By Roberto Azevêdo
GENEVA, Jan 22 2016 (IPS)

In 2015 the international community took some huge strides forward on a number of vital issues.

There was the agreement on the United Nations new Sustainable Development Goals.

There was the remarkable breakthrough in Paris in the fight against climate change.

Roberto Azevêdo

And, late in December, at the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial conference in Nairobi, members agreed a set of very significant results. In fact, they delivered some of the biggest reforms in global trade policy for 20 years.

We must seek to capitalise on this progress in 2016.

Let me explain in a bit more detail what was delivered in Nairobi.

The Nairobi Package contained a number of important decisions ­ including a decision on export competition. This is truly historic. It is the most important reform in international trade rules on agriculture since the creation of the WTO.

The elimination of agricultural export subsidies is particularly significant in improving the global trading environment.

WTO members ­ especially developing countries ­ have consistently demanded action on this issue due to the enormous trade-distorting potential of these subsidies. In fact, this task has been outstanding since export subsidies were banned for industrial goods more than 50 years ago. So this decision corrected an historic imbalance.

Countries have often resorted to export subsidies during economic crises ­ and recent history shows that once one country did so, others quickly followed suit. Because of the Nairobi Package, no-one will be tempted to resort to such action in the future.

This decision will help to level the playing field in agriculture markets, to the benefit of farmers and exporters in developing and least-developed countries.

This decision will also help to limit similar distorting effects associated with export credits and state trading enterprises.

And it will provide a better framework for international food aid ­ maintaining this essential lifeline, while ensuring that it doesn’t displace domestic producers.

Members also took action on other developing-country issues, committing to find a permanent solution on public stockholding for food security purposes, and to develop a Special Safeguard Mechanism.

And members agreed a package of specific decisions for least developed countries, to support their integration into the global economy. This contained measures to enhance preferential rules of origin for these countries and preferential treatment for their services providers.

And it contained a number of steps on cotton ­ helping low-income cotton producers to access new markets.

Finally, a large group of members agreed on the expansion of the Information Technology Agreement. Again, this was an historic breakthrough. It will eliminate tariffs on 10 per cent of global trade ­ that’s 1.3 trillion dollars worth of trade, making it the WTO’s first major tariff cutting deal since 1996.

Altogether, these decisions will provide a real boost to growth and development around the world.

This success is all the more significant because it comes so soon after our successful conference in Bali that delivered a number of important outcomes, including the Trade Facilitation Agreement. (TFA)

The TFA will bring a higher level of predictability and transparency to customs processes around the world, making it easier for businesses ­ especially smaller enterprises ­ to join global value chains.

It could reduce trade costs by an average of 14.5 per cent – with the greatest savings being felt in developing countries.

The Agreement has the potential to increase global merchandise exports by up to 1 trillion dollars per annum, and to create 20 million jobs around the world.

That’s potentially a bigger impact than the elimination of all remaining tariffs.

So the challenge before us is very significant.

For instance, during or the last two years, we have been trying to reinvigorate the Doha agenda on development, exploring various ways of overcoming the existing difficulties. We tested different alternatives over several months of good engagement, but the conversations revealed significant differences, which are unlikely to be solved in the short term.

But the challenge is not limited only to the question of what happens to the Doha issues, it is about the negotiating function of the WTO. It is about what members want for the future of the WTO as a standard and rule-setting body. And the challenge is urgent.

The world won’t wait for the WTO. Other trade deals will keep advancing.

The wider the gap between regional and multilateral disciplines, the worse the trade environment becomes for everyone, particularly businesses, small countries and all those not involved in major regional negotiations.

But the outlook is not bleak. I said at the outset that 2016 was full of promise. I truly believe that ­ because, while we face real challenges, there are also real opportunities before us.

(End)

Excerpt:

By N Chandra Mohan
NEW DELHI, Dec 3 2015 (IPS)

The crash in oil prices is not the only challenge confronting the Gulf States in West Asia. Economic disorder and lack of opportunity are contributing to instability in the region, stated Bahrain’s minister for industry, commerce and tourism, Zayed Al Zayani, while kicking off the recent IISS Bahrain Bay Forum. He emphasized the need for “unprecedented” economic reform across the Gulf in the wake of the lower oil revenues. These policies include the generation of millions of jobs for the youth in these economies that continue to depend heavily on expatriate labour from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Philippines.

N Chandra Mohan

The Gulf States face the prospect of a demographic dividend of a youth bulge in the population rapidly turning into a curse, thanks to high and rising rates of unemployment for those between 15 to 24 years of age. The highest rates are in Saudi Arabia (28.7 per cent), Bahrain (27.9 per cent), Oman (20.5 per cent) and Kuwait (19.6 per cent). India, too, has double digit rates of joblessness among the young like many of these economies. There was a suggestion at the Bahrain Bay Forum that such high rates of youth unemployment are a proximate factor behind the surge in militant terrorism, exemplified by the rise of the Daesh or ISIS.

The prospect of lower oil revenues certainly will constrain the Gulf States to diversify their economies away from dependence on this commodity. Countries like Bahrain seek to focus on education and training, communications and infrastructure and promoting a start-up ecosystem for fostering entrepreneurship. The level of ambition is also high as they intend to generate high skill jobs and build a knowledge- based economy. The technology sector in the Gulf States is likely expected to grow by 10 per cent per annum over the next five years while the spending on technology in the Middle East as a whole is expected to touch $200 billion.

However, the transition to this brave new world requires bridging the skills gap. The labour market in this region depends heavily on low skilled and low wage earning migrant labour. More than 80 per cent of the workforce in private sector employment in Bahrain is comprised of expatriates. It goes up to 96 per cent and 98 per cent in Kuwait and Qatar respectively. In sharp contrast, the nationals are disproportionately represented in the bloated public sector. So, one form of dualism in the labour market is that the private sector is dominated wholly by expatriates while the public sector is largely for the locals in the Gulf.

Another source of dualism is that women are not adequately represented in the labour market due to pervasive gender discrimination in these conservative economies. Although women’s enrolment in higher educational institutions is rapidly rising of late — a case in point are courses in financial services in Bahrain which attract a lot of women — female labour force participation rates are well below 30 per cent as against the global average of 50 per cent. Jobless among young females is as high as 55 per cent in Saudi Arabia which is three-times higher than that of young males, according to the World Bank’s World Development Indicators.

Gulf’s labour market thus is “locked in a low skills, low wages and low productivity equilibrium” argued Frank Hagemann, deputy regional director of ILO, at one of the sessions at the Bay Forum. This dualism is reflected in a substantial wage gap between the private and public sector. At the lower end, the living and working conditions of migrants is sub-standard and highly exploitative in nature. Dependency-driven employee-employers relations are rife. The big challenge for the Gulf States is to kick-start the transition from this state of affairs to one driven by higher skills, higher wages and productivity.

What is the impact of abundant supplies of low skilled, low productivity expatriate population queried Ausamah Al Absi, chief executive, Labour Market Regulatory Authority in Bahrain? If an entrepreneur were to make an investment in a state-of-the-art printing press in Germany, he has to employ high technology and productivity tools as the cost of manpower is high. But in Bahrain, he can go for lower technology supported by a low skilled workforce. Pursuing a capital-intensive option in a low wage economy is not on. For such demand-side reasons, this entrepreneur will naturally be rendered uncompetitive in this economy, felt Al Absi.

Low oil prices complicate the efforts of the Gulf States to address these distortions without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If revenues continue to decline, a worry is that it reduces the fiscal space to pay nationals in the public sector. At the same time, there is a compulsion to reduce subsidies on water, electricity and school fees that will disproportionately hit the expatriate workforce. The Gulf economies thus will make it more and more difficult for the expatriates to work in these economies over the near-term Controls on migration appear inevitable, regardless of the heavy dependence on such labour at present.

The transition to a higher skills, wages and productivity equilibrium is far from easy. It entails changes over a generation. For instance, in Saudi Arabia, 40 per cent of the graduates come from humanities or Islamic studies while only 4 per cent are engineers. Stepping up the numbers of engineers takes more time. Yet there is a temptation to look for quick fixes like inviting tech giants in the US to set up cloud computing courses in the Gulf States! At the Bay Forum, Bahrain announced a $100 million venture capital based fund to that will work as the first cloud technology accelerator in the region. Can such moves kick-start hi-tech start-ups? Intermediate steps are perhaps more necessary like vocational and on-the-job training. Only 17 per cent of firms in the Gulf States provide on-the-job training as against the global average of 35 per cent. The best bet for these countries is greater gender empowerment in the labour market than expat-bashing policies to reduce sources of instability.

(End)

Excerpt:

The lack of jobs after graduation frequently pushes Cameroonian girls into searching for work opportunities, sometimes overseas and sometimes with horrific consequences. Credit: Ngala Killian Chimtom/IPS

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
YAOUNDE, Jul 15 2015 (IPS)

Her lips are quavering her hands trembling. Susan (not her real name) struggles to suppress stubborn tears, but the outburst comes, spontaneously, and the tears stream down her cheeks as she sobs profusely.

The story of this 28-year-old’s servitude in Kuwait is mind-boggling. Between her sobs, she tells IPS how she left Cameroon two years ago in search of a job in Kuwait.

“I saw job opportunities advertised on billboards in town. The posters announced jobs such as nurses and housemaids in Kuwait. As a nurse and without a job in Cameroon, I decided to take the chance.”"We were herded off to a small room. There were many other girls there: Ghanaians, Nigerians and Tunisians … [then] bidders came and we were sold off like property" – Susan, a young Cameroonian women who escaped from slavery in Kuwait

With the help of an agent whose contact details she found on the billboard, Susan found herself on a plane, bound for Kuwait.

She was excited at the prospect of earning up to 250,000 CFA francs (420 dollars) a month. That is what the agent had told her, and it was a mouth-watering sum compared with the roughly 75 dollars she would have been earning in Cameroon, if she had a job.

“We work in liaison with companies in the Middle East, so that when these ladies go, they don’t start looking for jobs,” Ernest Kongnyuy, an agent in Yaounde told IPS.

But the story changed dramatically when Susan, along with 46 other Cameroonian girls, arrived in Kuwait on Nov. 8, 2013.

“We were herded off to a small room. There were many other girls there: Ghanaians, Nigerians and Tunisians,” then “bidders came and we were sold off like property.”

Susan was taken away by an Egyptian man. “I think I got a taste of hell in his house,” she says, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She would begin work at five in the morning and go to bed after midnight, very often sleeping without having eaten.

Very frequently, she tells IPS, the man tried to rape her but when she threatened to report the case to the police, she met with a wry response from her tormentor. “He told me he would pay the police to rape me and then kill me, and the case wouldn’t go anywhere.”

Cut off from all communication with the outside world, Susan says that she found solace only in God. “I prayed … I cried out to God for help,” she recalls.

Susan’s is not an isolated case. Brenda, another Cameroonian lucky enough to escape, has a similar story. She had to wash the pets of her master, which included cats and snakes.

“I was sharing the same toilet with cats … I called them my brothers, because they were the only “persons” with whom I conversed.”

Pushed to the limits, both girls told their employers that they were not ready to work any longer. Brenda says that when she insisted, she was thrown out of the house.

“At that time I was frail, I was actually dying and I didn’t know where to go.” After trekking for two days, she found the Central African Republic’s embassy and slept for two days in front of it before she was rescued.

Susan was locked in the boot of a car and taken to the agent who had brought her from the airport.

“Events moved so fast and I found myself spending one week in immigration prison and an additional three days in deportation prison,” she says.

When both girls were finally put on a flight bound for Cameroon, all their property had been seized, except for their passports and the clothes they were wearing.

The scale of the problem is troubling. According to the 2013 Walk Free Global Index of Slavery, about three-quarters of a million people are enslaved in the Middle East and North Africa.

The report indicates that for the past seven years, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have been ranked as Tier 3 countries for human trafficking and labour abuses. Tier 3 countries are those whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards in human trafficking and are not making significant efforts to do so.

Apart from Africa, people from India, Nepal, Eritrea, Uzbekistan, etc. … “migrate voluntarily for domestic work, convinced of the employment agencies’ promises of lucrative jobs,” said the report.

“Upon entering the country, they find themselves deceived and enslaved – within the bounds of a legal sponsorship system.”

Susan and Brenda are now back home, but they are suffering from the trauma of their horrible experience in Kuwait.

The Trauma Centre for Victims of Human Trafficking in Cameroon has been working to bring relief to the women. “We try to make them feel at home,” says Beatrice Titanji, National Vice-President of the Centre.

“They have been exposed to bad treatment. They have been called animals. They have been told they stink, and when they enter the car or a room, a spray is used to take away the supposed odour … I just can’t fathom seeing my child treated like that,” she told IPS.

She called on the government to investigate and prosecute the agents, create jobs and mount guard at airports to discourage Cameroonians from going to look for jobs in the Middle East.

Edited by Phil Harris   

By Roberto Azevêdo
GENEVA, Jul 29 2014 (IPS)

In the 1960s, there were high hopes for the development of the newly-independent sub-Saharan African countries but these hopes were quickly dashed following a series of shocks which began in the mid-70s, with the first oil price spikes, followed by a severe decline in growth and increase in poverty in the 80s and early 90s. However, by the mid-1990s, economic growth had resumed in certain African countries. Economic reform, better macroeconomic management, donor resources and a sharp rise in commodity prices were having a positive effect.

WTO Director General Roberto Azevêdo. Credit: WTO/CC BY SA-2.0

In the 2000s, many African countries witnessed high economic growth performance and during that period some of the world’s fastest growing economies were in sub-Saharan Africa. Angola, Nigeria, Chad, Mozambique and Rwanda all recorded annual growth of over 7 percent.

In 2012 Africa’s exports and imports totalled 630 billion dollars and 610 billion dollars respectively, ­ a fourfold increase since the turn of the millennium. And the long term prospects for growth are good. The Economist Intelligence Unit has forecast average growth for the regional economy of around 5 percent yearly from 2013-16.

Despite all this, the continent still plays a marginal role in the global market, accounting for barely 3 percent of world trade. One significant reason – although, of course there are others – is that African economies are still narrowly based on the production and export of unprocessed agricultural products, minerals and crude oil.“There is little doubt that the regional [African] market offers good scope for African firms to diversify their production and achieve greater value addition”

Now, due to relatively low productivity and technology, these economies have low competitiveness in global markets – apart from crude extractive products. The low productivity of traditional agriculture and the informal activities continue to absorb more than 80 percent of the labour force. And growth remains highly vulnerable to external shocks.

This story of half a century of struggle, set-backs and progress shows two things:

One, the road to meaningful and inclusive development still seems long.

Two, we are in a better position than ever to make real, sustainable progress.

Many countries are striving to do more in turning their strength in commodities into strengths in other areas,­ using commodities as a means of spurring growth across various sectors. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa’s 2013 Economic Report echoes this ­ calling for the continent’s commodities to be used to support industrialisation, jobs, growth and economic transformation.

In line with this, I think there are a number of essential steps to take:

– diversification of economic structure, namely of production and exports;

– enhancement of export competitiveness;

– technological upgrading;

– improvement of the productivity of all resources, including labour; and

– reduction of infrastructure gaps.

Only by delivering in these and other areas can policymakers ensure that growth enhances human well-being and contributes to inclusive development. But how can we take these steps?

Of course I should say that although African countries share some common features, no unique set of policies, including those on trade and industrial policy, could ever fit for all in a uniform way. Even among the least-developed countries (LDCs), some are already exporters of manufactured products, although often they rely on a single product  while others are more dependent on commodities. Nevertheless, I think it is clear that some preconditions of success are universal.

African regional integration is of course very high on the policy agenda. There is little doubt that the regional market offers good scope for African firms to diversify their production and achieve greater value addition. Already now, manufactures constitute as much as 40 percent of intra-African exports, compared with 13 percent of Africa’s exports to the rest of the world.

The Bali Package, which World Trade Organisation members agreed in December last year, will help to resolve some problems. Inclusive, sustainable development was at the heart of the whole Bali project ­ and our African members played a crucial role in making it a success. It brought some progress on agriculture. It delivered a package to support LDCs. It provided for a Monitoring Mechanism on special and differential treatment.

And, in addition, Bali delivered the Trade Facilitation Agreement and this is a direct answer to some of the problems of fragmentation. Costly and cumbersome border procedures, inadequate infrastructure and administrative burdens often raise trade-related transaction costs within Africa to unsustainable levels, creating a further barrier to intra-African trade.

This Agreement will help to address some of these bottlenecks. It will support regional integration, and therefore complement the African Union’s efforts to create a continental free trade area. And it will begin to remove some of the barriers which prevent full integration into global value chains. As such it will create an added impetus for industrialisation and inclusive sustainable development.

And it is worth noting here that the Trade Facilitation Agreement broke new ground for developing and least-developed countries in the way it will be implemented.

Another vital issue here is the importance of agricultural development in industrialisation, and the role of industrial collaboration through regional cooperation. The contribution of the agriculture sector is of utmost importance for the establishment of a sound industrial base. It can provide a surplus to invest in industrial capacity building, and supply agricultural raw materials as inputs to the production process, especially for today’s highly specialised food processing industry.

Moreover, it can also significantly contribute to industrialisation by providing an ample supply of food products. This is because food constitutes a large share of what wage earners in African countries spend their money on. Its availability at low prices contributes to increase the purchasing power of wages, and therefore raise the competitiveness of a country in international markets. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Excerpt:

Hopes are high that the 10^th Asia-Europe Meeting – or ASEM summit – to be held in Milan on October 16-17 will confirm the credibility and relevance of Asia-Europe relations in the 21^st century.

ASEM has certainly survived many storms and upheavals since it was initiated in Bangkok in 1996 and now, with ASEM’s 20^th anniversary in 2016 approaching rapidly, the challenge is not only to guarantee ASEM’s survival but also to ensure that the Asia-Europe partnership flourishes and thrives.

Talk about renewal and revival is encouraging as Asians and Europeans seek to inject fresh dynamism into ASEM through changed formats and a stronger focus on content to bring it into the 21^st century.

ASEM’s future hinges not only on whether governments are ready to pay as much attention to ASEM and devote as much time and energy to their partnership as they did in the early years but also on closer engagement between Asian and European business leaders, civil society representatives and enhanced people-to-people contacts.  An ASEM business summit and peoples’ forum will be held in parallel with the leaders’ meeting.

Shada Islam. Courtesy of Twitter

Significantly, the theme of the Milan summit – “Responsible Partnership for Sustainable Growth and Security” – allows for a discussion not only of ongoing political strains and tensions in Asia and in Europe’s eastern neighbourhood, but also of crucial questions linked to food, water and energy security.

Engagement between the two regions has been increasing over the years, both within and outside ASEM. Five of the 51 (set to rise to 52 with Croatia joining in October) ASEM partners – China, Japan, India, South Korea and Russia – are the European Union’s strategic partners. Turkey and Kazakhstan have formally voiced interest in joining ASEM, although approval of their applications will take time.  There is now a stronger E.U.-Asian conversation on trade, business, security and culture.

Exports to Asia and investments in the region are pivotal in ensuring a sustainable European economic recovery while the European Union single market attracts goods, investments and people from across the globe, helping Asian governments to maintain growth and development.  European technology is in much demand across the region.

Not surprisingly, Asia-Europe economic interdependence has grown.  With total Asia-Europe trade in 2012 estimated at 1.37 trillion euros, Asia has become the European Union’s main trading partner, accounting for one-third of total trade.  More than one-quarter of European outward investments head for Asia while Asia’s emerging global champions are seeking out business deals in Europe.  The increased connectivity is reflected in the mutual Asia-Europe quest to negotiate free trade agreements and investment accords. For many in Asia, the European Union is the prime partner for dealing with non-traditional security dilemmas, including food, water and energy security as well as climate change. Europeans, too, are becoming more aware of the global implications of instability in Asia.

ASEM’s connectivity credentials go beyond trade and economics.  In addition to the strategic partnerships mentioned above, Asia and Europe are linked through an array of cooperation accords. Discussions on climate change, pandemics, illegal immigration, maritime security, urbanisation and green growth, among others, are frequent between multiple government ministries and agencies in both regions, reflecting a growing recognition that 21^st century challenges can only be tackled through improved global governance and, failing that, through “patchwork governance” involving cross-border and cross-regional alliances.

Discussions on security issues are an important part of the political pillar in ASEM, with leaders exchanging views on regional and global flashpoints.  Given current tensions over conflicting territorial claims in the East and South China Seas, this year’s debate should be particularly important.

Asian views of Europe’s security role are changing. Unease about the dangerous political and security fault lines that run across the region and the lack of a strong security architecture has prompted many in Asia to take a closer look at Europe’s experience in ensuring peace, easing tensions and handling conflicts.  As Asia grapples with historical animosities and unresolved conflicts, earlier scepticism about Europe’s security credentials are giving way to recognition of Europe’s “soft power” in peace-making and reconciliation, crisis management, conflict resolution and preventive diplomacy, human rights, the promotion of democracy and the rule of law.

In addition, for many in Asia, the European Union is the prime partner for dealing with non-traditional security dilemmas, including food, water and energy security as well as climate change. Europeans too are becoming more aware of the global implications of instability in Asia, not least as regards maritime security.

Meanwhile, over the years, ASEM meetings have become more formal, ritualistic and long drawn-out, with endless preparatory discussions and the negotiation of long texts by “senior officials” or bureaucrats. Instead of engaging in direct conversation, ministers and leaders read out well-prepared statements.  Having embarked on a search to bring back the informality and excitement of the first few ASEM meetings, Asian and European foreign ministers successfully tested out new working methods at their meeting in Delhi last November.

The new formula, to be tried out in Milan, includes the organisation of a “retreat” session during which leaders will be able to have a free-flowing discussion on regional and international issues with less structure and fewer people in the room.  Instead of spending endless hours negotiating texts, leaders will focus on a substantive discussion of issues.  The final statement will be drafted and issued in the name of the “chair” who will consult partners but will be responsible for the final wording.  There are indications that the chair’s statements and other documents issued at the end of ASEM meetings will be short, simple and to-the-point.

ASEM also needs a content update.  True, ASEM summits which are held every two years, deal with many worthy issues, including economic growth, regional and global tensions, climate change and the like. It is also true that Asian and European ministers meet even more frequently to discuss questions like education, labour reform, inter-faith relations and river management.

This is worthy and significant – but also too much.  ASEM needs a sharper focus on growth and jobs, combating extremism and tackling hard and soft security issues. Women in both Asia and Europe face many societal and economic challenges.  Freedom of expression is under attack in both regions.

ASEM partners also face the uphill task of securing stronger public understanding, awareness and support for the Asia-Europe partnership, especially in the run up to the 20^th anniversary summit in 2016.

The 21^st century requires countries and peoples – whether they are like-minded or not – to work together in order to ensure better global governance in a still-chaotic multipolar world.

As they grapple with their economic, political and security dilemmas – and despite their many disagreements – Asia and Europe are drawing closer together.  If ASEM reform is implemented as planned, 2016 could become an important milestone in a reinvigorated Asia-Europe partnership, a compelling necessity in the 21^st century.

Shada Islam is responsible for policy oversight of Friends of Europe’s initiatives, activities and publications. She has special responsibility for the Asia Programme and for the Development Policy Forum. She is the former Europe correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and has previously worked on Asian issues at the European Policy Centre. 

A Roma stall for used clothes in Bucharest. Segregation in schools means Roma children grow up to find few decent jobs. Credit: Claudia Ciobanu/IPS.

By Pavol Stracansky
PRAGUE, May 4 2013 (IPS)

As the Czech government comes under fire for apparently backtracking on commitments to inclusive education, Roma children and teenagers continue to be systematically shut out of Eastern Europe’s mainstream education system.

A string of recent court rulings has revealed the depth of the problem – and should have forced governments into action to redress the situation.

But despite these, and calls from bodies like the European Court of Human Rights for authorities to ensure Roma have proper access to mainstream schooling, there has been a lack of any serious action, NGOs and rights groups say.

“Research has been done in a number of countries documenting segregation and court judgements have confirmed that discrimination in access to education is a common practice.

“Governments need to take quick steps to stop discriminatory practices,” Jana Vargovcikova, Advocacy Coordinator at Amnesty International Czech Republic, told IPS.

Roma segregation at schools has been well documented with reports by Amnesty International and other groups highlighting widespread systematic segregation at schools across the former Eastern bloc.“Governments need to take quick steps to stop discriminatory practices"

Meanwhile, recent court rulings have confirmed individual cases of educational discrimination of Roma in countries such as Croatia, Greece, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.

The discrimination ranges from overt segregation where Roma children have been taught in separate classes at mainstream schools, to the placement of Roma children in schools for the mentally handicapped – noted by the European Court of Human Rights as being widespread – because of systemically flawed and discriminatory testing.

One study by the Open Society Foundation claimed Roma children in Slovakia and the Czech Republic were 28 and 27 times more likely, respectively, to be put in special schools than non-Roma pupils. Another study by the Czech School Inspectorate from 2011 suggested that more than 3,000 pupils in such schools had been placed there without any testing at all.

Children as young as six or seven can be sent to these schools – renamed ‘practical schools’ recently in what critics say was a merely cosmetic change to the education system – and they have been repeatedly criticised for offering a limited curriculum and effectively preventing children reaching their education potential, deepening a cycle of poverty and deprivation among Roma.

According to a 2009 study from the Czech Institute for Information on Education and the Ministry of Education, only 1 percent of Roma children from practical schools go on to secondary schools providing full school-leaving qualifications as opposed to 30 percent of Roma children from normal elementary schools.

Ciprian Necula, a 32-year-old Roma activist living in Bucharest who works on projects to help end discrimination against the Roma in Romania, told IPS what happened to Roma children placed in special schools in his country.

He said: “Just as one example, in Dumbraveni, central Romania, around 500 Roma kids go to special needs schools although they are normal. This is because they only speak the Roma language and would not fit in at normal schools and their parents are happy because their kids go to a school where they get a warm meal.

“But when they get to high school age they do not know how to read or write, only how to draw.”

However, Roma parents are often happy to send their children to such schools because they are poorly informed of what it will mean to their child’s educational development to attend such a school and also out of fear of their child being bullied in a normal school or because the costs of sending them to a mainstream school further away would be too high.

The Czech government had previously pledged to phase out ‘special schools’ as part of a commitment to inclusive education.

But comments just a few weeks ago from the Czech government’s plenipotentiary for human rights, Monika Simunkova, suggest that the process of closing ‘practical schools’ will have to be pushed back from an original target of 2015.

NGOs fear that the government is now backsliding on its commitments to ending discrimination under pressure from non-Roma parents, teachers from practical schools and special psychologists who recently garnered over 70,000 signatures for a petition against the closing of practical schools.

They say though that fear of closing the schools is irrational as the phasing out of the school should be carried out in conjunction with mainstream schools being given the support to allow them to provide children with the necessary help to meet their individual needs.

Amnesty International, the European Roma Rights Centre and the Open Society Justice Initiative last month sent an open letter to the Czech government calling on it to implement a moratorium on placements of Roma children with disabilities in practical schools, and undertake a comprehensive review of the system to ensure compliance with international and regional standards on education and non-discrimination.

The government has yet to respond to the letter.

However, there have been some examples of positive recent change on educational discrimination in the region. In Sarisske Michalany in Slovakia, one school where Roma children were until last year taught in separate classes on separate floors and were served separate lunches, has now fully integrated all non-Roma students following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.

And local NGOs say that, as they had hoped, the situation there is ‘positive’ with Roma children being provided fully inclusive education.

Stefan Ivanco of the Centre for Civil and Human Rights (Poradna), told IPS: “The school has started the process of introducing inclusive education principles and desegregation and what is also positive, so far there has been no indication of any ‘white flight’ or non-Roma pupils leaving to go to other schools.”

Bangladeshi workers at a Singapore construction site. Credit: Kalinga Seneviratne/IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Oct 1 2012 (IPS)

The World Bank warned Monday that over the next decade and a half, the world will need to create 600 million new jobs, particularly in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, just to maintain current employment rates.

A senior World Bank economist, Martin Rama, called the figure “staggering”.

“But the numbers are only part of story,” Rama cautioned in a conversation with journalists Monday. “Social safety nets in many countries are too modest for people to be out of work for too long. In reality, most of the poor work long hours, but don’t make enough to make ends meet. So it’s not just the number of jobs, but also what people do.”

Releasing its flagship annual World Development Report (WDR) for 2013, this year focusing on jobs, the bank says that some 200 million people around the world are today unemployed. That number is particularly stark for young people: more than a third of those without a job are under 25 years old, while around 621 million young people today are neither at work nor in school.

Although this is only the second out of 34 WDRs to focus on jobs, Kaushik Basu, the bank’s new chief economist, says, “There is a compelling case for moving jobs centre stage” in the push for development. In fact, “Jobs themselves are a driver of development.”

Basu, who only took over his new position on Monday, has most recently been advising the Indian government on economics. Across South Asia, he says, the labour force grows by a million people every month.

Several recent events led bank officials to revisit the institution’s views on jobs, particularly the ongoing international financial crisis. Job creation is today driving policy and political discussions across the globe, including having defined the core of the hotly contested election here in the United States.

In addition, however, the popular uprisings across the Arab world, the strengthening waves of globalisation, as well as the broader changing relationship between technology and labour have each dramatically roiled the jobs scenario in many countries. Global trends today see the all-important share of agriculture in country economies falling significantly, even as the services sector continues to grow and as more countries urbanise.

Increasingly, Basu says, it doesn’t appear that growth alone – long the central priority for development institutions – is enough to bring people out of poverty, a point explored in the new WDR.

“The conventional wisdom is to focus on growth as a precondition for continued increases in living standards and strengthened social cohesion. But … the impact of growth on poverty reduction varies considerably across countries,” the report notes.

“If growth indicators captured the intangible social benefits from jobs, from lower poverty to greater social cohesion, a growth strategy and a jobs strategy would be equivalent. But a growth strategy may not pay enough attention to female employment, or to employment in secondary cities, or to idleness among youth. When potentially important spillovers from jobs are not realized, a jobs strategy may provide more useful insights.”

Indeed, the new analysis suggests that jobs serve as a “lynchpin” for achieving inclusive growth and spurring development. Around the world, most of those who get out of poverty do so through jobs.

“Jobs are not just the outcome of growth, we’ve found: development happens through jobs,” Rama, the WDR’s director, says. “Many of the things we were caring about in development were happening through jobs – poverty reduction, gender equality, urbanisation, global integration and even conflict (mitigation).”

Of course, which jobs have the greatest payoff inevitably depends on local and national circumstances. Still, the issue confronting policymakers, the WDR’s researchers suggest, is trying to identify which jobs are more transformational in bringing about these desired outcomes.

“(J)obs with the greatest development payoffs are those that make cities function better, connect the economy to global markets, protect the environment, foster trust and civic engagement, or reduce poverty,” the report notes. “Critically, these jobs are not only found in the formal sector; depending on the country context, informal jobs can also be transformational.”

Focus on workers

The World Bank’s move to turn its data-crunching firepower on jobs has been widely lauded by civil society, particularly for how relatively neglected the issue has been in development circles in the past. However, there are differing views on how exactly the bank should take full advantage of that decision.

“The World Bank’s decision to focus its World Development Report 2013 on jobs is welcome,” Global Unions, an international network of trade unions, said in a recent statement. “The Bank should use the opportunity … to promote the understanding that creation of decent work must be at the centre of the development process if economic growth is to be broadly shared.”

Such a concept was agreed upon during the most recent meeting of the Group of 20 (G20) countries, in June in Los Cabos, Mexico. Global Unions is also urging the World Bank to move forward on another issue recently endorsed by the G20, that of “social protection floors and … the target of establishing such floors in all countries by 2020”.

Others have expressed anxiety that an increased focus on job creation could result in a weakened focus on workers themselves.

“(It’s) great that jobs are presented as the ‘hinge’ of development,” Duncan Green, a strategic advisor for Oxfam, an aid agency, wrote after the bank announced the new WDR theme. “But … it looks like that hinge will then be explored almost entirely in terms of improving the enabling environment for employers. That could easily end up producing a kinder, gentler tweak of the standard Washington Consensus: make it easier to hire and fire and otherwise ‘flexibilize’ the workforce.”

Green suggests focusing instead on an “enabling environment for workers, starting by asking them what makes for decent, life-enhancing jobs … Could the Bank develop a metrics for the ‘social return on employment’ to sit alongside more conventional indicators?”

By Jinty Jackson
Sep 20 2012 (IPS)

Carolina Poalo strikes the dry earth over and over with her hoe, her frail body bent almost double. She is determined to begin planting. During the long, dry season in Mozambique, she and her two young grandchildren have eaten little but cassava leaves.

In a country where the average life expectancy is 50, the 65-year-old is considered very old, but her golden years are far from restful.

Instead, life is a constant battle for the many elderly living in the semi-rural outskirts of the capital, Maputo.

Violence and abuse against the elderly – ranging from rape to psychological abuse and neglect – are on the rise, say authorities. Often this is linked to witchcraft accusations, although no official statistics exist about the phenomenon. Perpetrators are often family members.

Carolina Paolo’s sister, Amelia Paolo, fled her home when her sons accused her of witchcraft. “They threw me out, calling me a witch,” she tells IPS. “I only survived thanks to my plot of land.”

It was a bit unclear how she got access to land where she lives now, but she has a plot of land next door to her sister’s in Bilalwane, on the outskirts of Maputo.

“I don’t get any help from my children. Sometimes they dump their kids here when they get pregnant,” Carolina Paolo tells IPS of her two daughters.

The women survive by earning extra cash when they can, working in nearby fields. The five dollars a month state elderly grant, the lowest in Southern Africa, is enough to buy them a one-kilogramme bag of salt. With no access to running water, the money also comes in handy when filling up at a nearby tap – one barrel of water costs them three cents.

Mozambique’s social welfare office is notoriously corrupt and inefficient. Only one in three people interviewed by IPS said they received the grant despite all three having applied for it.

Her body shrunken and her eyes grown over with cataracts, Maria Chambale (70) admits she is frightened of what might happen when she can no longer work, “I must go on fighting,” she says and shrugs. “What else can I do?”

She, like the other elderly in Mozambique, works on her own small plot of land to grow vegetables to feed herself. She also accepts “piece jobs” or day jobs in nearby fields owned by richer neighbours who have land but do not have the time to farm it.

Despite the heady pace of Mozambique’s economic growth – the World Bank expects the economy to expand by 7.5 percent in 2012 – little benefit is trickling down to the poor, many of whom are elderly people.

“Sixty-eight percent of the elderly live below the poverty line in Mozambique,” says Janet Duffield, the director of the aid agency HelpAge International in this country.

For the elderly in the city who cannot grow food to feed themselves, conditions are even worse.

Sixty-year-old Armando Mattheus is amongst the many elderly people who now find themselves begging on the streets of the capital, unable to cope with the high cost of living. “Before I could buy something with the little I have but today I can’t buy anything,” says Mattheus, who spends his days outside a popular Maputo restaurant, begging tourists for handouts.

It is a situation experts say Mozambique’s government needs to address urgently. Eighty percent of people work well into old age in Mozambique – one of the highest rates in the world.

“The population in Mozambique works until they die because there aren’t alternatives,” says the director of Mozambique’s Institute of Social and Economic Studies, António Francisco.

With half its population of 23 million under 18 years old, Mozambique is often referred to as a country of young people. Those who can remember the devastating civil war that ended two decades ago are now in the minority.

Newly discovered natural gas and coal deposits promise untold riches for a lucky few and will soon fuel what is already one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

The aged make up a tiny fraction of the population – just five percent.  However, by the time a child born today reaches 60, that number will be nearly three times as high, according to Francisco’s research. This represents, he says, “an unprecedented demographic transformation in the history of Mozambique.”

Nearby countries – South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia and Lesotho – all spend between 0.3 and two percent of GDP on grants for the elderly. Like Mozambique, they have a young population structure but such an approach can pay dividends.

Japan, which in 2010 registered 38 percent of its population over the age of 65 – the world’s largest proportion – spends over 10 percent of GDP on pensions, according to the International Monetary Fund. And the United Kingdom spends five percent of GDP on pensions, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Studies show that providing state pensions can reduce hunger and poverty because elderly people share resources with the family.

A 2003 study by HelpAge International found that “social pensions increase the income of the poorest five percent of the population by 100 percent in Brazil and 50 percent in South Africa.” And a 2005 study by the University of Manchester in the U.K. found that people living in households receiving a pension were 18 percent less likely to be poor in Brazil and 12.5 percent less likely in South Africa.

One fifth of all families in Mozambique include an elderly person. This is one reason why aid agencies are pushing the government to fall into step with other countries in the region. Another is that 43 percent of orphans are cared for by grandparents in Mozambique. The country has an HIV prevalence rate of 16.2 percent, one of the highest rates in the world.

“Of the 10 African countries with the highest HIV prevalence, eight have introduced some form of social pension or cash transfer directed at older people,” says Duffield.

The government would need to provide citizens over 60 with a minimum of 26 dollars a month to have an impact, estimates Francisco. The figure represents three percent of the country’s 12.8-billion-dollar GDP.

But universal social pensions would be too costly, argues Felix Matusse, who heads the government’s Department for the Elderly. “We still depend on external aid,” he explains, pointing out that foreign donors contribute over 30 percent of the entire state budget.

But the government cannot go on pleading poverty for long. By some estimates, Mozambique stands to collect over five billion dollars a year in the long term from its natural gas alone.

Bolivia, South America’s poorest country, financed its universal pension scheme or “Dignity Pension” in 2007 through a direct hydrocarbon tax. Could Mozambique do the same?

“Improved revenue collection from new-found mineral resources could free up fiscal space more than adequate to provide a cash transfer for all older people,” suggests Duffield.

Others argue that caring for the elderly should not have to depend on hydrocarbon windfalls. “What kind of state do we have that cannot look after five percent of its population?” asks Francisco, adding that nearby Lesotho finances a pension scheme but has no natural resources to speak of.

Few expect a major shift in government policy on pensions before the next national elections in 2014. But in the run-up, the government is showing greater willingness to tackle its elderly problem.

A draft bill, due to go to parliament before the end of the year, aims to protect the aged from abuse, meting out specific tough penalties for violence related to witchcraft accusations. However, there is no mention of universal old age pensions.

Matusse points out that Mozambique will not begin to reap the benefits of hydrocarbons for at least another five years. “Then we will see what is going to happen in terms of social security,” he says.

“It was Ibrahima Sarr, a friend and fellow fisherman, who got me involved with smuggling people across the seas.” Senegalese fisherman Doudou Ndoye speaks with the bittersweet conviction of a man redeemed.

“Our clients paid between 200,000 and 300,000 CFA francs (400 to 600 dollars) per person, with 96 passengers on each boat,” he told IPS.

Sarr and Ndoye were “passeurs”, people-smugglers organising risky voyages from the coast of Mauritania across the open seas to the Spanish-owned Canary Islands in small fishing boats.

Those waters have claimed the lives of many hopeful migrants from Ndoye’s home, the Senegalese fishing community of Thiaroye-sur-mer. More than 150 young people from this small fishing village on the outskirts of Dakar have died in the crossing, according to COFLEC, the Women Against Clandestine Emigration Collective. They left behind 88 children. The collective says 374 minors from the village have been detained in Spain and 210 local youth repatriated to Senegal from Europe as well as Cape Verde and Morocco, where they were preparing to venture the passage.

“Seven of my own cousins have disappeared on the high seas,” Ndoye said. “From my neighbourhood alone, seven other young people have died at sea, two were repatriated after being caught by the Moroccan coast guard.”

Five years ago, at a funeral for a group of young Senegalese who died trying to emigrate, Yayi Bayam Diouf decided she had had enough. “I decided to organise women who had lost their husbands, sons or brothers crossing the sea, and create an association to fight against this curse.”

She set up COFLEC to work against clandestine migration, both through awareness campaigns that help people better understand the risks of trying to emigrate in this way, and by creating jobs that encourage young peopLe to stay and build their futures in Thiaroye-sur-mer.

Today, the collective has 375 members and a wide range of income-generating activities. There is food processing, making couscous from maize, millet and black-eyed peas. There is seafood – the collective brings three tonnes of smoked and dried fish and shrimp to market every year.

Members also make juice out of whatever is to hand, lemons, oranges and mangoes, hibiscus and ginger, as well as from the green pulp hidden inside the brown pods of the ditah (also known as sweet detar, a fruit popular across West Africa’s Sahel regions).

COFLEC also makes three tonnes of soap per year from local materials (palm oil, caustic soda, shea butter and neem oil), earning around 16,000 dollars.

All told, the collective produces 30 tonnes of various goods for sale in local markets, in neighbouring Mali, Burkina Faso, and Côte d’Ivoire, and even overseas in Europe and the United States. Receipts come to around 70,000 dollars a year.

Some of this income supports microcredit, with the group lending nearly 20,000 dollars a year to its members and to people trying to re-establish themselves after being repatriated from Europe. COFLEC has also spent nearly 100,000 dollars on two fishing boats with the aim of easing 50 former passeurs back into legitimate work on the seas, Diouf told IPS.

“We put the finance for this together thanks to our own contributions and a grant from the Beneteau Foundation, based in France. The Spanish overseas development programme also helped us with a loan,” she said.

These initiatives came too late for Ndoye’s close friend, Ibrahima Sarr: he was lost at sea after he took his place in one of the small boats sailing for El Dorado. But for the young residents of Thiaroye-sur-mer, the energy and initiative of COFLEC points to a golden future closer to home.

Striking miners who were relased from police custody on Sep. 3 vowed to continue fighting for a minimum monthly wage of 1,495 dollars. Credit: Nat Nxumalo/IPS

By Siyabulela Debedu
JOHANNESBURG, Sep 7 2012 (IPS)

The South African Police Service members who were involved in a bloodbath with striking workers at the Marikana mine in North West Province could face murder charges, sources close to the investigation told IPS.

The possible charges follows the death of 34 mineworkers after police opened fire on them using automatic rifles and pistols on Aug. 16.

According to procedure, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) was brought into investigate the police conduct. However, sources close to the investigation have revealed to IPS that because an autopsy report found that many of the victims were shot in the back while fleeing from the police, the police involved are expected to be charged with murder.

“We have gathered evidence showing that the miners were killed by police. We are going to complete the investigation and they will be charged,” the source told IPS.

“The report indicates that the majority of the miners were running away and they were shot at the back. At least two of the victims were shot and killed by one bullet. It was only a few, who had direct contact with the police, who have been shot from the front,” the source added.

About 3,000 miners, armed with pangas and spears, had been protesting and demanding a minimum wage of 1,495 dollars monthly outside the Lonmin-owned platinum mine when police attempted to break up the demonstration. The incident was the culmination of several days of violent strikes, which saw the death of 10 people, including two police officers.

It is unclear why the police fired, but police officials claimed that the strikers had rushed at them and they responded in self defense. It resulted in the country’s first ever massacre since the advent of democracy 18 years ago.

At the time, 270 mineworkers were arrested for public violence, illegal possession of dangerous weapons, illegal possession of firearms, murder and attempted murder.

But on Sep. 3 the state withdrew the charges against them and they will only appear in court in February 2013.

However, Shawn Hattingh, a researcher and education officer at the International Labour Research and Information Group, told IPS that even if the police are charged with murder, those in power who were responsible for giving the police permission to use live ammunition would most likely not be brought to justice.

“The whole thing was incredibly badly handled or incredibly ineffective, but I don’t think the state will answer for this. I don’t think there is an interest in the state to prosecute high up in the state. We’ve seen it before with politicians being charged and given light sentences or having had them dropped.”

He added that the priority in mining is to protect the mined resources from the mineworkers “and it was clear that violence would be used to protect it.”

“The police was there to protect the mine, our constitution is based on the protection of private property, so in general the state is going to react in the same way,” he said of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry set up by President Jacob Zuma to investigating the killings.

“There are people who aren’t going to answer for this. The Lonmin management won’t be charged with this. The guy who did the shooting will be charged, but he was following orders. There were orders to break the strike that day, the police commissioner made that clear,” Hattingh said.

He said what needed to be clarified was who gave the order to fire on the miners.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions’ spokesperson Patrick Craven told IPS that there were many unanswered questions that the Judicial Commission of Inquiry needed to address.

“Certainly the role of the police absolutely has to be central to this – we already know from the television footage that they played a role in this and this can’t be dodged. Again it seems from the coverage that these weren’t individual police officers loosing their heads and firing,” he said.

However, the IPID spokesman Moses Dlamini would not confirm the possible charges or the contents of the autopsy reports.

“Once the investigation is completed, the dockets will be forwarded to the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) for a decision on whether anyone should be prosecuted or not.

“If the decision of the DPP is to prosecute, the suspects will then be charged and be put on trial. Our investigation has not been completed and we have not even discussed the case with the DPP,” Dlamini said.

Meanwhile, Hattingh said that the massacre at the mine had been inevitable as there was a history of violent conflict between miners and owners in South Africa.

“The scale (of violence) at Lonmin is vastly bigger that what has happened in the past, but it is not that first time that workers have been killed … The whole history of mining is confrontational and harsh,” he said.

“If you look at what the security on the mines is like, it’s very strict. Communities are kept off their own land with barbwire, workers every day have to go through though security check, there are armed guards all over. You are watched over a lot of the time – it is a militarised environment,” he said.

He said that in South Africa the system of capital accumulation had been about oppressing all workers, especially black workers, and nothing much had changed.

“The ruling classes have changed in the mining industry but the stuff on the ground hasn’t changed … the lowest paid workers – the rock drillers who earn R4,000 (482 dollars) and work deep underground in the most dangerous of jobs – are still black,” he said.

Meanwhile, the miners have vowed to continue to fight for a minimum wage of 1,495 dollars from Lonmin mine owners.

Lungisile Lutsheto was among the miners arrested. He told IPS of his alleged abuse by police while in custody.

“It was bad in the cells. The police special units came to our cells and started to assault us for no reason. Initially, they searched us saying they were looking for cellphones in our possession. When they could not find any, the beating continued repeatedly,” Lutsheto said.

Already 150 statements have been made and cases opened against the police by miners who claimed to have been assaulted while in custody.

*Additional reporting by Nalisha Adams

Mozambique’s Magermans, or “people from Germany” have been waiting 22 years for salaries they earned in Germany that the southern African nation was meant to pay them. Credit: Louise Sherwood/IPS

By Louise Sherwood
MAPUTO, Jul 11 2012 (IPS)

Every Wednesday at 11.00am José Alfredo Cossa unfurls his East German flag and leads a march of around 150 men and women down the main streets of Maputo, Mozambique’s capital. In a struggle for justice that has been going on for more than 20 years this group, known as the “Magermans”, represent the 16,000 to 20,000 Mozambicans who were sent to the former East Germany in the early 1980s to work and serve their country.

“We’ve been marching for 22 years to get the salary we earned in Germany. We keep coming because we are sure that one day they will pay,” explained Cossa. “In Europe we learnt about peaceful protest. Where else in Africa would you see a demonstration like this?” he asked. Magermans is a local name meaning those who came from Germany.

Passersby turn to stare as the procession passes. Blowing whistles, beating drums, singing and dancing the carnival atmosphere of this demonstration belies the ongoing struggle behind it.

When Mozambique gained independence in 1975 hundreds of thousands of skilled Portuguese workers left almost overnight, which had a devastating effect on the country’s economy. So in 1979 President Samora Machel’s new left-wing government made an agreement with socialist East Germany to send Mozambican men and a number of women there to study, train as apprentices and work in the former German Democratic Republic or GDR’s state-run enterprises, the Volkseigener Betriebe, with the aim to return with new skills to help build their country.

“I was sent to learn carpentry when I was 21 and then got a work contract for four years. Others were employed to cut trees, work in abattoirs or in the coal industry,” said Cossa.

Lázaro Magalhães a Escova is another Magerman, now working as an administrator for ICMA, the Mozambican-German Cultural Institute, in Maputo. “There were many different reasons why the men wanted to go. They came from different provinces, to escape war, hunger or forced recruitment into the armed forces. In my case I wanted to see Europe. Before I left I went for two days’ induction training and then I got on a plane.”

The workers received 40 percent of their salaries in cash while the other 60 percent was sent back to Mozambique. “We were told that on our return there would be a bank account waiting for each of us,” said Magalhães.

They worked until the end of the decade when tensions within East Germany increased culminating in the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. “We were happy when the barriers came down but were afraid of the skinheads and neo-Nazis who didn’t like foreigners and we worried what would happen if we no longer had government protection,” said Magalhães.

“After unification we heard that they were going to close the state factories and the Mozambican government gave us a choice ‘Either stay on your own account or we pay your flight back.’”

Many chose to go home but the decision was not an easy one. “Some of the wives and children came to the airport. The women were crying and begging their husbands not to go,” recalled Magalhães.

Yet those heading back believed it was the start of a prosperous new future. “We had great expectations. I was planning to start my own carpentry business making windows, doors and furniture and then bring my girlfriend from Germany. But when we got here the money was gone. The government had eaten it all and my hopes fell to the bottom of the sea,” said Cossa.

While the German government has records showing that the money was sent it appears the individual accounts were never set up by the government in Mozambique.

The Magermans also found it difficult to adjust to life back home.

“Our neighbours wore ragged clothes and we arrived dressed as gentleman. There were no televisions or videos in Mozambique. We brought them,” said Cossa.

Many also found their newly acquired skills were redundant. “A number of men had worked in car assembly plants, for Trabant, but when they arrived back in Mozambique there were hardly any cars and no car industry,” said Magalhães. With their ‘European ways’ they stood out from the crowd and it was then that they became known locally as the Magermans

Some of the workers did find jobs with one Magerman opening a string of successful bakeries across Maputo. Yet as the months passed the majority found themselves without work or money and within a year of their return they began to protest outside the Ministry of Labour.

“We were just asking for what was rightfully ours but the government sent armed police to deal with us,” recalled Magalhães. The protests have continued to this day with their case passing from one Ministry to another without resolution.

In 2002 official enquiries were made with the German authorities to see if there was a case to answer. A document, in possession of the Magermans, released by the German Federal Ministry of Finance, shows that 74.4-million dollars in salaries and 18.6-million dollars in social security were paid by the former GDR, figures which equate to approximately 5,000 dollars per worker. The Mozambican government accepted that a much smaller amount was owed and began to make payments of 10,000 t0 15,000 Meticais (or between 370 to 550 dollars) to some of the workers.

Over the years many of the men lost contact with the families they left behind. Now in their late twenties, some of the children have come to Mozambique looking for their fathers. ICMA is one of the places they contact first.

“We get emails from families almost every day. One girl came and found her father living in a hut made of mud bricks and palm leaves. She stayed there for a while and then took him back to Germany,” said Magalhães.

Cossa explained that the next step for the Magermans is a meeting with Prime Minister Aires Ali.

“We’ve made a formal request but nothing is scheduled. It may take a while to get it but we’ve already been waiting 22 years. What difference does a few months make? While we still have strength we will never give up.”

Kashmir is missing out on a ‘demographic dividend’ and unable to cash in on its youthful population for lack of initiatives from a state government bogged down by a two-decade-old armed insurgency.

Mercy Corps, a United States-based development agency, found 48 percent of youth in Kashmir unemployed, in a comprehensive survey, the results of which were published in August 2011.

According to the survey, Kashmir is experiencing a ‘youth bulge’ – that can lead to a demographic dividend – with about 70 percent of its 10 million-strong population under the age of 31.

The World Bank’s chief economist, Justin Yifu Lin, submits in his blog ‘Let’s Talk Development’ on Jan. 5, that the increase in the number of working age individuals can, if employed in productive activities, result in a youth bulge becoming a demographic dividend.

However, he says, if a large cohort of young people cannot find employment and earn a satisfactory income, the youth bulge will become a ‘demographic bomb’, because a large mass of frustrated youth is likely to become a potential source of social and political instability.

The Bank holds that most developing countries have a short window of opportunity to enact policies and promote investments that raise the human capital of young people while positioning them for greater economic productivity.

“Official data reveal that the incidence of unemployment amongst youth in Kashmir has continued to rise since 1993. With more and more educated youth entering an already over-saturated job market each year, Kashmir faces a mounting challenge,” Mercy Corps noted.

One issue reflected in the survey is that government jobs continue to be prized in Kashmir, creating a mindset in which jobs in the private sector or entrepreneurship are less valued.

But Kashmir’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has made it clear that it is unrealistic to expect the government to provide more employment in a state already groaning under an annual wage bill worth 3.6 billion dollars.

“The preference for government jobs in a conflict zone, where investing in businesses is risky, is understandable. But this preference has resulted in high unemployment rates,” Shamas Imran, a researcher on social issues and teacher at Kashmir’s Central University, told IPS.

Imran and others say that if the government cannot provide jobs it should create conditions for the growth of entrepreneurship in Kashmir beyond traditional activities like tourism.

At a recent youth gathering in Kashmir’s capital, the ‘Young Kashmir Leadership Meet’, several participants told IPS that they would like to see the government encouraging private sector investments aimed at generating jobs and incomes.

“We do need to give up this notion that government jobs alone are everything and rest is nothing. But this mindset can change only when employment opportunities are created in the private sector,” said Imtiyaz Lone, a participant in the meet.

Imran, however, said limited employment opportunities in government and in the private sector were already beginning to push youth towards self-employment in such areas as floriculture.

Mumtaz Sheikh, 27, a post-graduate from Kashmir University, is happy growing flowers on his farm. “After realising that a government job or even a private job is hard to find, I started exploring options of self-dependence,” Sheikh told IPS.

Nusrat Jahan, 37, a woman who graduated in computer applications, is another entrepreneur who has taken the floriculture route to self-employment. She has no regrets and now employs 20 people in her business supplying flowers to such clients as ‘Ferns N Petals’, India’s largest florist.

“Floriculture pays good dividends, giving an average farmer an additional income of around 2,000 dollars per season,” Harcharan Pal Singh, director of floriculture in Kashmir, told IPS.

When Alexander Mudragey, director of Wisdom Flowers, a major Russian importer,    visited Kashmir last year, he put the potential of floriculture in the state at 100 million dollars a year, though this would call for initial investments.

Mudragey said the cost of flower production was much lower in Kashmir than elsewhere in the world and the climatic conditions favoured flowers like roses and tulips which were of better quality than those grown in the Netherlands, Columbia, Ethiopia, China and Vietnam that are major exporters.

But, entrepreneurs like Sheikh complain that Kashmir’s provincial government has done little to boost entrepreneurship in horticulture or in any other income-generating area.

“Unfortunately, the government has been slow in tapping employment-generating sectors such as commercial floriculture, fisheries and forest- and agriculture-based industries,” says Mohammad Ashraf, an independent researcher.

Ashraf’s views were in consonance with the findings of the Mercy Corps survey which said that “Kashmiri youth are highly resilient, educated and motivated, but currently lack the skills needed to compete in the 21st century.”

“Kashmir’s burgeoning youth population is an untapped asset and represents a potential opportunity for positive economic and social change. Large percentages of Kashmir’s youth are potential entrepreneurs,” the survey said.

“The government is laying too much emphasis on tourism – but tourism in Kashmir is unreliable given the present security situation,” Ashraf said.

(END/IPS/AP/IP/RL/CR/PR/CS/AC/AG/HD/AP/RDR/11)