Least Developed Countries account for less than 1 percent of world trade. Credit: Ali Mkumbwa/Unsplash

By Deodat Maharaj
GEBZE, Türkiye, Aug 22 2025 (IPS)

Artificial intelligence and the use of frontier technologies are already transforming trade and boosting prosperity, particularly for developed and some developing countries. This ranges from the digital exchange of documents, the digitalisation of trade processes and leveraging online platforms to fast-track cross-border trade.

The rapid adoption of new technologies will further consolidate the dominance of world trade by developed economies, which currently account for roughly 74 percent of global trade, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The world’s 44 Least Developed Countries (LDCs), with a population of an estimated 1.4 billion people, are seeing a different trajectory altogether. According to the World Trade Organisation, they account for less than 1 percent of the world’s merchandise trade. LDCs continue to reel from the relentless onslaught of bad news, including increased protectionist barriers.

Deodat Maharaj, Managing Director of the United Nations Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries.

UNCTAD has estimated that tariffs on LDCs will have a devastating consequence, possibly leading to an estimated 54 percent reduction in the exports from the world’s poorest countries.

In this dire situation, exacerbated by declining overseas development assistance, what does an LDC do to survive in this difficult trade environment?

To start with, they must continue to advocate globally for fairer terms of trade. At the same time, they need to be more aggressive in addressing matters for which they have control. Otherwise, the status quo will leave their people in a perpetually disadvantageous situation. Imagine paying three times more than your competitors just to ship a single crate of goods across a border. For millions of entrepreneurs in the world’s LDCs, it is the everyday cost of doing business. Technology offers a way out in reducing these high costs.

Indeed, when the international community gathered in Sevilla for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in July 2025, one truth stood out: Technology is no longer a luxury—it is a prerequisite for effective participation in global trade. The outcome document was clear that for the world’s 44 LDCs, bridging infrastructure gaps, building domestic technological capacity, and leveraging science, technology, and innovation are vital to unlocking trade opportunities.

So, given the challenges and opportunities, what forms the core elements of an action agenda for LDCs to leverage trade to generate jobs and opportunities for their people?

Firstly, there is a need to pivot to digital solutions, which can dramatically reduce trade costs and open new markets. According to the World Bank, paperless customs and single-window systems have been proven to cut clearance times by up to 50 percent, reducing bureaucracy that stifles commerce. In Benin, automating port procedures reduced processing time from 18 days to just three days (World Bank). E-commerce platforms, when paired with secure payment systems and targeted training, have shown remarkable potential.

Secondly, invest in digital infrastructure. The data suggest that LDCs still have a lot of catching up to do. The solution is for development partners and the international financial institutions to steer more resources in this area with a fixed percentage of resources, say, 15 percent of a country’s portfolio dedicated to boosting digital infrastructure.

Thirdly, focus on value addition and reduce transition away from the export of raw commodities. This in turn requires the human resource capacity to spur innovation and creativity. Boosting investment in research and development can pay rich dividends.

According to the World Economic Forum, LDCs invest less than 1 percent of GDP in research and development compared to developed countries. The Republic of Korea invests 4%.

Finally, for LDCs to enter the technological age, their businesses must lead the way. It is difficult to do so in some countries like Burundi, where internet penetration is a mere 5 percent of the population. The average internet penetration is around 38 percent. So, in addition to digital infrastructure, support must be provided to micro-, small and medium-scale enterprises to benefit from the opportunities provided by technology to boost trade, thereby creating jobs and opportunities. This includes the establishment of incubators to support this business sector, boosting their technological capacities to trade and profile their businesses on digital platforms, and helping them to deliver services created by the digital economy. Rwanda has been a pioneer in this regard.

Of course, technology alone will not address all the challenges faced by LDCs. However, by delivering cost-efficient solutions, it can help level the playing field and drive transformation. It is time for the international community and development partners to back their words with action in helping LDCs advance this agenda. Since LDCs represent an emerging market of 1.4 billion people, when they rise, everyone else will rise with them.

Deodat Maharaj, a national of Trinidad and Tobago is the Managing Director of the United Nations Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries and can be reached at: deodat.maharaj@un.org

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Progress for Least Developed Countries could be a mixed blessing. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS.

By Aruna Dutt
UNITED NATIONS, May 13 2016 (IPS)

The United Nations will undertake a major review of progress made in the world’s 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) later this month.

ACP Secretary-General Patrick I. Gomes, who sees the group’s role as “a global player defending, protecting and promoting an inclusive struggle against poverty and for sustainable development in a world enmeshed in inequality”. Photo credit: ACP Press

By Patrick I. Gomes
BRUSSELS, Jun 28 2015 (IPS)

In his memoirs, Glimpses of a Global Life, Sir Shridath Ramphal, then-Foreign Minister of the Republic of Guyana, who played a leading role in the evolution of the Lomé negotiations that lead to the birth of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, pointed to the significant lessons of that engagement of developed and developing countries some 40 years ago and had this to say:

“As regards the Lomé negotiations, the process of unification – for such it was – added a new dimension to the Third World’s quest for economic justice through international action. Its significance, however, derives not merely from the terms of the negotiated relationship between the 46 ACP states and the EEC, but from the methodology of unified bargaining which the negotiations pioneered.

“Never before had so large a segment of the developing world negotiated with so powerful a grouping of developed countries so comprehensive and so innovative a regime of economic relations. It was a new, and salutary, experience for Europe; it was a new, and reassuring, experience for the ACP States.

“Forty years later, that lesson remains retains its validity. Unity of purpose and action remains the touchstone of ACP’s meaning and success.”

With a conscious appreciation of that founding unity of purpose and action, the ACP Group convened a high-level symposium at its headquarters in Brussels on Jun. 6. The event marked the milestone of four decades of trade and economic cooperation, vigorous and contentious political engagements and a range of development finance programmes – all aimed at the eradication of poverty from the lives of the millions of people in its 79 member states.“The ACP will craft its future path to continue the struggle against power, inequality and injustice, the core purpose for which it was established in 1975”

In 1975, it was 46 developing countries that met in the capital city of Guyana, to sign the Georgetown Agreement and give birth to the ACP Group. They had recently embarked on their post-colonial path of independence following successful negotiations of non-reciprocal trade arrangements with the then nine-member European Economic Community (EEC) in February.

Known as the Lomé Agreement, after the capital of Togo where it was signed, this legally-binding, international agreement had a life-span of 25 years to 2000. Essentially, it comprised three pillars of trade and economic cooperation, development assistance – mainly through grants from the European Development Fund (EDF) – and political dialogue on issues such as human rights and democratic governance.

During that period, the preferential trade and aid pact undoubtedly gave an impetus to various aspects of economic and social development in the ACP Group. Substantial revenue was received from preferential access to the European market for exports of clothing, banana, sugar, cocoa, beef, fruit and vegetables, for example, and with the accompanying aid programmes.

The benefits were seen in the economies of Mauritius, Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, Namibia, Guyana and Fiji, to name a few. Member states of the ACP Group, less-developed countries (LDCs), landlocked states and small island developing states (SIDS), had access to returns from trade for improved social services and in this sense, the first decades of Lomé were certainly gains for development in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific.

But these gains entrenched an aid-dependency of commodity export economies with minimal structural transformation through value-added manufacturing and related service sectors in ACP countries.

The fierce trade-liberalising world of the late 1990s, rising indebtedness due to enormous increase in the cost of energy and pressure from the challenge of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to the European Union’s discriminatory practice of preferential trade and aid to this exclusive set of developing countries meant that post-Lomé ACP-EU trade relations had to be WTO-compatible.

Finding compatibility for “substantially all trade” between the economies of the ACP’s 79 members – grouped in six regions of Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific – and Europe, and ensuring that development criteria take precedence over tariff reductions and WTO rules have proven contentious in this long-standing partnership.

With this overhang of tensions in its troubled access to its principal market, the ACP faces the conclusion of the 20-year Agreement signed in Cotonou, the Republic of Benin, in 2020.

A soul-searching and vigorous process to be repositioned as a global player defending, protecting and promoting an inclusive struggle against poverty and for sustainable development in a world enmeshed in inequality is the singular task on which the ACP now concentrates.

Such a task has entailed a series of actions that are informed by the report of the Ambassadorial Working Group on Future Perspectives for the ACP Group of States that was approved by the Council of Ministers in December 2014.

The main thrust of the transformation and repositioning of the ACP is captured in the strategic policy domains identified in the report.

These are in five thematic areas that address:

a) Rule of Law & Good Governance;

b) Global Justice & Human Security;

c) Building Sustainable, Resilient & Creative Economies; and

d) Intra-ACP Trade, Industrialisation and Regional Integration;

e) Financing for Development.

In each of these, and in ways that are mutually reinforcing, very specific programmed activities of an annual action plan are being prepared and will be executed.

For example, the annual plan will address the thematic area of “sustainable, resilient and creative economies” through the mechanism of an ACP Forum on SIDS with financial resources, mainly from the intra-ACP allocation of the EDF and the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO), one of the partner agencies of the UN system with which the ACP Group works very closely.

Conceptualised so as to address systemic and structural factors affecting sustainable development, the ACP emphasises South-South and triangular cooperation as a major modality for implementation of its role as catalyst and advocate.

The current stage of rethinking and refocusing provides an opportunity for 40 years of development through trade by which the ACP Group and the European Union could recast the world’s most unique and enduring North-South treaty of developed and developing countries to effectively participate in a global partnership where no one is left behind.

The ACP has social and organisational capital accumulated from a rich experience on trade negotiations with the world’s largest bloc of Europe and its 500 million inhabitants.

Undoubtedly marked by contentious issues on trade provisions to satisfy the WTO’s non-discriminatory behaviour among its member States, ACP-EU relations reveal the persistent battle of poor versus rich with a view to finding common ground on issues of mutual interest.

The 40^th anniversary celebration by the ACP Group at a High-Level Inter-regional Symposium on Jun. 4 and 5 witnessed reflections on achievements and failures, as well as limitations in the performance of the ACP Group, in itself as a group and among its member states, as well as in its partnership with the European Union and the wider global arena.

The theme of the symposium covered the initial Georgetown Agreement and the ambitious objectives that were set in 1975. The high point was the keynote address by H.E. Sam Kutesa, President of the UN General Assembly.

Interestingly, discussions revealed how relevant and timely they remain and of special note was the “promotion of a fairer and more equitable new world order”.

This retrospective conversation has been recognised as fundamental for how, and in what direction, the ACP will craft its future path to continue the struggle against power, inequality and injustice, the core purpose for which it was established in 1975.

Edited by Phil Harris    

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

The European Commission is calling for SDGs to address poverty eradication and sustainable development together in three dimensions – economic, social and environmental. Photo credit: UNFPA Sudan

By Ramesh Jaura
BRUSSELS, May 5 2015 (IPS)

In the run-up to the international Conference on Financing for Development from Jul. 13 to 16 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the European Union has called for a “true paradigm shift” in global development cooperation.

The Addis Ababa conference will be followed by the U.N. post-2015 Summit in New York and the Climate Change conference in Paris in December. “These meetings will define our future and will set the level of ambition of the international community for the years and decades to come,” according to European Union Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica.

The Addis Ababa conference on development financing in July and the Paris climate conference in December offer a “once in a lifetime” opportunity “to end poverty, achieve shared prosperity, transform economies, protect the environment, promote peace and ensure the respect of human rights” – Neven Mimica, European Union Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development
This, Mimica believes, offers a “once in a lifetime” opportunity “to end poverty, achieve shared prosperity, transform economies, protect the environment, promote peace and ensure the respect of human rights.”

The European Commission, which represents the interests of the 28-nation European Union, believes that the sustainable development goals (SDGs) to be agreed in New York in September should not only cover “traditional” development challenges such as poverty, health and education, but go much further and address poverty eradication and sustainable development together in three dimensions – economic, social and environmental.

The Commission is pleading for “moving towards a universal agenda”. This means that the goals and targets to be agreed in New York will apply to all countries, challenging them to achieve progress domestically, while contributing to the global effort. “Such a far-reaching agenda can only be delivered through a true global partnership,” said Mimica.

The E.U. Development Commissioner is backed by an eminent group of experts from Finland. France, Germany and Luxembourg, who have authored the fifth edition of the European Report on Development (ERD), which focuses on ‘Combining Finance and Policies to Implement a Transformative post-2015 Development Agenda’.

Mimica wants the agenda to serve to mobilise action by all countries and stakeholders at all levels: governments, private sector and civil society, all of which would need to play their part.

The key message of the ERD report, launched on May 4, is that policy and finance go together and that they are both crucial to implement a transformative post-2015 development agenda.

Based on existing evidence and specific country experiences, the report shows that finance alone is not enough – it seldom reaches the intended objectives, unless it is accompanied by complementary policies, the right combination of financing and enabling policies, says the report.

According to Mimica, “the findings and analysis contained in the report provide a most valuable research-based contribution to the debate, particularly in view of the Addis Conference on Financing for Development – but also beyond”.

“In this crucial year for international development cooperation, the 2015 European Report on Development can serve as a key point of reference, not just for the European Union, but for the international community at large,” Mimica said at the launching of the report.

The findings of the report are in line with three major guidelines which would drive the E.U. Commission’s action to implement the new development agenda:

• if it is not sustainable, it is not development
• if it is not resilient, it is not development
• if it is without women, it is not development

In many ways, the report complements and supports the work of the Commission in advocating a comprehensive approach to the means of implementation for the post-2015 development agenda. At the same time, it challenges the Commission to keep pushing our thinking forward, said Mimica.

The significance of the report is underlined by the fact that the European Union as a whole has consistently remained the biggest global aid donor, even in times of significant budgetary constraints.

According to latest figures, the European Union’s collective official development assistance (ODA) (by E.U. institutions and member states) has increased to Euro 58.2 billion (up by 2.4 percent from 2013) – growing for the second year in a row, and reaching its highest nominal level to date. Collective European Union ODA represented 0.42 percent of E.U. gross national income (GNI) in 2014.

A 0.7 percent ODA/GNI target was formally recognised in October 1970  when the U.N. General  Assembly adopted a resolution including the goal that “each economically advanced country will progressively increase its official  development  assistance  to  the  developing  countries  and  will  exert  its  best  efforts  to  reach  a minimum net amount of 0.7 percent of its gross national product at market prices by the middle of the decade.”

To date, the target has not been achieved but it has been repeatedly re-endorsed at the highest level at international aid and development conferences.

“We are committed to playing our full part in all aspects of the post-2015 agenda, including means of implementation,” Mimica stressed.

He added: “In our February Communication [on a Global Partnership for Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development after 2015], the Commission was very clear. We proposed to the Member States a collective E.U. re-commitment to the 0.7 ODA/GNI target – and we hope indeed that there will be agreement amongst Member States on this ahead of Addis.”

Official development assistance will certainly remain important in a post-2015 context – in particular for the least developed countries (LDCs), according to Mimica.

“At the same time, we expect other partners – including other developed economies and emerging actors – to also contribute their fair share. The efforts of the European Union alone will not be enough.”

Aware that this is a rather controversial issue, he added: “To be able to speak of an ambitious outcome in Addis and New York, we will all need to raise our level of ambition. The EU is ready to engage with all partners to achieve this. We have been active and constructive in the negotiations so far, and we will continue to do so, taking a responsible, bridge-building approach.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

Members of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance staging a demonstration at the Climate Change Conference in Lima. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
LIMA, Dec 10 2014 (IPS)

The post-2015 global climate change agreement should be flexible and fully resourced or else condemn Africa to another cycle of poverty resulting from the adverse effects of climate change.

Echoing this view, African delegates and civil society groups at the ongoing (Dec. 1-12) U.N. Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru, said that some of the continent’s demands were being relegated, yet they are crucial for the post-2015 period.

Azeb Girma, an environmental activist from Ethiopia, told IPS that he was disappointed with the way the negotiations were proceeding.  “We thought to have a pathway to Paris [venue for the next climate change conference in 2015] but Africa is cheated. Africa is demanding adaptation but this has been pushed away. The discussions are leading nowhere,” said Girma.

Some of the negotiators claimed that developed countries were backtracking on some of the positions earlier agreed to at the Durban Climate Change Conference in 2011.

Dr Tom Okurut, Executive Director of Uganda’s National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), told IPS that in Durban parties had agreed that adaptation was supposed to be part of the post-2015 climate deal but some developed countries were not willing to commit themselves in the draft texts."We have a mandate from science, from our people, from the continent of Africa, and from the United Nations itself to push for enhanced global climate action to cut [greenhouse gas] GHG emissions as well as strengthen adaptation; this remains a priority for us" – Nagmeldin El Hassan, Chair of the African Group at the Climate Change Conference in Lima

“We need a legally binding agreement that binds all parties to whatever has been agreed to, unlike the current protocol where parties can opt out of the process. Right now, everything is voluntary and that is why we are not getting very big output here,” said Okurut.

Since the beginning of the Lima conference, the African Group has been pushing for a multilateral rules-based system with a comprehensive outcome aimed at halting the growing threat of climate change to the African continent.

“We have a mandate from science, from our people, from the continent of Africa, and from the United Nations itself to push for enhanced global climate action to cut [greenhouse gas] GHG emissions as well as strengthen adaptation; this remains a priority for us,” said Nagmeldin El Hassan, Chair of the African Group while addressing a group of African journalist covering the conference.

Among the more thorny debates in this round of talks is the scope and format of country pledges or ‘Intended Nationally Determined Contributions’ (INDCS). Some parties, especially the African Group and most of the least developed countries (LDCs), want the focus to be on both mitigation and adaptation, while those in developed countries want the focus only on mitigation.

Earlier in the week, several African environmental groups under their umbrella group, the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), held a demonstration at the convention centre urging ministers and other negotiators to back the African position on INDCS.

“We call on all parties to take seriously their responsibility to agree on deep emission cuts and avoid further climate crisis. Time is running out while the negotiations are moving at a very slow pace,” said Nicholas Ndhola, an activist from Zimbabwe.

“We urge and demand all parties, especially the developed countries, to agree on the scope of INDCs to include all elements and not only mitigation which tends to ignore differentiated commitments towards finance, adaptation, technology transfer, means of implementation and capacity-building,”he added.

John Bideri from Rwanda told IPS that the developed countries were seemingly determined to ensure that issues about adaptation and technology transfer are not adequately agreed and defined as the parties agree on framework for the next agreement to be hammered out in Paris in 2015.

Seyini Nafo, spokesperson of the African Group at the Climate Change Conference in Lima and member of the UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

“It is time to come up with an equitable deal. Lima may be the last chance for us to make a breakthrough and end a standoff that has prevented adequate climate action for decades. Please stand with the poor, stand with the vulnerable,” urged Bideri.

The INDCs bring together elements of a bottom-up system – to be put forward by all countries in their contributions in the context of their national priorities, circumstances and capabilities – with the aim of reducing global emissions enough to limit average global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius.

According to the London-based CARE International, there is a need to set clear guidelines on the scope and format of INDCs.

“At the moment we run the risk of having to compare apples with oranges – if we don’t clearly define what countries must include in their national climate commitments towards the new agreement due in Paris next year, then it will be extremely difficult to understand how much progress is being made to curb climate change,” said Sven Harmeling, CARE International’s climate change advocacy coordinator.

However,in a statement in Lima,Miguel Arias Canete, the European Union’s Commissioner for Energy and Climate Action, said that “the European Union and other developed countries must take into account the concerns of developing countries that want more adaptation, finance and technology sharing elements, but it should be in a mechanism or process outside of the INDCs.”

He added that “countries’ intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) should be exclusively devoted to mitigation.”

While Africa has been pushing for adaptation as part of the post-2015 agreement, it is not about to give up the demand for mitigation in areas of sustainable land and forest management, especially carbon finance, under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programme.

Dr Ephraim Kamuntu, Uganda’s Water and Environment Minister, speaking at a REDD+ post 2015 discussion organised by the Peruvian government, said that parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have been slow in implementing the Warsaw REDD+ Framework.

“We would want our colleagues in developed countries to agree on REDD+ result-based financing. This is a very key issue for us in Africa. We affirm the need to integrate the REDD+ into the overall structure of the 2015 agreement for durable and effective climate change governance,” said Kamuntu.

Critical among Africa’s demands is fulfilment of the financial pledges for climate financing.  At the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009, developed countries pledged to scale up climate funding to 100 billion dollars a year from private and public sources by 2020. For the African Group, fulfilling this could make money available for a post-2015 poverty eradication agenda.

Some developed countries, such as Norway and Australia among others, have announced contributions to the Green Climate Fund, bringing the fund to close the 10 billion dollar mark.

Seyni Nafo, African Group spokesperson and a member of the UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance, told IPS that much more funding was needed.

“Recent pledges to the Green Climate Fund are a small first step, but funding around 2.4 billion dollars per year is not close to the actual need, and is a far cry from the 100 billion dollars pledged for 2020. Lima should provide a clear roadmap for how finance contributions will increase step-by-step up to 2020,” he said.

The European Union has agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030. The United States and China have announced commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a bilateral agreement, sending a strong signal for implementation of an international climate treaty in 2015.

Seyni Nafo said the recent announcements by the European Union, United States and China of their 2030 emission targets were to be commended for proactivity but fall well short of what science requires.

He challenged the European Union and the United States to match stronger mitigation targets with intended contributions on finance, adaptation, technology transfer and capacity-building in accordance with their obligations under international law.

(Edited by Phil Harris)

By Manuel F. Montes
GENEVA, Nov 12 2014 (IPS)

As the international community wades into the political discussions regarding the alternatives to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) after 2015 and the design of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as mandated by the Rio+20 conference, it is timely to consider the question of whether development is a matter mostly of individual effort on the part of nation-states or whether there are elements in the international economic system that could serve as significant obstacles to national development efforts.

If there are obstacles in the international economic system, it is important that the post-2015 development agenda and the SDGs address the question of the elimination or the reduction of these obstacles.

Manuel F. Montes

The limited number of successfully developing countries since the 1950s has provoked a debate over whether the success of these countries required their success in eluding international obstacles to development.

The question is to evaluate features of the international system on the basis of how these features are conducive to enabling long-term investment toward economic diversification.

Terminologies of previous development orthodoxies litter the development literature – import substitution, industrialisation, basic needs, structural adjustment, Washington Consensus and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Each of these orthodoxies tended to be a reaction to perceived weaknesses or missing elements from the immediately previous one. The most recent orthodoxy, as exemplified by the MDGs, is that development is about poverty eradication.

But poverty eradication is an overly narrow, possibly misleading, perspective on development.“Poverty eradication is a desired outcome of development but its achievement is permanent only with the movement of a significant proportion of the population from traditional, subsistence jobs to productive, modern employment”

Poverty eradication is a desired outcome of development but its achievement is permanent only with the movement of a significant proportion of the population from traditional, subsistence jobs to productive, modern employment.

The association of development with poverty reduction created for the donor community the pride of place in economic policy in developing countries.

But this place can be at the cost of reducing the responsibility of donor countries in helping to maintain an enabling international environment for development in trade, finance, human resource development and technology.

In the MDGs, these issues are crammed into “MDG-8”, the so-called global partnership for development, with a very selective and poorly defined set of targets.

Development requires not just higher levels of income, nutrition, education, and health outcomes but in the first place involves higher levels of productivity and capabilities.

Higher levels of productivity and capabilities are possible only with structural transformation of the economy.

In turn, in most societies, according to a report by the Secretary-General of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), such a structural transformation has been “associated with a shift of the population from rural to urban areas and a constant reallocation of labour within the urban economy to higher-productivity activities.”

Structural transformation is only possible with substantial and sustained investment over decades in new activities and products, not just in anti-poverty programmes.

Where the international economic system is hostile to investment in new, productivity enhancing economic activities is where its elements create obstacles to development.

One example of an externally based obstacle is aid volatility which has been shown to have highly negative impacts on macroeconomic performance and domestic investment.

Capital and technological investments are required to overcome the enormous productivity gap between developing and developed countries which characterises the world economy.

In 2008, a ratio of the average Gross National Income (GNI) per worker in the countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) versus those in the least developed countries (LDCs) was 22:1 in favour of the OECD countries.

This imbalance has worsened by a factor of five in comparison to the earliest days of capitalist development. In the nineteenth century, taking the Netherlands and the United Kingdom as the richest countries and Finland and Japan as the poorest, the productivity gap was only between 2 to 1 and 4 to 1.

The international economic system is lacking crucial mechanisms for delivering long-term, stable resources required by developing countries to upgrade their capabilities.

Dependence on commodity exports sustains the productivity gap between developed and developing countries.

Abundant global liquidity and growing trade imbalances fuelled a commodity boom in the 2000s which benefited many developing countries, including many LDCs.

All previous global liquidity booms had ended with serious economic crises in developing countries. The more recent commodity price boom did not introduce an enduring improvement in macroeconomic balances, especially for low-income countries (LICs).

While in the 2000s LDCs experienced the strongest growth rates since 1970s, according to UNCTAD, more than one-quarter of LDCs actually saw GDP per capita decline or grow slowly in the 2002-2007 global boom.

Even the middle income region of Latin America presents evidence of insignificant structural improvement in fiscal and current account balances.

Previous commodity boom periods had similarly not been an occasion for structural change in LDCs. UNCTAD suggests that between the 1970s and 1997, manufacturing as a proportion of GDP increased by less than two percentage points in LDCs as a group, a period which saw various episodes of commodity and global liquidity booms.

When considering LDCs from Africa alone and including Haiti, manufacturing fell from 11 to 8 percent during the same period.

Developing countries had extensively liberalised their trade regimes in the 1980s. In the aftermath, UNCTAD finds that some LDCs have more open trade regimes than other developing countries, and others are more open than even developed countries.

These policies had been intended to facilitate economic diversification. Instead of the expected outcome, greater trade liberalisation has been accompanied by greater concentration in the structure of exports.

The international economic system labours under the constraint that the highest decision-making bodies in key institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), do not provide sufficient voting weight and policy influence to countries most affected by their operations.

One effort under way but under enormous political obstruction is to update voting weights in line with the changed economic structure. Even the G20, where important developing countries sit, has been unable to advance progress. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

*  Click here for the Research Paper on which this column is based.

Excerpt:

Zimbabwe has experienced reduced rainfall in recent years thanks to climate change. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE/JOHANNESBURG, Dec 4 2013 (IPS)

Livias Duri, 72, from Zimbabwe’s Mwenezi district in Masvingo province, 436 km southwest of the capital Harare, depends on agriculture for his livelihood.

But he lives in an area that is one of Zimbabwe’s most drought-prone.

“Yes, we hear world governments often meet to discuss ways of combating the impact of climate change, but truly I have neither seen nor heard about anything good that has come out of such talks. Drought has become part of our lives here in Mwenezi. If the rains come, it’s either too much or too little,” Duri told IPS.

In 2012 the United Nations Development Programme commissioned a 8.3-million-dollar project to incorporate climate change policies into a national plan.“Let’s have a budget line to address our own climate change challenges in Africa. Climate change is an issue of life and death and African governments need to implement climate change policies like yesterday." -- Professor Godwell Nhamo

However, Veronica Gundu, Zimbabwe’s principal climate change officer in the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Management, told IPS that the money was not enough. Additional funding of 170,000 was received from the Common Market for East and Southern Africa, but this too was short of the 400,000 needed to complete public consultations for the draft National Climate Change Policy.

“There is no fixed amount available for climate change adaptation. It’s not yet clear, but we are likely to get estimate figures from the action plan we are developing,” Gundu said.

The Africa Development Bank estimates the cost of climate change mitigation in Africa will be between 22 and 30 billion dollars annually by 2015, and between 52 and 68 billion yearly by 2030.

In 2009 at the world climate change talks in Copenhagen, developed nations pledged 100 billion dollars by 2020 for the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

The Oversees Development Institute stated in a recent report that developing countries had only contributed just over 10 million dollars to the fund to date, with South Korea, a developing nation, pledging the most – 40 million dollars. And at the November climate change talks in Warsaw, Poland, developed countries failed to make further pledges to the fund.

Many African countries are unable to even access the limited funds in the GCF.

“For climate change adaptation funds, countries need to establish national implementation entities which would help them access funds, but funders have their own stringent and very specific requirements to be met for funds to be granted,” Farai Madziwa, programmes manager for Heinrich Böll Stiftung southern Africa, a foundation that deals with sustainable development, told IPS.

“The challenge faced by African countries seeking climate change funding is the capacity to meet the requirements in terms of the expertise and resources needed to access climate funds,” he said.

He explained that African governments were battling with how to move funds within the national budgets and how to set up institutional instruments to handle climate change funds in order to ensure the smooth flow of funds down to local level.

“The challenge that is there is how to streamline the national budgeting processes and channel money from the national fiscus to trickle down to the provincial level, streamlining down to the municipal level, where the actual climate impact is happening,” he said.

Jerome van Rooij, co-director for the African Climate Finance Hub, a South African-based advisory and research organisation working in Sub-Saharan Africa on the supply and demand side of climate finance, told IPS that not all African countries even have climate change policies.

“There are instances where draft policies have been put in place, but have not been approved by cabinet. Climate change is not considered a priority in other African countries owing to lack of political will,” he said.

Professor Godwell Nhamo, chief researcher and chair of the Exxaro Chair on Business and Climate Change at the University of South Africa, told IPS that it was time for African governments to make money available to address their own climate change challenges.

“African governments have a social obligation to address climate change issues. Finance ministries must allocate the funds, but the bottom line is where should the money for adaptation come from? A lot of people think there is a big pot of money from the developed world, but these countries are also struggling financially,” Nhamo said.

“Let’s have a budget line to address our own climate change challenges in Africa. Climate change is an issue of life and death and African governments need to implement climate change policies like yesterday,” Nhamo added.

Zimbabwe, a nation that is bankrupt, has called on other African governments to do so.

“With or without support from developed nations, as African governments, let’s enact national climate change measures to adapt to the extreme weather conditions prevailing globally,” Zimbabwe’s Minister of Environment, Water and Climate Saviour Kasukuwere told IPS.

A woman in Uganda’s Katwe slum uses an improved, energy-saving stove to reduce charcoal use. Energy-saving stoves are being distributed in Uganda as part of emission-reduction projects. Credit Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
WARSAW, Nov 15 2013 (IPS)

Negotiators from Least Developed Countries are calling for the United Nations climate body to urgently establish a rescue fund to save Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism from collapse.

Delegates, mostly from Africa and developing countries, fear that the CDM will fail if a special fund is not established to help it overcome the effects of the European economic meltdown.

Fred Onduri Machulu, former chairperson of the LDC expert group with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCCC, told IPS: “There are genuine reasons for a CDM rescue plan. We need to cushion the CDM from current and future shocks instead of letting it die at a time when it is beginning to function.”

He said the private sector was losing confidence in the CDM because of the low prices of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs).

The CDM allows emission-reduction projects in developing countries to earn CER credits, which are equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide. These CERs can be traded and sold, and used by industrialised countries to meet part of their emission-reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol.

The CDM has registered over 7,400 emission-reduction projects in developing countries since 2004 and generated over 1.2 billion emission credits. However, it has been jeopardised by the fall in CER prices. CER credits have come down from over 15 dollars in 2011 to about 40 cents currently.

Machulu admitted that the CDM was fairly complicated for some LDCs in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, with many African countries lacking the capacity to develop and process projects that could qualify for funding under the CDM.

But he insisted that these projects have had a positive impact on the livelihoods of people and communities.

Dr. Tom Okurut, executive director of Uganda’s National Environment Management Authority, told IPS that the future of the CDM remained uncertain unless a rescue plan was urgently put in place.

“In Uganda we have registered eight municipalities under the CDM for waste management. By the time we registered, the price for carbon was very good. But now the price has fallen to its lowest. And that is why the CDM needs to be rescued. More especially when we see more LDCs projects being registered,” he said.

In June, consultancy Vivid Economics stated in its report “The market impact of a CDM capacity fund” that about 2.5 to three billion euros may be needed to stabilise the CDM for the next several years.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, has previously said that a lack of political ambition to tackle climate change by some developed countries has led to the lack of demand for CERs.

And executive director of Tanzania’s Institute for Environment, Climate and Development Sustainability Joachim Khawa told IPS that some nations attending the current U.N. Climate Change Conference in Warsaw were determined to ensure that the CDM was weakened to pave the way for a so-called new international market mechanism (NMM) in carbon trade.

At the 2011 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, parties decided that the NMM should be established to complement the CDM. Details of how the new mechanism will work are part of the discussions at Warsaw.

However, some groups are opposed to the idea of a CDM rescue fund saying the LDC group should instead focus on pushing for the quick implementation of the Green Climate Fund.

Wael Hmaidan, the executive director of Climate Action Network International, told IPS: “One of the other ways of maintaining healthy level of investment in the CDM is if we work with the Green Climate Fund. And recognise that the CDM is a results-based financing tool that the Green Climate Fund could immediately go out and start to make direct investments in.”

The Green Climate Fund is supposed to channel 100 billion dollars a year in public and private financing to developing countries by 2020.

Shewangizaw Kifle Mulugeta, a project manager with the Ethiopian Railway’s climate financing project, told IPS that most LDCs feared that sectorial approaches being pushed by the European Union could create new trade and economic barriers for developing countries in the carbon market.

“Our position is that the CDM should not be disrupted because it will have adverse effects on some of the projects that have been approved or are in the pipeline,” said Mulugeta.

Figueres told journalists in Warsaw that her secretariat was committed to ensuring that the CDM’s integrity was maintained because of the gains made in lowering mitigation levels.

She said that the CDM has not only had an important impact on developing countries through technology transfer, but it had also encouraged industrialised nations to increase their emission reduction targets by making mitigation more affordable.

Brazilian diplomat Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo was named the new director general of the WTO with broad support from the developing world, beating out his Mexican rival Herminio Blanco, who was backed by the industrialised nations.

“The results of the selection process reveal that most members of the WTO (World Trade Organisation), the majority of whom are developing countries, are dissatisfied with the current status quo – which Blanco represented,” Deborah James, coordinator of the Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS) network of dozens of organisations, activists and social movements worldwide, told IPS.

She said the countries were frustrated “in terms of continuing the current failed model of corporate globalisation, based on liberalisation and deregulation – that the WTO consolidates globally – without regard for the negative impacts of these policies on workers, farmers, and the environment.”

WTO director general-designate Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo. Credit: WTO/CC BY SA-2.0

Azevêdo’s formal appointment on Tuesday May 14 was seen as a breath of fresh air in the rarefied climate which has numbed the WTO – headed over the last eight years by French economist Pascal Lamy – for at least a decade.

In its statement before the WTO General Council, which endorsed the appointment of Azevêdo to a four-year term starting Sept. 1, the South Africa delegation said “we celebrate a triple victory: it is a victory for the principle of diversity, it is also a victory for the principle of consensus, and it is a victory for the principle of multilateralism.”

It also urged the WTO to guarantee that its leadership reflected the diversity of its 159-nation membership, representing all of the world’s regions.

“Today we succeeded in ensuring that Latin America is represented in the leadership of the WTO for the first time,” the delegation said, adding that it would soon be Africa’s turn to contribute its rich leadership to the global trade body.

The WTO and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), have been governed by representatives of industrialised nations with the exception of the period 2002-2005, when the organisation was led by Supachai Panitchpakdi of Thailand.

James said “Now it will be up to the new Director General Azevêdo to respond to the obvious need that global civil society (through the OWINFS network) has been highlighting: for the transformation of the existing system, to ensure that it can provide countries sufficient policy space to pursue a positive agenda for development and job creation, and so that trade rules can facilitate, rather than hinder, global efforts to ensure true food security, sustainable economic development, global access to health and medicines, and global financial stability.”

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) urged Azevêdo to put a priority on access to medicine.

MSF Director of Policy and Analysis Rohit Malpani said “Mr. Azevedo’s appointment comes as least developed countries (LDCs) member states have requested to remain exempt from implementing the TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement until they are no longer classified as LDCs.

“The request for extension would allow these countries to avoid monopoly protection for medicines, diagnostics and medical devices,” he added.

This request and other demands by the LDCs, along with the questions of agriculture and trade facilitation, are among the issues likely to be on the agenda of the WTO ministerial conference slated for Dec. 3-6 in Bali, Indonesia.

Azevêdo has avoided making clear statements on the WTO’s future because he is merely director general-designate until September.

However, in an acknowledgement of the difficulties facing the negotiations in Bali, the Brazilian diplomat warned that if the meeting is “not successful, it will make the road a lot more difficult ahead.

“We need to move the WTO from where we are today to an organisation that is again meaningful, that again delivers negotiated outcomes that the world hopes and expects from us.”

But the differences among the negotiators are not the only threat to the conference in Bali. The Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) announced that “We will register our strong resistance against the WTO in its 9th ministerial meeting.”

The APC will hold a series of coordinated activities against the WTO meeting, in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, said the organisation’s deputy secretary general, Rahmat Ajiguna.

The WTO accords in agriculture “resulted in massive displacement, destruction of local industry, and increasing land and resources grabs,” the APC added.

Innovation in the pharmaceutical industry has declined drastically in the last ten years despite the high profitability of the so-called “research-based” industry, and the availability of better and more powerful science and technological tools. Not only has productivity in terms of research fallen, but the vast majority of new molecules introduced to the market do not provide new therapeutic solutions since other treatments already exist, normally at a lower cost.

Funding for research is focused on areas with the greatest potential for profit. Those areas that would actually have the biggest impact on public health remain largely ignored. A clear indicator is the lack of investment in fighting diseases that are prevalent in developing countries, such as Chagas’ disease, tuberculosis and malaria.

The problem is that although millions would benefit from this type of investment, the majority of them are poor people who do not create an attractive market for big companies. Neither can they benefit from treatments for non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular insufficiencies and cancer: even where treatments are available, the high prices of patented medications make them inaccessible.

As a result, in the 21st century, communicable diseases cause more than 10 million deaths per year -according to Health Action International (HAI)- of which 90 percent take place in developing countries; a third of the global population does not have regular access to the medicines that they need. The situation is worse in least developed countries (LDCs) in which up to half of the population does not have access to medicinal treatment.

From both a moral point of view as well as a human rights perspective ­ the right to health is recognised in international conventions and in numerous national constitutions ­ this situation calls for greater responsibility by governments and a new research paradigm centered on public health interests, especially to meet the needs of developing countries.

On May 26, 2012, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution that could mark the first step toward a change in the current pharmaceutical research model. The members of the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to undertake an in-depth examination, at the governmental level, of a report produced in April 2012 by an international group of experts that recommended the adoption of a binding convention on research and development (R&D). If approved and implemented, such research could generate the medicines needed, particularly in developing countries, to address communicable and non-communicable diseases.

Some of the conclusions and recommendations of the report were the following:

– the present incentive systems, in particular intellectual property rights, fail to generate enough R&D in either the public or private sector in order to meet the health needs of developing countries;

– recent trends in the pharmaceutical industry show a decline in innovation, as reflected by the small number of approval of new molecular entities (NMEs), the majority of which do not represent a therapeutic novelty;

– to promote better financing and coordination of research, an open approach should be promoted, with the results of R&D being treated as “public goods” not subject to the exclusive rights conferred by patents;

– new forms of shared financing, direct subventions, prizes and patent pools (to increase access to health products) should also be promoted, and mechanisms to coordinate research should be established at the global level.

The report recommended that all countries should dedicate at least 0.01 percent of their gross domestic product to R&D relevant to meet the health needs of developing countries. As regards coordination, it advised the establishment of a global observatory on R&D, advisory services and a network of research institutions.

The main purpose of the report was, however, more ambitious: to start discussions regarding a possible binding international convention to promote R&D centered on diseases prevalent in developing countries, including non-communicable diseases.

This recommendation caused the biggest controversy between developed and developing countries at the World Health Assembly. A possible explanation is that developed countries perceive the suggestion of a new research model as a threat towards the present system based on the appropriation of profits from innovation through the patent system.

But the convention, if adopted, would generate more resources and greater efficiency in terms of research by means of better coordination and a fixation of priorities. Although the main beneficiaries would be developing countries, developed countries could also utilise the results of the research. Some of these countries face a severe crisis in their public health systems owing to the increase in the cost of treatment and a reduction in budgets.

The magnitude of the problem that must be confronted in order to generate enough R&D for pharmaceutical products needed by developing countries is such that this objective cannot be reached without effective commitment from all countries. Voluntary contributions from foundations or governments do not offer a sustainable, structural solution. In fact, many of the most promising initiatives for developing new pharmaceutical products to address the diseases that affect the poor are extremely vulnerable, as they depend on the continuity of charitable financing.

In order to promote development of new products and their access to populations, especially in developing countries, it is necessary to change the current research model. The cost of research should be delinked from the prices of the products generated. The challenge is not only about increasing investment in research or improving the rate of innovation. This will not suffice if the new products are not accessible to those who need them. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Carlos M. Correa is special advisor on trade and intellectual property of the South Centre, and a member of the Consultative Expert Working Group of the World Health Organization. For further analysis see South Bulletin 67 Article ( http://www.southcentre.org).

As Malawi’s poor struggle to afford food and other staple items since the 48 percent devaluation of the local currency against the dollar, economic commentators are optimistic that the move will provide an opportunity to boost the country’s export market.

A group of farmers queuing to buy fertiliser outside a shop in Bvumbwe, southern Malawi after the local currency was devalued. / Credit:Claire Ngozo A group of farmers queuing to buy fertiliser outside a shop in Bvumbwe, southern Malawi after the local currency was devalued. Credit: Claire Ngozo

On May 7, Malawi’s President Joyce Banda made a decision to devalue the Kwacha from K168 to K250 to the dollar.

The lowering of the currency against the dollar has hit locals hard. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world: 74 percent of the population of this southern African nation lives on less than 1.25 dollars a day, and nearly one in 10 children die before their fifth birthday.

The devaluation of the Kwacha created panic among consumers who rushed to stock up on basic food items such as maize flour, cooking oil and rice as the price of products increased by an average of 50 percent.

Consumers suffered a further blow on May 11 as the prices of fuel and electricity also rose by 30 and 63 percent respectively.

“The devaluation has made us poorer than before. Our salaries remain the same, so how can we afford to pay twice as much on basic necessities such as maize flour?” asked Mada Mayuni, a civil servant who works as a copy typist in the capital, Lilongwe.

Consumers suffered a further blow on May 11 as the prices of fuel and electricity also rose by 30 and 63 percent respectively.

“The devaluation has made us poorer than before. Our salaries remain the same, so how can we afford to pay twice as much on basic necessities such as maize flour?” asked Mada Mayuni, a civil servant who works as a copy typist in the capital, Lilongwe.

Mayuni is a widow and looks after seven children aged between four and 16.

“I don’t know how we will survive because my salary is only enough for transportation to and from work. Maybe I should move to the village and try subsistence farming,” she told IPS.

Matthews Chikankheni, the president of the Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, a partnership of enterprises and associations representing all sectors of Malawi’s economy, told IPS that although the average person was suffering, the devaluation of the Kwacha was a necessary adjustment that should be welcomed as it would boost the country’s export trade.

“This is a chance for export traders to improve their earnings. The devaluation means that exports will be cheaper and imports more expensive, and as a country we need to take advantage of this situation and export more,” said Chikankheni.

By devaluing the Kwacha, Banda was responding to requests that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and local economists had made to the country’s late President Bingu wa Mutharika. However Mutharika had repeatedly refused to take the step that economists believed would have saved the country’s failing economy.

Malawi’s donor relations suffered greatly following accusations that Mutharika’s government failed to respect the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and the right to freedom of the press.

Donors refused to release up to 400 million dollars and the United States suspended a 350-million- dollar grant. At the time, almost 40 percent of Malawi’s national budget was donor-dependent. Many donors have since pledged to help Banda restore the country’s economy.

The devaluation of the Kwacha and the liberalisation of the foreign exchange market are expected to contribute to the government’s attempts to reach an early agreement with the IMF in order to unlock donor funds.

Chikankheni said that the devaluation would boost demand for domestically-produced goods and discourage the current dependency on imported consumer goods, which have now automatically risen in price.

He added that the increase in exports would mean that foreign exchange would be easily available in the country and would result in an eventual improvement in the economy, which would trickle down to the people.

Currently Malawi’s annual imports, which are estimated to be two billion dollars worth of goods such as electronic items, groceries and furniture, exceed its exports. The country exports 1.2 billion dollars of agricultural products like tobacco, tea, sugar and groundnuts, according to the National Statistical Office.

Chikankheni is optimistic that the devaluation will aid the growth of the tobacco industry.

Tobacco is the country’s main revenue earner, accounting for up to 60 percent – or 950 million dollars – of foreign exchange. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Malawi’s tobacco accounts for five percent of the world’s total exports.

Dalitso Kubalasa, the executive director of the Malawi Economic Justice Network, a coalition of more than 100 civil society organisations that promotes economic governance, told IPS that the devaluation would make Malawi’s export products more competitive on the international market.

“On the export front, the devaluation will lead to increased demand for Malawi’s exports in the short run. In the long run, this is expected to stimulate production and thus lead to increased production of exportable goods … thereby generating foreign currency,” said Kubalasa.

He added that because the prices of imports had automatically risen and become unaffordable for some, the situation would motivate locals to substitute these goods with commodities that can be produced locally. It would provide an incentive to local industry, he said.

But he admitted that the devaluation would affect the country’s middle class and poor.

“We all have been through desperate times…perhaps we might have to even brace ourselves for more,” said Kubalasa. “But on the brighter side, we still need to understand that something needed to be done fast to put a stop to the downward trend of the economy before it got to a point of no return.”

He said he was hopeful that the devaluation was not the only solution to Malawi’s economic woes.

“For the devaluation to be effective, it needs to be done alongside strategic and well-focused supporting intervention measures,” said Kubalasa. (END)

As developing countries struggle with climate catastrophes, EU funding commitments fall short. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, May 13 2012 (IPS)

The European Union has been using all means necessary to fill the multi- billion-euro fund for climate change, including the controversial mobilisation of public resources through private financial intermediaries.

Following the Copenhagen Climate Change summit in December 2009, rich countries pledged an annual 100 billion dollars (72 billion euros) by 2020 to help developing countries deal with the impacts of climate change.

The EU committed to providing 7.2 billion euros for the fund over the period 2010-12, most of which will presumably be channelled through the Green Climate Fund

Although originally this money was expected to come from public sources, developed countries are now leveraging substantial amounts of private finance to raise funds. Increasing attention is being given to financial intermediaries that supposedly have easier access to private investment in developing countries, and are thus better able to stimulate financial flows.

Experts say it may be possible to raise funds in the range of 100-200 billion dollars (72-144 billion euros) per year through these intermediaries, as a result of private flows from developed to developing countries.

The idea is that development banks and financial institutions, such as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), use public money to invest in financial intermediaries working in developing countries to attract private investors.

A recent study by the London-based Bretton Woods Project on the use of banks, private equity firms and financial intermediaries by the IFC found that the latter’s lending has grown enormously over the past decade, with commitments reaching a record 18 billion dollars in the 2010 financial year.

The report found that instead of managing its own loans and investments, the IFC routinely relies on financial intermediaries such as banks and private investment funds. In the 2010 financial year, finance sector lending made up over half of all new project commitments.

There has been much debate over the past few weeks on how much of the EU’s share of the 100 billion dollars should come from the private sector – a trend civil society organisations (CSOs) believe would risk reducing the need for public funds.

In particular, CSOs are calling for more transparency on the use of these funds and clearer reporting on the effectiveness of the funded projects.

Least support for the least developed countries

A recent report by the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) found crucial gaps in knowledge of how money is leveraged through financial intermediaries.

It also assessed the role of these brokers in low-income countries (LICs) and in supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and examined the main monitoring and accountability constraints when using financial intermediaries.

“The problem is that development finance institutions are channelling a tiny amount of climate money to least developed countries (LDCs) or LICs,” Javier Pereira, author of the Eurodad report, told IPS.

“Of all the projects in the IFC and EIB’s portfolios we assessed, (amounting to) roughly 46 billion euros, we only found a total of five projects targeting climate finance in four LICs (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Madagascar). If you use the LDC classification, the figure is only three projects in two countries (Uganda and Madagascar). If you look at the EIB only, it has three projects in three LICs (Uganda, Tanzania and Madagascar, of which only two are LDCs).”

According to Pereira, study results show that “if using intermediaries and focusing on the private sector is going to be the main use of climate finance, there is an actual risk of (skipping over) the poorest countries.”

Various EU officials told IPS that the EU remains committed to its original pledges.

“It has always been clear that this funding will need to come from a variety of sources both public and private; accordingly a variety of instruments and approaches will be needed to meet the challenge, balancing between support for mitigation and adaptation,” one source said.

“In this context, official development assistance (ODA) mobilised (by) private financing, can contribute to creating a positive spiral of regulatory reform, sense of national ownership and – paired with a national Low Emissions Climate Resilient Development Strategy – facilitate the establishment of a sustained enabling environment for private investors,” the official told IPS.

No accountability?

According to report authors, monitoring financial intermediaries is extremely difficult and there is a lack of mechanisms to ensure private climate finance is aligned with developing countries’ priorities.

“To be accurate, these are not private funds, but public funds given to private entities, like investment funds or private equity funds, then recorded as ‘climate finance’ by governments and finance institutions,” Elena Gerebizza from Italy’s Campaign to Reform the World Bank (CRBM), who contributed to the report, told IPS.

“So an item of the public administration actually becomes a (way to) support the private sector, and through actors that are not necessarily committed to the fight against climate change or even contribute to that fight.”

Gerebizza said these private actors have no incentive to respect any environmental or social standards, are not correctly monitored by governments and their projects are not traceable because the information on their ‘climate funds’ is not public. “We don’t even know if they have any impact on climate at all.”

“In addition to the bilateral climate related assistance the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) remains the main vehicle for the Commission to deliver assistance to the LDCs,” EU sources told IPS.

From 2008-2011, the GCCA, an EU initiative providing assistance and capacity building specifically to the LDCs, has contributed over 200 million euros in support of more than 30 countrywide and regional programmes.

“The European Commission also uses United Nations agencies and international finance institutions (IFIs) to help it deliver specific programmes and assistance to developing countries. The related contractual arrangements include reporting requirements on the use of the funds and the activities supported. It is standard practice for the Commission to stipulate intermediate and final reports on the use of funding,” sources said.

This week Europe’s Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard held informal discussions in Brussels with 30 countries including representatives from the LDCs and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), who are calling for “more ambitious measures to reduce global carbon emissions and finance the fight against climate change.”

A primary concern of the informal meetings was how to close the gap in climate financing commitments. While the EU has committed to 7.2 billion euros for the Climate Fund over the 2010-12 period, the actual contribution so far remains unclear.

When the U.N. General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution back in September 2000 laying out eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it specified 2015 as the target date to achieve them.

But most developing nations, primarily the least developed (LDCs), have faltered in some of these goals, including a 50-percent reduction in extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality and environmental sustainability.

A young girl in Cote d'Ivoire fills a clay pot from a nearby well refurbished by UNICEF to make clean water accessible to villagers and meet one of the MDGs. Credit: UN Photo/Ky Chung

The MDGs, however, are not without their success stories in the developing world, mostly coming out of countries such as Brazil, China, India and South Africa.

Still, the relatively limited successes of the MDGs are being overshadowed by the inherent failures – made worse by the spreading economic crisis worldwide.

On Tuesday, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) released a joint report claiming that the MDG target of halving the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water (spelled out under Goal 7 on environmental sustainability) has been reached well in advance of the 2015 deadline.

“Today, we recognise a great achievement for people of the world,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, with a tinge of pride, pointing out that “this is one of the first MDG targets to be met.”

“The successful efforts to provide greater access to drinking water are a testament to all who see the MDGs not as a dream, but as a vital tool for improving the lives of millions of the poorest people,” he declared.

At the end of 2010, 89 percent of the world’s population, or 6.1 billion people, used improved drinking water sources, such as piped supplies and protected wells, according to the study titled “Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation 2012”.

This is one percent more than the 88 percent MDG target. And by 2015, about 92 percent of the global population will have access to improved drinking water, says the report released by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation.

A cautious UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake warned that victory could not yet be declared since at least 11 percent of the world’s population – roughly around 783 million people – are still without access to safe drinking water, and billions without sanitation facilities.

“The numbers are staggering. But the progress announced today is proof that MDG targets can be met with the will, the effort and the funds,” he added.

Asked what contributed to the success story, Sanjay Wijesekera, chief of UNICEF’s programme division for water, sanitation and hygiene, told IPS, “We believe the MDG drinking water target is one of the first to be met.”

The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation is the official U.N. mechanism with the task of monitoring progress towards MDG Target 7 (c) on drinking water supply and sanitation, he added, “But we are only reporting now, on the data from 2010, because that is the time lapse for the collection of the data.”

So the goal was already achieved in 2010, Wijesekera said, “we just did not know that it had been.”

The World Bank said last month that the poverty target had been met in 2010. It is similarly possible that other MDG targets have already been met, but have not yet been measured, he explained.

As for the success, he said, “we believe it is a concerted effort by governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), communities and the U.N. family to make access to drinking water sources a priority and work hard toward achieving it.”

Asked about the slow progress made by sanitation in reaching its goal by 2015, Wijesekera said, “The sanitation target has not been met, and the report projects that the target will not be met by 2015.”

“Globally, only 63 percent of the population use improved sanitation, and we will reach only 67 percent by 2015.”

At this slow rate of progress, UNICEF and WHO project that only in 2026 would 75 percent of the global population have access to basic sanitation facilities.

Asked about UNICEF’s stand on privatisation of water, he said that UNICEF’s position on this is pragmatic and focused on what provides the best outcomes for children.

“We do not have a preference for whether water is provided by the private or public sector (or a combination of these) provided, however, governments need to ensure proper oversight and regulation, measures need to be in place to ensure that the poorest are able to access services on a sustainable basis, and that there are functioning accountability mechanisms.”

Last year, the General Assembly declared water a basic human right, prompting the question whether drinking water should be made available free of charge to people in the world’s poorer nations – particularly the least developed countries (LDCs).

Asked for his reaction, Wijesekera said that according to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, the human right to water does not oblige states to provide water free of charge.

“Services must be affordable to the poor and not compromise the realisation of other human rights such as food, housing and health,” he added.

Guinea faces acute problems in the supply of clean water and electricity to its citizens, slowing the country’s economic development. A major project to address this is now under way, but some Guineans are sceptical of its promises.

Guinea enjoys more rainfall than any other country in West Africa; the country is known as the water tower of the sub-region, with the headwaters of the Niger, Senegal and Gambia rivers all found within its borders. The country’s many rivers and tributaries should be valuable assets for the provision of fresh water, extensive irrigation agriculture, and large-scale hydroelectric power generation.

But despite its natural resources, this country of 10.6 million people faces problems providing adequate electricity and access to clean water for its development. With support from international lenders, Guinea is working to improve the potable water supply and to refurbish and extend the electricity network in the capital, Conakry, and beyond.

Successive regimes have promised water and electricity for all, but problems persist. In May 2009, the then-military government launched a campaign to drill boreholes throughout the poorer neighbourhoods of Conakry, and, in the words of a former government official, “put an end to the sorry spectacle of hundreds of women and children, basins and buckets in hand, in a perpetual search for water”.

But that project has not yielded the expected results due to a lack of external financing. Corruption, which has plagued the management of the water and electricity sectors, has also contributed to the failure of the programme, according to analysts.

A current report from the Energy Ministry shows that Guinea’s electricity supply is still characterised by decrepit equipment, high production costs, a high level of debt, and a lack of managerial capacity amongst officials.

Guinea’s new government, elected in a close contest at the end of 2010, is making fresh efforts to provide the country with better facilities to put an end to both frequent power cuts and long-standing water shortages in this country where half of the population lives in poverty, according to a 2010 report by the United Nations Development Programme.

“We have drawn up and initiated Guinea’s Fourth Water Project,” said Energy Minister Papa Koly Kourouma.

The project aims to improve infrastructure for production, bulk transfer, storage and distribution of water, including the refurbishing of 15,000 existing public water points. In the Kakimbo neighbourhood of the capital, four boreholes with a total capacity of 4,000 cubic metres per day will be drilled.

Kouroma said the project will cover all 33 urban centres in the country by 2015, increasing the supply of clean water in Conakry from 40 to 63 litres per person per day, and to 55 litres per person in other urban areas.

The project will cost 15.7 million dollars, with funding from the Islamic Development Bank. “Considering all the efforts being made here and there, there is good reason to be hopeful,” the minister told journalists in February.

In the energy sector, work on rehabilitating and extending the electricity network in Conakry is in progress, co-financed by the IDB and theAfrican Development Bank at a cost of around 265 million dollars. New thermal power plants for the capital will also be built.

But Guineans have expressed reservations about the work in progress.

Ramatoulaye Barry, a sociology student at the University of Conakry, wants to see the projects actually carried out.

“I hope that these efforts will be successful and that people will no longer be provoked to demonstrate their frustration violently. An armed officer was killed recently during protests against a power cut that occurred during the broadcast of the first match of the national football team at the African Cup of Nations (in Gabon in January).”

Mamady Touré, from the non-governmental organisation “Guinée Is Back”, questions the plans themselves. “Boreholes are a temporary solution,” he told IPS. “But generally in our country, temporary becomes permanent.” Touré’s group wants more permanent solutions, like a water supply network that is truly modern, from production to distribution to households.

Rachid Sylla, an engineer specialising in borehole drilling, cautions that the current plans for urban water supply also have some drawbacks. “If there is major, localised pumping (of underground water reserves), it could lead to buildings cracking,” he told IPS.

“Boreholes were drilled across Conakry with abandon by the military regime, which didn’t bother with the necessary technical studies. I hope that the current government will take careful account of these parameters in its water supply project.”

For Alpha Camara, a retired official of the public water utility, Société des Eaux de Guinée, “It is imperative to begin a programme to build hydroelectric dams. And in rural areas, while waiting for the construction of micro-dams, we need to drill modern wells for potable water and to install equipment to capture solar energy.” (END)

When Jack Sabadgou left Ghana for Switzerland 10 years ago, he left his infant daughter behind to be raised by her mother. Now he wants his child back, and he is running out of time in a bid to save her from the banned traditional practice of female genital mutilation.

Florence Ali, the president of the Ghana Association for Women’s Welfare, has dedicated her life to the fight against female genital mutilation. Credit: Jonathan Migneault/IPS

Sabadgou’s daughter, Yuma, is now 13 years old and she lives in the village of Bawku, in northern Ghana, where people still adhere to traditional practices, including FGM. After Yuma’s grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer, she blamed her illness on evil spirits, which, she claims, punished her because her granddaughter has not yet been cut.

“The issue is a sickness,” says Sabadgou from his home in Switzerland. He says his mother does not understand that her cancer has nothing to do with evil spirits or her granddaughter.

“I don’t want to lose two people,” he says, fighting back tears. “I love them both.”

Female genital mutilation was criminalised in Ghana in 1994. The United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO) have condemned the procedure, which involves the removal of a woman’s external genitalia, including the clitoris and inner labia.

The WHO says the practice has no health benefits and causes only harm. It can result in recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections, cysts and infertility.

But in villages like Bawku, the practice continues in secret.

And Sabadgou’s desperation to save his daughter from this is palpable even a continent away.

Sabadgou returned to Ghana in early February to gain legal custody of his daughter so that he could take her to safety in Switzerland. He filled out paperwork and spoke with Bawku’s leaders about his concerns with FGM, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. He has since returned to Switzerland.

In Ghana’s northern regions FGM is generally practiced between December and February. Sabadgou believes his daughter has until December before her life will irreversibly be changed for the worse.

Florence Ali, the president of the NGO the Ghana Association for Women’s Welfare, has been Sabadgou’s only ally in Ghana.

Before dedicating her life to the fight against FGM, Ali was a midwife. Women and their unborn babies died in her care due to complications from female genital mutilation.

One woman was not able to deliver her baby due to the scarring of her vagina. Ali was not equipped to do a Cesarean section and the mother and child died.

Mariama Yayah, the director of Ghana’s Department of Children, says FGM is practiced in Ghana to strip women of sexual pleasure and ensure they stay faithful to their husbands.

Many in Ghana’s northern regions see the practice as a normal part of womanhood, she says.

Sabadgou plans to return to Bawku in December to let the girls there know that the practice is not acceptable.

“It’s going to be a fight,” he says. “It’s not going to be easy.” He says no one in his village supports his stance against FGM. But it is a belief, he says, that he is prepared to die for.

In Ghana, people who practice the banned procedure can serve five to 10 years in prison if they are prosecuted. But authorities are not doing enough to curb the practice, says Sabadgou.

The WHO estimates that 92 million girls in Africa over the age of 10 have undergone FGM and there are only 22 countries on the continent that have laws against the practice. Mali, for example, has no law banning female genital mutilation.

In 2008, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution to eliminate female genital mutilation.

Ali says that in 2011 an assembly of African leaders in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, supported a draft resolution from the U.N.’s 66th ordinary Session of the General Assembly to ban FGM worldwide. “We are hoping that at the next General Assembly meeting, we (will) have a worldwide ban on FGM,” she says.

For Sabadgou the fight against FGM in Ghana starts with awareness. “We need to talk about the issue,” he says. “It needs to start now.”

He says the country’s media has not done enough to denounce the custom and he wants ministers from Ghana’s northern regions to discuss the issue in parliament.

Ghana’s Department of Children has done advocacy on the issue but its resources are limited.

Ali’s organisation is even more strapped for cash. She has a cramped office next to a schoolyard in Accra. Hundreds of children play in a football field outside while she raises her voice to discuss her fight against FGM over the surrounding noise.

“It is not easy to combat FGM but we are still fighting to flush it out of the system,” Ali says. “We have a long way to go to fight against FGM. Everybody has a role to play.”

(END)

Each day after school, nine-year-old Nelly Wangui hurries home with a bundle of firewood balanced on her head. The paper bag in which she carries her schoolbooks sits precariously on top of the stack and every now and then she reaches out to ensure that her books have not fallen down.

Although Wangui’s story sounds typical of poor children in rural areas, she in fact lives in the country’s capital city, Nairobi. And her life is much like that of the thousands of other children in the sprawling Korogocho slum and others like it in this East African nation.

While children in urban areas are more likely to survive infancy and live beyond their fifth birthday since they enjoy better nutrition, health and education, compared to their rural counterparts, this is not true for children in urban slums.

In Korogocho alone government statistics estimate that 200,000 people live in crowded conditions, plagued by extreme poverty and an absence of basic services. Here, the lives of many children remain a continuous fight for survival.

“As experiences of childhood become increasingly urban, so are the experiences of extreme deprivation and a continuous fight for survival for children living in urban slums,” says Dr. Ken Onyango, a paediatrician in Nairobi who often volunteers his services to slum areas around the city.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report The State of the World’s Children 2012: Children in an Urban World, released on Feb. 28, an increasing number of children living in urban slums are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in the world.

As the world becomes increasingly urban with over half of its people living in urban areas, including more than a billion children, the urban experience is one of poverty and exclusion for many.

“When we think of poverty, the image that traditionally comes to mind is that of a child in a rural village,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake in a statement. “But today, an increasing number of children living in slums and shantytowns are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in the world, deprived of the most basic services and denied the right to thrive.”

According to the report, while cities offer many children the advantages of urban schools, clinics and playgrounds, the same cities the world over are also the settings for some of the greatest disparities in children’s health, education and opportunities. “About half the children in urban areas of sub-Saharan Africa are unregistered at birth,” and most of them are also not immunised, according to the report.

The report further shows that in areas where the population is high, immunisation levels are often low.

“Since slums are considered illegal, the government feels no obligation to ensure that slum dwellers have access to water and proper sanitation,” John Otieno, an urban real estate developer, explains.

“There is an absence of child-friendly initiatives in conceptualising urban infrastructure in Kenya. Space available for children to play is often grabbed by private developers,” he adds.

Globally, one out of three urban dwellers lives in slums, and in Africa the proportion is six out of 10.

The report states that the urban population is growing the fastest in Africa, followed by Asia. And while an increasing number of African children are growing up in urban areas, the proportion of children living in urban slums in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya is on the rise as well.

The report says: “Around two thirds of Nairobi lives in crowded informal settlements.” The city has an estimated population of 3.1 million people.

Wangui is part of this statistic. But hardships like hers are often concealed by national statistics that only report general averages.

“The lack of some is concealed by the excesses of others. In education for instance, East African countries are now implementing free primary education. Statistics show improved levels of enrolment but low enrolment in urban slums is often concealed,” says Dave Ndonga, a primary school teacher in Mukuru kwa Njenga, a slum in Nairobi.

The report states that in many African countries such as Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania, children in urban slums are least likely to attend school. However, countrywide average statistics in Tanzania show that the enrolment rate has doubled to about 97 percent.

“Children in slum areas drop out of school due to the additional costs of having to buy uniforms and even writing materials. But, there’s really little attention to the nature of education available to children in urban slums. Some classes have as many as 100 students per teacher,” explains Muigai Ngugi, a child’s rights activist in Nairobi.

He further says that these children are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol and engage in criminal activities at the onset of adolescence as a result of minimal supervision from adults.

And although many African countries have drastically reduced deaths of children under the age of five years, the rate is higher in slums.

This is because, according to UNICEF, women in urban slums are more likely to wean their children earlier than their rural counterparts, thereby exposing them to health risks, and possibly death, before their fifth birthday.

In Kenya, the infant mortality rate is 77 deaths per 1,000 live births. However, in urban slums in the country it is 151 deaths per 1,000 live births. The leading causes of these deaths are pneumonia and diarrhoea – both of which are preventable.

UNICEF urged governments to put children at the heart of urban planning and to extend and improve services for all. “Children’s well-being is determined in no small measure by their environment. Their particular needs and priorities must be incorporated into efforts to improve housing, infrastructure, safety and governance. It follows that the work of local government and urban planning must be carried out with explicit recognition of the rights of children and young people,” the report said.

(END)

By Travis Lupick
BLANTYRE, Dec 16 2011 (IPS)

On an elegant veranda adorned with a red carpet, Malawi’s Vice President Joyce Banda recalls how her childhood friend Chrissie Mtokoma was always top of their class and how she struggled to beat her. But now decades later Banda is a likely contender for the country’s presidency in 2014, while Mtokoma lives in poverty.

Malawi's Vice President Joyce Banda recalls how her childhood friend was always top of their class and how she struggled to beat her. Credit: Katie C. Lin/IPS

“She went to school in the village and I went to school in the town,” begins the highest-ranking woman in Malawi politics. “I would get home Friday evening and Chrissie would be waiting for me by the roadside.”

Banda tells parallel narratives contrasting her own upbringing with that of Mtokoma’s. “In the village school, Chrissie was first in her class, all the way to standard six (grade eight),” she tells IPS. “I was always number two or three, always fighting to beat her. But I couldn’t.”

Later, both girls were accepted into prestigious secondary schools. But after just three months, Mtokoma was forced to drop out.

“Chrissie’s uncle couldn’t pay for a second semester,” Banda says. “That was it for Chrissie. She went back to the village and into a vicious cycle of poverty, ignorance, early marriage, and then early motherhood. By the time I finished school, she had maybe five children. And today, Chrissie is where I left her.”

Banda maintains she was only able to stay in school thanks to the middle-class income her father earned working as a policeman. “So I went on, finished, and now I am vice president of this land,” she tells IPS. “Chrissie, she is locked up in the village, in poverty. And that makes me angry. Why am I here and she is not?”

As Banda entered adulthood, these childhood memories drew her attention to the benefits of education, and especially economic empowerment, to which she has dedicated much of her life.

In recent years, Malawian women have made significant gains in their struggle for full gender equality. Women are increasingly represented in national politics, for example. Malawi’s May 2009 federal election saw the proportion of female Members of Parliament rise from 14 percent to 22. And though a minority, it is not difficult to find women’s names among the ranks of corporate board members.

Yet women in Malawi remain disproportionately affected by poverty. In 2004, the National Statistics Office found that while only 25 percent of the country’s households were headed by women, they accounted for 58.4 percent of the country’s poorest homes. Moreover, women in Malawi remain significantly under-represented in areas of economic decision-making.

Banda and other leading women argue that the key to addressing these problems is to put more of the country’s money in the hands of its mothers.

Seodi White, national coordinator for Women and Law in Southern Africa, recalls her involvement in the country’s first marches for women, which were held in the late 1990s. More than a decade later, she argues that there is still much work to be done.

Even small amounts of money can create life-changing opportunities for the country’s most disadvantaged women, White says. She describes the results of an experiment her organisation led in a village in Mangochi District. Women were given roughly 110 dollars and left to do with it as they wished.

“We found out that these are not idle hands,” White says.

One woman made sweets out of sugar and sold them to nearby schools. Another baked and sold small cakes. And a third invested in a tobacco operation. The women made enough to keep their small businesses going, and invested excess earnings in purchases that benefited their families; blankets for their children, iron sheets to improve a dwelling’s thatched roof, and household items such as salt and sugar that previously were only provided by their husbands.

“This kind of power can create a level of decision-making at the family and community level that can have cascading effects on the country,” White emphasises.

She points to studies by financial institutions such as Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, which, time and again, have shown that women are significantly more likely than men to invest in areas that alleviate poverty such as health, education, and business improvement.

“Women are trained to care for others,” she reasons. “Very few women would just use money for their own personal gain.”

At the side of the road in Blantyre, a group of women selling scraps of plastic discuss what they wish for their businesses. At the top of everyone’s list is an investment or small loan.

Cecelia Goba, 40, and Ellen Mawuwa, 35, say that they would use funds to import and resell goods from neighbouring countries such as Mozambique.

“I would buy clothes and shoes outside this country and sell them here,” Mawuwa says. “We have friends in such businesses and they are doing quite fine.”

A number of non-profit organisations are active in Malawi supplying the sort of micro-loans made famous by the Grameen Bank and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. And the vice president’s newly-formed People’s Party recently launched an initiative called Orange Achievers, which aims to maximise the economic potential of Malawian women.

But supply cannot meet demand. And as Mary Malunga, executive director for the National Association of Business Women, explains, there are a host of other challenges Malawian women must overcome if they are to excel in the professional world.

“Women need to work 10 times harder than men to prove that any job that a man can do, a woman can do too,” she explains. “Women, due to perceived social and cultural roles, are not respected when they are in leadership positions.”

Malunga, a successful businesswomen herself, offered a few words of advice.

“To get to where I am today, it took what I call the three Ps: patience, perseverance, and prayer,” she says. “You need to persevere through all kinds of challenges and obstacles which, at times, will make you feel like you will never reach your intended destination.”

White echoes Malunga’s remarks. “Determination, determination, determination,” she emphasises, warning that this may mean sacrificing other aspects of one’s life, including having a boyfriend. Falling pregnant may end a young girl’s dreams.

“You might get pregnant, and that would be the end of it,” White explains. “Most girls don’t realise the kinds of difficult decisions that some of us had to make to reach where we are.”

And at the vice president’s compound in Blantyre, Banda reiterates that economic empowerment is the path to education and prosperity. But she stresses that this does not mean anybody should wait for a handout.

“My advice to younger women is that we have a moral obligation to make it,” Banda maintains. “Regardless of what we face, we need to forge ahead, we need to keep going. For us, it is a responsibility that we have in order to push our fellow women forward.”

Excerpt:

By Sam Olukoya
LAGOS, Nigeria, Dec 15 2011 (IPS)

The women of Makoko, a low-lying slum close to the Lagos Lagoon along Nigeria’s Atlantic coast, always sleep with one eye open. Many live in fear that when they go to sleep at night they will wake to flooded homes and business.

In Ajegunle, a low-lying slum in Lagos, flooding is also disrupting the economic activities of women Credit: Sam Olukoya/IPS

“The other day, I slept and dreamt that a cold breeze was blowing on me. When I woke up I realised that I was actually sleeping in a flooded room,” Dupe Faseun, a single mother of five and self-employed canteen owner, told IPS.

“Flooding is a major problem here, the water takes over everything, even the cooking pots are filled with the dirty water,” Faseun said adding that the frequency of the flooding has increased in recent years. Low-lying urban slums spread across Lagos are suffering from the worst impact of flooding caused by climate change, according to Desmond Majekodunmi, an environmentalist with the Nigerian Conservation Foundation.

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, lists Lagos as among the major coastal African cities that could be severely affected by the impact of rising sea levels.

Lagos Lagoon, which is connected to the Atlantic Ocean, has seen an increase in water levels following a rise in the ocean’s level.

The Atlantic Ocean has been experiencing the fastest rise in water levels in history because of climate change, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

Rainfall in the region has also increased, according to a recent report by the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research.

“The trend indicates that rainfall has been on the increase. Respondents reported that in the past 10 years in Lagos, there has been a rise in sea levels resulting in flooding in many parts of the state,” the report said. The organisation did not, however, indicate the frequency of flooding.

The Nigerian Meteorological Agency, NIMET, attributes the prolonged and increased rainfall in this region to climate change. Though the consequences of this has been devastating. In July more than 25 people died following torrential rains.

“The water level had risen incredibly and the channels that were meant to discharge water from the roads and drainages are completely blocked because of the high tide and because the Atlantic Ocean and Lagos Lagoon have risen more than usual,” Tunji Bello, Lagos State Commissioner for Environment, said shortly after the incident.

Majekodunmi said that the most disturbing aspect was the threat climate change posed to economic activities in these poor neighbourhoods. He added that Nigerian women were among the worst affected because many had to solely fend for their families.

“They are the ones who are directly responsible to feed their babies and to feed their children. And some of them have pretty large families because the culture in Nigeria is to proliferate and to have large families,” he said.

Faseun, who owns a small food canteen near her house, said the flooding poses the biggest threat to her business because she sometimes spends up to a week waiting for the floodwaters to recede before she resumes work again.

“Nobody wants to come and buy food while the dirty flood water is everywhere.

“I normally get very depressed whenever the flood prevents me from selling food, I will always wonder where I will get money to take care of my children,” she said.

In Ajegunle, another low-lying slum in Lagos, flooding is also disrupting the economic activities of women.

Most of the women here earn a living processing fresh fish, but this is difficult to do when the area is flooded.

“They are unable to work when the places they smoke their fish at are flooded. Because they don’t have access to cold rooms, most times the fish goes bad before the flood water recedes,” Fatai Ojulari, head of the fishermen’s union in Ajegunle, told IPS.

“The women are experiencing hard times and there is no financial assistance from anywhere,” he said.

The government, however, said it is addressing this challenge.

“We have a coastal defense strategy, which involves providing a sea defense wall to secure and protect Lagos from the threat of the Atlantic,” Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola told IPS.

Tunde Akingbade, an environmentalist who has attended many climate change conferences said that adaptation funding, like that committed to at the recently concluded 17th Conference of Parties in Durban, South Africa, could ultimately help vulnerable Africans like those living in Makoko and Ajegunle.

“It is, however, important to point out that the level of transparency and good governance in place is crucial to how the funding will meet the needs of the people,” he told IPS.

But until then, there is not much that Faseun and women like her can do about their situation.

“Even though the flooding is getting worse every year, I cannot leave because I don’t have the money to relocate to a better place.”

Excerpt:

Women’s rights champions are not prepared to let the dust settle on the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness that ended in this South Korean port city on Dec. 1 with the customary nod towards gender equality and empowerment.

An internally-displaced Kenyan woman cooks in her makeshift kitchen. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

The Busan Outcome Document’s paragraph 20 says: “We must accelerate our efforts to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women through development programmes grounded in country priorities, recognising that gender equality and women’s empowerment are critical to achieving development results.”

Roselynn Musa, programme manager at the African Women’s Development and Communication Network, says, “Busan is not the end, but the beginning.

“As we turn a new leaf, there is no time to wait for the dust to settle before we roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty. We need to start engaging with our governments to ensure that they move paragraph 20 of the Busan Outcome Document into the lives of women,” Musa said.

Although many gender experts continue to express discontent with the handling of the issue of women’s empowerment at the Busan conference, they agree that there was an increased show of interest in the plight of women compared to the previous forum in Accra, Ghana.

Says Monica Njenga, a gender activist in Kenya: “Previous international conferences offered many promises to women, hoodwinking them into believing that there is a real interest in fighting gender inequalities and narrow down gender gaps. Women need to take initiative and make paragraph 20 work.”

Njenga adds that many developing countries are facing major socio-economic challenges and may not prioritise the Busan commitment to gender.

“In Kenya, citizens continue to struggle as the cost of living continues to skyrocket. Labour unrest is now unprecedented with doctors in public hospitals having been on a week- long strike. The army is also at war with Al Shabab in Somalia. Gender equality is perhaps the last thing on the government’s list of priorities.”

In spite of these challenges, gender champions believe they can use the Busan document to leverage the gender agenda. One of these is Mayra Moro-Coco, development policy and advocacy manager at the Association for Women Rights in Development.

“The global partnership coming out of Busan will aim to reach effective development cooperation,” says Moro-Coco.

“Working for development effectiveness means promoting a development model that shifts the dominant development scenario towards an inclusive, sustainable, and just paradigm that recognises and values reproductive and unpaid work, promotes decent work and promotes the empowerment, human rights and emancipation of women and girls,” she said.

Moro-Coco lays emphasis on the need for various stakeholders to acknowledge that “development effectiveness requires democratic ownership by women and meaningful and systematic participation by civil society, especially women’s and feminist organisations.”

The global partnership that resulted from the Busan conference shows no real commitment to the human rights approach to development, says Moro-Coco.

This, she says, poses a challenge for initiatives and interventions geared towards “advancing development and poverty eradication in ways that are democratic and coherent with international human rights standards and give adequate attention to women’s human rights, the right to development and environmental justice.”

Moro-Coco expresses concern about the implementation of the Busan global partnership since the document “has not given adequate attention to women’s rights, the right to development and environmental justice.”

Paragraph 20 does express an interest in reducing gender inequality as “both an end in its own right and a prerequisite for sustainable and inclusive growth.”

It also recognises the need to “accelerate and deepen efforts to collect, disseminate, harmonise and make full use of data disaggregated by sex to inform policy decisions and guide investments, ensuring in turn that public expenditures are targeted appropriately to benefit both women and men.”

These, many feel, are not enough.

Says Njenga: “Promises are easy to make. Women need to show their leaders that they mean business. If indeed women account for a majority of the population, especially in developing countries where gross gender inequalities thrive, they need to make their votes count.”

Njenga believes that women should vote for leaders “who have tangible results to show as commitment to women rights.

“During campaigns, most leaders give gender issues lip service only to be voted in and disappear from the gender forums. This needs to change.”

The refugee camp of Yida in South Sudan is home to over 20,000 people who have fled the violence in Sudan’s South Kordofan state. Credit: Jared Ferrie/IPS

By Jared Ferrie
YIDA, South Sudan, Dec 13 2011 (IPS)

In the sprawling settlement of Yida, just south of the Sudan border, more than 20,000 people have gathered after fleeing battles in the country’s Southern Kordofan state. But they now find themselves caught up in a new conflict, as recent clashes along the frontier have some warning of the possibility of war.

Fighting flared up last week in Jaw, a disputed area on the border of Sudan’s Southern Kordofan and South Sudan’s Unity state, which both countries claim, and which is about 20 kilometres from the Yida refugee camp, in Unity state.

While the United Nations fears that the fighting could spread to Yida and is attempting to relocate people from the camp, refugees here are reluctant to move.

South Sudan’s military spokesman Philip Aguer accused the Sudanese government of using Antonov bombers, MiG fighters and long range artillery as well as ground troops to launch attack in Jaw on Dec. 4. Sudan said Jaw was part of its territory and claimed it was fighting rebels from the Sudan People Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N).

The SPLM-N, who are fighting in Sudan’s Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan states, were formerly two divisions of the rebel army that waged a two-decade civil war, which led to the south’s secession. South Sudan says it cut ties with the group after it declared independence Jul. 9, but Sudan accuses the new country of continuing to back the insurgents.

Both countries filed complaints to the United Nations Security Council, accusing the other of violating their sovereignty. On Dec. 8, Hervé Ladsous, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations told the Security Council that clashes in Jaw and other disputed border areas could plunge Sudan and its recently independent southern neighbour into all out war.

Refugees in Yida were directly affected as humanitarian groups evacuated on Dec. 4, and airlifts of food ceased for almost a week. On Saturday, the humanitarian agency Samaritan’s Purse flew in the last of its food stocks from Bentiu, the capital of Unity state in South Sudan.

By that time an 85-year-old woman had died after not eating for four days, and the camp had about 500 malnourished children, according to the camp health administrator, Joseph Konda.

One of those children, one-year-old Hamuda, sat on his mothers lap in a nutrition centre with a feeding tube inserted into one of his nostrils. His skin hung loosely on his neck and arms, as his malnourished body had consumed his baby fat.

Hamuda’s mother, Toona Josephina, told IPS she walked four days to Yida along with the rest of the members of her village who fled South Kordofan after their home was attacked by Sudan Armed Forces. She said Antonov aircraft dropped bombs before ground troops arrived and occupied the village.

“As we were coming, we were bombed again when we almost reached Jaw,” she added.

The U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) wants Josephina and the rest of the refugees to move to three proposed sites 80 to 100 kilometres further south. The agency has withheld the names of the new camps fearing if they are made public rebels will plant landmines on the sites.

“We fear that the fighting could spread to Yida, which was hit by air strikes in November,” it said in a Dec. 9 statement referring to the Nov. 10 bombing, which the U.N. and the White House blamed on Sudan “UNHCR is speeding up efforts to relocate the refugees away from the volatile border, to new sites that can offer more safety and assistance further inside South Sudan,” the agency said.

The refugees, however, are reluctant to leave Yida and move further south and farther from their homes. Hussaine Al Gumbullah, the camp’s chairman, told IPS one site UNHCR is proposing is large enough to fit only 9,000 people, less than half Yida’s population, and it contains no basic infrastructure. The other site is in a low-lying area that floods during the rainy season and where there are pro-Sudan militia groups active.

Yida, by contrast, has since arrivals began in June grown into an orderly community complete with sheesha and teashops constructed from thick grass and sticks in a lively market area. The site also has cement buildings including a clinic and food distribution centre.

Al Gumbullah added that the alternative sites had security issues including landmines.

UNHCR says the sites are safer than Yida and it hopes to convince the refugees to move.

“To ensure safe passage, the U.N. Mine Action Centre is doing mine surveys and clearance,” the agency said. “We hope to relocate a first group of willing refugees very soon.”

From the perspective of UNHCR, Yida is becoming less of a viable location as fighting along the border becomes more frequent. As the agency pointed out: “Escalating insecurity has also affected humanitarian access and the flow of aid, causing assistance at Yida to be disrupted repeatedly.”

The stalemate between UNHCR and the refugee population shows no sign of going away. And the camp’s population just keeps growing as between 60 and 110 more people arrive every day.

Yida is only one of the fronts where UNHCR is dealing with an influx of refugees. In Upper Nile state in South Sudan, refugees have been flooding over the border at a rate of about 650 a day to escape fighting in Sudan’s Blue Nile state. Most of those are arriving in Doro, a camp housing about 20,000 people.

“A group of 10,000 refugees were recently identified near Elfoj in Maban
county of South Sudan’s Upper Nile state,” said UNHCR. “Thousands more are believed to be stranded in remote locations along the border.”

UNHCR says almost 33,000 people have fled to Ethiopia from Blue Nile, while South Sudan has absorbed more than 50,000 refugees since fighting began in June in Southern Kordofan. The number is likely to rise dramatically as fighting continues in both states.

Fears of violent demonstrations against the provisional results of the presidential elections – released on Dec. 9 by the electoral commission – have given way to terror in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has crackled with the sound of gunshots and the firing of tear gas canisters since Friday afternoon.

DRC held presidential and legislative elections on Nov. 28. Provisional results for the presidential poll were expected on Dec. 6, but only released three days later, after two postponements by the electoral commission.

The incumbent president, Joseph Kabila, was declared the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) with 48.95 percent of votes, against 32.33 percent for his leading adversary, Etienne Tshisekedi.

Since Dec. 5, psychosis has reigned in the capital. Schools have been closed for more than a week and economic activity has been totally paralysed. In Kinshasa, stores and markets have been closed for several days and people have begun to run out of food.

On Saturday, government spokesperson Lambert Mende Omalanga appeared on RTNC, the national broadcaster, calling for calm and warning that anyone caught taking part in violent acts would be brought to justice.

But shots continued to be heard all over the city, notably in the posh Kinshasa neighbourhood of Macampagne, in the Ngaliema commune, and in Masina, a densely-populated area won by Tshisekedi. Across the city, nothing moved, as residents remained indoors.

Tshisekedi has rejected the results announced by CENI. But he has also refused to turn challenge them in the Supreme Court, instead declaring himself president, winning – by his own reckoning – 72 percent of the vote.

Another candidate, Vital Kamerhe, is also contesting the results; he alleges that electoral officials stuffed the ballot boxes with votes for Kabila even before polling started. “CENI must restore the victory stolen from Tshisekedi by Kabila,” he said.

“The fear of catastrophe is growing,” said Thiery Tomatala, a civil servant and resident of Kintambo, a crowded Kinshasa neighbourhood. “And we will not get a full account of the actions taken by the police and the army against demonstrators and Tshisekedi supporters.”

Tomatala says two Chinese-owned shops in the area were looted by armed men in civilian clothes, one in Kintambo on Friday evening, and another on Saturday morning in the Bandamungwa neighbourhood.

There have been other incidents. “On Saturday morning, around 8.30 am (7.30 am UTC), a jeep full of heavily armed policemen stopped outside my depot, looted it and relieved me of some two million Congolese francs (around 2,200 dollars),” said Yvonne Kinja, a bread wholesaler on Avenue de Libération, in Bandalungwa.

“No traffic is being allowed on Avenue Libération, the street on which the Kinshasa Penitentiary and Reeducation Centre (CPRK), the Colonel Kokolo military camp, the Ministry of the Interior, Security and Decentralisation, as well as the Palais de la Nation, the president’s office – it’s been entirely taken over by the army and heavily armed police,” said Addée Ngudi, who lives along the avenue.

A police colonel speaking on condition of anonymity told IPS, “The police have the obligation to protect strategic locations in the country, including the CPRK, the military base and the president’s office.”

“It’s necessary at all costs to avoid crowds around the CPRK,” Dido Kitungwa, director general of the prison, told IPS over the phone, without offering further detail.

The CPRK holds two classes of prisoners, according to a May 2011 study carried out by the University of Kinshasa, “soldiers and members of the security forces, sentenced by military courts between 1997 – when the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFLD) of Laurent Désiré Kabila seized power – and 2001, when he was assassinated.”

Former president Laurent Désiré Kabila was the father of the incumbent, Joseph. The senior officer who spoke to IPS said police were simply trying to disperse crowds, and people should remain calm and go about their usual business.

“But how can we go about our business when for the past six days, the police themselves have been building up psychosis and fear in the population?” said Guy Mamboleo, a Tshisekedi supporter and resident of Bandalungwa, not far from the CPRK. “A heavy military and police presence, and the firing of tear gas and live ammunition… it is not reassuring,” he told IPS.

Olonana Ole Pulei’s community is a sub-tribe of Kenya’s Maasai ethnic group. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 8 2011 (IPS)

For the Laibon community, a sub-tribe of Kenya’s Maasai ethnic group, the 33,000-hectare Loita Forest in the country’s Rift Valley Province is more than just a forest. It is a shrine.

“It is our shrine. Our Gods live there. We gather herbs from the place. We use it for bee- keeping. It therefore forms part of our livelihood,” said Olonana Ole Pulei, who is in Durban, South Africa, to represent his community at the ongoing 17th Conference of Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

According to Nigel Crawhall, the Director of Secretariat for the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee (IPACC), different African communities have incredible indigenous knowledge that they use in the conservation of forests and biodiversity in general, and this should be recognised during the negotiations in Durban.

“Different communities have different practices that they use in forestry conservation,” he said.

Crawhall gave an example of how the Bambuti and Batwa pygmy communities, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, conserved the forest using traditional methods. Both communities depend on the biodiversity of animal life in the equatorial forests in order to survive.

“Usually, they know how to identify particular trees that can be cut down in order to create a unique opening on the canopy, which attracts light in the closely-packed Congo forests. The light then attracts animals, birds and insects, thus giving them an opportunity to hunt,” Crawhall told IPS.

This helps conserve the biodiversity, as well as the forests because this method can only work if the forest canopy is intact.

In Kenya, the Maasai culture forbids any community member from cutting down a tree, either for firewood or any other purpose. People are also forbidden from interfering with the taproots or removing the entire bark of a tree for herbal extraction.

According to their cultural belief, one can only use tree branches for firewood, and fibrous roots for herbs. If the bark of a tree has medicinal value, then only small portions of it can be removed by creating a “V” in the bark. The wound is then sealed using wet soil.

“We believe that the soil helps in healing the wound on a tree. This is cultural, and we all believe that it is an abomination for one to injure a tree, and not help it heal,” said Ole Pulei.

It is a practice that has been passed down from generation to generation among Maasai community members. Among the Laibon community, it is this indigenous knowledge that has aided in the conservation of the Loita Forest.

“All logging activities observed on Maasai land, including the destruction of the Mau Forest, are done by foreigners because the Maasai culture does not allow such activities. This is the indigenous knowledge that helps in forest conservation,” Ole Pulei told IPS.

Such beliefs make the forests part of the community, where community members have feelings for the trees, and where cutting down a tree could amount to an offence against the Gods and their culture.

“We have several other communities all over the continent who co-exist with forests. They include the Tuareg community in Algeria, Yiaku community in Kenya’s Laikipia region, the Ogiek community also in Kenya, the Kung community in Botswana among others,” said Crawhall.

Though according to Crawhall, all Africans are indigenous although there are some groups who live by hunting and gathering, while other groups practice pastoralism, and others practice dry-land farming.

Despite the fact that there is no standard definition of indigenous people, the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognises that particular communities, due to historical and environmental circumstances, have found themselves outside the state system and underrepresented in governance.

“The Bushmen of the Southern African region, or the Ogiek community in Kenya who live in forests are a typical example of groupings categorised as indigenous,” said Crawhall.

He points out that Africa has more than 40 groupings in different countries that survive entirely on hunting and gathering. However, IPACC works closely with 155 communities from 22 African countries who are recognised as indigenous because of their historical and environmental circumstances.

As a result, representatives from these communities have joined the rest of the world in Durban to have their voices heard, so that their contributions to forest conservation are recognised as part of the climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.

“We believe that African traditional ecological knowledge is the foundation for appropriate and effective national adaptation policies,” said Crawhall.

Through the IPACC secretariat, the 155 community-based organisations in Africa have drafted their position for the Durban negotiation platform. They want the negotiators to come up with a position that is representative to African parties, indigenous African people’s organisations, traditional institutions, traditional authorities and value systems.

They are calling for the formation of a regional body that is legally binding under the United Nations, to handle issues on conservation that are difficult to deal with at national level.

“One of the prevailing gaps in most of the IPACC-member countries is that there is no land tenure for communities who live in forests, or depend on forests,” said Crawhall.

However, different countries have started responding to the needs of their local communities by including them in their national climate change adaptation strategies, with Kenya taking the lead.

The country is in the process of drafting the Climate Change Adaptation Bill. And the indigenous communities will have their say on the bill because according to the constitution, they must be consulted on draft legislation so that they can make contributions.

“We have traversed the entire country seeking views on this bill, where local communities have been able to give their contributions. Our vision is to participate and lead in the development and implementation of climate change sensitive policies, projects and activities within and outside our Kenyan borders,” said John Kioli, the chairman for the Kenya Climate Change Working Group, who is attending the Durban climate change negotiations.

* This article is one of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.

Carbon pricing will be the core mechanism to finance the Green Climate Fund and with it climate change adaptation projects in developing countries.

U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said there is a pool of possible financing options for the Green Climate Fund. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

“If you can establish broader and more comprehensive carbon financing, we will attract more private funding,” explained Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who co-chairs the United Nations high-level advisory group on climate change financing.

Carbon finance puts a price on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

According to Stoltenberg, putting a price on carbon emissions would have three key benefits: it will encourage industry to reduce harmful emissions (to avoid being charged for them); it will contribute to the development of clean technologies to reduce emissions; and it will generate revenue, which can be used for government purposes but also to take climate action.

There are already a number of countries that have shown that carbon trading systems or taxes can help reducing emissions while promoting economic growth, said Stoltenberg: “The European Union has a comprehensive carbon trading system through an emission scheme. Australia just introduced a carbon tax. China is introducing carbon pricing, and South Africa also wants to develop a carbon tax.”

It was therefore plausible that carbon pricing could assist in providing urgently needed finance for the GCF as well.

“The beauty of carbon pricing is that you will get less pollution but more finance,” Stoltenberg added.

During the past 10 days of the 17th Conference of Parties, which currently takes place in Durban, South Africa, the question on how to generate funding for the GCF has taken centre stage. The global economic crisis and national austerity measures have reduced the willingness of rich countries to commit to filling the coffers of the fund with public monies.

“The financial and debt crisis, especially in Europe and the United States, have developed further. We therefore have to look for both public funding but also private sources,” stressed Stoltenberg who, as co-chair of the advisory group on climate change financing, recently submitted to the U.N. an analysis of how long-term financing should be generated.

“Our main conclusion is that it is challenging but feasible to mobilise 100 billion dollars annually,” he said, referring to an agreement from last year’s climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, that fast-track financing of 10 million dollars per year between 2010 and 2013 should be scaled up to 100 billion dollars annually by 2020.

“There is no sense in having a fund, if you don’t have money for it,” Stoltenberg said.

U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon agreed that short-term and long-term financing goals could only be reached through combination of public and private resources. This would not mean governments lose political control over the financing mechanism of the GCF, a point some countries said they were concerned about during the climate negotiations.

“There is a pool of possible financing options, such as carbon taxes, transport taxes, and so forth. It will be up to each country to decide which regulations it wants to adopt and implement nationally,” said Ban.

However, this did not release governments of rich nations off the hook.

“Industrial countries must show leadership by injecting sufficient capital immediately,” said Ban. “It’s true that governments struggle with austerity crisis, but climate change is not an option, it’s an imperative. Need unambiguous political commitment and transparency.”

There will be no forward movement in the fight against climate change without movement on climate finance, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi agreed.

“We need to create a price structure that will attract the private sector to invest in climate financing. Carbon pricing will send the signal to the private sector, that green technology will be profitable,” said Zenawi. “The technology of the future is green. There is a race. Who comes too late will be left behind.”

But right now, days of staggering negotiations about the operationalisation and financing of the GCF, have raised doubts among economic experts that governments of industrialised countries are truly willing to make available parts of the finance necessary to fund climate change adaptation in the global South.

“We don’t need any more reports, we need the political will,” said economist and British government advisor Lord Nicholas Stern.

The faster politicians acted, the cheaper it will cost them, agreed Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon, trying to push for the GCF to be operationalised before the end of the climate change summit on Dec 9. “Low carbon economy doesn’t come cheap. It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year, depending on how fast we act. The sooner we act, the less it will cost us,” he said.

Caio Koch-Weser, the vice chair of Deutsche Bank, one of the biggest banking groups worldwide, expressed his concern about the slow progress of establishing the GCF. Industry was ready to invest in the green economy, he said.

“Give us a carbon price, give us a reliable policy, and the private sector will do most of the job. We have already seen great vibrancy from the side of the business community in interaction with governments,” he said. “Of course it’s not yet of the scale and the speed we need.”

Koch-Weser further noted that the current global economic crisis also presented an opportunity for governments and businesses to transform, to find new drivers of growth.

To be able to raise 100 billion dollars annually by 2020 to finance climate change adaptation, “we need new private-pubic partnerships that provide transparent, long-lived and certain frameworks. We hope that the GCF will have a strong private sector facility and will be professionally run,” Koch-Weser said.

Joyous reunions accompanied the latest batch of South Sudanese returning from Sudan to their newly independent homeland. But the returnees will face huge challenges integrating into South Sudan, which became the world’s newest nation on Jul. 9, but also one of the poorest.

Cheers, ululations and cries of "hallelujah" arose from the banks of the Nile and from the decks of the barges as people returned to South Sudan. Credit: Hannah McNeish/IPS

South Sudan’s government has struggling to accommodate more than 350,000 people who have returned since October 2010 – and with another million southerners still in the north, that pressure is likely to increase.

Relatives gathered at Juba Port on Nov. 28 to wait for the arrival of two barges filled with more 3,200 returnees. Cheers, ululations and cries of “hallelujah” arose from the banks of the Nile and from the decks of the barges as they approached the port after 12 days on the river.

As the returnees disembarked they were met with warm embraces from family members. “That is a very joyous moment,” said Daniel Simon after greeting his mother who he said he had not seen for years. He had left Sudan years ago to return to Juba.

Saloma Majok, Simon’s mother, said she was “very, very happy” to see her son again. She said she had been living Khartoum for the past 24 years, adding that she was also happy to be in her own country even though she knew her family would have a hard time rebuilding their lives. “Even in this situation I am very proud,” she said.

Duer Tut Duer Makuac, chair of the South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, said the organisation would coordinate with governors and county commissioners in the home areas of returnees to organise land distribution. But he said the process has not always gone smoothly, and some have been left landless.

“We knew from a long time ago that they are going to be brought to the south,” Makuac said. “We were supposed to organise ourselves a long time ago, it was not done, but this time it is going to be done.”

Iklas Monu Ahmed said she had been camping next to the port in a shelter constructed from sheets and plastic since she returned four months ago, because she has nowhere else to go.

She sat on a bed frame under a tree with her three-year-old son lying next to her, sick with malaria. Ahmed said she had no money to buy medication for the boy.

She said she expected more from life in South Sudan.

“There are many changes, but for me to join the changes in this new nation I need to first get a piece of land and settle my family,” she said, adding that no one from the government or international agencies had visited her since she arrived.

The government will likely face even more pressure to address the needs of people like Ahmed in the coming months. Jan De Wilde, head of mission for the United Nations’ International Organisation for Migration (IOM), said there are about one million southerners facing an uncertain future in the north.

De Wilde explained that the Khartoum government has set a date of Apr. 9, 2012, to clarify their residential status, but the government has not yet provided any options, such as permanent residency or citizenship. “Before that date they have to either get legal or get out basically, and there are no provisions made yet for people getting legal in the north,” he said.

De Wilde said IOM has assisted almost 20,000 returnees so far, and another 9,000 are expected to arrive by barge in the coming weeks from Kosti, a staging point along the Nile just north of the border.

While the latest batch of returnees were allowed to load their belongings on eight more barges that were due to arrive within days, De Wilde said transporting such huge amounts of cargo has been slowing down the process. He said IOM could only allow future returnees to bring their basic belongings.

Omer Salah Kajam, deputy general manager of Logistics Sudanese Co., which owns the barges, said those awaiting transport in Kosti have complained strongly about the new regulations. But he said the new regulations would allow officials to transport more people quickly.

In October, Refugees International, a non-governmental organisation, highlighted the plight of those stranded in Kosti, and Renk, which are neighbouring towns on opposite sides of the Sudan/South Sudan border. The organisation said they were trapped without adequate food or shelter, and called on the government and humanitarian agencies to do more to bring them home.

Amidst the crowd of returnees and family members, Makuac said the government would work with international agencies to organise airlifts for those remaining in way stations.

“It will be cheaper in terms resources, in terms of security and in terms of time,” he said. But he added that the government would ask that each family of five bring only 20 kilogrammes worth of personal belongings.

The request will not likely be welcomed by future returnees, especially as those coming before them have been allowed to bring all manner of items.

Kajam said he has seen people load onto barges cargo including donkeys, doorframes and sound systems. But he said he did not blame them, considering that southerners are returning to one of the poorest countries in the world. “They are moving to nothing,” he said. “If I was in their place I would take everything, because I don’t know what I am going to.”

From a distance, Bugala Island in Lake Victoria is a patchwork of green and brown. The pattern is a result of dense forest retreating in the wake of recently planted palm tree plantations.

Workers on Bugala Island work to clear the rainforest to make way for an expanding palm tree plantation. Credit: Will Boase/IPS

The island, the largest of Uganda’s Ssese Islands, is at the center of one of the country’s newest economic endeavors – palm oil processing – and the formerly lush rainforest has fallen quickly, taking with it some critical jobs for the island’s poorest women.

Now, five years after the first phase of that process was completed, residents are starting to measure the impact of the initiative. Many speak glowingly of the jobs and activity the plantation has created. But for some of the island’s poorest residents – especially widows and the wives of often-traveling fishermen – continued deforestation has robbed them of their sole source of income.

Sarah Namwanje used to collect timber and charcoal from the forests that she could sell to people around the island. Now the 28-year-old mother of seven has no way to make money.

“No timber is seen,” she said. “We’re searching for firewood and trying to get money, but my job has stopped.”

Ahead of the palm oil project’s start, activists had clashed with the government over the potential environmental ramifications of the deforestation. But, with assurances from Bidco –the company behind Uganda’s palm oil industry – that the development would have little environmental impact and a stamp of approval from the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), the dazzle of a new industry and more jobs eventually won out.

What was never communicated to some of the poorest residents was how the project would affect both their livelihoods and their health. Especially the small groups of women who live on an island mostly populated by fishermen.

Some are widows, their husbands lost to AIDS or fishing accidents. Others are left alone for long stretches of time, their husbands chasing schools of fish around the archipelago of 84 islands. Until the men return with money from their catch, the women must scramble for resources.

The available jobs for these women are scarce and Mary Nampomwa, a local health worker, said it is difficult for many of them to get by without resorting to commercial sex work.

Before the palm plantations arrived, women who refused to turn to sex work had small-scale jobs, like gathering firewood. They had relatively free access to the timber in national forests or on privately held, underdeveloped plots, according to Richard Kimbowa, the programme manager for Uganda Coalition for Sustainable Development (UCSD).

For many women on Uganda’s Bugala Island, deforestation has robbed them of their livelihoods. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

But many of those landowners, offered an opportunity to make good money off of unused land, sold out or cleared the forest themselves to create subsidiary palm plantations.

Now the island’s poor women are “being marginalised,” Kimbowa said, in the “craze for expanding this palm.”

Namwanje said the only thing she knows to do is encourage people to start planting more trees, so that she has renewed access to firewood and charcoal. But that is not going to happen anytime soon. Other women have taken up jobs drying small mukene fish on the sand next to Lake Victoria.

What is particularly galling to Edisa Katusime, a single mother of six children, is that local officials had for years been warning residents about cutting down trees. She was told that the forest was critical for preserving the island’s animal life and she had to be secretive about gathering timber.

But the government is “not preventing Bidco because it’s a company,” she said. “They are allowed to cut when the government is telling us the importance of the trees.”

Kimbowa predicts that the small-scale job loss might be only the first of the problems the palm plantations are going to create. Eventually, he said, there are going to be issues with food security as land previously used for raising crops turns to palm trees. And already some of the women are reporting that the absence of forest covering is creating health issues.

The loss of the forest means there is no longer a shield from the strong winds that sometimes blow across Bugala Island. The wind now “sounds as if it’s going to knock the house down,” Katusime said. The dust it carries sometimes leaves her children in coughing fits and has been particularly dangerous for asthmatic residents.

And despite assurances from Bidco that it is following the plan laid out by NEMA to minimise environmental impact, UCSD is still monitoring the situation, concerned about issues like soil erosion and seepage of agrochemicals into Lake Victoria. Despite the jobs that Bidco has brought, most of the people on Bugala still live and die by fishing. If fish stocks are reduced, there will suddenly be a lot more people on the island without a source of income.

For now, the warnings of environmental groups and the complaints of women like Katusime and Namwanje are muted by widespread enthusiasm for the island’s palm oil industry. And it’s still growing. According to Bidco, the palm oil plantation will eventually cover 40,000 hectares and be the largest plantation in Africa.

There is division even within the small group of women infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS that Katusime and Namwanje belong to. Unlike those two women, Annette Nnamukasa was able to harness enough money to take advantage of the palm oil boom. She bought about two acres of land and had it cleared. In its place she planted palm trees and now sells the crop to Bidco.

“It is almost the same,” she said. “The palm trees are almost forests.”

Nepal will implement five projects with 110 million dollars sanctioned by the controversial Climate Investment Funds (CIFs), ignoring protestors who say this least developed country merits grants rather than climate loans.

The money – 50 million dollars in grants and 60 million in credit – will be disbursed through the Asian Development Bank, International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the World Bank through four years as the projects start early next year, Nepal’s environment secretary Krishna Gyawali said.

Nepal is among eight developing countries that were offered CIFs, under either the Clean Technology Fund or the Strategic Climate Fund (SCF). Other potential CIF recipients were Bangladesh, Bolivia, Cambodia, Mozambique, Niger, Tajikistan and Zambia.

In May 2009, Nepal’s first Maoist government agreed to participate in the pilot programme for climate resilience (PPCR) developed under the SCF.

Besides the environment ministry, the nodal agency for implementing the projects, other stakeholders include relevant ministries, the National Planning Commission and the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI).

In 2010, a new government led by the Communists identified four priority areas where the funds would be spent.

Building climate resilience of watersheds in mountain eco-regions is top priority. It will focus on communities living in watershed areas significantly vulnerable to climate change.

A second priority is responding to climate-related hazards through early warning systems as well as developing insurance.

The other two components are mainstreaming climate risk management in development, and building climate-resilient communities through private-sector participation.

Later, on Nepal’s request, a fifth project was added to build the climate resilience of endangered species.

However, several non-governmental organisations, trade unions, legislators from ruling parties and civil society members are campaigning against the climate loans, saying they add insult to injury.

“Developed countries must provide unconditional financial support on adaptation to countries vulnerable to climate change to build their resilience,” says Keshab Thapa, programme coordinator at Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development.

Thapa says climate loans violate both the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, where developed countries have committed adaptation support to vulnerable countries, as well as Nepal’s own policy on climate change, the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA).

With NAPA requiring 80 percent of the funds of any adaptation programme to flow directly to the community level, the PPCR in Nepal, Thapa says, violates the principle of country and community ownership.

He also objects to the private-sector participation component, to be effected through IFC and FNCCI.

“The PPCR proposes to lend money to private-sector companies which will never achieve community resilience,” he told IPS. “Private companies are often happy to use the loan money for their own benefit, simply looking at the scheme of interest and repayment; they are often totally unaware of climate change, adaptation, resilience, and the principle of equity and justice.”

With Nepal being at medium risk of debt distress and spending eight percent revenue to repay foreign debts, protesters say climate loans will burden the taxpayer with additional debt.

“We petitioned two earlier prime ministers against taking climate loans and are following it up with the current one,” says Hari Parajuli, secretary of the All-Nepal Peasants’ Federation, an umbrella of 22 organisations that has participated in public rallies against the PPCR.

“Nepal has one of the lowest greenhouse gas emission levels in the world due to its low industrialisation,” Parajuli adds. “It also has forests covering nearly 40 percent of its land. Yet, the developed countries that cause pollution are now seeking to make Nepal take loans and pay them interest.”

Parajuli says the protests are also against the involvement of the World Bank.

“We don’t regard it positively,” he says. “It is not service-oriented but works for profit.”

The growing corruption charges against ministers and government officials have also fuelled fears about the climate loans.

“Past precedents make us fear that new loans may not be utilised properly,” says Madan Lall Shrestha, academician at the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology. “Before taking a new loan, the old ones should be reviewed first.”

A parliamentary committee on finance and labour relations has also criticised the government, saying it should ask for grants, not loans.

“Climate loans go against the ‘polluters should pay’ principle,” says Sunil Pant, a legislator. Pant has been campaigning against climate loans in parliament and advocating the idea of a grant.

“Climate change cannot be mitigated by putting poor nations in deeper debt, especially when the problem is generated by the wealthy nations,” he says. “Rich countries emit huge amounts of carbon and then hypocritically impose debt and loans on the poor countries they take resources from, creating deeper poverty.

“We are calling on the wealthier nations to compensate Nepal and the rest of the world for the damage and environmental destruction they have caused that threatens us all.”

The World Bank, one of the targets of public criticism, says it is merely the fund disbursal instrument.

“Whether or how the available resources are used to address urgent financing and knowledge gaps is entirely up to Nepal,” says Christine Kimes, the Bank’s acting country manager for Nepal. “Concerns regarding climate financing in Nepal should therefore be discussed with the government.”

As for the government, officials defend the decision to take the loan.

“The apex body on climate change, the Climate Change Council headed by the prime minister, approved of the funding, provided it was used on priority sectors like agriculture, biodiversity and renewable energy to enhance productivity,” says Gyawali. “Besides, it is a remarkably concessional loan.”

The 60 million dollar loan has to be repaid in 40 years with a 10-year grace period. Also, Gyawali says, there is no interest, only a 0.10 percent service charge to be paid semi-annually.

But the protesters say they have not given up.

“Civil society organisations will closely monitor the use of the PPCR grant and loan,” says Thapa. “They will also continue lobbying to prevent further climate loans.”

Emerging economies China, South Africa and Brazil have indicated their openness to legally-binding carbon emission reduction targets from 2020 during the United Nations climate change summit in Durban, South Africa.

Emerging economies face developmental challenges but are also significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

Climate experts say the three countries’ willingness to consider legally binding commitments, even if they will not take immediate effect, was potentially “a great step” to unlock one of the big political issues of this year’s climate change talks.

Only India continues to refuse to commit.

The European Union (EU) proposed a “roadmap” last week, which stipulates that all major economies, including emerging countries like South Africa, Brazil, India and China, generally called the BASIC group – and not only industrialised nations as currently under the Kyoto Protocol – will be subject to legally binding carbon emission targets.

BASIC countries all face developmental challenges but are at the same time significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Major emerging economies and other developing nations already emit more than half of current carbon emissions. Within the next 20 years, they are projected to account for two- thirds.

The 194-nation climate talks, which will wrap up on Dec. 9, are abuzz with speculation on the prospect of emerging economies agreeing on the proposed roadmap.

In a move that surprised many after a tough week of negotiations that brought to the fore deep rifts between different countries’ demands and expectations, China announced for the first time it would accept a legally-binding climate deal after 2020, when current voluntary pledges will run out. After first insisting the demands of the EU roadmap were “too much,” China now seems open to finding a middle ground, especially with Europe.

“But there are pre-conditions,” said China’s top climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua. “A second Kyoto commitment period is a must for rich nations. After (the second period has ended), we need to review what has been done. Based on this assessment can we start negotiating what we shall agree after 2020.”

China laid out five conditions under which it would consider a legally-binding carbon reduction deal. Apart from a second commitment period of carbon-reduction pledges by industrialised nations under the Kyoto Protocol, they include hundreds of billions of dollars in short- and long-term climate financing for developing countries.

China also wants to see the Green Climate Fund signed off during the summit and demands the implementation of a range of agreements outlined at the 2009 Copenhagen summit, which were integrated into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at last year’s climate gathering in Cancun. These include initiatives for technology transfer, adaptation to climate change and new rules for verifying that carbon-cutting promises are kept.

South Africa and Brazil – two countries most vulnerable to the adverse effects of global warming, especially with regards to agriculture and biodiversity – have also shown interest in the roadmap.

South Africa’s Minister of Environment Edna Molewa said the EU roadmap was “seen favourably”, but noted that South Africa would, like China, want to place “conditionalities” on any binding agreements.

“We would like to work towards a legally binding outcome. As South Africa, we’re of the opinion that the seriousness with which we will deal with the level of contributions that South Africa can make in the global arena is understood in the context of articles 4.1 and 2 of the UNFCCC,” confirmed South Africa’s second negotiator Xolisa Ngwadla.

UNFCCC article 4.1 refers to “common and differentiated responsibilities” depending on the gross domestic product (GDP) of each country, while article 2 refers to the stabilisation of greenhouse gas emissions at a level that allows ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner – a point important for countries that heavily feel the effects of climate change.

“Our future commitments will also depend on finance, technology transfers and capacity building,” Ngwadla added.

Contrary to South Africa, Brazil said it is not placing any conditions on committing itself to an internationally legally binding instrument to reduce carbon emissions as long as such a treaty helped the fight against climate change based on scientific studies.

“We could agree already today on an internationally legally binding instrument, but not on any. It has to be robust, respond to what science is telling us is needed and therefore something that will make a difference in the fight against climate change,” explained Ambassador Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, head of Brazil’s delegation. “We would not adapt a legally binding instrument for the sake of it.”

Currently, Brazil has set voluntary carbon reduction targets, which have been passed into national law. Figueiredo said he is aware this commitment will have to increase over time: “We understand that this regime will have to evolve over time. We think voluntary actions alone usually don’t add up to the level of international response that science tells us is needed. We are willing to play our part in the future evolution of the international fight against climate change.”

As part of the Group of 77 and China negotiating bloc, a group of 132 developing countries, Brazil is pushing for the adoption for a second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol before the end of the climate change summit on Dec 9. The country is also lobbying for a sign off of a fully functional Green Climate Fund, which will have short-term and long-term financing mechanisms so that developing nations can adapt to climate change.

Delegates from BASIC countries have repeatedly noted that South-South cooperation is important to them, not only economically but also with regards to decisions made during the climate change summit, and have indicated that they would support each other’s positions.

India, however, the fourth member of the BASIC group, does not seem to fall into line. It has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the EU roadmap, as it is not willing to consider signing a legally binding agreement to cut carbon emissions.

India said it felt implementing its voluntary target of reducing the emission intensity of its GDP growth by 20 percent to 25 percent by 2020, compared to 2005, was sufficient. Having one of the smallest per-capita-carbon footprints in the world, tougher targets weren’t necessary, said India’s lead negotiator J.M. Mauskar: “We are not a major emitter.”

India was only willing to negotiate “mutual reassurances”, he said. “In terms of the Cancun pledges, developing countries’ voluntary pledges by 2020 amount to more mitigation in absolute terms than that of developed countries,” Mauskar further explained, insisting that rich nations, not developing countries and emerging economies must ramp up their commitments.

India has criticised industrialised nations, especially the United States, for not making firm commitments to cutting green house gas emissions. “We are deeply concerned that there has been hardly any progress in achieving a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol,” said Mauskar.

Russia, a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, which belongs with South Africa, China, Brazil and India to the BRICS economic bloc, has blankly refused to consider a second commitment period.

Talata Nsor, a 54-year-old woman from Bolgatanga community in Northern Ghana, has been weaving the cultural Bolga baskets, which are named after her community, her entire life.

Nalifu Yussif holds a few Bolga baskets at the ongoing COP 17 in Durban, South Africa. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

It has been a successful enterprise for her, and she has even managed to put her children through school with proceeds from her sales.

However, she is concerned that soon her community may no longer be able to continue making the baskets, which are famous in the entire West African region, with a market in Europe and America.

This is because the raw material used to make the baskets, commonly known as elephant grass or Veta vera as it is known scientifically, is becoming extinct due to what Nsor refers to as changing climatic conditions.

“Just 10 years ago, I would walk to any nearby wetland area within Northern Ghana and harvest the grass free of charge. But today, I have to walk very far, or travel to Kumasi, about 400 kilometres away, in order to buy the raw material,” said Nsor.

The elephant grass can only grow in wetlands. But according to experts from the area, people are converting wetlands into agricultural land as a means of coping with the lack of rain and rising food insecurity.

“People prefer turning wetlands into horticultural zones because rain-fed agriculture is failing. Rain patterns are no-longer reliable, and people need to farm in places where they are assured of water for irrigation,” said Nafisatu Yussif, Programme Officer at ABANTU, an organisation that engages policies from a gender perspective in Africa.

She is one of the many women representing their communities from all over the world who have made their way to the ongoing United Nations climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa, in order to have their voices heard.

“We are hosting different women from different walks of life,” said Samantha Hargreaves of ActionAid International, one of the conveners of the Rural Women’s Assembly running alongside the 17th Conference of Parties.

“More than 500 women in this forum are sharing experiences from different countries, suggesting the way forward, and showcasing their best practices. The outcome of the assembly will be presented to the African Group of Negotiators as a common position of women from the world’s poor countries,” said Hargreaves.

However, according to the assembly’s participants, women from poor countries have predicaments that are almost similar.

Rural women are feeling the effects of climate change in their agricultural yields. Credit Kristin Palitza/IPS

“In my country, women toil on the farms, but when it comes to harvesting, the men take the responsibility of collecting the money. I have just learnt that the situation is the same in Africa and other Asian countries,” said María Estela Jocón González, who is representing rural women from three rural regions in Guatemala.

The western, southern and northern regions of Guatemala are areas prone to floods, a situation which has worsened in the recent past, González said.

“When the floods come, the water wells get soaked up with dirty flooding water. Yet according to our culture, it is the sole responsibility of a woman to ensure that the family has enough safe water for drinking and other domestic uses,” she told IPS.

She is calling for the international community meeting in Durban to ensure systems are put in place to keep in check the increasing floods.

“I want to hear of commitments for countries to reduce emissions of gasses that cause global warming. It is good to think about development, but development without a sound environment is useless,” she said.

While there is flooding in Guatemala, southern Senegal is experiencing a lack of rainfall. Faty Khody from Kaulak, a rural community found in the southern part of Senegal, told IPS that rainfall in the area has dropped from an average of 900 millimetres in 2001, to between 300 and 400 millimetres currently.

“We used to grow vegetables and sell them in the local market. But currently, this is not possible unless it is done through irrigation,” said Khody, who works as a promotional officer for Interpench, a community-based organisation that brings together over 7,700 women from rural Senegal.

“The rain patterns have changed, droughts have become extreme, and when it rains, it results in floods, which often cause suffering to the rural people, especially women and children.”

With support from the non-governmental organisation Horizon 3000, Interpench has started a project called “One woman, one fruit tree” as a way of adapting to climate change.

“We say one tree because it is the first step. The seedling for the one tree is given out free of charge, and it is named after whoever plants it as a reminder. However, it is supposed to be a motivation for women to participate largely in not only the planting of trees, but planting fruit-producing trees,” Khody said.

“We are hoping that the deliberations at COP 17 will come up with ideas that will support such women- driven climate change adaptation initiatives,” said Hargreaves.

However, she insists that for such projects to succeed, they must be built on indigenous knowledge systems.

“The African Group of Negotiators must not succumb to the pressure from the developed countries at COP 17,” she said.

Similar views were shares by Elizabeth Kakukuru, the Programme Officer for the Gender Unit at the Southern African Development Community.

“Most negotiations have always been done in boardrooms without involving the person on the ground. Yet the recommendations made are supposed to be implemented by a woman who lives in a rural area. Time has come for the affected parties to be involved directly in such important negotiations,” she said.

With regards to the use of technology transfer for climate change adaptation, Kakukuru observed that all projects must be appropriate, and should be developed in consultation with indigenous communities.

Protesters said it was time for climate change negotiators to listen to the voices of ordinary people. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela

By Kristin Palitza and - -
DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 4 2011 (IPS)

Chanting loudly, thousands of demonstrators marched through the streets to the venue of the 17th United Nations Climate Change Conference to demand that their voices be heard for “immediate and drastic” carbon emission reductions to save the planet.

Protesters said it was time for climate change negotiators to listen to the voices of ordinary people. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela

“We are asking for 100 percent change. Today will be the beginning of a strong movement that is going to challenge the rich nations of the world,” said Global Day of Action subcommittee convenor Desmond D’Sa. “World leaders are discussing the fate of our planet, but they are far from reaching a solution to climate change.”

Protesters said it was time for climate change negotiators to listen to the voices of ordinary people. They marched holding banners which said: “Never trust COP 17“, “Unite against Climate Change”, “Climate Justice Now” and “Ensure the survival of coming generations”.

There was a general feeling that ordinary people remained largely excluded from important debates on important issues that directly affected their lives.

“We want to ensure that the one percent on the inside of the conference will hear what the 99 percent on the outside have to say,” explained Bobby Peek, one of the organisers of the protest and director of Friends of the Earth South Africa. “We demand immediate, drastic emission cuts by rich countries that have caused climate change.”

Widespread anger could be felt about the slow progress made during the first week of the climate change negotiations, mixed with fear that the summit will end without tangible results.

Peek said he was gravely disappointed about the outcomes of the first week of negotiations. “It was generally a disastrous first week. There is no evidence of moving forward on emission reduction targets.”

Greenpeace International executive director Kumi Naidoo agreed, lashing out at the United States for never having ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the only global, legally binding instrument to cut carbon emissions.

“This is not a dress rehearsal. A week of belligerence, bickering and backstabbing needs to now give way to real deals about the future of our planet. Those who are not interested in saving lives, economies and environments, like the U.S., must now stand aside and let those with the political will move forward,” Naidoo said.

Chanting slogans and signing protest songs, a large throng of demonstrators walked from Durban’s city centre to the entrance of the International Convention Centre where the climate change summit is being held, to hand over a list of their demands to Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).


Civil society requested that governments meet various targets by the end of the conference on Dec. 9, including ensuring a peak in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2015, and that the Kyoto Protocol continues and provides a mandate for a comprehensive, legally binding instrument. 


Civil society also requested that governments deliver the necessary finance to tackle climate change; set up a framework for protecting forests in developing countries; ensure global cooperation on technology and energy finance.

They also wanted international transparency in assessing and monitoring country commitments and actions.


Activists criticised rich, industrialised nations for using the global financial crisis as an excuse to give national interests priority before international ones.

After a week of negotiations, it remained unclear how money to finance climate mitigation and adaptation projects – measures particularly important to developing nations – will be generated.

“So far we don’t even know where the money will come from. There is a real risk we walk away from Durban with empty pockets. And that failure will be measured in lives, economies and habitats,” warned Tove Ryding, Greenpeace co-ordinator for climate policy.

“If governments don’t move forward, the final agreement will be stripped of any possibility of protecting the climate.”

Demonstrators voiced strong concern about a lack of political commitment to put in place legally binding and comprehensive agreements. The protest march was therefore particularly meant as a message to the heads of state and ministers from around the globe, which are expected to arrive at the summit on Dec. 5.

“We demand urgent and strong action on climate change. We can’t just keep talking and keep wasting time,” said ActionAid international climate justice coordinator Harjeet Singh.

“We march today to show our outrage. We want to give the ministers, who will arrive next week, a clear message: You cannot continue to make excuses.”

Excerpt:

Civil society has warned of the danger of turning Africa’s food-producing lands into “carbon farms” so that rich countries can avoid making cuts in their carbon emissions.

Children in Durban, South Africa, support efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

On Friday, they called on host country South Africa to refrain from forcing so-called “climate smart” agriculture into the United Nations climate treaty negotiations known as the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17).

South African President Jacob Zuma has stated that agriculture should be part of a new climate treaty. South African officials have previously told IPS they want it included so there will be “specific funds and specific actions” for agriculture under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“Putting agriculture into a future climate treaty is supposedly a consolation prize to Africa for failure by rich countries to agree to legally binding targets,” said Teresa Anderson of the Gaia Foundation, an international non-governmental organisation based in London.

“This consolation prize is a poisoned chalice. It will lead to land grabs and deliver African farmers into the hands of fickle carbon markets,” Anderson told IPS.

Agriculture is a major source of global warming gases like carbon and methane – directly accounting for 15 percent to 30 percent of global emissions. When the entire food production system is included, total agriculture emissions represent nearly half of all emissions. For those reasons there have been previous efforts to incorporate agriculture under a new climate treaty.

Changes in agricultural practices can greatly reduce emissions. However, the best way to do that is through regulations, not a climate treaty and carbon credits, said Anderson.

“Why are markets now seen as the only solution when less than 10 years ago they weren’t a focus at all?”

The World Bank and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and other organisations favour what they call “climate smart” agriculture that is defined as forms of farming that are sustainable, increases productivity and resilience to changing weather while reducing and/or removing greenhouse gases. It is the latter that civil society objects to.

“This is all about new carbon markets. The North still has not made the necessary emission cuts and want this so they can pretend to reduce their emissions,” said Helena Paul of EcoNexus, an environmental NGO.

“There is a profound danger to agriculture here, with real potential for more land grabbing and expansion of monocultures in order to harvest credits,” said Paul.

African governments see the 144 billion dollars in the European carbon market and think this would be a great source of funding, said Anderson. But in fact very little of this money, much less than one percent, ended up in actual projects, she said.

The very first project to sell soil carbon credits in Africa is underway in Kenya. Funded by the World Bank, some 15,000 farmers and 800 farmer groups are changing their practices to sequester carbon for a 20-year period. The costs to set up the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project along with the costs involved in measuring the carbon and marketing the credits are estimated at more than one million dollars, said Anne Maina of the African Biodiversity Network in Kenya.

At current carbon prices, farmers will get just a dollar a year for their efforts when they were promised much more, said Maina. Only owners of large tracts of land can be expected to benefit. Large landowners and the consultants and other experts will get most of the money, she told IPS.

“Africa is already suffering from a land grab epidemic – the race to control soils for carbon trading could only make this worse.”

The Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project does promote sustainable farming practices such as agroforestry that are good for the land and have increased food production she acknowledged. However, it would be far better to fund these with the adaptation funding that has been promised by developed countries.

“Carbon markets are highly volatile,” said Dr. Steve Suppan of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a United States-based civil organisation focused on agriculture.

In November the carbon price was just six dollars a tonne, 50 percent of what it was in January largely as a result of the European financial crisis. Carbon prices are simply too unreliable for most investors to consider as long-term investments, said Suppan.

Moreover, measuring how much carbon has been sequestered is extremely technical and uncertain over the long term and so investors like the World Bank discount the value by 60 percent.

“Soil carbon credits will only generate tiny revenues for farmers and allows biggest polluters to continue to pollute,” Suppan said.

What African agriculture needs, is real emissions reductions along with substantial adaptation funding, he said.

“Soil carbon credits are a false solution,” to climate change, agreed Nnimmo Bassey, chairperson of Friends of the Earth International.

Bassey called on rich industrialised countries, which are responsible for the climate crisis, to reaffirm their commitments “to legally binding emissions cuts in line with science and equity.”

At a press conference at COP 17, Bassey and other members of African NGOs called on African delegates to stand together to make sure this meeting ends with radical action to legally binding emissions cuts in line with science and equity.

“South African President Jacob Zuma must stand with Africa and be uncompromising…. We need deep and drastic binding emissions cuts by the rich countries and real, public climate finance, not a mandate for a new wave of financial colonialism through a private sector “facility” in the new Green Climate Fund,” said Bobby Peek of Friends of the Earth South Africa said in a statement.

Emilia Pires Credit: Selma Zijlstra/IPS

By Suvendrini Kakuchi and - -
BUSAN, South Korea, Dec 2 2011 (IPS)

The new deal for the ‘fragile states,’ from the g7+ – a group of 19 countries that struggle with poverty, instability and violent conflict – has been hailed as a major breakthrough at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness here, earlier this week.

Emilia Pires Credit: Selma Zijlstra/IPS

Despite the aid commitments, the fragile states are moving further from achieving the millennium development goals (MDGs).

The new deal builds on the base of five new goals – legitimate politics, justice, security, economic foundations and revenue and services – that are tailored to individual situations. Fragile states include Afghanistan, South Sudan, Kenya and Timor Leste.

Emilia Pires, Timor Leste’s finance minister has worked tirelessly to changetraditional development assistance to accommodate the particular vulnerabilities of the fragile states.

Excerpts from the interview follow:

Q. The endorsement of the new deal in Busan is viewed as a major achievement in development. What does it signify?

A. For fragile states, the realisation of the new deal symbolises a bold change in the way aid has been disbursed and affected us. For a start, Busan has clearly accepted that these countries will lead the way in their development.

The message from us is that the target of reaching the MDGs by 2015 cannot be applied to fragile states that have experienced or are already dealing with conflicts and crisis. There is clearly the need for new conditions to be applied to aid for fragile states. This is what we were agitating for and realised finally.

Q: What are the new ways that will be implemented following the new deal? A: Obviously, the breakthrough in Busan is just the beginning. Now comes the hard part of implementation and I expect a lot of fighting with our donor partners as we go ahead. For example, developing clear indicators to monitor results. The traditional practice has been that donors monitor the progress.

The new deal that endorses country ownership would pave the way for fragile governments to expect donors to support our own monitoring through experts.

What is important is that the experts would be working with us to develop the results instead of being dispatched by lending institutions to do their own monitoring. This change would enable the local partner to be able to participate and learn about monitoring results and contribute to development effectiveness.

Q: Why has development assistance failed in fragile states? A: The above example is apt to illustrate why traditional aid patterns have not worked – simply because the aid modality in the world has not strengthened community capacity on the ground. Our dialogue with G7 partners stressed the need for changing the pattern of aid focusing narrowly on the MDGs for fragile states.

For example, aid extended to improve education access for the poor – an MDG goal – could not be used effectively in fragile states because a crisis would mean children cannot attend school. As a result, funds have to be returned.

With the new deal, however, indicators that take in the problems due to crisis will be taken into consideration. Developing such new structures based on individual country systems is the key way forward.

Q: The new deal has specifically identified engaging youth and women as important actors in peace and state building. How will this be done? A: Fostering capacity building in youth in Timor Leste is hugely important. I would describe this as extending opportunities for them to learn and look ahead. They deserve to be exposed to the same opportunities as their counterparts in countries that have not experienced conflict and violence.

It must be noted that generations of youth who have experienced long conflicts including in Timor have only experienced violence. A strong symbol of this is the fact that children in Timor have not played on swings that represent such joy to other children.

To change the mindset, governments must invest in capacity building and projects that give hope and support safe family systems. We need swings, concerts for youth as much as we need hospitals and schools. This is why I say let’s build roads that, for example, may lead to nowhere but will still be effective because youth will learn the skills of road building.

Q: What has changed in Busan in aid effectiveness? A: The Paris Declaration set the road to country ownership but in Busan we see this becoming a reality. The dismal statistics in aid effectiveness have proved to the world the need to change current behaviour. The new deal offers them a new way by proving that aid for them involves money but for us it is life.

The basic principles are not different. I believe in the importance of transparency, democratic processes and accountability. For instance, the national budget in Timor is available online. Therefore, it is the attitude that we need to change. The donor countries must realise poor countries can make their own decisions and many are making the effort to do this.

Excerpt:

Zambian dairy farmer, Effatah Jele, does not believe in farming luck. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana and - -
DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 1 2011 (IPS)

Zambian dairy farmer, Effatah Jele, does not believe in farming luck but in pragmatism because of climate change.

Zambian dairy farmer, Effatah Jele, does not believe in farming luck. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

“Changes are there, no doubt, but it is also important for farmers to have the right farming practises for them to survive those changes. For example, some women are growing vegetables and, due to ignorance, dig the soil right up to edge of the river. Then, when it rains, the soil is all washed into the stream and after a few years the stream becomes shallow. And some say this is because of climate change.”

Jele said changes in the weather pattern have serious implications for farmers like her who depend on increasingly scarce water resources to keep a viable dairy herd. Crop farmers, she said, are worse off unless science and practical ideas come the rescue.

“I feel our scientists should go around talking to the farmers and making them understand the difference between climate change and self-inflicted problems through using the wrong ways of farming. That is important, because otherwise we will not find solutions that will ensure food security,” Jele said.

“Some of things we blame on climate change are failures by us farmers to do the right thing at the right time. Because there is a song of climate change, we are all singing ‘climate change, climate change’,” said Jele.

Fears of what climate change will do for African agriculture are real and in southern Africa farmers are taking action to ensure that negotiators at 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) in Durban get the message.

The Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) – granted observer status at the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) session – wants the global negotiations to put agriculture firmly on the climate change agenda and establish a work programme that will outline and coordinate necessary responses such as a specific allocation to the sector under the Green Climate Fund.

Climate smart initiatives such as conservation farming, water harvesting will not only help farmers cope with extreme weather but also ensure they curb carbon emissions. According to scientists, agriculture is responsible for between 15 to 30 percent of global emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which affects the earth’s temperature.

Farmers are campaigning for a deal that specifically includes agriculture, which will be heavily affected by climate change in terms of reduced crop yields and low productivity. For them productive and sustainable and farms are the insurance against the risks of climate change.

Noting the close links between the challenges of addressing climate change and feeding a growing global population, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) President Kanayo Nwanze is to call on COP 17 to focus on helping half a billion smallholder farmers in developing countries to grow more food in environmentally sustainable ways.

According to research by the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research, climate change will shrink agriculture productivity with projections of a rise in temperatures and an increase in droughts and floods, which would alter agricultural seasons and decrease harvests

“Our expectations as farmers of Southern Africa is to have agriculture included in the text that will be agreed at the end of the Durban COP 17,” said Stephanie Aubin, SACAU Policy Development Officer.

“Agriculture must be included in the specific text so that there are specific funds and specific action that are implemented.”

A draft text was discussed and negotiated during the past COP meetings in Copenhagen and Cancun but was dropped because agriculture was lumped together with bunker fuels.

“It is important that agriculture has special treatment at the UNFCCC negotiations because its special in terms of livelihoods for millions of people in Africa and food security for the planet and it’s the most climate sensitive sector which at the same time can contribute adaptation and mitigation efforts,” said Aubin.

“We want a specific chapter on agriculture in the text and long term action as it will unlock funding needed by the agriculture sector in Africa to response efficiently to Climate change.”

Aubin was optimistic that with the COP 17 being held in Africa, African governments will put the required effort to push for agriculture in the final text.

A grouping of 15 global and regional organisations have endorsed a call to action for COP 17 climate change negotiators stating that whilst agriculture is a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, it has significant potential to be part of the solution to climate change.

“At the upcoming climate change negotiations in Durban, we call on negotiators to recognise the important role of agriculture in addressing climate change so that a new era of agricultural innovation and knowledge sharing can be achieved, said a grouping of global and regional, ” said the statement issued ahead of the Agriculture and Rural Development Day event to be held at COP 17.

“Specifically, we ask that they approve a work programme for agriculture under the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice so that the sector can take early action to determine the long-term investments needed to transform agriculture to meet future challenges.”

Bruce Campbell, Director of the CGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), told IPS that agriculture has been neglected in the negotiations so far, despite the sector accounting for between 16 to 29 percent of total emissions. Additionally, he said farmers, especially poor farmers in the developing world, are going to be particularly hard-hit by climate change.

“The agricultural sector must be empowered to take early action to determine the long-term investments needed to transform agriculture to meet future food and energy challenges effectively,” Campbell said. “The Agriculture and Rural Development Day will not only reflect this call-to-action, but it will also showcase a series of success stories in agriculture, which specific actions could be further scaled up with further investment and a coordinated approach to implementation.”

Excerpt: