the association. "These women could not talk and look someone in the face before. Now see them! They are talking confidently with hands on their hips because they know who they are, what they are worth – they don’t beg anybody."

Every day, NGO’s met to discuss how to merge the twin imperatives of democracy and development, which jointly form the theme of the CHOGM.

The feeling amongst many was that for democracy to lead to development, it was essential to give people a broader understanding of what democratic rule was all about – that it went beyond putting a tick next to a candidate’s name on a ballot sheet.

For this to be brought about, the right to information had to be assured. Civil society also had to become more active, particularly in countries where repression was acute. NGO’s were at pains to emphasise that these countries did not only include nations suspended from the Commonwealth, like Zimbabwe and Pakistan – but also states that were regarded as functioning democracies.

As the forum got underway, Human Rights Watch issued a report on Nigeria which found that political tolerance in the country was low. "President (Olusegun) Obasanjo’s promises of democracy mean little as long as people are being detained, tortured and shot simply for expressing views critical of the government," said Human Rights Watch representative Peter Takirambudde.

Over 50 civil society leaders also wrote a stinging open letter to the CHOGM imploring it to "give renewed priority" to repression in Zimbabwe. The country was suspended from the Commonwealth 18 months ago for being in breach of the organisation’s Harare Declaration. This sets out the Commonwealth’s principles on democratic governance.

"We express grave concern at the Zimbabwean government’s continued violation of the Harare Declaration and Commonwealth principles reflected in its continuing repression of civil society, the media, human rights defenders and the opposition," they noted.

The leaders said the Commonwealth had to ensure that the array of repressive laws which President Robert Mugabe has assembled to give a veneer of legality to his actions should be repealed. Harare also had to be persuaded to enter into "genuine dialogue" with the opposition about restoring democratic rule to the country.

But, will leaders pay heed to these demands? A theme that bubbled tensely beneath the surface of the people’s forum, was the growing conviction that civil society is cut off from the centres of power in the Commonwealth, because it has no direct interaction with the heads of government.

This sense of alienation was given physical expression when it transpired that civil society’s access to the CHOGM will be limited.

Responding to Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon’s statement that access was determined by member governments and that the issue needed to be aired in each country, a civil society leader said: "The truth, Mr. Secretary-General, is that I find it easier to meet my government at meetings like CHOGM."

McKinnon promised that he would compare NGO representation in the core decision-making structures of the Commonwealth with that of other inter-governmental fora. Earlier in the week, leaders of the people’s forum said that they were given a far louder voice at institutions like the World Trade Organisation and the World Bank.

Nonetheless, a glance through one of the key CHOGM documents, "Making democracy work for pro-poor development", reveals that civil society has already had a noticeable effect on the thinking of the Commonwealth.

Not only is Third World Network leader Martin Khor a co-author of the document. The report also begins the painstaking work of attaching concrete action plans to terms like "pro-poor" development.

"It is possible to learn from history and challenge the pessimism of those who question the association between development and democracy," say the authors. As this weekend’s talks get underway, Commonwealth leaders may try to side-step that association, but it’s unlikely they’ll be able to avoid it altogether.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
ABUJA, Dec 3 2003 (IPS)

Civil society organisations are scheduled to hold talks with Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon Wednesday, in the Nigerian capital – Abuja.

The discussions form part of events at the Commonwealth People’s Forum, a civil society summit that it taking place alongside the bi-annual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

McKinnon’s meeting will include what is politely termed a listening exercise, and an exchange of ideas with civil society groups. This exchange may become vigorous: the groups are becoming increasingly impatient with what they see as their marginalisation in the Commonwealth processes.

"There is a near revolt among civil society leaders," said a well-placed source working closely with the Commonwealth Foundation. "Even the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation have better systems for representations by civil society."

The source noted that civil society groups were obliged to deal with the Commonwealth Foundation. "That has meant that in effect we are formally cut off from access to the political wings of the Commonwealth," he said.

The foundation, funded by Commonwealth, is meant to strengthen links between civil society and member states, as well as between the states themselves.

Discontent amongst non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) is snowballing by the day. "There is a huge gap between rhetoric and reality," says Ezra Mbogori, a member of the Civil Society Advisory Board of the Commonwealth.

"The secretariat talks of a desire to help, but we haven’t seen it yet. When we really start talking about issues, they are nowhere to be seen. These concerns need to be put to the offices of the Secretariat," he added.

That concern will be expressed in talks with McKinnon. "If delegates feel frustrated and disappointed, then this cannot be just an exchange of niceties," Mbogori said. "We have reached a point where we feel this inherent politeness is not getting us anywhere."

He said civil society members need access to the heads of government "and a development of mechanisms that generate greater accessibility to both the Secretariat and the Foundation. After all, both organisations are funded by taxpayers".

Mbogori works for MWENGO, a group active in eastern and southern Africa. The Harare-based initiative focuses on lobbying governments on behalf of NGOs.

Silam Hassan, a trade union activist from Malaysia, says workers, the government and business have come together to sort out issues. So similarly must the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Foundation and civil society.

"We just don’t have enough say in what goes on," she says. "We are working with the people, and governments that take action in the name of the people must listen to us."

Excerpt:

By Sanjay Suri
ABUJA, Dec 2 2003 (IPS)

The Commonwealth will set up a new global index to measure socially responsible investment at a business forum in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, later this week.

The forum is being held to promote business with an eye on sustainable development, ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Abuja, (Dec. 5 – 8).

The move to link business with social responsibility – long the domain of civil society and do-gooders – has got several governments interested. As many as eight government leaders are turning up early in Abuja to attend the business forum.

“We have studies that show that many giant companies and pension funds prefer to invest in businesses committed to socially responsible development,” Mohan Kaul, Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth Business Council (CBC), told IPS. “But 97 percent of that investment goes into the developed world.”

The new index will link factors such as the gross national income of a country, its purchasing power parity and the investment it is drawing. The index will also suggest what is possible by way of investment in developing countries in the Commonwealth.

“We are talking to a major fund manager,” Kaul said. “There already is an (similar) index – like FTSE 4Good. But, we will create our own index.”

“While a lot of the investment is not going into developing countries, it is also true that many developing countries have not created a business environment that would encourage companies to compete in the international arena,” Kaul noted.

“At Abuja we are working for a manifesto for business and government together to remove obstacles to wealth creation.”

The moves are led by a new push for partnerships that involve private companies, the government and civil society.

The Commonwealth will also set up a certification system for companies that can be players in the international arena. This will give potential investors in the developed world pointers to companies they can do business with.

These moves by the CBC are more than just more “Commonwealth talk”. Regional forums organised by the grouping led to business worth more than three billion dollars in 1999, and 2.3 billion dollars last year, Kaul said. “The largest component of this was business between developed and developing countries,” he added, much of it in infrastructure, mining, power projects, telecoms and financial services.

And, the CBC has found unique ways to make these business marriages work.

Businessmen are persuaded to attend the business forums. Everyone who comes along gets a password and a homepage on the forum website, and access to everyone else who has registered. So you have everyone’s business interests on the dedicated website, and an idea what they are looking for.

The CBC assembles a diary and puts together everyone who ought at least to talk. It then asks what happened once they met, and offers to give matters a helping hand if nothing did. Some successes:

– The CBC played a part in getting MTN of South Africa to make a massive investment in the mobile telephone market in Nigeria. MTN executives were invited to meetings at the Ministry of Telecoms in Nigeria. MTN is now the leading mobile phone company in the West African country.

– The South African power giant Eskom Enterprises was put together with the National Electricity Production Agency (NEPA) in Nigeria. It now plans to take over several of the divisions into which NEPA has been divided.

– South Africa’s Shivacom company made a deal to sell pre-paid telephone cards in Mozambique, after business-to-business meetings set up by the CBC. The deal is expected to lead to several others.

Excerpt:

By Sanjay Suri
ABUJA, Dec 2 2003 (IPS)

The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting beginning in the Nigerian capital this week is committed to promoting development and democracy – both in heavy deficit among member countries. A report issued ahead of the meeting says that open government will be a key element in this process.

"Entrenching people’s right to access information is the most practical way of achieving this," says the report, entitled "Open Sesame". The document was prepared by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), a non-governmental organisation based in India.

The report asks leaders to implement immediately "liberal access to information laws developed by people and governments working in close cooperation." It says Commonwealth institutions must also put in place disclosure and information-sharing policies.

"Without this, the quest for robust democracy and rapid development will never be realised."

"Open government is notoriously absent in the majority of Commonwealth member states," the report notes. "Only 11 out of 54 Commonwealth countries have access to information laws." Others have guarantees in the constitution but few enabling laws to activate them.

Does this go back to colonial days and British rule? The Commonwealth is after all a group of countries that were once ruled by Britain. To a large extent, the answer appears to be "yes".

"Colonial authorities which owed no duty to subject populations purposefully used secrecy to signal their power and distance," the report observes. "A culture of secrecy permeated government, and systems to keep information from the public became embedded."

"Today, except in a handful of countries, governments enthusiastically retain and indeed embrace these symbols of supremacy as if there has been no intervening change from colonial to constitutional governance. Official secrets acts, preventive detention and anti-terrorist legislation, criminal defamation laws, overly indulgent contempt and privilege laws, media and privacy regulations and restrictive civil service rules all remain very much intact."

The report is asking the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting this year (CHOGM 2003) to declare that the right to information is central to democracy and development. And, CHRI will be looking to the Commonwealth to take specific steps in this regard.

It should assist member countries to design and implement effective access to information regimes.

It should also open up its own ministerial meetings and CHOGM’s "which currently remain so stubbornly inaccessible".

In addition, member countries must be required to report progress on the information-sharing front at each CHOGM, held every two years.

CHRI has also signaled that it will not be fobbed off by token efforts on the part of governments. The initiative is asking for proactive publication of information about, for example, the basic activities of government departments, their rules of operation and procedure, performance indicators and financial information, amongst other things.

"Governments do not own information," the report says. "Rather, information is a public good in much the same way as clean air, electricity and water.

To illustrate the importance of a free flow of information, the CHRI report points to countries like India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where some of the worst-off populations live.

Development strategies in these states have often failed because of the closed environment between governments and donors, without involvement of the people, the report says.

"Poor people know what they want but are out of the habit of questioning aloof governments."

Governments and donors have not been willing to open up, "Yet the Commonwealth insists that it is committed to development in partnership with people and civil society."

The Commonwealth is relying on free markets and equitable economic growth to quicken development, the report notes. However, "The right to information provides crucial support to the market-friendly good governance principles of transparency and accountability. Markets, like governments, do not function well in secret."

The document adds: "The free flow of information ensures that markets work for people rather than corporations. It helps level a playing field that is currently heavily skewed in favour of big business."

Right to information laws are necessary also to "peel back the layers of bureaucratic red tape and political sleight of hand and get to the ‘hard facts’," the report says. "Armed with information, even the most marginalised of citizens can take action in their own interests."

But the means of getting that message across to the leaders at the Abuja CHOGM will be the bureaucracy itself. Like the leaders at Abuja, the Commonwealth is on test this week for its support of open governance.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
ABUJA, Dec 2 2003 (IPS)

Civil society representatives have sent an urgent request to government leaders to hold talks with them Thursday, ahead of the official opening of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

In a letter signed and delivered Monday (Dec. 1) the 12 activists, who represent a wide variety of groups, laid a thinly veiled charge of double standards against the heads of government, when they pointed out that these leaders were expected to meet business representatives under the auspices of the Commonwealth Business Council.

"We find it bizarre that such a privilege is extended to the business community but not to civil society," said Martin Sime of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisation. At present, Abuja is also hosting a Commonwealth People’s Forum – a civil society summit that is being held alongside the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

Sources say that the Nigerian government is keen for such a dialogue to take place, but that other Commonwealth leaders are hesitant about the meeting. However, the civil society advisory committee says such talks would be consistent with the Commonwealth’s plans to refashion itself for the 21st century.

The civil society letter quotes from the Coolum Declaration, which was signed at a CHOGM held in Australia last year. "We are convinced of the need for stronger links and better two-way communication and coordination between the official and non-governmental Commonwealth, and among Commonwealth NGO’s", says the declaration.

The advisory committee wants a two-hour meeting on Thursday with a selected group of six heads of state and a limited number of civil society representatives, to discuss poverty eradication, world trade, and partnerships between government and civil society. They have also asked for Commonwealth Foundation Chair Graca Machel to lead the meeting.

Pointing out that the Commonwealth always called civil groups "partners", Simes said: "We don’t feel like partners at the moment."

Since the last CHOGM held about two years ago, civil society has become more organised and grown exponentially, says Simes, adding that the sector is increasingly taking responsibility for service delivery.

But since the Coolum meeting, little had been done to make concrete the pledges and commitments on partnership.

"At present it [the Commonwealth] lags behind other international institutions such as the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions, which have instituted direct links with civil society organisations," says the letter.

It adds that, "While Commonwealth meetings are valued as places where countries meet on more equal terms than in other international fora, at the same time civil society has less opportunity to engage than in other fora."

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
NEW DELHI, Dec 1 2003 (IPS)

Even as they enforce a ceasefire along the Kashmir border and make other peace overtures to each other, India and Pakistan continue to fight each other in multilateral forums.

They famously indulged in a slugfest three months ago at the U. N. General Assembly. The latest instance of their mutual rivalry concerns Pakistan’s continued suspension from the Commonwealth, the 54-nation association of the former colonies of the British Empire, which is scheduled a summit meeting of its heads of government in Abuja, Nigeria beginning Friday.

Pakistan blames India for the suspension. India is a member of an eight-member ministerial group that is looking at the progress Pakistan has made since Gen Pervez Musharraf’s coup d’etat against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in October 1999.

Islamabad claims that its exclusion from the Commonwealth on the ground that it ceased being a democracy is unjustified. In October last year, after all, it held parliamentary elections and now has an elected prime minister with his own Cabinet in place.

The domestic political opposition questions the authenticity of the official claim to democracy and argues that all power effectively rests with the president, a post to which Musharraf appointed himself.

Meanwhile, the Indian government would like the world to believe that Pakistan cannot be a genuine democracy – so deeply rooted is its politics in the culture of military authoritarianism and intolerant forms of Islam.

Both India and Pakistan are trying to leverage their positions and lobby friendly states over their Commonwealth status.

Their conflict could get aggravated over the coming election of the next secretary general of the organisation. The Sri Lankan president’s adviser and former foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, has thrown his hat into the ring. India is likely to back him strongly.

For that very reason, Pakistan is likely to lobby its Commonwealth friends against him. In the past too, India and Pakistan have often sparred with each other both inside and around the Commonwealth.

At one level, the tussle over the Commonwealth reflects something of a disconnect within the foreign policy establishments of both India and Pakistan, which have agreed to a Kashmir ceasefire and to working to restore aviation links severed nearly three years ago.

New Delhi and Islamabad are also likely to discuss trade cooperation and the launching of a bus service between the two divided parts of Kashmir. The present peace overtures between the two are the most significant since their relations all but broke down following a terrorist attack on India’s Parliament building in December 2001.

At another level, the conflict speaks of growing sensibilities in both countries about their global image.

Pakistan is acutely aware of the growing Western perception that it is not pulling its weight in the ‘war on terrorism’ and that many of its nationals are implicated in extremist groups in different countries, with covert support from the military Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

The Islamabad establishment wants to reform the situation and dispel that impression, and reclaim a democratic mantle – after many misses: Pakistan has had military rule for two-thirds of its independent political existence.

Islamabad also boasts that it has established good bilateral relations in the post-Sep. 11 situation with powerful members of the Commonwealth – and that it does not need formal Commonwealth membership.

For all the professed concern about democracy, Britain recently invited Musharraf on a state visit. A Pakistan foreign ministry official was quoted as saying: ”Our membership is more important for the Commonwealth in the changing global scenario, than for us.”

Indian leaders, on the other hand, are keen to promote their country as a ”brand”-a modern, forward-looking nation on the march, with a growing economy, high levels of talent in its population and an open society, where democracy has ”matured”.

Their manoeuvrings in the Commonwealth are of a piece with this. The India-Pakistan tussle highlights the question of relevance of the Commonwealth as an institution.

The Commonwealth has become the site of not one but two conflicts, the second one involving Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe stands accused of having rigged the recent presidential election.

Mugabe has not been invited to the Abuja summit. First, he lobbied for an invitation. Then, two weeks ago, he said he expected an invitation ”at the 11th hour”.

Now, Mugabe says Zimbabwe would quit the Commonwealth if it is not treated as an equal. ”If our sovereignty is what we have to lose to be readmitted into the Commonwealth, well, we will say goodbye to the Commonwealth, and perhaps time has now come to say so.”

Mugabe has exhorted other African nations to boycott the summit, but he received a strong rebuff from South Africa. This is considered a setback for Mugabe’s efforts to divide the Commonwealth into black and white camps.

South African political leaders have been quoted as saying that Mugabe’s exclusion from the Commonwealth ”could signal his fall from power”. This suggests that the Commonwealth still matters for some countries, especially in Africa.

Yet over the years, the grouping of Anglophone former colonies, including settler colonies like Canada, Australia and New Zeland, has declined in importance. Perhaps, the Commonwealth was at its most influential in the 1970s and 1980s, when it served as a forum of trenchant criticism of apartheid in South Africa.

Commonwealth summits generated tremendous moral and political pressure on the apartheid regime and helped shape global opinion against that obnoxious form of racism. The Commonwealth has certainly lost some of that shine, but still remains an arena for sideshows and symbolic conflicts.

Excerpt:

By Toye Olori
ABUJA, Dec 1 2003 (IPS)

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo opened the Commonwealth People’s Forum Sunday.

Cultural displays marked the colourful occasion. The people’s forum is a summit for civil society groups that is being held alongside the bi-annual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Nigeria’s capital – Abuja.

Colin Ball, Director of the Commonwealth Foundation that has organised the people’s forum, called on participants to make the most of the occasion.

“The week ahead is an opportunity for many things to happen, an opportunity that comes only once every two years,” he said.

“We must use it to the full…Above all we must do so by giving voice to the people we all serve…by hearing and learning from the voices of others across communities, across cultures, across genders, across generations, across faiths and across nations.”

Ball thanked the Nigerian government for helping to set up facilities for the gathering: “These facilities and the efforts that have brought them about were a real credit to this country and its great people.”

Nkoyo Toyo, Chairperson of the Committee of the Forum, called on Obasanjo to press leaders at the Abuja summit to work for a progressive partnership between civil society and governments.

“In furtherance of this aspiration, we are not in doubt that as you take over the leadership of the Commonwealth, you will demonstrate and work to expand in many ways the context and scope of the partnership,” she said.

Toyo added that the Commonwealth People’s Market, which has been set up at the forum, is symbolic. The market consists of 81 shops, and it has been made to resemble a typical Nigerian village. Toyo said it served as a message of support to other people across the world who made their living in villages and markets.

Culture and Tourism Minister Frank Ogbuewu praised the organisers for providing the opportunity for communities to meet and exchange views while the Commonwealth heads of government are in session.

Ogbuewu told the gathering: “Here at the Commonwealth market, you will be exposed to the…platform where the civil society and officials of the Commonwealth can interact and exchange views of common interest. It has been established to serve as a forum for cultural (events), entertainment and exhibitions of arts and crafts.”

The minister spoke of Nigeria’s enormous tourism potential, and urged visitors to the Abuja CHOGM to return to Nigeria for relaxation, and to establish business ties.

Bashir El-Rufai, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, said the forum was expected to showcase the cultural and commercial potential of Commonwealth member states – and their readiness for globalisation through the Commonwealth market.

He praised the contributions of civil society organisations, and their untiring efforts to support the Commonwealth of Nations. “The role of these organisations in strengthening our democracy and development, and the awareness that they raise in their activities in various areas, from health to education, women’s rights and HIV/AIDS, must be commended,” he said.

The village where the market has been set up makes for a picturesque site. The huts, with their thatched roofs, seek to give the feel of the village, and men and women in Nigerian dress complete the traditional touch.

Excerpt:

By Sanjay Suri
ABUJA, Nigeria, Nov 28 2003 (IPS)

The Commonwealth heads of government meeting, beginning in the Nigerian capital next week, is committed to promotion of development and democracy – both in heavy deficit among member countries. The answer is open government, says a new report ahead of the meeting.

"Entrenching people’s right to access information is the most practical way of achieving this," says the report ‘Open Sesame’ prepared by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI).

The report is asking heads of government to immediately implement "liberal access to information laws developed by people and governments working in close cooperation." It is asking the institutions of the Commonwealth itself to put in place disclosure and information sharing policies. "Without this, the quest for robust democracy and rapid development will never be realised," the report says.

"Open government is notoriously absent in the majority of Commonwealth member states," the report says. "Only 11 out of 54 Commonwealth countries have access to information laws." Others have guarantees in the Constitution but few enabling laws to activate them, the report says.

Does this go back to colonial days and British rule? The Commonwealth is after all a group of countries that were once ruled by the British.

That hangover can be heavy, the report says. "Colonial authorities which owed no duty to subject populations purposefully used secrecy to signal their power and distance," the report says. "A culture of secrecy permeated government, and systems to keep information from the public became embedded."

The report adds: "Today, except in a handful of countries, governments enthusiastically retain and indeed embrace these symbols of supremacy as if there has been no intervening change from colonial to constitutional governance. Official secrets acts, preventive detention and anti-terrorist legislation, criminal defamation laws, overly indulgent contempt and privilege laws, media and privacy regulations and restrictive civil service rules all remain very much intact."

The report is asking the Commonwealth heads of government meeting Dec. 5-8 (CHOGM 2003) to declare that the right to information is central to democracy and development.

The CHRI is seeking several specific measures from the Commonwealth:

– It must assist member countries to design and implement effective access to information regimes.

– It must open up its own ministerial meetings and CHOGMs "which currently remain so stubbornly inaccessible."

– Declarations are not enough; member countries must be required to report progress on this front at each CHOGM, held every two years.

The report is asking member countries to introduce liberal access to information laws by the next CHOGM in 2005. It is asking specifically for proactive publication of information about, for example the basic activities of government departments, their rules of operation and procedure, decision-making criteria, performance indicators, points of public access and financial information including expenditure.

"Governments do not own information," the report says. "Rather, information is a public good in much the same way as clean air, electricity and water. Government is a vast storehouse of information. The information kept by government holds the memory of the nation and supplies a full portrait of its activities and performance."

The CHRI report points to fundamental areas in which information becomes central to democracy and to development.

Take poverty. Many of the populations that are worst off live in India, Nigeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh, whose populations together amount to 90 percent of the Commonwealth. But development strategies have often failed because of the closed environment between governments and donors without involvement of the people, the report says.

"Poor people know what they want but are out of the habit of questioning aloof governments," the report says. But governments and donors have not been willing to open up. "Yet the Commonwealth insists that it is committed to development in partnership with people and civil society."

Access to information is a core feature of participatory democracy. But Commonwealth citizens are struggling because of lack of information. In India, for example, the criminal background of candidates is withheld from people, the report says, despite an order from the Election Commissioner.

The Commonwealth is relying on free markets and equitable economic growth to quicken development, the report says. "The right to information provides crucial support to the market-friendly good governance principles of transparency and accountability. Markets, like governments, do not function well in secret."

The report adds: "The free flow of information ensures that markets work for people rather than corporations. It helps level a playing field that is currently heavily skewed in favour of big business."

Guaranteed right of access to information is essential also for fighting corruption, the report says. "Corruption undermines democracy. It creates a culture of impunity destroying the rule of law and creating a class of overlords who need secrecy to keep their dark deeds hidden in dark places."

It is no coincidence that "countries with access to information laws are also perceived to be the least corrupt."

Right to information laws are necessary also to "peel back the layers of bureaucratic red tape and political sleight of hand and get to the ‘hard facts’," the report says. "Armed with information, even the most marginalised of citizens can take action in their own interests."

But the means of getting that message across to the leaders at the Abuja CHOGM will be the bureaucracy itself. Like the leaders at Abuja, the Commonwealth itself is on test for its support to open governance.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
OTTAWA, Nov 27 2003 (IPS)

Delegates to December’s Commonwealth summit can be forgiven if they are confused by Canada’s rhetoric as a free trade booster and by the country’s attempts to hold moral high ground as a champion of developing world issues, experts here say.

The Canadian government has several teams of foreign affairs officials working on agendas that are opposed to each other, says Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians, an umbrella group of anti-free trade activists, Canadian nationalists and pro-equality groups.

"Most of the Canadian officials going to the Commonwealth conference believe in what they say: that there should be further aid for developing countries, help for countries dealing with epidemics, and third world debt reduction," she said in an interview.

"But, at the same time, Canada’s trade minister and the top people in the government go around advocating the economic globalisation agenda and trade liberalism, which keep medicine from people who need it and support policies that undermine the environment and the rights of workers," she added.

"Canada supports the service agreement at the WTO (World Trade Organisation) and the World Bank’s programme for the privatisation of water. It’s hard to see how Canadian officials can justify these policies while claiming to support the interests of the bulk of Commonwealth countries."

Canada is an active member of both the British Commonwealth, a loose organisation of the United Kingdom and its former colonies, and the Francophonie, the group of countries that were French colonies or have a sizeable French-speaking minority.

Ottawa helped push South Africa out of the Commonwealth in the 1960s and Canadian officials pressed this year’s summit host country, Nigeria, to rescind its invitation to Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe for his harsh treatment of the country’s political opposition.

"You see a very schizophrenic view of Canadian policy when you compare the actions of the foreign affairs people who attend conferences like this and U.N.-sponsored events to the actions of people pushing Canada’s trade agenda," said Barlow.

"The people at this type of conference mean well, but they are not driving government policy," she said.

Tony Clarke, head of the Ottawa-based Polaris Institute, a public policy research organisation, says Canadian trade policies prevent the North-South redistribution of wealth advocated by bodies like the Commonwealth.

"Most of the developing countries that are members of the Commonwealth took a strong stand against the ‘Singapore issues’ (including foreign investment and patent protection) at the WTO meetings in Cancun."

"The developed countries, like Canada, wanted to expand the powers of the WTO to set new rules on investment, competition, government procurement and competition policy," Clarke told IPS.

"Countries like Malaysia (another Commonwealth member) oppose the developed world on these issues, but Canada supported greater powers for the WTO," he added.

As well, says Clarke, Canada has not pressed hard enough to end the government subsidies that have driven down agricultural prices and prevented developed countries from exporting.

"Canada’s agricultural policies are a little better than those of the U.S. and the European Union, but they’ve still done a lot to drive down prices for the products of the developing world."

"I don’t know how Canadian officials will be able to justify these policies when they meet with their Commonwealth counterparts."

The Canadian contingent will be led by Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who will leave office just a week after the end of the Commonwealth summit.

"The new administration is top-heavy with backers of the WTO and the globalisation agenda," says Barlow. "I doubt very much they’ll be listening to what members of the Commonwealth have to say."

Chretien, who backed the NEPAD initiative for African debt relief and introduced a bill that would have given African nations access to relatively cheap HIV and AIDS drugs, is being replaced by his former finance minister, millionaire businessman Paul Martin.

Martin is on record supporting debt reduction for developing nations and has promised to pass the generic drug bill, but is believed by most NGOs to be a strong supporter of the WTO, the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, and other trade liberalisation initiatives.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
MONTEGO BAY, Nov 27 2003 (IPS)

As the Commonwealth gets set to shine a spotlight on civil society and governance, Caribbean NGOs say that much needs to be done to ensure that civil society’s participation in helping to build societies goes beyond lip service..

A major part of the problem is the constant under-funding that plagues many NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and community-based groups, they add.

"We’re struggling because we depend mostly on international donors, and most of our work is actually through project funding. Most of the time we do not get core funding (for administrative and recurrent expenses), and that is why most (NGOs) become dormant and are less efficient," says Amsale Maryam, chairperson of the Association of Development Agencies (ADA), an umbrella group of 13 NGOs in Jamaica.

As a lead-up to December’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Nigeria, over 60 senior government officials from 40 Commonwealth countries met with NGO representatives in London earlier this month.

Civil Society organisations there called on governments to provide financial and other resources to support their work.

Maryam believes that civil society has earned the right to demand financial support from government.

"I would use the word compensated, because we are doing a lot of work on the ground, in the community," she said in an interview, noting that she has heard similar calls from groups in other Caribbean countries.

"For umpteen years, civil society has been making a difference for government. Right throughout the Caribbean, NGOs are making a difference and they too are calling on government to say, ‘value our work, by assisting us financially, build our capacity and we can deliver more, because you have seen our work’," Maryam adds.

But Judith Wedderburn, director of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), a private non-profit organisation that fosters dialogue between society’s players, notes that there can be complications when NGOs accept government funding in the small, often politically polarised countries of the Caribbean.

"There are several NGOs and CBOs (community based organisations) in Jamaica, depending on the nature of their work, who do receive a government subvention. Some NGOs feel that it is their right, that they’re doing credible community work and that therefore they should (receive financial help from government)."

"There are others who don’t want anything at all to do with government because in our political system, there could always be the perception that if you got assistance from this particular government than you must therefore support the government, and that if the government changes, you’re in trouble," adds Wedderburn.

She says the problem becomes more intense in the smaller islands.

"There have been cases where in fact, NGOs, CBOs have used their organisations as a front for (political) opposition work, which really messes up the credibility of the organisation."

"Where that has happened in a particular country it has taken years for other NGOs to come out from under that shadow and to demonstrate that ‘yes, we may be critical of the government but we’re not interested in opposition politics, we just happen to disagree with your policy’," Wedderburn adds.

In a recent survey, three-quarters of more than 200 civil society groups polled in the region said that inadequate financial resources was "the major constraint on effective operations of NGOs/CBOs".

Meaningful participation in governance was another problem cited in the survey by The Caribbean Sustainable Economic Development Network (CSEDNet).

Although an average of 78 percent of respondents in 12 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries said they participated at a high level in policy-making exercises, just over 55 percent said they were satisfied with their actual influence on decision-making.

Maryam agrees there is a disconnect between participation and influence.

"There’s still too much lip service, meetings for the sake of meetings. And sometimes everything else has been agreed and you’re called to say yes you were present, just to say civil society was there."

Caribbean civil society groups called strongly for more meaningful participation at one in a series of regional consultations earlier this year under the auspices of the Commonwealth Foundation. Other regional discussions were held in India, the UK, Kenya, New Zealand and Gambia, Africa.

The 30 Caribbean groups focused on encouraging government to increase civil society’s participation in governance.

There was, for example, a call for legislation to be enacted that would: recognise civil society organisations and their participation in democracy, governance and development; provide permanent spaces for groups’ involvement in government delegations to regional and international meetings; and establish national and regional information disclosure policies.

But there are also calls for civil society to practise some of what it preaches.

At the London meeting between senior government officials and NGOs, the officials raised concerns about governance of civil society organisations, especially their transparency and accountability. They also called for the development of a code of conduct for civil society.

Wedderburn says that make a lot of sense.

"I think (a code of conduct) is very important because while civil society organisations are in fact critical of government, and call for transparency and accountability to their constituents, it needs to apply to both sides."

"I think that a code of conduct would be the place for that to be enshrined, and it needs to be developed by civil society themselves," she adds.

Wedderburn believes that increased collaboration and specialisation are also critical to strengthening the region’s NGOs and boosting their credibility.

"It appears to me that there are some NGOs that are surviving because they have developed an expertise, like the Jamaica Foundation for Children," she says.

"You can’t be all things to all people, so whatever is your vision and programme commitment, your plan of action should seek to really develop your capacity to be strong at that, so when you speak, you speak with authority."

Another problem NGOs in Jamaica in particular have faced, Wedderburn says, is scepticism from government.

"There are persons in the political directive … who don’t understand that a young man or young woman representing a CBO but not carrying a partisan position can have a credible position, so there is that dilemma."

"But there are a number of people who have persisted, insisting that ‘yes, we do represent a credible position, we do represent x hundred or x thousand persons, and we do have a right to do so’; so that process of governance is what needs to be broadened and deepened," she adds.

That persistence appears to be paying off, as indications are that civil society groups in some Caribbean countries are being taken more seriously.

The CSEDNet survey singled out Jamaica as an example of a government that has withdrawn policy positions on the advice of civil society, and noted that in St. Lucia, many sustainable development projects are planned and managed jointly by public sector agencies and NGOs.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
BLANTYRE, Nov 27 2003 (IPS)

When the Commonwealth heads of government gather in Nigeria next month for their bi-annual meeting, the agenda will probably be dominated by politics. But, if activist Julita Msanjama had her way, the leaders would spend most of their time discussing education.

Msanjama is Malawi coordinator for the Commonwealth Education Fund (CEF) – which was launched last year by Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth’s 50th birthday.

The fund operates as a partnership between three British charities*, the private sector and the British government – which has endowed it with about 17 million dollars. Britain has challenged business to come up with the same amount, saying it will match contributions from the private sector dollar-for-dollar.

Ultimately, the fund could be worth more than 50 million dollars. CEF Chairman Edward George has written that this will allow “a bottom-up input to the design and implementation of policies” that will help to deliver education to 17 low-income members of the Commonwealth.

These are brave words in the face of a daunting task.

When international leaders met at the World Education Forum, held in Senegal in 2000, it was estimated that 113 million children still had no access to primary education. Of these, more than 70 million are in the Commonwealth.

The Dakar Framework for Action that was drawn up at the forum called on signatories to ensure all children had access to free primary education by 2015. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals also pledge governments to ensure that, by 2015, all children will be able to complete their primary schooling.

The CEF estimates that, “on current trends, this goal will be missed by a wide margin, with 75 million children remaining out of school by the target date”.

The fund itself is a victim of these “trends”: businesses have not responded to the challenge of pledging money to CEF in the manner that was hoped. Nonetheless, Msanjama remains hopeful. She also points to areas of progress in Malawi.

Amongst other things, CEF aims to encourage wide participation in the design and implementation of a country’s education plans.

It highlights the importance of having local communities monitor government spending on education. The fund also encourages the documenting of innovative ways to ensure that vulnerable groups, like street children and child soldiers, receive education.

Msanjama says her CEF management team has managed to involve non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) and church groups in keeping an eye on Malawi’s education budget.

“Our recommendations will go to the Education Committee on Budget in Parliament, and for this fiscal year we’re pressing that government make transparent its expenditures in the sector,” she says.

Msanjama adds that CEF has funded studies to determine why children leave school early. There has been research on ways to ensure that girls get equal access to education, and the problem of illiterate adults has also come under the microscope.

“We’re also consulting the Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry as an entry point to lobby private sector to support education,” Msanjama says, noting that similar processes are going on in Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Sierra Leone.

To date, the fund has granted Malawi about 770,000 dollars.

According to CEF-Malawi, primary school enrolment in the country doubled from 1.8 million to 3.2 million between 1994 and 1997 – this after the government introduced free primary education.

However, the increased enrolment was not matched with additional teachers. At present, the teacher-to-pupil ratio in Malawi ranges from 1 to 50, and authorities have been forced to employ 25,000 unqualified teachers.

HIV/AIDS has had a severe impact on education: about 6,000 teachers are thought to have died from AIDS-related illnesses between 2000 and 2001 alone. This death rate exceeds that of recruitment, creating a huge shortfall in teaching staff.

Of the 17 countries targeted by CEF, 13 are in Africa – the rest in Asia. Cameroon, Gambia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe are the remaining African countries which benefit from the fund.

Msanjama believes that leaders at next month’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, (CHOGM), from Dec. 5 to 8, should take stock of their efforts to improve education for the youngest citizens of their countries.

“Abuja is the time to account for progress made in the past three years and plotting the future to make education accessible to all,” she says.

* ActionAid, Oxfam and Save the Children

Excerpt:

By Sanjay Suri
LONDON, Nov 27 2003 (IPS)

The Commonwealth will set up a new global index to measure socially responsible investment at a business forum in Abuja next week.

The forum is being held to promote business with an eye on sustainable development ahead of the heads of government meeting (CHOGM) Dec. 5-8, in Abuja; Nigeria.

The move to link business with goals of sustainable development and social responsibility – for long the domain of civil society and do-gooders – has got several governments interested. As many as eight heads of government are turning up ahead of CHOGM to attend the business forum Dec. 2-4.

"We have studies that show that many giant companies and pension funds prefer to invest in businesses committed to socially responsible development," chief executive officer of the Commonwealth Business Council (CBC) Mohan Kaul told IPS. "But 97 percent of that investment goes into the developed world."

The new index will link factors such as the gross national income (GNI) of a country, its purchasing power parity (PPP) index and the investment it is drawing. The index will show up what is being done or not and also suggest what is possible by way of investment in developing countries among the Commonwealth.

"We are talking to a major fund manager," Kaul said. "There already is an index like FTSE 4Good but we will create our own index." The CBC index will have a greater focus on good that comes to the developing countries among the Commonwealth – and that means 50 of its 54 members other than Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The Commonwealth is a grouping of countries that were once a part of the British Empire.

"But while a lot of the investment is not going into developing countries, it is also true that many developing countries have not created a business environment that would encourage companies to compete in the international arena," Kaul said. "At Abuja we are working for a manifesto for business and government together to remove obstacles to wealth creation."

The moves are led by a new push into business partnerships that involve private companies, the government and civil society.

"Earlier models of privatisation have now worked," Kaul said. "A grouping is possible between civil society, the private sector and government." The CBC is promoting several models of business where a government owns the project, the private sector manages it and civil society speaks up for the people involved and affected.

These must include measures such as reduction of regulations, reducing time to set up new companies, and straightening out customs procedures, Kaul said. "In some places it takes nine months just to set up a company," he said.

The Commonwealth will also set up a certification system for companies that can be players in the international arena. This together with the new index would also give potential investors and companies in the developed world pointers to companies they can do business with.

The moves by the CBC are more than just more Commonwealth talk. Forums organised by the CBC led to business worth more than 3 billion dollars in 1999 and 2.3 billion dollars last year, Kaul said. "The largest component of this was business between developed and developing countries," he said.

Much of the business has come up in infrastructure, mining and power projects, telecom services and financial services. The CBC has been holding regional forums to promote business among firms from Commonwealth countries within regions. Africa investment forums have been held in South Africa and also in Abuja.

The CBC has found unique ways to make these business marriages work. Businessmen are persuaded to attend business forums. Everyone who comes along gets a password and a homepage on the forum website and access to everyone else who has registered. So you have everyone’s business interests on the dedicated website, and an idea what they are looking for.

The CBC then assembles a diary and puts together everyone who ought at least to talk. It then asks what happened once they met, and offers to make things happen if nothing did.

The CBC played a role in getting MTN of South Africa to make a massive investment in the mobile telephone market in Nigeria. MTN executives were invited to meetings at the ministry of telecom in Nigeria. MTN is now the leading mobile phone company in Nigeria.

The South African power giant Eskom Enterprises was put together with the National Electricity Production Agency (NEPA) in Nigeria. It now plans to take over several of the divisions into which NEPA has been divided.

The South African firm Shivacom made a deal to sell pre-paid telephone cards in Mozambique following business to business meetings set up by the CBC.

The Sumaria Group in the food and cooking oil business in Tanzania has set up a vegetable oil refinery in Mozambique. The group has expanded business across East Africa and in Britain.

Zandu Pharmaceuticals, a herbal medicine company based in Mumbai in India is being supported in exploring joint ventures and franchise arrangements in several countries in Africa.

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By IPS Correspondents
ISLAMABAD, Nov 26 2003 (IPS)

Pakistan’s continued suspension from the 54-nation Commonwealth for failing to fully restore democracy four years after the coup by President Gen Pervez Musharraf is no cause for much concern for the military-backed government.

That is because its diplomatic and bilateral cooperation with key members of the organisation, particularly Britain, has strengthened especially in the ‘war on terrorism’ after the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks.

Pakistan’s status has changed in the years since then. Just before the Commonwealth Summit in Durban in 1999, a week after the coup that ousted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in October 1999, Islamabad feared permanent expulsion from the organisation.

The summit, however, only suspended its membership. Four years later, the Pakistani government says it is even optimistic in going to the Commonwealth Summit in December in Abuja, Nigeria.

“We are sure that the organisation will take into consideration Pakistan’s role in post-Sep. 11 world and try to integrate it to make its role more effective,” said Chaudhry Abdul Waheed, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League party.

Officially, the government says that the organisation has overstepped its mandate by maintaining Pakistan’s suspension even after the 2002 general elections. But opposition parties say this position exposes the real state of democracy in Pakistan.

“The fact is that the military in Pakistan is firmly in control. The October elections were just a façade to put in place a puppet government which practically has no powers,” said Taj Haider, information secretary of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party.

But to the military’s advantage is the fact that it has learned to exploit the post-Sep.11 compulsions of the United States and key allies like Britain that are engaged in war against international terrorism, earn more acceptance – and become a strategic ally of these powers.

Islamabad’s role in war against terror, especially in Afghanistan during the U.S.-led attacks in November 2001, has reduced the international community’s concern for the return of full democracy in Pakistan to mere rhetoric, critics say.

In fact, many say that Pakistan’s suspension from Commonwealth has become more of a cosmetic measure in the post-Sep. 11 world.

Some of their questions are: If the Commonwealth is so concerned about the dominance of military in politics, why did Britain welcome Musharraf earlier this summer as state guest? Why do Britain and other Commonwealth countries dole out generous financial support to Pakistan? Why cannot Commonwealth countries impose total sanctions on Pakistan until it fully restores democracy?

According to Afrasiyab Khattak, a former chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the international community cannot alienate Pakistan in the existing geo-strategic value.

“They are turning a blind eye to the encroachments of the military for now. The suspension from Commonwealth does not mean anything for the military-backed government unless it is linked with economic and diplomatic measures,” Khattak said.

According to Haider, the legal framework order (LGO) containing 29 amendments to the constitution that Musharraf imposed last year have practically handed over the powers of the state to the president, who is also the military chief.

“How could they say that there is democracy in Pakistan? People and their representatives have no control to determine their destiny and make decisions about issues that affect their lives,” he explained.

This is exactly the reason for which the Ministerial Action Group of Commonwealth retained Pakistan’s suspension at its meeting in New York in late September. The eight-minister group noted that the Pakistani parliament remained deadlocked over Musharraf’s constitutional amendments, which it said was a key obstacle for a full return to democracy.

Musharraf amended the constitution through the legal framework order just before the October 2002 poll.

Critics view the polls as putting in place what looks like a civilian government, but one weakened by the constitutional changes that gave Musharraf powers to sack the government, dismiss the assemblies, make appointment to all constitutional offices, including provincial governors, judges of higher judiciary and heads of armed services.

The order also envisaged the establishment of a supra-parliamentary National Security Council which will have the heads of three armed services as members, thus giving military a permanent role in politics.

The Musharraf-backed government refuses to seek parliamentary approval of the orders amending the constitution, while opposition parties reject them as unconstitutional. But negotiations between the government and the opposition over the order have yet to yield any results.

The Commonwealth’s ministerial group said that if these negotiations, especially on constitutional issues, are concluded successfully, Pakistan’s suspension from the councils of the Commonwealth should be lifted.

The ministerial group comprised the foreign ministers of Botswana, Malta, India, Bangladesh, Bahamas, Samoa, Nigeria and Australia.

Islamabad had linked its suspension from the Commonwealth to diplomatic gimmickry by its rival India, and called the group’s decision interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs.

“We regret this decision as democracy has been restored in Pakistan and democratic institutions are functional. The Commonwealth does not have the mandate to pronounce on the LFO. It should not try to micro-manage democracies,” said Masood Khan, spokesman for the country’s foreign office.

“Pakistan’s exclusion from this forum is also the Commonwealth’s loss,” Khan maintained.

But the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Sharif Group, like other opposition parties, say that the Commonwealth ministerial group’s decision vindicates the position of pro-democratic forces in the country.

“If Pakistan’s foreign policy enjoyed the support of the people according to the 1973 Constitution, the Commonwealth would have certainly recognised Pakistan’s position,” said Siddiqul Farooq, spokesman for his party.

But officials in the foreign office explain that the impact of suspension from Commonwealth is “zero”, though they say that Pakistan would be able to play a more vibrant role in international affairs as part of the organisation.

“Our membership is more important for the Commonwealth in the changing global scenario, than for us. We have excellent bilateral relations with important Commonwealth countries,” said one official at the foreign office.

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By Sanjay Suri
LONDON, Nov 24 2003 (IPS)

The Commonwealth hasn’t done badly on human rights – on paper that is. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Abuja will seek to transfer at least some of those rights on to the street where they are needed.

As a step towards that, a Commonwealth Human Rights Forum Dec. 3 and 4 will for the first time bring together non-governmental human rights organisations and national human rights institutions.

The forum is being planned as a platform where urgent human rights issues facing member countries will be raised and presented to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to follow.

So is this just another of those Commonwealth groups, with more print to follow under a new letterhead?

Look at some of the mechanisms the Commonwealth has already:

– The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG): This is made up of a rotating group of eight foreign ministers (currently Australia, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Botswana, India, Malta, Nigeria and Samoa). Its brief is to look into "serious or persistent violations" of the principles of the Harare Declaration of 1991 which seeks to bind member countries to democracy, the rule of law and human rights.

– The Human Rights Unit, which is the main body responsible for human rights within the Commonwealth Secretariat. It is a free-standing unit that reports directly to the secretary-general.

– The Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation which supports human rights through technical assistance that includes human rights training.

– The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative itself, a non-governmental group set up with support from the Commonwealth Foundation.

CMAG has the highest profile among these, which does not mean that it has effective reach. It can look at a problem, send a team, recommend action to the host government, and then at most recommend suspension of the country concerned from the Commonwealth.

At the moment Pakistan and Zimbabwe stand suspended from the councils of the Commonwealth, a kind of half-way suspension house. They remain members, but cannot participate in decision-making bodies.

These can hardly be decisions that improve human rights anyway. "The Harare declaration refers to a broader concept of human rights, but to date CMAG has mostly been concerned with ensuring formal democracy, with its focus on the unconstitutional overthrow of a democratically elected government," Clare Doube from the New Delhi-based Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) told IPS.

"Ideally CMAG should also look at the more substantive aspects of democratic functioning of its member states, including the value they place on protecting and promoting human rights," Doube says. "Formal exercise of voting rights is not determinative of the fundamental freedoms enjoyed by a population."

The Human Rights Unit, Doube says, comprises just two programme officers and an administrative person. "More resources should be dedicated to their work," she says. The third mechanism, the technical cooperation fund, has seen its budget slashed by 40 percent since 1990 (it is 23 million pounds for 2003-2004).

The Commonwealth also promotes human rights through the Commonwealth Foundation and the civil society organisations it supports. Many of these play an active role in supporting human rights.

"But there is a great deal of room for improvement and innovation in all that the Commonwealth does," says Doube. "The Commonwealth has made a number of commitments to human rights over a number of decades, but has no system in place for monitoring and reporting on the implementation of these commitments. The Commonwealth is strewn with paper promises."

Human rights activists within the Commonwealth propose improvements along several lines:

– The creation of a Commonwealth human rights commissioner mandated to promote, protect and monitor human rights, give advice, and make recommendations.

– The creation of a human rights adviser to CMAG, to work like rapporteurs with the United Nations. An adviser such as a recently retired Supreme Court judge could provide evidence prior to CMAG meetings, and assist governments running into trouble or emerging from CMAG suspension.

– More generally human rights could be supported through an environment that promotes open governance. This would mean implementation of comprehensive information access and disclosure policies.

The non-governmental Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative set up in 1987 with support from associations like those of Commonwealth journalists, broadcasters, trade unions, parliamentarians and others has been working largely on policy level advocacy, and some educational ventures.

The Forum that the CHRI is organising in Abuja will now "bring together many different organisations that have never come together before," Doube says. "It should result in the creation of a new network, and should be a good kick in the right direction. The CHRI will be the secretariat of that network."

The legal resources consortium and the Nigerian human rights commission are also involved in organising the Commonwealth Human Rights Forum. The non-governmental organisations supporting the forum include the Association of Commonwealth Amnesty International Sections.

The outcome of the two-day meeting will be fed to CHOGM, that gets going the day after the CHRI forum concludes. Commonwealth leaders have been listening to human rights noises for a long time. The CHRI is hoping that this move will be a little noisier, and lead to a little more action.

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By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, Nov 14 2003 (IPS)

The Commonwealth can play an important role in advancing the stalled Doha Development Round when World Trade Organisation officials meet in Geneva next month, says Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon.

Ministers are due to meet Dec. 15 at an informal gathering aimed at rescuing the Doha Development Round. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is trying to engineer a compromise at the meeting.

The discussions took a near fatal blow in Cancun, Mexico, in September when ministers failed to agree on a multilateral trade programme.

“The first step in reviving the Round is the meeting in Geneva,” McKinnon said at a meeting organised by the think-tank, the European Policy Centre.

“It is extremely important for the Commonwealth and we will be going there with a view to reaching an agreement on the trade negotiations,” he said at a meeting on ‘The EU and the Commonwealth: Common Interest and Challenges Ahead’.

McKinnon described the Commonwealth as a “strategic negotiating partner” in the talks. He said his organisation can be an influential player in getting the Doha negotiations back on track.

The Commonwealth comprises 54 countries with a population of 1.4 billion people.

“The Commonwealth is strategically placed to get a consensus over the trade talks,” he said. “It can play an important role in generating an agreement in political and trade matters. An agreement between Commonwealth countries could be the basis for a broader agreement for the rest of the WTO members.”

The Commonwealth includes developed countries such as Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and some of the poorest countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

McKinnon urged key players such as the European Union (EU) and the WTO to reconsider their position on the talks, and to realise that everyone stands to lose if the talks fail once again.

He encouraged participants to “get past the view of recriminations” post- Cancun and to continue the development round of talks.

He stressed that reform of the EU’s controversial Common Agricultural Policy was essential for advancing the talks, and that this also set a challenge for the United States.

“We don’t want aid or food dumping,” he said. “We want Commonwealth countries to produce and sell their own goods and we’ve got to push President Bush on this.” The EU has been cautious so far in its approach to the December talks, and has been biding its time over reformulating trade policy after the collapse of Cancun. In spite of a degree of optimism over the upcoming talks, McKinnon pointed out that there are still “huge hurdles” to overcome in what he described as the “trade apartheid”.

“It is a time of risk, but it is also a time of great opportunity,” he said. “We can either negotiate our position or turn our back on the process. If rich countries open their markets then we could relieve 144 million people from poverty by 2015. We’ve got to show the world that the breakdown in the Doha Round is not irreversible.”

McKinnon urged players to restore faith in the international trading system, saying that it is the “only thing for developing countries.”

He acknowledged that developing countries must play their role. “Developing countries must play their part too in the process and work towards bringing down tariff and non-tariff barriers between themselves.”

But he warned that liberalisation must be a “phased process” so that developing countries can build their capacity and prepare themselves.

McKinnon said Commonwealth leaders would discuss the Doha round when they meet in Abuja, Nigeria, at the beginning of December for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHGOM).

“We will talk about putting the Doha Development Round at the heart of our negotiations,” he said.

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